#unless it's a book specifically about bi history/facts/culture)

[whitestopper]

'queer character' 'queer media' 'queer story' BITCH! Give me specifics, I need one of the letters!

[bihoodnerd]

On benevolent whites interacting with semi-brown media

This is gonna be long, but I’ma break it up into lil chunks cause my brain can’t deal with big paragraphs.

Now, I am not in a lot of fandoms. I have had media hyperfixations for a very long time and i tried being in fandom once or twice, but it never felt right. So me, in simple terms, I’m mexican, african american, bi, nonbinary and neurodivergent. In my terms, I’m a detribalized purepecha, blackfoot, black, fuck-gender, colonial-called-crazy kid.

And fandom is mostly white.

I decided as a college junior to limit my white media consumption to 10 per year (which faltered a bit in the pandemic) because white media bores me. I’ve never really found anyone like me in movies or shows or books until Trini in the 2017 power rangers. 

And this was probably where I started to notice it. At this point, I was in Honolulu, getting my masters in creative writing and learning more about colonialism and decolonization. And I noticed that the queer white authors did some weird stuff in the trimberly fics.

At the begining people would use “the latina” as a narritive epithet for Trini, while never calling Kim “the indian” cause I guess they had some sense. They’d also use this weird spanish for Trini dispite the fact that she and no one in her family ever spoke spanish in the movie. They also could never get her character quite right, and that is for a simple reason.

Becky G is mexican, Trini is mexican, both are born in the US and that is a tricky nuance for white people to understand becuase they don’t spend enough time around chicanxs (latines don’t get on my ass for this, I use x in english and e in spanish).

All this to say that one cannot remove a character from their culture. 

And this all repeated with Luz Noceda and now Encanto. They inserted Luz into Miguel’s role in Coco (being Dominican and Mexican are not the same). Encanto is being analyzed by white people with no regard for its history. And don’t even get me started on the white washing fanart of all of these. 

I was actually regularly “yelled” at for telling people to color Trini darker.

But Encanto has hit really hard lately. Because I don’t even want to watch it. I don’t want to see characters who are culturally adjacent to me get stripped down for queer white consumption.

But of course I’m on tumblr and it finds its way to me. And I saw someone analyzing Encanto in one of the most frustrating ways possible. With zero context.

If you love Encanto and don’t know who Gabriel Garcia Marquez is then what the actual fuck are you doing? Isabel Allende? Anna Marie McLemore? 

I did not sit through an entire year of IB English listening to people misunderstand GGM and IsaAll for yall to continue doing the same shit.

All of my friends know to never mention magical realism to me unless they want me to go on a huge ass rant. I’ll condense it. I don’t think MR is a literary technique, I think it’s a cultural aspect. Classic MR comes from South America for a very specific reason: Spanish Colonialism.

Spanish colonialism is somewhat different in its tactics, because they decided to paint over the indigenous religions with catholicism. And in that way the spiritual practices are always kinda rubbing against one another. You see this also in the caste system of latin america. And that’s why when people ask me what religion I am I say, I’m culturally catholic, but I hate it. And then if they ask me if I believe in ghosts, I’m like duh, I’m mexican.

GGM is also Columbian. Just like Encanto. So why don’t queer white people go researching Columbia and its original people? What gives white people the audacity to think that they can just de-contextualize something from a culture they may not have even thought of and make proclamations about it? And I know the answer and if you know the answer, I’m sorry friend, and if you don’t: figure it out, cause I’m not gonna tell you.

Sigh. Like I don’t even wanna read fics anymore. That used to be one of my favorite things. And now it’s the same bullshit over and over. Yall ruin everything. 

Go educate yourselves and leave my brown kids alone

[posbitivity]

Butch and Femme History

Butch and femme are subcultures and identities denoting a sapphic woman's style, behavior, and oftentimes role in sapphic relationships.

Firstly, let's discuss the words "sapphic" and "lesbian." Sapphic refers to a relationship or attraction involving only women. Both modern day lesbians and bisexual women are sapphic. However, when "lesbian" was first coined, it encompassed bisexual women as well—since "bisexual" did not yet exist as an identity—unless stated otherwise. "Lesbian" meant in the past what sapphic/sapphist still means today, although it began as a term to describe a tribade (a woman who has sex with other women via rubbing). This is why writing about history from this era is tricky. We're using a word that did not have the same meaning in the time period that we're discussing. It is imperative to disclose the antiquated definition in order to avoid miscommunication.

Before the mid-twentieth century, LGB (lesbian, gay, and bisexual) societies were underground and thus very little LGB history was recorded. While "butch" and "femme" were either nonexistent or unknown terms back then, it is evident that butch–femme relationships have been around longer than the subcultures. The risque 1903 photograph above tells us that butch–femme-resembling relationships existed in those times. The 1928 novel The Well of Lonliness by Radclyffe Hall tells the tale of a woman who wishes to live a gentleman's life in order to fight in World War I as well as marry the woman she loves.

If we go back farther, in Charles Gilbert Chaddock's 1892 translation of Richard Von Krafft-Ebing's 1886 Psychopathia Sexualis, there are many accounts from patients included. Fun fact: it is the first book to coin terms for homosexuality and bi[-]sexuality in the English language! It is of my personal belief that not only does the book contain accounts of transgender people existing back then but also roles that patients take on that can be compared to butch–femme dynamics.

The popularization and possible creation of the butch and femme roles are directly tied to working-class gay/lesbian bar culture. Before the 1940s, it was particularly hard for sapphic women to socialize. Not only could they not go in bars alone or with another woman, but many gay bars also had methods of excluding women. The gay bars that did allow women had small female populations anyway. Bars finally opened in the 1940s specifically for sapphic women and the butch–femme subcultures thrived between the 1940s and 1960s.

Keeping in mind the old terminology that we're working with, it is then clear that lesbian bars were never exclusive to lesbians of modern day meaning. It is the same as if we called them sapphic bars today. Further evidence of bisexuals attending gay and lesbian bars can be found in the book Creating a Place For Ourselves: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community Histories. Lesbian and female bisexual histories have always been intertwined. Ultimately, butch–femme dynamics were often used for survival in a heteronormative society and, ultimately, women in sapphic relationships were in danger whether or not they also had the potential to be attracted to men.

Bisexuality was reclaimed as an identity somewhere around or before the 1960s (but definitely after 1948) which also happened to be when lesbian separatism began to rise in the United States (while it developed in other countries typically in the 1970s). Radical/separatist lesbianism began in order to address lesbians being excluded from the gay liberation movement and feminism although it can't wholly be defined. Women like Louise Turcotte used the movement to oppose men and anything to do with them, including women who were involved with men. This was called feminist separatism.

These separatist lesbians saw men and heterosexuality as the enemy with lesbianism as the goal. That was when political lesbianism started. Not only is there an issue in implying that you can choose your orientation, but this also isolated many women. Bisexual people have often been considered too straight to be in gay/lesbian communities and they were too gay/lesbian to be accepted by straight society. There is a chance that the movement was also an attempt to distance the lesbian community from transgender inclusivity, something that the bisexual community often embraced. However, they didn't only attack other communities. Radical lesbian feminists in the 1970s pushed butch–femme dynamics underground for a decade or two by enforcing the claim that they are heteronormative and cannot coexist with their idea of feminism.

While it is true that sapphic couples have had to mimic heterosexuality plenty in the past, the equal relationships between androgynous women that the movement encouraged was not for everyone. To say that a masculine–feminine dynamic is regressive is ignorant of the fact that butches and femmes both challenge heteronormativity. Butches are masculine sapphics who challenge the gender roles and expectations of their culture. In the 19th century, their butchness was a signal of desire for other women. Femmes are feminine sapphic women who subvert heteronormativity in that they defy others' perceptions of them as straight women. They undermine the stereotypes and expectations that a heteronormative society holds for sapphic women.

When butch–femme relationships became more accepted in the LGBT community again in the 1990s, a lot had changed. Sapphic women were no longer seen as confused—"kiki"—if they weren't butch or femme. It was no longer as taboo for femme–femme and butch–butch relationships to exist. Communities separated, giving way to a new definition of lesbianism and a new identity for those forced out. While lesbianism is different now from what it used to be, the butch–femme dynamic has not magically altered itself to be lesbian-exclusive because it doesn't need to change. Bisexual women are just as much a part of the subcultures as lesbians because the subcultures were created and utilized by both groups for the same reasons—from survival to simply having an identity to describe how you express your womanhood to other women.

[alindae-anne]

What Makes a Book?

I want to take a break from my novel and dive into a history lesson of books themselves. Why? Well first of all, I will be honest, this blog is for an assignment. But also because the way books have evolved over the last 5,000+ years is fascinating!

Of course no one ever really thinks about THE book, just the fact that the story within its pages--the mystery, the romance, whatever they happen to be enjoying--is a great read (or maybe not so great), but have they ever wondered what materials the book is made from? Who invented it? How the book has become one of the most common and most used items of all time?

No. Of course they didn't wonder any of those things. And if they did, they probably didn't take the time to research any of these burning questions, either.

How great, then, that I wrote this post?! Today is your lucky day! (Also, it is a good thing that Keith Houston, author of Shady Characters, decided to write a whole book about it (1).) I'm going to use the pages of a classic tale to explain some cool things you probably never noticed while reading a book before.

Gulliver’s Travels was originally published in London in 1726 by Benjamin Motte. The author, Jonathan Swift, used it to satirize London society and culture, poking holes at the social hierarchies and systems, basically making out everyone living in the 18th century to be fools--but mostly the wealthy and those who were obsessed with scientific progression (2). If you have not read it, I highly encourage adding it to your reading list, or at the very least there is a 2010 movie, featuring Jack Black as Gulliver, that you could watch. (It’s Jack Black, okay?)

This 2 page spread of Gulliver's Travels pictured above is actually found in The Franklin Library edition from Franklin Center, Pennsylvania, published in 1979. This is the first printing of this edition, and its pages, the way it is printed, and the way it is bound and presented, are all features of the modern 20-21st century book, plus some extra bells and whistles. The most interesting qualities come from the publishers themselves who specifically design their books to be very snazzy--meant for collectors’ editions! They include different kinds of leather binding, exclusive illustrations, and may be signed or part of a particular series specific to a certain author or genre (3). This makes the books published here very valuable and sought after.

Gulliver’s Travels is hardcover. Specifically, “fine leather in boards.” This means the spine and front and back boards (or cover) of the book are bound in leather. The leather is fine and and delicate and able to be decorated and engraved upon.4 Above you can see how fancy it looks with the gilt gold engravements. Even its pages are gilt!

This picture shows more clearly the binding, and of course the spine, which is “hubbed,” or ridged, for added texture.

At this point you may have notice that this version is much different than the original published in 1726. That is because over time, the materials involved in making books have changed slightly or the processes have become more efficient or cost worthy, etc. Either way, the anatomy of the book has not wavered. Keith Houston has dissected the book into certain components and we can see them in each book we read:

I have attempted to label it as best as I can, so hopefully you can follow along:

Chapter Number

a) this seems to be a description, more or less of the chapter, or the Chapter Title. b) “A Voyage to Lilliput” seems much more title-like to me, although this is technically called the “Recto Running Head.” The recto running head is a condensed or abbreviated chapter title, repeating on every right-side page to the end of the chapter.

Drop Cap. This would be the first letter of the first word of a chapter, which is usually exaggerated or embellished in some way.

Opener Text

Head Margin - the space between the top of the page and text

Foot Margin - the space between the bottom of the page and text

Folio - page number

It has taken quite a while for books to become so sophisticated. Because it was published in 1726, Gulliver's Travels is technically what you could call "modern" in terms of how long ago books began their journey to what they are today, but even between 1726 and 1979 the quality has improved. This edition published by Franklin Library is a perfect model for the modern book of today.

The 2 page spread we analyzed above is made from paper. But books were not always made with paper, or even in the book form, bound with anything at all, and they were not printed either. They were written by hand on papyrus.

Papyrus was the first material used as "paper" beginning in Egypt. The reeds were stripped, strung side by side and pressed together. Papyrus was durable and sturdy, and the water of the Nile was abundant in aluminum sulfate, which brightened it so that writing and scribbles could be seen better. There is no particular origin of when Papyrus had first been invented but it must have been around the end of the 4th millenium BCE (Houston 4).  

Parchment is made from animal skin that has been soaked, scrubbed, dried, and stretched for days and days, creating a more flexible, yet still durable, material for writing. It was also thinner and could be made "cleaner" and brighter by chemical means. Religion heavily influenced its distribution; some parchment use was literally banned because the type of animal skin used to make it wasn't considered "holy" or "good." For example, the lamb or a calf was acceptable, but how dare you use parchment made from goat skin? What is wrong with you?

Besides the fact that parchment is kind of gross if you think about it (although to be fair, you can’t be too choosy in times right before the common era), it was also expensive to keep certain cattle only for paper making, and the reliability of having new cattle at the time you may need more paper was not very high.

Paper was first introduced in China. It is made from bits of cloth and rags soaked in water, and after breaking down into pulp, strained through a wire grate and pressed to dry. Fun fact-- the Rhar West Art Museum in Manitowoc, Wisconsin has held classes showing how to make paper using this exact process.

There is a trend here: the materials used to make paper (and papyrus and parchment before it) become scarce or too expensive, or they are just not “good enough.” People want their paper thin and smooth, but still strong and durable; crisp and bright, but still able to last years and years without crumbling. There have been times that processes used to ensure these preferred qualities of paper included using chemicals that ended up negatively affecting some other quality. For example, the paper would be white as snow, yet the chemical that did this broke down the natural adhesives which kept the paper intact.

Have you heard that paper grows on trees? Well, that is partly true since after rags and cloths were nowhere to be found (unless people were about to start donating the shirts off their backs), wood pulp has now since been used... the higher the demand for paper, the greater demand for those materials used for its creation. 

This brings us to printing side of things. The first ways of printing weren’t of how we think of it now. Even before papyrus, people were still writing and making inscriptions on pretty much anything they could get their hands on. The earliest forms of writing were rather indentations or markings on clay tablets. Found across the Middle East, it is a cuneiform script of the Sumerian people from 3300 BCE (Houston 79).

Similarly, the Egyptians were also keen on developing their own writing system which today we recognize as hieroglyphs. A lot of these were found carved on the walls of tombs but also began to be used on papyrus in 2600 BCE (Houston 82-83).

The Egyptians celebrated their scribes and believed those who wrote with brush and ink on papyrus to be channeling power--that it was a gift from the gods--”wielded with respect and humility” (Houston 87). The hieroglyphs not only showed the intention of the writer, visually, but often the picture would be associated with or connected to certain sounds which emerged more formal use of letters as time went on.

The alphabet we use today can be traced back to the Phoenician alphabet (used by the Egyptians) which had evolved into the Greek and then Roman alphabets (Houston 91-92). At this point in time, scribes were using water based ink which was fine for papyrus, but during the transition to parchment they realized that ink smudges quite a bit. This led to the creation of iron gall ink that would darken and adhere to the parchment as it dried due to its chemical makeup in contact with oxygen in the air.

Jump ahead to 1400s and we are with Johannes Gutenberg and the printing press! One thing Keith Houston make sure to mention is that although Gutenberg invented the printing press itself, to help moveable type and mass printing, the idea of printing had not been new. Clay pieces used as stamps and similar objects had been excavated and dated back thousands of years before the clay inscribed cuneiform tablets were made. And a primitive version of a sort of printing press is mentioned being made by a man named Bi Sheng during the reign of Qingli from 1041-1048 AD (Houston 110). Obviously nothing great came from it, most likely because he was of unofficial position. Even so, movable type was still possible, although painstakingly slow with wooden blocks used as stamps. This was common for the next few hundred years in China.

Even though Gutenberg's press completely revolutionized the transmission of knowledge, it was still quite slow in comparison to the versions which came after, only being able to print 600 characters a day (Houston 118). From Gutenberg's printing press came other types of presses that improved the speed or efficiency of movable type immensely. These all came after the original publication of Guliver's Travels, starting in the early 1800s with the Columbian press, eventually the Linotype, and then lack of precision called for the Monotype, which could produce 140 wpm (Houston 149).

The 2 page spread above then, could possibly have been printed by the Linotype, but most likely, however, the Monotype, which is the more accurate of the two. Another possibility could be "sophisticated photographic and 'lithographic' techniques" or "'phototypsetting'" (Houston 151). Houston mentions that the printing press age has died and now faces a digital future.

I'm at my 10 image limit which means I better wrap this up with some interesting facts about bookbinding. On BIBLIO.com I was trying to see exactly what "fine leather in boards" meant which is apparently how Gulliver's Travels is bound. I didn't find any phrase that matched, but from my understanding, the leather is very supple and pliable, which is why it was able to be gilt with gold, and it was able to form nicely to the hubbing on the spine.

The website also explains that the first "book binding" was technically just putting the pieces of paper or parchment together and pressing them between two boards. Literally. Like just setting them on a board and putting another board on top of that. Eventually leather was introduced, first as a cord wrapped around the book to keep the boards in place. As time progressed, the practice was improved and perfected so it was less crude. This involved the creation of the "spine" where the pages meet together and can therefore open and close in a v shape without flying away.

This website helped explain some of the other embellishments and extra flair that can be added to a book's binding. It mostly goes over leather binding which is from most animal skin but there is a unique leather bound book that can be bound with seal skin. Some of the books on the website are so expensive because of the materials they are bound with and the effects that have been created in the cover, for example, Benjamin Franklin's observations on electricity, which has had acid added to the page, discoloring it for a lightning strike effect, and includes a key to represent his famous experiment.

Gulliver's Travels, although not quite so fancy, is still a very beautifully bound book with decorated endpapers, meaning the inside cover is laden with designed paper rather than boring white or some other neutral color.

I hope you found this journey of the book as interesting and as exciting as I did while writing this post! You must really love books because even my attention span isn't this long. I will admit I took at least 3 different breaks.

I'm back to my novel for now, thanks for listening😎

Bibliography

Houston, Keith--Author of Shady Characters, which I used extensively in my TikTok “history of punctuation” project--also wrote -> The BOOK - a cover-to-cover exploration of the most powerful object of our time, 2016.

British Library Website -> works -> “Gulliver’s Travels overview”

Masters, Kristin. “Franklin Library Editions: Ideal for Book Collectors?” Books Tell You Why, 2017 (blog).

BIBLIO.com -> “Leather Binding Terminology and Techniques”

[thelegwarmer]

Royal Success-es or Royal Failures?

Thoughts on Royal Sussexes inconsistencies, secrecy and aggressive PR mud campaigns. 

Many people will argue that it was about time the Royal family dropped its stiff, monochromatic tradition to welcome a vivacious, bi-racial, outspoken commoner, a somewhat obscure, actress into Buckingham Palace. After all, the US has already stepped into history by electing an MoC as their President. Times are changing and people are uniting (unless they’re on twitter ;)).  

Prince Harry, the world’s beloved and popular cheeky ginger who has outspokenly battled with mental health issues since his mother’s untimely and tragic death, finally found someone he could share his life with. Naturally, the world was surprised when the news broke out. Just like a Harlequin book, a whirlwind romance had taken over the world, press, and tabloids. We were all taken by surprise when a few months after their relationship became public, we were presented with a very manicured Americanised televised engagement announcement. Yay for Harry... but wait…why the rush? The two of them hardly knew each other, they hardly ever spent more than 3 days together in the same place, especially as Meghan was still working on Suits.

From that point onwards, the seemingly bashful, smiley, touchy-hairy Meghan who kept holding on to Harry (hard to walk on ill-fitting  6” stilettos) and touching him every photo opportunity she could,  progressively turned into a rule-breaking, humanitarian -of sorts- arrogant and in-compliant to British culture, social justice warrior. It didn’t end there. A few short months after their royal wedding, Meghan decides to announce at Princess Eugenie’s wedding that she is with child. We were hesitantly happy for Harry and Meghan but the timing of the announcement and the fact that rumors had been going around that Meghan was unable to fall pregnant due to multiple abortions, had people baffled. 

Since Eugenie’s wedding, Meghan’s ego grew and with it grew her thirst for attention. Oh yes, the bump also grew into late-term proportions on/off throughout her pregnancy. Her due date was never revealed to the public and it kept changing. From early spring to the end of April to beginning of May…it even went up to 21st June! So many articles about Harry and Meghan were circulating the press and internet on a daily basis. Most of which were obvious PR spins from the Sussexes. Then there was the rift with the Cambridges. Shocker! The world was scratching its head. What is going on inside the Palace walls? Why all the drama?

The final straw was pulled when malicious articles circulated the press, insinuating that Prince William had been cheating Duchess Catherine. Of course, we all knew where that came from especially as we were fully aware that Meghan had set up a well-oiled PR machine running. A smear campaign against the heir to the throne, to gain popularity and public affection. Meanwhile, the bump was inflating and deflating and her extravagant looks were hitting the news and making people talk. Are we watching an over produced film about the Royals? Well, in reality her wardrobe and PR antics most probably cost a handful more than a decent action-filled movie. We’ll never forget the New York baby shower. Rent-a-crowds, paparazzi, pink flowers (why pink if the baby is a boy?), celebrities, wanna-be’s and a lot of faux-secrecy.

Meghan was monetizing her pregnancy and we could see right through her.

Fast forward 4 months later when is baby is supposedly due. Assuming her due date was end of April according to calculations made since she claimed she was already 16 weeks pregnant at PE’s wedding. The end of April came and went and Meghan was still no where to be seen or heard. Well, except for her PR team who were feverishly feeding everyone’s anticipation with fake news, conundrums and sugary articles. Meanwhile in various ’secret' twitter accounts handled by Meghan, the continuous attack on the British press and the unrelenting race card pity-party was picking up momentum. Surely this was not a result of pregnancy hormones…

Then came the day we will all remember as the day, the lid was lifted to reveal that not all is as it seems. Secrets and lies are cloaking the Sussexes. On May 6th, Meghan went into 'labour' 6 hours after she gave birth and the birth announcement an hour after announcing she was in labour. To put it in Harry’s words, mind-blowing.

Naturally, everyone started asking questions. None of this made any sense. Who orchestrated this? Did she give birth in Frogmore Cottage? Journalists camped outside never saw anyone go in or out the cottage. Oh, wait, she gave birth at Portland hospital but no one can officially verify this (no medical staff signatures on official birth announcement). Meghan and Harry are keeping tight-lipped about the birth. Well, except for that awkward interview Harry gave, at the Royal stables exclaiming how ‘over the moon’ he is. Yes, Harry, we too are over THIS moon (bump). His lack of specifics or genuine enthusiasm was noted by many. Perhaps he was sleep deprived and shell-shocked. The birth of a baby can indeed be overwhelming for new parents. So, we continue giving them the benefit of the doubt…until two days later.

Contrary to their initial wish to keep the birth announcement and baby reveal low-key and private, H & M decided to give a 3' televised interview in St George's Hall at Windsor Castle. The grandeur of it all. How humble. Harry came with baby Archie tightly swaddled in his arms, seemingly sound asleep. The whole interview was ‘off’ so was the way they presented the newest member of the royal family but for reasons, I will keep for myself at this point but I’m not the only one who noticed the oddity of this pair. Royal journalists have been tweeting and writing cloaked articles about why the UK taxpayers, the royalists, the members of the commonwealth are deprived of a decent view and photo of the 7th heir to the throne. Given the 9,5 months of overbearing bump holding and ill-fitting designer clothing to accentuate the belly, we are at least entitled to have a couple of close up photos of this cute little baby. He is after all, the first bi-racial baby born into the royal family.

[ladyofpurple]

answer all of the questions!!

holy SHIT ok bless you omg

(sorry it's a full day late i took this shit SERIOUSLY. don't ask me how many hours this took, i was in A Mood™️ last night. removed the ones already answered xoxo)

angel; have you ever been in love?

yeah. didn't end too well, but i loved him.

petal; favorite novel and author?

this is like asking me to pick a favorite child. i guess favorite author would be stephen king, if only based entirely on the sheer quantity of his books i own alone. favorite book would probably be special topics in calamity physics by marisha pessl, and i'm only saying that because it's been my go-to response for years. i have lots of favorite books. ask me again in five minutes and i'll give you another one.

honey perfume; favorite perfume/scent?

freshly made coffee. lilacs. jasmine. cut grass. the ground after it rains. chocolate chip cookies in the oven. cigarette smoke on skin. my mom's shampoo. my grandma. my dog when he's just had a bath. thanksgiving dinner. acrylic paint on canvas. sawdust. that one cologne i can't name but can smell on a guy from a mile away. mulled cranberry and apple juice. vanilla. coconut. fresh laundry. peppermint.

sweet pea; what’s your zodiac?

virgo sun, pisces moon, scorpio rising ✨

softie; talk about your sexuality.

i'm biromantic asexual, primarily attracted to men more than women (but have had too many crushes on girls to consider myself het), generally sex repulsed when it comes to the thought of having it myself. i prefer to call myself queer in passing conversation, it's easier than explaining asexuality and the differences between sexual and romantic attraction. if someone asks more specifically, i'll usually just call myself bi for simplicity's sake, even though the ace part is a much more important (to me) part of my identity. monogamous as fuck.

i'm still struggling with internalized homophobia and a lot of "am i even queer enough" thoughts, which is super fun. took me a long time to even consider the fact that i might like girls at all. i'll probably never come out to my parents. not that they'd, like, disown me or whatever, but they're juuuuust homophobic/transphobic enough that my few attempts to educate them when they say something A Little Yikes have shown me that i should probably just stay in the closet unless i absolutely have to come out. like i'm getting married to a woman or something.

sugarplum; what’s the color of your eyes and hair?

i usually say my eyes are green because it's easier, and they mostly are, but i have rings of greyish blue around the irises and sometimes they're more hazel in the middle. they always have a green tint to them though, even if the intensity of the green varies.

my natural hair is brown, a little on the darker and slightly ashy side of completely generic. currently a former blonde, although i'm hoping to bleach my fucking YEAR of growout soon, and then go some crazy color as a last hurrah before i have to go dark again. being broke fucking sucks.

wings; coffee or tea?

tea!! black tea. chai, to be specific, with an irresponsible amount of milk and sugar. chai lattes are a fucking drug okay? coffee makes me sick (not a judgement, a literal fact. last time i tried some i threw up).

fairytale; are you a cat or dog person?

cat!! but my family has a chihuahua named sonny and you can pry that little monster from my cold dead hands ok i will fight you.

snowflake; favorite time period?

okay, i wrote and rewrote my answer to this about 10 times. then i tried to divide it up into categories (aesthetics, history, fashion, vibes, geographical location, etc), but that didn't help. so basically: i don't have one, because i have too many.

i like the american 20s-60s for the aesthetic, music/movies, and the fashion. i also like the european 1600s-1800s for the interesting history and also vibe. i love the french and russian revolutions — the fashion! the art! the wars and political upheaval! I FUCKING LOVE HISTORY. then, of course, we can't forget the rennaisance. or the witch trials (pick your continent). and ancient greece? the roman empire? hello?? did i mention empires? how bout we mosy on over to south america — can i interest you in the mayans? incans? aztecs? what about china and japan? korea? vietnam? and don't even get me fucking STARTED on the black plague.

ancient egypt? sign me the FUCK UP. vikings? yes please. the celts? oh boy. the MYTHOLOGY. the ARCHITECTURE. the LANGUAGES and POLITICS and LITERATURE and REVOLUTIONS and GOD HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CHOOSE BETWEEN ANY OF THESE

i uh. might have gotten a little excited. basically i like history a lot. and mythology. and linguistics. and cultural practices. and the politics and prejudices behind wars and stuff. and learning in general. moving on.

vanilla; do you believe in ghosts?

let's put it this way: i don't not believe in ghosts??

listen. we don't know jack shit. we don't know what happens after we die, there are constant scientific revelations that turn our understanding of the universe completely upside-down, and there is literally no way to know which religions or myths or urban legends could have some grain of truth to them. like, dude, i've literally thought i was haunted before. psychology is bananas and the universe is infinite.

demons could be real. ghosts could be real. what if we just haven't invented the necessary technology to prove it yet? what if we never do, and they just fuck around alongside us, moving furniture and making shadow puppets on the walls just for kicks until the earth explodes? what if that one tumblr post was right and ghosts are actually real people from alternate universes or timelines that we see accidentally bc some cosmic wires got crossed? who fucking knows.

i love horror movies and scary stories and ghost hunter shows just as much as the next gal. but listen. psychics? mediums? people who accept every single creepypasta retold third-hand from their neighbor's kid's classmate's second cousin who "totally knows a guy"? doubt.jpeg

i don't understand the sheer amount of assumptions made willy-nilly about the nature of ghosts and demons and things that go bump in the night. the assumption that "oh this machine that totally doesn't look like a coathanger taped to a walkman will work because ghosts have this temperature and can always communicate like this and are electromagnetic" or whatever just baffles me. to a certain degree, following a general consensus is one thing — some basic things everyone can agree on? that's cool. ghosts can walk through walls and are probably dead people or whatever. but oh my god, taking every single story as absolute, undeniable proof?? taking these stories and expanding on them to infer intentions and scientific facts to something that by it's very nature is unknowable and assuming, like, every spirit is created equal?? and yeah, ghost hunting shows are fun and campy and kinda creepy but like. you really, genuinely don't think any of them have ever faked anything at all??? even if ghosts are real, it's fucking reality tv, my dude. it's the entertainment industry. at least maintain the slightest ounce of critical thought before taking zak bagans' word as the goddamn gospel.

and sidenote, maybe it's just my limited exposure as a white woman in the western world, but of all the shows and podcasts and movies and documentaries and whatnot i've been able to find and consume, there's the constant use of christian ideology applied to every situation that just really burns my bacon. what, there's never been an atheist ghost? if you see a shadow person and you don't know the lord's prayer by heart, are you automatically fucked? why are there never stories about, i don't know, viking ghosts? does your religion in life preclude you from becoming a ghost in the first place? is that why people never mention buddhist ghosts? i don't get it, and that's why even though i'm self-admittedly the most superstitious person i've ever met, true believers make me roll my eyes so hard they almost fall out. makes me come across as more skeptical than i theoretically am. I HAVE VERY STRONG FEELINGS ABOUT THIS OK

but like, you couldn't pay me to fuck with a ouija board. i'm not stupid.

delicate; diamonds or pearls?

both have their appeal and their place, but diamonds, i guess. i like the sparkle. but fake ones!! or synthetic. diamonds are overpriced and artificial scarcity is a scam and i don't need a dumb rock that some poor person in a mine somewhere was exploited and possibly died for. no blood diamonds in this house, thank you very much.

if i ever get engaged, i don't want a diamond ring. i'd want something cool, a little unusual, like a ruby or a sapphire or some other sparkly gem that isn't literally shoved in your face every waking moment as the expected standard symbol of True Love. they're cheaper, they're cool-looking, as a ring they still hold the cultural symbolism of an engagement/wedding ring. and honestly, as long as it's well-made and durable, whatever hypothetical gem it is doesn't have to be real either. i'm a woman of simple needs and demonstrably low standards. no point in going into debt for a fucking piece of jewelry, regardless of ~tradition~.

lavender dream; favorite album?

oh lord. welcome to the black parade, i guess. or anything by panic! at the disco. there are dozens of possible options — my interests are mercurial and my memory is garbage. but i'll always be an emo little shit. black parade and vices and virtues were also the first two albums i ever listened to where i loved every single song on them, and i happened to listen to them for the first time at around the same point in my life (i got into mcr super late. like, 2012 late. rip).

silky; what’s your biggest dream?

it's cheesy but i guess i just want stability and, by extension, happiness. emotional stability, mental stability, financial stability, stable living situation, stable routines, stable relationships... you get the idea. i have ambitions and passions, of course, but my ultimate goal is happiness at this point in my life, and i'm pretty sure stabilizing all those things would go a pretty long way in achieving that goal.

a little apartment with walls i can paint because white walls make me angry. bookshelves and posters and fandom merch on every wall. a computer i can actually play games on again, and somewhere i can paint and draw and record my podcasts. someone who loves me, maybe. a cat, if i'm stable enough. space for people to come visit me, and a place for them to sleep if they need. a tiny balcony, if i really want to shoot for the stars. a job i don't hate. the spoons to hang out with my friends, and the money to not worry about buying little presents for the people i care about sometimes. i don't need much.

strawberry kiss; do you have a crush right now?

nope.

glitter; favorite fictional character?

another loaded question. like books, if you ask me again in five minutes i'll probably give you a different answer. but in this particular moment, caleb and jester from critical role (please don't make me choose between them). i won't go full shipping mode rn, but jester is so funny and silly and sweet, so much more complex than she seems, and she tries so hard to make everyone happy even when she's so sad inside. the healer who treats healing as an inconvenience in battle (she's so fucking valid and also mood), the glue that keeps the party together. and caleb learning to trust again, facing his trauma and coming out of his shell. he loves his friends so much he plays wizard as a support class and i love him so much.

i love the mighty nein in general, of course, and all the guests/honorary members they've had. pumat!! pls don't be evil reani!! keg!! shakäste and grand duchess anastasia!! cali!! kiri!!!! the brotps! empire siblings! chaos crew! nott the best detective agency! i still love molly and all his assholery to bits (fight me), and mourn his lost potential. i adore yasha, even when she's gone; fjord has grown so much; beau and nott and caduceus — i love all their flaws and disagreements and their character arcs and the excitement of watching them grow and learn. but if i had to choose, caleb, jester and molly have always been my top 3 since day 1 and, well, molly isn't really an option anymore.

but like i said, ask me again in a minute. i have a fucking list.

swan; share a quote or passage that means something to you.

a collection of things off the top of my head:

Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition. — Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen

a tired feminist Mood™️

"What I say is, a town isn't a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it's got a bookstore, it knows it's not foolin' a soul." — American Gods, Neil Gaiman

i got my love of books from my grandma — some of my favorites i got from her. sometimes, as a treat, she used to take my sister and i to bookstores and we'd stay there for ages, getting to pick one out, roaming the shelves, the mental torture of having to choose. the peace of being surrounded by thousands of potential worlds, so much information, so many stories just waiting to be told; being surrounded by strangers who share that same wonder. the anxious drive home so we could read them, being unable to wait that long so i inevitably start reading in the car and make myself sick. telling her in excited detail all my favorite parts. if we were lucky, maybe we got to split a bear claw, or she'd drive past starbucks and get us something there too (tall vanilla soy steamer with one pump of vanilla syrup, whipped cream on top that always melted too quickly and squirted out the hole in the lid, so hot it burned my tongue but so good i didn't care). i have never felt more at home than i do when i'm surrounded by books.

"There are a lot of different types of freedom. We talk about freedom the same way we talk about art, like it was a statement of quality rather than a description. “Art” doesn’t mean good or bad. Art just means art. It can be terrible and still be art. Freedom can be good or bad, too. There can be terrible freedom. You freed me, and I didn’t ask you to." — Alice Isn't Dead, season 1, chapter 2: Alice

as cringey as it is to admit it, this line made me cry a lot after my breakup.

"So you aren't American?" asked Shadow.

"Nobody's American," said Wednesday. "Not originally. That's my point." — American Gods, Neil Gaiman

[side-eyes white america real hard]

there's more, of course. there's always more. don't even get me started on song lyrics, we'll be here all day.

lace; what’s your favorite plant/flower?

lilacs and roses.

mermaid; do you prefer the forest or the ocean? why?

both, i guess. but in different ways, and in different circumstances.

the sea is wild. it is endless and deep and unknowable. it is beautiful and dangerous. i am terrified of the ocean, and yet my favorite place in the world is an empty beach on the oregon coast. i have picked sand from between my toes for days with hair crusted in salt, danced around bonfires and watched the stars while marshmallows burn, gotten pulled under the waves as a child and nearly swept out to sea. picked starfish and crabs from small pools in the rocks, and swum (accidentally) with wild sea lions. in a long skirt, too early in the year to be swimming, i once took off my shoes and waded fully clothed into the water to my waist and just... danced. splashed and kicked and laughed with a boy i barely knew until our throats were sore and our toes were numb, walking home hours later with our soaked clothes clinging to our legs, shoes squelching, dripping algae as we went. the ocean is freeing and overwhelming all at once. i love it and am petrified by it in equal measure.

the forest is beautiful in a different way. it is silent and dense and serene. you are surrounded by life and yet, somehow, completely alone. there is magic in the forest, and history, and even when all else dies, that will remain. the trees grow from the corpses of their ancestors, and some have lived dozens of our lifetimes — with luck, a few dozen more. it is quiet there, peaceful, even the tiniest wood in the middle of a city muffling the outside world through the trees. you can feel the ancient ways deep in your soul as you follow winding paths strewn with fallen leaves, the mystery and wonder and superstitions of your forefathers. you wonder what it would be like, to run your fingers over the moss, to take off your shoes and socks and just run, leaping and dancing over rocks and roots, hair wild and air filling your lungs in deep, pure gulps as you shed the responsibilities and struggles of modern life, for just a moment remembering what freedom tastes like. it is primal, this connection to nature, one we have nearly forgotten over time. and as the sky grows dark and the silence of night presses against you, shadows looming, every footfall deafening, perhaps you begin to understand why some believed in monsters.

honeymoon; do you keep a journal?

i used to. honestly, that's a good idea, i should start doing that again. lord knows i have enough empty journal-type books.

starlight; do you believe in love at first sight and soulmates? why/why not?

i want to. i want to believe there's someone out there for me, the love of my life, someone to whom i'll be the love of their life, and that when i meet them i'll just... know.

but when i met my ex, i didn't really look twice at him for a while — no love at first sight. and when we were together, when i loved him and he swore he loved me back, i thought he hung the stars in the sky and knew i would marry him someday. couldn't even consider the idea that that wouldn't happen. and then when he broke up with me, he ghosted me so suddenly and thoroughly that he even preemptively cut contact with every single one of our mutual friends he thought might side with me in the breakup, before anybody even knew we'd had a fight. so, not soulmates either.

i really want to believe that someday the perfect romance will just fall into place and i can have the happily ever after i've always dreamed of. but the reality is i might never even have another s.o. for the rest of my life. maybe i'll get hit by a car tomorrow, or my hypothetical soulmate moves to argentina to become an alpaca farmer on a mountain somewhere and we never even meet. maybe i'm so traumatized by the betrayal and lies that i'll never have the courage to even try again.

and even so, happily ever after doesn't have to include a fairytale romance, regardless of whether i want it or not. i still like to cling to that hope though, deep down.

princess; what do you value most in people?

i'm going to assume you mean "real people" as in people i have positive relationships with, and not random strangers on the street.

loyalty. kindness. support. humor. similar values. patience. being able to grow together and teach each other things, so we can make each other better. honesty. trust. compassion. confidence. emotional vulnerability. communication. intelligence, or at least a willingness to learn. strength.

[starsrshiney]

(At least) 10 “Rules” or Behaviors for each member of Team Stars

Let me tell you about mah OCs.

No, really

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MAH OCS

This is a long one. 5.3k words, and its basically a list. You’ll notice some repeats (intro/extroversion, when they graduated and what they studied, sexual orientation, languages they can speak etc) as you read along. You’ll probably notice details get less detailed the further you move from the top of the list as well. Details in [brackets] basically only apply to 1.1/1.1.1/versions of the characters that participate in dimension travel.

Stars (Ronald Sterling Shiner)

1. He’s an extrovert. He does enjoy socializing and being with people. He tends to avoid talking about his life before running away beyond general basics though. He’s more interested in talking about the present than the past.     a. He doesn’t like talking about his past in Emplien, particularly his school life. His experiences in the school archery team is a big exception to this.

2. He’s good at reading people’s facial cues and body language, to the point where his team calls him a person-reader/people-reader, or a living lie detector. Even if he doesn’t call you on it, he probably knows if you’re lying.

3. Romantic topics make him uncomfortable, due to Carmo and her co-conspirators actions during high school. He will generally excuse himself or make himself be elsewhere if the subject comes up. When forced to talk about it, he’ll generally be negative to the concept of romance, doubting it exists beyond being an idealization.

4. Sexuality in general doesn’t make him uncomfortable, though he still doesn’t usually participate in conversations about it unless he’s in a good enough mood. The subject of himself in a sexual situation, however, makes him very uncomfortable. This is due to him resisting the effects of Cross’ “History’s Strongest Lust Potion” for so long. The ‘fantasies’ that the potion had him come up with featuring his teammates became increasingly violent the longer he resisted.     a. Relatedly, he’s a Kinsey 3. He is not Full Ace from this mental trauma, though he adopts some behaviors of it. He tries not to express it, but he does acknowledge his attractions to himself.         i.  Though part of THAT is due to only recognizing attraction after being acquainted with a person.

5. He is perfectionistic, particularly regarding paperwork. The more frustrated he is with getting paperwork done, the more strongly he’ll resist help with it. This has led to multiple cases of him being physically dragged out of his office so other teammates (Anniey, Von, Chax, and Crystal) could get through the piles of papers.

6. He is particularly proud of his archery skills. He’ll take anyone mentioning how good of a shot they are as a challenge. [This doesn’t apply to dimensional travels, especially in cultures that value archery, unless the culture recognizes him first.]

7. He doesn’t like people touching his hair, particularly the crown of his head. He has a brick red spot there in his otherwise maroon hair, which was used as ‘target practice’ by other kids in elementary school times.

8. His sense of modesty is more cultural than personal, which sometimes clashes with other cultures’ senses of modesty. He doesn’t have a problem with group showers and the like or being underdressed in personal space. He does have reactions to people being underdressed in situations he wouldn’t be (See: Shikirei getting ready for the bath in their room instead of the bathroom.)

9. While he does fake it sometimes to get out of awkward situations, he genuinely can be dense. He does better with putting together pieces of information to figure out what’s going on than he is at gathering information.

10. He generally doesn’t take offense to things said about him, unless you insult his archery. He generally gets angrier when you insult his loved ones in front of him.

11. He is exceptionally loyal to his loved ones, and he unconsciously inspires that same kind of loyalty.

12. He can play a mean game of poker (what is a poker face to someone who reads body language?) and he likes watching the night sky. And while not AS religious as Anniey, he does tend to read from the Holy Madaran Book while recovering from exercise.

13. His 2-year extra education focused on business and psychology, though since he tested out of history, he was able to sneak in crystal glyphing lessons. He graduated in the year 917     a. He’s only just barely not a novice at glyphing and doesn’t experiment like Crystal and Jasmine.

14. Despite bi/trilinguism being common in Socon, Stars can’t speak any language besides Socon Common. He claims his tongue trips over itself when he tries. Sometimes he’ll claim his second fluent language is body language, though he’s learned not to say this in front of Chax.

a. That being said, he can interpret Ionese (Portuguese,) Vascolean (Italian,) and Otturi (Swedish) from growing up (family for the first two, Von’s family for the last one) even though he can’t speak them.

Anniey (Annabel Mayra Shiner)

1. She enjoys being with and talking to people. The only thing she’ll avoid discussion about is her arm or, relatedly, how she always wears long sleeves.

2. She does try to be a calming influence on people. This intent gets lost sometimes, as she does have a quicker than normal temper.

3. Anniey is the most powerful mage of the team. She does, in fact, have the elemental control you would expect of a mage, though she has more power than control. The fact that pipes burst toward people she’s angry/annoyed at is more about lack of control of her temper than it is about her powers (Lack of control would be pipes bursting randomly, but her bursts always seem to target the one who angers her.)

4. While she’s comfortable with her arm scar by herself, she still doesn’t like it being revealed to other people.  This discomfort pretty much extends from the reveal until the other person has had time to digest the situation. If they didn’t react very badly, she doesn’t mind talking about it to them.     a. She claims to be over what happened to her arm. It’s obvious she isn’t once someone else sees the arm scar though.     b. List of people who know about her arm: Her family, mansion staff that was working when it happened, high ranking mansion staff, medical staff that helped her, Von’s family, an ex-boyfriend, some fellow priestesses, female members of the team. [Chris, Ling, Qiu, Ling’s trackers.]

5. She loves to matchmake, though unless she’s asked for help, she keeps it in her head or in conversation rather than action. Friends asking for their friends counts to her.

6. She’s strictly androromantic/androsexual (Kinsey 0). She tried dating girls in high school, it didn’t work for her.

7. She is strongly religious, particularly about Nilofer’s doctrines. She keeps a copy of the Holy Nilofan book in her storage crystal. As expected of a priestess.

8. As long as her right arm (the one with the scar) is covered, she’s open to wearing most anything. She has a few outfits that she reserves specifically for making Stars implode into overprotective “NO”s.     a. Stars and Anniey are siblings. They are not above heckling each other.

9. While in the AlChemistry lab, she focuses on healing salves (for open wounds, burns, etc.,) rejuvenation potions (like 5-hour energy, but better,) scar reduction creams and the like.

10. She is not completely helpless without her powers. If she’s in an area without water, she has a light energy wand. Without any magic power, she can throw the hardest punch of the team’s mages.

11. Anniey knows basic greetings in many languages and tends to know when someone is being polite or trying to insult her, regardless of language. Aside from Common, she can speak fluent Vascolean (Italian) and Ionese (Portuguese,) and conversational Otturi (Swedish.)

12. Anniey is one of the team extroverts.

13. Since she wasn’t being pressured into being the company heir, Anniey spent her childhood flitting from one hobby to the next. She also graduated without the optional two years of extra education in the year 918.

Chax (Lechaxim Phantas Shadrix)

1. If an adjective in any manner suggests shyness, modesty, or shame, it doesn’t describe Chax. He is a very open book. The only things he won’t talk about are his first girlfriend or his family that isn’t his dad.     a. Corollary: Though he is very comfortable with his body, he isn’t an exhibitionist. He’ll push the limits of acceptable, not completely ignore them. That being said, he does sometimes feel like the “limits of acceptability” are BS.

2. It’s not his preferred mode of operation, but he is fully capable of being polite and/or formal, including dressing formally.

3. He very much enjoys getting reactions out of people. But he does not intentionally set out to make people feel genuine disgust or discomfort.

4. Spending most of his elementary school life at home sick, he is very concerned about cleanliness and sicknesses. Cleanliness and personal health are higher priorities than pleasure to him, though this part of him isn’t obvious with is attitude.     a. He doesn’t mind “messy” very much. He cares more for dirty/grimy/slimy/etc. than just dealing with displaced objects like clothes or paper.     b. He has multiple sheet/pillowcase sets, that he changes and washes daily.

5. His “track record” would make people think he’s a Kinsey 4, but he’s really a 2. While he does talk up his escapades to get reactions, he doesn’t outright lie about them.     a. Relatedly, while he does have a large number of sexual encounters and a high libido, he is not hypersexual in the medical definition.     b. He also takes every precaution he can with his encounters- verifying they’re single, subtly verifying if they have (an) STI(s) or not, having his own condoms and (30%) medical birth control when applicable.         i.  While stronger male medical birth control exists, going higher than 30% has a chance of permanently damaging sperm production. Therefore, Chax stops at 30%.

6. His feelings about romance are summed up as “It’ll happen when it happens, but I’m not going to hold myself back waiting for it.”     a. Though he absolutely refuses to be “the other man” for anyone. It happened once and he teamed up with the partner to yell at the idiot.

7. He spends more time than he should doing aerobics and gymnastic exercises.  This is how he has little to no body fat despite being one of the biggest eaters of the team.     a. It’s not to be touched on in canon, but there can be hints about him having an exercise disorder.     b. The lack of fat also means he doesn’t float well in water. He’s a strong swimmer but can’t passively float due to his muscle-to-fat ratio.

8. He is very observant. He picks up on things quickly, though he’s slow at putting facts together to get meaning.

9. He’ll deny it, but he is generous. He’ll leave gifts for people where he knows they’ll find it.

10. He has more control than power with his element. He can’t control many shadows, but what he does control can take many shapes, and shift between them seamlessly.

11. He can speak Vascolean (Italian), though he also knows some Gaelic phrases and pick up lines in many languages.

12. Chax is the type of extrovert that is extremely draining for most introverts to be around for long periods of time.

13. By the time he was finished with standard education, he had enough general/ business/ AlChemistry credits in school to be considered a year ahead. He took another year to get the standard extra two. He graduated in the year 920, putting him with non-lateborn peers.     a. In the AlChemistry lab, he specializes in making sunscreen. He gets sunburn VERY quickly without it.

Mahn (Herman Roderick Pages)

1. Despite Chax-amplified perceptions, he is generally not grumpy 24/7.  This took a small while for Stars to realize, because when they were a trio Mahn was the sole introvert with two extros.

2. Speaking of perceptions, he is not as prudish as his fights with Chax and avoidance of conversations of the subject of sex make him out to be. He has more of a romantic’s attitude towards the subject.     a. Relatedly, Demi-Kinsey 1.

3. Mahn likes to constantly challenge himself. He uses large blocks of earth for weightlifting, as the weights they have in the gym are too light for him. This is also why he keeps his hair long and wears bulky trench coats- it makes fights harder and more challenging for him. Consequently, his muscles are too large to move his body quickly. (Think powerlifter rather than bodybuilder)

4. Mahn has more power than control over earth. He makes large holes or pillars in the ground, often larger than he intended.

5. He tries to not be a metaphorical bull in a china shop.

6. He is quicker to action than he is to speak. He also tends to prefer non-vocal communication when he can help it.

7. Lechaxim aside, he is rather slow to anger. He’s also slow to show most other emotions.

8. He does want to become better in the kitchen than he is, but he blows up kitchen appliances with the same frequency that Stars blows up AlChemistry labs. This is to say; it will happen if he steps into the place.

9. He recognizes that Stars thinks a few steps ahead of most other people in the team. He generally never questions Stars’ orders, unless it seems like something he wouldn’t actually say.

10. Mahn is far more closed mouthed about his pre-Team life than Stars. However, he has mentioned that he does send some of his earnings to his family, and that he has a good relationship with them.

11. Aside from Common, he knows Ailan (Hawaiian) and Okraobin (Amharic.)

12. His overcoats have many small pockets on the inside for small ice-energy crystals. This is how he can still wear them even when the weather is summery.

13. His hobbies include powerlifting, small crafts, and reading either romance or mystery novels.

14. He graduated in the year 920 with two extra years of smithing education.

Sal (̛͢͟͡S̷̶̨̡a̵̷̢̛l̷̸̴͢͏i̴̸͢͞ǹ̷̴̵a̸̸҉ ̧͢͝͏̸?̵̡͟?̛͞͞?̴̨́̕ ͘͏͠ M̸̀͢͝͠a̧̛n̷͠d̴̡͝͠ȩ͜͝҉̸r̨͘s͟͏̕)̢̀̕͠͡

1. Sal is one of the quickest to anger members of the team, if not the quickest. However, she also shows the most improvement in her anger management. Constant chasing of Chax with knives aside.

2. She has a rather large collection of knives, with no two looking exactly the same.

3. Sal has decent power and control over her element. Her aura is effective at chilling water vapor in the air back to water, which she can freeze and control.

4. She values having things go in orderly fashion.

5. She was trained to repress most feelings, including attraction. Being with the team has helped her relearn most of them. Re: attraction, she shows a slight-but-noticeable preference for males (Kinsey 2.)

6. She doesn’t have any memory of her family before becoming part of Boirom Assassin Guild, beyond her last name. She doesn’t have any desire to find them, though she does keep her family name.

7. She refuses to give her full name out for any reason, including her full first name. As far as anyone needs to know, she is Sal.

8. Being a valued assassin for Boirom before defecting, she knows most of their techniques and set ups. She recognizes when they’re walking into even their most subtle traps.     a. Boirom’s teaching don’t cover languages, making her the person on the team who is the most genuinely lost if someone speaks in something that isn’t Common

9. She mostly chases Chax with her knives out of habit at this point. Loathe as she is to admit it, she can’t bring herself to seriously hurt anyone in the team, unless it’s to save them from being even more hurt.

10. She outright never questions Stars, beyond clarifications. Anniey has called her an enabler of his bad habits multiple times.

11. She collects glass lizards and has pick up coloring books as a hobby.

12. She’s an introvert that gets tired of socialization really quickly. Stars and Takky, oddly, don’t drain her as much as other people.

13. She was “homeschooled” by the Boirom Assassination Guild, but has a diploma officially stating she took two extra years of weapon smithing and graduated in the year 918.

Von (Vincent Diciasette Golla)

1. While talking to people does exhaust him after a while, he doesn’t use his introversion as a reason to avoid people. Rather, avoids people because he doesn’t think they’ll take him seriously with his stutter.

2. He is also legitimately shy and timid, especially around new people and quickly advancing events. His shyness and timidity are separate from his introversion.

a. Anniey is a slow-drain person for him. Stars less so, but still less draining than most other people, especially other extroverts.

3. His shyness and timidity are connected to his modesty, however. He wears a sleeveless rash guard while swimming and tends to avoid the shower rooms unless he’s sure he’ll be alone. The slime incident was mortifying for him.

4. He gets annoyed at being called a cinnamon roll. Especially when people try to guard him from things he already knows.

5. He is the mage of the team with the most control over his element and least elemental power (which, being mage level, is still impressive.) He’s also the weakest physically, as he tends to skip martial training with Briar.

6. He is a genius AlChemistrist. He has open invitations to most AlChemistry guilds in the world and does work with them via Farcall and mail. He stays with the team because he didn’t particularly like living as a lone AlChemistrist, plus it lets him field test some unique solutions.     a. Von finished school in the year 919 but did the equivalent of two extra years of AlChemistry Training as extra credit through the years.

7. He can determine elemental compositions of materials by the color of the flame they produce when lit, as well as feeling how the fire burns it. How accurate he is depends on how complex the material he’s burning is, though he does try to separate or otherwise narrow down what possible elements could be in a substance before subjecting them to the burn test.

8. He can adjust his aura to be as close to his skin as he likes. He uses this to groom his body hair by burning it. The guys of the team are used to the smell of burning hair when they enter the shower room.     a. If left unchecked, Von can get extremely fluffy with his body hair.

9. His stutter changes frequency with how uncomfortable he feels. Even at his most comfortable though, it is still there. The only exception is when he sings, as singing uses a different part of his brain compared to talking.     a. Also, he tends to sing to himself in Otturi (Swedish.)          i.  He’s fluent in Otturi (Swedish,) and conversational in Vascolean (Italian) and Ionese (Portuguese.)

10. He is primarily gynosexual, with fleeting-to-none attractions to guys (Kinsey 1.)

11. He keeps a small set of binoculars in his storage crystal, as he has a side hobby of bird watching.

Jimi (Jimi Pasticcio Ratpi)

1.  His temper snaps about as quickly as Anniey or Sal’s, but he’s probably the least dangerous easy to anger person- he doesn’t pull out his weapons like Sal or burst stuff with magic like Anniey. He tends to just yell.

a. He’s the type of extrovert that gets snappier if he hasn’t socialized enough, which leads to loops of scaring peeps away when he needs to talk, and then getting angry about it.

2. His temper also tends to make him think people are challenging him, particularly if they’re talking about swimming, cooking, or shooting/accuracy.     a. Stars and Jimi spent the first week of their acquaintance arguing over bows vs pistols and their accuracy. It’s a time they both laugh at in hindsight.

3. If he wants to cook, he’s going to cook. Only Crystal can argue with him on this, as they have roughly the same skill level in the kitchen.

4.  Despite nearly always wearing newsboy caps, Jimi is particularly fussy about taking care of his hair.     a. His hair is deceptively fluffy.

5.  He has twelve magic pistols in his vest-shadow network. #1 is kiddy slingshot strength, and the power scales up until it hits #12 (which causes critters to explode.)  They (except for maybe #1) only come out of his vest when he decides something is going to be shot. He’s not going to just keep one of them out as a “threat.”     a. He also keeps an emergency, non-magic pistol in his regular storage crystal.     b. Saying dual-gun fighting styles are a fiction-only concept will cause him to break into a rant.

6. He’s one of the “handymen” of the team when something in the HQ breaks, being both a metal element and having repair experience from Northern Boating School. If it’s a water pipe, he’s not shy about telling Anniey that she needs to Stop.

7.  When he’s not being snappy, he does have actual leadership skills. Jimi’s the first person outside the Core Five that Stars would choose as a lead if the team’s split up.

8.  Even without the tendency to snap, he’s the “tell it to you straight” person of the team. He does make an effort to be tactful about it when he’s not angry.

9. He learned Modern Taroshanese (Japanese) from school, but grew up speaking Common and Ibesh (Spanish)

10. Bi, but leans more towards guys rather than gals (Kinsey 4)

11. Jimi opted out of extra education, graduating from Northern Boat School in year 919.

Takky (Takuma Jun Wei)

1. He’s sexy and he knows it. Mostly because it’s the first thing anyone would say to him walking up. It was ego fuel for a while, but by the time he joined the miniguild it grew old.

2. He’s not expert level, but he is trained in a few sword wielding styles, particularly using large swords.

3. It’s fairly easy to inflate his ego, but he does try to keep it in check. Unlike Jimi though, it’s pretty hard to actually hurt his ego. He can laugh off a lot.

4.  He’s competitive, but friendly about it.

5.  Despite being a close-quarters fighter with a sword, he doesn’t have any scars on his skin. He’s as confused as anyone else about this.

6.  One of the team’s extroverts.

7. He loses his storage crystal quite often. It also slips out of his grip when he tries to use it. He’ll even lose it if its attached to a ring base!

8. He keeps a soccer ball and a kite in his storage crystal, alongside everything else.

9. He knows Modern Taroshanese (Japanese) and Classic Taroshanese (Chinese (Cantonese))

10. Bi and doesn’t have a preference toward either side (Kinsey 3)

11. He only took one year of extra education (smithing,) leaving his school at the same time Mahn did (year 920.)

Jasmine (Jasmine Négliger Itrie)

1.  Jasmine has a stuffed doll of herself that she hugs while sleeping.

2. All her initial plans start with the goal of glorifying herself. Once enough time passes for the ‘I need to make myself look good’ idea to shift into ‘If this doesn’t get done, I’ll look bad’ she’ll start acting with her true intelligence and cleverness levels.

a. Comedy/Parody AU Jasmine, about to ruin someone’s career after looking like a fool herself: “Let’s get dangerous!”

3. Jasmine’s two year extra education was focused on crystal glyphing and general education, graduating in 919.

a. Jasmine usually only glyphs for herself, unless she’s sure she can get something out of making a crystal for someone else.

4. Jasmine respects that she lost to Stars in her first attempt to take his miniguild/position/fame and puts doing what she’s assigned over her repeat attempts at taking over.     a. By the time the miniguild disbands to become the R.E.D. Delta Squad, Jasmine becomes unsure if she even wants the position anymore, as she’s not sure she could have made it to Emplien on her own merits. The attempts feel more like a hobby than anything else.

5. She’ll refuse outside help when it comes to taking over the leadership. It wouldn’t be hers if someone (she didn’t hire) helped her get it.

a. Conveniently, this means she’s an early warning system for threats to the team, as outsiders tend to (wrongly) see her as an exploitable weak link.

6.  She uses formal dresses as casual wear because she feels she must always present at her best. The closest thing she has to actual casual wear is her workout gear, because there’s presentation and then there’s getting yourself hurt.

7.  She does a lot of hard work behind the scenes, only showing off her new skills when she feels she can make it look natural. High heel running (and the crystals that can turn her high heels into cleats) is a prime example of this, an effort she made before becoming part of Team Stars.

8. Jasmine seems like the type of extrovert who CAN’T function without a person near her. The extrovert part is true, but she can be rather sly when left to her own devices.

9.  She is fluent in Vaolirili (French) and conversational in Classic Taroshanese (Chinese (Cantonese))

10. She’s primarily gynosexual, though she does have infrequent, fleeting but notable attraction to some men (Kinsey 5)

Aaron (Aaron Nommer Itrie)

1. He’s the only one of the three handymen of the team to not have been schooled at a Boat School.     a. He got repair (and smithing) training when Jasmine signed the two of them up for the two extra years of education, graduating in the year 919.

2.  Aaron almost never goes against what Jasmine is saying. Sometimes he even questions how he stood up to her in the middle of the ‘takeover the Team Stars Miniguild’ fight. (The answer is there’s only so much of a losing fight he’s willing to fight, both physically and verbally.)

3. He’s not sure how he went from ‘brother of the woman who tried to have us all hurt for her fame’ to ‘the Team’s gentle giant repairman,’ but it's honestly a lot easier to parse than Jasmine or Sal’s integration to the team.

4. He saves most of his money, in contrast to Jasmine’s outlandish spending.     a. A lot of things about him contrast Jasmine.

5.  While both twins start to feel anxious if separated for too long, Aaron does want to attend Sofinn’s College for Dual Elementals on his own someday.     a. Working in the R.E.D. Squad earns him more than enough to do this, but he feels conflicted about leaving his sister, his teammates, and an already lucrative job.

6. He tends to have the softest voice in the room, unless significantly fed up.

7. Is probably the most noticeably introverted teammate, save perhaps Von.

8.  When he’s sure he’s alone, he pulls out his cartography/map making projects.

9.  His language skills are equal to Jasmine’s.

10. He’s bi, with no preference (Kinsey 3)

Briar (Briar Laikas Chron)

1. Briar very strongly believes in being able to fend for yourself with only your body, as element magic can run out and weapons can break.     a. Von’s resistance to self defense training and Anniey’s refusal to learn to physically swim annoy him to no end.

2.  A good chunk of the time( maybe one or two out of five?), he doesn’t feel as strongly about his side of the ‘A or B argument’ he’s having with Jimi as he lets on. He just likes the bonding time.     a. Their rivalry is very friendly, starting from their first fight. Jimi’s (low power) pistols were almost equal to Briar’s fists.

3. While not to Chax’s-acrobatics levels, he is quite restless, often doing some martial art practice near subconsciously when not focused.

4.  While generally not quick to anger, he WILL punch a bitch if they imply that he’s out-of-shape fat.     a. His body exists on the endomorphic side of the scale and does hold on to fat easier, but he’s trained in multiple martial arts and WILL show it to you first hand.

5. Briar didn’t take the extra two years of optional schooling, graduating from Southern Boat School in the year 917. He spent the years travelling Socon and learning various martial arts on his own.

a. When coaching his teammates, he teaches them different arts and techniques depending on their already established fighting styles and musculature.

6. Alongside Jimi and Aaron, he’s one of the team handy men. He doesn’t have any metal-controlling to help him with the task, so it’s all tools and know-how from helping around Southern Boat School.

7. Is an introvert, though running Physical Training classes doesn’t seem to have any effect on his “social energy”

8. His non martial art hobbies include botany, loose leaf tea brewing, and board games.

9. He’s conversational in Ibesh (Spanish) and Ailan (Hawaiian)

10. He’s a Kinsey 6, and went through personal distress about it due to Socon’s Baby-Fever society.     a. Like Stars, he only recognizes attraction if the person he’s attracted to is at least an acquaintance.

Crystal (Crystal Semele Snow)

1. Because Crystal often plays with her clothing ruffles with her wind, people around her feel a slight breeze.

2. She absolutely adores flying but doesn’t use it as her sole mode of transportation. She usually defaults to flying instead of running away from something though.

3. While she may not be as good as Von is when comparing their crafts, Crystal is a damn good Glypher. She’s yet to make a glyphed crystal explode with a force stronger than a party favor.

a. She graduated from her high school in the year 919 (as a lateborn) with two extra years of crystal glyphing education.

4. When she has the time and space, she tries to generate lightning from her wind control (inspired by lightning storms.) After learning about Anniey’s issues, she makes sure the space is FAR away from her, or any teammate.

5. She’s not one to start a raunchy conversation, but she’ll eagerly extend it as far as it can go.

6. She keeps in regular contact with her dads and younger sibling (adopted), and occasional contact with her bio parents and older (bio) sibling.

7. Extroverted.

8.  She keeps a portfolio of family recipes in her crystal, alongside cooking and fashion magazines.

9. Her only non-Common language is Vaolirili (French)

10. She’s bi with a preference for womenfolk (Kinsey 4)

Rose (Rozi Rhonda Garotte)

1. Rose is oddly good at keeping secrets. She attributes this to ‘no one asks me for them.’

2. When left to her own devices, she can be seen folding ribbons into butterflies. This usually shocks people, since they’re used to her not being able to control her strength (She has ruined doorknobs and windows that way.)

3.  She’s not the brightest bulb in the box, but she always means well.

4.  She changed her last name to distance herself from her bio family, particularly her father. The name was chosen by an upperclassman, who mentioned it means ‘brave spear.’ Jury’s still out on how she got the middle name Rhonda though.

5. While she doesn’t talk about her past in general, she sometimes drops contextless thoughts that make people around her concerned.

6.  Spirits tend to flock to her, and she trusts them to lead her out or away from trouble. She’s usually people’s first encounter with actual spirits.

7. Rose’s school didn’t offer the two years of extra education schools in other countries did, leaving her to graduate in the year 921 (as a lateborn).

8. Rose is the introvert who experiences the least amount of social drain around extroverts.

9. Her home life had her speaking Common and Okraobin (Amharic) almost equally.

10. Like Aaron, she’s bi with no preference one way or the other.

[diary--ofawimpykid]

fifty facts about me

1. I am 16 years old 2. I live in a large city in Missouri 3. I am really into theater and acting 4. I am bi, but in the closet 5. I really like astrology 6. I’m an atheist but think that truth is subjective 7. I am half black 8. I have faded green hair 9. I really like piercings/tattoos and want a ton 10. I am on my schools dance team 11. I have two cats, but really want a dog 12. I’m about to start the IB program 13. I really like makeup/fashion 14. I’m a feminist 15. My favorite colors are grey, black, and white 16. I want to be a playwright 17. I really want to move to a big city for college 18. I am obsessed with perfume 19. I’m lactose intolerant 20. I’m vegetarian, but I used to occasionally eat chicken 21. I’m also obsessed with skin care 22. I develop feelings for people really easily 23. I have anxiety, depression, and an eating disorder 24. I’m really loyal 25. I can count the number of freckles I have on my fingers (it’s 8) 26. I love IHOP 27. My favorite tv show is Family Guy 28. At the moment, my favorite band is Weezer 29. I love art/art history 30. My favorite artist is René Magritte 31. My favorite food is either soft pretzels or shaved ice 32. I hate milk with a burning passion 33. I can’t stand fake people 34. I got my first paid acting gig when I was 9 35. I’ve never slow danced with anyone 36. I realized I was bi when I was 11 and this girl I knew came out 37. I do this thing where I have a crush on 3-5 different people at the same time 38. I’ve been in over 30 shows in less than 10 years 39. I love the Spanish language and the culture of Spanish speaking countries 40. I have 10 different tumblrs 41. My favorite animals are dogs, specifically pugs 42. I don’t like chocolate unless it’s filled or really dark 43. My favorite drink is Bubble Milk Tea (Boba Tea) 44. I love shopping 45. I seem really extroverted, but I’m really introverted 46. My personality type is INTJ 47. I don’t like meat except for chicken (and really only chicken wings) 48. I religiously work out, sometimes working out at dance and then going to the gym 49. My parents are divorced 50. I love classic books

[roseateglow]

Korean^^

Korean - Easy Conversationalhttps://hangukgongbu.wordpress.com/category/korean-culture-lifestyle/easy-conversational-korean/ http://learnkoreanflashcards.tumblr.com/cards http://www.ryanestrada.com/ebooks/Learn%20to%20Read%20Korean%20in%2015%20Minutes.pdf

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I’ve been learning Korean for the better part of the past 7 years, and in 2014, I became the Grand Prize Winner of the first KBS World Korean Speaking Contest. The contest saw applicants from 44 countries around the world showcase their Korean skills through three rounds of elimination. As the Grand Prize Winner, I was invited to spend a week in Seoul in September 2014, where I participated in various broadcasting events, including on national radio, to showcase my knowledge of the Korean language and culture.

So how did I manage to reach a relatively high level of spoken fluency in Korean, and how can you do it too? If I were to reduce the “secret” to 2 words, it would boil down to motivation and technique. Motivation, because Korean, after all, is ranked by the Foreign Service Institute of the US Department of State as one of the hardest languages to learn for native English speakers (along others such as Japanese and Mandarin Chinese). This means that learning Korean is a considerable investment of time and effort, so you’ll need to be in this for the long-run. You’ll inevitably go through motivation peaks and troughs, but what’s important is not to give up and to keep progressing. And finally technique, because even you do manage to keep going for a long period of time, you’ll need to have the right tools in your toolkit to avoid plateauing and to improve your skills to a fairly high level. But beyond this, how exactly do you go about learning Korean?

In this article, I’m going to guide you through the exact steps I would recommend you to go through to begin learning Korean from scratch, and to eventually reach a high level of proficiency in it. I’m not going to tell you it’s easy, but it is, without an ounce of a doubt, absolutely worth it. Enjoy the post, and if you find it useful or interesting in any way, please share it!

An overview of Korean: What, Why, and How?

Korean is the official language of South and North Korea, and it’s one of the two official languages in China’s Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. It’s spoken by an approximate 80 million people around the world (including large overseas communities such as in Los Angeles and Toronto).

If you speak some Chinese, you’ll have a good starting advantage over other learners of Korean, since approximately 60% of Korean vocabulary is derived from Chinese (i.e. Sino-Korean words). If you speak Japanese, you’ll also have a considerably easier time learning Korean, since both languages—and up to a certain point, cultures—share many similarities, such as a similar order of words (subject-object-verb) and grammar. While many linguists classify Korean as a “language isolate” (i.e. not part of any other language family), some also consider it to be part of the Altaic language family.

So why would anyone want to learn Korean? Well, for starters, the language has gained a tremendous amount of popularity in the past decade, not least thanks to the so-called “Hallyu” (한류), or “Korean wave” as it is known in English.  The Korean Wave evolved from a regional development (mostly Southeast and East Asia) into a global phenomenon due to the proliferation of Korean dramas (TV series) and Korean pop (K-pop) music videos on YouTube, of which Gangnam Style is but one prominent example.

So, in earnest, let’s look at the steps you’ll need to take to effectively learn Korean.

1. Set clear goals, a timeline, and a schedule

Here’s the secret to a successful start, in 3 simple bullet points:

Your goals must be specific. Vague, sweeping goals are too broad to be acted upon.

Your goals must be believable. If you don’t believe you can reach them, you won’t.

Your goals must be challenging and demanding.

A lot of language learners fail to reach a respectable level of fluency because they lack any clear goals and direction, and they have no regular study schedule. Don’t fall into this trap. Even before purchasing any learning materials, set yourself some very clear goals and a roadmap to reach these goals. More importantly, strongly believe in them and do whatever it takes to reach them.

Having goals helps you to track your progress and gives you a sense of direction. This in turns helps to increase motivation, and reduces your chances of giving up. Make your goals ambitious but realistic. I wrote an entire post dedicated to the importance of goals, so have a look through it for a more in-depth look at the importance of setting goals.

2. Get a good textbook/method

Getting a good textbook with which you’ll be able to work with for the next couple of months is a crucial step is the long and interesting voyage that learning a language is. I’ve seen a LOT of Korean textbooks and learning materials out there, and I’ve tested more than my fair share. Below I’ve listed what, in my opinion, are easily some of the best ones out there. Pick one or two (but no more), and go through them in a consistent, regular manner. It’s as easy as that.

Top picks:

Elementary Korean, Second Edition, by Ross King and Jaehoon Yeon Korean Made Easy for Beginners, by Seung-eun Oh Korean Made Simple: A beginner’s guide to learning the Korean language, by BillyGo Living Language Korean, by Living Language and Jaemin Roh Spoken World: Korean – A Complete Course for Beginners, by Living Language Glossika Korean (Mass Sentence Method – for intermediate learners), by Glossika

3. Learn Hangul

Now that you have your newly purchased, glossy shiny textbook, it’s time to learn Hangul (한글). Yep, it’s one of the very first things you should do before getting too absorbed in your studies.

So what is Hangul? Very simply put, Hangul is the Korean alphabet and the official script of both South and North Korea (don’t confuse “Hangul” with the name for “Korean language” in Korean, Hangukeo (한국어)). For over a millennium and up until the first half of the 20th century, Korean was written with adapted Chinese characters called hanja. However, Koreans now almost exclusively use the Hangul alphabet. You can easily live in Korea without knowing a single Chinese character, although it’s always helpful to know a few (or many), especially if you wish to learn Korean up to an advanced level. For example, in many news headlines Chinese characters are still used for brevity’s sake, and characters are also often used in between parenthesis to help clarify the meaning of a word that has many different meanings.

Hangul is composed of fourteen consonants and ten vowels, in addition to having double consonants and “clustered” consonants. Because of this, Hangul is in fact really easy to learn. You should NOT learn Korean by reading the romanized script. It’s a bad habit and simply not a smart thing to do. If you put one or two hours learning Hangul for the next couple of days, I guarantee you that you’ll be able to read by the end of the week. Even if you’re planning a short trip to Korea no longer than a week or two, I would still highly encourage you to learn the script.

4. Find a bunch of awesome tools online

These days it’s amazing the amount of great language learning tools and resources that you can find online. One of the first things you’ll need along with your textbook and newly-equipped Hangul reading skills, is a good online dictionary. Here are three very good ones (the last is for beginners but in Korean only):

Naver

Daum

한국어기초사전 (Korean Dictionary for Beginners)

Here’s a bunch of awesome websites and podcasts:

Talk To Me In Korean

Korean Champ

KBS World (check out their radio programs)

Lingholic

Here are news websites that are available both in Korean and English (and/or other languages):

Korea Times (this resource is great because it often contains the English AND translated Korean version of the article)

Korea Joongang Daily (look for the “bilingual column” on the right)

Yonhap News (available in multiple languages)

TED Talks (read the transcripts of TED Talks in English first, and then try your hand at the Korean translated version! There’s also TEDxSeoul and TEDxBusan, which are entirely in Korean)

5. Get exposed to as many sentences and dialogues as possible

Now that you’ve developed a solid and consistent daily study routine, you’ll need to get exposed to as many sentences and dialogues as possible. For example, if you’re working through a textbook such as the Living Language Korean series, you’ll get the chance to go through dialogues in every unit. Go through them repeatedly and ensure that you review each unit regularly.

It’s important, when working with learning materials, to repeat loudly the sentences that you read (unless you’re in a public place!). This will get your tongue and ear slowly used to pronouncing and hearing the language properly. Also, do bi-directional translation exercises in which you work with the Korean dialogue only during one day (and translate it into your native tongue), and do the opposite any other day.

6. Learn as much about the culture as possible

You may well have the largest vocabulary in the world in any given language, but if you’re clueless about the culture, you won’t know which words to use in any given situation at any given time. Unless you’re from East Asia, chances are that Korean culture is significantly different from yours. From my point of view, that’s exciting news, and discovering an entirely new and different culture is an enriching experience that really adds a lot of spices to your life.

So how can you get to know about Korean culture? For starters, find a good history book and start learning a bit about the country’s history. One of my favorite book is by far Bruce Cumings’ Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History, but there are literally thousands of good books on Korea out there. Next, and I’ll come back to this at point #8, as you’ll watch Korean dramas and movies and listen to Korean music, you’ll inevitably get exposed to the culture. Pay attention and takes some notes!

7. Find a tutor or a language exchange partner

Wherever in the world you find yourself right now, you’re reading this because you have access to the internet. Whether at home or in a library or café, internet brings you an amazing array of wonderful resources and technologies to help you practice your target language.

Once you’ve learned a bit of Korean, you’ve gotten to know more about the culture, and you’re eager to practice your speaking skills with an actual human being, it’s time to make the great leap forward and start chatting with natives—the sooner the better. If you don’t live in Korea or in a place where many Koreans live, you’ll probably have to fall back on finding tutors or language exchange partners on the internet.

Not to worry, though, because there are amazing websites that do just that. One that I can recommend, since I’ve tried it a number of times, is Italki. at the time of writing this article, 8 Professional Teachers and 40 Community Tutors are teaching Korean on the site. Prices vary, but for around 10 to 15$ an hour, you can have a private tutor who will help you practice and develop your speaking skills in the language. If you don’t feel like spending money, don’t worry, you can always find language partners for totally free and practice over Skype, but then you would usually be expected to also teach your native language in return.

8. Get exposed to as many engaging materials as you possibly can

As you progress through your Korean learning adventure and reach a level that allows you to access and understand a wider array of materials, it’s time to give your textbook a break and get exposed to as many engaging materials as possible. I’ve written an article that introduces people to Korean Indie music, so if you’re eager to discover interesting Korean music, check it out.

These days it’s also easy to watch Korean movies and dramas online. YouTube is of course a very useful resource, but if you wish to actually download stuff, check out websites such as Dramaload. A quick search on your favorite search engine will yield hundreds of other good sites. Finally, use Amazon’s awesome “language” filter and look for popular books in Korean and get them mailed to you directly at your doorstep.

9. You’ll feel like you’ve reached a plateau. Don’t give up

Almost everybody, no matter how experienced they are at learning languages, feels like they stop making progress in their target language at one point or another in time. That’s normal. I’ve written a detailed post about reaching plateaus, so you might want to have a look at it.

Essentially, a lot of us feel like we reach plateaus at a certain point in time while in fact all what’s happening is that we simply learn at a slower pace. At the beginning when you start from a blank slate, you feel like you’re making a lot of progress quickly, since it’s easy to see how many new words you can now recognize compared to the previous day or week. However, as time goes by, the same amount of time invested in learning a language will yield smaller returns; in other words, our learning curve is not linear, but rather round-shaped (see the graph below). Don’t worry about it and remind yourself that it’s absolutely normal to feel this way. Just keep enjoying the language and don’t give up!

10. Make the language part of your life

Think about this for a moment: what are the things that you do every day in your native tongue? Just how many hours a day do you spend watching TV, reading the news, and talking with friends? Once you’ve reached a low intermediate level in the language, it’s time to really make it part of your life.

Whatever you enjoy doing in your native tongue can be enjoyed in a foreign language.Don’t see Korean as something you have to “study”, but rather something you can enjoy. Plus, make an effort to really immerse yourself in the language, by, for example, changing your language settings to Korean for things such as Facebook, YouTube, or even on your cellphone.

11. Plan a trip to Korea

That’s it, you’ve made it all the way up until here. You’ve kept your motivation high, consistently for a long period of time. You had clear goals when you started and you feel like you’ve reached a lot of them. In fact, maybe one of your goals was to visit Korea. Well now’s the time to actually do it!

If you want to work in Korea, you might want to considerteaching English there. Otherwise, why not travel around the peninsula for a few weeks and practice your newly-acquired Korean speaking skills? This will sure turn to be a memorable trip.

12. Find more engaging material, and keep going

Language learning is a lifelong journey with no clear destination. After all, you’ve begun this journey to enjoy the trip itself, didn’t you? Once you’ve reached an intermediate to high level of proficiency, just keep doing what’s worked for you up until now. Read interesting blogs, watch more movies, find literary gems, and, who knows, you might one day call Korea home!

Conclusion

That’s it. I’ve just shared with you what well over 7 years of experience learning Korean has taught me. Has this been useful to you in any kind of way? I sure do hope so! If you have any questions, remember that I always love to help others and I would be more than happy to respond to whatever you have in your mind. Let us know in the comments below why you’re interested in Korean, and if you’ve been learning it for some time, how your studies are going!