#it means ''yours'' in spanish (specifically it means [female subject] is yours. so all the times maika calls to her in her narration | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spanishskulduggery · 2 months

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Maybe I'm dumb, but I'm having issues using Spanish descriptors. When is the right time to add "de" and when is it not? I would have "restaurante mexicano", but then my head would spin at "maestro de español". I know this is a stupid question, but I don't like how confused I am... is there some rule that denotes when "de" is appropriate to indicate a descriptor, like how you explained "cual" and "que" to me?

With this particular example it's about the nationality and how it comes across

If you said restaurante de México it would be "a restaurant from Mexico" as if the restaurant had originally been in Mexico (which could happen for foreign chains)

And if you said maestro español it would sound like "a Spanish teacher" as in the teacher is from Spain

(el) español is "the Spanish language", but español / española is "Spanish" or "Spaniard", so it becomes a different thing

...This can be especially useful if you don't know the gentilicio "demonym" of what someone is called when they're from a place - like there's a city in Spain called Huelva - someone from there is called onubense ... so un hombre onubense = un hombre de Huelva ; that's an irregular one though, a lot of them are generally straight-forward but still

It also helps if you don't know the nationality like danés/danesa is "Dane/Danish" but then the country is Dinamarca "Denmark"

You may also run into some cities/states/etc where it could be like un restaurante chico "a small restaurant" vs. un restaurante de Chico "a restaurant from (or potentially "in") Chico"

...

But for your example, it's especially important for genders - say you have una maestra francesa "a French teacher" as in "a female teacher who is French" vs. una maestra de francés "a French teacher" as in a "female teacher who teaches French"

Same idea with de inglés "English-related" vs. inglés/inglesa "English" the nationality; or un profesor/una profesora de literatura inglesa "an English literature teacher" for example has nothing to do with their nationality at all

Subjects in school are generally considered nouns, but especially in something where you could confuse someone's nationality with the subject they teach

In general if you're talking about adjectives by themselves they don't usually need a de

The adjectival phrases with de are normally de + noun (person, place, or thing)

Sometimes with nationalities it's a bigger difference like above

Other times it can be sort of whichever one you feel like - as in una camisa roja "a red shirt" vs. una camisa de color rojo is "a red-colored shirt" [lit. "a shirt of red color"; where de color (algo) is an adjectival phrase]

You will sometimes see de + adjective + noun or de + noun + adjective; same general idea as the other it's just a longer phrase

As an example - de primera is understood as "first-rate", probably de primera categoría ...as de segunda is "second-rate" or sometimes understood as "second class (citizen)" probably again de segunda categoría

But that's different from something like de primera mano "first-hand" where it is specifically "first + hand", and again de segunda mano would be "second-hand" which would mean like a thrift store or "second-hand" clothes etc.

Again, not really a set rule aside from a few where it's very important to make a distinction

[Also, side note, de + algo is sometimes referred to as "genitive" in case systems but it's - "of" or "belonging to", where it can also be property/possession in some cases; like la casa de mi amigo "my friend's house" vs a simple su casa "his house" which is much simpler but vague, as it could be "her house" or "their house" too - de + pronoun can be used to indicate clear ownership when something could be vague....... still considered a kind of adjectival phrase, but not the kind of adjective you'd immediately think of]

If you have any other specific examples you want me to go over, just message me it can be sort of hard to generalize when some examples come up but I hope that sort of helps

#spanish #asks #langblr #learning spanish #spanish grammar #learn spanish

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sincerelyasomebody · 3 years

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Mama || Leticia "Letty" Cruz

(GIF: @angels-reyes)

A/N: This was created because I've seen some speculation that Letty may not make it to the end of Season 3 (😭🥺). My mind needed something fluffy to combat this and so this piece came about. Apologises for grammatical errors and please let me know if the Spanish translation needs correcting.

Characters/Pairing(s): Letty x Reader (mother-daughter relationship) ▪︎ Coco x Reader (mention) ☆ Mayans MC (brief mention) ▪︎ OCs (receptionist, mother and son duo)

Summary: Just a mother protecting her daughter.

Warnings: brief mention of altercation (male and female), description of injuries, fluff, language, nicknames, painkillers (reference to injury)

Word Count: 1755

- ♤ - ♡ - ◇ - ♧ -

(Y/N) couldn't believe how busy the roads leading to the local high school were. It was a Wednesday, a little after ten and the streets were just packed with cars. She thought it was ridiculous considering people were usually at their jobs and children were in their age appropriate schools. There was no reason for people to be out and about.

"The light's been green for five seconds!" she yelled and honked her horn, "move!" The driver in front gave her the finger before taking off, "you're so fucking lucky I've got somewhere to be, asshole!" she called out as she drove in the opposite direction.

When her phone rang during her break, the last person (Y/N) expected to hear from was the receptionist for Santo Padre High School. According to the woman, Leticia (Letty as she was mostly referred to) had been in an altercation with another student and her parents or caregivers were requested to come and meet with the principal. Rachel, the receptionist, mentioned trying to reach her father but going straight to voicemail. With (Y/N) being listed as an emergency contact she was called.

(Y/N) immediately asked about Letty, but was told that specific details couldn't be discussed over the phone. She found that odd, but accepted it (for the time being) and informed Rachel that she would be there as quickly as she could. After hanging up, she grabbed her belongings and told her manager she had a family emergency to attend to. She was cleared and (Y/N) informed him that she would be taking a week off as well and would keep them updated on her situation.

From the moment she received the call to the time she pulled up in front of the high school, her thoughts revolved around Letty. Being with Coco for several years allowed (Y/N) to gain some insight to the type of life he had been subjected to. Through a lot of tears, constant reassurance and love (Y/N) was able to break through his tough exterior and get him to believe she was in it for the long haul. When (Y/N) was told by him about his daughter being in a similar environment to what he was in growing up, she demanded him to bring her home.

The second she laid eyes on Letty she saw Coco's features and personality shine through. (Y/N) didn't expect the teenager to respect or trust her right off the bat, but she made sure to let her know that she was here if she needed someone to talk to and gave her space. With every door slam, harsh comment and glare sent her way, (Y/N) continued being herself and showed Letty she wasn't a threat. It was challenging, especially when Coco left on runs, but she pushed through. Eventually the teenager began to accept her father's girlfriend without second guessing her.

(Y/N) stepped into the main office and found a woman standing beside a teenage boy, who held some paper towels to his nose and had a couple of scratches on his face. She moved closer and realised the pair were towering over Letty who sat in the corner and was looking down at her lap. Clenching her jaw, she strode over to the trio.

"Get the fuck away from my daughter!" she glared at the duo and turned around to Letty, who was now standing, "mi niña, are you okay?" she kissed her forehead and cupped her cheeks, "Leticia?"

The teenager nodded, "uh… y-yeah, I'm fine," she went to move (Y/N)'s hands but winced, "completely fine."

(Y/N)'s eyes widened at the state of Letty's hands. They were most likely bruised and what shocked her even more was that there was no ice-pack beside her seat. The boy clearly had been given assistance, but her baby girl hadn't and that pissed her off.

"Rachel!" she called out and a woman appeared around the corner, "you're the one who called me right?"

"Yes."

"And, you said you couldn't go over specific details of what happened over the phone?"

"That's correct."

(Y/N) nodded and gestured towards Letty's hands, "well I'm here now and would like an explanation on why my daughter hasn't been treated and that young man has?" When the mother tried to give a reason, she raised a hand in her face, "this doesn't concern you, this conversation is between Rachel and I."

Rachel gulped and could feel the anger radiating off of (Y/N), "well… uh, he was bleeding and –"

"Were there other staff members present?" she asked and when she was given a nod, she continued, "why couldn't they have provided medical assistance to my daughter?"

"She… didn't tell us she was hurt, ma'am, she said she was fine so –"

"Bitch do her hands look fine to you?"

The mother scoffed, "at least we know where your daughter gets her attitude from."

(Y/N) turned to her, "shut up, nobody asked for your ass to speak," she gestured towards her son, "the reason your son's looking like a fucked up tomato is completely justified I can vouch for that."

"Are you kidding me?" She shrieked and pointed to his face, "he's most likely got a broken nose and there's scratches on his face!"

"Exactly, be glad my daughter didn't have a screwdriver on her." (Y/N) replied and almost laughed at the disbelief on the woman's face, "your son deserved every scratch, bruise and possible broken bone."

"Excuse me!?"

(Y/N) ignored her and turned back around to face Rachel, "Letty and I will be leaving now."

"Mrs Fraser hasn't seen –"

"My main concern right now is my daughter's well-being," she told her, "and you've got my details on file so I'm sure Mrs Fraser can contact me at a later date."

Rachel spoke again, "please if you'd just –"

"No."

(Y/N) picked up Letty's bag and walked over to the desk, with Letty trailing behind her. She quickly signed out on the tablet and the pair walked out of the building. Reaching her car, (Y/N) unlocked it and helped Letty into the passenger seat. Closing her door, she rushed to the driver's side and got in.

She helped Letty buckle up, before buckling herself in, "everything okay, sweets?"

"Yeah… uh, thanks." was the response she received, before she started up the car and pulled out of the school parking lot while explaining where they were off to next.

-- ♡ -- ◇ --

"He's always talking shit," Letty explained to (Y/N) about the guy in the office, "it was about time someone shut him up."

"And you were the person to do so?"

She shrugged her shoulders, "he ran his mouth and then touched me, so I beat his ass."

"Two for one special?"

"Pretty much."

(Y/N) chuckled, "when your hands heal up, we'll ask one of the guys to teach you a few moves in the ring, thankfully your hands are just bruised and not broken."

"They still hurt like a bitch."

"You've got another two hours before you can drink some more painkillers."

"What would've happened if Coco answered the phone?" Letty questioned.

(Y/N) shook her head, "honey, I don't even think I wanna know what would've happened," she noticed the teen wince, "are you okay?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

She huffed, "I'm fine, okay? I was fine when you picked me up. I was fine when we went to the doctor's office. I was fine at the grocery store and I was fine the last time you asked me."

(Y/N) nodded and pulled into their driveway, putting the car in park, "I'm not gonna apologise about asking how you're feeling. I'm just – I just want to make sure you're okay. But, now I'll stop because I can see I'm annoying you."

"Yeah, you are."

She chuckled, "okay, I'll stop, but you'll tell –"

Letty sighed, "yes, I'll tell you. You really take this parenting thing seriously. I mean… you've been referring to me as your daughter all day and I–I'm not. But you defended me –"

"And I always will."

" – against Kyle, his mum and even the receptionist. I–I've never had that before. And, even at the doctor's office you made sure I was seen by a female because you knew it'd make me more comfortable."

"Letty?"

"You treat me like I'm yours and you called me your daughter and I… I don't know, I just," she took a deep breath, shook her head and looked out of the window.

(Y/N) waited for her to continue, but she didn't. Thinking back on today's events, she realised she had referred to Letty as her own. She had been doing it in her mind for so long and didn't realise she had said it out in the open. Letty had heard her reference and it seemed to make her uncomfortable and that was something she vowed she wouldn't do.

"When I started dating your dad he told me about the kids he had. He told me that he wasn't involved in their lives because being away from them was for the best. I asked him what would happen if one day a kid reached out and his response was "if they do, they do. I ain't gonna turn them away", (Y/N) spoke up, "and then you reached out, sweetums. You reached out and your dad took that as a sign. From the moment you entered our lives, it's been a whirlwind of emotions. We're not this picture perfect family, but we're our own version. Despite being almost an adult, Coco still views you as his baby girl. And, honestly, I've been viewing you the same way."

Letty sniffed and looked up, "really?"

"Absolutely, gorgeous. The moment you stepped through that door you became mine as well," (Y/N) pointed at the front door of their home, before turning to her, "but that doesn't matter if you're not okay with it. I'm not trying to force you to be –"

"I'm Coco's daughter," she cut in and smiled at (Y/N), "and now I'm yours too."

(Y/N) beamed with joy and unbuckled her seatbelt, and Letty's, reaching over the middle console to bring the teen into her arms. Letty wrapped her arms around (Y/N), breathing in her (scent). The woman chuckled and kissed her cheek, "I love you, baby girl."

Letty pulled her closer, "I love you too, mama."

-♤ - ♡ - ◇ - ♧ -

Spanish Translations:

Mi niña - my girl / baby girl

#leticia cruz #letty cruz #johnny cruz #johnny coco cruz #coco cruz #leticia cruz x reader #letty cruz x reader #johnny cruz x reader #johnny coco cruz x reader #coco cruz x reader #x reader #reader insert #mayans mc #mayans mc fanfiction #santo padre #sincerelyasomebody

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vergess · 3 years

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@autismserenity said: Your tags are the most American thing I’ve ever read, we are truly so screwed here

May I interest you in a more complete, and more excruciating, explanation of what I spent the last 18 months doing?

It is, I need to emphasize, fucking nasty. Don’t feel obligated, especiallly if you’ve already had A Day(tm).

There’s a lot of disease, a lot of worker abuse including sexual and racial abuse, a fine portion of letting people die for not being white enough for real medical care, all leading to homelessness.

For NDA reasons, because my former employer was just as vile as any tech company has ever been, I cannot be super specific about who I worked for. However, I can say that we handled the records and patient contact for all COVID testing for several states, as well as 2 of the 5 largest metros in the US, and several dozen smaller ones ranging from the approximate population of San Francisco, down to little towns, as well as the testing for several public school systems and at least two government agencies that I am not at liberty to disclose.

I tell you this for a sense of scale. When I say shit like, “my boss was more than happy to let thousands or hundreds of thousands die” I am not exagerrating for effect. We handled hundreds of thousands of tests a week.

Again, I need to emphasize, government agencies. Ones you would know if I named them. Ones everyone in the country knows.

And we were in charge of getting their test results from the already over swamped labs back to the patients, who often were not allowed to quarantine while awaiting results.

The fastest we got our turnaround time to on any consistent basis was about 30 hours. Often it ballooned well into weeks.

There were a number of factors for this, but the big one was always understaffing.

The staff we did have were treated like trash. One of the big selling points of this company is how “trans friendly” it is to work there. That is a lie. Every trans employee on payroll had their dead name displayed to all other staff, and until I personally changed the system setup on my arrival, patient facing trans people’s dead names were displayed to patients.

Remember that thing about “hundreds of thousands of tests a week”?

I was able to change the way patient-facing names were displayed. I was not allowed or able to alter the way internal systems displayed trans people’s names. But I was assured that it’s fine, because once you get a legal name change, you’ll be given new system accounts with your new name!

Your old accounts with your dead name would still be displayed and associated with the new ones though.

This is the “trans friendly” working environment. We were allowed to be out of the closet, as long as we were willing to put up with that. And any attempts to get it altered were the result of those nasty little transgender ingrates not being thankful enough.

Meaning that by asking to use our own fucking names we were already in the disciplinary shitter.

Another big selling point is the ~racial diversity~. The CEO was a man of colour, and so were like four other people on staff!! Wow!!!!!!!

This, too, was laughable.

Once numbers started coming in about the care gap for COVID between English and Spanish speakers, and our Southwestern US service area began to have a separate and brutal backlog just of Spanish speaking patients, my employer encouraged me to interview potential hires who speak spanish.

Fair enough! We all wanted to do our part to help close the already massive mortality gap.

So, I found candidates, did interviews, hired them, trained them, etc. But I don’t speak Spanish. As a result, I appointed 2 assistant managers who do speak Spanish to assist me in managing, you know, like the job name.

So when my super contacted them directly, completely skipping me on the chain of command, and told them to stop all of our Spanish speakers from translating helpful simple messages to send to patients, and instead start translating medical and legal documents, they very reasonably assumed I was in the know and went ahead with it.

TO BE CLEAR, that could have ended my life, theirs, basically everyone involved. Everyone in the company would have been completely fucked. At that point, my subordinates, the people for whom I am wholly responsible, were doing everything from practicing medicine without licenses, to encouraging spanish speaking patients to enter contracts that no one on the fucking executive tier could even read.

The moment I found that out, I and the A.M.s immediately started trying to get actual medical translation services to do our documents. We collected them in a neat folder. We queried translation services. We got quotes. We contacted my super and the CEO, about this over and over again for months. In the late autumn, we received approval for one of the translation services.

The CEO decided at the last minute that having people with no medical or legal training draft medical and legal forms was fine and good actually, and refused to sign the contract or send the documents for translation.

The excuse I received was that the COVID emergency HIPAA relaxations would protect us.

That’s not how that works.

Throughout all of this, Spanish speaking employees were told to either keep doing medical and legal translation work, or lose their jobs.

Oh, did I mention everyone was working between 30 and 80 hours a week, and all of us were marked as “contractors” so the employer could tax evade? Don’t worry, we filed complaints with the labour bureau.

So the entire department was let go, and “rehired” as temps through a temp agency, which because it was a temp agency could keep them marked as contractors regardless of the facts.

This change was presented to all of us, myself included, as the company getting a new accountant to handle payroll.

So if you’re keeping score, we’ve covered racism, queerphobia, medical negligence, fraud, and a frankly uncountable number of deaths.

Let’s talk about the sheer negligence towards employees ourselves. If you’ve worked in near-death medical care before, or any number of emergency services really, you know that the standard benefit suite includes either a dedicated therapist for your staff, or access to peer support groups with other emergency and medical servants through your employer’s benefits program.

Do you know what our mental health benefits were for this company?

The CEO got on a fucking zoom call with us all one (1) time, and said that if we were feeling suicidal or traumatized by the work, to talk to him about it, and he would be our therapist.

Do you know how many people per fucking day we had to contact only to be told they had already died because our understaffing delays killed them? He doesn’t. He never listened when we told him.

But let me put the cherry on the “Oh baby, you can talk to me, oooh” sundae.

Anyone who “looked” or “sounded” female, regardless of actual or assigned gender, was subject to constant flirtations and slimy, overly personal compliments about our appearances. Fortunately, at 3 levels removed from the CEO (Executives > Department heads > Managers > Employees), most of the people under my management had relatively little contact with him.

I was not nearly so lucky.

The CEO of this company has a watersports (urination) fetish. I know this, because he told me so and attempted to get me to join him in it. I have no idea how many other people in the company he did this to. I mean, what the fuck was I supposed to do, risk losing my job to find out? I have a fucking family to support, people.

Not that it mattered.

Eventually, all of these abuses became too much for my subordinates. Productivity fell off a cliff. Delays were getting worse and worse. In a medical emergency like this, delays=deaths.

So, like a fucking idiot, when the department heads reached out to me to ask what they could do to improve productivity, I shot down their frankly insulting suggestion of raffling a $20 amazon gift card to patient facing employees, and instead suggested a very simple, “enroll us with a peer support group, every single person in this department has PTSD from working in this pandemic.”

They were confused by my assertion of PTSD. I was asked to compile a document of complaints, concerns, and weaknesses in our patient facing services.

I and the A.M.s did so. It was roughly 40 pages long, with each page given a known problem, the reasons why it was a problem, and some potential solutions that might inspire further solutions or be able to be implemented. We submitted it. There was no response.

A week passed.

I had been working 80 hour weeks for most of a year. I hadn’t even been able to take weekends. I took my first sick day, in a company with “unlimited vacation days.”

I received a call at 3PM.

I had been fired for “differences in communitcation.” If you’ve ever seen that “Problem Women of Color in the workplace” chart? Yeah.

So had most of my department, including every transgender member of the department, and several of our extremely limited in supply Spanish speakers, who were presumed to be “on my side.”

Some of them, I barely even knew beyond the formalities of the job, and they were punished anyway.

I lost my insurance, and as a result I lost access to my medications.

But the real problem? I lost my house. And not due to lack of payment.

I lost my house, because when I got the job we waited 6 months for stability’s sake, and then readied to move out of the area. I got a mortgage on the basis of my employer’s written guarantee to the bank that I would continue to be employed for the next year at a minimum.

With the mortgage approval in hand, we entered a sales contract on our existing home.

We got and accepted an offer just days before I was fired. To keep our house meant paying a 25,000 dollar broken contract fine. We didn’t have that. We had a 10% down payment for a modest fucking place in a cheaper area, which is less than half that.

But without a job, my mortgage approval was also voided, meaning we couldn’t buy a house either.

All of a sudden, we were homeless during the plague, because my employer wrote and signed a letter to a bank guaranteeing my future employ, and then changed his mind when too many people died due to his own negligence.

Oh yeah, one last thing: the job paid less than Pandemic unemployment Assistance.

...After that, well, it’s homelessness until just last month. I... if you’ve never been homeless it’s.

It blurs. Everything is happening constantly, except for all the ways in which you are endlessly, mind breakingly bored. Bored, overloaded, and always uncomfortable.

Obviously my health would have declined regardless. Malnutrition, stress, everything.

But I was also unmedicated.

It was hell. I was in hell. I don’t know if I can recover from it, to be honest.

I bounced back from being homeless as a child. Children are as resilient as they are stupid, and the monstrosity of homelessness was little more than a vaguely remembered loathing and a panicky fear that it would ever happen again.

A child who is dying is worthy of sympathy, even if it is meaningless coos from passers by. If they have family, they may be able to rely on them too.

An adult with the indignity to die homeless and crippled, according to the average passer by, is worthy only of disgust and perhaps even punishment for being such a worthless waste.

My reward for nearly killing myself in a desperate bid to help stem the tide of COVID was the destruction of not only my life, not only my entire family’s lives, but the lives of every single family of every single employee who worked with me.

And you know what’s worse?

Each one of us still did more to limit the lethal impact of COVID than the entire united states government.

It breaks something in you, going through that.

It makes you realize that hope is a fool’s game.

But, I have ever been a fool, and so, I continue to play.

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izhyperfixates · 2 years

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IZ !!! please tell me more about your favorite artworks and styles!!

(i personally really like the dutch baroque and northern renaissance cause of all the symbolism and detail it portrays and hNGDNFHFNFKD)

please rant to me about anything you’re obsessed with right now (:

JESS!! ok whew let’s see

dutch baroque and northern renaissance… portraiture and still lives huh .. lots of symbolism. rachel ruysch … one of the most famous dutch baroque female still life painters, if not THE most famous. she notably painted flowers instead of other still life subjects (like fruits and things). i don’t remember off the top of my head if it was her specifically but i do know that the presentation of flowers in varying stages of life meant literally those stages of life if that makes sense (ie. budding flower = childhood etc etc). also most fruit represented prostitution or sex in some manner (citrus especially). bugs had their own meanings. etc etc rembrandt .

i’ve been really into like. american art history recently. it’s so different than european art. you can really track like the history of colonialism and the development and progress of capitalism and industrialization through art. i also think it ties into material culture and anthropology and product design and and and. idk i think it’s neat. american landscapes are all about manifest destiny and certain painters (cough cough thomas cole) strictly painted for their patrons and not what they wanted. there’s also artists like winslow homer and such who painted american rural life which is really interesting. american realism is so so interesting to me. there’s also like. Plains Art which is different than other art subjects at the time. like traveling artists would go to these rural areas throughout the US and paint not portraitures but likelinesses because portraits were more for the upper and middle class? likelinesses were done quickly and more done for the masses. it’s quite interesting.

idk i’ve read some really interesting essays about how mary cassatt, the famous american expatriate impressionist painter, subverted the male gaze with her female subjects and how she was really unique at the time for being from an upper class family but didn’t marry or have kids or anything. she was really cool. impressionism and early modernism in itself is kinda unique because that’s when the art movement began to change from a patron based industry to involving critics and The Public Opinion. idk it’s neat if you’re into the nitty gritty details of the art industry

additionally i’m jewish right. LOVE jewish art but i will say that catholics went off with counter reformation art. in an attempt to reinvent their image instead of being all imposing and trying to scare their followers into paying donations or whatever catholics do, in an effort to recruit members of the catholic church post the protestant reformation, they hired famous artists to paint in their churches. this occurred right between the renaissance and baroque so you can image the drama and everything. fun fact! this isn’t really. counter reformation or whatever. but michelangelo HATED the pope and did not want to paint the sistine chapel! he was a sculptor and not a painter but the pope had the audacity to ask him to paint the church. so michelangelo being the petty bitch he was painted the scene for the judgement day or whatever like right behind where the pope would sit, he also made like. every male and female figure super muscular in a totally heterosexual way and not at all in a homosexual way. also unrelated but i think it was leonardo da vinci who was accused of homosexuality and sodomy and basically was put on trial and became a recluse after the fact

i could go on about dadaism and the aesthetic movement and spanish art and the effect spanish colonialism had on south and middle america through art and all that stuff but i think . i think this is enough

#ah. recently i’ve been obsessed with fashion and runway styles #i mentioned this a while back but i’m looking into going into runway jewelry #basically making jewelry for fashion shows #so i’ve been really obsessed with fashion shows recently #at the mailbox #visitor ; jess

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bestworstcase · 3 years

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farran rereads lost lagoon: chapters 3-4

- a shot-put ball, according to my cursory research, weighs in the neighborhood of 6-16 pounds. leila howland expects me to believe that princess “hoisted an adult woman 70 ft into the air on the daily with nothing but a pulley and raw upper body strength” rapunzel has a hard time picking up a shot.

anyways

- rapunzel thinks about how she used to talk to herself in her tower when she was isolated (and lonely) but stopped once she came to corona, and this girl looked like she was talking to herself, and it gave rapunzel this weird sense of familiarity! now what in the world could that mean? its so subtle i can’t quite put my finger on it.

again, romance novel.

less sardonically - i will say that tts cass has never struck me as an especially lonely person. yes, rapunzel is quite possibly her first ever close friend, but cass also appears to be on pleasant terms with her coworkers and has at least one or two friendships or mentor-type relationships among the guards (stan and pete). animals in tts are anthropomorphized enough to qualify as humans, and cassandra is unequivocally friends with owl and fidella. she is friendly if not friends with at least one coronan citizen (monty). she’s utterly unfazed by crowley’s crabbiness. she’s able to get along with the pub thugs. in vardaros she befriends vex with ease and makes herself right at home among the citizenry at large. there is zero friction between her and lance - at most she rolls her eyes when he’s being ridiculous. and out of the main cast, cassandra is the one who seems closest to varian in s1 - like, she has actual bonding moments with him.

THE POINT BEING, cassandra may not have a lot of close friends, but she is nevertheless personable and demonstrates the ability to adapt herself to suit a variety of social environments. maybe i’m projecting here - i have very few close offline friends because my preference for in-person socialization is for it to be very casual - but taken together this doesn’t scream ‘lonely person’ to me. it instead says ‘person who finds social fulfillment in a wide net of friendly acquaintanceships’ and possibly also ‘person who finds close, emotionally intimate relationships worthwhile but very demanding to maintain, and so seldom or never seeks them out.’

this, absolutely, a very subjective reading of her character - it is just as plausible for cass to be someone who is socially competent but feels inwardly unfulfilled until rapunzel comes along. but even in that reading, this implication that cassandra is as deeply lonely, as thoroughly isolated in corona as rapunzel was in her tower is baldly absurd.

- i think i will have more thoughts about how arianna is characterized and the relationship she and rapunzel have with each other later in the story. for now it feels rather mechanical, and like arianna exists in the story to facilitate cassunzel happening.

- cassandra comes across to me like she has an anxiety disorder written by someone who doesn’t quite know how to convey how that feels? she catastrophizes: what if rapunzel thinks cass attacked her? will she get in trouble? but then she stops to make snide comments about rapunzel’s security detail ‘[falling] down on the job’ and concludes with an impressive amount of certainty that rapunzel isn’t going to make a big deal of it, after all. that… isn’t how anxiety works?

then, immediately, she finds a note from her father scolding her for slacking off—making it clear that she is indeed in trouble, like she feared—and her response is to scoff and throw it away. zero concern about being in trouble. zero worry about the consequences she might face for refusing the pointed “offer” of being rapunzel’s lady-in-waiting. like… this isn’t anxiety. i’m positive it’s meant to convey anxiety, but it comes across as cassandra just being… melodramatic and rude and grumpy. like a teenager. it’s unpleasant. and it bears very little resemblance to tts cass, who expresses a clear and consistent anxiety regarding the security of her job and the looming threat of a convent.

- secondly: “Friedborg reported that you missed your afternoon duties AGAIN. Please be advised that this is unacceptable. The queen is looking for a lady-in-waiting to serve Princess Rapunzel. It would be a great opportunity for you, and you must show the queen how prepared you are to train her in the ways of the court.” i am 100% convinced that howland thought cass was rapunzel’s age or younger. if friedborg is effectively cassandra’s direct supervisor, and she is reporting absences to cassandra’s father instead of addressing this with cassandra directly, the only explanation that makes sense is that cassandra is not of legal age.

- “Ladies don’t wield weapons, lead military strategy meetings, or race on horseback. Ladies do needlework, flower arranging, and hairstyling.”

sighs.

i am not going to argue that corona, in any incarnation, isn’t culturally sexist. it is. there are no women in the guard, no women in trades, no female business owners in the vein of monty or xavier or feldspar. besides rapunzel and arianna - who as the monarch’s spouse has very little in the way of actual political power - there are no women in the upper echelons of the government. besides cassandra, the only gnc women around are criminals. cass is denied even a chance to join the guard for no evident reason, even though her father allows eugene - a man he openly despises - to take the tests and then begrudgingly hires him when he passes. no one sees an issue with this, even though cassandra is demonstrably overqualified.

however.

howland makes this cultural sexism explicit text, and she does so in such a way that it implies something pretty horrifying about the already pretty horrifying corona-saporia unification backstory.

i am talking, of course, about general shampanier. you know, the female saporian general whom herz der sonne married when the two kingdoms were unified. the female saporian general who personally dueled der sonne for hours, according to under raps. the female saporian general who, forget military strategy meetings, led an entire goddamn army. i will accept the possibility that shampanier did not ride horses, because rapunzel’s return suggests that saporians have some sort of cultural objection to that. but this book predates rapunzel’s return by a large margin, and it isn’t canon anyway, so odds are the general shampanier of this story rode a warhorse at some point or another in her illustrious career of being the general of an army!!!

this woman - general shampanier - became the queen, the wife of arguably corona’s most historically important king, at a defining moment in coronan political and cultural history. tts and lost lagoon would both have us believe that this was a romantic, peaceful union between two people and two nations, but a few hundred years later - this. ladies don’t fight. ladies don’t belong in the war tent. ladies don’t ride horses. cass takes these things for granted as facts of life. but general shampanier did all of those things, and she did them extremely well, and she became corona’s queen.

WHAT HAPPENED?! WHAT HAPPENED TO SHAMPANIER’S LEGACY?

how did corona go from a warrior-queen to this, in just a few hundred years? the most plausible answer is that the background radiation of sexism and, perhaps, anti-saporian bias was powerful enough to unravel any cultural impact she may have otherwise had, deep enough to render her an outlier, an aberration, an exception to the rule that women do not act like that.

even arguing here that ‘lady’ specifically means ‘noblewoman’ doesn’t add up - because, again, general shampanier became THE QUEEN. you don’t get more noblewoman than that!

it feels unfair to judge this book with details added in season 3—such as the fact that shampanier is evidently not buried with herz der sonne—but this total lack of a cultural impact from general shampanier, queen of corona, feels very telling even without taking those tidbits of extra-textual information into consideration.

and good god, saporia hasn’t even properly entered the narrative yet! this is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg!

*deep breath*

moving. on.

- continuing the theme of cass being a child larping as a guard recruit: she has a closetful of weapons which she maintains to the exacting standards of the handbook, but skips out on her job to “train” in secret because evidently she’ll do ANYTHING to get on the guard except, you know, demonstrate a modicum of responsibility with the job she has now.

- moreover while i think cartography is a neat hobby for cassandra to have, it… doesn’t make a lot of sense if it’s part of some nebulous plan to ~prove herself worthy~ of being on the guard. like, cartography straight up isn’t a relevant skill, and while knowing the countryside could certainly be helpful for guard work in the event a criminal goes to ground in the wilderness, it’s like… it’s like if i applied for my current job, which is in software/tech support, by focusing an intensive amount of energy on teaching myself spanish. fluency in spanish is a useful skill and one that i could turn into an asset within the bounds of my current job, and it might be the deciding factor in me getting hired over someone else with equivalent experience and skill in computing and tech support (which is what the job involves) because, yes, some of our clients are ESL spanish-speakers. but it’s—there’s a disconnect. if i were in a tight competition to get this job i would be pouring my time into sharpening my programming skill and polishing up a portfolio of relevant work. i wouldn’t be devoting hours upon hours to learning spanish. right?

on the other hand—if cartography is a hobby cassandra is passionate about, and she’s 16 or 17 or 18 and she really likes the idea of being on the guard and really feels like she can do it and is bored with her dumb teenager job and desperate to get her dad to make her a guard without actually grasping what being a guard entails or the kind of work it involves or what she actually, realistically needs to do to have a shot, then… yeah, skipping work to play pretend with her weapons and convincing herself that her favorite hobby is totally going to prove to her dad that she’s ready to be a guard!!! makes perfect sense. it’s no different from tts varian tunnel visioning so hard on this fantasy of ‘i’ll surprise my whole village with hot running water and then my dad will be proud of me!!!’ that he neglects basic safety measures and accidentally blows the whole system up. it’s not realistic. it’s a fantasy. it’s play.

- the only time cassandra brings up eugene’s criminal past in tts is to mock him for being a loser. like. literally. the plot of fitzherbert pi kicks off when she calls him a “two-bit hood” and then when he fires back that flynn rider was a LEGEND!!! she fires back “key word being was. and… what is it you do now?” and that’s the only time she brings it up. granted this is 6-7 months into their relationship but… still, frankly i never got the impression that “former thief” was anywhere close to the top of cassandra’s list of reasons for hating eugene. he’s just a dick. she doesn’t like him because he’s a huge selfish jerk and she warms up to him after her starts behaving better.

- rapunzel goes to the ty lee school of flirting. just… laugh really hard at everything your crush says even if it’s not funny.

- despite my… intense and rapidly growing dislike for how cassandra is characterized in this book, her experiencing an actual physical reaction when rapunzel enters her space without permission is good. it’s about the boundaries. it has always been about the boundaries, and rapunzel crossing them, and the intractable messiness that arises from that.

- in fact: how many times does rapunzel cross boundaries in just this one little scene? oh, let me count the ways!

1 - when cassandra goes to shut the door, rapunzel ducks under her arm to enter the room. (eugene attempts to enter as well, but cass succeeds in blocking him.)

2 - missing or ignoring cassandra’s first “go away” hint about only playing individual sports.

3 - missing or ignoring cassandra’s second “go away” hint (“I let the silence get awkward.”)

4 - arranging cassandra’s invitation to the feast of elodie the great with the captain beforehand, so cass can’t use him as an excuse to decline.

5 - missing or ignoring cassandra’s obvious discomfort with this news, taking cassandra’s attendance at the feast as a done deal, and skipping straight to asking cassandra to sit next to her.

6 - in response to cassandra’s very diplomatic signal of not wanting to do that (“I sit wherever I’m assigned”), she declares that she’ll make sure cassandra is assigned to sit next to her.

7 - touching without permission, which makes cassandra flinch.

all of which results in cassandra making what she considers to be a “tactical surrender.” and then shutting and locking her door, because she feels so rattled. as i recall, lagoon is actually a lot mellower on the boundary violations front - and rapunzel actually learns better over the course of the story, which is probably the biggest reason that lost lagoon is not canon and cannot be canon to tts - but it feels worth writing this sort of thing out because, well. it is one of the dead horses i keep clobbering.

#lost lagoon reread #-cries in worldbuilding-#rta

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ninja-muse · 4 years

Note

i’m trying to branch out and read outside my genre (fantasy) do you have any book recs for someone whose heart is in fantasy but needs to see what else is out there?

Hi anon! Thanks for the ask! Fantasy’s such a wide genre, and this is such an open ask, that I’m mostly going to be recommending books with similar feels or themes from other genres, to push you a little outside the fantasy bubble and introducing you to different genres and types of storytelling. If you have a favourite subgenre or trope or author, I can maybe get a little more specific or offer read-alikes.

Also, I don’t know if you knew this before asking, but fantasy is my favourite genre too, so some of these recs are books that pushed me out of the genre as well, or that I found familiar-but-different.

And this is getting long, so I’m going to throw it under a cut to save everyone scrolling.

Science fiction

the Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold - This is space opera, which means it’ll have fairly familiar plots except with science-y things instead of magic. There’s an heir with something to prove, heists, cons, and mysteries, attempted coups and assassinations, long-suffering sidekicks, and a homeworld that’s basically turn-of-the-century Russia but with fewer serfs. It was one of the first adult sci-fi books I read and genuinely liked.

The Book of Koli by M.R. Carey - I finished this recently, and the second book of the trilogy just came out. This is post-apocalyptic sci-fi, but not grim or particularly complex. (Some SF gets really into the nuts and bolts of the science elements; this isn’t that.) Basically, Koli’s a teenager who wants more than his quasi-medieval life’s given him, and finds himself in conflict with his village (and then exile) because of it. I could see where the story was going pretty much from the start, but I loved the journey anyway.

The Martian by Andy Weir - This doesn’t have much in common with fantasy, but it’s my go-to rec for anyone who’s never read science fiction before, because it’s funny, explains the science well, and has a hero and a plot you get behind right away. In case you haven’t heard of it (or the film), it’s about an astronaut stranded on Mars, trying to survive long enough to be rescued.

Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh - This is an alien first contact story, about a colony of humans in permanent quarantine on an alien planet. The MC is the sole social liaison and translator, explaining his culture to the aliens and the aliens to the human, and working to keep the peace—until politics and assassins get involved. It’s been over a decade since I read this, so my memory’s blurred, but I remember the same sort of political intrigue vibes as the Daevabad trilogy, just with fewer POVs.

Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor - One from my TBR. It looks like dark fiction about women, outcasts, and revenge, which sounds very fantastic and the MC can apparently do magic—but it’s post-apocalyptic Africa.

Speaking of political intrigue and sweeping epic plots, the Expanse series by James S.A. Corey has both in spades. Rebellions, alien technology, corrupt businesses, heroes doing good things and getting bad consequences, all that good stuff. It takes the science fairly seriously, without getting very dense with it, and will probably register as “more sci-fi” than my recs in the genre so far.

Oh, and Dune by Frank Herbert is such a classic chosen-one epic that it barely registers as science fiction at all.

Graphic novels

It’s technically fantasy, but assuming you’ve never picked up a graphic novel before, you should read Monstress by Marjorie Liu. Asian-inspired, with steampunk aesthetics, and rebellions and quests and so many female characters. It’s an absolutely fantastic graphic novel, if you want a taste of what those can do.

I’d highly recommend Saga by Brian K. Vaughan. It’s an epic science fiction story about a family caught between sides of a centuries-long war. (Dad’s from one side, Mom’s from the other, everyone wants to capture them, their kid is narrating.) It’s a blast to read, exciting and tense, with hard questions and gorgeous tender moments, and the world-building somehow manages to include weaponized magic, spaceship trees, ghosts, half-spider assassins, and all-important pulp romance novels without anything feeling out of place.

Historical fiction

Hild by Nicola Griffith - Very rich and detailed novel following a girl growing up in an early medieval English court. It’s very fantasy-esque, with battles and politics and changes of religion, and Hild gets positioned early on to be the king’s seer, so there’s “magic” of a sort as well.

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry - A widow goes to the Victorian seaside to heal and reawaken her interest in biology. Slow, gentle, lovely writing and atmosphere, interesting characters and turns of plot. Doesn’t actually deliver on the sea monster, but still has a lot to recommend it to fantasy readers, I think.

Yiddish for Pirates by Gary Barwin - The late-medieval Jewish pirate adventure you didn’t know you wanted. It’s funny and literary, full of tropes and set pieces like “small-town kid in the big city” and “jail break”, and features the Spanish Inquisition, Columbus, the Fountain of Youth, and talking parrots, among other things.

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett - A thousand pages about the building of a cathedral in England, mostly focusing on the master builder, the monk who spearheads the project, and a noblewoman who’s been kicked off her family’s land, but has several other plots going on, including a deacon with political ambitions, a war, and a boy who’s trying so hard to fit in and do right.

Sharon Kay Penman - This is an author on my TBR, who comes highly recommended for her novels about the War of the Roses and the Plantagenets. Should appeal to you if you liked Game of Thrones. I’m planning to start with The Sunne in Splendour.

Lady of the Forest by Jennifer Roberson - Either a Robin Hood retelling that’s also a romance, or a romance that’s also a Robin Hood retelling.

Hamnet & Judith by Maggie O’Farrell - A novel of the Shakespeare family, mostly focused on his wife and son. Lovely writing and a very gentle feel though it heads into dark and complex subjects fairly often. A good portrait of Early Modern family life.

Mystery

There’s not a lot of mystery that reads like high, epic, or even contemporary fantasy, but if you’re a fan of urban fantasy, which is basically mystery with magic in, then I’d rec:

Cozy mysteries as a general subgenre, especially if you like the Sookie Stackhouse end of urban fantasy, which has romance and quirky plots; there are plenty of series where the detective’s a witch or the sidekick’s a ghost but they’re solving non-magical mysteries, and the genre in general full of heroines who are good at solving crimes without formal training, and the plots feel very similar but with slightly lower stakes. Cozies have become one of my comfort-reading genres (along with UF) the last few years. My intros were the Royal Spyness novels by Rhys Bowen and the Fairy Tale Fatale books by Maia Chance.

If you like your urban fantasy darker and more serious, and your heroines more complicated, try Kathy Reichs and her Temperance Brennan novels. Brennan’s a forensic anthropologist, strong and complicated in the same ways of my fave UF heroines, and the mysteries are already interesting, with a good dash of thriller and a smidge of romance.

Two other recs:

Haunted Ground by Erin Hart - The first of four books about a forensic anthropologist in Ireland, who’s called in when the Garda find bodies in the peat bogs and need to know how long they’ve been there. They’re very atmospheric—I can almost smell the bog—and give great portraits of rural Ireland and small-town secrets, and since not all the bodies found in each book are recent, they also bring interesting slices of the past to life as well.

A Burnable Book by Bruce Holsinger - This is essentially a medieval thriller about a seditious book that’s turned up in London. I liked the mystery in it and that it’s much more focused on the lives of average people than the rich and famous (for all that recognizable people also show up).

Classics

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift - I swear this is actually one of the first fantasy novels but few people ever really class it as such. Basically, Gulliver’s a ship’s doctor who keeps getting shipwrecked—in a country of tiny people, a country of giants, a country of mad scientists, a country of talking horses, etc. It’s social satire and a spoof of travelogues from Swift’s time, but it’s easily enough read without that context.

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - Another, slightly later, fantasy and satire! Even more amusing situations than in Gulliver’s Travels and, while it’s been a while* since I read it, I think it’ll be a decent read-alike for authors like Jasper Fforde, Genevieve Cogman, and that brand of light British comic fantasy.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare - Also technically a fantasy! I mean, there are fairies and enchantments, for all it’s a romantic comedy written entirely in old-fashioned poetry. It’s a pretty good play to start you off on Shakespeare, if you’re interested in going that direction.

On the subject of Shakespeare, I would also recommend Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, and King Lear, the first because it’s my favourite comedy, the others because they’re fantasy read-alikes imo as well (witches! coups! drama!).

the Arthurian mythos. Le Morte D’arthur, Crétien de Troyes, The Once and Future King by T.H. White, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain, etc. - I’ve read bits and pieces of the first two, am about 80% sure I read the third as a kid (or at least The Sword in the Stone), and have the last on my TBR. Basically, these stories are going to give you an exaggeratedly medieval setting, knights, quests, wizards, fairies, high drama, romantic entanglements, and monsters, and the medieval ones especially have different kinds of plots than you’ll be used to (and maybe open the door to more medieval lit?) **

Beowulf and/or The Odyssey - Two epics that inspired a lot of fiction that came later. (There’s an especial connection between Beowulf and Tolkien.) They’re not the easiest of reads because they’re in poetry and non-linear narratives, but both have a hero facing off against a series of monsters and/or magical creatures as their core story.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - The first real science fiction novel. It’s about the ethics of science and the consequences of one’s actions, and I loved seeing the Creature find himself and Frankenstein descend into … that. It’s also full of sweeping, gothic scenes and tension and doom and drama.

* 25 years, give or take

** There are plenty of more recent people using King Arthur and associated characters too, if this "subgenre” interests you.

Other fiction

Vicious by V.E. Schwab - I don’t know if you classify superheroes as science fiction or fantasy or its own genre (for me it depends on the day) but this is an excellent take on the subject, full of moral greyness and revenge.

David Mitchell - A literary fiction writer who has both a sense of humour and an interest in the fantastic and science fictional. He writes ordinary people and average lives marvelously well, keeps me turning pages, plays with form and timelines, and reliably throws in either recurring, possibly-immortal characters, good-vs-evil psychic battles, or other SF/F-y elements. I’d start with either Slade House, a ghost story, or Utopia Avenue, about a ‘60s rock band. Or possible The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which I fully admit to not having read yet.

Devolution by Max Brooks - A horror movie in book form, full of tension and desperation and jump scares and the problems with relying on modern technology. The monsters are Bigfeet. Reccing this one in the same way I’m reccing The Martian—it’s an accessible intro to its genre.

Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson - Contemporary fiction with a slight literary bent, that doesn’t pull its punches about Indigenous life but also has a sense of humour about the same. Follows a teen dealing with poverty and a bad home life and drugs and hormones—and the fact that his bio-dad might actually be the trickster Raven. Also features witches, magic, and other spirit-beings, so I generally pitch this as magic realism.

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones - Another Indigenous rec, this time a horror novel about ghosts and racism and trying to do the right thing. This’ll give you a taste of the more psychological end of the horror spectrum.

Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia - A good example of contemporary YA and how it handles the complexities of life, love, and growing up. Follows the writer of a fantasy webcomic who makes a friend who turns out to write fic of her story and who suddenly has to really balance online and offline life, among other pressures. Realistic portrait of mental health problems.

Non-fiction

The Book of Margery Kempe - The first English-language autobiography. Margery was very devout but also very badass, in a medieval sort of way. She went on pilgrimages to Jerusalem, was possibly epileptic, frequently “saw” Christ and Mary and demons, basically became a nun in middle age while staying married to her husband, and wound up on trial for heresy, before talking a monk into writing down her life story. It’s a fascinating window into the time period.

The Hammer and the Cross by Robert Ferguson - A history of medieval Norse people and how their explorations and trade shaped both their culture and the world.

A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor - Travel writing that was recommended to me by someone who raved about the prose and was totally right. Fermor’s looking back, with the aid of journals, on a walking trip he took across Europe in the 1930s. It’s a fascinating look at the era and an old way of life, and pretty much every “entry” has something of interest in it. He met all sorts of people.

Tim Severin and/or Thor Heyerdahl - More travel writing, this time by people recreating historical voyages (or what they believe to be historical voyages, ymmv) in period ships. Severin focuses on mythology (I’ve read The Ulysses Voyage and The Jason Voyage) and Heyerdahl’s known for Kon-Tiki, which is him “proving” that Polynesians made contact with South America. They both go into the history of the sailing and areas they’re travelling through, while also describing their surroundings and daily life, and, yes, running into storms and things.

Hope this helps you!

#bookblr #booklr #fantasy #read-alikes #answered asks #book recommendations #rec lists

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belfrygargoyles · 3 years

Note

Hi! I saw your post the other day about reader-inserts and from your points about fetishization, I’m wondering, when does someone’s writing move from a smut fic about a character they are attracted to, to it being fetishization? You mentioned two tropes used very often for Boba fett and din djarin, but are they simply going off of those characters’ traits and personalities while possibly amping them up for the sake of smut or is it just fetishization because the actors happen to be men of color? Sorry if this doesn’t really make sense, I’m just curious on your thoughts!

No it makes sense don't worry!

So, as a white person, in the end it is not my place to decide what is and is not fetishization- I try my best to be mindful of harmful stereotypes and caricatures based off of what I have seen other poc talk about. If I say something is fine, but a fan of color tells you it is harmful, listen to them before me. And also tell me so I can correct my mistake. I'm far from an authority on it.

That being said- and I'm going to put this under a readmore just because it might be mildly nsft and also discuss racist tropes

Just writing smut fic about a man of color on its own isnt fetishization- it's fine to be sexually attracted to someone and it's fine to have fantasies.

What you (and I mean the general "you," not you in specific anon) need to keep in mind though is the history of people of color (and this isn't exclusive to just men of color, but because the subject matter in question is regarding boba and din that will be the focus-) being subject to white sexual fantasies and stereotypes- I.E. brown men being stereotyped as aggressive, extremely sexual, physically imposing and dominating, often in contrast to a "delicate, sexually pure" white woman, the "spicy latino lover" stereotype, and the ways these have also historically been used to racially profile and convict men of color of sexual assault or harassment against white women who were simply made uncomfortable by the presence of a man with a different skin color.

Since we're talking about fictional characters, yes, there is a degree to which some traits might just be part of the character (and keep in mind that Star Wars canon also has a history of pretty egregious racism anyways-), but as a writer it is also on you to decide what kind of focus you put on these traits.

And this being said-

It becomes fetishization when these are the only traits authors focus on- yes, Boba Fett is highly skilled and sure of himself, he doesn't carry himself like someone who second-guesses his actions, and to many people, this commands respect. But Is he dominant? Is he aggressive? The single time he uses a term of "endearment," it is specifically to mock Bo-Katan, who just insulted his relationship with his heritage and Jango's memory completely off-base.

In many of the fics I see, Boba is only there to serve as a sexual object to dole out the role of the dominant party- there is none of his character in it, there is little substance that actually tells me 'okay, yeah, this author was writing about Boba Fett' rather than a preconstructed sexual fantasy they slapped his name on. Furthermore, over half of all fics in the Boba Fett/Reader tag were Explicit, and most of them include tags referencing rough sex, a submissive female reader, and some kind of power dynamic in which Boba holds power over the reader as employer, hunter/bounty, dom/sub, or a considerable age gap. They are not written as though the author really thinks that is what his character would do, but instead read like the author had a role already in mind that they adapted to him.

(And this point is relatively small, but it stands out to me- the use of Mando'a. I see it peppered in both Boba's and Din's dialogues in fics all the time, regardless of the probability that either of them would be fluent in it- it personally comes across to me the same way fics with a hispanic character will just add random spanish into their dialogue, which smacks of an author hyping up the "exotic" factor of another culture)

Din gets a similar treatment, just of a slightly different flavor. Again, they read like the author already had a premade scenario in their head and just wrote Din to fit, regardless of how in-character it would actually be, and snipped down his character to fit their idea of a dominant man.

And look, it's possible to write an explicit D/S fic with a dominant character of color without it being a racist stereotype or fetishizing. But you actually need to pay attention to the character and your own subconscious biases the whole way through.

#this is okay to reblog but also again i am absolutely not an authority on this in the slightest

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shalebridge-cradle · 3 years

Text

Historical References in What Are You Going to Do With Your Life? Chapter 13-15

Chapter 13

“Hey, that’s a gun! You can’t have that, it’s illegal!” Not quite right. Members of the UK public can own certain sporting rifles and shotguns, but handguns (like the one used by the robber) were effectively banned after 1996.

Before the 18th century, a crowbar was usually referred to simply as a ‘crow’ or ‘iron crow’ as far back as 1400 – the latter phrase is used by Shakespeare, in, again, Romeo and Juliet.

“Their pronunciation is atrocious – worse than Arthur’s.” Catherine of Aragon was definitely fluent in Latin, as was Prince Arthur, Henry’s ill-fated older brother. The two communicated via letters in Latin before Catherine came over to England, only to discover they learned different pronunciations when they tried to talk to each other. They could read what the other wrote, but couldn’t understand what they were saying.

Catherine Parr took after her godmother in her interest in languages, but she wasn’t afforded the same level of education as a Spanish princess was. She spoke French fluently, which we know because she spoke to ambassadors in French, and that she attempted to learn Spanish during her queenship. A letter from her stepson Prince Edward mentions that Parr was “progressing in the Latin tongue”, and Parr herself reprimanded the University of Cambridge for sending a missive in Latin; “and as they be Latin-ly written, (which is so signified unto me by those that be learned in the Latin tongue), so I know you could have uttered your desires and opinions familiarly in our vulgar tongue, aptest for my intelligence”. This may be false modesty, however, and we know she knew at least a little Latin, as well as Italian and Greek.

Chapter 14

“…actually, it can’t be that one, I’m here.” Henry reportedly could not, eh, perform with Anne of Cleves on their wedding night – while this might be because of his suspected impotence, he claimed it was because he had his doubts about Anne’s virginity, claiming that “I never for love of the woman consented to marry; nor yet, if she brought maidenhead (her virginity) with her, took [it] from her by true carnal copulation”.

The emails are both references, but one is more straightforward than the other. Anna’s is simple – 1515 was the year she was born. Richard Jones’ email address is an alchemical joke – 82 is the atomic number for lead, and 79 is for gold. Lead into gold.

Chapter 15

A Levels, also known as Advanced Levels, are the subject-based part of the school-leaving qualification in the United Kingdom (but not Scotland) and other parts of the world, including India, Nepal, Hong Kong, Singapore and Zimbabwe.

Anne of Cleves came over to England in January of 1540. Katherine Howard was executed in February of 1542. Two years, give or take.

4:50 from Paddington, known as What Mrs.McGillicuddy Saw in the U.S., is the seventh novel by Agatha Christie in the Miss Marple collection, and is the payoff of the Catherine of Aragon Murder Mystery Easter egg chain. It has been adapted into other mediums several times, including twice for television, the most recent adaptation in 2004 featuring Toby Marlow in a minor role.

The closest Catherine Parr came to death in her third marriage was when she argued about theology with Henry on a regular basis. Henry (and some conservative members of the court) did not appreciate this, and wrote up a warrant for Parr’s arrest on the grounds of heresy. Parr found out about this, and when she went to see Henry next, claimed she wasn’t arguing with him, but learning from him, “yet must I, and will I, refer my judgment in this, and in all other cases, to your majesty’s wisdom, as my only anchor, supreme head and governor here in earth, next under God, to lean unto”. Flattery tended to work well with Henry, and so Parr lived.

While most of the strange occurrences recounted by Parr are fiction, one or two are based off specific events said to have occurred in one of London’s most haunted houses, 50 Berkeley Square. Two sailors stayed in the house for one night, only to be frightened by an apparition that sent one of them running to find the police. The other was found dead on a fencepost, having fallen onto it in the presumed attempt to escape. While some sources say the apparition was an inhuman creature with a gaping mouth, some say it was the ghost of a previous owner – Thomas Meyers, who lived alone in the house after supposedly being rejected by his fiancee, slowly going insane and dying at the age of 76 in 1874.

‘Dizzard’ is a word meaning fool or idiot, most likely taken from the Middle English word disour, meaning a jester. It was apparently used during the 1500s. If so, Catherine Parr would be familiar with it – she had a female jester called, appropriately, Jane Foole. It has been theorised that the woman on the far left of that 1545 portrait of Henry’s family is in fact Jane Foole, with other favoured jester Will Somers on the other side.

(Why would you put your current wife in the painting you commissioned when you can put your clowns in instead?)

The plot is based on a tendency of Henry VIII’s which both Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn had experience with. Henry was a big fan of dressing up in disguises – one of his more famous costumes was Robin Hood, with his friends as the merry men. He would leave an event, get dressed up, return and demand dances and kisses from the present ladies. Everyone was expected to feign ignorance as to who the masked men were, then surprise when Henry revealed himself. The king got very sulky when people didn’t play along.

#the cradle will write #What Are You Going to Do With Your Life: Work

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feminetflix · 4 years

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De atracos y ab*rtos - Of heists and ab*rtions or How women are being robbed.

⚠️ this contains major spoilers for LA CASA DE PAPEL / MONEY HEIST season 1, specifically episode 3!

Personally, I have experienced the series la casa de papel (original title) or money heist as progressive, realistic and not afraid to deal with certain topics like domestic violence which I will be commenting on in posts yet to be published, female trans representation and occasionally peppered with numerous feminist parentheses (see characters like Nairobi and dialogues around/involving her opinion).

However, there are certain aspects I did not enjoy to watch / do not support. That is normal and every show has its flaws, those resulting all the more dangerous however, as money heist is not just any show. The series is thanks to its popularity by now a relevant aspect of people’s opinion-forming and plays into the perception of many people all around the world, coming from different cultures and having experienced all kinds of upbringing. The target audience is not specified, yet crime drama (the genre) is estimated to target both females and males aged 15-40 years old. Means, also targeting minors and adolescents. Again, all cultures / religions / races / classes etc etc included.

I am fully aware that this kind of range was not expected and therefore not taken into account by producers, talking about the first two seasons that were solely meant for a Spanish audience, not an international one. (The series was initially intended as a limited series to be told in two parts. It had its original run of 15 episodes on Spanish network Antena 3 from 2 May 2017 through 23 November 2017. Netflix acquired global streaming rights in late 2017). The analysed / discussed scene is indeed part of this maybe not so carefully crafted content. Cough.

Let’s get right into it.

Characters interacting: Mónica Gaztambide (Esther Acebo), one of the hostages who was also Arturo Román's secretary and introduced as his mistress and “Denver” (Jaime Lorente), one of the robbers participating in the heist [Denver is an alias, all robbers being referred to with city names]

Context: Mónica has an affair with Arturo Román (Enrique Arce) -hostage and former Director of the Royal Mint of Spain- which leads to an unwanted pregnancy. Numerous factors influence her (for now) final decision: she doesn’t want the child. Shortly after, the robbery unfolds and she’s taken hostage among other people. She then requests an ab*rtion pill, which at some point arrives in the mint alongside other medical supplies. The scene analysed: one of the robbers (Denver) is supposed to hand her mentioned ab*rtion pill. Before that he holds an emotional speech on the subject, morally risen forefinger, accusations and tears included.

Here the dialogue without comments:

————Now my opinion / the actual post:

“You need money, right?” One might think that the amount of money seen in this frame (20.000,-€ approx. $21.701,50 according to Denver) is an exaggerated, way too generous gesture. Let me tell you, it is not.

According to a 2017 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average cost of raising a child from birth [to] age 17 is $233,610. If that made your heart skip a beat, take a deep breath before you read on. Incorporating inflation costs, it will be more like $284,570. Since that’s based on 2015 numbers, we can expect the cost will be even higher, babies born since then.

[…] This average includes everything from housing, food and transportation to healthcare, education and childcare to clothing, personal care items and entertainment.

Let me now remind you that Mónica is a secretary, so she likely earns (barely) enough money to be financially independent herself (taking into account that she lives near or maybe even in Madrid, her workplace, the Royal Mint situated there, so housing alone is hella expensive) and can’t really expect reliable support coming from the potential child’s father, Arturo Román, either, who initially denied support himself, their relationship a secret to the family and wife he already has. Phew.

Btw: A University of California at San Francisco study found that women who were turned away from ab*rtion clinics […] were three times more likely to be below the poverty level two years later than women who were able to obtain ab*rtions. 76% of the "turnaways" ended up on unemployment benefits, compared with 44% of the women who had ab*rtions.

“Enough to get the kid diapers until he graduates.” The problem or let’s say points raised above are now also being ridiculed or not taken seriously to say the least.

She takes the money, sticking to her decision however. “So, what’s the problem?” Or “Then, what is it?” A million additional things, Denver, believe it or not a potential child is a big deal. That and none of your business.

Also, see the reaction? How he stares at her in disbelief (and possibly even disgust, see the risen corner of his lips?). How he looks at her as if she were heartless, selfish, a monster – the picture often painted in this debate when it comes to women who decide to terminate a pregnancy. How he doesn’t respect her “no, thanks” and continues. Continues influencing her, later on even starts to mansplain his way into her stone cold heart. Okay, then let me continue as well.

“That he’ll f*ck up your life? […] Your son. Better to have your life f*cked up by your son than any of these sons of b*tches. Or me.” Call it ‘f*ck up’ or not – that is entirely her perception, her decision and I’d dare to say…she knows best.

First, because regardless of the fact that she is a woman and you are not – well it is indeed her life and, uhm, excuse me Denver, you’re no sibling, no friend, no acquaintance, quite the contrary, you have known her for what? Three minutes and already jump to conclusions?

Take the privilege of explaining her how a child would f*ck or not f*ck up her life?!!

Secondly, what makes him assume the gender of this cluster of cells, this potential future life, this basis for a potential life that may later on develop into a life (it is not a walking talking baby boy already, my friend!).

Personhood begins after a fetus becomes “viable” (able to survive outside the womb) or after birth, not at conception.

Does it provide a smooth transition for that awfully funny and figurative “son” – “sons of b*tches” (org. Hijo – hijos de p*ta) line or is it literal propaganda?

Why does he say “your son”, although he cannot possibly know? I’ll tell you. In order to distract the audience from the fact that he is referring to a pea-sized basis for a potential life by painting the picture of an already existing male human being. Mónica, do you really want to murder your son? Mónica, does that cute little doe eyed baby boy really f*ck up your life? Yeah, propaganda at its best.

Also, another example for ridiculing the point “a child would destroy my life” by comparing an unwanted pregnancy to a literal robbery at gun point. Great one.

“This f*cks your life up. A kid doesn’t.” Do you see that raised gun, that is quite literally an extension of a raised index finger? Wow, the drama. On a different note, did you notice the symbolism? A weapon stands for death, murder and guess what is also often equated with murder.

“How do you know what f*cks up my life? What do you know?” Finally. Exactly. He doesn’t know her, like at all. He doesn’t know her situation and no, he’s also not the pregnant one or anyone who would have to worry about that.

What do you answer to that, hmm? Let’s make this whole dispute even more emotional and dramatic. That ‘a cute little son isn’t as bad as a robbery’ didn’t convince her?

Let’s try with an extraordinary f*cked up and tragic life story, nobody asked for. Its goal? Showing the oblivious, naive, little secretary what real ‘f*ck up’ means, despite the evident lack of any sort of knowledge when it comes to her life (story). Again, conclusion-jumping and wallowing in prejudice at its best.

Have a look at his expression while ‘lecturing’ her. How disrespectful, how belittling. ‘Oh please, what do you know about life?’. On a wider scale: ‘How could we possibly trust women to rationally and with a clear conscience decide such things for themselves – concerning life and death, if they have not the slightest idea, living in their bubble of security and stability and no real problems’ etc. This is everything but taking women and their reasoning abilities, their judgement seriously.

“My mother was going to ab*rt me.” Now the audience doesn’t only have the mental image of a potential cute little son, it is furthermore provided with the image of a living, breathing human being standing right in front of them. Just look at him and his pleading puppy dog eyes. No actual child actor could have done it better.

Thank god she did not go through with the ab*rtion, right? Oh thank god she was not allowed to.

Taking advantage of this frame to remind you of the fact that we are still talking about a POTENTIAL future life, not an existing one that is nevertheless put above the mother’s already existing life in this impudent, low and unfair debate.

“But first…she inhaled the heroin she had to sell to be able to pay for the ab*rtion. Then she was caught by the police. Between jail, drugs and the police, I was born. What do you know?”

1)Adding even more emotions, subtle accusations and drama to that oh so rational dispute? Check. Making his situation seem two thousand times worse than hers (which he, again, has no clue about)? Check. Subconsciously painting the picture of reckless, irresponsible drug addicts/ “lowlifes” or generally female members of “society’s margins” usually being the ones to abort and make it seem like the state’s or whoever’s responsibility to prevent them from deciding for themselves? Check.

2) Then he even tears her valid ‘what do you know (about my life)’ out of the initial context of being confronted with endless assumptions and prejudice and blows it way out of proportion in order to demonstrate the insignificance of … everything concerning her? Her background, her life, her reasons. Everything.

And FINALLY *drum rolls* the wild theories and hypotheses and presumptions she was dying to hear because since he, I repeat for the twelfth time, has no actual clue about her life, let’s make up one.

“Because it seems that you don’t have a very exciting job. And maybe outside of work your life is not that great either. Or what is it that you do? ‘Kilates’? And Friday night drinks, right? What a f*cking drag. Another plan ruined by the kid[…]” That and the entire following paragraph. Wow. All accusations thrown at women who decide to abort in one.

Because OF COURSE a middle aged, down to earth, intelligent, responsible woman like Mónica Gaztambide has no other reason for terminating a pregnancy than not being able to drink alcoholic beverages or party anymore. Because OF COURSE it is valid to assume a woman or any person for that matter one has known for half an hour and interacted with for literal five minutes has a boring enough life that would not be affected in any way by a pregnancy, birth and ultimately being forced to raise an unwanted child. Because OF COURSE Denver would know how much a pregnancy can affect somebody, especially one that is forced upon a person. Quite frankly he has no idea and no right. The audacity.

“Do [your friends who are also mothers] seem f*cked up? / Do their lives look f*cked up? No, right?” Because you know best. Not only regarding her life but on top of that also that of her friends. Because those pregnancies or motherhood in general did under no circumstances end a career or prevent them from pursuing one in the first place or cause the end of a relationship or force them to stay in a toxic or even abusive relationship or change their financial situation completely or rob them of their fragile financial independence and/or free time altogether or cause any (mental) health complications or … you get the point. Oh, and because their situations are completely identical to Mónica’s situation, that is additionally not half as dramatic as your life story. Of course, Denver.

Seeing the ‘rational’ argument doesn’t really work, let’s add yet another dramatic, emotional rhetorical question. As a precaution.

“Do you know how much a child can love you?”

How could she, being the heartless, cruel, selfish, irresponsible, ridiculous and impulsive murderess you’re ‘exposing’ her as?

⚠️ Another spoiler warning for seasons 3 and 4 and still 1.

Would Cincinnati - that’s her sons actual name, not alias – really love her like he does now?

Friendly reminder: his biological father (Arturo Román) let her know - right from the start - that he wouldn’t take on any responsibility whatsoever, regardless of his later statements about doing so. Why those statements don’t matter? Despite his awareness of her state, despite knowing she was pregnant he shortly after urges her on to steal the cellphone she is caught with right after the analysed scene, ready to risk her life and the potential life of his unborn child. Literally, because as soon as she is caught with it, Berlín orders Denver to execute her.

So to those of you who will now say “but- but Cincinnati is okay and has an amazing life and does love her” etc etc, first think certain things through. If Denver wouldn’t have spared her, if she didn’t just happen to get together with him and if the heist didn’t just happen to work out like that, what then?

Cincinnati would have a different name. What else? Well for one, he wouldn’t have a father (that is now Denver) like at all, resulting in possible daddy issues / issues in general. How I know Arturo, the biological father, wouldn’t be there for them, wouldn’t fulfill all his empty promises?

Did he canonically care about his son? Was he devastated that he was not given the possibility to see him or did he instead focus on that random book of his and his speeches about heroism and honour and so on? If he wouldn’t have called his wife by his mistress’s name and through that expose himself, if his family wouldn’t have left him all alone, don’t you think he would stick to them? Just to paint a picture of who the father is and how he behaves and what we can assume from that behaviour. So the probability was high she would’ve been left alone with I quote “all the love” and of course all the responsibility. It’s a thing, Denver.

Secondly, if she didn’t just happen to turn into a millionaire thanks to the heist working out, would she really be able to provide a life for Cincinnati? Would she really be able to remain financially independent? Would her life at her son’s side really be all peace and harmony if she wouldn’t just so happen to be able to live from heist money?

So many coincidences, so many risks and no security. Can we really blame her? Do we have the right?

With these questions I will end this seemingly endless post and leave you to think about it, reflect certain things and – if you want to – share your opinion(s) with me. Please don’t hesitate to do so, as long as those contain rational arguments and most importantly respect. Thank you for reading!

(Also: sorry for the extensive censoring, I had to, otherwise it wouldn’t appear in the tags.)

#la casa de papel #lcdp #money heist #choice feminism #why we need feminism

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carinasfm · 4 years

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* mona lisa saperstein vc * i’m so friggin excited right now , i could crap my pants ! hi y’all ya girl mae ( 21+ + she / her + est ) is here with her dramatic daughter carina ! she’s the broadway actress you didn’t ask for , yet here she fucking is ! i’m so excited to play her , i’ve never gotten to play her before + my muse is Inspired™ ! you can hit me up for plots here or on discord ! my discord is 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑏𝑒 𝖘𝖚𝖘𝖕𝖎𝖈𝖎𝖔𝖚𝖘#4904 ( can u tell i love mona lisa + parks and recs ? cause i do ) hit that little heart button so i can annoy your cute ass , okie ? thankssssssss !!

new york’s very own 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒂 𝒋𝒂𝒄𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 was spotted on broadway street in 𝒸𝒽𝓁𝑜𝑒́ 𝓈𝓊𝓈𝒶𝓃𝒶 𝒷𝑜𝑜𝓉𝓈 . your resemblance to 𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒂 𝒈𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒛 is unreal . according to tmz , you just had your 𝟸𝟺ᵗʰ birthday bash . while living in nyc , you’ve been labeled as being 𝒽𝒾𝓈𝓉𝓇𝒾𝑜𝓃𝒾𝒸 , but also 𝓅𝒶𝓈𝓈𝒾𝑜𝓃𝒶𝓉𝑒 . i guess being a 𝒍𝒆𝒐 explains that . 3 things that would paint a better picture of you would be 𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓃𝒹𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒸𝑒𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝓈𝓉𝒶𝑔𝑒 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓈𝓅𝑜𝓉𝓁𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 , 𝑒𝓂𝓅𝓉𝓎 𝒷𝑜𝓉𝓉𝓁𝑒𝓈 𝑜𝒻 𝑒𝓍𝓅𝑒𝓃𝓈𝒾𝓋𝑒 𝓇𝑒𝒹 𝓌𝒾𝓃𝑒 & 𝓉𝒶𝒸𝑜 𝓉𝓊𝑒𝓈𝒹𝒶𝓎𝓈 𝑜𝓃 𝓉𝓊𝑒𝓈𝒹𝒶𝓎𝓈 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓉𝒽𝓊𝓇𝓈𝒹𝒶𝓎𝓈 . ( i was sexually assaulted when i was thirteen by my teacher ) + ( cisfemale + she / her )

𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒈𝒆𝒓 𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 : pedophilia + sexual assault

𝒷𝒶𝓈𝒾𝒸𝓈

𝑓𝑢𝑙𝑙 𝑛𝑎𝑚𝑒 : carina dulce jacinto 𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑘𝑛𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑠 : cari , rinny , cj , jace ( ha - say ) 𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑏𝑖𝑟𝑡𝘩 + 𝑎𝑔𝑒 : august 12th , 1996 + 24 𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛 : leo 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 + 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑠 : cisgender female + she / her 𝑠𝑒𝑥𝑢𝑎𝑙 + 𝑟𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 : pansexual + panromantic 𝑒𝑡𝘩𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦 : mexican 𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 : american 𝑚𝑜𝑡𝘩𝑒𝑟 + 𝑓𝑎𝑡𝘩𝑒𝑟 : claudia jacinto + mateo trevino 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑏𝑖𝑟𝑡𝘩 : phoenix , arizona 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 : manhattan , new york 𝑜𝑐𝑐𝑢𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 : eurydice in hadestown on broadway 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 / 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑝𝑜 : phillipa soo , taylor louderman , eva noblezada + anna kendrick 𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑢𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑠 𝑠𝑝𝑜𝑘𝑒𝑛 : english ( primary ) , spanish ( secondary ) , italian + french 𝑓𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 : passionate , eloquent , captivating , focused , observant , confident , intuitive + witty 𝑢𝑛𝑓𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 : historic , critical , indulgent , opinionated , mercurial , candid , pretentious + realistic 𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑚 : to win a tony for best performance by a leading actress in a musical

𝒷𝒶𝒸𝓀𝑔𝓇𝑜𝓊𝓃𝒹

carina was born to a young single mother in phoenix , az

her father high tailed it out of the picture once he found out carina was on the way

carina’s mother had big dreams of becoming a hollywood actress , wanting to

carina’s mother was the one that pushed her daughter into acting , signing her up for local commercials + the likes until she gained some traction as a popular baby/toddler in commercials

after a few years of continuing on with commercials carina finally took a break when it was interfering with school , much to her mother’s dismay

but still carina had the acting bug + wanted to do community theater in her free time

when she wasn’t preparing for play , she’d make one up herself + act it out for her mother if she’d let her , if not she’d just rehearse by herself until she memorized all the lines she wrote

this continued into middle school , where she became “ that girl ” the theater girl

she didn’t mind the label , in fact she took advantage of it + became THE theater girl of her school

the english teacher that was also the theater teacher praised her for her work + they grew to have a very close relationship

he was a father figure that she never had

until he wasn’t

𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒈𝒆𝒓 𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈

mr. guzman saw how alone carina was + while for a time he was an authority figure that helped her , he soon became so much more

it started with a ride home after theater practice , the young tween had called her mother to no avail , but she hadn’t picked up + home was a two mile walk . doable , but mr. guzman saw she was in need + offered her a ride

in the car it was really the first time that carina had been alone with mr. guzman in an enclosed space , if they were alone it was usually on the stage

the drive was pleasant , they made small talk + he asked her how eighth grade was going , she was in seventh when she had him as her teacher

when they finally pulled into her driveway she thanked him + started to get out but his hand grabbed a little above her knee + soon it was moving its way up her thigh

only 13 + dubbed as “ the theater girl ” by her peers she never had any romantic or sexual experience , so she froze unsure of what to do or say

that first night it ended with a soft pat on the thigh before she was able to run out the door

but soon the rides were a regular occurrence + his hand didn’t stop at her thigh

after months of this continuing on carina lost her love + passion for theater

𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒈𝒆𝒓 𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈

she quit theater + became a recluse all the way up until junior year of high school

she again grew close to a teacher , this time a female teacher , her us government teacher that often brought up difficult subjects for the students to discuss

after hearing + reading about different hard topics , carina finally told mrs. reyes what had happened to her back in middle school

it was the first time that she had ever told anyone what had happened to her + though mrs. reyes pushed , carina didn’t report or tell anyone else

but with mrs. reyes by her side her senior year she got back into theater . falling back in love with the thing that held a lot of emotions for her

after graduation carina was all set to attend nyu with a double major in performing arts as well as film + media production

she moved to new york early , wanting to get a head start on moving in + earning some cash before classes started

while she was working as a barista she overheard director talking about auditions for an off broadway play + this grabbed carina’s attention

she quickly introduced herself + snagged an audition , she landed a feature role

this was the beginning of her broadway career at the mere age of 17 , something she had always dreamed of

her role in the off broadway play took her into the middle of october + in september she was already auditioning for roles in a broadway play while she attended nyu

she soon gained traction , directors were discussing her performances , even minor roles , on broadway

carina still continued to take classes at nyu but her focus had shifted from getting a degree to landing a leading role on broadway

when she was nineteen her dreams came true , she got the lead role as eliza in hamilton

from that role she sky rocketed to fame , she performed for the president , beyonce , oprah , kristin chenoweth , meryl streep + many more

carina was barely able to handle how fast her fame came , she still thought of herself as the small town girl from a working class home with a young single mom

because of how much attention hamilton was receiving , carina had to take a step back from school

she took a leave of absence , vowing that she would be back + while she’s taken some classes here + there she still hasn’t gone back fully due to her continued success on broadway

from 2016 - 2017 she was cast as sonya rostova in natasha , pierre + the great comet of 1812

in 2018 carina became regina george in mean girls

and in 2019 she claimed the role of eurydice in hadestown

new york , specifically the upper west side , has become carina’s home

𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓃𝑒𝒸𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃𝓈

( 𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒆 𝒐𝒓 𝒅𝒊𝒆 ) once the two met they were inseparable . without siblings carina thinks of them as her own family . she’ll do anything for them + hopefully vice versa !

( 𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆 ) the person carina moved in with when she started out in new york . they could still be close or they could not talk at all .

( 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒖𝒑𝒕𝒐𝒓 ) they see carina + they see gullible , gullible , gullible . they’ll do anything to manipulate carina to get something for themselves .

( 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒃𝒖𝒅𝒅𝒊𝒆𝒔 ) anyone that carina has worked with on broadway .

( 𝒅𝒊𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒐𝒓 ) someone that carina has worked closely with to ensure an honest + authentic performance .

#╰ ˚ ⋆ ◜ 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒂 𝒹 . 𝒋𝒂𝒄𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 ╱ 𝒸𝒶𝓉𝒶𝓁𝑜𝑔 𝒶𝓈 › munings . ◞#wealthyhq:intro #this is kinda late but i've been working on resources soooo...#i'm gonna stick to that excuse ;)

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wrrgod · 4 years

Text

( EMERAUDE TOUBIA. THIRTY. CIS FEMALE. SHE/HER. ) in texas, SCARLETT JIMINEZ is more commonly known as SCAR. they’ve been living in newton for TWELVE YEARS and currently OWNER OF A TATTOO PARLOUR / HITWOMAN. some say they are MANIPULATIVE & RUTHLESS but i’m more inclined to believe those that say they’re RESOURCEFUL & DETERMINED. if you walk by their house, you can sometimes hear ARSONIST’S LULLABYE by HOZIER playing from their window. ( patience on 3%, well worn leather jackets, red lipstick stains, willing to fight the world, the sound of a tattoo gun. )

hello ! it is i, your local demon isabela with yet another demon character. scarlett is one of my oldest muses and i’ve tweaked her backstory up a bit to bring her to the group. as usual, hit me up for plots and all that good stuff.

PINTEREST BOARD !

NAME. scarlett amelia ramirez jiminez. NICKNAME. scar. AGE. thirty. GENDER. cis female. PRONOUNS. she/her. SEXUAL ORIENTATION. bisexual. ROMANTIC ORIENTATION. biromantic. HOMETOWN. seattle, washington. OCCUPATION. owner of a tattoo parlour / hitwoman.

ZODIAC. aries. POSITIVE TRAITS. resourceful, determined, tenacious. NEGATIVE TRAITS. manipulative, aggressive, ruthless. TEMPERAMENT. choleric. LANGUAGES SPOKEN. english, spanish.

HEIGHT. 5′4 EYE COLOR. dark brown. HAIR COLOR. black. TATTOOS. displayed on her pinterest board.

QUICK INFO.

trigger warnings: murder, violence, mention of weapons ... isabela tw basically.

scarlett was born on a rainy night, in seattle, daughter of leyla khalil ramirez and no father in sight. as it were, it was more than fitting that she was born during a storm, as the years would pass and scarlett herself would prove to be a storm of a woman.

because her father wasn’t around, scarlett was raised solely by her mother. leyla was involved in the criminal life for as long as she could recall. growing up, scarlett was more or less involved in it. although her mother tried to keep her out of her business, she wasn’t naive; as such, from a young age she began teaching her how to fight, how to fire a gun, how to walk through a room without being noticed or alternatively, how to be the center of attention. initially, it was only as a means of self-defense. she wanted her to be ready should anything ( or anyone ) happen. but as time went on, the lessons also turned out to be a good outlet for scarlett’s anger. no one expected the petite girl to be able to hold her own, let alone take someone down, and being underestimated only fueled her. there was nothing more satisfying than seeing the look on their faces as she proved them wrong.

she always wondered about who her father was, or what had happened between her parents, why the hell he wasn’t by her mother’s side. whenever she brought up the subject, leyla told her that he had left to protect them. scarlett never bought it ... her mother did dangerous things, her life always threatened, yet she was still around. she’d always been around. for a while, scar thought it was her fault that her father left.

for the first few years of her life, she didn’t truly understand what it was that her mother did for a living or why she was so hellbent on teaching scarlett how to defend herself ( or how to conveniently get rid of someone ). while most of the girls her age were playing dress up and going to the mall, scarlett was learning the most effective ways to send a man thrice her size to the ground. leyla worked as a tattoo artist, but scar always knew there was more. something she wasn’t aware of, something she shouldn’t be aware of ... until the day came for her to find out. leyla was a hitwoman.

the news didn’t shock scarlett as much as it probably should have. she was only 16 when her mother told her the truth, but she’d already gone through so much training, seen and done so much by then, that she simply saw the world differently. and she knew it was only a matter of time until she followed in her mother’s footsteps.

however, it wasn’t until one of her last conversations with her mother that leyla told her the truth about her father. scarlett learned that she was the product of a one night stand, that her father was a gang member, that he didn’t know she existed. she got a name and a town: eduardo ‘eddie’ jiminez, newton.

that was one of her last conversations with her mother because her mother got killed during a job gone wrong. an eighteen year old scarlett sought to avenge her mother, finding the one who had dared to take from her the only love she’d ever known. it didn’t matter that they’d most likely killed leyla to protect their own life. once that was taken care of, she packed up her things and set off with one destination in mind: newton. her father may not have known about her, and maybe he wouldn’t want anything to do with her, but she needed to see it for herself. she needed to see him for herself.

when she arrived in newton, it was fairly easy to find eddie given his position as former VP and then president in the diablos. the man was skeptical at first, for obvious reasons, but he’d welcomed her anyway. scarlett offered the idea of a paternity test, not only for his benefit but also for her own. she had nothing to lose and she knew her mother had no reason to lie, not about this. with scientific evidence, there were no doubts left. she was his daughter.

since then, they’ve been trying to make up for lost time ─ which proves to be even harder than one would already expect, given scarlett’s nature. still, she decided she was going to stay in newton officially. she also decided to take on his last name, which was more of a power play than anything else. she knows how the towns work and she’s not afraid to take advantage of it.

she became the owner of a tattoo parlour, named diamond ink, fully taking on the job as a tattoo artist. she does, however, work a less orthodox job on the side. just like her mother was, scarlett is a hitwoman.

she’s very private in general, actually. doesn’t like sharing too much about herself, tends to be more reserved. usually, it takes a while of knowing someone until she feels comfortable enough to open up, even about the smallest things.

she has a bit of a temper and is always getting into fights, can be impulsive and often times, reckless. doesn’t have much regard for her safety.

too headstrong and stubborn for her own good.

5′4 but the heels she always has on rarely lets people realize it tbh.

can be very manipulative. it’s how she was raised and she took to the part perfectly. more often than not, she’ll play someone solely because she can, because she wants to, because she’s good at it.

not about that forgive and forget kind of life. resent and remember is more her pace. she’s incredibly loyal ( though it’s hard to pinpoint where exactly her loyalty lies ) if you earn her trust, willing to kill and die for those she cares about, but once you wrong her she’s out, showing her resentful and unforgiving traits.

her nickname isn’t scar just because it’s short for her name. it truly does fit her. scarlett is deadly and vicious, and when she doesn’t want to leave a corpse behind, she still leaves marks ─ in more ways than one.

WANTED CONNECTIONS.

partners in crime ─ always getting in trouble together, whether it be in an illegal sense or not.

clients ─ people she has tattooed before ?? people who ask for her specifically ?? who knows. this one is pretty much always open.

employees ─ people who work at her tattoo shop, either as fellow tattoo artists or anything fitting !

drinking buddies ─ they may not be exactly close to one another or consider themselves friends, but they often get together for drinks and such.

friends with benefits / flings ─ they don’t actually have to be friends; could be just someone she goes to when she’s in the mood.

hateship ─ they can’t stand each other, and whenever they are together, they’re fighting… until they end up pressed against each other, bodies tangled together. that’s how it seems to always go. i’d love to plot this more in depth and work out the quirks and all.

unexpected friends ─ two people who no one ever thought would get along, let alone be friends, and yet they are.

ride or die ─ one of the very few people that she actually trusts, and it goes both ways. they are always there for each other, good or bad.

sibling figure ─ they’re not actually related, but they see each other as siblings.

one night stands ─ they hooked up once, maybe now it’s awkward, maybe it brought them closer, who knows ?? we can discuss details.

flirtationship ─ they enjoy the flirting, the chase and the back and forth that comes with it, but have never acted upon their attraction towards each other.

enemies ─ people are bound to hate each other, right ? give me that angst. we can discuss details.

frenemies ─ not exactly friends but not really enemies either. for whatever reason, they are somewhere in between.

good / bad influences ─ people that are a good influence on scar, that try to get her to be a better person generally speaking. it doesn’t really work, but for some reason they keep trying ! alternatively, someone who encourages her to keep up her ways.

anything and everything tbh

#rideintro.#( 𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐓 𝐉𝐈𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐙 ) / * about .

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rayslablr · 5 years

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I could really use help with the difference between mismo and igual. I don't know when I should use which one.

Hello Rachael!

This is a very good question!! I never actually thought of the difference between both concepts haha, it always came natural to me. But this is how differentiate them:

{Artículo}Mismo

As you see, this concept needs the use of a definite article, considering on the gender of the subject/noun because Spanish always gives gender to things so you gotta look for the noun first.

P1: Me gusta tu camisa. Yo tengo la misma (I like your shirt. I have the same one)

P2: ¿En serio? Veo que nos gustan las mismas cosas (Really? I see that we like the same things)

You see it all depends on the noun (female or male) for the article to use. In this case, “camisa” is female so the article is “la”; that is the same case with “cosas” since is female and plural it comes with “las”. But remember that there are a lot of articles and el, la, los, las aren’t the only articles.

Now, the article that I think troubles the majority of Spanish learners. Neuter definite article: “lo”. Not to confuse with the personal pronoun, lo. But how to differentiate them? Lo + verb: personal pronoun, while Lo + not-a-verb: neuter definite article.

To make things clear, we use {Lo} mismo to talk about abstract matters, as well as ello, esto, eso and aquello meaning that when you talk about vague or general things you use those terms.

P1: Ayer fui al cine con mi familia (Yesterday, I went to the movie theater with my family)

P2: Yo tambiénhice lo mismo, ¿cuál viste? (I did the same (thing), which one did you watch?)

Don’t use “lo mismo” with living things!! People, animal, any living thing is not abstract so the rule wouldn’t apply, and you would kinda denigrate/invalidate them if you think about it.

Igual

If we use igual to modify a noun, the meaning is the same one as {artículo} mismo.

+ Mimamá compró un vestido que es igual que el mío. (My mom bought a dress that is the same as mine)

+ Mi mamá compró un vestido que es el mismo que el mío. (My mom bought a dress that is the same as mine)

But the difference lies in that igual, besides meaning “the same thing”, it can also mean “in the same way”, which means that it modify adjectives, verbs, and other things besides nouns since it becomes an adverb.

+ Luisa se vistió igual que yo, así que vamos las dos igual de guapas.(Luisa dressed herself just like me (in the same way), so we both look just as pretty (in the same beautiful way).

So basically, igual indicates that two things are similar to one another but not literally the same while {artículo} mismo is used to talk about literal sameness, exactness.

+ Tu carro es igual al mío. (Your car is the same as mine): indicates that the car looks the same, has the same color and size but it is a different style/brand.

+ Mis amigos y yo estudiamos en el mismo colegio. (My friends and I study in the same school): indicates that they go to the same, specific school.

Most of the time, lo mismo e igual can be interchangeable, so don’t stress over it. Remember that this is a language and not a science/math formula and I’m giving you a guideline to help you with your intuition so it’s okay to make mistakes.

I hope this helps you with your question! Have a wonderful day! :)

#studyblr #langblr #spanish language #spanish langblr #spanish #language learning #mismo e igual #spanish vocabulary #spanish differencies #spanish learning #mine #txtp #answered #studyspo

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howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 5 years

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“It’s submission to fear. It’s a submission to intimidation.”

▲ From an FFWPU presentation given in 2019 to push members to liberate their ancestors. LINK

Updated October 16, 2019

Peter B Collins spoke with Ford Greene on his September 28, 2012 podcast.

Ford Greene: A good response [to the accusation of brainwashing] is certainly, “Well, Gee, all religions brainwash”. But that is just a glib response when you really look at what the techniques of brainwashing are, and what the consequences of brainwashing are, meaning the type of control that can lead to either suicide or homicide as it has in many cases, of course most notable being Jonestown in 1978. Then it is a little bit different. Although certainly you can go back to the Spanish Inquisition and the types of absolute beliefs that were inculcated into sectarian Catholic minds there that had a consequence of employing torture and all kinds of just really horrendous practices on people who were non-believers. But the communist Chinese form of brainwashing, which is what Moon really has used for decades, that’s a lot different from the colloquial use of the term to describe a set of beliefs [with] which somebody disagrees. And spin masters for the Moon church and for other cults know that. Part of their charge is to mainstream a cult, and is to make the organization not seem as strange as it really is.

So if you don’t have a good grasp of what the subject matter is, as in any situation when you’re dealing with a psycho-politician, you are going to get cooked because you don’t have the detail and you don’t have the facts to confront them and put them on the spot.

Peter B Collins: How did you become deprogrammed? What did it take?

Ford: Getting out of the environment where there is the constant reinforcement that Moon is the messiah, that the individual comes from a Satanically tainted blood lineage and therefore any questions you have with respect to the orders that you get, and accepting the messianic assertions of Moon, are evidence of your spiritual defectiveness – being out of that atmosphere, sure that helps. But the game is not over there because those absolute type ideas are deeply inculcated into one’s psyche, and generally inculcated along the lines that they came in in the first place. And those lines generally have to do with whatever the psychological weaknesses were of the person who was indoctrinated. So the deprogramming part of it isn’t just being taken out of the soup. It’s confronting how one has been cooked in the soup and reasserting one’s own independence and ability to think independently. Add two and two and come up with four, rather than come up with five as the training gets you to do [when you are] inside an ideologically remolding regime like what the Moonies do.

Peter: Now you have participated in, or led, the deprogramming of many individuals who left the Unification Church. Is there a routine process or, as you said, do you have to learn about people’s own psychological make-up in order understand what their attraction and bond was to the coercive persuasion.

Ford: It is both. There again, language is so important because it is not an attraction and it is not really a bond. It’s submission to fear. It’s a submission to intimidation. The idea, in a vacuum, that you are dealing with somebody who’s got absolute authority of goodness, of God, of love, of moral character, and you are on the other end of the spectrum. You are coming from Satan, coming from defectiveness. When you take that context over [a period of] time, the depth of the psychological intimidation that can result is really huge and that’s why in the brainwashing process it’s necessary to remove points of reference, to remove prior relationships, to remove prior relationships with one’s own ideas and one’s own thinking and replace those with what the cult wants you to do. So, to answer your question, is there a regular protocol when it comes to deprogramming, yes and no. Because all persons who have been programmed have been programmed according to a certain structure and there is a consistency in terms of what their lifestyle has been; how they have been bullied and intimidated; how they have been scared, and how they have submitted. So in that regard, yeah, there is a consistency. But in terms of how personally what it is that’s made them submit, whether or not they had a childhood of sexual abuse, and the real reason they became involved with the cult was because the cult promised to be able to help them heal from the consequences of that. Then those more personal factors come into play too. So you’ve really got to play it by ear and go where the getting’s good based on one’s judgement in the moment.

Peter: Archbishop Stallings and other apologists for Moon essentially claim that first of all the term Messiah is overblown; that he was a Messiah and not the Messiah.

Ford: Talking about the meaning of the word messiah, it is sort of “Oh, Gee, I guess we are all messiahs.” (laughter) And personally that is the point that I prefer. But when you’re in an organization that places all power, all influence, all spiritual authority in the person of one living human being, and then specifically remove any sort of authority from other people, that kind of objectification is what helps set up what Robert Jay Lifton characterized as an atrocity producing situation where you’ve got complete objectification on one side and you’ve got the total exercise of power on the other side. More often than not what happens in that context is the expression of sadism that’s inherent in just about every human being. And so the use and utility of the term messiah assumes much broader meaning than the watered-down version that it sounds like Stallings tried to promote.

https://www.peterbcollins.com/2012/09/28/ford-greene-attorney-and-moonie-de-programmer-on-the-death-of-rev-moon-gary-chew-reviews-the-master-maxine-doogan-tells-californians-no-on-prop-35/

________________________________

George Augustus Stallings Jr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Augustus_Stallings_Jr.

________________________________

Total Living Offering, 2003: Agree to sign over your house, land, etc.

The way the Japanese membership are exploited by the Moon family is an example of sadism.

“As you know, our Japanese Church has been selling their houses and all their assets to support our activities” – Sun Myung Moon

Shocking video of UC of Japan demanding money

Atsuko Kumon Hong “suicide / murder” of August 2013

“Sell your house if you love Japan” – members squeezed dry just after March 2011 disaster.

Japanese woman recruited and sold by FFWPU to a Korean farmer

Moon extracted $500 million from Japanese female members

6,500 women missing from FFWPU mass weddings

FFWPU / UC of Japan used members for profit, not religious purposes

#Ford Greene #FFWPU #fear #exploitation #Sun Myung Moon

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pennyfynotes · 6 years

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8.2.18 // 4:30pm // school subjects and AP exams oh my

so i recently (ok not so recently i’m sorry super busy rn) got an ask from an anon about subject specific tips and ap exams. this is the masterpost i told you to look out for ;). there are no ap exams in college, but some of the stuff is still applicable. i did my best to be as comprehensive as possible and dump everything in one place. hope this is helpful! xoxo, m ps. guess where the actual tips are? if you said “under the cut” then you’re right bc i’m predicable af

tips by subject:

languages (i took spanish): 1. flashcards are your friend. i don’t care if they’re digital (would recommend quizlet or studyblue) or paper, but they help immensely with either vocab or things like remembering literature.

2. charts are also your friend. conjugations giving you a hard time? write out a chart of the different tenses and the conjugations for each subject. put down some of the irregulars too.

3. acronyms/pnemonics are also also your friend. a lot of these already exist, you just have to go find them. i’m pretty sure i still remember what “wedding” stands for for the spanish subjunctive.

4. it’s ok to start over. it’s easy to start a sentence based on what you’d say in english. you’re doing fine until *bam* you hit that word/phrase you really need but you have no clue how to say it. whether it’s an oral or written exam, take a few seconds to think about it and, if you can’t figure it out, just back track. restart the sentence and rework it. better to do that than to lose all your time thinking of one word you may or may not know.

5. skirt around things. if you can’t remember how to say fridge but you really need to say it for something, just say “machine that keeps food cold” or something. it might sound silly, but it gets the point across and removes the road block.

6. make a list. no, not a to do list. if there’s phrases you find yourself reaching for all the time, but you can never remember, make a list of them and their translations. it might be because its a phrase/part of a sentence structure you use a lot in your native language or whatever. make that list and drill just those few phrases into your head. it’s helpful

english/language arts: 1. proofread. i guarantee you’ll find a mistake, a sentence that makes no sense, or one that just sounds cringy. thank me later.

2. have a damn thesis. its ok if you just need to write and spit words/ideas out for a while to figure it out. but figure it out.

3. conclusion ~= introduction. for those of you who didn’t get the tilde, it means not. yes, they both tie your points to your thesis but they are not to same. do not just reword the same information in the conclusion. push your ideas just a little further. i usually like the push them a little bit outside the realm of what i talked about in my paper. for example, if i focused on the first 5 chapters of the book in the rest of my paper, i’ll expand the ideas to the rest of the book. or if i’m talking about female characters and focus on just one or two, i’ll use the conclusion to potentially connect it to another.

4. have favorites. pick a few fav transitions, sentence structures, and fancy vocab words. basically build a toolbox. this way you won’t have to think as hard when you want to “spice up” your work.

5. summaries only go so far. once you get to higher level english classes, there will be a lot of analysis of specific imagery, or wording, or dialogue. reading cliff notes is only going to give you the plot and none of this. if you don’t have time to read and you’ve been assigned a pretty standard english novel/play/whatever, take the time to look up some famous quotes or symbols. they’ll probably come up in discussion and this will help you look less unprepared.

6. have on question/comment ready. if your teacher/prof is into discussions and grades on participation, it’s handy to write down one (or a few) things. it’s easy to forget what you were going to say while you follow the discussion and it sucks to get docked points for not saying anything. even if it’s just a thoughtful question, jot it down.

history: 1. lol prob my weakest subject, just go see the apush (ap us history) section bc i don’t have much more for you than that.

science: 1. back to basics. i say it all the time, i’ll say it again. really understand basic concepts. they will come back. i’m serious.

2. pattern recognition. science problems are often times about recognizing patterns. once you identify the type of problem it is, even if you’ve never seen the exact one/something similar before, solving it becomes way easier.

3. make a recipe book. tied to the last one, but once you recognize a type of problem, you need steps to solve it. go through any practice problems you’re given to determine all the “types” of problems. once you’ve categorized them, make yourself a step-by-step guide on how to solve.

4. flashcards. you’ll have to know polyatomic ions or random biology facts. see languages tip #1 for more.

5. note your errors in lab. if you do something wrong, don’t just try to brush it under the table and forget about it. not that it’s a big deal, because its not, so don’t freak out. they’re just great opportunities to note sources of error. i mean obviously dont write in your lab report that you weren’t paying attention and mixed the wrong chemicals, but something like “we may not have waited sufficient time for the product to dry” can explain why you got 800% yield.

6. have a toolkit. kinda like a recipe book, but just a collection of straight facts that come up often. knowing common molecular weights and chemical properties (is ammonia acidic or basic?) will make things go faster. like i said earlier, polyatomic ions are also great.

7. brush up on some simple arithmetic. similar to the tool kit, this will just make things go faster. being able to quickly add things and calculate easy percentages (ex: 30%) will make things like hw and exams go faster. i’m of the opinion it’s always good to know how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide w/o a calculator (on paper, not all in your head)

bonus: math #5 and #7

math: 1. see science #1

2. see science #2

3. see science #3

4. see science #4. see a pattern here? you might wonder why you need to flashcard math, but it’s good for learning equations or the names of certain techniques. if the prof asks you to solve something using X technique and you don’t know what that is, that’s gonna pose a problem. also good for the unit circle (don’t get me started)

5. figure out your speed. this is applicable to most everything, but i find it most relevant for math. is it better for you to speed through the whole exam and then do it all again/check it over 2x? or for you to take it slow so you know you got everything right the first time? personally i use the first approach, but i’m a fast taker and prefer to have time to process between repeating problems instead of staring at it forever once and never looking again.

6. science #7. a lot of teachers will expect you to be able to do this.

7. go over the material a couple times. also applicable to everything. i find it’s easier to remember things when i know that concepts are connected. you might have learned X 3 weeks before Y, but if you go back over, you might realize they’re closely related. this will help you if you’re not sure on a test because you can reason through things using the connections you’ve drawn

tips by ap course (obv look at the subject above bc i will be giving *really specific stuff* here that i’ve gathered from experience. they’re also ordered by when i took them, sorry it’s not super logical but i didn’t want to forget one)

general ap course/exam tips: 1. practice exams. you need to be familiar with what will/will not show up. you don’t always need to simulate and real testing situation, but i’d recommend doing at least 1-2 that way. also *know how many questions they’re are you so can pace yourself!!!!*

2. college board is pretty good about giving topic breakdowns. use those. go through and figure out what topics you’re solid on and which need more work. the above tip is to help decipher what the topics actually mean bc it can be confusing.

3. give the free response a quick flip through. do the ones you’re confident on first.

4. make sure you know the policies/what you can bring. don’t want to forget something. also once our test administrator tried to stop us 10 minutes early, but we were on top of our shit and all gave her a death glare bc we knew when we were supposed to finish.

ap chemistry: 1. polyatomic ions and molecular weights. know them

2. chapter/section reviews (in addition to class notes) and how-to guides. my teacher made us make them and let’s just say your girl did *really* well (and i’m damn proud of that one)

3. do a quick skim of the free response. applicable to most exams but, the year i took it, they’d just remade and re-curved the exam and put *way* too many free response. like no one finished them. if that’s still the case, make sure you do the one’s you’re confident on. also, i did not get to like 3 questions and still got a 5. they may have fixed this idk. (sorry this is redundant but i wanted to give this ap chem exam specific info)

ap environmental science: 1. there is a lot of damn information here. i would use chapter outlines and pick out key terms, policies, and events etc. treat this like a history class.

2. for the exam, use common sense. most of the time, the most environmentally friendly answer is the right one. if you just have a general gist of the course and its topics, but don’t know a lot of details, go with your intuition and you should be fine. i didn’t have a lot of time to study for this one and this method worked for me.

ap calc bc: 1. memorize standard derivatives. power rule, sin and cos, chain rule. that’s important.

2. similarly, memorize standard integrals.

3. don’t forget +c for indefinite integrals. just don’t.

4. similarly, if it’s definite, don’t forget to evaluate at the end! super easy thing to do, but also super easy way to lose points if you forget.

5. if the integral looks complicated, that probably means there’s a “trick” involved. u substitution, integration by parts, trig substitution. something like that.

6. memorize some standard series’, operations, and types (arithmetic, geometric etc)

7. if you’re looking at a word problem, understand what is dependent on your variable and what isn’t (in other words, what’s a constant). for example, if it says the water flows into the barrel at 50 mL/s and flows out at 1/5 times the volume, that translate to F = 50 - (1/5)V. don’t make things more complicated by trying to write everything in terms of V (in this example). also, your equation might just be a constant term or just a variable term doesn’t have to be both.

8. know what your derivative is with respect to/what it really means. aka if your problem is talking about flow and volume, how are they related to each other? flow is the change in volume *with respect to time*. so if i differentiate volume with respect to time, i get flow. if i integrate flow with respect to time, i get volume. this also helps you make sense of word problems.

*disclaimer*: it is been 5 years since i took this class and i have taken quite a few math classes after. i apologize if i introduce anything that is a little irrelevant.

ap spanish language: 1. flashcard. like seriously. there’s gonna be vocab involved.

2. understand what’s asked. for the persuasive email. *be persuasive*

3. toolkit. i mentioned this before but this was probably the most useful for this class. our teacher gave us a bunch of fancier words to use instead of causar (to cause) because that was a word we’d need a lot. the one that still sticks with me 4 years later is fomentar. have a few alternatives for these kinds of super common words, a good greeting and closing for your email, and a set of good transitions. *make sure you know how to use them properly*

4. write stuff down during listening. you can either answer questions during the first listen, then take notes the second to catch stuff you missed or vice versa.

5. it’s ok to backtrack in the speaking. don’t let yourself get stuck and just not say anything. it’ll freak you out for the rest of the exam and will rob you from showing off what you know. also take notes of things you want to mention based off cultural knowledge of the situation related to the dialogue.

6. don’t zone out. with everything going on and all the stress, it’s easy to zone out (esp during the conversation). don’t do it or you’ll have a hard time responding and freak yourself out (again)

7. don’t lose your place in the convo! they give you a sheet that shows you how many times the other “person” will talk. i lost track and said goodbye one segment early. it was bad ok. all these conversation tips are from personal experience.

ap statistics: 1. know the different kinds of tests inside and out. know the differences and the conditions. if you’ve got that, you’re like 75% the way there.

2. be familiar with sample vs population. it’s a bit confusing, but take the time to understand.

3. ok sorry i really don’t remember anything else. this exam really isn’t that difficult (in my opinion), you’ll be ok.

ap physics c: 1. free body diagrams. understand how to draw them *and draw them*. they will carry you through mechanics. draw gravitational force, normal if there’s a surface, and then any other given forces.

2. basic equations. you get an equation sheet, but knowing the equations means you know the concepts and the relations between them. big ones are f=ma and the equations relating position (x), velocity (v), and acceleration (a). also friction f=uN.

3. *normal isn’t always the opposite direction of gravity!!!!* gravity is straight down. normal is perpendicular to the surface.

4. vector components. please don’t just add vectors. break them down into components and then add or you are so fucked.

5. get familiar with triangles. this will help with the whole component thing.

6. kirchoffs rules are so helpful. know them.

7. understand the relations between voltage/potential and current in terms of the properties of circuit elements. that means the equations for resistors, capacitors, and inductors.

8. know how to add in parallel and series. it’s important. also! if the circuit is drawn “weird” a good way to know series vs parallel is that parallel elements share two nodes and that series circuits only share 1.

9. sorry i kinda blocked out E+M bc i didn’t know what i was doing (or so i thought). i still got a 4 tho so that curve is generous.

ap us history: 1. chapter outlines. pretty self explanatory.

2. make a timeline. put important events, sentiments, policies, and presidents. if you can associate these things together into time periods it will be easier. most of the time, any one question (esp long response or whatever they’re called) will only focus on 1 time period.

3. sentiments are important. if you know nothing else, know these bc they will help guide you through questions by reasoning even if you know nothing else.

4. gilder lehrman (or similar us history summaries). these are tailor specifically to apush bc they are organized by period (i think that’s what they were called?). i actually fell asleep listening to these bc i didn’t have time to study. they were mildly helpful, but every little bit helps right?

ap psychology: 1. chapter outlines/flashcards. this course is based heavily on key terms and less so on larger concepts.

2. ok sorry i took this online i remember literally nothing except how annoying my teacher was and that the exam was easy. if you know terminology i think you should do fine.

ap biology: 1. there is a lot. go through all the topics and make sure you’re solid. start with the big picture, then think about narrowing down.

2. know how charts work. things like pedigrees, punnet squares, and evolution trees (that’s def not the right term). some of the exam will just be interpretation of this.

3. i am so sorry i remember nothing else.

ap spanish literature: 1. flashcards. title, author, time period, short summary, key elements (a line, character, symbol). this is *so helpful*

2. think about the works in relation to each other. you might be asked to compare them. even if they ask you to compare something on the reading list with something new, you’ll be familiar with the points you might talk about.

3. know the lit terms. more flashcards. associate them with a particular work if you can/need to.

4. don’t freak on the listening. a lot of the recordings are old and shitty quality. take a deep breath and try your best. know that the rest of the test takers (excepting maybe natives) are experiencing the same thing.

5. use that tool box. see general spanish and ap spanish lang.

this is so freaking long and i think the moral of the story is that i blocked out my senior year ap exams. i hope this was helpful and, if you have more questions, or want more stuff like this, let me know!

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spanishskulduggery · 5 years

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Can you explain when to use articles in Spanish?

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Full Disclosure: I still mess this up myself. If there are rules I wasn’t taught all of them. I know certain situations when you use them and when you don’t, so a lot of this is coming from other places I’m going to link.

There are times when the definite article will show up as al or del which is a+el or de+el, so it’s a preposition + the article.

I will say that there are more times when articles appear than when they’re omitted. There are times when articles are replaced by possessives [my, your, his/her], demonstratives [this, that, these, those], or some other word, but using the articles are way more common for Spanish than in English.

These are primarily the rules for when to use definite articles. Indefinite articles have less rules (and their usage makes more sense honestly), but I’m going to include more information in the links below.

You use definite article after the gustar-type verbs like gustar, molestar, encantar, importar, interesar and so on.Me gusta la blusa. = I like the blouse.Los libros no me interesan. = Books don’t interest me.Me importa un cacahuete. = I don’t care at all. [lit. “it matters to me a peanut”]Me importa un pepino. = I don’t care at all. [lit. “it matters to me a cucumber”](There are all kinds of words people use to say “I could care less”)

You normally use definite articles when referring to days of the week, either el or losVamos el lunes. = We’re going on Monday.Los viernes tengo clase todo el día. = On Fridays / Every Friday I have class all day.

Same thing with seasonsLa primavera es la estación favorita de mi madre. = Spring is my mother’s favorite season.Los inviernos son muy duros. = Winters are very hard.

Basically anytime you’re talking about time [minus words like hoy, ayer, and mañana when it means “tomorrow”], you need a definite or indefinite article in some way, shape, or formVamos a la una. = We’re going at 1 o’clock.El día de hoy… = Today… / In present day…Un día… = One day…

Used for nouns in generalLa psicología es el estudio de la mente. = Psychology is the study of the mind.Los libros son importantes. = Books are important.

Used for people, specifically when pointing people out. Also used when talking about people who have a title [señor, señora, etc.]… When addressing someone directly, you do not usually use the articles.El hombre sigue hablando. = The man keeps talking.Un hombre sigue hablando. = A man keeps talking.Ella habla con la Sra. Romero. = She’s talking to Mrs. Romero.Ella habla con unos profesores. = She’s talking to some teachers.Tengo fiebre, Doctor(a). = I have a fever, Doctor.

Used when talking about people, specifically when you’re using an adjective, nationality, or profession to describe them. This is important because whether it’s los or las could impact what you’re saying:Los doctores… = Doctores…Las doctoras… = Female doctors [specifically talking about women as doctors]…Los franceses… = The French… [could be either “French people” or “French men” but I would say it makes more sense to say los hombres fanceses to be clearer]Las francesas… = French women…Unos doctores… = Some doctors…Unas doctoras… = Some female doctors…Unos franceses… = Some French people…Unas francesas… = Some French women…

Used with most languages EXCEPT in some specific cases (usually verbs), or when you use enEl español es uno de las lenguas romances. = Spanish is one of the Romance Languages.Quiero aprender español. = I want to learn Spanish.En español… = In Spanish…Quiero aprender español en español como los nativos. = I want to learn Spanish in Spanish like native speakers.

It’s more common to use definite or indefinite articles [or some kind of demonstrative or possessive, but that’s not what we’re talking about] with articles of clothing.Los pantalones son negros. = The pants are black.La camisa no me queda bien. = The shirt doesn’t fit me very well.Quiero la bufanda. = I want the scarf.Quiero una bufanda. = I want a scarf.

Especially with parts of the body, you see the definite article… This is really when you’re using reflexive verbs, or using something like doler (which is a gustar verb), but when it’s very clear from the expression that the body part could only be yours, you use the definite article and not a possessiveMe duele la garganta. = My throat hurts. [lit. “the throat hurts me”]Me duelen los pies. = My feet hurt. [lit. “the feet hurt me”]Me lavo la cara. = I’m washing my face. [lit. “I wash myself the face”]Me lavo las manos. = I’m washing my hands. [lit. “I wash myself the hands”]

Used when talking possessions while not using possessive adjectivesEl libro de mi madre. = My mother’s bookEl reloj de Ana. = Ana’s clock/watchLa tía de mi vecino = My neighbor’s aunt

Used to describe a specific time period or a specific era within a country or a movement… It’s really all about clarifying and making something particular, used in relative clauses or to specify or emphasize something.La Roma de Julio César… = Julius Caesar’s Rome… [or, “Rome during the time of Julius Caesar”]El surrealismo en Latinoamérica… = Surrealism in Latin America…La mujer que conocía no es la misma mujer de hoy. = The woman I used to know is not the same woman today.

Used with superlative comparisonsEs la chica más lista en nuestra clase. = She’s the smartest girl in our class.Es el mejor atleta. = He’s the best athlete.

There are some other rules, but the articles (definite or indefinite) are omitted during particular phrases, expressions, and when you’re sounding very informal. I would say that this “sounding informal” thing does work some of the time, but other times it makes it sound more like you don’t know.

Here are some links that might help:

https://www.spanishdict.com/guide/using-the-definite-article-in-spanish

https://www.spanishdict.com/guide/using-the-indefinite-article-in-spanish

https://www.spanishdict.com/guide/using-the-neuter-article-lo-in-spanish

https://www.thoughtco.com/use-and-omission-of-definite-article-3078144

http://roble.pntic.mec.es/acid0002/index_archivos/Gramatica/articulos_definidos.htm

http://roble.pntic.mec.es/acid0002/index_archivos/Gramatica/articulos_indefinidos.htm

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In most cases when you’re unsure, use the articles. The above is specifically about the definite articles but it still generally holds true.

For indefinite articles, you use it specifically when you would say “a/an”, and used for things you’re counting... so unos hombres or unas mujeres are “a few men” and “a few women”; same thing with algunos hombres or algunas mujeres “some men” and “some women”. The rules are a little different for the specific articles, but they are primarily used for counting.

And, personally, the one I mess up the most is when it’s being used with the name of a language. Typically if you’re using aprender “to learn” or enseñar “to teach”, you don’t need the article... aprender español. And the same for when you see en... like en español.

The caveat being that sometimes the article can be used to be even more specific... so while I would say something like escribió en español “he/she wrote in Spanish”, I would say something like escribió usando el español anticuado/histórico “he/she wrote using historical/antiquated Spanish”.

The same thing exists with countries... leer sobre/acerca de España “to read about Spain” vs. leer sobre/acerca de la España de los 80 [ochenta] “to read about Spain in the 80s”.

I will also say that when you see general concepts, subjects, or ideas or art/literary movements, the definite articles are generally more appropriate... la sabiduría “wisdom”, la justicia “justice”, el amor “love”, el engaño “deception”, la decepción “disappointment”... el modernismo “modernism”, el surrealismo “surrealism”, el romance “romance”, las matemáticas “mathematics / math(s)”, la historia “history / story”, la química “chemistry”

You see the articles less when used in set phrases... By that I mean something like los libros de amor “books about love”, where los libros has the article, but amor doesn’t... even in longer adjective phrases like... los libros de ciencias políticas “books on political science”.

But make no mistake, at no point will anyone not understand you if you use the article where you shouldn’t, or omit it where it’s necessary. It’s more that you don’t sound like a native speaker, but people understand you.

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