#my name the house on mango street

[chaotic-theatrical-weaver]

On name and identity, or in which Ellie Is Normal About Names (lying through her teeth):

Tumblr textpost by eyelessfog / "My Name," The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros / "Name initials may influence grades: study," Reuters / Quora response to "What does the phrase 'nomen est omen' mean?" / "Fall Away," twenty one pilots / "Trapdoor," twenty one pilots / "Forest," twenty one pilots / "Redecorate," twenty one pilots / "The Record Player Song," Daisy the Great / screenshots from will80sbyers' gifset of Stranger Things' "The Weirdo on Maple Street," (Season 1, Episode 2) / Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng / The Crucible, Arthur Miller

[philipkindreddickhead]

100 Fiction Books to Read Before You Die

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Book of Margery Kempe by Margery Kempe

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Sparks

The Girl by Meridel Le Sueur

The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Veronica by Mary Gaitskill

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Kindred by Octavia Butler

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Passing by Nella Larson

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

Play it as it Lays by Joan Didion

The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende

Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

The Power by Naomi Alderman

The Street by Ann Petry

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskill

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Small Island by Andrea Levy

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

The Price of Salt/Carol by Patricia Highsmith

Room by Emma Donoghue

The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch

Garden of Earthly Delights by Joyce Carol Oates

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Wise Blood by Flannery O Conner

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsey

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

House of Incest by Anaïs Nin

The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Corregidora by Gayl Jones

Whose Names are Unknown by Sanora Babb

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

See Now Then by Jamaica Kincaid

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

My Antonia by Willa Cather

Democracy by Joan Didion

Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates

The Violent Bear it Away by Flannery O Connor

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

I Must Betray You be Ruta Sepetys

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

The Mare by Mary Gaitskill

City of Beasts by Isabel Allende

Fledgling by Octavia Butler

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin

The First Bad Man by Miranda July

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Moses, Man of the Mountain by Zora Neale Hurston

Disobedience by Naomi Alderman

Quicksand by Nella Larsen

The Narrows by Ann Petry

The Blood of Others by Simone de Beauvoir

Under the Sea by Rachel Carson

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

Under the Net by Iris Murdoch

The Birdcatcher by Gayl Jones

Desert of the Heart by Jane Rule

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa

@gaydalf @kishipurrun @unsentimentaltranslator @algolagniaa @stariduks @hippodamoi

[otrtbs]

10 books to know me 📚

thank you for the tag @anouri !!! <3

ten books to know me or know what i like to read about?? hmm. i'll tag the books and some quotes to convince you to read them.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt ~ the only book ever. jk. but it is my favorite. i read it 1-3x a year. would take it w me on a deserted island. all that.

"A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don’t get to choose our own hearts. We can’t make ourselves want what’s good for us or what’s good for other people. We don’t get to choose the people we are."

"And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch."

"As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how."

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë ~ moody and damp in a way that seeps into your bones and refuses to leave.

“You said I killed you-haunt me, then! [...] Be with me always-take any form-drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!”

“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”

What My Mother and I Don't Talk About by Michele Filgate ~ collection of essays about people's relationships with their mothers.

“The hunger I feel is so unreasonable I can’t parse it, even to myself. But I want to be the daughter of this mother, the one who lives in a pink building, the one who dances.”

“I love you past the sun and the moon and the stars,” she’d always say to me when I was little. But I just want her to love me here. Now. On Earth.”

A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket ~ yes, the whole series. read them as a kid and they're why i am the way that i am.

"I will love you as a thief loves a gallery...as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong."

"To Beatrice— Darling, dearest, dead."

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott ~ comfort read! it's coziness and comfort in book form! jo march n me are the same and we're besties.

"I keep turning over new leaves, and spoiling them, as I used to spoil my copybooks; and I make so many beginnings there never will be an end."

“The humblest tasks get beautified if loving hands do them.”

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros ~ read this as a young teenager and it's stuck with me ever since.

"And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window."

"Their strength is secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep."

Play it As it Lays by Joan Didion ~ it's just a book for your early 20s i think.

“There was a silence. Something real was happening: this was, as it were, her life. If she could keep that in mind she would be able to play it through, do the right thing, whatever that meant.”

Ways of Seeing by John Berger ~ all about art and capitalism and observation. 13/10 read.

“The mirror was often used as a symbol of the vanity of woman. The moralizing, however, was mostly hypocritical. You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting "Vanity", thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure.”

“The bogus religiosity which now surrounds original works of art, and which is ultimately dependent upon their market value, has become the substitute for what paintings lost when the camera made them reproducible.”

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner ~ haunting, southern gothic, stream-of-consciousness style that embedded itself into my 17 yr old brain and never left

“Memory believes before knowing remembers.”

“That’s what they mean by the womb of time: the agony and the despair of spreading bones, the hard girdle in which lie the outraged entrails of events.”

Turtles All The Way Down by John Green ~ i'd be doing teenage nat a disservice if at least one john green novel didn't make the list

“I was so good at being a kid, and so terrible at being whatever I was now.”

“You can’t control it, that’s the thing,” I said. “Life is not something you wield, you know?”

tagging some of youse bc i wanna see what you're reading! 😋 (absolutely no pressure!!) : @twisted-tales-told @rollercoasterwords @euphorial-docx @rays-of-raven @anythingforourmoonysstuff + anyone else who wants to play!! say i tagged you !! <333

[cafeleningrad]

23 Books in 2023

@mrs-storm-andrews tagged me a while ago to name 23 books I read this year. This year was rather rocky, so no 23 book titles, reading thoroughly wasn't really in the cards for several months. However here are some titles for fun reading the endless titles for studies don't count...

Getrude and Claudius by John Updyke

Posession by Antionia S. Byatt

The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye by Antonia S. Byatt

Butter by Yuzuki Asako (Personal favourite!)

Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann (also a personal favourite)

Sisi by Karen Duve

Травля, the Hunt by Sasha Filipenko

zur See! by Dörte Hansen

Djamilja by Cingiz Aijtmatov (however the names are latinized in English...)

the white ship by Cingiz Aijtmatov

Miss Smilla's sense for snow by Peter Høeg

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Susanne Collins

the Bloody Chamber and other stories by Angela Carter

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski

Lapvona by Otessa Moshfeg

la Belle sauvage by Phillip Pullmann

other people's clothes by Calla Henkel

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisnero

the big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

honourable mentions of BD and manga: re-read of le Chat du Rabbin (defintie recommendation), Dungeon Meshi, re-read of the entire Noragami series, and part 3 of my lesbian experience with loneliness by Nagata Kabi

honourable mention of Ephraim Kishon's shorts as they never fail to make me laugh.

Next up, if anyone would like to share their favourite titles from this year: @bookwyrrn, @maddenedbythesstars, @thewitch-2077, @bengalaas. @moviestorian, @quimaera, @frederick-the-great, @bigre-fichtre, @nikita-not-nikola, @ante--meridiem, @historia-vitae-magpie, @rainhalydia, @janiedean, @devilinthebox

[r4bidog]

  ` 도강재  ;   selective blog for DO GANG-JAE of n * tflix series ' my name ' .   𝐛𝐲 𝐧𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐲 . mentioned topics : * if you kick a dog , you'll get bitten , poisoned minds , fists of violent men ... they should have killed you !

PROMO i ; DOCS ; PINBOARD .

basic.

NAME : do gang-jae

NICKNAMED : dongcheon's golden boy , rabid dog , attack hound , drug king , pretty boy

AGE : 26

SEX : cis male

MARITAL STATUS : single

PREFERENCE : bisexual / demiromantic

OCCUPATION : dongcheon's best fighter ( formerly ; made a mistake and got kicked out ) , different jobs around the bars for a few years ( formerly ) , drug lord / owner of white horse nightclub / korea's most dangerous gangster ( currently )

looks.

OCULAR HUES : dark brown

LOCKS : brown / dyed half blonde afterwards

SKIN PIGMENTATION : pale ( often tainted by bruises and scratches )

HEIGHT : 5'10"

TATTOOS : many ( pair of wings on each of his shoulder blades , many on his hands , ' focus ' written on his left brow , a tiny heart on his v-line , all around his neck )

HOW DOES HE DRESS ? messy , unfashionable ; often wearing leather or fur jackets and leaving the front of them open and hanging from his shoulders , loose black sweatpants , a worn out dinosaur sweater , heavy combat boots , etc.

connections.

PARENTS : do jihun ( father ; he sends him money now , never goes to see him in the hospital as he's struggling with illness ) , dae nara ( mother ; he doesn't remember her , she left his father when he was seven )

FRIENDS : all dongcheon boys ( he kills most of them when he attacks dongcheon ) , cheol-su ( only friend ) , mango ( the man that provided him a lab to test his new drug product in , but after he had enough money to pay him for it / acquaintances ) , iseul ( dongcheon's medic , ex bestfriend )

ENEMIES : choi mu-jin ( ex boss , new enemy ) , jung taeju ( ex trainer ) , song jiwoon , jeon pildo , etc.

LOVERS : none

verses.

0 ; he's a student , he has problems in his house with his alcoholic father and he misses a mother he doesn't even remember . most evenings you can find him stalking mister choi mujin and begging him to take him to dongcheon , down on his knees , as his friends laugh at him , until mujin asks his men to send him away . / age : 15 - 17

1 ; dongcheon's best fighter , can knock out men twice his size . he's skinny and fast , he never backs down from a challenge even when he can't even throw a fist . / age : 18 - 24

2 ; he's kicked out of dongcheon with a deep gash on his face . mujin's punishment for hurting the new girl that he brought personally ; out in the streets now , he's open target . he somehow survives , works in weird jobs in the bars mango lets him in while he cooks up his new product . a better brand of poison , more addicting and twice intense , better than mujin's . / age : 24 - 26

3 ; he is the drug king of korea . he's choi mujin's biggest enemy , he blocks his business and steals all his dealers and costumers . and swears he will murder jiwoon and have mujin watch . / age : 26

[librarycards]

If u are still doing the book rec’s 👉👈 this is a mixed bag but: Whipping Girl by Julia Serano, Trash by Dorothy Allison, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, The Last Unicorn by Peter S Beagle, n uh.. Frankenstein

got some fine classics here, ty for sending!

recs:

My Name is Monster, Katie Hale

Fight Night, Miriam Toews

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars, Kai Cheng Thom

Bonus: Pizza Girl, Jean Kyoung Frazier

[candiedspit]

Hypochondria

Tomorrow it will be all champagne and light and that deep undercarriage of a voluptuous sadness; a forever pang. Tomorrow my tide will turn into oblivion and I will walk as I was meant to walk with the others snubbed by time. Tomorrow it will all be over with. Tomorrow, thirty. I say it with a touch of my teeth.

I have built a little life for myself; a light box. 

I have black, gnarly cigars in the afternoon as I read The Post, pretending I am a business man waiting on a very important call. Any minute, the white house. My mouth tastes of rye and soot. And in the evenings, I pair my cigarettes with a tall, beaming glass of hot milk. I spend my time well. I go out on the rooftop naked as a seal as my laundry hangs from pink plastic clips and dries in the upheavals of a great wind. Nobody sees me aside from the sun, that glorious bastards in his spins of heaven. I walk from corner to corner beneath a pair of violet sunglasses; I love only mangled hearts. My latest rose was an inmate at the penitentiary. His name was Mark. In photos he sent, he is dark haired and tall and with the face of someone who would walk on a tightrope for the chance to be held. That Bukowski nose. He loved honey bees, the glean of a sharpened knife and the idea of me. 

I spritzed my letters with vanilla perfume and admitted my sins in ballpoint. I’m a bad whore, I confessed once. Just the muddied technicolor slick coating the streets once the rain has passed. A dream you had as a child, sick in bed with dengue. 

Do you ever get so sad you can’t walk? He asked in return. 

I never replied again. 

I taped the letter up above my bed where it still rests. He sent one last letter a few weeks later which simply read: Darling? I couldn’t bring myself to answer him, his glaring question. I often dreamt of him and I in a tugboat. In the dreams, we danced against the backdrop of a wondrous moonlight, free as animals. I miss him as one misses childhood. But to the plains you can never return. He touched me with his ink. But we could not have lasted. He was in for fifteen more years. He never told me what he had done. Just something awful. 

In the photos I sent him, my hair is bleached and cut three inches above my shoulders. I stare into the camera as though it could love me. But nothing ever does. I don’t deserve him. Or anything much. I’m a Leviathan, a creep. In the very pit of my soul is a desire for carnage. I would hurt you given the chance. And I would not look back. As a child, my mother told me I ought to be a starlet. But I have nothing to offer. She must have mistaken this cruelty for attraction. If you scooped your hand into my skull, you would come back up with a fist full of dirt. So, I keep myself away, tucked in corners nobody can reach. 

For the last ten years, I have worked as a telephone girl, someone men call when they are unable or unwilling to allow themselves the grace of touch. When a mere voice is enough. I am fast, quick and easy. I say all the right things. No hang ups, apologies or arguments. I speak, tease and hang up. I call them sweetheart and leave. My hours are from ten in the evening to four in the morning. The sea of men beckons through the night: Fonda, Fonda, Fonda! My name is the sound the mind makes in a silent room. 

My apartment is speckled with porcelain cats and bras and orange wigs and sheer curtains and seashells and emptied pill bottles. I drink from long glasses. I do not do the dishes. 

Ruby wants to take me out tonight. 

Ruby is my only friend, someone I met at a karaoke bar at eighteen when I was all pleated skirts and lipsticks and mangos. When I hadn’t yet realized how deep my black root ran. Ruby is a beautiful person. She works in a cafe, has many friends and does many things. But each week she carves out hours for me. Sometimes we talk shit for hours, the words babbling over themselves. Other times, we sit in front of the television like infants, dumb and silent and content with light and noise. 

Ruby is due to arrive soon. 

I put out my burning cigarette and rise from the velvet of the couch and put on a fresh pot of coffee. I dress myself in a simplistic black dress with stretched stockings covering my pink, smooth legs. Chandeliers hang from my ears. As I straighten my hair again, the doorbell rings out a penetrative aria. And suddenly — Ruby is there in an olive green dress coating her body like the prettiest of cellophane. Her hair is especially red, burning through the daylight like the first fire from which humanity was birthed. In which humans realized exactly what they were and imagined what they could be. Her naked shoulders are exposed and smattered with freckles. I kiss her on the mouth and she steps inside.

We are going to the ballet. For a few hours, we will sit in the midst of a crowd and watch the thin, elegant dancers twirl and leap and stagger through the bliss of music and lace. Mozart will play overhead like some kind of dream. And in the morning, the world will be over with.

Let some light in for Christs’ sake, Ruby says, getting up to split the curtains open. Sunlight blasts through the room like the shine of an atom bomb. 

I should not have let myself live. 

[gregor-samsung]

“ In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing. It was my great-grandmother's name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse—which is supposed to be bad luck if you're born female—but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women strong. My great-grandmother. I would've liked to have known her, a wild horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That's the way he did it. And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window. At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister's name—Magdalena—which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza. I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do. “

Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street; 1st edition: Arte Público Press, Houston (TX), USA, 1984.

[elaine-abroad]

Volume 2 Part 2

We were each allowed a free drink as long as it didn’t exceed 5000 won, but instead of that, our group decided to split bingsoo which is essentially Korean shaved ice. My table got mango bingsoo and it was very very good.

Mango bingsoo with ice cream on top

The last stop of the day was our choice which ended up being the Blue House. If you’re wondering what the Blue House is, it’s literally Korea’s White House but colored blue. The Korean name is “Cheong Wa Dae” which translates to “blue tile-roofed house”. It’s a very original idea. The color of the building is pretty, but everyone kind of rolled their eyes when they found out what it was for. 

Much like the White House, the Blue House was the home and office for 12 Korean presidents from August of 1948 to May of 2022. So apparently the president stopped living there and is somewhere else now. It’s become a full tourist attraction which is probably why we were allowed in many rooms. 

We got to see the Sejong Room where the Cabinet meetings to deliberate on important government policies were held. We saw the Inwang Room, named after a mountain to the west of the house. Unlike the other rooms, it’s decorated in more of a Western style. It was used as a small banquet hall for meetings, luncheons, dinners, and joint conferences for when foreign heads of state visited. We also saw the Chungmu Room which was used for meetings and to make appointments with large groups.

Portraits with previous presidents on the wall

A lot of us were tired as it was nearing 6 pm. We headed back to the dorms in groups, but it wasn’t the end of my day. During the tour, I made a new friend named Koryn and recruited her to join Grace and I’s daily adventures. She too has been avoiding restaurants by herself. She’s from Hawaii and it’s her first time to another country so I just invited her to join us.

The three of us walked and walked and walked until we hit the area near Yonsei University in search of approachable food with vegetarian options for Grace. We noticed that the further we walked in this area the more pubs, bars, and people came. There was music booming all around and a lot of people in their own groups just smoking. 

We stumbled across the chicken cutlet and curry place. It had a kiosk so we thought we could just do take out, but they said to order first and wait until there’s space to sit. The layout of the interior was interesting as there weren’t tables. It was just one long wooden counter everyone sat at and each seat was separated by plexiglass dividers. The food was served on trays to each of us individually. I guess it’s a good place to go if you’re alone. This was a huge accomplishment for us as we actually sat down and had food in the restaurant by ourselves. The food was really good too so we were all happy.

Chicken, rice, curry, sides, and spicy miso soup

And of course we had to end the night with a Nice2CU convenience store trip. I wanted the blue drink Grace got the first time and has been raving about it since and it tasted just like a blue Otterpop. 

The next day was Saturday, and our first weekend in Seoul. Our new group consisted of Bianca, Koryn, Grace, and I. We headed off to a full day in Hongdae which had a lot of cute shops, clothing stores, and food stands. 

The streets of Hongdae were full of color, patterns, and people. I really enjoyed looking around.

We didn’t get too far before fatigue from the heat got to us. Grace and I got some food at an egg sandwich place while the others cooled down.

We resumed our stroll along the streets and saw some really interesting buildings.

Grace is into shopping so we made a couple stops for her to check out. We even went to a local mall and found some really cute stores. There are a lot of stores with characters I have never seen before but seem to be really popular here.

Once we pretty much exhausted our shopping limit, we made the executive decision to go to a dog cafe. I’ve never been to any animal cafe so I was really looking forward to seeing what it was about. I know some cafes actually serve you food in a little shop, but the place we were going to was on the third floor so we didn’t know what to really expect. Turns out you just had to pay the admission fee which let you stay for a set amount of time and then you could purchase drinks as well. 

There were dogs of all sizes and breeds. Some were sillier and more sociable than others. All the dogs start barking every time someone comes up the stairs and it’s really funny. One of the dogs was a little strange and overly excited to the point of aggression as he bit Grace in the leg when we arrived. The workers were not pleased with him at all and kept apologizing/checking in. He was eventually sent to the sleep room where other dogs came from. There were actually way more dogs than I expected too. My favorites were these brother and sister Golden Retrievers who could actually retrieve unlike my dog. One brought the customer their drinks in a basket and the other took their money.

I normally don’t like small dogs, but these ones were cute. The workers would come pick them up and place them in our laps. Sometimes they would even voluntarily climb onto us. They were very friendly and fun to pet.

After our time was up, we went to Homi Art Shop which was quite the art store. It has more art supplies than Michael’s but less craft supplies. 

I was told by a fellow STAMPS student that near the art shop were these marshmallow ice creams that were blowtorched in front of you. I’ve seen them on social media before so I already knew I had to find it. I’ve never seen anything like this in America before. It was basically a literal block of ice cream encased in a layer of marshmallow and then blowtorched. Their advertising said frozen s'more. It was pretty cool.

To end the day and the week, we headed to a restaurant for dinner. I don’t know how to describe it because it wasn’t kbbq, but it had that concept of sharing between several people. It was prepared on a grill thing but the waiters did it for us. Also, Bianca ordered 4 bottles of soju which was not what I expected. If you know me at all, I don’t drink alcohol for any other reason than I think it tastes super gross. Everyone I know says they don’t drink it for the taste, but I just can’t get past the hand sanitizer taste. I had higher hopes for soju since I’ve seen lots of Tiktoks where people make concoctions that mask the taste. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any flavored ones so we were stuck with the rubbing alcohol tasting ones. It was so gross I couldn’t have more than one shot glass full. But it cost me a couple bucks so we just took the remaining home with us. And now it’s just sitting in my fridge. 

Anyways, we had to make one last stop for tanghulu, or candied fruit. The line for it was extremely long and basically cut through the street. The fruit itself was freezing but good nonetheless. Overall, a great first week.

Settling into a new school and country has been very eventful. As I approach the end of the second week, I can say it hasn’t been too crazy so far. But the next few days are filled with adventures so I have high hopes. I’ll make sure to continue taking pics for this thing.

Bye bye

-Elaine

[not-poignant]

32 & 62 pls!

32: What is your favourite color?

It honestly changes, but anything generally green or blue (especially a peacock blue) is a safe bet. I also really love bright reds. But there's no colour I don't love, and I don't have an exact favourite. :D Right now I'm really enjoying grass greens.

62: What makes you happy?

That's honestly a question for the ages, because Major Depressive Disorder means sometimes nothing makes me happy, and not consistently.

But... in general, when I'm not in an episode, I am easily pleased, though it may not seem like it in my social media, because I often forget to post when I'm happy, because I'm too busy living in the moment-

The way jarrah trees all blossom at the same time.

A perfectly ripe peach

Raspberries

Fresh sheets

When Moet snuggles into the small of my back in winter

My other cat Maybe sitting on the top of my chair and nuzzling my head

Shibari and kinbaku

A really good brewed cup of oolong or green tea

Crunching on ice

Rewatching my favourite shows

Starting a new game of Stardew Valley

Talking with my friends

Seeing my Mum on Fridays

The sound of black cockatoos as they fly overhead, heavy and proud

The feel of the ocean on my feet and ankles at night, especially on a warm summer's night, when the sea is cool but not cold

Galeforce winds, and the shuddering of the house at the mercy of the world

Hail

Thunder and lightning

Clouds, especially during summer sunsets

Lemon and mango sorbet

When an art piece starts to come together

Connecting through my writing

Knowing that I actually wrote something pretty well

Sank! toys

My bookshelves

My Studio Ghibli collection and Studio Ghibli movies in general

Researching and reading non-fiction

Alternatively reading mindless and fluffy or whumpy manwha

The feeling of my legs after moisturising them

Stepping into a hot shower in winter

The feeling of a plane taking off (I used to hate it!)

The feeling of a plane landing when you know you're home again

Seeing the final street back to my house at the end of the day

The light on the hills

The lizards in our garden

The ladies at our local bookstore, who know us by name

Decent biltong

Crepes with lemon and sugar

A junior whopper with heavy onion from Hungry Jack's

Simpatico with my doctors

Silvia's art

My liked Tiktoks page

The way the MRI machine can sound like a janky dubstep concert and how funny that is to me.

When I make my therapist laugh (x.x)

Art supplies, washi tape, and stickers

Murderbot

Bun bo hue, my favourite comfort food

A perfect hot beef (or pork) and gravy roll (or chips and gravy)

Feeling accomplished

When mutuals and other folks create things, like writing or art or posts or theses.

The way stalks of grass, empty of seeds, glow in the afternoon sun

And...so many more things.

The world is an exercise in finding more and more reasons to be happy, or things to be pleased by, and it's a never-ending exercise. I try my hardest. (Sadly my mind is just as good at finding things to be upset by, but like, at least I keep looking for things that make me happy).

-

From the horrible questions meme! (Except these questions weren't horrible at all!)

[alma-andrada]

Alma: A Playlist 

Sweet Dreams - Eurythmics // Flashdance - Irene Cara // Should I Stay or Should I Go - The Clash // The Hardest Part - Blondie // Modern Love - David Bowie // Amanda - Boston // Elusive Butterfly - Dolly Parton // Young Love - Teena Marie // If It Isn’t Love - New Edition // As - Stevie Wonder // Someone For Me - Whitney Houston // (Don’t Fear) The Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult // On The Radio - Donna Summer // That’s The Way Love Is - Ten City // Let’s Hear It For The Boy - Deniece Williams // Tell It To My Heart - Taylor Dayne // Borderline - Madonna // Dream Street - Janet Jackson // I Feel For You - Chaka Khan // Goodbye (That’s All I Ever Heard) - Player // Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue - Crystal Gayle // We Belong - Pat Benatar // You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) - Sylvester // Turn The Beat Around - Vicki Sue Robinson // Love Train - The O’Jays // Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel - Tavares 

“And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn’t be all the things she wanted to be... I have inherited her name, but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window.” – Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street

Listen Here

[pr3ttystar16]

about me

X my names eloise

O i'm 15teen, turning 16teen in december

Xi'm in 10th grade

O capricorn-infp

X minneapolis minnesota

O movies: -scott pilgrim vs the world -Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders -practical magic -Batman Returns -Lady Bird -The lovely bones -The secret life of Walter Mitty -Labyrinth -montage of heck -The Virgin Suicides-The Hours-The perks of being a Wallflower -Fried green tomatoes at the Whistle stop cafe -Steel magnolias -Edward Scissorhands -Girl Interrupted -Mean Girls -Death Becomes Her -Her -Amelie -Romeo and Juliets -Black Christmas 1970 -All the right noises -Hitch hiker's guide to the galaxy-zombieland

X shows: -Chuck-Gilmore Girls -Veronica Mars -Black Mirror -skins- -New girl -The IT crowd-ruby -Pen15 -Santa Clarita diet--The good place-Dispatchers From Elsewhere -Superstore

O music: -Nirvana -The Smiths -The La's -The Breeders -strange boutique-Hole -David Bowie -Mitski -Elan Noon-Bikini Kill (whom I saw live and was front row) -Heavens To Betsy -No Doubt-Blondie -Cigarettes After Sex -sonic youth - the cranberries - crash test dummies - the verve pipe- le Tigre - superheaven - pixies - Radiohead - flatsound - Batmobile - red hot chilli peppers - the smashing pumpkins - daniel johnston - deftones - weezer - kittie- slow dive- babes in toyland - the cure - sound garden - foo fighters

X books: -The Lunar chronicles series -The Virgin Suicides -Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders -Girl Interrupted -Heartless by Marissa Meyers -paper towns -Eeeee eeeeee eeee by Tao Lin -The perks of being a Wallflower -Fried green tomatoes at the whistle-stop cafe -Finally -The house on mango street-Not even bones-A Tale for the time being -The first two Twilight books cause I gave up halfway thru the third one -The optic nerve comic series -Romeo and Juliet -Divergent

[cherrypieships]

HI OLIVE I want to know Lover + Cornelia Street for all your main boys!!!! Sorry if that’s too much lol I’m just curious bc we’ve never talked s/is before & I wanna know more!! 🫶🏻

omg hi Emily!!! thank you for the ask! this isn't too much at all i'm a chatterbox i loooove oversharing heehee. TBH my 'mains' change pretty often so I'll answer this for my core three: Steve, Eddie, and Davey :)

Lover: What is your favorite part of the life you've built with your f/o?

Oh man there's so much good about the life Davey and I have. Probably the big ole found family we've established around ourselves. Having a group of friends so supportive and close that you consider them family and they do the same is so 🫶🏼 and i love knowing that they don't just see me as "Davey's girlfriend" or "my buddy's girl" but as an actual friend 🥺 Plus I love that Davey and I (and our cat Mango) are a little family of our own! Knowing there's someone who loves me, someone to come home to, and someone to care for me and for me to care for.

For Steve and Eddie, I love that we've built a life where we can comfortably be ourselves without fear of judgement. The three of us faced a lot of scrutiny, from peers and parents alike, and it feels so good to feel your emotions in real time, knowing there's not going to be a person who judges you. Knowing that at the end of the day, I can be forgetful or grumpy or sad and will still be loved and respected. And the boys knowing they can be soft, they can be sensitive, they can be goofy or childish and I'll still love them.

Cornelia Street: Do you and your f/o live together? If so, what is your domestic life like? If not, what would it be like if you moved in together?

Becuase the Worms Where My Brain Should Be decree it, I do live with my f/os!

Davey and I have a lil apartment, probably not far from his parents' house because he's kind of a mama's boy <3 He wakes up early most days so if/when he goes into work before me he leaves little sticky notes around telling me he loves me and misses me and not to forget to brush my teeth/take my meds/wear sunscreen etc. He likes to let me paint his nails. We have an aforementioned cat, an orange tabby named Mango who is spoiled beyond belief (Davey's fault, he likes to give her midnight snackie treats)

Steve and Eddie and I living together is the cutest little chaos ever. Eddie and I cook, because Steve can for some reason only make breakfast foods without setting the kitchen ablaze. Steve washes the dishes with a towel over his shoulder like a little mom he's so cute. Eddie paints little DND figurines and keeps them on a shelf in our bedroom. I leave little lyric idea snippets all around the apartment and the boys stick them to the fridge with Muppet magnets. One day we get a huge dog like a great dane named Peach and she takes up the whole bed and Steve tries to teach her to fetch a stick and fails <3

[sillygooseassociation]

17 Questions, 17 People

I was tagged by @believemetheodore

Nickname: maggie

Sign: sag (but also kinda capricorn? its weird y'all)

Height: 5'6

Last thing I googled: "rice purity test" lol

Song stuck in my head: i will wait by mumford & sons

Followers: 125 on this account

Amount of sleep: i'm still on break from uni so i'm getting a lot more than normal. got like, seven last night? but i also went to bed at 4:40 am after reading a book from start to finish lol

Lucky number: 13

Dream job: realistically, i want to be a researcher. but like, legit dreaming, actress, especially theater

What am I wearing: flannel pjs that my dog has matching of lol

Movies/Books that summarise me: the muppets (2011), every last word by tamara ireland stone, pitch perfect (2012), mamma mia (2008), funny feelings by tarah dewitt, the house on mango street by sandra cisneros

Favourite song: currently, forever by mumford & sons

Favourite instrument: piano

Aesthetic: light academia

Favourite Book: every last word by tamara ireland stone

Random fact: so my name isn't actually maggie lol. when i was creating my account, my little elementary school lecture on internet safety was still ringing in my head and so i chose a fake name (that's quite similar to my real name). but now i just feel stupid and like i can't change it on here lmao

tagging friends except i don't think i even have 17 friends in real life that i would tag for this lmao : @calzone-d @thisismysecondrodeo @tedllasso @carmylasso @gulski2 @my-soupy-brain @sarahsardines @ruecinema @areacode606 @lassoposting @edni23

[ask-and-i-answer]

The House on Mango Street

In my English 3 class, we are reading The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. And there is one particular vignette that speaks to me... so ill put it down here, and maybe you too can relate

So here is the vignette, "Sally":

"Sally is the girl with eyes like Egypt and nylons the color of smoke. The boys at school think she's beautiful because her hair is shiny black like raven feathers and when she laughs, she flicks her hair back like a satin shawl over her shoulders and laughs.

Her father says to be this beautiful is trouble. They are very strict in his religion. they are not supposed to dance. He remembers his sisters and is sad. Then she can't go out. Sally I mean.

Sally, who taught you to paint your eyes like Cleopatra? And if I roll the little brush with my tongue and chew it to a point and dip it in the muddy cake, the one in the little red box, will you teach me?

I like your black coat and those shoes you wear, where did you get them? My mother says to wear black so young is dangerous, but I want to buy those shoes just like yours, like your black ones made out of suede, just like those. And one day, when my mother's in a good mood, maybe after my next birthday, I'm going to ask to buy the nylons too.

Cheryl, who is not your friend anymore, not since last Tuesday before Easter, not since the day you made her ear bleed, not since she called you that name and bit a hole in your arm and you looked as if you were going to cry and everyone was waiting and you didn't, you didn't, Sally, not since then, you don't have a best friend to lean against the schoolyard fence with, to laugh behind your hands at what the boys say. There is no one to lend you her hairbrush.

The stories the boys tell in the coatroom, they're not true. You lean against the schoolyard fence alone with your eyes closed as if no one was watching, as if no one could see you standing there, Sally. What do you think about when you close your eyes like that? nd why do you always have to go straight home after school? You become a different Sally. You pull your skirt straight, you rub the blue paint off your eyelids. You don't laugh, Sally. You look at your feet and walk fast to the house you can't come out from.

Sally, do you sometimes wish you didn't have to go home? Do you wish your feet would one day keep walking and take you far away from Mango Street, far away and maybe your feet would stop in front of a house, a nice one with flowers and big windows and steps for you to climb up two by two upstairs to where a room is waiting for you. And if you opened the little window latch and gave it a shove, the windows would swing open, all the sky would come in. There'd be no nosy neighbors watching, no motorcycles and cars, no sheets and towels and laundry. Only trees and more trees and plenty of blue sky. And you could laugh, Sally. you could go to sleep and wake up and never have to think who likes and doesn't like you. You could close your eyes and you wouldn't have to worry what people said because you never belonged here anyway and nobody could make you sad and nobody would think you're strange because you like to dream and dream. And no one could yell at you if they saw you out in the dark leaning against a car, leaning against somebody without someone thinking you are bad, without somebody saying it is wrong, without the whole world waiting for you to make a mistake when all you wanted, all you wanted, Sally, was to love and to love and to love and to love, and no one could call that crazy" (pp. 81-83).

It just- this vignette came at the right time. And now, I can say how I feel about myself and about my perfectionism just by having someone read this vignette. I can understand myself so much better.

[youngestdaughtersyndrome]

Heyy i just read your substack and i thought it was really good!!. you really have a LOT of potential (that almost makes it sound like it's subpar, not what i mean), and i'll def check out some of your other stuff! and this is coming from someone who tends to be on the overcritical hater side of things. I was wondering, if you read poetry, could you give some poetry book recs that are similar to your writing (for lack of a better word) vibe? Thanks! :)

HI ANON!!!! first of all thank u so much that means the world <3 so glad to have a hater on my side!!!!!

i am, tragically, incredibly unaware of what it means to have a style so i cant really reccommend u a book of someone that writes like me, but what i CAN do is give u a few poems that i always go to for inspiration!!!

i am so depressed i feel like jumping in the river behind my house but won't because i'm thirty-eight and not eighteen by sandra cisneros (who i ADORE i highly recommend her book a house on mango street)

lana turner has collapsed! by frank o'hara (i love a lot of his stuff too, there's a lovely bit of desperation in it)

a boat by richard brautigan

i'm going back to minnesota where sadness makes sense by danez smith (their book homie is incredible and i will reccommend it until im blue in the face)

the end of love by ada límon

saying your names by richard siken (from crush, which is all over tumblr but for very good reason!!!)

girl in amber by nick cave and the bad seeds (not a poem, a song-- theyre similar enough for me, and this is an exceptional one)

my friend morgan's substack post, existentialism for dummies

beat poetry in general-- i'm on the road a lot, so a lot of beat poetry resonated with me!!! i reccommend allen ginsberg, jack keourac, lucien carr, and leonard cohen (who was a BEAUTIFUL poet before he got into music)

hope that helps!!! all the love mwah mwah <3