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cookinguptales · 4 years

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I've a small query (if it doesn't float your boat, no worries!) I was interested in how you got into learning languages, what led you to it? I've become curious since learning a new language as an adult has only increased my awe of multilingual folk (additionally, I vaguely remember a post about a request in exchange for a donation to charity, and wondered if there were any you'd like a donation to)

First of all, good luck with the language learning! It’s not easy as an adult, but I do think it’s worth it, both in terms of cultural fluency and brain elasticity.

My answer to the language thing is actually extremely complicated, so I’ll be putting it under the cut. I’ll put the charity stuff above the cut so more people can see it.

— I’d just like to warn you, though, before I start, that I have been locked in this house for over a month with no respite and I HAVE A LOT OF WORDS AND FEELINGS IN ME SO THIS POST HAS SO MANY OF BOTH OF THOSE THINGS!!

anyway

There are so many charities that I want to donate to now that it honestly makes my head spin. Every time I look at a site like GoFundMe it kind of makes me want to cry. So a lot of donations I’ve made have been to like local businesses, restaurants, etc. who will close down without help. (Also a lot of local native groups, who are disproportionately suffering right now.) I’ve also been donating to various food banks — Philabundance, a Philly-centric charity that deals with food insecurity in general, is a good one. That was a regular of mine even before the outbreak. I’ve also donated to a lot of the local services in the small town where I’m in now, though you’ll need to PM me if you want the name of that. (It’s… very small.)

Off Their Plate is another great charity that’s been working with small restaurants (who can’t open for business) to get food to first responders. They’re partnered with World Central Kitchen, which is another fantastic charity that helps out during disasters. Plus well-known ones like Feeding America, No Kid Hungry (important while school is out and kids aren’t getting breakfast/lunch there), Direct Relief, etc.

(I uhhh may have overstrained my charity budget the past couple months. It’s odd how that adds to stress and relieves it at the same time.)

I tend to avoid religious charities, especially Salvation Army, because they’re occasionally discriminatory in how they distribute resources and we no longer have laws & oversight to make sure they don’t do shady shit. So I just avoid them in general now. I also avoid the American Red Cross because they’ve been known to misuse funds. Research is key!

I also worry about some of my regular charities, like Immigration Equality & Rainbow Railroad (helps LGBTQ people in dangerous countries immigrate to less dangerous ones), the Native American Rights Fund, various local abortion funds, RAICES (provides legal services to immigrants & refugees), the ACLU, Dysautonomia International, the Rainforest Action Network, etc… A lot of them are getting fewer donations than they’re used to because we’re in the middle of such life-shattering events.

If you are really interested in making a donation (please, please, please do) those are all good options. I also fully recommend looking up needy organizations, services, people, etc. in your own area. I try to donate to a healthy mixture of national/international organizations, local needs, and temporary issues du jour. (Disaster relief, bail funds for protesters, fighting new discriminatory laws, etc.) I would genuinely appreciate any donations, especially if you find a cause near and dear to your heart that I would never even hear about. Anything along these same lines, y’know? If you have anything you’d like me to do in return, just hmu.

I constantly stress about who to donate to — there are so many good organizations and so few dollars to give them — but at a certain point, every dollar to a cause you believe in counts. Every dollar you donate helps to make the world a little bit better for at least one person. That’s what I have to tell myself to calm myself down, haha. So even the smallest donation you make to any of these groups would mean a lot to me.

Anyway, onto the language stuff:

For me personally, I grew up bilingual. Deafness runs in my family, so I learned sign language from a very young age. Note: I say “sign language” rather than ASL. I learned sign language kind of organically, which ended up making a mess later in life. My parents mostly taught me, but so did my daycare (at a deaf school) and so did my babysitters and so did other family members, etc. The point is, not all of them used the same sign language. There was a wide mixture of ASL, SEE, and home signs and my current signing style is… problematic. lmao. My family all understands it (hey, they taught it to me) and I can have conversations with American sign language users, but I know they can’t love my signing lmao. I’ve considered sitting down and taking a legit ASL class for years, but there are so many classes I want to take… I don’t know.

After that, it largely became a case of taking languages whenever they were made available to me. I’ve always liked them. We moved around a lot when I was a preteen so I went to a lot of different schools. (4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade were all different schools.) It was rough at home and hard to make friends so I guess I threw myself into academics a lot. My sixth grade school was an odd one; it was a 6-8 grade school and you were supposed to take a crash course in three different languages in sixth grade so you could choose one and take it in 7th and 8th grade. I ended up taking Spanish, French, and German that year. I liked French best! But then we moved so it was kind of moot. (And I hated German, sorry Germans. My mouth doesn’t like the noises. It didn’t help that my teacher was weirdly sympathetic to Nazi-era Germany…? But I guess that’s another post.)

When we moved to Florida, you had to have special permission to take language classes in 7th grade. (FL doesn’t have great academics.) But since I’d already had some Spanish in NC, they let me take it! And then I moved schools again. This new school, my 8th grade school, I’d be in until I graduated 12th grade years later — but the employee turnover at that school was almost comedically bad? I took Spanish for like a year and a half there and had three different teachers. So at this point I’d had 5 different Spanish teachers, all from different countries (where they spoke slightly different Spanish!), all reteaching the same ideas over and over again because they didn’t know where the last teacher had left off. In the end, my last Spanish teacher sent me to the school library with some textbooks because he felt like I was very good at languages and he couldn’t adequately teach me in the environment he’d been thrown into. (My high school was very terrible. So he was right.)

SO I SWITCHED TO FRENCH. I took French for 3-4 years in high school (can’t remember when I started) but the same shit started happening. By the last year, my French teacher had the French I, II, III, and IV students IN THE SAME CLASS and she just put the advanced students in small groups and had us do independent study. Sigh… Around this same time, I started three other languages. At this point, I was getting kind of accustomed to self-study so I applied for a Latin class in the Florida Virtual School and took a year of that. I also spent a summer studying at the University of Chicago when I was 16-17 and learned Middle Egyptian then. (Yes, I was an ancient cultures nerd even back then.)

The Japanese has always been an odd case. Like I said, my 8-12 education was fairly terrible. They had this thing where they used a computer program to teach kids math and the teacher kind of taught along? When I transferred to the school in the middle of 8th grade, the teacher didn’t know what to do with me so he just plopped me in front of a computer and told me to do as much as I could. They started me in… Pre-Algebra, I think? Which I’d already taken in sixth grade. So I ended up getting through Pre-Algebra, Geometry, Algebra, and Algebra II, which… wasn’t in the teacher’s plans. I’d kind of finished several years of math in like a quarter. And then they didn’t have any more classes. So he just told me to like. Sit quietly and amuse myself for the last few months of school?? (Terrible, terrible school.) So I went to the library and found a book about Japanese and started teaching myself that. I really, really liked Japanese! Like it’s a language that just clicks really well with the way my brain works, I think. It’s very logical, I like the syllabary, etc. And I think growing up signing helped me with pictographic languages like Middle Egyptian and Japanese. My brain easily connects visual symbols with concepts.

When I went to college, the plan was honestly to learn more Egyptian and start translating, and I kept taking French to help me read old research in various ancient study fields. I ended up transferring out of the NELC major, though, due to some ethical problems… I guess that’s another post. Several years into my RELS/FOLK degree I went to my parents like. Look. I love learning this stuff but none of it’s useful. Remember how much I loved Japanese? Can I go back to learning that? I could translate that and that’s a legit skill. So I applied to a program through my school and studied in Japan for a while and ended up really doubling down on that language. Weird how I came back to it years later, but I guess it was always the one I loved best.

I have a mind that’s very pattern-based, so I guess I’ve always loved learning languages and the patterns behind them. (This may be why languages with a lot of rule exceptions, like French, irritate me.) They’re like puzzles that I’ve always enjoyed teasing out. Unfortunately, the way my education bounced around meant that I never got a good grounding in most of those languages, so I’ve largely lost them. I can still read French fairly well and my Japanese is good… My Spanish is like. Enough to get me around in the southern US. My German is abysmal. I remember very little Latin & Middle Egyptian. (It’s been over 10 years, I guess.)

So I guess what I feel the need to say to you is that if you don’t use it, you will lose it. I did well in all my language classes. They’ve always been fairly easy for me. Like. Straight As, no problem. I don’t say this to brag. I say it so you know that even for someone like me, whose brain is fairly well-wired for languages, it’s very, very difficult to retain languages when you’re not using them. If you’re not used to taking languages or you started late in life, it’s even harder. So even on the days you don’t want to practice! You gotta practice! Ganbare! Bon chance!

#replies #god these are so many words #sorry to everyone #shaymeson

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cookinguptales · 4 years

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great to see some excellent podcast suggestions! It might not be quite up your alley, but I recently found one of my old go to audio-books uploaded to youtube: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, which is the first book in the Red Dwarf series, a british sci-fi comedy staple.

Thank you for the rec! Unfortunately, I still have a difficult time with audio books, though it’s difficult for me to put a finger on why. I think I need the person to be speaking directly to me, if that makes sense? Just reading things is difficult for me. Plus, when it comes to books, the audio book narrators tend to clash with the voices I have in my head? It’s just hard for me to follow. I know this sounds dumb but haha that’s my brain.

#replies #shaymeson

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cookinguptales · 4 years

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(charity) I never realised how much further a food bank can stretch cash instead of cans, it's definitely food for thought. Also there's been an outpouring of donations from Irish people thanking Native Americans for their historical help during the potato famine, which has just been lovely to see.

Right, it’s actually a huge thing for a lot of different charities. Here’s a quick video from Adam Ruins Everything about why donating money is a lot more useful in the long run than donating cans.

[EDIT: TUMBLR REMOVED MY VIDEO. Here’s a link.]

That said, if you do end up donating material goods to your local food bank and/or shelter, they DO really like personal care items! People never think to donate shampoo, deodorant, etc. And menstrual supplies? They’re like GOLD. Think less clothing and food and more diapers and toothbrushes.

I’m in no way trying to dissuade you from donating your volunteer hours and cans! But money in many cases is just really what they need. If they can hire one employee instead of training and retraining and training AGAIN a new wave of volunteers every weekend, they’ll save a lot of resources and they might be able to hire someone who has prior expertise in the situation at hand. Still, some charities really do rely on regular volunteer labor! So check with your chosen charities and see what they really need. I’m sure they’ll be happy to tell you.

And I saw that! If you go to the comments section of the GoFundMe for Navajo and Hopi COVID relief right now, it’ll just tear you up.

For the uninitiated, in 1874, right after the forced relocation (and frankly genocide) of their people, the Choctaw people collected $170 to send to Ireland to help ease some of their suffering during the potato famine. It clearly wasn’t money that they had to spare, but they did what they believed was right. (You can see a memorial to the Choctaw people in County Cork, Ireland.) Now, 170 years later, Irish people have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for various native groups in America in memory of that historical gift. The messages have been making me tear up for like two days, haha.

#replies #shaymeson

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cookinguptales · 4 years

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(language) A Spanish friend once told me she learned English by watching films in English w/Eng subs on repeat before watching in Spanish which blew my mind! Last time in Japan I bought some kid DS games for kanji, only to find out they won't work on my DS! I plan to find some repetition apps, since copying always helps. On learning sign language: how would you recommend approaching it as someone who has no knowledge or experience of the deaf community?

Oh no! Still, there are some western games that you can play in other languages by using the language settings rather than a foreign cartridge. Some of the Pokemon games in particular let you play using hiragana or kanji. They’re good practice.

When it comes to repetition to learn kanji, Wanikani is one of your best options. The first few levels are free, so you can see if the spaced repetition system works for you, but it’s not free after that. (They have periodic sales, though.) Anki is a good way to download flash card sets if that’s more something that helps you.

I do find that watching Japanese media is a good way to practice listening, but be careful that you learn real Japanese! Almost no one in Japan speaks the way they do in anime, so be careful to use it as a single resource, not your primary resource. It might also help to listen to Japanese podcasts! There are some that are geared towards language learners. You might also find that reading the news in Japanese might be beneficial. Some Japanese news sites have simplified Japanese versions for people with limited Japanese literacy, and those can be really useful when you’re learning the language.

As for sign language, step one is to learn about the deaf/Deaf community. There are a lot of writers, youtubers, etc. who would love to clue you in on the issues that people in those communities face. There’s a saying that a lot of disabled and/or othered body communities have: “Nothing about us without us.” So you shouldn’t just learn about sign language without listening to the words of the people who use it.

(Note: many Deaf people don’t consider themselves disabled! But they are included in the wider community of people who have bodies othered by society. Try to find out how people identify (deaf, Deaf, disabled, able-bodied, etc.) before you use words for any individual person.)

Step two is to identify the type of sign language you want to learn. Every country has at least one kind of sign language that they use, and it’s often very different from other countries’. (Like the UK largely uses BSL and the US mostly uses ASL and ASL is actually closer to French sign language than British sign language? for historical reasons.)

Step three is to find resources for that language. A local class is always going to be your best bet -- then you’ll have an expert to help correct hand shape and grammar. Failing that, there are a LOT of online resources. Youtube videos, online classes, online dictionaries, etc. It’s never been easier to learn sign language.

#replies #shaymeson

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cookinguptales · 5 years

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Hi! The first song that came on was The Rainbow Connection, so I needed some time to compose myself again!

Why are there so many songs about rainbows and what’s on the other side? (The Rainbow Connection — The Muppets)This is no great illusion (You Are What You Love — Jenny Lewis)Floating to the edge of the world (Into the Galaxy — Midnight Juggernauts)I want you to know (Alice Is Dead — Hania Lee)If you change your mind, I’m the first in line (Take A Chance On Me — ABBA)

#song meme #replies #this one worked out okay!#shaymeson #honestly no song gets to me like the rainbow connection EXCEPT FOR SOME OTHER SONGS FROM THE SAME MOVIE

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cookinguptales · 5 years

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Ah what a wonderful reading to wake up to, surprisingly accurate! (of course tho you always insert your own experiences to fit best into a readin') And a beautiful deck, I'm SUPER curious to see the Lisa Frank one when you get it!

I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Tarot nights are always a lot of fun.

Yeah, like I said, what I love about tarot is the meanings that we affix to the objects we live with. Tarot cards were around long before they had any magical associations (and the cartomancy-esque meanings that came later often boiled down to “saw it in a dream, wow I’m smart” “um excuse me in MY dream it said THIS and my dreams are Smartest Dreams” and then they fight even though neither of them know beans about what ancient egyptians really thought because the goddamn rosetta stone hasn’t been translated yet!!) -- ANYWAY, tarot cards were basically just fancy playing cards for rich people for quite a while and then people started giving them meaning. And now look where we are! Tarot cards are wholly removed from their original use!

That said, this ukiyo-e deck is interesting because it does actually call back to normal playing cards. I took a picture of some of the cards because you said you were interested in seeing more of them.

The part I love about the Minor Arcana in this deck (the top row) is that if you look closely, you can see the normal card suits that are associated with the traditional tarot suits. Most tarot decks have Cups, Swords, Rods/Staves/Wands, and Pentacles/Coins. Even tarot decks that replace these objects with other objects (like the Halloween Tarot’s ghosts and bats) come with a manual that will tell you which “traditional” suits they correspond to.

This deck used Japanese objects that were reminiscent of those suits, but they also included the normal card suits that these are associated with. There’s a spade floating above the swords. A heart hidden in the pond below the cups. A club next to the wands. A diamond beside the coins. I kind of love how they’re simultaneously mystifying and demystifying the deck. People have done all kinds of cartomancy throughout the years with all kinds of different cards -- including your normal, boring Bicycle decks. Tarot has just become the predominant form.

I love how this deck in particular has adapted the usual Rider-Waite-Smith imagery to the theme. (You can especially see it in The Tower and The Fool.) Tarot has developed a kind of shared language, but I love seeing what artists do with that language. I like seeing how it’s reaffirmed and subverted. There’s so much historic tradition there, but also such a sense of modern creativity. There’s a reason why I end up supporting so many tarot kickstarters lmao.

Anyway, that was all a long way of saying that, yes, tarot readings are really exactly what you make of them. The concepts present in tarot cards tend to be very applicable to a lot of different people, and that vagueness can make it feel incredibly specific. That said, just because people project their own needs onto tarot readings, that doesn’t make them bad. That just means that tarot readings give you a way to reconceptualize and puzzle out the life you’re living. It’s kind of like guided meditation, in a way. You know what they say -- the real way to choose between two things is to flip a coin and see which side you find yourself rooting for. It’s kind of like that. You may not even realize what you need to be thinking about until there’s a loose framework to hang your thoughts onto.

I don’t know whether I believe in things like psychic phenomena, but I do believe that we often hear what we need to hear when we get tarot readings. Not because there’s necessarily anything mystical about them, but because they give us an excuse to examine our lives, priorities, desires, and potential shortcomings in a way that we might not otherwise do. And if that helps you, who cares who’s psychic?

Just my two cents, anyway. I may not wholeheartedly believe in a lot of things, but I believe in humans and what they create together. I believe that our traditions and stories and beliefs are a kind of magic all on their own, and I believe that’s beautiful. Traditions can be good or they can be bad, but the fact that they last hundreds of years in the minds of millions of people is pretty incredible, isn’t it?

tl;dr I’m a fuckin nerd and material culture is my jaaaam

(YOU GOT THIS GIANT WALL OF TEXT BECAUSE YOU WERE ONE OF THE PEOPLE WHO WANTED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT TAROT FROM AN ACADEMIC STANDPOINT, THIS IS YOUR FAULT.)

#justice for pamela colman smith tbh #and if you are the person who just hit my kofi thank you so much ;;#replies #tarot shenanigans #shaymeson

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cookinguptales · 5 years

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Your knowledge of Tarot is really something, I guess I've never really thought of the historical context of tarot before - you've really piqued my interest! Could I ask for deck 6 with a 'serious' reading? I'm extra curious about the differences in the decks (it's early morn' here, so I might doze off real soon, it'd be a treat to wake up to!)

The history of it is actually super interesting! Though probably a lot less mystical than you’re expecting. Maybe if people are really interested I’ll write a post about it someday.

Deck 6 is the Ukiyo-e Tarot!

There are a lot of pentacles in this spread, which is usually associated with material wealth. That said, I’m leery of being too literal here. There’s definitely a sense of materiality here, but I don’t think it always corresponds 1:1 with money. I associate it more with things. You might have wealth! You might have a good business! You might just have a neat collection of shoes! It’s hard to know and I think largely depends on you and what you value in your own life.

We start out with the King of Pentacles, which is a little odd to see in the first position as it’s usually a culmination of a lot of good, hard work. The king has used shrewdness, commitment, persistence, and luck to achieve his goals. He may have attained riches or power, or perhaps the business that he worked hard to create is booming. There’s a strong sense that he has gotten a hard-won reward and he will be wise enough to use it to benefit himself and others.

In the first position here, it indicates to me that you’ve had a recent success in the material realm. Again, what that means is highly dependent on you. In a more literal sense, it could be that you just got paid or got a promotion, something like that. But it could also mean that you finally got your hands on something material that you’ve been coveting for a long time. Either way, I’m happy for you.

The Nine of Pentacles is a similar card; it indicates a sense of material stability. If the King tells you that you have achieved a material goal, Nine tells you that it’s okay to enjoy it. It’s okay to treat yourself here and there; whatever you have attained, you have earned it.

That said, The Chariot is in the future position, which indicates that you should be careful to retain your self-discipline. Chariot is a card of strength and determination, but also willpower and self-control. You shouldn’t be too stingy with yourself and you should move forward confidently, but that doesn’t mean that you should go full-on Scrooge McDuck and dive into your money bin. The Chariot can be smooth sailing as long as you’re careful not to lose control. It’s cautionary, but not necessarily negative.

Altogether, I’d say that this is a very positive reading. Good things have come to you (and you have earned them) and you should enjoy them. There’s no shame in taking joy in what you’ve earned. That said, exercise restraint so you don’t end up losing it. Make sure you stay your course.

#tarot shenanigans #sorry for the delay my computer was being an absolute butt #shaymeson #replies

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cookinguptales · 2 years

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He fell half onto the couch and half onto Nandor, the movement awkward and just a little painful, but he hadn’t even had a chance to right himself before Nandor was pulling him up, was pulling him onto his lap.

“Guillermo,” Nandor said again, and Guillermo had never seen his eyes so dark, so full of heat. “Please tell me that this did not happen with Nadja.”

---

@shaymeson: Once again, just can't express just how much Joy "Fake Wings" brought me; Thanks so much!

=======================

So my pal @shaymeson requested that I write wingfic and I happily complied and then he surprised me with THIS beauty!

Now he’s letting me post this on here with his above commentary and FRIENDS, YES, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED. THIS IS WHAT I SAW IN MY HEAD. ISN'T IT GORGEOUS? I have been losing my mind in slow motion over this fanart for DAYS and now I get to share it with you!!!

Here's a link to the fic again, so you know what's happening!

Fake Wings by cookinguptales Nandor/Guillermo | WWDITS | Explicit | 13k

One day, Guillermo wakes up with the ability to see mysterious wings on those around him. He deals with this about as well as he deals with anything.

Please read the fic! Then look at this fanart! Or the other way around! Then go "oh my gosh @shaymeson is so talented!"

#linked to my tumblr post instead of AO3 bc sometimes tumblr is weird about links #he originally wanted to send this to me via submission but that uhh didn't work thanks tumblr #SO WE IMPROVISED #nandermo #wwdits #fic stuff #I've been losing my mind over this for DAYS and now YOU CAN TOO #my friends are so talented I die #fanart of my fic

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cookinguptales · 2 years

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hey @shaymeson I’m replying to your tags on my charmed life post AGAIN because I could talk about these dumbasses FOREVER

#Starting my re-read today #getting your blow by blow was BRILLIANT #and JANET #the Chrestomanci household ain't shit - you tell 'em Janet #a bit of a sidebar but- #with how well DWJ writes horrible children I think that's why we don't get many adaptations of her books #when they finally adapted Artemis Fowl they stripped ALL of his terrible qualities which was his ENTIRE CHARACTER #people don't know how to write kids full stop #and god forbid they let them have flaws or personalities

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Okay so NUMBER ONE feel free to yell at me just as much as I yelled at you because I LOVE readalongs. I have to start Magicians of Caprona soon. Tonino!! My other child!!

And you’re absolutely right, honestly. I was actually thinking about that as I was reading, how surprising it is that they never did any kind of adaptation of the Chrestomanci books. They’re fairly popular, there’s a lot of material there, etc. But I did do Math this time and I realized that damn, these characters are young. Like in Charmed Life, Chrestomanci wrote Frank and Caroline Chant that letter about making sure their kids would be born sans magic 12 years ago, so both Gwendolen and Cat have to be under 12. Cat is probably around 10 and Gwen is probably around 11, which is a pretty awful age to be doing what she’s doing to him. (And it means she put him in the matchbook when she was five!) As you know, my own experiences with my own sister make me know it’s sure possible to have a sister that age try to murder you! lmao. But I can see why Netflix would shy away from it.

There really is a specific childishness to Gwen’s malice, too. I realized it more upon reread. None of the grand plans are her own, and she’s being used by wicked adults who feed into her narcissism. That letter she left for Janet really hammered home that she’s just a kid. A really fucking malevolent one! But a child. And you have to wonder if she’d have been half so horrible if their parents hadn’t just let her steal her brother’s magic and torment him, or if they hadn’t died and left her to a village that told her her shit didn’t stink. As it is, though, now she’s just spiteful and selfish and greedy.

And then Tonino over here is even younger at probably 9ish, maybe even as young as 8. And while I think Magicians of Caprona is a little less heavy than some of the other books, some of the puppet show stuff is downright body horror. He and Angelica are good kids, and it sucks seeing good kids get uhhh tortured.

And then there’s WITCH WEEK which is about CHILDREN getting EXECUTED. (And I just found out that apparently how old the kids in this are changes by edition?? They range from 11-13 depending on which version you got.) And there’s that scene with Charles purposefully putting his finger in the fire to remind himself that it hurts to burn??? THAT’S A LOT TO SHOW IF THE KID IS 11...

I do feel like if Netflix ever made an adaptation or whatever, there’s a very good chance that they’d age up all the children. It’s hard to think of children being as nasty as some of them are in this series. (I’m particularly looking at Gwen, Christopher (much as I love him), and Charles.) I am very, very aware that some kids are nasty like the ones she writes. I think she’s actually really good at writing children being terrible in a very specifically childish way. And, in the case of Christopher, I think she’s really good at writing children understanding the effects of their actions and changing in a realistic way, too.

Like I said before, I always felt like she was not condescending to me when I was a child. It’s like she understood that some children are nice and some are awful and some are just trying to get by. I think I connected to that strongly when I was Cat’s & Tonino’s age! But no, it is not advertiser friendly. lmao

#replies #chrestomanci reread #that said if they ever made an adaptation #you know it's gonna be like #OH A CONRAD/MILLIE/CHRISTOPHER LOVE TRIANGLE #CAT AND MARIANNE ARE DATING #no don't do this to me #even if Millie and Christopher eventually got married #I do like how male and female characters can be friends in DWJ's books

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