ibean

Hey, my name is Irene, I'm 20 years old and just want to try this snail mail thing.

I'm a student trying very hard to become an adult and mostly discovering matureness is not what I thought it would be.

I speak three and a half languages (Catalan, Spanish, English and French) and want to learn Russian and Korean.

If I go to uni (at the moment I'm doing a professional course on community organizing) I think I want to study Art History but I'm honestly not sure if I even want to go to uni. My favourite artists are el Greco and Hieronymus Bosch, but I also really enjoy the pre-Rapahelites and Sorolla.

I love cats, the sea and DnD and try very hard to understand ice skating (Javi Fernández... my love...). Stationary will be the reason I go bankrupt and sometimes I embroider. I want to write a novel but have no idea where to start. I'm a bit of a punk and have strong political ideas. I prefer tea to coffee and would put chocoloate on everything, but my favourite food ever is cheese.

-- Before you, the reader and potential swap partner, go read about my eclectic music taste, I do would like to say that I struggle with my mental health, specifically depression. It's been a while since I've spiralled (I'm actually doing pretty good, go me!) but I do struggle and what may seem like small tasks (things like going out, showering, responding, be it to messages or letters...) sometimes feel like mountains to me. I don't want to disappoint anyone so I will try to keep in mind my energy levels before entering any swaps, but you never know what life can throw at you and I am very sorry if I don't send your mail. At the same time, I am a student and during the year, especially during exams time, I'm not sure of how active I will be able to be but I will try my best!

I was an emo child and it ruined my music taste forever. Old school FOB and P!ATD, as well as MCR's and Paramore's everythings, own my heart, now and forever. I also still listen to Cobra Starship, Gym Class Heroes, Travie McCoy's solo career, Ray Toro's and Frank Iero's solo careers, The Used, The Academy Is..., mewithoutYou, Patrick Stump's solo career, Marina and the Diamonds, Marianas Trench, The Wonder Years, Soupy's solo career...

I'm a big fan of musicals, especially Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 and Mar i cel.

When my dad is not around to make fun of me for listening to "old music" I really enjoy: The Cure, The Smiths, Talking Heads,The Bee Gees, Duran Duran, The Human League, The Clash, The Misfits... I'm gay so I love 80s hits, double love if they were in the Shrek soundtrack.

I've been in a real 1920s, 1930s quick lately so I've been listening to a lot of big band from this time period but I don't know enough to reccomend an artist. In general, for "vintage" music, Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel are forever my go-tos because sometimes you need someone to croon at you in French that they love you forever. And by sometimes, I mean all the time.

• My Absolute Favourites (open to change): MIKA, Continental Drift, ABBA, Roba Estesa, Stromae, Blur, Placebo, Walk The Moon, Bleachers, Otoboke Beaver, Blaumut, Streetlight Manifesto, The Tuts, Sufjan Stevens, Mourn, The Homeless Gospel Choir, Sílvia Pérez Cruz, CLC.

I'm a Star Wars nerd. My favourite trilogy is Ocean's, but Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy is a close second. If it's a Ghibli film I've seen and loved it. I'm slowly making my way through Fred Astaire's filmography because I absolutely love the dude.

Now that that's out the way, I'm just gonna list some of my faves, write a little why. No particular order.

• Sing Street (2016, John Carney). That soundtrack and the whole character of Eamon and his rabbits absolutely enamoured me. And it's just so earnest, you can't help but like it!

• Thor: Ragnarok (2017, Taika Waititi). Taika Waititi came up from New Zealand and was like "I'm gonna give the gays everything they want." and did just that! All those colours, that haircut on Hemsworth, Tessa Tomphoson's everything... It's what I deserved.

• The Shape of Water (2017, Guillermo del Toro). It's like a fairytale, beautiful and poetic and earnest, just in Baltimore.

• Okja (2017, Bong Joon-ho). This is one of the most interesting stories and takes on the problem with the food industry and it's just very pretty to look at and the cast is incredible.

• Neruda (2016, Pablo Larraín). This is the most poetic take on one of my favourite poets, Pablo Neruda. And it's just so meta, you gotta love it.

• Trainspotting (1996, Danny Boyle). This film is everything. How they make disgusting look good for the camera and yet showed better why you shouldn't do drugs than any government sanctioned video could... Simply amazing. And it has some of the most real chaotic evil characters I've ever seen in a film.

• The Handmaiden (2016, Park Chan-wook). There are films and there are FILMS. This is the second one. This is art in it's purest sense and it's everything else you could ever want, a lesbian revenge film, a deconstruction and destruction of the male gaze, a masterclass on timing, structure, lighting, the general art of cinema... It's just truly good. If you have 145 minutes, watch this.

• SLC Punk (1998, James Merendino). The music, the looks, the characters... It marked me as a person in ways I can't explain. It's a love letter to every local alternative scene and it's a call out to everything that that means.

• Goodbye, Lenin! (2003, Wolfgang Becker). I'm just gonna say Daniel Brühl is pretty because I am bisexual, and that stories about a child's relationship with their mother touch all my heart strings.

• Velvet Goldmine (1998, Todd Haynes). Glam just looks so good here and then there's everything else, the music, the aliens, the platform shoes, the gay sex. In my life, there's a before I discovered this film, and there's an after. Absolute, incomparable fave.

• Rear window (1954, Alfred Hitchcock). I first saw this film when I was like ten or eleven, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. It's one of the most well-crafted murder stories I've ever had the pleasure to watch and it has significantly marked all my works. Plus, Grace Kelly looked like the princess she was in this and I love her.

• Moonlight (2016, Barry Jenkins). I've never seen a character be treated with more love and care by a filmmaker than in this film. In general, the whole film is pure love from its creator and it's an absolute joy to watch. Even when you're crying it just fills you with tenderness. It deserves every award ever.

• The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975, Jim Sharman). There's iconic and there's Tim Curry in fishnets. Also it's non-stop bops.

• Logan (2017, James Mangold). This is film is a phoenix, the end of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and the literal canonical end of a whole generation of superheroes but also the start of a new one. I cried like a baby during all of it.

• Big Hero 6 (2014, Don Hall, Chris Williams). This is my favourite Disney movie and I am forever bitter that Baymax wasn't marketed like the minions.

• Now You See Me (2013, Louis Leterries). This is not that good of a film? I just really enjoy magicians.

• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010, Edgar Wright). A better adaptation of a comic to film, with all that the original medium implies (and specifically with all Scott Pilgrim is), has yet to be made. Like the comics are on a whole other level, but this film comes c l o s e.

• Boy (2010, Taika Waititi). This film is gutting yet tender like a mother's embrace. It's just soft and a bit heartbreaking and I absolutely recommend it.

• My Prison Yard (2008, Belén Macías). I love women, as has been mentioned before, and there's something about this crude tale on them that grabbed my heart and ran away with it.

Honestly, pretty much anything! If it's homemade I will love it, that's garanteed, but I also like a lot:

• Pressed flowers! I love pressing flowers myself, they make me very happy

• Homemade patches (which I also make), especially felt ones

• Pins, both enamel and not

• Bright primary colours (if they don't look too classroom-y? Does this make sense?)

• Tea!

• Washi samples

• Post-it notes! I'm a post-it gremlin, honestly...

• Recipies! I love good food!

• Vintage publicity of all kinds but especially if it's kind of weird

• Anything 30s, 40s, 70s or 80s related (just not too chessy)

• Astrology anything

• Stars, planets, and alien stuff

• Watercolour art

• Just art stuff? I love art? If you send me a letter talking about your favourite art piece I will fall in love

• Honestly if you send me cool history facts I will probably die too I love history

• Stickers of all kinds and sizes (but not too cutesy or childish)

• CAT RELATED STUFF SEND ME PICS OF YOUR CATS SEND ME A CAT DRAWING SEND ME A LETTER TALKING ABOUT HOW SWEET CATS ARE I L O V E CATS

• I don't care for Halloween but I love monsters and all that good stuff

• Ghibli anything, but especially Howl's moving castle!

• I just got into Kpop and don't really know anything about it but CLC own my ass now so if that's your jam... HMU