#evolve in our lifetimes

[gibbearish]

a weird little thing abt me is i will definitely mock shitty ai art but it never feels right doing it about the hands simply by virtue of the fact that a lot of them look indistinguishable from the hands i was doing years ago when i first got a drawing tablet

[rucow]

noticing a pattern of aquarius venuses idealising their lovers and clinging to the relationship even if its toxic, because they always see the potential of what the other person could become

you see their potential and you stick with them for years, enduring toxicity and ignoring red flags because you truly see the best in people. you're such an idealist

and then when you finally exit the unhealthy relationship, it's so difficult for you, because you mourn the potential of what that relationship could have been. you can envision all the healthier versions of your ex that they could have been, and you can't help but wonder "but what if they could have been my ideal person?"

you're a fixed sign after all, it's no wonder it's hard for you to move on. aquarius venus is a very intriguing placement to think about

[caffeinatedopossum]

So I've never been to therapy for my anxiety before but I've been hearing that apparently therapists will commonly ask you to imagine scenarios that give you anxiety and then imagine the best, worst, and most likely outcomes for them. Idk if that's like a standard method or just a coincidence but idk, I really would not be comfortable telling anyone the worst things I imagine happening. Some of them are pretty messed up.

And the *best* case scenario? Usually just surviving. Maybe if its REALLY GREAT, I would even get a little treat. Idk maybe it's because of trauma though?

[inkskinned]

sometimes i think about the span of human existence and how if you spread your arms out in a long line and said my body is acting as a poem of all the universe's birthdays, the smallest sliver of your furthest nail would be our entire history as humans. and you, doing this, feeling your sternum crack into place because you're-getting-old and all of your bones crunch these days: you are the universe, measuring its own timeline. you're the memory of a starburst saying i gave birth to humans at the tip of my finger.

and i think about how crocodiles have been around for way longer than that fingernail and how sharks have been here forever too and how there are sea cucumbers that understand time like an angel would; their ages so astronomically long that i get dizzy looking down into them. i think about my dog, and how i am so fantastically ancient to him (an impossible number, staggering) and how, at the same time, i can order my life in eras of pets-i-have-loved and how my childhood died when my cat did.

and i wonder if the earth does the same thing, if nature keeps time in epochs. if the tree in the house where i grew up said oh a new family and got upset when one by one we all left for college and left behind our climbing and screaming and birdhouses. that same tree collapsed during a bad storm this winter; heartbroken. the whole inside was a hull, shivering and empty. it missed our roof by a whisper, almost like it held itself together so it couldn't pass a hole into the house it's been looking into for years now. the people who took it away clicked their teeth. it was a hundred years old, at least.

there are things that went extinct in my lifetime. there are memories that don't extend to the tip of the finger. four years ago, for the first time: i saw a bald eagle in the wild. ever since they've been sprouting strangely in my life, their origami frames hunched in a racket of brown feathers. something in the motion of wild animals braced against the new england weather - like we all (all of nature, all of the fingertip) have the same shared hate when it's cold sorrow. like in years and years and years of history we never really evolved a better method than to close your eyes and brace yourself against it.

i saw a butterfly today, staggering drunkenly in the early spring air. it's too early for her other friends. i want to tuck her back into bed and say it's not your time yet! her life like a pinprick in my own. in butterfly school they'd have to stretch out their scales and say - at the end of your furthest wing is where you are in the life of a human. she is in my life, isn't she. something about how my heart seized at the sight of her, so brave and lonely and unfair; and how it snowed yesterday (and will snow again, probably), and how, in spite of that, she was out there and flying.

something about waking up this morning and thinking - i'm too old for this. how my hips and knees and back all make new noises. how the other day at a grocery store i picked up the gloves an older woman had dropped, how she'd laughed and thanked me - i can't bend down like you young folks anymore.

something about the theory that there's been no visible life on other planets because we are too early. that we are the first butterfly of spring. all this bravery. we know it is probably hopeless, and still we go. breathless, the same tactic - we brace against the cold.

[hot-astrology]

VERTEX SYNASTRY

*The destined LIFE CHANGING FORCE *

Our minds don't always grasp that our souls are on a mission. We can't fathom that we have decided to go through multiple chaotic experiences. Sometimes, these experiences lead us to evolve and wake up to see what our souls are doing all along. We all have fated meetings, situations, and experiences throughout our lives. The vertex is a location in our natal charts that is not a physical object. This point is very powerful, and some think this is one of the main focal points in the natal chart, much like your North node.but more so this point is where you will have your life changing encounters with different souls on your journey for your evolution.

Meeting that special person out of thin air, while randomly picking up ice from the local store at 1 a.m., or bumping into your soulmate while getting stuck on an elevator with them. These situations are never a coincidence, more like a fated meeting. It's always events and scenarios playing out in our everyday lives. Many of these situations encourage us, inspire us, bless us with someone with good fortune for us,even help us see our own potentials and gifts or vice versa. Don't forget the areas in our life that we need shaking up in and help take us out of our comfort zone to put some urgency and fire up under our ass.

These meetings can not be avoided or postponed. Some things in life are just what they are. Your soul chose this incarnation, and on this trip, it set up different scenarios and experiences to play out to help wake itself up to get headed on its journey. When it comes to fated meetings with a past life spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, lover, fling, or even a crush. This can play out in many different ways that can be very spontaneous, romantic, or toxic. Your soul chose to meet up again with these encounters to handle unfinished business, 1st time hookup, or to be together forever, or let's say just together until…

In a synastry chart, the vertex can be in conjunction or aspected by the other planets. This will display different scenarios playing out in both your lives. Now, transits play a major factor in seeing how events play out or unfold. Learning and understanding this point as well as the transits could help you know how you and your spouse met, why you met, and what's to come further down the road. Well, we have some aspects with the vertex that show your fated meetings this lifetime. If you don't see a certain aspect that you're looking for, please message us in our email. We will gladly help you get the information you and your partner need to understand more about your relationship.

Photo Cred: Pinterest

Vertex 1h: This overlay shows that these two were meant to find each other. More than likely, one or both feel like they have met the one. There can be a strong physical attraction, and this could be one of the first things the house person notices about the vertex person. l They both feel like they were meant to be in each other's lives.

Vertex conjunct North Node: Their paths have crossed, and the vertex has come to awaken the north node on their journey. The meeting is powerful & and the nodal person feels very attracted to vertex person. Usually, the North node will feel like they have to get their life together. These two can feel like they are spiritually connected. However, once the vertex person is ready to leave, north node person can have a hard time letting go.

Vertex 7h overlay: This overlay shows that through this meeting, a relationship was meant to form. This will most likely be a long-term connection, and you will both feel a strong connection to each other.

Vertex-Venus: Love is in the cards, and possibly marriage. Overall, this shows falling in love and romantic/creative encounters. Especially for the conjunction, this is more than likely to turn into a marriage.

Vertex conjunct Uranus: These two meet unexpectedly. The Uranus person is here to change the vertex person's life in some way. There is an unorthodox & strange connection. Whichever house this conjunction falls into shows what part of life will be shaken up. These two together are likely to turn some heads & raise a few eyebrows due to Uranus's unique & unconventional nature. This encounter won't be normal, and it is important; These two don't try to fit in with society's standards. They are here to awaken & bring excitement/abrupt change into each other's lives. This description can apply to other aspects as well!

Vertex conjunct Pluto: Similar to Uranus, this aspect brings change, but it's more of a slow evolution pluto person works on the subconscious of vertex person over time and years. This is not fast like Uranus & it's not exciting, but it is binding and obsessive. Pluto emerges into the deepest parts of the vertex and brings out these qualities that they need to heal & learn from, which causes a transformation. The house in which this conjunction takes place will show what area this evolution is likely to take place in. At first glance, the vertex person can be intimidated or extremely enticed by Pluto person. There is something complex about this connection, and it can be extremely private regarding what these two have going on. This description can apply to other aspects as well!

Vertex conjunct Neptune: You two met in the astral realm before the physical realm. There is a psychic and almost telepathic connection. This comes naturally. You just know what the other is feeling, and you could both have intense dreams about the other. Neptune is the higher octave of Venus, and although many say that Neptune is delusional, that's only when this energy is used in its low vibrational state. Also, when you aren't spiritually in tune or evolved. Anyhow, Neptune shows unconditional love. This is an aspect that shows this energy, and no matter how hard you try, it'll happen. There's a spiritual connection, and ascension is possible here. There's this feeling that the other feels unreal or from another plane of existence. This will be a very creative & transcendental experience.

Vertex-Juno: Long-term commitment is on the table for these two. Marriage is something these two will think about. Especially on the part of the Juno person, vertex will feel a pull towards Juno, almost like they have to be with them or commit to them.

Vertex conjunct Sun: Here, the sun is bringing what you didn't know you had. Sun person has come to boost vertex persons self-confidence. This is an encounter that will make the vertex have some character development. They will be very attracted to each other, The sun helps vertex person discover themselves & talents they didn't know they had. The house in which this conjunction occurs shows what part of the vertex person will develop.

Vertex 3h/9h: The keyword for this axis is learning & growth. If your vertex or someone else's vertex falls into the other's 3h/9h, expect to gain experience. This can be very chatty & you both are very intrigued by each other due to the differences that are there if this is occurring in the 9h house. The 3h house shows similarities between two people.

Vertex 9h overlay: The 9h is all about long-distance traveling, morals, ethics, laws, spiritual values, and higher learning. And most importantly, good karma. So here, 9h person acts as the teacher & guide. The 9h person will bring new experiences towards the vertex person, opening their eyes to new beliefs & knowledge.

Vertex-Moon: These two are meant to learn what it's like to have a secure,& emotionally fulfilling connection. This aspect shows a close bond, and likely, they are someone you will remember for a long time. You will look back on times with them as sentimental & nostalgic. This is also an aspect where you two are likely to have an intuitive connection. It's easy to understand what the other is saying without them saying it. Subconsciously & and emotionally, you two grow to get one another.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬

𝑶𝒖𝒓 𝑷𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒔: 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐳 𝐕𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐳 || 𝐌𝐨𝐨𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐢

[indiaalphawhiskey]

Can I ask you what makes you think harry and Louis are still together? I haven’t been in the fandom for years, I really don’t know what’s going on with any of the boys.

I’m going to take this question in good faith, but I’m going to close the discussion after I answer it because I’m really not in the business of convincing people about Larry and I don’t want to go back and forth. I’m also not a discourse blog, and don’t want to engage in discourse any further than this.

Honestly, I don’t think my answer is what you’re looking for, but again, I’m not here to convince anyone.

The plain answer is: I think Larry are together because I believe in long-term love. I know for a lot of you, that’s not a satisfactory answer, because it’s not rooted in consistent physical proof, but it’s a realistic answer, and in my case, it’s the truth.

I’m at the age now where my friends have been married for about three to five years on average, and I’m starting to see firsthand the way love evolves with lifetime commitment. It does evolve. It becomes quieter - not something you constantly post on social media or talk about at every girls’ night. It’s less focused on romance - your energy goes into building your life together, instead of basking in the valentine of it all. It comes with challenges and compromises - navigating extended families, aging parents and siblings, careers, dreams and goals that are constantly changing. And that makes you busy.

Too busy to fly back and forth, to spend every single holiday together, to share clothes and jewelry, to constantly signal, because instead, your energy goes into making sure you two are on the same page. Long term love - lifetime love - is not about other people and it’s not about what it looks like on the outside.

So, does it bother me that we hardly have any solid receipts? No. I think their love has evolved with their age and with their level of commitment, just like my own friends and their marriages. I think it’s imperfect, I think it has challenges, I think their relationship looks a lot different to them internally than it did in 2011 and so it makes sense to me that it looks different externally, also. If you add the fact that they’re both closeted public figures to that mix you have like seven other layers of complexity onto an already complex relationship.

I know it’s not tidy. I know it’s not a straightforward answer like the Umbro shirt or the complementary tattoos or Sweet Creature. I know it’s not the kind of proof we’d gotten used to depending on. But when you have very real examples in your life of people who love each other enough to say “it’s us forever, no matter what anyone says or how unconventional our relationship has to be to make it work”, it’s really easy to believe and to have faith, physical proof or no physical proof.

In the end, they really are just two humans who fell in love, so their relationship has its ebbs and flows like any other.

[letsgetrowdy43]

Unspoken love—

Jack Hughes x reader

Requested: “You're blind- you're so blind! Why would I even do half the things that I do for you for anybody if I wasn't head over heels for them!” Jack is in love with his best friend and his best friend does not think that Jack would ever be in love with her

Rowan’s Blurb Event!!

The laughter died in Jack's throat as he replayed her words in his head, "Us? Together? No, he's like my brother," she joked as she looked at her best friend, his face dropping as his lips formed a straight line. Her smile fell as she watched his demeanour drop, watching as he grew quiet and reserved before slowly making his way in the direction of the bathroom.

It felt like a stab to the heart. He hated how much of an effect such a simple thing could have on his mood, but when you've been in love with a girl since the age of diapers, it's a little hard not to feel deflated when she has been dodging your affection for years.

Her eyes trailed him across the room, brows furrowing as she got up from the booth and headed toward the boy. Her fist knocked on the bathroom door, "One second!" "It's me," she knocked again, her voice growing gentle, "I just wanted to make sure you're okay"

"You're blind – you're so blind!" Jack exclaimed as he swung the door open, his voice a mix of passion and exasperation as he pulled her into the shelter of the bathroom. He looked at his best friend, the person who had become the centre of his world without her even realizing it, staring at him with confusion, no clue how much she truly meant to him.

"What are you talking about, Jack? Why are you so worked up?" "Why would I even do half the things that I do for you for anybody if I wasn't head over heels for them?" His words hung in the air, heavy with the unspoken truth as he rambled about all of the feelings he had pent up for years.

She blinked, her head filled with confusing thoughts as she put together all of the information thrown at her in seconds, "What do you mean, 'head over heels'?" she raked a hand through her hair, "you and me Jack? you've never given me a sign, I'm not even in your league!" "What are you talking about? There is no league, it has always been you!"

Her eyes widened and her heart skipped a beat as she stared at the boy she had undoubtedly been in love with for years. A lifetime of what felt like unrequited love built up in her chest as she searched his eyes for any sight of a lie, but all she saw was vulnerability filling his senses as he waited for her response.

And then it dawned on her, that they were idiots in love.

"Jack, I never knew," she whispered, "I always thought you saw us as close friends." Silence hung in the air as she stared at him, the realization that their friendship would never be the same filled the room as she contemplated her next words. "I just-," she whispered, voice getting choked up and tears lining her eyes as the emotions finally poured out of her, "Jack, I have never felt in the running for your affection."

Jack's face filled with genuine love as he shook his head, "you were always in the running, the only person in the running," Jack confessed, looking deeply into her eyes. "You are more than enough. You're everything to me, there's never been a person in my life that I have felt this strongly about in my life."

His hands cupped her face, thumb swiping under her eye to wipe away her tears, "Hey hey, no tears okay." She let out a cynical laugh as her hand wrapped around his wrist, "We are so blind, we wasted so much time being idiots!" His face broke out into a grin as he shook his head, "Maybe, but we have the rest of our lives to figure it out," he pressed a kiss to her temple as he pulled her into his chest.

The bathroom, once a place of solitude, became a sanctuary where two friends had finally unveiled their true feelings. They stood there, in the small bathroom, their emotions up in the air, knowing that from this moment on, their friendship would evolve into something more profound she pulled away to stare at him lovingly for a second before she stood up on her tiptoes and pressed a delicate kiss to his lips.

Unspoken love lingered in the air, once confined to silence, had now been expressed, forever reshaping the course of their friendship.

-

-

-

[a-d-nox]

web of wyrd: the karmic tail and who you were in a past life

tw: mention of death, abortion, mental illness, abuse, and addiction.

the numbers we are focusing on today are the bottom three numbers - this is called the karmic tail in web. these numbers are the lessons we need to learn most in our lifetime, but our focus today is on who you were in a past life and why you'd need to learn those lessons. i'm going to break down some i've seen multiple times for karmic tail examples (these numbers can be rearranged in any order to be applied to an observed webs).

so let's get to it:

9-3-21

hermit, empress, and world energy is an interest mix - i think of a few things. first let's quickly break down the energies. hermits can struggle with loneliness, be introverts, wise, whimsical, live a life of isolation/solitude, struggling to look closely at themselves, be too reliant on others, etc. empresses can be powerful, passive, feminists, creatives, dislike themselves, lack ambition to take initiative, struggle with pregnancy, have romantic complications, etc. and world people are either victorious or losers, they let go easily or can't move on in life, they celebrate themselves, be grateful for what they have, tend to be mature, they can lack closure in life, etc. some of the options i could think of as to who these karmic tail people could have been are a single mother, a monarch/queen/princess/duchess/lady (princess diana, is that you?), a famous female writer (it's giving sylvia plath), a convict, a prison or psych ward attendant, a woman who died in child birth or getting a back alley abortion, someone who had an unexpected death, someone who died alone, someone who struggled with self-esteem, etc.

15-5-8

devil, hierophant, and strength - makes my skin crawl honestly... but first let's quickly break down the energies. devil people can be confrontational, have self-destructive thoughts/behaviors, cope in unhealthy manners, etc. hierophants often learn and teach throughout their lifetime, they have a traditional mindset, power, rigid beliefs, can be very close-mindedness, etc. strength people can overcome most things they believe are in their way, they are courageous, confident, fear looking weak, despise looking vulnerable, etc. some of the options i could think of as to who these karmic tail people could have been are abusive parents/partners, addicts, people who abuse their power, bullies, those that play unfairly, etc.

9-9-18

hermit, hermit, and moon - i have a lot of friends with this karmic tail and i constantly talk with them about what it could mean, but let's again break down the energies. hermits can struggle with loneliness, be introverts, wise, whimsical, live a life of isolation/solitude, struggling to look closely at themselves, be too reliant on others, etc. moon people are familiar with their shadow-selves / primal-selves, constantly looking for ways to change/evolve, are spiritual, can be closed off to change, etc. some of the options i could think of as to who these karmic tail people could have been are witches/wizards, garden hermits, psychologists, those who struggled with mental health, etc.

that's all for today. like what you read? leave a tip and state what post it is for! please use my "suggest a post topic". button if you want to see a specific pac/pile next! if you'd like my input on how i read a specific card or what i like to ask my deck, feel free to use the ask button for that as well.

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© a-d-nox 2023 all rights reserved

[millysastroblog]

SOLAR RETURN CHART PT.2 ! -Asteroids and Points-

Disclamer ! : Each of the SR Placements i wrotte here down, DO NOT have to be aligned with your own experience, in Astrology we have so many diffrenet factors that can change and influence our lifes, what i refer here to are the Asteriods and Points in my own personal SR Chart from the past couple years. They are short, easy examples of how they could impact somones life, to what degree they impacted my life.

>>> OK guys :) well alright lets now dive into it ! <<

Vertex =Is another tool that I like to use on the Solar Return chart is the Vertex. Similar to the Sun the Vertex can be a huge turnig point by the house it sits in and show fated events, only if heavily aspected.

Example: The year I had Vertex in my 7th House, um yeah guys i was deeply in love for the first time in my life, i meet the so called love of my life (bestfriend), and wow it was really intense, i had a very intimate soul bound with that peron, as if we shared the same soul. But sadly later on i went through a broken heart girl moment, the dream of sharing the rest of my life with that person sadly couldnt be fulfilled. And it defintly thought me a lot of lessons and struggles about love, fear of abandoment, unhealthy attachments, addiction to love beign afraid to love and not feeling worthy of it.

Continuing as i mentioned previously hard aspects matter alot when it comes to the SR Vertex. At that time my Vertex in the 7th house was opposite my SR Venus !!!! It usualy indicates the connection between me and that person possibly stemming from a past life time, like a soulmate or twinflame connection. Needing to find eachother this lifetime to fullfil a certain mission. So unlike the conjunction or soft aspects the connection was at an on and off state, which refers to the dynamic of the opposition, the built up of inner tension ,push and pull beetwen two energys wheter It´ll be life situations like (home, career, money or relationships ) with my case since the Vertex sits in my 7th house of the SR Chart ;). Which led to high amounst of attraction and gravitation towards that person but also complications and misunderstandings.

That does not mean everyone with a SR Vertex in the 7th house harshly aspecting Venus will go through the same experience like me, but changes in love life generally can be garanted. Also look a at transits and Synastry for more information :)

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North Node = The North Node in the SR Chart can indicate how we grow this year. It shows lessons that we need to learn and evolve from. Providing you with all the experiences and tools for your destination ahead until the year to come.

Example: They year i had my SR North Node in the 12th my first Spiritual Awakening got activated unexpectedly, my interest for meditation, yoga, chakras began to increase. I started to connect with the spirit world, my ancestors, angels, spirit guide more easily. I feelt the strong bond beetwen myself ,god, animals, humans everything! I started recieving sychronizites like butterflys, white feahters daily.

The North Node SR in the 12th helped me to step into my true purpose and wake up from the illusions, manipluation that was very evindent in my life. It transformed so many things since it was in trine with SR Pluto (North Node in the 12th TRINE Pluto in the 8th house) like me being able to use my natural psycic abilites, my subconcious changing to a healtiher mind set, prosessing past trauma, me doing energy work on my psycial body ,sensing heavy energetic tension within certain parts of my body that steam from repreased pain and trauma. The North Node in the 12th house offered me the time and space to go through that healing stage, meaning I was isolated for some months after losing someting important in my life.

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Chiron = It influences your triggers, wounds, fear, shame, insecurities and coming to terms with them . It can be very difficult but It gives us the possibility of healing and transcend to Self love, Acceptance and Self respect.

Example: Lasty Year i had Chiron in the 11th house, and sadly I felt very lonely, not having any one aroung me , friends i used to know since elemantry school suddenly left life, and even when i attended new social gahterings the void within me, feeling a lack of friendships and a lack of companionship, made it harder then usual to engage in new social circels, feeling inscure about the way I might come across to other people, not being accpeted for who I truly am.

At that time i feelt more socialy anxious than normal, panicing when somone tried to approach me for some random small talk conversation. I had my SR (Moon in the 12th sextile my Chiron in the 11th). With the moon aspecting chiron i can surly approve of this placement impacting me on a deep, emotional and soulful level. I tried to comfort my self through isolation, listen to music, having faith in future that things will get better and l´´ll soon connect with people on a deep and emotional level . I started to understad that this a typical process a lot of young adults go through. And at least i can invest all the time i have on myself and be my own best friend accepting my own flaws and incecuritys. Chiron is not only a pain in the ass but also a teacher helping me to understand my biggest fears regarding friendships and social circels.

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Lilith = Frustration, deception, irritation, sexual matters, fear ,obsessions, scattered feelings and behaviors. !

Example: Last year additionaly with the North Node i had Lilith in the 12th house, and i encounterd also the dark side of the 12th house, fighting with Addictions, Escapisim not wanting to be on this physical earth plane because of how detached i was from it, i also entered a difficult stages in my spiritual awaking like the Dark night of the soul. I felt to need to explore more with my hidden divine feminie se*ual side, feeling the creative tantric energy of mother earth within me, me having more wet dreams than usal, fanazising daily about se* or having se* in my dreams. Additionaly i had plenty sleep paralysis experienceses that lead me to see and feel paranormal things involoving creepy sensations of outher worldy beings gravitating towards my hidden underlying se*al energy ..... (I´ll leave the rest out bc it was very creppy!!!)

omg i know this a bit more spooky, but yeah it was very interesting experience exploring that side through lilith being here !!!

With that being said, I wanted to point out the fact that Asteriod and Points are very valid in SR Chart mostly people only consider talking about planetary placements but I have discovered that A&P can also have a huge impact on someones live. Like the examples I described here. Comment down below if you feel the same way or have the experienced the complete opposite would love to KNOW 😘🤔

Next up I‘ll continue this series by observing the MOST IMPORTANT Placement in the SR Chart connected to the natal Chart!!! And that is definitely not the Sun!!!!!!! ;)

Thx for reading 💕

Stay tuned for PT.3 !

•~Milly~•

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Solar Return Chart Series: PT. 1

[mimisempai]

The Three  LOVES THEORY by Roxie Nafousi

There’s a theory that throughout our lifetime, we will fall in love three times, at three different stages of our lives. Each love feels totally unique from the other and teaches us something different that shapes the person that we becoming. The three types of love are the first love, the intense love, and the unconditional love. Ahead, we’re breaking down the meaning of each and what you typically learn from each stage of love. 

The First Love

This love feels like a fairy tale. It’s that all-consuming puppy love and one that, at the time, you think will last forever. Often we experience our first love in high school, and usually it ends because the two people either grow apart or because of some trivial argument that the relationship simply isn’t strong enough to withstand.

This love is usually more surface level, with more importance placed on how the relationship might look to others. While it certainly feels like true love at the time, it’s not usually the deep, raw love that you’ll experience later on. The heartbreak can feel immense, initially, but you usually recover from it quickly.

What We Learn: That falling in love is the most incredible feeling in the world, but that not all relationships last forever, and they certainly aren’t always like they appear to be in the movies.

The Intense Love

This is the second love, and it’s usually the one that turns our world upside down. As we fall into this intense love story, the relationship becomes a mirror into our soul: we see all our insecurities, our needs, and our desires staring back at us. In this relationship, we may experience jealousy, fear, and self-doubt that we’ve never felt before. The relationship comes with massive highs and dramatic lows. We often try to mold the other half into our perfect partner, and we try to mold ourselves to become theirs. This is the love that feels like a rollercoaster and the one that can leave us feeling guarded, distrusting, and hurt.

The heartbreak from this relationship can be indescribably painful, but it is also through this heartbreak that we really grow, change, and evolve while finding the inner strength and resilience we didn’t know we had.

What We Learn: What we do want from love, and what we don’t. 

The Unconditional Love

After we’ve recovered from the heartbreak of the intense love and we’ve begun to heal and cultivate self-love, then comes the unexpected love. The one that comes from nowhere and feels just completely and utterly right. There are no games, and when you are with them you simply feel like you are home. You embrace all that they are, all their imperfections, and all their nuances. You feel more yourself with them than you ever have before, and you constantly inspire each other to be the best versions of yourselves. When you face an obstacle or a challenge in the relationship, you work together to overcome it because you are both committed to your future. This is the unconditional love that marks the beginning of forever, and you thank the universe every day for bringing them into your world.

What We Learn: That true love does exist and that it is possible to feel completely safe, protected, and adored by another human.

Roxie Nafousi - The Three Loves Theory

Mimi's note

Right now we're between the second and third. Both Crowley and Aziraphale need to recover and cultivate self-love before they can embrace all that they are, Aziraphale all the dark gray shades of Crowley and Crowley all the light gray shades of Aziraphale. I have no doubt that their love will become unconditional love (it already is, but they don't know it and being apart will allow them to see it). I trust Neil and Terry and will hold on to these words, "Everything will be okay."

insp (x)

[shegeekery]

Reparenting Loki

I want to talk about a dynamic in the Loki/Mobius relationship (in the Loki TV-series) that I've seen touched on but not really discussed in depth.

Note to Lokius-lovers: nothing I say here in any way precludes a healthy romantic relationship. They're both consenting adults, after all, and this wasn't a formal therapist-client relationship.

There's a technique in therapy called "reparenting". The idea is that trauma and behaviors caused by bad parenting can be addressed to some extent if the therapist assumes the role of a "good parent".

I think we can all agree that the "All-Father" was crap as an actual father. Odin knew that Loki took after him even more than Thor did, but many of those shared traits were things that he tried to hide from everyone, while Thor better represented the image he wanted to project. The result was a cruel favoritism, which was picked up by Thor and the rest of the Asgardians. Frigga's love and support wasn't enough to counteract that cruelty, particularly in a strongly patriarchal society like Asgard.

Side note (because I'm that kind of geek): there were so many similarities between Odin and Loki (Odin's friend and blood-brother rather than his son) in the old Norse myths that some scholars have suggested that Loki was at one point simply an aspect of Odin. There's also evidence that the stories as they came down to us were manipulated by the Christians who committed them to writing to shoehorn Loki into something more like the Christian Devil.

Anyway, getting back to our guys... Within the context of the TVA, Mobius represented an authority figure to Loki, who had a long history of rebelling against (or betraying) authority for obvious reasons.

I think the first turning point in the relationship for Loki was:

Loki: I am smart!

Mobius: I know. Loki is rarely left speechless, but his only response to Mobius's simple affirmation was a very un-Loki-like "Okay..." He didn't know how to respond because he wasn't used to that kind of thing, particularly from someone who had power over him. It happened again with:

Loki: A villain.

Mobius: That's not how I see it.

The dynamic between these two people throughout Season 1 was like that. Mobius's genuine love (whether you read it as romantic, platonic, fatherly, brotherly, or a mix of any or all of these) for and non-judgmental acceptance of Loki was apparent from the start, but of course Loki's experiences during his very long lifetime made it nearly impossible for him to trust that until Mobius's actions convinced him that it was real. Learning to trust Mobius also allowed Loki to see himself in a new light.

For his part, Mobius consistently modeled what a good father would have been: loving and accepting, yes, but still able to apply "tough love" when that was warranted. Mobius didn't put Loki into the bad-memory loop to punish him because he was angry (though he was angry, or at least a bit hurt and disappointed). He was just trying to force Loki to acknowledge a truth about himself so that they could move forward — and it worked!

Mobius's instincts and experience as an actual father to two boys, one reasonably well-behaved and the other a mischievous troublemaker, served him well in this, even if he didn't consciously remember his life on the timeline.

Mobius all but confirmed this when he said:

Mobius:  I see a scared little boy, shivering in the cold... 

It's also significant that when Loki brought this up later, he called it "patronizing", which we usually use to mean "condescending", but can also mean "supporting" and has its root in the Latin word "pater" (father).

I see the hug in episode 1-5 as a sign that the reparenting had taken hold, and that Loki, while not completely healed (it would take a lot more than that!), was at least in a place where he could trust someone, accept love/friendship, and think beyond his own wants and needs.

By Season 2, the relationship between the two men was evolving into one of equals, but even then Loki still occasionally looked to Mobius for guidance. Mobius's approval had become important to him. When Loki witnessed the firm but compassionate way in which Don dealt with two boys who were so like himself and Thor (despite being a stressed-out single dad rather than a god-king with tremendous resources at his disposal), he had to have seen that this was at the core of who Mobius was. Moreover, Loki — and any viewers who had similarly survived a traumatic childhood full of emotional abuse and neglect — probably guessed that Don himself was a survivor who was determined to see to it that his boys would never have to deal with that. If that was the case, then Mobius didn't just see his own son in Loki. He saw himself and couldn't help but empathize.

Don wasn't perfect. His frustration with his younger son was very evident, but Loki, observing, could see the love that lay under it. He may even have thought of times when Odin was driven to anger by Loki's actions and realized that the anger didn't necessarily mean that Odin didn't really love him. Learning to forgive what can be forgiven is another aspect of recovering from childhood trauma.

It's worth remembering that Mobius knew Loki in much the same way we do. We got to see the things that Loki never let anybody see: the fear, the vulnerability, the pain, the longing, and the sadness. (Doesn't hurt that TH can turn a simple reaction shot into a freakin' soliloquy!) The difference is that, while we only get to see the highlights (and lowlights) of Loki's life, Mobius had access to all of it and he had centuries to study it.

Mobius literally knew Loki better than anyone else in (or out) of the multiverse. How could he not love him? And for Loki, knowing that somebody who knew him that well genuinely cared so much for him (same with Sylvie, who understood him in ways that only another Loki could and vice-versa) had to have shaken him to his core and made him rethink a lot of things. The fact that it was Mobius to whom Loki turned in episode 2.6 when he thought he might have to kill Sylvie shows how much he still looked up to Mobius in many ways.

This was a show about redemption, yes, but also about healing from childhood trauma. They did an amazing job with it.

[shock]

"Don't just play—do something!", Jack Abele, 01.21.24.

This is a companion piece to the collage I made about moving into the first place that felt like my home back in '21 (shown below). They have matching frames and are displayed together above our dining table! This second piece is a reflection on how my relationship to "home" has evolved since then, especially after proposing to my now fiancé last month. I'm really proud of it!

Text transcript:

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

In the cold, thin clouds of interstellar space, written in the precise message of starlight:

What made you so interested in fireflies?

Imagine that they propel the environment into play: they STAND OUT, add color, chaos, curves moving behind and below, inside, outward along feedback loops, perplexing positive panic persuaded to make another form of animal art.

Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, a beautiful structure, flamboyantly scuzzy, sassy, a full bouquet of many wild ideas — a dazzling interplay between lightness and unclarity, trying things out, fancy, whimsical records looped with webs, half-truth surface textures composed of swirls within swirls, a performance of information, scene-setting details with many impressive, more tongue-in-cheek, unforeseeable aspects relatively stable and evolving at the same time.

Distinctly transitional.

The trouble with love is it's hard to describe in simple and consistent words. Beyond the jolting familiarity of self-similar, self-referential tessellating hues, the little comedy-drama fictions... you see openness, possibilities toward change; our very existence together antidote to the dull grind of the paradox that we live every moment in an indifferent universe yet having so much fun with friends, local communities, places, faces, even muddy bog holes.

Music! A Tribe Called Quest, The Beastie Boys, The Breeders, Nick Cave, Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden, Santana and Crosby, Stills, and Nash, mud-caked at Woodstock, picking up Space Age scrap, cutting collaged paper, playing with magical little lights, heretically evolving in this meaningless, magnificent place fine-tuned just right to allow for life, love, and grunge to exist nevertheless.

Maybe what keeps me here, making art, is how beautiful it is for optimism to become the first expression of hope despite danger amid the disparate depth of our universe created by chaos.

Movement characterizes my "youthful, dynamic" journey, escapes to infinite other places somewhere else, afraid of considering complicated survival long-term, wherein risk is worth the reward. But something about your windy city reminded me what strange, cascading effects the fingers of two hands form together, intersect one another, interfere with fate, interlace like light radiating rays woven, at certain points, into dynamic singularities.

Mutualism is a happy hybrid of symmetry and chaos — a relationship, it's like the entire forest is blinking in sync.

Just as the fun is to make up a great story, the writer in me calls this piece, "Don't just play— do something!"

This time around, living offers a profound pivot from playing a game. Today we confront as animals, we're not far from dogs, domesticated punks at heart, manifold.

I am humbled, exhilarated, afraid yet strangely calm and clear "On Bended Knee"

(The term ground seems inapt.)

...Nor is it possible to describe...

The closest feeling to being the world itself? It is to have loved someone so much that you wanted to spend the rest of your lifetime with them, with each other.

We're writing a book. Adding a stroke of paint and words to illustrate what we became, a bright third dimension that can be seen from space to meet the generations to come, to simulate the uncountable whimsies they could achieve.

The mind already knows before the key touches the lock.

To watch firefly swarms with a mangy mutt.

That must be quite a sight to see.

BECAUSE THEY EXIST

NOWHERE ELSE ON EARTH.

[squintyeyedjoel]

Through Your Eyes | Part 2 - More than Meets the Eye (Joel x Reader)

A/N: IT’S FINALLY FUCKING HERE!!!! I’m so sorry it took so long! I’ve been sitting on this for almost a year and it’s just been evolving and marinating and improving, and I hope it lives up to the hype. It’s time for it to be set free. ✨ This is truly a hybrid of game and show Joel. I see them both, hence both gifs.

I do not own The Last of Us or it’s characters. Sadly. But I carry them in my heart. Does that count for something? My soul says yes.

Warnings: Oooo, this one’s a doozy. So many things. (Let me know if I miss anything.) 😮‍💨 Some original characters, mentions of an elderly family member passing, lots of canon violence and swearing, (this one is a big one. Like a lot. There’s a hefty amount of swearing.) mention of attempted sexual assault (not to reader) without detail, graphic description of injury (not to reader) and blood, attempted abduction? Reader is a badass and sports a black eye and bloody knuckles with pride. Panic attack? But Joel scares it away. 😌 We round it all out with obscene amounts of fluff and humor between it all, sweet moments, and just soft things. It’s me. I can’t not. No use of Y/N.

Word count: 11,928

Thank you to @fordo-kixed-rex for reading over this five bazillion times for me and fangirling over it when I was having my down moments. You’re a real one.

Previous | Series Masterlist | Masterlist | Next

Xxx

You rocked in the saddle of your horse as she slowly followed behind the first few people in the group.

Left.

Right.

Left. 

Right.

Over.

And over.

And over.

Some quicker footfalls to your left made you turn your head, seeing Joel atop his horse come alongside you before slowing his steed back to the slow crawl the rest had fallen into.

“You okay?” He mumbled. “Look like you’re about to fall asleep.”

“Don’t tempt me,” you groused, turning back to face forward with a yawn.

He huffed out a laugh before shaking his head at you almost imperceptibly, nudging his horse to go a little faster toward the front of the group.

Watching him with narrowed brows, you saw everyone else make sure to steer clear of him, giving him a wide berth and a clear path to the front. Tommy’s words from that first day rang in your head.

“You saw a side of Joel right out the gate some wait a lifetime to miss.”

Joel whistled loudly, gathering everyone’s attention, as the whole party came to a stop. “Alright! Listen up!” Some grumbles began to go around, but stopped with one crook of his brow. “That’s an awful lot of yappin’ for people suppose t’be listenin’.” 

If a pin had dropped in the grass underfoot, it would have echoed in the vast forest around you. Even nature seemed to heed his warning, only a few stray birds chirping somewhere in the distance brave enough to break the silence. A lone frog echoed in a nearby creek bed. A few bugs buzzed by, trying to ease the tension, and it seemed to work, because finally Joel went on after staring at everybody.

“We need to pick up the pace. This isn’t a leisurely walk to the park and back. We have a goal we need to get to, and back, and we got one week to do it.”

“Who made you the boss?” Some poor brave soul asked from behind you. A young man, maybe in his mid twenties from how he sounded. You didn’t dare turn to look at him, not wanting to move your eyes from Joel, because if looks could kill…. Joel would currently be facing a serious charge for the way he was glowering at the faceless voice behind you.

“Common sense.” A few small laughs went around the group, the corner of Joel’s mouth twitching up just slightly when he saw you shake your head with a smirk. “This was my run- our run,” he pointed to you then back to himself before retaking the reins to his horse, “and the council thought it best you all tag along to bring the most back we could. Now I don’t mind-”

“Yes, you do,” another voice behind you said, female, almost teasingly, making another round of soft laughter go around.

“Fine. I mind. A lot. But we’re here now. So, since you’re tagging along on our run, what we say goes. Agreed?” When no one protested, he gestured you up to the front with a tilt of his head, going on while you nudged your horse forward. 

“Now, we need to move faster. Any bandits or infected we pass by would pick us off like flies at this pace. The cart will be the slowest, I want the four of you to stay with the cart at all times and watch all four sides.” He pointed to four individuals who nodded, moving toward the cart pulled by a single horse and rider. 

“The three of you pull up the rear.” More pointing and nodding. “The rest of you, in the middle. Keep your eyes open. Everyone keep at a steady pace, we camp at sundown wherever that is. Don’t push your horses too far.” He began to turn his own mount to move forward. “Not their fault we’re a bunch of dumbasses.”

“I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard him say at once,” you heard someone mutter behind you, making you smile.

“At once? Try ever,” another retorted.

Joel looked over at you. “What? Why you grinnin’?”

“They respect you.”

He scoffed. “That so hard to believe?”

“It’s a side of you I’ve not seen before. I’m used to bad puns and screwdrivers, not….” You made a swooping gesture to the group behind you, “that.”

He shook his head once, tisking at you. “Shows what you know. I’m actually partly in charge of security around Jackson.”

Your eyes widened as you turned as much as your saddle would allow to look at him, the leather creaking against the movement. “Really?”

He nodded once in confirmation, a proud smile starting up his face. “Only a part time type’f thing, and it’s purely on a trial basis right now, but…. Yeah.” He grinned brightly at you. “The jokin’ and woodworkin’ are just for fun.” The smile turned somewhat dopey and lopsided.

“There’s more to you than meets the eye, Joel Miller.” He rolled his eyes at you, the grin melting into a scoff and his signature sour expression with impressive speed. Though his eyes still shone brightly, giving away his true amusement. “And I’m gonna try to see it all.”

Shaking his head at you again, Joel looked back forward, nudging his horse to go a bit faster and pull ahead of you. “Nah. Not that deep, darlin’.”

Urging your mount forward, you maneuvered to your right, and fell in beside him with a grin. “That’s what you think.”

Joel tilted his head down and to the side toward you as he spoke for emphasis, keeping his eyes forward. “That’s what I know.” He cut his gaze to you briefly after a moment to try and drive his point home before straightening back up in his saddle, his eyes going studiously back to the wide expanse of land ahead. 

Your grin melted into a smirk, seemingly a new permanent fixture since moving to Jackson. Or more specifically, since moving in with Joel and Ellie. That thought made the side of your mouth tick even higher. “We’ll see.”

Xxx

In the chaos of starting up a new life in Jackson, you’d overlooked one little detail. While you could repair and paint just about anything on your own, you were shit at stitching any stuffed toys back together Joel happened on during runs. It was possible, but it was slow going, and to be honest, looked a bit like field dressings for a battle wound instead of repairs. 

You’d thrown the last attempt of an old wrinkled teddy bear at Joel when he’d called it Sargent Cuddles, Ellie only adding to the confirmation when she asked if you could make an eyepatch for the bear instead to cover the deep scar you’d given it by way of cross stitches.

Halfway through that first week, you’d walked into the town’s seamstress with the best smelling cinnamon loaf the bakery had to offer, fresh and steaming, under your arm. When the girl behind the counter stopped what she was doing, setting down the socks she was darning while her nose went high in the air like a bloodhound as she took a deep sniff with her eyes glassed over, you grinned. 

Target acquired.

“Can I help you?” Her voice was soft and kind, and her smile as she rose to her feet from the chair helped settle any trepidation you felt about reaching out.

People hadn’t always been kind about your hobby, for one reason or another, hence why you came with bribes at the ready. But you had a feeling this time would be different. You smirked as she nonchalantly eyed the loaf under your arm.

“Hi! Yeah! I’m the one who restores the toys? I opened up in the old bookstore down the street?” You introduced yourself, and recognition went off behind her eyes at the sound of your name.

“Oh! Joel’s girl!”

Your breath caught in your chest as your head gave a little shake of confusion at the declaration. “What?”

She chuckled somewhat nervously. “No! No, not like that, I mean…. His neighbor. His new lodger. The one in the attic.” She was talking a mile a minute. “Not his ‘his’ girl….” She slapped a palm to her forehead, cradling her head in her hand as she rocked it back and forth before pulling back just enough to look at you conspiratorially. “But can you imagine?”

After a moment of silence where you both simply stared at each other, soft laughter took over, melting the tension between you.

“Let me start over,” she huffed, lowering her hand from her face to extend it to you in greeting. “I’m Jane. Nice to meet you.”

As you shook her hand, you couldn’t help but smile at her antics. “Likewise.”

Jane turned her attention back down to the socks she had abandoned when you came in, fiddling with them absently before she looked back up at you, a soft tint of embarrassment staining her cheeks. “So, what brings you here?”

���Oh! Right.” Setting the loaf on the counter, you shrugged the backpack off your shoulder and set it down beside the bread, fishing out the few stuffed animals Joel had brought back that needed the most help. “I was hoping we could work out a deal. I can do some basic stitching, but even then, Joel and Ellie have compared my work to that of a field medic more than anything.” 

Jane snickered at the comment as she took one of the worn stuffed animals, turning it over in her hands and analyzing it as you continued.

“People trade me all sorts of goods for these, like this loaf.” You gestured to it with a bob of your head, then placed your hand on the still steaming bread. “The baker’s son has a birthday coming up, and she wanted something special. Joel and Tommy don’t always bring back stuffed animals so it wouldn’t be constant work, but I was hoping when they do, I could bring them here, and we could work out some sort of trade system for the repairs-”

“No need,” Jane said, smiling down at the stuffed tiger in her hands. You arched a brow at her, waiting for her to go on, and she finally tore her gaze away from the toy and up to you. “I had one just like this as a kid. Loved it to bits. It looked like it had been through the wars before I lost it, patches everywhere and stuffing missing so it was lumpy…. I learned to sew on that thing.” Jane looked back at the toy again fondly. “I’ll help you. All I ask is that I get to keep this one, and maybe one every few runs if they happen to stumble on any others like I used to have. I…. I had a collection.” 

When she brought her gaze back up to meet yours, her eyes were misty. “It was small, but it was everything to me. Got a new one every year when I was little from my grandparents. Stopped when I hit that certain age where adults deem you too old for those things. Which was fine.” She sniffed, a tear falling silently down her cheek. “Then my grandpa he…. He started having memory issues.” She took a deep, shaky breath, smiling sadly at the toy. “Regressed a certain amount of years…. Just so happened to be when I was a certain age, still, in his mind, and he got me a stuffed toy every year for my birthday, until….”

You reached out, placing your hand over hers. “Keep whatever you want. You don’t even have to do repairs to keep them.” She began to protest, swiping at her tears with the back of the hand still holding the tiger when you squeezed her other hand gently. “The whole reason I’m doing this in the first place is to help bring some joy back into the world. And I want you to be happy, you deserve to be happy, without me lording something over you like demanding a trade in exchange-”

Jane flipped her hand in your grip, squeezing you like you had her. “And doing this will make me happy.” You studied her for a long moment. “Do you know how boring it is to darn a sock?” You snorted a laugh, and she smiled. “Everybody in this damn town needs to take better care of their socks, I swear…. I’m up to my eyeballs in them. Nothing would make me happier than to work on something that would be giving back more to the community than dumb stinky, holey, wool.”

With a nod, you gave her hand still in your grip one firm shake, a grin crawling up your face. “It’s a deal. I’ll try to tackle the easy ones and send the few in need of more love your way. But!” You let go of her hand and held up a finger, wagging it like you were lecturing a petulant child.  “I’m also dropping some of these goods by, too.” Patting the bread on the counter before softly pushing it closer toward her, you laughed at her show stopping grin and good-natured roll of her eyes in response.

“Fine,” she mumbled around the smile, the sound anything but angry. “If you insist.”

A few days later, you’d dropped a few stuffed animals off to her that Joel had stumbled on during patrol, Ellie tagging along with you. She had opted to stay outside the shop while you went in though, leaning against the doorframe by the front window, taking in the sights and sounds of the city street.

“Not a fan of needles,” she mumbled, glancing into the shop as you opened the door to go in.

“This isn’t that kind of needle.”

“I said what I said.”

You didn’t press her on it, just nodded and mumbled an ‘okay’ before disappearing into the shop.

“Hey!” Jane greeted you, pushing aside her current project immediately to make room for the box you were carrying. “Oh, these are cute!” She picked one up in each hand, lifting them up to look at them better before trading them out for another and repeating the process until each patient had been analyzed. “They’ll be easy.” She turned to you with a smile. “I’ll be done by this weekend.”

“No rush!” You assured her as she set the box behind the counter. “If you’re not done until then, you’ll have to leave them with Tommy, though. I’m going out of town with Joel on a run, it’ll take a few days, maybe a week max. We leave tomorrow. Though, no, actually, you can just leave them with Ellie, what am I saying-”

“You’re doing what?” She interrupted you.

Focusing back on her face, you tried to get back on topic. “What? Oh, yeah! We’re going back to where I lived right before Jackson to get the stores of paints and stuff I had. Bucket loads of it, no pun intended.” You turned to look at Ellie over your shoulder. “She’s rubbing off on me in more ways than one, I guess….”

“Is it just you and Joel?”

Her question caught you off guard, pulling your gaze back to her with knit brows. “It was going to be, but the council decided it was a ‘waste of resources’, so we have to take a little group with us. Why?”

“I’m coming with you.” No hesitation, just straight to the point.

Your eyes went wide. “What? Why?”

“You said you lived about a week north, right? Near the university?”

“Yeah. Because of the university, there were storage units nearby, used to be climate controlled before everything, now they’re just enclosed spaces with extra security to keep clickers n’ shit out. I lived in one, worked in another, and stored in a third. Got pretty good at picking locks, too.” You smirked.

Her eyes were wide and serious. “The ones by the north end of campus?”

Your expression went flat. “Don’t tell me….”

“I lived in an abandoned place on the south end of campus.” She had started to grin like a Cheshire Cat. “We probably were within spittin’ distance of each other and didn’t even know it.”

A laugh barked out of your chest, several more tumbling out after it until you were bent over her counter on your elbows, wheezing. Pushing up to rest on your forearms you met her gaze again, amusement on both your faces. “No fucking way.”

“I left a sewing machine behind. It was there when I moved in, and I hope it’s still there and still works, heaven knows, but…. The buildings by the school had power when the Fireflies were there. I’d use it when I could, and I was able to do so much more work. Now that I’m here I could actually make use of it with all that I have on my plate, and the dam giving us electricity….” She sighed dreamily. “I’m going. That’s final.”

Before you could respond, the bell over the door jingled, making you stand up straight and turn to look at the newcomer.

“Everything okay?” Ellie’s voice was soft as she poked her head in, causing you to do a double take. “I heard raised voices.”

You nodded once. “Yeah. Yeah, we’re all good. Just excited. Turns out we lived right by each other before moving here.”

“Oh shit! No way!” She stood up straight with a wide grin, stepping fully into the shop and letting the door close behind her.

“Language,” you scowled.

“Sorry, Miss Fanny,” she looked sheepish, spinning on her heel dramatically before exiting the shop.

You turned back to Jane who looked on amused. “She thinks she’s funny because I use a fanny pack.” Plopping onto a tall stool that sat in front of the counter, you stared at your friend.

Jane let out a low ‘ah’ as if she now understood everything.

Knitting your brows before arching one, you leaned on one elbow on the counter. “What?”

“Why is she outside?” She asked as she fiddled with some projects behind the counter.

“Said she ‘wasn’t a fan of needles’,” you mumbled, air quoting her words as you turned to look back at Ellie through the window. “Whatever that means.”

Jane hummed in understanding, drawing your eyes back to her. “Tommy got really drunk at the bar one night after I first got here. Saying all kinds of shit. People kept walking off because he wouldn’t shut up, so I opted to walk him home to Maria. It wasn’t far, and he’s a good guy. Anyway, on the way to his house, he starts mutterin’ about his brother and his new kid, how they just got back from some failed medical something or other with the Fireflies, most of it was unintelligible.” 

She crossed her arms over her chest, looking at Ellie. You followed her gaze, finding the teen walking back and forth in the shade in front of the building, scuffing her heels as she went, and kicking rocks.

“Then, he got real sad, and said somethin’ about how he’d sent them to the university right after seein’ him for the first time in months. It was to get info on where to go for the medical procedure, I guess. Anyway.” She took a deep breath. “Apparently they got ambushed there, and Joel got stabbed real bad, almost didn’t make it. That girl out there had to care for him for weeks, drag him somewhere safe, stitch him up….”

Your breath caught in your chest as she paused for emphasis, unable to tear your eyes from Ellie as emotion swelled in your gut for your fellow housemates, but especially the tiny redhead on the other side of the glass.

“Tommy was real broken up about it. Said Joel almost died, and he felt like it was his fault. Ellie had to hunt, and somehow got Joel medicine.”

You turned to face Jane again. “How?”

“Those details weren’t real clear.” She shrugged. “Like I said, he was plastered. Maybe this whole story is some drunken imagining, but the way he sounded compared to all the shit he said in the bar?” Her face melted into something between sadness and understanding. “I’m inclined to believe him.” 

She took a hesitant breath, but stopped before letting it out slowly, then closed her eyes for a moment. After another shallow breath, she opened them to focus on you, and tried again, her voice even softer still. 

“We’d made it to his house by this point. Maria had come out and was helping me to get him inside, up the porch steps…. And he just broke down halfway up. Sat down, broke down, and started sobbing. Made it even harder to understand.” She rolled her eyes and you chuckled softly. “He said something about the medicine came at too high a cost. That Ellie paid…. Would be paying….” Jane swallowed roughly, looking to the girl through the window with something akin to admiration, then back at you. “He said it changed her.”

“Changed?” You could only whisper.

“Broke her. He said whatever happened was enough to take a spitfire, and make her an ember.” You both looked back at the teen one last time. “She’s improved a lot. I’ve seen her grow, come out of her shell just since I’ve been here, but…. It’s her eyes. They’re haunted. Whatever happened out there…. It didn’t stay out there. And it ain’t leavin’ anytime soon.”

“That explains a lot. About both of them,” you mused quietly.

“Joel I don’t know much about. He’s just the town grump.”

Despite the dark turn the conversation had taken, you burst out laughing, seeing Ellie turn toward the window at the sound with a grin.

“Everyone keeps telling me that, even him, but I just don’t see it!”

Jane’s face turned up in amusement softly. “Well, maybe you’re just one of the lucky ones like Ellie, and he likes you.”

“I think he tolerates me.” You looked across your shoulder at her, getting back to your feet from the stool you’d been perched on and faced her fully. “I live in his house. It’d be awkward if we hated each other.”

“True,” she grinned smugly.

“What?”

“You’ll figure it out.”

Xxx

Jane came riding up beside you, smiling wider than the canyon you’d passed a few miles back.

“I’m gonna regret askin’ but what in the hell has you happier than a butterfly on a daisy?”

“That’s not a real saying,” Jane mumbled, looking at you through skeptical, knit brows.

“Doesn’t mean it’s not applicable,” you countered, your own brows arched high in challenge. 

With a roll of her eyes and a sigh, Jane circled back to the topic at hand. “We’re out in the open!” She whispered, excitement lacing her tone. “I love Jackson, don’t get me wrong, but it’s so nice to be able to breathe.”

A smirk made its way up your face. “I know what you mean. Problem is you trade security for a great wide unknown. The possibilities of things that can go wrong out here are much scarier than anything in Jackson.”

She pulled a face. “Nothin’s gonna go wrong when we have a man like Joel leading us. He knows what he’s doing.”

“Most of the time,” you mumbled. “The rest he’s just wingin’ it.”

“Heard that,” Joel grumbled as he passed by your other side, pulling in front of you from the back of the group where he was making rounds. “You’re one to talk.” He looked over his shoulder at you, face stoic as ever, but his eyes showed his amusement.

“I know things,” you shot back, head tilted back to look down your nose at him. “Lots of stuff.”

“Oh, I see,” his tone was condescending, but playful. “Stuff.”

“And things.”

“Oh, we mustn't forget the things….”

“Yeah, okay.” You looked to the side with an unamused grin. “Fuck you, Joel.”

“I mean, if you’re offerin’….”

Your jaw dropped as your head turned slowly to face him, eyes wide as you simply stared at him in shock.

He smirked. “What? You can dish it, but you can’t take it?” Joel’s tone was nothing but teasing, his eyes dancing with unspoken amusement.

Narrowing your eyes at him, his smile faltered slightly. “You have no idea what I can take.” Nudging your horse forward to fall into step beside him, you held his gaze with your head high, brow arched. “And I don’t think you want to find out.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“When I push back. You wouldn’t be able to handle it, Joel.”

He cleared his throat. “Look, I was just messing around. This wasn’t supposed to take such a serious turn. I’m sor-”

You couldn’t take it anymore. The laugh tumbled out of your mouth before you could catch it, more and more coming out to join it.

Joel lowered his brows, glaring at you. “That ain’t funny.”

Wheezing, you pointed at him. “You should have seen your face!”

A horse trotting up beside you made you turn, expecting to see Jane once again at your side, but all you were met with was her horse, sans rider. You thought quickly enough to grab the reins and guide it along with you, before you looked back at Joel, finding his eyes already searching the group. Turning, you tried to sit higher in your saddle for a better vantage point, when movement out of the corner of your eye caught your attention.

Near the tree line, Jane struggled in the arms of a man as he yanked her back towards the cover of the woods, none too delicately, one hand over her mouth to keep her quiet.

“Jane!” You yelled at the top of your lungs, and you could see when she heard you, her body going rigid in her captor's hold.

The man yelped, pulling his hand back from her mouth and shaking it. 

She must have bit him. 

Before you could fully process much of anything else, Jane was screaming at the top of her lungs, “Run!” 

The hand was back over her mouth before she could say anything else, the raider pulling them both back until they disappeared into the trees, Jane putting up a violent struggle as they went. 

Not willing to look away from where she disappeared, you called out for Joel, and he was beside you in an instant. His horse picked up on the sudden unease spreading over the group, shifting its weight from foot to foot restlessly.

“We’ll get her, darlin’,” Joel reassured in a low voice. “Don’t you worry. We ain’t-”

Suddenly the entire group was surrounded by raiders, guns and knives of various sizes pointed towards every member of your party, violent threats being traded back and forth from both sides. 

While you had thought your group was large, this bandit raid made your numbers pale in comparison. At least double your head count at first glance, easily. And you had a feeling more were lurking in the shadows somewhere, if what had happened to Jane was any indication. 

You noticed that while several of the men aimed menacing looking rifles at your party, they lacked the magazines full of ammunition to back them up. Leaning toward Joel as subtly as you could when they ordered everyone to dismount their horses, you mumbled under your breath, “They have no bullets.”

He looked at you in confusion for just a moment, brows knit until one of the raiders yelled loudly and pulled his attention away. 

Falling in behind him, you whispered again, “Their rifles. They have no ammunition. No magazines. It’s all for show.” You saw the moment the information registered for him, his shoulders setting a bit broader, and his head held just that much higher.

A raider a few feet to your right was eyeing you skeptically, looking like he might dismount his horse any second and make a move toward you, so you pretended to trip into the back of Joel, smirking into his chest when he caught you.

Without missing a beat, his arm firmly around your shoulders to steady you, Joel went straight for negotiations, trying to talk the men down, offering supplies, whatever they wanted. You weren’t far from Jackson, it was a smart move. You could get back and recoup your losses in no time. But people? You can’t replace them.

“Nah,” the head honcho said with a sarcastic sneer. “We’ve got somethin’ else’n mind.”

You didn’t like the sound of that.

The raider in charge gestured Joel over to a smaller group of his men, which he obeyed reluctantly. After looking down at you for a moment, offering the most subtle nod you’d ever seen a person give, he began to move toward the small group of raiders. 

The boss stopped him just short of the rest and asked him a question in a low voice, which Joel answered softly, shooting you a look which you couldn’t quite read. You couldn’t quite make out what he said, either, but then the head raider decided to make a scene, show who was in charge, and it all made sense. 

In a loud voice, full of bravado and misplaced charisma, the raider turned back to your group with arms spread wide, rifle held lazily in one hand, and called for Joel’s second in command - Will - to hop down and join his ‘fearless leader’. 

Surrounded by the smaller group of thugs, you could tell what the goal was…. They meant to make a spectacle for the rest of you. Take the leaders down, the rest will follow. But Joel didn’t let them get that far. He mumbled something to Will so subtly, you almost missed it, but you saw the younger man’s eyes dart to one of the raider’s guns, and you immediately knew where this was headed.

It all went by in a blur, and yet it was like you could see every detail in painful accuracy. And you couldn’t look away.

In an instant Joel had dropped three of the men in the smaller group surrounding them.

Will another two.

They both had commandeered their own rifles back off of those men, and they were now aimed at the remaining two raiders around their small group. 

The one in front of Joel began to move forward, only making Joel smirk as he jerked the bolt action on the rifle. “Try it.” The raider stopped, making Joel’s smirk only rise higher up his cheek. “Good choice.”

That’s when all hell broke loose. 

It was almost like someone kicked a pile of ants. The stillness of the valley you were in was broken and everyone swarmed at once. A cacophony of sounds clashing all around you. 

You went on autopilot for most of it, simply fighting for your life and that of those in your group. It could have been hours or only minutes later, but the next time you really started to pay attention, or frankly, were able to focus on any one thing in particular, you saw a raider sneaking up on Will a few paces in front of you, and you lifted the rifle you’d snagged off of one of the men you’d taken down.

“Hey, bucko!” The raider froze and turned to you with a sneer, the expression falling off his face when he came nose to nose with the muzzle of your rifle. You cocked the bolt action just for added effect, chambering a bullet as you somehow had found the one locked and loaded gun the raiders had. Hands lifted in surrender, he slowly took a resigned step backwards, grip tightening around the knife still clutched in his right hand. “Drop it,” you ordered, narrowing your eyes at his slight smirk. “Nice and easy, now.”

Will turned to see what the fuss was, his eyes going wide when he realized what had happened. He looked between you and the raider from over the bandit’s shoulder, raising a brow at you in question, but you motioned him on with a jerk of your head to the left, keeping the rifle braced on your right shoulder and aimed at the raider. “I got it. Go help the others.”

Nodding, Will took off toward the remaining chaos, leaving you with the scumbag at the end of your barrel. He started to move after Will but you tisked, taking a step closer. “Not a good idea.” The lowlife hissed through his teeth in aggravation, but you cut him off before he could even start in on an actual sentence. “Knife. Ground. Now.” With a half step forward for emphasis, you gestured toward the field underfoot with your rifle before centering your sights back on their target. 

The man arched his back away from you as you took the small step closer, his hands shooting up higher beside his head. He then began to slowly lower to his haunches to lay the blade on the grass, his other hand still held up in surrender. His eyes flitted from the weapon to something behind you, and before he could set it all the way down, or you could turn to look, an arm wrapped around your neck, cutting off your air supply.

Both the man behind you and the man in front of you laughed, cheering at your misfortune as you dropped your rifle, the weight of the weapon jerking its strap across your shoulders as it fell to your side. 

You clawed at the arm wrapped around your neck, gasping for air, and grunting as you tried to get a shot in with your elbow, but he pinned down your arms with his other arm wrapping around your torso.

A voice close to your ear leered, “Don’t worry, sweetheart. It’ll all be over soon.”

The raider in front of you suddenly started screaming, dropping the blade in his hand in order to clutch his knee, blood pouring violently from a wound made by a large pocket knife you’d know anywhere protruding from its side. 

“Don’t move!”

All three sets of eyes pulled over to find Joel standing just a few feet away, rifle raised and aimed at the raider now in a heap on the ground. His gun swung over to the man still holding you hostage, a dark chuckle rippling out through the chest pressed closely to your spine at the movement, and it made your skin crawl.

“Let ‘er go,” Joel said in a low voice, something dark and menacing thrown right back at the thief trying to steal your life away.

“Nah,” the man said after a minute, amusement heavy in his tone. “We’re just havin’ too much fun, aren’t we, sweetheart?” He tightened his grip around your neck as he pulled you closer, squishing his cheek to yours in mock affection.

You mumbled something as best you could, but it came out all garbled from the pressure on your windpipe.

“Aw, I’m sorry, I’m bein’ mean, aren’t I?” His tone was mocking. He loosened his grip slightly, the arm around your midsection disappearing altogether as he twisted slightly to get a better view of your face. “Now, try that again?”

“I said,” your voice was hoarse from the struggle, so you cleared your throat, shifting your weight slightly as you looked to Joel with wide eyes in mock fear. “I said-” In one smooth motion, you swung the butt of your rifle up and back, and slammed the man in the face, squinting when blood sprayed out of his mouth and onto your cheek.

Taking the opportunity, you elbowed him in the ribs, before stomping on his foot, spinning around once his arm around your neck released you and kneeing him in the crotch. 

Stepping closer to him once he fell to his knees cradling his damaged manhood, you looked down at him as you wiped his blood from your cheek with the back of your sleeve. “I said fuck you.”

With a quick jerk of your knee to his face, the raider fell backwards, out cold. You turned to face his friend who laid in a ball on the ground, hands gripped tightly around the knife still protruding from his knee.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” He began to try and scramble back, looking to Joel for some sort of help as you approached.

Joel only shrugged, looking at you with wide eyes for just a moment before turning back to the poor man. “Hell hath no fury ‘n all that….”

Kneeling in front of the man, you smiled disarmingly sweet. Reaching out to grip the knife, you looked up at Joel. “This yours?” Lifting a brow at your rhetorical question, you knew very well it was his, he nodded. With a yank, you pulled it out of the man’s leg, his screams cut short when you elbowed him in the face, knocking him out like his companion.

Lifting your rifle slightly, Joel began to make a fuss, “Darlin’, they’re down-” but he stopped when you over exaggeratedly clicked on the safety, lifting a sarcastic brow at him. Rising to your feet, you wiped the blade off on your jeans before closing it and handing it back to Joel.

He took it cautiously, watching as you rubbed at your throat with a wince. “Thanks.”

“No, thank you. If you hadn’t shown up and distracted them, I wouldn’t have been able to get the jump on ‘em.”

He looked at the two men before looking back at you, his eyes flitting down to the rifle for the briefest of moments. “Looks like you would’ve been just fine.”

You leaned in closer to him, adjusting the weapon’s strap across your chest. “Take the compliment, Joel.”

He grinned softly. “Yes ma’am, Miss Fanny.”

You groaned at the nickname. “You know what? I don’t even really mind.”

It looked like Joel wanted to say more, but other members of your group came running up, looking around frantically only to find all the enemies already taken care of.

“We didn’t hear any shots,” Will said absently, staring at the two motionless forms on the ground after a wary glance. “Thought you might need some help.” After a long moment of silence, he looked from you, to Joel, then the raiders. “They still alive?” He pointed toward the men, one of them stirring with a pained moan.

“Only just,” Joel mumbled, watching the one man begin to roll to his side, the one who had held on to you, before his gaze flicked to the other, noticing his breaths becoming shallower and shallower. Gesturing to the latter with his rifle still held in his hands, he looked back up at Will. “That one’s not longed for this world if you don’t get something to stop the bleedin’. Need information from both, preferably.”

Will nodded, motioning to the others with a nod of his head, quickly moving toward the raiders.

You had turned toward Joel, your back to the men when a twisted voice rose up behind you, slurring around laughter as if it knew the funniest joke in all the world. 

“Well, sweetheart, I’m just so goddamn sorry things didn’t work out ‘tween us.” 

Joel glared at the raider over your shoulder. “Stop talking, asshole,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes as he took a step closer to the man, slightly in front of you. Turning to face the man yourself, you thought you’d steeled yourself for whatever you’d see, but the twisted smirk you were met with made your stomach drop. 

Laughter turned to wheezing, wet coughs before the man spit off to the side in front of him, blood painting the ground an ugly, violent color. He lifted his head just enough to look at you again, snickering as he peered through his lashes. “I had such plans for you….”

“I said be quiet,” Joel’s voice had grown more firm, and he opted to step to the side, obscuring your view of the creep instead of taking any steps closer.

“Oh, but they were nothin’ compared to what we were gonna do to that little friend of yours…. That blonde? Whoo! She was feisty!”

“Can somebody shut him the fuck up!” Joel bellowed, turning to the group simply standing by and watching the exchange.

Will shrugged off his outer layer flannel, balling it up as he stomped toward the man and began to shove it in his mouth.

The man weaseled back away from the cloth, shouting with wild eyes, “You’ll never find her!” His following laughter was muffled around the material, manic and unhinged.

“Will, I need you to….” Joel trailed off when you put a hand on his shoulder, pushing him to the side gently. He tried to stop you walking towards the lunatic, but you met his gaze with your own, unwavering, and he let you go, following close behind, one hand adjusting his grip on his rifle as he held it loosely just in case.

Kneeling down in front of the man, you got close to his face. “What did you do with Jane?” Your voice was so low and quiet, you barely recognized it.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” The man mumbled around the shirt, eyes wild and sure of himself. 

Looking down toward the ground, you huffed out an unamused laugh. “I’m going to ask you one more time,” you lifted your gaze to look at him straight on again, “and you’re going to tell me, or else my friends are going to be not so nice to you.” The man scoffed. “What did you do…. with Jane?”

The man leaned forward, his nose almost touching yours. “Go fuck yourself, bitch.”

Without hesitation, you slammed Joel’s pocket knife you’d swiped from his jacket a moment ago into the man’s hand where it rested on the ground with your left hand, yanking the shirt out of his mouth as he screamed with your right, and tackled him backwards onto the ground, pinning your right forearm against his throat. As he struggled against your hold, you twisted the knife still gripped tightly in your hand, making him settle into the dirt.

“Okay! Okay! Okay! Fuck! Just stop!” He looked at Joel with wide, wild eyes. “Get the bitch off me!” 

You noticed some of your party moving toward you, but they stopped with a hand motion from Joel.

He studied you with an unreadable expression before looking back at the man and jutting his chin toward you. “Tell her what she wants t’know.”

“Get her off me first!”

“Talk!” You growled, digging your arm in further, making him gasp. When he turned a defiant look up your way, your knee ‘slipped’ where you straddled him and landed dangerously close to his ego once again.

“Okay, okay, goddamn!” He wheezed, collapsing fully into the ground below him, eyes fluttering shut as his face twisted in pain. 

It was all you could do to repress the triumphant smirk wanting to crawl up your face, your brows arching in amusement instead.

“She’s back at our camp. ‘Least that’s where we left her. Don’t know how she’d move much after what boss did, though.” He looked back up at you again, everything about his expression amused, and nothing seemed to dull it, even as you pressed your arm harder into his throat, only causing his words to take on a sinister hiss. “He stuck her good. You think this little knife is somethin’, you should see the one he used on-” his words trailed off on a gurgled chuckle as you continued to lean into him.

“Hey,” Joel’s calm voice near your ear made you pause, staring down at the creep. “We need him alive, darlin’. Stop.” A warm strong hand gripping your upper arm firmly made you lift off the man just slightly, glaring down at him as he sucked in a breath and started coughing, grinning up at you triumphantly. He hissed with a wince when you yanked out the knife, bringing the hand close to his chest to hold it tight with his other, and wrapped it haphazardly with the flannel Will had shoved in his mouth to stop the bleeding. 

“You Jacksoner’s are all the same,” he shook his head in amusement. “Bleeding hearts, all of ya!” He grinned up at the group in the most sinister way you’d ever seen. “And that is why you’re all gonna burn.”

At that, Joel was yanking you off the raider and pulling him up to a seated position with both hands twisted into his jacket, getting right into his face with the most menacing voice you’d heard yet. “What did you just say?”

The man just smiled a tight lipped smile, eyebrows shooting up before he used his good hand to pantomime locking his mouth and tossing away the key.

“They had a bunch of dead guns. No ammunition. How in the hell were they planning to do something to Jackson?” You mused offhandedly, mostly talking to yourself.

“Guns ain’t the only way to make somebody bleed,” the freak singsonged, looking at you gleefully.

You glared at him. “I liked you better out cold.”

He guffawed. “I liked you better up close….”

Joel gave the man a forceful shake by the front of his shirt still in his grip. “What’d I say?” The man rolled his head back to Joel with a bored look, his lips twitching up just slightly. “Y’either start talkin’ ‘bout somethin’ important I want t’hear about, or I’ll reach my hand so far down your Goddamn-”

“This one’s not doing well, Joel,” one of the party mentioned, checking the pulse of the other raider. “We need to get them back to camp.”

The man in Joel’s grip slowly melted into a wide grin. “Looks like you need me now more than ever.”

Joel began to smirk, and it made the raider’s sure grin falter. “Yeah, but that can change real quick.” He shoved the man back, rising to his full height before turning back toward you and walking quickly. A hand closing around your arm once again, you followed where it led. 

“Get them to camp. Will, get a party of four together and come with us to go get Jane. The rest of these assholes are dead, there’s no one to keep her there anymore. She probably tried to run, and if she’s injured, we need to spread out and cover as much ground as possible.” 

He stopped, looking over his shoulder when no one was moving. “Let’s go!”

When he turned to look down at you, you saw something in his eyes close to fear. “We’ll find her, Joel.”

He held your gaze as he kept moving you further away from the scene. “I know, darlin’.” He looked forward again, walking a bit faster. “I know. Now let’s get goin’. Sun’s gonna be settin’ real soon.”

Xxx

As the two of you made your way in the direction the thug had sent you in, your mind began to wander.

“What if it’s the wrong direction, Joel?”

“He said go east-”

“No, I know.” You closed your eyes briefly as you took in a sharp breath through your nose before looking forward once again. “But what if he lied?”

Joel sighed, looking down at his feet as he continued to walk. “Darlin’,” he looked deep in thought but also at a loss for words at the same time. It was such an inextricably Joel thing to do, it almost pulled a smile up one side of your face.

Almost.

Glancing over his shoulder toward the small group that was following along to help, the rest staying behind with the two assholes, he then took a step closer to you, speaking in a low voice.

“He very well may’ve.” When your eyes went wide, Joel was quick to continue on. “But,” he smiled at your now narrowed glare. “I’ve been patrolling these hills for a few years, now. Never out this far, mind you, but I know the general area. There’s a stream that runs not far from here. Anyone with any brains would camp near it. I know the worlds gone t’shit, but I refuse to believe we as a species have fallen that far that fast.”

His smile spread a little further at your soft chuckle.

“Touché, Miller. Touché.”

Grinning like a child, Joel turned back to the rest of the group, his expression turning stony in an instant. “The rest of you, fan out!” His voice was a low hiss. “Keep quiet and keep aware. These trees are dense from here on out to the creek. Keep a lookout. I’m not responsible for your own stupidity.”

Good-natured eye rolls went around as the few people spread into the trees starting to populate the clearing you’d been passing through.

Joel grabbed your arm when you went to take a step forward. “Not you.” He shook his head gently when you looked up at him. “You’re coming with me.”

“I’ll stay within sight,” you argued, pulling your arm from his grip. “I’m not a child, Joel.”

“No, you don’t-”

“I can take care of myself.” Taking a few steps forward into the tree line, you looked for any signs of life, but before you could get far, Joel’s voice was at your ear again. 

“Don’t-”

He yanked you back into him, making you stumble into his chest. Lifting your head up to glare at him, you came nearly nose to nose as he looked down at you and you looked up at him. Your breath stopped, catching in your chest as your eyes scanned his face.

“Tripwire,” he mumbled, his eyes firmly watching your lips as they moved soundlessly in shock.

“Thanks,” you finally managed, closing your mouth and clearing your throat.

Joel nodded.

You went to take a step back, looking over your shoulder towards the trap, but his grip on your upper arm wouldn’t let you move. 

Turning back to look at him in question, your curious expression melted when you found him even closer than before, his eyes cast down as his nose lightly bumped the side of yours.

The distance continued to close, only a breath left between you when a faint scuffle then a thud was heard, making you both pull apart like lightning.

Turning, the two of you saw Will suspended upside down by his ankle from a nearby tree.

“Careful. Tripwire,” you grinned.

Will smirked sardonically, arms coming to cross over his chest after batting away his flannel outer layer that hung in his face since he was inverted - he’d dug out a spare from his bag after using his original to shove into the mouth of the crazy raider. “We found a blood trail.”

The smile fell off your face as your gut sank. “That’s-”

“A good thing,” Will cut you off. “Means she was moving. She was alive.” After a loaded moment of shared looks, he cleared his throat. “Can someone cut me down, please? I’m getting woozy.”

Xxx

You only encountered a few stragglers at the camp, Joel earning some bloody knuckles and you a black eye, but the remaining members of the bandit group lay in lifeless heaps at the feet of your group when it was all said and done. There was no chance for prisoners, they weren’t going to be taken alive. 

Which meant that one idiot back at the camp who’d tried to kill you had to stay alive if you wanted any answers.

The thought of that made you start to hyperventilate. 

Which wasn’t like you.

You took everything in stride, this new world required it, but suddenly you felt his arm around your neck again, and you began to claw at the phantom limb, gasping for air as tears began to stream silently down your face.

You couldn’t look anywhere without seeing a body, violence, bloodshed….

Can’t breathe….

Everything blurred by as you faintly registered your feet moving you forward, a warm hand around your forearm pulling you gently along before the firm press of tree bark met your back with a gentle thump.

The soft trace of rough, callused fingers making their way past your cheeks to rest behind your ears drew a shiver from your bones. “I’ve got you. You’re okay. You’re good. It’s over. I’m here.” Joel’s mumbled words vibrated somewhere in front of you, desperately grasping at you to give you something to hold onto. Cradling your face in his hands, Joel stood toe to toe with you. He took a small step closer and leaned down, pressing his forehead to your own as you fought for air. “Nothing’s gonna get you. I won’t let it.”

The phantom touch of that asshole’s arm around your throat still constricted your airway, threatening to make the world cave in.

Joel reached up to gently grab your hands still frantically clawing at your throat, placing them on either side of his ribcage, and you clutched onto his flannel under his jacket for dear life. The warmth from his body heat radiated into your palms and sent a wave of something down to your toes. Worrying the threadbare fabric between your fingers mindlessly, Joel seemed to notice and step even closer still, enough that a deep enough breath would close the distance. 

Though, as you thought about it, how he still had room to maneuver any further into you was a mystery, you didn’t even know it was possible. It seemed like every part of you was wrapped up in every part of him.

His voice drew your thoughts back to the present. “Hey, hey. Shhhh…. No more. He’s gone.” Did his voice just crack? “It’s over.” His voice grew a little firmer, if not quieter. “It’s over.”

If only he knew, you weren’t struggling to breathe because of the remnants of a panic attack anymore. No, now it was his proximity. His warm breath fanning across your face as he mumbled words of peace. The press of his skin against yours as he cradled your face so gingerly.

Time stopped, the world ceased its spinning, and suddenly all that was left was this right here between the two of you. This quiet moment, in the middle of a forest, painted in violence and hope, in fear and tenacity, in…. Vibrant shades of both of you.

Will walked up around the tree quietly, clearing his throat softly. “Some of these men were dead long before we got here.”

“Jane,” you smiled. 

“That girl sure is a spit fire,” Joel remarked with his own grin, pulling away from you just slightly, but still keeping you in his hold.

Turning to Will, you steeled your shoulders. “Take me to the blood trail.”

Xxx

It took all of ten minutes of tracking to find Jane leaning against a tree with her back to you, heaving breaths as the right side of her shirt was stained crimson. The violent splotch was spreading, whatever wound obviously still angry and weeping under her white shirt, her outer layer long gone and forgotten in the chaos by now. 

“Jane?” You called out softly from several yards back. A twig snapped under foot, causing a flock of birds in the trees above to startle and take flight in a whir of wings and wind.

She whirled around, knife held out in front of her at the ready, eyes wide and wild from the adrenaline. When she realized who it was, relief washed over her features so strongly it brought tears to your eyes. She dropped the blade to the ground with a clatter and slumped the side of her shoulder against the tree with a huff.

“Took you long enough,” she breathed in amusement, turning so her back was to the tree with her head thrown back, her face toward the sky, wincing in pain.

Before you could even make a move towards her, Will was there helping her back to her feet, scooping her up bridal style and carrying her back towards camp, her head on his shoulder as she went limp, finally able to rest.

Will glanced back when no one else moved. “Come on!” He whisper shouted. “She needs help as soon as possible, or I’m going to-” He caught himself. “We’re going to lose her.”

As the group moved in unison behind a speedwalking Will, you glanced up at Joel in amusement. “Do you think he knows?”

Joel shook his head with a grin. “Everyone else does, so no, probably not.”

You chuckled, despite the situation. It was probably the relief that she was alive finally catching up with you. “That girl’s got his number.”

Huffing a laugh, Joel looked at the back of Will’s head as he rapidly disappeared at the front of the group. “Wrapped around her little finger like those little things she uses to protect herself when she sews back at her shop. Oh, what’re they called?”

You stared at him for a long moment before quietly suggesting in hesitation, “Thimbles?”

Joel slapped his thigh before pointing at you with a renewed grin. “That’s the one!”

With a shake of your head, you turned back to face forward and head up toward the front with your friends. “Ellie was right. You’re losing it, old man.”

“Ain’t old,” he grumbled, his face instantly turning sour. “Jus‘ ‘xperienced.”

“Then you should know all the words, Joel.” You smirked. “No excuses.”

“I do know all the words,” he groused. “That’s the problem. I know too much, my brain can’t keep up.”

You turned to face him, walking backwards. “Sure. That’s the problem.”

“I know things,” he shot back, echoing your words from earlier, his head tilted back to look down his nose at you in a mirror image as he continued to mock your earlier statement. “Lots of stuff.”

“Oh, I see,” your tone was condescending, but playful as you mimicked him right back. “Stuff.”

“And things.” He was trying so hard not to smile.

You were not, letting the grin spread broadly across your face. “Oh, we mustn't forget the things….”

“Yeah, okay.” Joel looked to the side to try and hide his amused grin. “Fuck you, darlin’.”

“I mean, if you’re offerin’….”

His head snapped back to look at you in surprise as you threw his words right back at him yet again. Joel opened his mouth to refute, but you cut him off with a grin. 

“I’m going to go make sure he doesn’t promise her his house or something. Boy would give her half of Jackson if he could.”

“He can have your half, you jackass,” Joel grumbled playfully as you turned back to face the front of the group. “Mine ain’t for sale. Don’t care how pretty you are.”

You glanced over your shoulder, fluttering your lashes ridiculously. “You think I’m pretty?”

“I meant her,” Joel gestured to your friends with his rifle still loosely gripped in his hands, strap slung over his shoulders, at the ready just in case, like always. “Ain’t nothin’ pretty ‘bout what you just said.”

“I only spoke the truth.”

“You’re only makin’ it worse.”

Xxx

The sun was setting by the time Joel was able to pry you away from Jane. You hadn’t wanted to leave her side as Will took it upon himself to treat and dress her wound. 

You held her hand as she grunted in pain while he disinfected the area with a bottle of alcohol someone had brought, then stitched it up. Luckily the blade had missed anything vital, and hadn’t been rusty, thank goodness.

So far this whole trip had been getting by by the skin of your teeth, and that didn’t bode well with you. 

Once she fell asleep, Joel coaxed you over to a clearing not too far away for a breath. A bucket full of water from the nearby stream had been brought to wash the blood off your hands.

Staring down at the water as it turned pink under your touch, tinged with the blood of your friend, you looked up when a shadow crossed over the little bit of sunlight left in the day.

Joel stood just in front of the dying light, backlit and a silhouette as he extended a…. rock? to you.

“That creek is fed from the mountains. Snow melt. Coldest thing around. Best alternative to ice we’ve got right now.” You narrowed your brows at him, making him sigh in frustration. “For your eye,” he said as if it were obvious. 

“Oh,” you said dumbly and took it, lightly resting it against your left eyebrow where you felt the worst of the black eye forming. The cool, smooth stone instantly offered some relief for an ache you hadn’t even realized you had, making you groan softly, and shut your eyes with a grateful sigh. “Thank you.”

He nodded. “Mmm-hmm.” The side of his mouth twitched up as he lowered himself to the ground beside you with a quiet groan. “T’ain’t nothin’.”

Pulling the stone away to examine it for a moment, you arched a brow when Joel slowly pressed it back to your head. “Don’t work if you don’t keep it there, darlin’.”

“Really?” You said as sarcastically as you could muster.

“Huh-uh,” he confirmed with a gentle shake of his head, keeping the stone pressed firmly to your skin. “It’s not a comfort by osmosis thing.”

“No healing by proxy?” You groused, despite the smile working its way up your face, your one good eye squinting from the held back laughter you were just managing to reign in as you looked up at him.

The corner of his mouth lifted so high a dimple creased his cheek. “Now wouldn’t that be somethin’,” he mused softly. 

The two of you sat in comfortable quiet for a long moment, his hand still holding the rock to your head gently until you finally decided it was time to break the silence.

“So what’s the plan from here, Mr. partially-in-charge-of-security?”

Joel’s hand fell from you with a sigh as he shook his head slightly in disbelief, his gaze turned forward as if he couldn’t even bear to look at you after an attempt at a joke that bad. “I’ve been goin’ over it in my head since we left their camp-”

“That must’ve been painful,” you muttered, grinning innocently when he cut his eyes over to you.

They shut briefly with another loaded sigh before they fluttered open and he turned to look at the forest on his right while he continued. “Best I can come up with-” he held a finger up in front of your face without a glance back your way. “I don’t wanna hear it.”

You stared at his finger inches from your nose. “I wasn’t-” You totally were. 

The finger began to wag as his head rolled back to level you with a look. “Now, we both know that’s a lie, darlin’.” You shrank under his continued stare and he went on. “Best I can think of is to send the majority back home since we’re still so close to Jackson. Have them protect Jane and those two raiders we got to interrogate.” His arms were propped up on his bent knees, and his fist clenched at the mention of the thugs.

After he stared off vacantly for a moment, he brought his gaze back onto you. “That means the cart is going to have to go back with them, though. Jane’s in no condition to walk, and you did a number on asshole number one.” He chuckled. 

“Don’t even worry about the cart,” you waved him off. “Jane is more important. What about asshole number two?” Rubbing your throat absently with the hand not holding the rock to your head, you stared into the trees straight ahead before you realized what you were doing and lowered your hand, turning your gaze back to Joel. “He can still walk just fine.” You tilted your head in thought for a moment. “May be a little bit more of a waddle, but….”

Joel chuckled darkly, hanging his head as his shoulders shook with the laughter. Finally he looked up at you through his lashes, a conniving expression twinkling in his eyes. “Let the little ugly duckling waddle back, then.”

“How will we be sure he doesn’t waddle off?”

“I’ve been known to tie a knot or two in my day.”

As the novelty of the whole situation wore off, you turned to face Joel a bit more fully, letting the hand that held the rock fall from its spot against your face to rest in your lap, ignoring Joel’s scowl in protest. 

“You said most of the group. Joel, we should all go back. Safety in numbers. Making sure everyone is safe is more important than my paint-” 

“Safety in numbers. Exactly. That’s why most’f’em are goin’ back. We only need a few t’do this run. It also made us a target bein’ such a big group. The council made a shit decision ‘bout that. There’s a reason patrols’re only two people.” He looked out at the woods again. “It was temptin’ to leave it just the two’f us as originally planned, but, after yesterday, even you could see the perks’f havin’ a few extra people should somethin’ happen.”

“Quality not quantity.”

Joel bobbed his head, his eyes shining proudly as you understood. “‘xactly.”

Something wasn’t sitting right. “But what about the threats, Joel? They said somethin’ about Jackson was gonna burn….”

“People say all kinds o’shit when you’ve got a pocket knife in one hand n’your knee pinnin’ their crotch to the dirt.”

You let out a snort, unable to contain your laughter at his blunt explanation. “Can’t say you’re wrong there.”

Joel leaned back with a contented sigh, propping his arm up on his bent leg. “I’m never wrong.”

You let out another snort of laughter, more bubbling up and out when he shot you a glare. 

Xxx

That night, just as the sun began to set, Joel slammed the back tailgate of the cart shut after helping Jane up into it.

“You good?” He asked quietly, his voice soft and kind.

“I’ll be fine. Thank you, Joel.” Jane reached out a hand to rest on his shoulder. 

“Not worried ‘bout you, sweetheart,” he mumbled, his eyes darting over to the wounded raider sitting as far from him as he could get in the front corner of the cart. The bandit cowered under his stare but stayed silent. “Was more worried ‘bout him.” Joel looked at Jane pointedly as he explained, his head tilted forward while he looked at her through his lashes and arched brows.

“Like I said,” Jane spoke firmly, her voice low and even as she turned to look at the asshole, making him cower even further. “I’ll be fine.”

“Whaddabout me?” The second bandit who had tried to choke you said loudly and amusedly from where he stood behind the cart a few feet away from Joel, his hands bound by one end of rope and the other end tied to the back of the cart. “Do I get a send off from tall, dark and brooding?”

Joel turned to him without even fully looking at the man, cocking his rifle as he spoke on a tired sigh. “That can be arranged.”

The raider guffawed as he stumbled back a few steps, Joel striding forward the ground he lost, while you stepped in between, hands extended.

“Stop. There’s no time for this.” Turning to face Joel, you lowered your arms. “Joel, let the little shit leave.”

The raider’s voice rose behind you like a forgotten tendril of smoke, thin and pungent, just enough to remind you it was there. “Ain’t nothin’ little ‘bout me, darlin’.”

Without a second thought, you whirled around and clocked the thug in the eye, making him stumble back further, the rope stretching to its limit and yanking him forward to his knees.

“Except your brain, apparently.” You shook out your hand to your side, the impact from the punch leaving a searing sting across your knuckles. “You don’t get to call me that.”

“What do I get to call you then?” The man sneered, bringing his bound hands up to swipe at his face.

You took a step closer, smirking, and enjoyed how the amused sparkle in his eyes faltered slightly at the sight. “Whatever you say when you’re begging for your life, tough guy.”

The man swallowed nervously, despite his narrowed eyes of contempt. “I don’t beg for anything. From anyone. ‘specially not you.”

You let your eyes travel up and down the length of him slowly in an unnerving appraisal. “We’ll just see about that. Won’t we, Joel?”

“Lookin’ forward t’hearin’ just how loudly he won’t beg….” Joel mused behind you.

“Fuck. You,” the man hissed.

“No. Thanks,” you sneered back.

Will pulled your attention away as he stepped up on the wheel of the cart to lean in beside Jane, his weight making the whole thing squeak under the pressure. “Are you sure you don’t need me to come with you to keep this asshole in line?” He jerked his head toward the guy tethered at the back.

Jane smiled and patted Will’s cheek lightly. “I think I’ll be just fine. Like I told Joel.” Her eyes flicked between the two of them. Her voice sickly sweet. “Now if you two don’t stop coddling me, one of you is going to be injured and sitting beside me on this trip back to Jackson. So shut,” she looked at Will, “your,” Joel, “piehole.” She looked at you.

You raised your hands in surrender. “Me? “ They turned out in question. “What did I do?!”

She shrugged, her head tilting just slightly. “It was preemptive.” Leaning towards Will again, she kissed him on the cheek, smiling when he began to sputter and turn six shades of red. “Stay with Joel. He needs you here more than he’ll admit.”

“I heard that,” Joel grumbled, walking past the end of the cart as he began to check in with the rest of the group.

“Good. You were meant to,” Jane grinned, lurching slightly as the cart began to move forward, Will jumping from the wheel before it could turn fully.

As the bandit walked past Will, he turned to him with a sadistic grin. “Don’t I get a goodbye kiss, handsome?”

“Sure,” Will said with a disarming smile, making the other man stumble for a moment. The next he was stumbling further after Will sucker punched him in the mouth. “How was that? Was it good for you, too?”

The raider in the cart was looking on wide eyed, but you caught him grinning slightly at the exchange, looking away quickly to try and hide it when Will glanced his way.

Jane was laughing as the cart began to disappear into the sunset. Her head thrown back, eyes closed, hand over her stomach type laughter. “Don’t make me laugh! It hurts!”

Will gave a dopey grin as he watched them disappear into the dying light, Jane and the bandit tied to the back of the cart bickering back and forth about nonsense that you couldn’t quite make out at this distance, but you could tell she wasn’t taking any shit.

“She’ll be okay.” You walked up to Will, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah, I know.” He was distant, his mind a million miles off. “I know.”

Xxx

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[mysticstronomy]

WHAT ARE WHITE DWARFS??

Blog#356

Saturday, December 9th, 2023

Welcome back,

White dwarfs are what is left when stars like our sun have exhausted all of their fuel. They are dense, dim, stellar corpses — the last observable stage of evolution for low- and medium-mass stars.

Whilst most massive stars will eventually go supernova, a low or medium mass star with a mass less than about 8 times the mass of the sun will eventually become a white dwarf, according to NASA. Approximately 97% of the stars in the Milky Way will eventually become white dwarfs, according to researchers.

Compared to our sun, a white dwarf has a similar carbon and oxygen mass though it is much smaller in size — similar to Earth, according to New Mexico State University (NMSU).

White dwarf temperatures can exceed 100,000 Kelvin according to NASA (that's about 179,500 degrees Fahrenheit). Despite these sweltering temperatures, white dwarfs have a low luminosity as they're so small in size according to NMSU.

Main-sequence stars, including the sun, form from clouds of dust and gas drawn together by gravity.

How the stars evolve through their lifetime depends on their mass. The most massive stars, with eight times the mass of the sun or more, will never become white dwarfs. Instead, at the end of their lives, white dwarfs will explode in a violent supernova, leaving behind a neutron star or black hole.

Smaller stars, however, will take a slightly more sedate path. Low- to medium-mass stars, such as the sun, will eventually swell up into red giants. After that, the stars shed their outer layers into a ring known as a planetary nebula (early observers thought the nebulas resembled planets such as Neptune and Uranus ). The core that is left behind will be a white dwarf, a husk of a star in which no hydrogen fusion occurs.

Smaller stars, such as red dwarfs, don't make it to the red giant state. They simply burn through all of their hydrogen, ending the process as a dim white dwarf. However, red dwarfs take trillions of years to consume their fuel, far longer than the 13.8-billion-year-old age of the universe, so no red dwarfs have yet become white dwarfs.

When a star runs out of fuel, it no longer experiences an outward push from the process of fusion and it collapses inward on itself.

White dwarfs contain approximately the mass of the sun but have roughly the radius of Earth, according to Cosmos, the astronomy encyclopedia from Swinburne University in Australia. This makes them among the densest objects in space, beaten out only by neutron stars and black holes. According to NASA, the gravity on the surface of a white dwarf is 350,000 times that of gravity on Earth. That means a 150-pound (68-kilogram) person on Earth would weigh 50 million pounds (22.7 million kg) on the surface of a white dwarf.

White dwarfs reach this incredible density because they are collapsed so tightly that their electrons are smashed together, forming what is called "degenerate matter." The former stars will keep collapsing until the electrons themselves provide enough of an outward-pressing force to halt the crunch. The more mass, the greater the pull inward, so a more massive white dwarf has a smaller radius than its less massive counterpart.

Those conditions mean that, after shedding much of its mass during the red giant phase, no white dwarf can exceed 1.4 times the mass of the sun.

When a star swells up to become a red giant, it engulfs its closest planets. But some can still survive. NASA’s Spitzer spacecraft revealed that at least 1 to 3 percent of white dwarf stars have contaminated atmospheres that suggest rocky material has fallen into them.

Originally published on www.space.com

COMING UP!!

(Wednesday, December 13th, 2023)

"METHUSELAH STAR IS THE OLDEST STAR IN OUR UNIVERSE??"

[mosscreektarot]

Pick a Pile: A Message from Your Soul Mate

From top to bottom, and left to right there are 4 groups. Pick the image you feel drawn to, or can't stop looking at. Take your time.

*

*

*

Group 1: Top Left

Oracle Card: 

Energetic Clearing: “During crises, the Holy One Herself may be emptying you of fear and attachments, preparing you to receive Her luminous Plan." 

You are stepping into your power. It's frightening and painful. But, you have an iron will and are learning that practicing discipline is KEY for getting where you need to be. Your fiery wit and sharp sense of humor are admired by all. 

Be strong my love. The time of suffering is nigh over. A new dawn has risen. Fear not feeling lost, for you are creating your own way. 

Focus on your career at this time~your well-being, energy, and confidence are boosted by your success. You’ve got this! 

*

Group 2: Top Right

Oracle Card: 

Acceptance: "Radical Acceptance in the Now opens the Flow"

You may have been drawn to Group one’s photo as well, in which case group one’s message is also for you. The Queen of Wands appears in this spread as the first card again, staring straight ahead.

You know what you want and you are going for it. You’re present, resilient, kind, and the next 6 months will be blooming for you. Romance is in the air, and it’s high time we meet, my darling. 

Take care of your home and hearth. Recharge. Enjoy your times of quiet contemplation, for as life changes, so too your idea of peace. 

Sometimes you bite off more than you can chew, and it gets you so riled up! Pause before you act, take a breath, accept that fate has the best life in store for us, and enjoy the little moments. 

*

Group 3: Bottom Left

Oracle Card: 

Grounded: “Many of the most evolved beings on earth are “regular” folks living with joy, dignity, and courage.” 

Passion. So much passion and love is in store for us, honey. The life we always dreamt of, happiness, laughter, and adventure. The world is our oyster, and we just need to crack the shell of knowing one another. 

Time and distance have kept us apart, but our waiting will soon be over. 

5 months of hardship for a lifetime of happiness. 

Do not let fear make you reckless. Forgive your mistakes; we are all imperfect human beings on a wild and mysterious planet. Cosmic star, death cannot keep us apart. I await thee. 

*

Group 4: Bottom Right

Oracle Card:

Divine Flow, Rx: “Eventually, one sublime desire takes precedence over all others: to follow the Tao, the Divine Flow, at all costs.”

Saddle up, sad one. I’ve got a lot to say to you. You’ve been burned recently. Your heart’s on fire. Life isn’t going your way, and never seems to be progressing or changing. 

You’re moving forward. 

One step at a time. 

Don’t lose sight of your artistic endeavors. The light shines more brightly when it touches your skin. You are a star, a luminosity so mysterious and beautiful I marvel to behold you. 

Find balance. Ease into it. Create routines in your life and rituals you stick to. Fill your own cup. Stop worrying about if, how, when, and start doing. Find your flow. 

You can’t resist the universe. 

[hot-astrology]

Souls on Fire

(Soul Ties)

As we traverse the pages of life, we cross paths with a multitude of souls. Yet, some among them ignite a flame within us, a primal force that beckons us towards them. At a deeper level, our essence recognizes them and whispers that there is more to our story together - a contract to fulfill or unfinished tales to unravel. In this physical realm, it can be hard to remember this due to the barriers that are placed on us. We weren't even given a chance to understand what our soul is, let alone soul ties.

These particular souls we meet bring with them an energy of karma, passion, or pure love. There are numerous types of karmic ties that fall under these titles, but we are focusing on the 3 most prominent ones to further give you an understanding of how you may encounter them throughout our life. There are karmic, twin flames, and soulmates. There’s a saying that you have 3 loves in a lifetime.

KARMICS

The 1st is usually when you're younger or in a stage of immaturity. This is where you guys may idealize each other, and most time's it may start off as friends or having no title to the relationship. This one teaches you boundaries. This karmic relationship will be very interesting, intense, emotionally draining & passionate. You will crave this person sexually. They will be co-dependent for each other's energy as well presence knowing that they are kryptonite. These relationships can bring alcoholism, abuse in all forms, narcissism, and jealousy. They will have you on an emotional roller-coaster, mind lost, soul gone, and reaching out for help consciously but subconsciously yearning for more pain, not even knowing why. The way you meet can be a fated meet like no other and will seem like you would never meet anyone with their deep sexual energy intense hold on your soul. Yet, at the same time, you would never want to run into someone like that person again. They remind you of all the hurt & lessons, and mind fuck games they had you in, you had to learn these lessons, even through all the difficult, murky, lustful waters of sexuality and deceit. I like to say this one is the karmic relationship. This karmic debt is to help change you, and mold you into a more conscious individual who can know when lust and sexual craves can put you in a bad situation that can destroy you mentally, physicall, as well as soulfully. You may look back at this one later on, like, "What was i thinking & why did i stay so long?" Karmic relationships can happen at any time in your life but are more prone to happen when you're younger, and soul is less evolved. As you get older, these relationships tend to be very sexual and harder to get away from. It seems like each karmic relationship gets more and more intense when your soul is still yearning for the old karmic thrills. You can encounter numerous karmic partners in one lifetime, depending on how many karmic lessons you need for your soul to evolve and ascend to the next journey.

Twinflames

The 2nd can be very skeptical and alluring at the same time, which brings a sense of familiarity & similarity between the two partners. These two can be so alike that they trigger each other without knowing it. The meeting; one can be more attracted to the other. This brings your class dynamic of the twin flame. The runner & the chaser dynamic is what usually results in this duo, which can look crazy to others while you both are playing tag in your relationship. It can feel like an obsessive connection, and the more you talk to each other, the more your souls intertwine without consent. The more you get to know each other you feel like you don't want to leave, yet something keeps exploding between you two, causing separation. The twin flame is a mirror showing you flaws within yourself. Many times, the karmic energy is confused with this because they hold similar traits. Both can end up obsessive, but you'll realize that with the karmic partner, you'll stay in the same place for years with no progression. With a karmic, you two could make plans together that usually won't come true. With a twin flame, there is a chance for it to last but with great challenge and change. This energy is similar to Uranus with a touch of Neptune & Pluto, giving you shocking changes and turning you into a new person. Even through separation, you still feel a psychic connection with the other. It's hard to let go because, inevitably, you're leaving a piece of yourself behind for the better. They show you your flaws that you didn't know you had. This is probably one of the hardest to break. Even if one does try to break it off, the other is likely to keep coming back and be filled with regret. Usually when they both part ways on agreement or one tends to escape then both take time apart and let their soul mature, heal, process and overstand the lesson. Only then, may they reunite and can be a more prolific couple or just be best friends. People tend to have numerous twinflames throughout their lives, and they can be family, friends, neighbors, etc. Today, we are mostly focusing on sexual companionship.

Soulmates

Lastly, the 3rd.... I was going to say that this is a partner you find you truly mesh with and have a lot in common with. Which is true but not entirely. This is the one that comes very unexpectedly, and possibly even when you’ve given up on love or when your soul knows you have evolved and deserve more. When you first lay eyes on them, you can feel that they will cause a huge shift in your life for the better. It's the feeling you get when you've known you met the one. You two complement one another, and think of opposition in astrology. Cancer/Capricorn, Aries/Libra, Pisces/Virgo. It's the merging of the divinity inside each person, masculine & feminine. You can lose all standards and traditional mindsets you have been conditioned with and conformed by when it comes to this partner. You suddenly just flow like the water down a creek, and everything else falls into line as it's supposed to. You two may find many similarities yet differences, but nothing is ever perfect. You teach each other for a higher calling and purpose usually this is the time when your soul is ready and has been through so much turmoil and pain or yet you could be a blessed soul that went straight for the goal and gained this emaculate relationship without the the other intense relationships. The soulmate is the one your soul has been yearning for. This is someone you may have known last lifetime or multiple past lifetimes. You feel at home with them because they are from your soul family. People usually only meet 1 soulmate, or they never get a chance to meet them due to so much time and lessons dealing with the lustful and chaotic side of the less fortunate relationships. The world can distance or distract you away from one another, but it's only so long that this pull and connection can be restricted and restrained.

In some cases, we may try to avoid these karmic debts, but it's important to recognize that evolved souls deal with them in a positive approach. In fact, these experiences can be seen as a spiritual mindset for growth and transformation. By facing these challenges head-on, we can develop a stronger sense of resilience and inner strength that can help us navigate future obstacles with greater ease. By taking this information in, we want you to dive deep. Deeper than you have ever gone to your souls core. Listen to its stir of echoes that ripple against your soft internal essence that talks to you from within and guides you through the dark shadow nights and unfamiliar relationships with other entities. They are also here to experience the unexpected and unfamiliar mentally and, also, familiar spiritually. Every experience is not to be great and cherished. Many are to wake you, shake you, and break you into your new souls enlightened path. This creates a new perspective on life, people, relationships, boundaries, accountability, acceptance, desires, self-love, self-worth, and knowing you deserve your soulmate.

If anyone has these type of experiences, and would like to share your experiences, we would love to hear about them in our Ask Box! If you want to know if you're currently dealing with these energies or if you were previously involved with these energies. We are open for readings. Please feel free to email us at Hotastrology444@gmail.com for a composite, synastry, or natal chart reading!

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

𝑶𝒖𝒓 𝑷𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒔: 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐳 𝐕𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐳 || 𝐌𝐨𝐨𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐢

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