#i now get liberty to share all my toxic thoughts <3

[todayisafridaynight]

The way masato could’ve used tape or something instead of a binder but I like the idea of him being so determined to be a miserable piece of shit that he didn’t out of spite (spite for who? I don’t even think masato knows atp)

BIG AGREE.....

[destinyimage]

Breaking All Generational Curses Over Your Pregnancy & Decreeing 7 Generational Blessings

Generations of cultural traditions, family stories, personal beliefs, habitual patterns, and certain ways of doing things have been passed down to all of us through our generational family lines.

There are also personal welfare conditions and various health issues that have been shared through our common natural bloodlines. It is so easy to conform to the old familiar way of thinking and acting and accept these curses as “normal,” but this keeps us living in a broken cycle of continual torment, not even realizing that through Jesus we have the ability and freedom to put an end to it. There is a new way to live in the glory realm, and this happens as we put our complete trust in the power of Jesus Christ and the finished work of the cross. We no longer need to carry the pains of the past or be held in bondage moving forward into our future. Jesus came to set us free!

In your family, there may be a spirit of poverty. If so, get rid of it now! Break that scarcity mentality! Break that mindset of poverty! You need to take authority over that curse! You are not poor; you are blessed and highly favored, and in the glory there is no insufficiency of any kind. Begin focusing on God’s abundant supply and unlimited provision and receive it!

In your family, there may be present or past history of cancer, arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, or other physical ailments. Make up your mind to get rid of them now. Break that sickly mindset! You can do this as you take your authority in the glory! Declare, “Not today, Satan, and not ever! I break all ungodly ties with the curse, and I refuse to accept anything but God’s very best for my life!” Remember, those diseases don’t belong to you—they are part of the curse and it was broken at the cross. Stop running to your medicine cabinet or calling your doctor as a first response. Train your mind to be directed toward accessing God’s healing virtue when ungodly symptoms appear. In the glory, you are whole! Receive your freedom!

When it comes to parenting, maybe you experienced toxic patterns in your childhood, and you are concerned about what will be passed down to your children. Stop thinking that way! God is able to break off those unhealthy thoughts, words, and patterns of behavior today if you’ll allow Him to make the necessary changes in you. In the glory, there is freedom and power to be all that God has created you to be. Receive it!

There are even some physical prophetic acts that you can do (beyond prayer) to break off generational curses from your baby, and I share this in my book, Childbirth in the Glory, more in-depth.

Glory Scriptures

But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith (Galatians 3:13-14, NLT).

We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin (Romans 6:6, NLT).

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (emancipation from bondage, freedom). And all of us, as with unveiled face, [because we] continued to behold [in the Word of God] as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another; [ for this comes] from the Lord [Who is] the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:17-18, AMPC).

Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17, AMPC)

But in that coming day no weapon turned against you will succeed. You will silence every voice raised up to accuse you. These benefits are enjoyed by the servants of the Lord; their vindication will come from me. I, the Lord, have spoken! (Isaiah 54:17, NLT)

Glory Prayer

Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, Your Word says that You give Your angels charge over us to guard us and protect us. I thank You right now for releasing angels of protection over my body and over this new life that You have created within me. I thank You that no weapon forged against us shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against us in judgement You shall condemn. This is our heritage as servants of the Lord.

I decree that no word curse, generational curse, witchcraft, or evil spirit shall touch me or my child, for we are covered by the blood of Jesus. Lord, You will deliver us from evil, for Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. I have made You my habitation, and I find my protection in the shadow of Your wings. Amen!

Glory Decrees

In the glory, I am the redeemed of the Lord!

In the glory, I am moving into the new!

In the glory, what runs in my family comes from the heavenlies!

In the glory, there is complete freedom for me and my family!

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Speaking Generational Blessings

The baby in your womb is a child of abundance (overflowing with abundant blessings in spirit, soul, and body).

You must truly believe this and speak this over your child. It’s going to take a spiritual boldness on your part, but you’re well equipped to do this. If you feel insecure in this regard, just begin to study God’s Word concerning His blessings. God has always desired to bless His children. The scriptures are filled with His promises of blessing, not only for your personal life but also for the lives of your children and the generations to come. Your legacy will be one of abundant generational blessings!

In the natural, you may come from a generational family line of non-believers, but that isn’t a problem for God because you’ve been grafted into the spiritual bloodline of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through the finished work of Jesus Christ! The generational promises that God made to them are now available for you and your generations. The Lord, speaking to Abraham (then known as Abram) in Genesis 12:2-3, made a seven-fold promise that is for each of us who names Jesus as Lord:

1. I will make you into a great nation.

For you today, this speaks of divine multiplication and God’s greatness being revealed through your life and the life of your child as you choose to trust Him and be led by His Spirit. You and your generations will do great things to advance the Kingdom of God on earth. Take this time now to prophetically speak into your child’s life in the womb. Lay your hands on your stomach and allow the Spirit to prophesy through you regarding the anointing and ministry call on your precious child’s life. Speak to the greatness within them and set them apart for God’s service. (See Jeremiah 1:5.)

2. I will bless you.

This one is pretty clear—the blessing of the Lord will follow you and your lineage all of your days as you agree with the Word and partner with the Spirit of glory. With this blessing in mind, you may want to speak the following scriptural promise over your baby in the womb: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace” (Numbers 6:24-26, NIV).

3. I will make your name great.

It is God who promotes, advances, and blesses you with divine opportunities and connections, giving you a favorable reputation and name. He chooses to do this through those who posture themselves with humility so that He can be magnified on the earth. (See James 4:10; 1 Peter 5:6.) Instead of your family name bringing you feelings of shame or embarrassment, quite the opposite will happen. Through you and your child, your family name will be one of greatness, beyond reproach, and it will bring glory to God in the earth!

4. You will be a blessing.

Your child will not be a burden, a hindrance, or a distraction in your life. God has graced you with this child—that they might be a tremendous blessing to you and to all those they meet along life’s journey (See Psalm 127:3.) Speak to your baby right now and tell them how blessed you are to be carrying such a beautiful gift from God within your womb. It will also be important to habitually speak these blessings over your child throughout their formative years and beyond. Always remind them (and yourself) why God has brought them into this world—for such a time as this.

5. I will bless those who bless you.

This means you and your legacy will attract such blessings that it may seem almost impossible to contain! An overflow of abundance is the promise that God has for you! (See Ephesians 3:20.) Such favor rests upon your generational family line that your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren will live their lives as a blessing magnet as they walk in the footsteps of salvation!

6. I will curse those who curse you.

This promise speaks of God providing a supernatural defense shield of protection around your family line. Every curse comes from the enemy, and those curses will not prosper in your life because they are being returned to hell (where they came from). Every curse is null and void because you choose to use your authority and live under the blood of Jesus Christ and within the finished work of the cross. (See Galatians 3:13.) All demonic witchcraft, hexes, spells, voodoo curses, familiar spirits, satanic sorcery, hypnosis, bewitchery, etc. are broken off your life and the life of your child. You are free to live in the fullness of God’s blessings. The curse has been reversed.

7. All peoples on the earth will be blessed through you.

As you choose to honor God’s covenant, His blessings flow with unlimited measure. Your family will be a blessing of light in a darkened world. (See Isaiah 60:1.) It’s time to arise and shine with the generational blessings of God!

I would highly recommend that you speak these individual blessings over your sweet baby as the Spirit brings them to your remembrance. Whether it’s morning, afternoon, or night, it doesn’t matter. When the Spirit quickens you to lay your hands on your stomach (anointing your baby in the womb), just do it and boldly speak these promises with a loud voice of authority. As you read this book and capture this revelation, your child is being set apart as a sign and a wonder. (See Isaiah 8:18.) God will do great and mighty things through their life because of your prayers and anointed intercession during this season of pregnancy. Your prayers are powerful—they are weapons against the enemy’s assignments, and they are re-enforcers of God’s promises for the generations to come!

Glory Scriptures

Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations (Deuteronomy 7:9, ESV).

Their children will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed (Psalm 112:2, NIV).

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live (Deuteronomy 30:19, NIV).

Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts; let them proclaim your power (Psalm 145:4, NLT).

Glory Prayer

Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank You for Your glory that brings great blessing, miracles and abundance for all succeeding generations. I choose to stand in my authority as a believer, and I connect with each and every promise that You have provided for me and my children.

I thank You that my baby is being born for greatness! You will multiply Your blessings in their life! You are redeeming our family name for Your glory! I choose to receive every blessing that is overflowing from Heaven for me and my legacy so that Your Kingdom will be established on the earth in a greater way through us. I declare and step into the generational blessings of God. Amen!

Glory Decrees

In the glory, I am blessed, and all of my children are blessed too!

In the glory, I am favored by God in an extraordinary way!

In the glory, my children will be raised for supernatural success and prosperity!

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[goldafterglow]

hold me in the meadows

Summary: You are Ezra’s dreamcatcher and he is your burrow.

Request: “The sleepy prompts!! Lovely! Can you do “I have had nightmares every night for the past three weeks and now they’re gone because of you, how did you do that?” with (can you guess??) EZRA” - the love of my life, @opheliaelysia

Pairing: Ezra (Prospect) x Reader

Word Count: 4.6k+

Tags: angst?, fluff, more metaphors that don’t mean anything, weird touching lol idk what the fuck this fic is, this is also not beta read so send the flood send the flu

Author’s Note: If you left a like or comment or reblog on Dissolve Me I’m telling you with as little shame as is humanly possible that I definitely reread it at least 3 times. Feedback means the word to me! also this was supposed to be a 500 word drabble and now it’s over 4.5k words if that tells you anything about me. I apologize in advance I think I’ve really outdone myself w/ my bullshit this time

Gif Credit: @pascvl; Also shout out to @pascalplease sorry I spammed you for nothing dsfgdsg

Ezra is staring at you.

He’d met you on one of those toxic moons, one of those deceitfully picturesque mirages where the dust glitters like lily petals but the air would kill you before you could think to appreciate it. You were a floater; a nomad with no place to call home, but you figured you liked it that way. Homes were permanent. They set lives and futures in cobblestone and trapped spirits in gated properties, keeping just about anything and everything tethered under the farce of security. Homes make paraffin casings around dragonfly wings and turn footprints to concrete. So you never had one, and you never wanted one. Ezra had found you amusing. You had found him to be better company than just yourself. So with great reluctance, you established a partnership. Not one forged in steel or bronze but something still fleeting, its true meaning always escaping your lips like a forgotten thought. It’s too much work to try and think about it anyway.

You had let him invite you to reside in his tent. It took coaxing, required copious amounts of golden honey spilling from Ezra’s tongue to get you to tenaciously stick to him, but you were no match for his silver tongue. He did everything he could to assure that this wasn’t a habitat, but merely a shelter - a thing that could be taken down and built back up somewhere else, anywhere you wanted. So you had obliged. He let you take the cot closest to the zipper door; you liked being closer to the exit, just a rotation away from being back on your feet. He tries to let you truly feel like if you wanted to escape, wanted to elope with liberty and run away from the loose bonds of the canopy, you could.

Three weeks of sleeping adjacent to him and you still don’t want to.

Ezra is used to temporary relationships. He has done his fair share of companion hopping, although he wasn’t really making an effort to do so. It scares him a little - why can’t he make anyone stay, make anything last? Partners passed him by, either to traverse on their lonesome or to stay with that greedy man in the eternal sky. Teams disbanded around him like glass castles shattering in his wake. Ezra, whether he liked it or not, was accustomed to transience.

He is not, however, accustomed to fearing that sharp brevity. Ezra is constantly on his toes around you, frequently wondering if he’s pushing you away or pulling you closer. You aren’t skittish, don’t constantly question everything he says or get offended by the sound of his voice, but he’s still scared of losing you. Every time he looks into your eyes he sees wonder, a certain fascination with life that he tries so hard to match because he wants to find things as beautiful as you do. As beautiful as you are. He wants to mis-quote your favorite novels that you force him to read so that you’ll scold him so affectionately and tell him that perhaps he had garnered a little brain damage from his previous escapades. He wants to trip over tree roots that have herniated through the soil so you can laugh at him, maybe lay there on the grass with him for a little bit. Just a little bit.

In your own mind, you are guarded. You try your very best not to get too personal, too deep, too much. Because you don’t like it when people can see your flushed, bloody insides. You just know that the moment you open your chest, someone will steal your heart right out of your rib cage and like the pass of a hummingbird, all of your secrets will be free to float in the breeze like the ashes of your lost quintessence; it’ll all be gone and then you’ll really be empty.  So how could you ever know what you mean to Ezra?

He knows what a truly locked up person looks like. He’s spent hundreds of cycles with people that don’t make a noise. He’s sat in bustling pods of people and felt like the only man in the room, like solitary confinement for his mind. No, you are not some warning-covered steel box, padlocked and duct-taped and glued shut so that even if he’s sitting right next to you, he’ll have nothing more than his own voice bounce to off of your walls and fly right back to him. You’re a music box, a gold-trimmed heart-shaped sound bottle, and he learns that if he winds you up the right way, you’ll sing so pretty for him.

He has spent so long talking, nonsensically making those arbitrary noises burst out of his throat until they lose all meaning, but finally, for the first time in so fucking long, Ezra gets to listen.

He listens to you tell him you think his hair is stupid and that sometimes he smells bad. He listens to you lament about barren dig-sites and wasted time, about how it’s so fucking hot in your suit. He listens to you fantasize about touching the trees, burying your face in your flowers and squeezing the moss in your hands. About drowning in the river so that your body is filled with the water and then rolling in the sand so that it all sticks to you and you have to dive back in to clean off. About feeling something.

Sometimes, Ezra just wants to hear something other than his own voice. And you’re the cold towel to his inflamed skin, refreshing and addictive. You’re much braver than you think, so much stronger than you give yourself credit for, because for once, Ezra can talk into the forest and know that there’s someone to listen besides the leaves. He doesn’t feel alone.

Every night, when the moon has turned its back on the narcissistic Sun and opened its arms to the thousands of other stars, each just a prick of light but understanding of their place in the tapestry of the darkness, the two of you retire to that tent. You both redress into comfortable clothes, backs turned on each other under the guise of respect, and climb into your respective cots. Ezra would turn off that shitty lantern that illuminated the enclosure, and your shadows would dissipate into the darkness.

Except Ezra’s shadows don’t disappear; they hide. They blend into the black and mold into one man-engulfing untamable beast to possess Ezra’s throat. And they manifest again in his mind. They poison that movie that plays once you slip consciousness, instills fear into his bone marrow until he doesn’t feel safe in his own body, his own thoughts.

These slumber illusions haunt Ezra. His right arm waves at him in his sleep, the souls to which he was the conduit bridging life and death haunt his diaphragm with toothy grins to mock him, screeching into his cavities. They remind him that he was never really alone because he has the suffocating embrace of those spirits that are sewn so tight to his eyelids. Every night he somehow manages to pull himself from the darkness only for his own demons to pull him back by the throat. He is always oscillating between consciousness and unconsciousness, being tossed around like a helpless rag with no hope of liberation. Nothing scares him more than his own thoughts.

And you know. You know all of it. How could you not? You were born a tumbleweed, wandering across desolation, so of course you’re a light sleeper. And you can hear Ezra’s choked cries, his tossing and turning as he drains himself of any sense of safety. But this man is a stranger to you. He is just a person you reside with, talk to all the time, nudge gently and tease and smile with. He is just the person that you wake up wanting to see, whose attention you always crave. A stranger.

So every night you turn your body to face the zipper of the tent and pretend that you can’t hear him cry. Pretend that you don’t sometimes cry with him. A pretty lavender lie that smells sweet, tastes sweeter.

You, in your cowardice, let him destroy himself. Watch as the bags under his eyes get bigger and greyer and the strings holding his shoulders up lose their tension.

Ezra, in his flawed cratered embodiment, is only human. And he had gone so long without holding anyone, without being held. He knows what he wants, knows who he wants. But he also knows how jittery you are, how fluttery your heart is, and he doesn’t want to approach it too fast lest he startle you and you fly off into the stars. But he can’t keep doing this, can’t live with himself when he knows he’s not the one in control but those horned, slimy creatures that claw at his maxilla with their venomous grins.

The lights are out in the tent per usual, so Ezra can’t really see you. His careful eyes can trace the outline of the curves of your body - or is it that his delusional eyes are envisioning some arbitrary glow around you, convincing him that what he’s seeing is real? Reality is a concept with which he is no longer familiar.

You, laying in your cot, decide that you just can’t take it anymore. You can’t stand to let this intruder of your life break you down the way he is without even trying. How dare he look into you, how dare he listen to you without passing judgement, how fucking dare he make you feel like a flower in bloom?

Ezra hears your breaths - they’re uneven. You haven’t gone to sleep. What are you waiting for?

“Ezra?” you practically squeak into the void. His ears perk up immediately; your cotton candy voice is enticing to him, flossing its way through his veins.

“What are you doing up, birdie?” Ezra asks softly, the air of his lungs floating on top of his words. He doesn’t mean to keep you awake, but he isn’t mad that you are. It’s stimulating his nerves enough to keep himself awake, and that’s something he probably won’t ever be able to repay you for.

“I-um….” Shit. You hadn’t expected to get this far. What would you say to him? How could you tell him that you wanted to help cleanse him, that you wanted to grovel in lime-coated thumb tacks with him and absorb his pain into your tissue paper skin? “I can’t sleep.”

Not a lie. Ezra knows you mean it. He just doesn’t know why.

“Well that won’t suffice,” he decides, outstretching his left arm blindly off the edge of his cot until his fingers brush against what he’s looking for: that goddamn lantern. With a little more fumbling, a weak but good enough orange glow is emitted on the floor between the two of you. You both catch each other’s pitiful gaze. You want to take care of each other, want to shield each other from the red sprites that nip angrily at each other’s hearts. Ezra holds his left arm out to you, tentatively. He’s never been more unsure in his life. He watches you glance at his arm, and then quickly to the side. You’re trying to decide if you’ll let him add another tether to you. If you’ll let him become something sewed so tight to your bleeding skin that to leave would rip you apart.

You slowly get up and walk over to his cot.

Ezra lets out a soft breath and his lips turn to a soft smile. He’s soft.

“C’mere, dandelion” he mumbles to you, and he hasn’t missed his right arm so much as in this moment. He wants to hold you properly, wants to keep you as close to him as possible. You’re hesitant, and he can tell. You’ve never been this close to him before, and you want to savor it. When your head finally touches his shoulder, it’s like a catalyst ignites underneath the two of you. You mold into each other the way the gods intended, like lake water seeping into the smallest of crevices of an empty river bed. Like the opposing poles of two magnets, like a key penetrating a lock. Like you were made for each other. Your arms immediately wrap around him, his neck now a fixture of your body, and his arm leads you to lay down on the cot. Without words, without that candid discourse that Ezra was so fond of, his face is buried into the warmth of your chest and he feels like you’ve cast an ethereal shield around him.

Ezra doesn’t need to hold you tight because you’re holding him tighter, like you’re trying to cling to something invisible and foreign before it can even think to leave you. Before it realizes that it doesn’t want you. Don’t leave. He can feel you breathe him in, face smashed against his wild hair, and he can’t blame you because he’s breathing you in too.

“Sweetheart-” he breathes, fanning against your skin in a way that sends a deep shiver down your spine and shakes your shoulders.

“Shh.” And for once in his cursed life, he’s speechless. There’s so much, too much that he wants to say to you, but his mind is shouting all of it at him at once and he doesn’t even know where to start. So he shuts the fuck up. He feels you. He feels your heat melt him until he can barely control his own muscles because they’ve gone limp, unable to perform a single contraction because his fibers are relaxed, are at peace.

He doesn’t know when he falls asleep.

When Ezra wakes, you’re still sweet and motionless around him. The lamp was still on, still shining pathetically on the ground. He doesn’t feel the need to look around or squeeze his lids closed in an attempt to wring the bad rest out of him.

Rest?

He thinks fucking hard. When had he woken up last night? When had his banshees infiltrated his thoughts and cried into the void of his packed mind? All he can recall are caramel dreams, whipped cream clouds and berry trampolines for him to jump high into the cotton candy sky. He thinks he might like it that way. Maybe every night can be like that, every morning can feel this transcendent.

He hears you moan quietly as you stir not long after him, breaths shuddering on their way out of your nose as you slowly come to your senses.

“Good morning, birdie,” Ezra finally says. He doesn’t know what to say to you, what he can say to you, without making you flip a switch and realize that it’s all a mistake, that he is a mistake. His eardrums smile as your sleepy whining settles.

“Morning, Ezra,” you whisper, throat not ready to talk yet. It’s okay; you’d rather hear him talk to you anyway.

“Did you…were you able to achieve some sort of comfort?” Ezra asks. For a second you’re confused until you remember what you’d told him last night, and you realize that you’re holding him the same way you were when you’d gone to sleep. He hadn’t woken up.

“Yeah, Ezra,” you finally say after letting yourself simmer in the silence for a second. “Thank you.”

He smiles wide against your skin, the blunt tip of his excitement the battering ram that beats against his racing heart. He’s given you something worthy of your gratefulness, and the feeling of being worthy light his chest with blue flames.

“It’s not my intention to blow you away, dandelion,” Ezra says, his nerves manifesting into his characteristic breathy laughs, “but I can’t deny how direly I want to just touch you.” You feel the air get knocked out of you as your diaphragm begins to spasm; what is he asking? You’ve thought about it before; god, of course you’ve thought about it before. To lay back as you let him study you, memorize you and then let you do the same. Analyze the sculpted marble of his body to remind yourself why you love it so much.

“Please.”

It’s barely a whisper, a secret told to the wind, but Ezra hears you. Ezra always hears you.

So Ezra’s fingers begin to wander along your skin. He wants to map out the scars on your body, wants to learn the shape of you so intimately that he could remodel you if he wanted to. He wants to know your body the way he knows when you’re disappointed or frustrated or amazed or confused. He wants to just know.

You feel the calloused pads of Ezra’s fingers put a little pressure onto that dip of your thoracic vertebrae, draw circles above your hip right under the fabric of your sweatshirt, caress your shoulder. He’s slowly exposing your skin to the humid chill of the dank enclosure, carefully making your top cover less and less of you, but you’ve never felt warmer.

As Ezra’s mind begins to really warm up and the cogs begin to grease themselves, his words begin to flow out the way you’re used to. The way you’ve learned to love.

“Sweetheart, I have had nightmares every night for the past three weeks and now they’re gone,” he blurts. Fuck. His hand stutters against the small of your back. He’s done it now, he’s really gone and blown it, because now you know he’s fucking broken and you’re smart enough to know when to avoid damaged goods. You have to know that if you were to take your hands and try and feel him you’d just get bumps and ridges and cracks. But Ezra is selfish, can’t help himself or his thoughts, so he keeps rambling. “It is not my intention to come off as presumptuous, but I just know it’s because of you. How did you do that, birdie? You never told me you were sent to me as a dreamcatcher.”

You can’t help but smile into his scalp a little at his words. You didn’t mind taking all of his bad dreams and refracting them far away into the space between the stars for him. A light, breathy laugh rolls off your tongue like a huff, because fuck, if you were going to be embroidered to something it might as well be him.

Your breath hitches again as the back of his hand runs flat along your stomach. It travels back around and up to the nape of your neck, tracing your shoulders and then over to your clavicles, paying close attention to the dips. You can’t help but wonder if this means as much to him as it does to you; it means everything to you.

“You’re right. I’ve been holding out on you all this time,” you say, and he can hear you smile through the roses of your words. He slowly and with purpose lifts his head from your embrace so that he can look up at you, maybe even catch a glimpse of that pretty grin of yours and burn it onto his lenses.

“I’m not confident that you’ll ever know how fortuitous I was the day I met you.” Ezra’s voice is low as he speaks, his drawl stretching and fraying the ends of his words, and you soak in every last syllable. You soak in the meaning of his words. He feels lucky to have you.

You look down at him, bringing a hand to run through his hair. That stupid blonde streak snatches your attention for a moment and you thumb at the strands. You want to tease him about it, mock him a little, but you don’t. The moon marine in your arms holds so much unbridled beauty, and it’s all yours to look at.

Ezra is all yours to look at.

Ezra’s hand travels up to your face, cupping your cheek while his thumb toys with the corner of your mouth in a way that makes you bite your lip through a smile. Throwing all caution to the wind, you turn your head and press a shy kiss to the heel of his palm. Ezra’s skin burns where you’ve sanctified him. His hand begins to crave your touch in other ways, he is craving something more from you, but he knows he does far too much taking. He’s already taken so much from you, has already stolen so many moments from you out of sheer gluttony, but it’s not always his fault because you’re so giving. He knows you were a little hollow from the start, knows you were a little frayed in the first place, but still you share your thoughts and companionship with him because whether you know it or not, you’re a little taken by this space mutineer. If you fled this little thing you’ve built with him, you’d be leaving the prettiest parts of yourself behind for him to keep taking care of the way a mother makes her son’s bed after he leaves for college because what if you want to come back?

But you haven’t left, haven’t abandoned him and in turn, yourself. You’re right here, letting him bask in your reverent lavender radiation, and as he looks at how you’re giving off your own intrinsic glow because the shitty orange light on the ground isn’t enough, he knows he hasn’t earned it. He doesn’t think this is a very fair transaction at all, but he’s too selfish to stop you from paying a little extra. You’ll let him keep the change.

Ezra wordlessly lifts his head, nosing at your wrist so that you’ll bring it lower and let him kiss the delicate skin there. He looks up at you with wide, eager eyes of adoration. His feelings for you are beginning to bubble underneath the surface of his silk-lined thoughts and he is willing them to stay at that low simmer because he doesn’t want to think about anything except how fucking gorgeous you look in the lamplight.

“I’m growing rather fond of the way you feel against me,” Ezra finally says. Everything is so foreign now, so new, so he tries to do the one thing you both know, the one routine you can both dance without needing to think about it: talking.

“I like it too Ezra,” you giggle. Not a long, flittery one, but a pass of air with a note under it. You’re a little nervous too.

“I reckon I could get accustomed to this,” he whispers. Your lip betrays you, curling itself to reveal your reply before you even say it. Your teeth capture your lower lip for the act of treason, but it’s too late. “But I’d just hate it if I made you feel like you’re bearing my baggage.”

“Ezra, you don’t have crippling baggage,” you insist. What is this man talking about? You were the one with issues. You were the one that had to be convinced to stay with him, you were the one that insisted on the right cot, you were the real coward here. You were broken. “Everyone has their demons. There is so much more inside of you. You’re so full.”

Ezra’s eyes go a little wide at your words. You didn’t think he was half a man? Some incomplete mosaic that would never find his missing pieces?

“You flatter me,” he chuckles; no, he giggles.

“Well…I just figured there’s no way a broken man could handle his broken partner the way you deal with me.” His expression melts into something more than pity and less than ignorance - confusion. The tap in Ezra’s tongue pops loose and his words begin to cascade from his lips like some majestic phenomenon, like holy water spraying the filth off of your brow.

“I need you to look at me, firefly.” His voice is more stern now, his words more articulate as he shifts up the bed slightly so that he’s eye level with you. He’s still on his side, his left hand is still gripping the flesh at your hip. “I don’t think you’ll ever truly comprehend how much you’ve done for me these past cycles, but this life is quiet and toilsome. You’re capable of recognizing beauty in things I wouldn’t have even taken note of in the first place, and I hang onto your every utterance whether you’re aware or not. It’s easy for me to sit here and tell you how bad I always want you because you fill my thoughts, pretty dandelion. And if someone came here and regurgitated your exact words to me, it still wouldn’t hold a candle to the way you sing when you wonder out loud. I don’t need to ‘deal’ with you, sweet rose. I want you.”

Your lip quivers a little; you know Ezra likes talking to you, he’s told you before. But you couldn’t help but assume Ezra just likes talking, period. That he liked having you around about as much as he’d enjoy the company of any other talker. To think that someone wants you, your passions and afterthoughts and pondering notions, meant more than anything you could articulate.

“Ezra-” you start, but you cut yourself off. You want to let his words turn into condensation on your skin, to form little rain clouds above your head so that they pour back down on you in delicate drops. You want to let him linger, to sit and hang above you like the sky hangs above the ocean.

You look straight at him, deep into his inquiring brown eyes as you both begin to breathe the same air, scents mingling between you like the heat between two stars. His nose is right up against yours and you can feel his lashes caress your cheekbone. He’s so close, but you want him closer, need him to move his hand or blink his eyes or do something, because you can’t take the nothingness anymore when you’ve got everything pressed right up against your face.

Ezra decides he wants one last thing from you.

“My rose, I don’t want to ask too much of you, but I suppose if that were true I wouldn’t have invited you to stay with me anyway. In the tent, of course. Not the cot.” Fuck, what was he saying? He lets out a soft laugh as he tries to reorganize his thoughts, a blushing mess under your gaze because he’s so used to knowing exactly how to get what he wants, but he’s really pushing your boundaries and bending your fence posts now. You’re turning him into a man who fumbles, a man who doesn’t always have to know what he’s about to say, and he doesn’t mind being a little less talk around you and a lot more touch.

Suddenly, he’s reminded of what he wanted to ask you.

“Sweet creature, could I kiss you?”

You don’t miss a beat in this soft ballad you’re playing with him, letting out a gentle “yeah, Ezra.”

You don’t like homes, don’t like to be told that you’re forever nailed to walls and wood. But maybe, as Ezra’s scruffy chin leans up to slot his lips against yours, you could build a tent in him. Maybe this leaky soul was your permanent, your unyielding, your perpetual.

As Ezra tilts his head towards you with a soft moan so he can kiss you the way you deserve, speak to you through the blinding sensation of his mouth telling you how he wants you, needs you, loves you, without using a single word, he is confident that his hollow cavities are beginning to be filled by your amber essence. He can tell you’re letting yourself finally take root in him, clearing out the wretched foliage so that you can curl up in the meadow of his soul and rest your bones within him.

Yeah.

You’re home.

people who asked to be tagged:  @bobafvtt @catfishingmorales@keeper0fthestars @1zashreena1 @blancatobarxoxo @honeyedspace @cryptkeepersoul

people who definitely didn’t ask to be tagged oops: @glowingpena @bestintheparsec @ezrasarm @murdermewithbooks

not me tagging strangers for clout-

Please feel free to tell me if you want to be added/removed to my tags, I promise I’m not scary💕

[genvieve-of-the-wood]

Welcome to Authoritarian Paradise, Bring the Kids, Visit Our Tourist Destinations ( Mouse)and Remember- Don’t Complain About The Wrong Things In Groups Larger Than 3 or You Could Get Hit By a Car

https://apple.news/AzEUFF1MOSyqVcCfvPVkd3g

Not that we were a hotbed of protest activity to begin with, but hey- Ronnie needs to nip any dissenting voices in the bud. He has a possible presidential run, plenty of tax evading supporters and donors, “good old boy “political backing, and now- if anyone hides behind this law- they can run over protesters with their car and be granted immunity. If a group gathers lawfully, but the police or the local or state government don’t like the message, they can whip up charges to imprison and no release until a hearing. By the way, for the people who think this is just a response to Black Lives Matter- ummm, no. Black Lives Matter is a cause they can now conveniently jump on with the other states claiming it a reason to call “ 3 or more people protesting a RIOT.” Do I think it is especially aimed at BLM? Yes I do. But Republicans here have been wanting to find a way to quiet the over development protesters, beach driving protesters, environmentalists in general, shitty government program protests( see our unemployment and Medicaid programs for a start), and anyone who didn’t want Orange Mussolini running anything in this state. So the guy screaming into a bullhorn you can hear for several miles in my neighborhood, gathered with about 20 or so people in a strip mall parking lot close to my home waving Orange Dump flags and yelling at people about Jesus and hell and conspiracy theories as they walk by- will the cops shut them down? Is this an equal opportunity fascist law? This is a sad, fucked up day for Floridians. We already are made fun of for Florida Man, election drama, irresponsible and greedy wild animal collectors, our “thoughts and prayers” mentality about gun ownership, etc, etc. Now, we will be a model to all the other boot licking types who wanted to overthrow the government by using the military(how does that not hit you in the gut how close we were to an actual coup and how close we could be to a future one?) for fake narratives about the presidential election. I wonder if this law will be applied equally- like when the gun boner types protest a business for their mask wearing policies by walking around with guns in an intimidating manner ( because of some toxic masculine compensation thing in their heads about power and dick size) or a nasty little church group comes to hold up signs and yell at a funeral because the person who died was LGBTQ, etc? Why do I have the sad feeling that this law will be used only on voices they do not agree with? And are our elections going to follow the way of Georgia? But gosh, the statues of dead traitors who fought to protect slavery will be protected, so we have that going for us🙄? Just don’t gather in big groups anymore outside or you can be run over down here with no hope of prosecuting your assailant. Other than that, ride the rides, enjoy the beaches, build your second residence here and release your deadly invasive species into our wilds. https://apple.news/AZhVmlSA3ShGFZfjMFECtgw

The article below actually states what is in the law the clearest and the opinion I share, that too many in Republican politics have gone backwards to this “oh no, look what you made us good people become- we had to resort to fascism/ authoritarianism in order to get what we think is right” mentality. What these guys don’t realize is- when you create a law like this, you’ll be scrutinized even more closely on how “ evenly” it is enforced. In other words, how much hypocrisy can be measured from such a law? We will be watching to see if this was done to quiet all protests, or just the voices of races and causes the far right find offensive. We will be watching not just FL but other states laws changing and the consequences to follow.

https://apple.news/AE91khAhSQvWvWUFJMHZn9g

[flutteringphalanges]

                                    Don’t Let the Bats Bite

Summary: After decades spent together in England, Agatha, now vampire and wife to Dracula, has maintained a distance from her family members. Even though secretly she has wondered about them. It isn’t until she hears a report that an accident has taken the lives of her great nephew and niece-in-law and left their two year old daughter, Zoe, an orphan that she steps in and, against the Count’s wishes, brings the toddler into their unusual life. Will their vampiric ways conflict too much with parenthood, or is Zoe Van Helsing their missing link to perfection?

Ship: Agatha/Dracula

Rating: T

Chapters: 1/2 (or 1/3) 

Read on AO3

A/N: Originally, this was just going to be a one shot, but I felt like doing it in parts because I felt weird just being one long thing. So a few parts it shall be. Feedback is greatly loved and appreciated! -Jen

                                                         Part One

“Up!” Dracula stared down incredulously at the demanding two year old. Her name, according to what they could dig up in documents, was Zoe. Zoe Van Helsing. His however many grands niece by marriage to Agatha. During their near century in England, his vampiric bride silently withheld her desires to learn of her family’s presence. For their sake and safety. 

But like with many unplanned events, everything changed that fateful day when it was broadcasted over the news that a fatal car accident had taken the lives of Richard and Delilah Van Helsing, leaving their now orphaned toddler in its wake. Her decision was made right then and there. Even before the reporter finished his segment. And Dracula found himself caught between a rock and a hard place. 

“We cannot care for this thing, Agatha.” The vampire frowned as the little girl tried to claw her way up his pant’s leg. “We are vampires. We simply aren’t equipped to deal with...this.” Zoe let out a grunt of protest when the man peeled her off of him. “We should return her to Child Protection. Perhaps a social worker can figure something out.” 

“Zoe isn’t a thing. She’s a child. Need I remind you that she is family?” Agatha frowned, going over to the child and scooping her up. “Your family nonetheless. She has no one, Dracula. Just us.”

“Well perhaps she should be placed with a human family!” The Count argued with exasperation. “You didn’t even discuss this with me. You went about forging documents and somehow, despite the system, we’ve been granted custody of a practically helpless being!” He began to massage his temples. “Manipulating Frank Renfield to do our bidding is supposed to be my job, not yours.” 

It was almost unnerving that, even at her young age, the girl resembled her distant aunt so much. The blues of her eyes. The rich brown locks of her hair. If anyone didn’t know any better, perhaps she could easily be passed off as their biological offspring. How truly odd genetics were. Zoe watched Dracula with a curious expression, one that was slightly more appealing than Agatha’s glare of animosity.

“She stays with us.” The former nun declared firmly, glowering at her lover. “End of discussion.”

Agatha’s frown faded away into a warm smile as her attention turned to the toddler. Gingerly, she tucked a few stray strands of hair that had fallen from one of Zoe’s pigtails behind her ear. The child had only been with them for a few hours and already the vampire’s maternal instincts had blossomed. It was evident how much she adored the child, something her husband had yet to understand. 

“I took the liberty of making a list of things we need for the house.” Agatha said, adjusting Zoe in her arms. “I was hoping you’d be willing to go out and buy them.” 

“And you thought this why?” Dracula inquired, folding his arms. 

“Because I assumed you’d rather do that than stay at home watching her.” His wife replied, throwing him a look. “Zoe’s been through a lot. I don’t want to drag her around to various shops. I promise it isn’t too much. Just a crib, some child locks, baby gates, a high chair, more nappies, a few outfits--I have her size listed, and a few other things. It shouldn’t be hard.” She ignored the stare of disbelief Dracula was giving her. “Once we’ve had some time to settle down, we can really go about setting a nursery up.” 

A nursery. The infamous Count didn’t want to question as to which room they’d be turning that into. He knew. And even if he argued against it, Agatha would win. She always did. His prized artwork and treasured statues would be moved else---god forbid the closet. This was why he had never desired children even as a human. They were needy. Required things. Like his study. 

“Nothing should require this much work.” He muttered under his breath, knowing full well that Agatha could still very much hear every word. Begrudgingly retrieving his long trench coat, a gift from his wife no less, Dracula briefly glanced over his shoulder. “And where might I find this list of yours?” 

“The counter.” She replied curtly, nodding her head in the direction. “It’s getting late so try to be quick about it if you can. Stores close earlier on Sundays, you know.” 

“I’m well aware.” The vampire responded, snatching the note from its spot. “I’ll retrieve what I can.” 

“Thank you.” Agatha said with a small smile. “We will be waiting with bated breath.” To which she received a grunt in return. Rolling her eyes, Agatha’s attention returned to her niece once her husband had vacated the premises. “Uncle Dracula can be rather grumpy.” She chuckled, kissing the girl’s forehead. “Don’t worry, you’ll win him over. Just wait and see.” 

                                                        XXX

1897 had been a monumental year for Dracula for many reasons. Most importantly, it was when he met Agatha--though the circumstances were far from favorable. After the massacre of St. Mary’s Convent, he had decided to spare the nun for his own curiosity. A new bride of his own demise. Agatha, of course, had other plans. And after a failed attempt of killing him, she came up with the brilliant idea to end herself. Not a stake. No, lesson learned from Jonathan Harker, but the Sun. Second momentous memory--well, discovery--apparently that bright, burning star in the sky wasn’t so deadly after all. 

Something changed between them after that. The toxicity that had once embedded itself in their relationship began to drain away and soon new feelings surfaced. Happy, warmer feelings. Brighter than the Sun itself. And within a few years, hatred became love. And with that romance, became a partnership. Marriage. A life far from Transyvania and into Whitby, England. 

Though they could go out during the day, the two still seemed to prefer the nightlife. It was peaceful. Quiet. And watching the sunrise together before tucking away to sleep for a few hours did them both good. But now all of that was going to change. Or so he felt was implied by the list gripped between his clawed fingers. 

“First one?”

A friendly voice pulled Dracula from his thoughts and away from the crib he’d been mindlessly staring at. Turning, he saw a rather young man, red hair and equally warm green eyes behind wood framed glasses. Part of him considered the idea of dragging the innocent bystander out into the back alleyway and feasting upon him. But he knew well enough Agatha would somehow figure out he’d killed someone. She always did. Oh how he despised this humane sourcing of blood system they had going on with Frank Renfield’s connections. It took the fun, the rush out of it all. 

“If you would call it that.” He replied tonelessly. “Unplanned.” 

“Ah, so many of them are. But isn’t that the excitement of it all?!” The stranger grinned, clearly not picking up that his company was unwelcomed. “Do you know what you’re having?”

“A girl.” The vampire replied curtly. “She’s two.” 

“Oh, adoption!” The man sounded somewhat confused. “Were you not expecting it to happen so soon or…” He shook his head and smiled. “Well, way to go, mate! It takes a special kind of person to do something like that. Why--”

Dracula’s jaw set in frustration. “Look,” he began. “You seem nice. But I simply do not have time, nor do I wish to, discuss things with you such as babies and the happiness of parenthood. I’m here by request of my wife. I’d like to be in and out of here as quickly as I can. My best wishes to you and your partner. May your rugrat be tolerable.” 

It was the best sort of well wishes he could give. Lifting up a crate of cradle parts as if they weighed as much as a mere feather, he set them roughly in his cart before striding off. The faster he could get out of the damned place, the better. The cheerfulness of it almost made his stomach churn. Pink, spill-less sippy cups. Various stuffed plushies with big, beady black eyes. And a few large packs of nappies--though his eyes stared fixated at a purple potty chair. He didn’t want to think about training a child to use that. That, he decided, would be Agatha’s doing. 

“All set?”

Unlike the overexcited customer he had just run into, the cashier looked tired. Disinterested in all that was around her. Dracula didn’t mind her lack of emotion as he loaded the contents of his cart onto the conveyor belt. She didn’t share her excitement at the fact he possibly had a new kid, or bombarded him with questions on the subject. Instead, she quietly scanned everything and placed it back into the basket. 

“Have a nice night.” The woman said through a wide yawn, handing the vampire his receipt. “Come back to see us soon.” 

The wheels of the cart whined as he rolled his cargo across the pavement and to his cart. It took a bit of maneuvering, but by some stroke of luck, he managed to squeeze everything inside. Hopefully Agatha would deem the ride fit enough for a child to be in. It did have a back seat after all. That had to be good enough, shouldn’t it?

Agatha wasn’t there to greet him at the door when he arrived home. Nor did she help him unload the very stuff she had asked for. Instead he found her lying comfortably in their bed, the toddler fast asleep curled up at her side. She held a finger to her lips as he entered their room somewhat perturbed by the stranger in his spot. Surely he wasn’t secretly jealous of a two year old. He wasn’t that juvenile. 

“We’ll sit her up in her own room tomorrow.” The former nun whispered as not to wake the toddler. “For now, I see no reason for her not to sleep here. Poor thing is exhausted after all. Went right down not too long after you left.” 

“I got everything you asked for.” Dracula replied, leaning against the wall. “You wouldn’t believe how much it cost.” 

“We have the money, Dracula.” Agatha countered softly. “Much more than anyone in Whitby, perhaps even most in England. I proved to be quite the accountant when it came to managing our money--not to mention Frank Renfield’s services are rather useful. We will be fine with just one more.” She smiled down at Zoe. “You and I have had many adventures, my love. This is simply another one.” 

“A different kind of permanent one.” Her husband muttered quietly. “I’m going to the fridge. How opposed are you to me having the dentist tonight? It’s AB Positive.” 

“Take it.” She said with a wave of her hand. “I prefer O anyway. If you could heat up either some of the ethics professor or the banker--if we still have some left, I’d much appreciate it. And it doesn’t have to be the perfect temperature, just nothing below lukewarm.” 

Her husband nodded in understanding before turning on his heels and exiting the room. Agatha’s eyes followed him until he disappeared from sight. Apparently, this was all going to take a lot more getting used to that she thought. 

                                                      XXX

After a few days, the nightmares started and Zoe often woke up screaming for her parents. It didn’t matter what they were doing--whether it be having a nice, quiet moment to themselves or in the thralls of passion, Agatha would tear herself away from her husband and rush into their adopted child’s room. Dracula sighed as his wife brought the tear streaked face toddler into their sitting room right in the middle of their game of chess. 

“Want Mummy and Daddy!” The little girl wailed. “Want Mummy and Daddy!” 

“I know, I know…” Agatha attempted to soothe, rubbing the girl’s back. She looked to Dracula in almost desperation as if maybe he had a solution to all of this. “Aunt Agatha and Uncle Dracula promise to make all of the bad dreams go away.” 

Zoe sniffled and looked towards the Count. “Bye bye, dark!”

The man’s brows furrowed. “What does she mean?” 

“Bye bye, dark!” The girl insisted, her volume rising. “Bye bye, dark!” 

“Perhaps she’s afraid of the dark?” Agatha inquired, eyeing her niece curiously. “We should consider installing night lights around the house.”

“Agatha, we are creatures of the night!” Dracula groaned. “Certainly she can learn to adjust to the nighttime as we did. She sleeps through most of it!” But the look on his wife’s face told him everything. “Fine.” He said, tone almost cold. “But I get to decide what they look like and where they go.”

A decision, he came to, that involved the famous superhero “Batman”. It seemed only fitting to fix the well known symbol of a black bat surrounded by a halo of yellow within the various sockets in their home. He’d never been a fan of the comic, but he took humor where he could get it. 

“Funny!” Zoe informed him one day pointing at the light. She tilted her small head to the side and smiled. “Bird!”

“Bat.” He corrected, grabbing her hand. “As we’ve gone over before. Come now, your supper’s getting cold.” 

“Bird.” The toddler insisted, shaking her head as she followed her uncle. “Bird, Daccy, bird!” 

“Dracula.” The vampire exhaled, lifting the child into her high chair. “How is it you can say other things but my name gives you a great deal of trouble?”

“I find it rather adorable.” Agatha smirked as she set a plate of peas and macaroni in front of her niece. “Aunt Aggie and Uncle Daccy, has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?” 

“As tasteful as the blood of a leper.” Her husband said, throwing her a look. “Agatha, I honestly do not think this setting is working out.” And as if on cue, a single pea flew past his head and tumbled onto the floor by his feet. Zoe giggled from her seat, quite pleased with herself. “To further prove my point.” He continued, motioning to the abandoned vegetable. “I’m a cold blooded killer, not a loving guardian.” 

“We all have flaws.” His wife replied simply, going to wipe the toddler’s mouth. “But that doesn’t mean we cannot fix them.” She pressed a kiss on the toddler’s forehead before turning back to her husband. “And I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and have come to the conclusion that there is perhaps one way we can do that.” 

“And that would be…” The Count ventured. 

“An uncle and niece day!” Agatha chuckled, noting the stunned expression on her lover’s face. “It’ll be good for the three of us. I get some time to myself and you get to know Zoe more.” 

“In the past several centuries of my life, I have never heard of a more ridiculous idea!” Dracula retorted, eyes following Agatha as she moved about the kitchen. “Agatha, you can’t possibly expect me to…” 

“You’ve dealt with entire armies.” The former nun interrupted. “Surely a toddler cannot be that much harder.” 

Another pea flew through the air, this time hitting Dracula straight in the face. The man frowned deeply as the toddler gave him a toothy grin. When he had taken Agatha as his bride, he hadn’t expected a vegetable wielding toddler in tow decades later. Exhaling, he leaned against the counter. This was going to be one hell of a war. 

[blarhiv]

Pre-Debut Fan on Shipping and KM

Guys,one wonderful Anonnie decided to bless us with so well written article.So,please,read it <3

Anonnie,thank you for sharing with us your thoughts!

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BE WARNED VERY LONG SHIPPING/KM POST AHEAD!!!! 

First of all, I just want to clarify that I’m a KM supporter. By my current understanding and my own personal definition, this is to say that that while I believe in the possibility of these two individuals being in a real-life relationship, I am at peace with the reality that it is also conceivable that they are merely very close, wonderful friends. I will get to KM a bit later, but I first want to go through some general commentary on the statement of the fandom in regards to shipping first. I’ve tried to be as respectful as I could and so, things have gotten quite lengthy indeed. 

PART 1: Shipping and Fandoms

Shipping Wars

My first point of major contention lies in shipping wars—in quick and easy summation, I truly really fail to understand shipping wars.

It doesn’t quite make sense to me that there are individuals warring over which ship is real when, no one in the band has ever confirmed a heterosexual relationship, never mind an in-band relationship. So, why fight about it when we can enjoy the lovely bonds between human beings and celebrate good, ostensibly healthy relationships?

If shippers were really into their “ship” (for lack of better terminology) for the bond between those two people, I feel that it is imperative to acknowledge what complete injustice one is doing by participating in something so meaningless and hateful as shipping wars.(Now, despite my refusal to get involved in shipping wars, I do empathize and understand those combating the wretched comments and criticisms these toxic individuals in the fandom say about undeserving band members. But I still do implore people not to argue over with some of these hyper-volatile, toxic individuals about why their perspective is inherently flawed because these people are highly unlikely to entertain a healthy, open discourse about a difference in opinions.) 

And at the point where shippers are determined to evince the realness of their ship, I think their intentions are automatically highly suspect.

Why?

If one is truly trying to celebrate the connection, the supposed love, and the affection of said ship, there absolutely shouldn’t be a pressing need or compulsion to prove others wrong for not sharing the same perspective as yours. 

At that point, it becomes less about a celebration of love and more about selfish gratification—whatever it is that may be incentivizing said shipper (And there are, unfortunately, a plethora of self-serving reasons people ship which are not limited to the fetishization of gays/Asians, the determination not to have their dreams of being with a band member to be shattered by their significant other being a female, the egotistical compulsion of needing to be “right”, etc.). And if one is shipping with the genuine intentions of supporting a potentially LGBTQ band member or generally supporting two humans demonstrating great love (whether it presents itself in a platonic or romantic expression), it needn’t matter what the label or status of that relationship is. 

So, if one is supporting with selfless intentions and a sincere desire to see members happy, there’s no point of arguing about the “realness” of a ship because at the end of the day, all the ships in the band are real—because they all have honest, genuine relationships with one another as friends. Shipping Real People 

This is also a highly controversial subject and I believe it is mainly due to the lack of boundaries people have set in place when they participate in shipping real people.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with real people ships—but only under great constraints and self-monitoring. Most people who ship real people do so because human beings are naturally drawn to and attracted to love—that is to say, people love love. That’s why people enjoy romantic movies and relationships between characters on television shows. That’s why writers like to write about love and photographers take pictures of things and people they love.

However, the problem lies in people who take liberties with how seriously they can invest into a real person ship or how entitled they begin to feel towards someone else’s life.

This is where para-social relationships come into place—through the use of social media, fans are given ultra personal ways to interact with celebrities causing them to believe that they’re connected to their idols despite the reality that it is a one-way relationship. These celebrities do not know you—and therefore, they owe you absolutely nothing in regard to their personal life. And so, I absolutely do not condone writing or tagging or demanding things from any real-life ship (ie. VLives, Twitters, fan meets, InstaLives, etc.) where one could be causing the human being distress or pressure. They are, at the end of the day, real people with real feelings and real lives—and we, as fans or spectators at best, are simply entitled to no components of their life.

I think there are instances that you can comment on a celebrity’s life and have it be a perfectly innocuous encounter. For example, it’s quite alright to appreciate and feel second-hand joy at seeing two people whom one respects and follows as a fan looking happy with their potential partners (as in the case of KM) or commenting supportively on a confirmed real-life couple’s Instagram photos (Justin and Hailey Bieber, Michelle and Barak Obama, Hyuna and E’Dawn, Cara Delevine and Ashley Benson, etc.). Feeling joy at seeing someone else happy or commenting something cute and chill on a real-life couple’s picture doesn’t cost anything nor does it harm anyone. But if you, as a fan, begin to demand things from said people if the real life couple breaks up (Justin Bieber-Selena Gomez, Cole Sprouse-Lili Reinhart, etc.) or you hate the real significant other after one half of a popular ship is revealed to be dating someone else (Zendaya-Tom Holland-anonymous girlfriend), that’s when you’ve got a real problem and you need to reassess what you’re doing. If you are going to ship a real-life ship, do it sensitively—don’t personally bother these people with your unsolicited advice and woes, they don’t care about your ships, they just want to live their lives.

Fetishization and Homophobia

Another deeply problematic that comes with the shipping territory is the fetishization.

There are, unfortunately, many fans that like the idea of a real ship right up until the point there’s a possibility where the members might actually be part of the LGBTQ community. It’s sexy and sensual, a “guilty pleasure”, to imagine the idea of gays, but the actual concept of homosexuality as a real part of someone’s identity is somehow unacceptable to many fans.  This is definitely a problem in the Asian music industry. 

While girls fawn over the boy-boy interactions on stage, these same young women are equally likely to be disgusted by the existence of actual homosexual men trying to celebrate their love on the streets—and the KPop industry feeds into this by via methods like encouraging fan service between members or the Pepero game.

This is deeply disheartening as there are, without doubt, LGBTQ members in this industry—we may not know them by name or face (aside from Holland), but they certainly do exist. And how sad is it to imagine that the closest to acceptance these human beings will ever attain for their sexual preferences is on stage for the gratification of fans who won’t even support them if they actually come out? If you only enjoy same-sex interactions on stage, feeling repulsion or deterrence in supporting a gay or lesbian idol based on their sexual preferences, you probably have some soul searching to do. 

Another thing I’ve noticed is the tendency of same-sex shippers to modify a harmless interaction between members as they make jokes or innuendos that splatter a hue of raw sexual essence onto the moment—this is, in part, some fetishization. We should try to avoid this as gay men are trying to escape the sexualized view a large majority of people have about them. 

And KMers are guilty of this—after all, sometimes when a boy says he wants to do his laundry, he really just wants to do his laundry.

So, this is something else to keep in mind. 

General Homophobia

How many times have bloggers received comments about how X members can’t be gay or how if X is gay that the anon can’t be a fan of that person anymore? I’ve definitely read several too many in my time and these are all exemplifying comments of people who house internal homophobia.

Unfortunately, the need to explicitly state and prove homosexuality will always be a symptom of the heteronormativity of most societies—and I do understand why it happens and it’s not always a malicious assumption.

What I peacefully and regretfully do not understand are aggressive fans who flagrantly deny the possibility of any other sexuality aside from being straight—these instances really make me suspect these are mainly female fans that can’t stomach the possibility of their idols not being into their gender or are straight up homophobic without any other reason. (That being said, I also don’t encourage any same-sex shippers/supporters to make assumptions about sexualities either. It’s fine to support and to suspect the possibility of a same-sex relationship, but there should always be that margin for error since none of these idols are definitively out.)

Conclusion to General Shipping 

TLDR; my basic point in the first part of this ridiculous essay is that, we should really all respect one another as members of a single fandom. And beyond that, we should all respect the people whom we are shipping, taking great care and using our sensibilities to ensure we aren’t making real people uncomfortable.

PART 2: KM

History as a Fan of BTS

So, I just want to clarify that I am a pre-debut BTS fan. I literally read about JM and JK a couple days before they were due to debut and as a huge hip-hop fan, I was immediately interested in their concept. I instantly fell in love with JM’s voice and JK’s multi-faceted talents (and live vocal skills)—that is to say, I was most interested in these two members from the very beginning. As of recent days, I have detached myself from the fandom, preferring to keep a great distance away due to the toxicity and negativity I’ve unfortunately been privy to as the fan base grows bigger and bigger—and it really does make me incredibly sad. I’ve always been into BTS for the music—they were what I listened to bussing up to school as I admired the Cyphers by the rap-line, the gorgeous fluidity of JM’s melodic voice, the deep resonance of TH’s voice, and JK’s talents as a quality, consistent singer despite his age.

And now, sometimes the ship wars and solo stans are louder than the positive members in this community. Luckily, I’ve found a small niche of BTS blogs and KM blogs that have made this experience a lot easier (for KM blogs, many thanks to people like blarhiv, slowlybutobvious-jikook, gaja-aegiya-gaja, chaotic-jikook, singwriteluv, jiminkoo, etc.)

Shipping as a Whole

Now, as for the shipping component. I want to clarify I’m a very selective real-person shipper—I don’t look for mere skin ship or overt proclamations of love or popularity of ship.

Of course, these are initially the easiest features to discern a shippable “ship”, but I’m well practiced in the KPop industry and know these factors between members are virtually useless in discerning romantic interest. 

On top of being a selective shipper, I also think it’s safe to say I’m pretty respectful about shipping as I always try to maintain reasonable skepticism and I’ve never commented anything about shipping on any forum that could make the involved individual uncomfortable. With all that being said, the beginning of BTS, I did not see ANY SHIPS that I could’ve deemed suspicious enough to be considered real.  They were all just young kids that were trying to pave their path to success and just boys messing around on their early television appearances whilst trying to promote their albums.

And even when YM and TK began to gain traction as the fandom’s decidedly largest ships with some believing them to be “real”, I still didn’t see it—and this is said with utmost respect to their closeness and respect for one another as teammates, colleagues, and close friends. 

Undoubtedly, their interactions were playful and adorable, but there was nothing in how they interacted to rouse any suspicions whatsoever. I would view their interactions as commonplace as any other men in regular friendships—with their culture and their age and their jobs in consideration.   Again, I never understood people who truly believed in the validity of these ships.

Now, to be fair, I have, of course, also participated in casually shipping a few members for fun too. For example, I thought Sope was cute and I was drawn to VM’s friendship as well—JM and TH were so ridiculously cute and close, it was nearly impossible not to casually ship them. In the earlier years, since I believed there to be no "real" ships, I was on board with other casual shippers but was greatly confused by those who believed the big three ships (YM, NJ, and TK) were actually real.

My View on Early KM

I first started tuning into KM when I saw a particular Bomb clip of JM and JK messing around with a phone app where their voices were autotuned. Whilst JM was laughing, JK just had his face crinkled up with the softest look on his face. I was like, “huh”—but it definitely wasn’t enough for me to begin thinking it could be real.

Since it was one isolated incident, caught directly on camera, it wasn’t nearly enough evidence to make any logical inferences. At that point, I’d just be jumping onto the train of delusion. While on the subject of early KM, I also want to take this opportunity to quickly give my take on this malicious narrative that JK doesn’t like JM—as a pre-debut fan, I’ve never bought into this.

Between JK’s self-proclaimed shyness towards JM’s unadulterated fondness for him, JK’s proclivities to drop honorifics on camera even from the beginning, JK telling JM he teases his hyung because he likes him—I was almost flabbergasted when I first caught inklings of it.  

This is such an outrageous vilification and outright character assassination of a young kid in his teens who didn’t know how to deal with his hyung’s affections, despite having always confirmed and reassured JM that he does, in fact, like him. 

The fact that so-called fans to this day still try to drive this narrative despite the fact that JK has set fire and gasoline to this toxic roller coaster ride of lies and delusions is actually unfathomable to me. Never mind the exact type of relationship KM have, it’s just so distinguishably clear that JK really, really likes JM judging by the amount of time they spend together and how beautiful JK’s smile is when he’s around JM. 

The Shift

Essentially, I casually shipped Sope, VM, and KM at some point—they were my favourites to see interact and I was always cooing over how adorable their bonds were with one another. And if I’m being frank, I was especially partial to the latter two ships because of how attentive and caring JM is to his younger members.

JM’s kindness has always touched my heart.

I find JM’s interactions with people the most fascinating based off the fact that he is just an enthralling, ethereal human being with this gorgeous voice and enormous heart—and for that, he was my very favourite member always.

But, of course, I am a KM supporter.How did this happen?

Well, my eyes nearly bugged out of my head at the infamous back hug at 2015 KBS Music Festival—especially since it was JK being so unusually expressive and forward with his affection. But perhaps this was a cultural thing? I definitely felt some cognitive dissonance as I tried to explain the strange, almost romantic aura of the moment using logic despite sensing that this string of reasoning didn’t sit quite right with me. But again, one isolated incident is a whole lot of nothing in the world of skin ship and KPop. 

But as we all know, at this point, we got see KM get closer and see their relationship develop and I was really all for it as I was incredibly pleased by that personal growth in JK as a maturing adult and the joy it conversely seemed to bring JM with this newly matured JK.

JK’s Development

A large part of my transition over from casual to serious “shipper” is actually because of JK. I’ve always viewed him as a talented individual, as aforementioned, but other than that there was certainly other larger personalities that caught my eye quicker—between JM’s big heart, JH’s enormous personality, and TH’s quirks, he was definitely quietly existing in the background when he wasn’t performing. But he really just grew into himself and I think any fan can see that.

There’s all the general ways he grew up, his physique and his facial structure and his height, but more than anything my heart softened immensely when I began to see what a beautiful soul this boy had always had. I’m not saying that he’s not without flaws—because another a huge problem in the industry is the fans’ tendency to idealize their idols past the mortal realm of making mistakes or having character flaws—but anyone can see he’s clearly matured.

The way he treats JM only gets better and better with each year.

And I genuinely don’t feel that it’s delusional to say the way that he treats JM is vastly different from any other member. He is kind-hearted with a dreamy view on the world and he’s good to his hyungs after everything they’ve done for him when he’d been a child, but he’s that in tenfold around JM. To say he doesn’t play favourites when JM’s involved is being willfully ignorant because there’re so many recent examples alone (the way he splashes water on SJ vs. JM, the way he roughhouses other members vs. JM, the way he gives JM a big pancake because of an impending punishment vs. SJ in same predicament, the attentive way he watches JM in interviews over other members, the way he monitors JM's health via food and drink, etc.).

I also want to mention as a disclaimer that these comparisons aren’t made in any type of malicious way or with the intent of discrediting relationships between JK and other members. It’s simply instrumental in understanding why such a large population of non-shippers have been drawn to KM as a potential real pairing versus any other pairing. If everyone stopped inserting their own captions and interpretations of JK’s actions and only had the source material in front of them, no misleading historical content to waylay new fans with a tired and counterfeit narrative, it’s pretty clear that JK displays incredible fondness and tenderness towards JM in a conspicuous manner.

It doesn’t make his relationships with the others any less, it just makes his relationship with JM just that little bit more. It’s not about putting down or undermining the other relationships, it’s just about acknowledging the reality of JK’s obvious magnetism towards JM. If a fan really cares for JK, it’s almost cruel to disregard the fact that his face lights up when he’s with JM (WeVerse picture, JM punching him on the shoulder, FaceTime picture, VLive, etc.) and his voice softens when he speaks to JM (Run episode with JK slating, Run episode playing palm game, Run episode asking JM if he’s ready, etc.).

These examples aren’t delusions, it’s reality—the evidence are quite literally in photographs or videos. As a longtime fan, I honestly and sincerely mean this—JK has become a handsome man in my eyes not because of his appearance (though he’s undeniably good-looking) but because of the way he treats JM and others he cares for. As the years pass by, his heart and soul has become more and more beautiful in my eyes. I can’t attribute it fully to JM, but I can certainly say that my heart melts when I see his interactions with JM—not because I am a shipper/supporter but because as an empathetic human, I am viscerally drawn to humans with kindness in their hearts. The man treats JM so, so well. I know I keep repeating this but it’s just a grave injustice to ignore how much JK cares for JM. Never mind your projected desires and your biases, just look at what’s in front of you and just appreciate that enviable, lovely bond. Even if people will choose to disregard romantic overtones in GCFt or the meaningful lyrics during the times JM shows up in GCFsai or the fact he has the most screen time overall (which is fine), it'd be prudent to at least acknowledge the fact that JM is incredibly treasured by this young man.

JMs Shift

Another thing that made me suspicious was the transition of JM’s behavior as well.

I find it harder to read JM than JK in many ways—perhaps it’s just an introvert relating with follow introvert—but there are differences in his behavior that also made me question things as well.

It’s obvious that JM used to be a little much for shy, introverted JK in front of the camera and that that behavior tapered off as the years went by. I do think a large part of it is due to JM growing up (although I do suspect some part might be due to vicious fans who might’ve hurt his feelings about his personality) and reigning himself in. But even then, he was still visibly touchy and affectionate with JK—just as he is with all his other members—whether he was petting his head, openly calling him cute, or what have you.

In my view, the most telling thing about JM is how careful he seems around JK—something in his behavior feels tailored in a way that’s still affectionate towards JK but in a way not to rouse suspicion even if the body and eyes don’t lie.

I’m not sure if it even makes sense, but I do sense a certain sense of caution about how JM treats JK in the public eye in comparison to JK who reliably wears his heart on his sleeve. He seems to be more aware of cameras and the public eye than JK does. It’s really hard to verbalize, but I’ve sensed a discernible change in how JM treats JK—it’s not bad or worrisome, it’s just different.(Although, they’ve gradually become a lot more carefree this year.)

Time Skip

I don’t want to bore everyone anymore than I already have, but the point of how I became a more serious supporter compared to my origins as a casual shipper is based off suspicious trends and continuous patterns in the boys’ behaviours over multiple years.

Even now, I continuously try to translate the boys’ body language, vocal tone (when speaking to each other vs. another member), facial expressions, and constant mentions of one another as a platonic demonstration of affection. And some interactions are pretty harmlessly adorable, just a little something to wet the lips of any casual shipper, but with the surmounting amount of moments it becomes really hard for even the most logical person not question the nature of their relationship.

KM and Ship Wars

Clearly, the progression of their relationship has been the target of incredible hatred and frustration on the parts of hostile members of other ships and it’s gotten to a point where they’ve resorted to subterfuge to try pilot a plane missing a wing—that is to say, they’re trying to keep an aircraft based on intentional mistranslations, vicious lies, and carefully crafted stories of events that have been disproven afloat.

The incredible discrepancy between what sorts of behavior can be categorically classified as fan service seems to conveniently shift based on whatever is keeping the fragile balance of their dreams alive despite evidence to the contrary.

The moment we try to discount or negate the relationships a member has with another one in the name of a ship, there’s absolutely a problem that needs reassessment—this goes for all fans including KMers. 

KM and Coming Out

I want to clarify very firmly that if you are a true supporter of KM, one who selflessly wants their happiness above everything (which includes everything from the potential of KM having other significant others, KM being single, KM being involved in a fling, etc.), you absolutely do not want or need them to come out. 

If they do come out, of their own choice and volition, you can happily support them, but you do not need or seek this from them.

And may I carefully remind people that if you want them to come out for the sole purpose of feeling vindicated against other shippers, you’re not a true supporter and you’re in this for selfish reasons. So, if you imagine your first instinct will be an outcry of “I told you so, I’m right” with the express purpose of throwing it in another ship’s face, please evaluate your role and incentive in being a KMer. It doesn’t matter if you’re right or if you’re wrong—all that matters are these incredible boys who inspire people on the daily are happy, healthy, and well. I honestly want their happiness and safety over a confirmation of a relationship any day and I really encourage all supporters to feel this way as well. In a conservative Asian society, it wouldn’t be easy to maneuver as an openly homosexual man. I implore you to consider the occurrences of hate crimes in more liberal countries. It’s not going to be an improvement, only likely to be a far more isolating experience, in a more traditional country with homophobic tendencies as the majority sentiment. So, while I know most reasonable supporters feel this way, this is a reminder to toxic shippers to stay in your lane and stop demanding things from other human beings that owe you nothing—they don’t owe you pictures of WeVerse, they don’t owe you selfies with one another on Twitter, and they don’t owe you a coming-out story to prove your ship right.

Conclusion

To sum up, I’m not saying that KM  is real for sure.

No one can know that except their personnel, their friends, and their family—or sadly, in a conservative country, perhaps even just themselves. The point is, we as fans, absolutely cannot know for certain.

And this is mainly why I'm not too concerned or bothered about timelines or specific dates. We don't know and there's no point (for me) to delve this far into the realm of speculation. But to each their own as long as you're not being invasive to KM! 

However, I’m not unconfident in saying that if they are not real, the likelihood of any other same-sex relationship in the band is highly unlikely—though not impossible.

I also want to reassure everyone that I love the bonds between all the members and encourage everyone to understand that even if you favour or don’t favour one member over another to realize that your opinion really doesn’t matter in comparison to how BTS feels about one another—they love one another. 

And at the end of the day, shipping isn’t so important that we need to fight over it.

After all, if all we’re trying to do is support love, then shouldn’t we be doling it out to?

And with that, I’m out!

Thank you to anyone for reading and keep well and healthy everyone!

PS Thank you very much to Blarhiv to allowing me to use her blog as a platform! This very, very special individual we should all treasure in the KM community!!!❤️❤️❤️    

(omg anonnie this is too cute тттт Thank YOU).

[incandescent-eden]

STORY MASTERLIST

A (not so) comprehensive list of all the things I write about, all of which are subject to change at any given time because I do a lot of refactoring!

LOOOOONG POST INCOMING I write... a LOT, and I have... MANY projects :) Feel free to ask me about any of them! :)

With love <3 Continue reading below the cutoff if you want to know the basic rundown of my worlds and works!

ANGELVERSE:

This universe encompasses all of the angels and demons I like to focus on. Works in the angelverse will likely be about Faraday (formerly known as Efrem), a demon lieutenant, Ezekiel, a young angel, the archangel Uriel, or angel Raguel / angel Sophia (their stories are intertwined).

The main concept I have on Angelverse surrounds Faraday, who has grown into himself as a demon and made something of himself. He finds it impossible to shake who he was before. The question comes up during an important meeting between Heaven and Hell of whether he is truly Faraday or Efrem, his own self that he has shakily become, or the self he inherited from being his father’s son. There’s also brotherly angst between Faraday and Ezekiel, who refuses to let go of the past. (If you look at my old works tagged ‘ezekiel,’ you’ll see Ezekiel used to be a part of Faraday/his ‘ideal’ self, which is why new Ezekiel, separate from Faraday, reads so differently.)

The Raguel and Sophia stories are also closely linked to characters Andromeda and possibly Zachariah. Andromeda’s father runs a cult and has captured an angel in his attic. When Andromeda finds the angel (Sophia), her otherwise “normal” life is thrown into disarray as she starts unraveling threads about her father’s actions as a cult leader. If Zachariah is to be a part of it, he would be living with Andromeda’s family, having run away from his past.

Prominent characters in Angelverse include: Faraday, Uriel, Ezekiel, Stena, Michael, Ramiel, Raguel, Sophia, Zachariah, Ambriel, Ruhiel, Gabriel, Raphael, Luci, Bee, Sasha, Saoirse, and Heather. With the exception of Sophia, all names ending with “el” are angels, while the rest are demons. Also, I say prominent, but like half of these characters are from a bygone era (2018 when I first created them).

TW/CW for heavy religious (Christian) imagery, emotional abuse, violence, transphobia mentions and cult talk. Additional content warning because I tend to write angels as LGBT, but I recognize that some people are not comfortable with this affiliation with Christianity.

LUXTRURA (NOTE: LUXTRURA IS ON PERMANENT HIATUS):

Luxtrura is the name of a fictional country in ye olde European fantasy style, and I haven’t thought of a title for the WIP yet, so I mainly tag it ‘luxtrura’ or ‘luxtruran trio.’ This WIP is a fantasy / dystopian / political intrigue about an uprising in the kingdom of Luxtrura run by an inexperienced king and corrupt nobles all vying for the crown.

Luxtrura (at the current moment) follows the life of His Majesty Devron Fharren, the Eighth Fharren King, who inherited the crown by kingdom decrees at the age of 21. Unlike most kings, Devron has only had seven years of proper royal tutelage on statecraft, having only been named heir to the throne when he was 14. He soon finds he has inherited a kingdom that has been deeply wounded, that his people hate him, and that he has few allies among his own country’s nobles, his friends, and neighboring royalty. Revolution is brewing, and he has a choice to make: to claim his birthright or to help his people.

Prominent characters include: Devron Fharren, Eden Barison, Mili Starr, Plumeria Rwalke, Lilia Tao, Rassaya Tao, Andrea (a mysterious stranger who gives only her first name), Jakob Fiyre, Cordelia Fiyre, Liseline Fiyre, Sonja, and Orange and Rouse (the dragons).

TW/CW for violence, sexual assault mentions, transphobia mentions, political talk, blatant classism, and death.

GLOWING EYES:

A “what-if” scenario where Victor Frankenstein and Dorian Gray had met and become friends and also Frankenstein wasn’t a man and was named Viola and was not a pleb weakling like Victor. Also Dorian Gray is fat because I said so.

This story reimagines the Frankenstein and Dorian Gray cast as students in their final year of the prestigious University of Ingolstadt, with Frankenstein having returned from a year off during which she was suspended for [redacted] reasons. The vibe we’re going for is dark academia, but I don’t think they ever actually do any learning?

Prominent characters include: Viola Frankenstein, Dorian Gray, Elizabeth Lavenza, Henry Clerval, Basil Hallward, Deukalion, and special shoutout to Justine Moritz and Sibyl Vane because I didn’t want to put them in, but they definitely deserved better in the source material.

TW/CW for death, violence, toxic/obsessive relationships, grave-robbing, body part mentions (eyes, limbs, etc), and mentions of the Devil. Basically, if it was a concerning part of either the Frankenstein or Dorian Gray stories, it will still be concerning.

Fun fact, there is a Glowing Eyes playlist that I am NOT too ashamed to share with the public! :D

HELEN OF LEGEND:

A retelling of the Helen of Sparta story that explores Helen’s thoughts and motivations. Who was the woman behind the face that launched a thousand ships? And did she ever even want those ships to be launched? (Spoiler alert: the answer is no.)

Helen of Legend gets pretty heavy handed because I get really mad about people lauding the Greeks as the end all be all of culture, and I’m still really mad about how people dress Millie Bobby Brown up like she’s 25-40, so make of that what you will.

On the bright side, Helen of Legend is a sapphic retelling!

Prominent characters include: Helen, Leda, Menelaus, Clytemnestra, Penelope, Theseus, Aphrodite, Paris, Cassandra, Hector, and Hecuba.

TW/CW for misogyny, implied past sexual assault, sexual assault mentions, mentions of spousal and emotional abuse, people being generally creepy about bodies, people being creepy toward children (Theseus), cities burning, subtle classism, and death.

OF DANCERS AND DREAMERS:

A musical about Anne-Marie, a non-binary Vietnamese lesbian born into a wealthy family, and Jules, a Tunisian baker’s daughter who is working her way into the Paris ballet. Anne-Marie wants to be a designer, but their mother, Mme Trinh, has other plans. The year is 1884, and it was hard for the Trinh family, as immigrants, to establish their foothold in society, and Mme Trinh will not have her child throw away the family’s hard work. One day, while at the ballet, Anne-Marie becomes smitten with Jules, a ballerina with the most dazzling smile. They find solace in sharing their passions with one another and become friends, each eventually realizing they have fallen for the other in a time that is unfriendly to both of them.

Prominent characters include: Anne-Marie, Jules, Victor, Mme Trinh, and Amandine.

TW/CW for subtle homophobia, classism, mental illness, and parental guilt tripping/emotional toxicity.

THE LYRE EFFECT:

A play about life after death, and what it means to live and love. This play follows Patroclus upon his death, desperate to return to Achilles. He meets the reluctant Eurydice, embittered by decades alone in limbo halfway between life and death. Together, they almost throw someone off a boat (is it really murder if they’re already dead?) and have a chance to tell their stories, stepping out from the shadows of their more famous lovers.

I took a lot of liberties with this, so Orpheus is a woman (wlw OrphEurydice), and I would like for both Achilles and Patroclus to be played by trans men, and for all of the characters to be played by non-white actors.

Prominent characters include: Patroclus, Eurydice, Achilles, Orpheus, Apollo, Hades, Charon

TW/CW for talk about death

SPEED ROUND (OR: THINGS I WRITE ABOUT THAT AREN’T AS AMBITIOUS JUST YET/AT THE CURRENT MOMENT):

Here Lies Forever - a story focusing around two young people, Medb Flaherty and Virgil Sutherland, growing up at an orphanage amid war, abandonment, and sickness. Medb is a blind writer who dreams of traveling the world with Virgil, her best friend since their teen years, but when the war strikes too close to home, Virgil leaves Medb and their peaceful student life behind to join the army. Unwilling to let go, and recognizing the pain Virgil is in, Medb takes it upon herself to save Virgil, the both of them haunted by the ghosts of their pasts.

On the Corner of Maple Street - short stories about the lives of Sarah and Evangeline together, two lesbian women who met when Sarah was 28 and Evangeline was 31. Sarah was a toy maker and Evangeline was an actress. They have a son named Oliver, who’s now in his forties, and they’re grandmas to all the neighborhood children. They live on the corner of Maple Street :)

Partager Un Reve - short stories, often romantic, about two circus performers, Alyona Ledbedeva (who does aerial silks) and Li Mey Ri (an acrobat). They’re cute together, there’s not really much to say here.

Claire  - there’s a really old novelette floating around on my account and you can find it if you search Claire, but like it’s OLD. An 18th century French lady who contracted TB and died but was brought back by a necromancer named Cecil (Cecil is the character of my friend @sinnabon-cosplay !) and is now immortal. Fun times with Claire and Anthony usually involve lamenting the fact that they’re stuck as teenagers.

Miscellaneous - miscellaneous demon and monster characters like Alexander, Felicity (both vampires), Sparrow (succubus/Heather’s youngest sister), Zephyr (fae, husband of Spar), Lycan (she’s... a werewolf), and so on. Not really connected to a plot

Performing Possumhood - uh this was a play I wrote with my friend @holdingonmyheartlikeahandgrenade for a 24 hour play festival, it’s about a guy named Thomas who becomes herald for a kingdom and then on his first day of work, the king dies, and his son becomes king, except the new king??? is a possum???? and like no one does anything about it, so Thomas just feels like he’s going insane, poor guy (also everyone else is named Thomas except the king, whose name is His Majesty King Parthur Pencildragon of Alpacalot)

Nordic questing team - I’ve literally written nothing for these fools, but I’m tempted to make it into a dnd campaign! The characters I have are Val (short for Valnotte) (she’s a nokke), Hanne (human poison seller who wears an eyepatch just because), Fur (short for Bjorgolfur, he’s a werewolf who left his pack because he was too good at being alpha wolf but he didn’t want to be alpha, he wanted to press flowers and have a cute little cottage by a cliffside with a pretty garden damn it), and Bo (full name: Boscobel Blue, he’s a cow boy. Literally. He has cow ears and a big septum piercing and a tail. Also he’s a shepherd. His sheep are carnivorous :))) Make of that what you will)

Alice x Secret Garden - another play but where Alice Liddell and Mary Lennox are 18 years old and find themselves in Wonderland, after Mary is jaded from the end of WW1 and is frustrated at her friend Dickon’s marriage proposal, and Alice runs away, trying to retain her childhood as best she can

Retellings - I do myth and fairy tale and folk retellings! :) You can search ‘Tithonia’ for my sleeping beauty retelling, and I wrote Orpheus and Eurydice a while back. Still working my way through Icarus :’) Also ‘Mermaids Can’t See’ is a retelling of the classic mermaid story but written as a ??? field guide? journal entry? notes about mermaids?

If there’s a work you want specifically about a character, I always tag characters, and I also will tag character introductions and pictures/references of them as “beanpuff char[]”!

[briangroth27]

Annabelle Comes Home Review

Annabelle Comes Home is a respectable and dependably spooky addition to the Conjuring franchise. It isn't the scariest—none of the spin-offs have been able to touch The Conjuring 1 or 2 yet—but this is my third-favorite film in this ever-growing horror shared universe and I had a lot of fun watching it!

Full Spoilers…

It was great to have Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) back in more than just stock footage, even if they still had reduced roles. I’m glad they touched on the real-life questions surrounding the veracity of the Warrens’ investigations: that’s a good aspect to mine for drama, both for them and for Judy (McKenna Grace) with her peers at school. As far as the Warrens go, it’s hard to play that real-life public scrutiny any further than they do here: there’s no question whether ghosts are real in the movies since we can plainly see that they are. This film finds the Warrens in a more traditional horror setup, with them out of the house and the terrors affecting the teenagers left home alone, but the movie’s creators found the right balance to keep them recognizably “the Warrens” while also exploring that setup. Plus, Farmiga and Wilson are both so good in these roles that it’s nice to see them in whatever new situations the writers can cook up! This setup offered a peek into their home life when they’re not on an investigation and brought a little more variety to this cinematic universe’s offerings. The one thing I would’ve liked from Lorraine and Ed this time was a discussion about whether or not they should continue keeping their haunted vault room in their house with their daughter. They have to decide that they will, given it still exists in the Conjuring films, but I would’ve liked to hear the thought process behind keeping it. Did they have second thoughts at all? Do they just trust that the kids have learned their lesson? Did Judy reassure them that she’d be fine, either through her actions here or with a newfound strength uncovered by the film’s events? Might they even use the archives room to train Judy in the use of her paranormal sensitivity to some degree? (Probably not, given that would mean intentionally exposing her to dangerous demons). 

Like the Warrens, the rest of the characters were very likable and engaging. I greatly appreciated that the kids at the center of this film weren't the typical dumb teenagers messing with haunted things for fun or because of carelessness, but were instead aware of and at least a little respectful of the power of the Warren's archives. They were also capable in their own right (at least, as much as they could be in the face of this sort of danger). Judy's struggle with her burgeoning paranormal powers was well-handled and this was one hell of a first experience! The fallout at school from the questions about her parents' honesty was both a smart place to plant the seeds for the movie's main plot and to explore the unexpected (and until now, unexplored in this series) effects on Judy. I wonder if they’ll take liberties and have Judy grow up to follow in her parents’ footsteps someday, because Judy going from scared, lonely kid to opening herself up to the supernatural to save her friends was a great arc that could easily build into a new sub-franchise (particularly as we haven’t seen Lorraine’s early experiences with her supernatural abilities at an extended length). Grace did great with that transition and she was also really good at playing the more everyday character beats like Judy’s conflicting hesitancy and eagerness to open up to a new friend (Katie Sarife) despite pretty much everyone she knew thinking she was a freak (a very relatable tween/teen struggle). That development was a nice, grounded parallel to Judy’s sensitivity to the supernatural. I liked the idea that there would logically be good ghosts out there in addition to the demons the Warrens investigated, just like not all people are bad. That bit of wisdom was a cool moment for Judy’s babysitter and (initially) only friend Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman) to help Judy on her journey, giving Judy the courage to lean into her abilities to help save the day.

Mary Ellen was a refreshing change of pace as a responsible babysitter who truly cared about her charge. I liked her friendship with Judy and their scenes together felt totally natural and lived-in, as if their hangouts had been going on for years. I also enjoyed her displaying no hesitation to trying to put an end to the ghosts once she knew what was going on. Iseman’s acting and Mary Ellen’s writing also made good use of the push and pull between her responsibility to take care of Judy and Daniella’s intrusion into both the Warrens’ house and her romantic life. Mary Ellen’s awkward flirtation/burgeoning romance with Bob (Michael Cimino) was cute and the film included just enough of it to sell their mutual attraction and chemistry, while keeping it at a realistic level for teens who knew each other but didn't really hang out (so there was no "it's totally love already!"). The one beat that rang a little false for me was Mary Ellen and co. going “We’re totally fine!” at the end of all that terror: that was a touch too glib IMO, but as teens trying to save face in front of their peers—especially the guy she liked—it still worked. Besides that, I’m glad the horrors here weren’t just laughed off and there was an honest discussion with the Warrens about this being a serious incident.

Mary-Ellen's friend Daniella gets that talk and it was a nice show of responsibility that she’s the one who pushed Lorraine to call her out on her mistake. Throughout the movie, she was well-drawn not just as a dumb teen looking to stir up some ghosts for laughs, but as someone who had real pathos in wanting to see her dad (Anthony Wemmys) again. While you’re spending the movie thinking that she should absolutely not be exploring the vault and trying to contact her dad, her performance and the writing make it totally understandable that she would. I bought her sadness and guilt and thought she walked the line between accomplishing her agenda and genuinely caring about Mary Ellen and Judy very well. I also liked that she truly seemed interested in Judy as a person, even if she was also using her to see her dad again (if only she’d just asked Judy which artifact could help her!). All three of the central girls have a similar complexity to their characters, pulled between what they want and what’s been forced on them (Judy’s powers and the isolation caused by them and her parents’ reputation), what they’ve been hired to do (Mary Ellen, though she would still be Judy’s friend; her arc has the least tension), and what they’ve convinced themselves they have to do (Daniella seeing her dad again, which makes her a nice foil for Judy in that the paranormal is what she’s seeking but her pull away from it comes from befriending Judy). That’s a cool common building block to these characters that immediately makes them multi-dimensional, a state that’s only further enhanced by the actresses’ performances. Ben was fun as an awkward teen with a crush, and I liked that he wasn’t too toxic, like you might expect from a high school boy in a horror movie. Another refreshing twist (and a bonus gift stemming from the public scrutiny about the Warrens’ cases) was that all the kids readily accepted that ghosts were real rather than having to go through the motions of beginning to believe in them.

While this was entertaining, I’m over Annabelle as an antagonist at this point: she was fine here, but the other ghosts definitely felt like more of a threat and stole the show while it felt like the doll didn’t do much of anything (even though it was the object pulling the other ghosts to the house). I wouldn’t mind if this were the last Annabelle movie, as it seems like they’ve said all there is to say about the doll. They also included a nice full-circle tie back to Annabelle Creation with a brief vision of her human self (Samara Lee), making it feel even more like this is the last one. Thankfully, there was a sizable monster mash of new ghosts here too! While I would’ve liked some more focus on each of them (a longer haunting act would’ve been nice), I liked what we got and there was a solid variety to the types of scares they generated. The Ferryman was scary and I liked the mythology behind him as well as his appearance. The the coins hitting the floor and rolling in to view to herald his approach were really creepy-cool, and the rules about him appearing in the dark vs. disappearing in the light were used against and by him really effectively. At one point I was hoping the “werewolf” case would be the basis of Conjuring 3 since it seemed like an original take on both a possession and a werewolf movie, but I guess not. Still, I liked that they got some classic werewolf imagery out of the Black Shuck (Douglas Tait) when it ripped up the car. The Bride (Natalia Safran) and the typewriter brought a classic ghost sensibility to the mix and the Feeley Meeley game was bizarre even before it was haunted! The movie definitely left me wanting to know more about the other ghost artifacts in the Warrens’ vault, especially the cursed samurai armor and the future-telling TV. Maybe they could make a web series or something exploring the cases that brought the vault objects to the Warrens’ attention! 

Annabelle Comes Home has a strong cast with well-written and atypically alert characters facing a good variety of specters. The pacing’s solid: they take their time introducing us to the characters, which helped generate fear for them when they were put in danger and made the film feel like a throwback to 70s horror, which is fitting given the film’s setting. It also helped to defuse any knee-jerk “this is a real dumb plan” reactions to Daniella trying to contact her dad because she explained her mission enough for me to be invested in it (giving her such a strong a need to see him also avoids any “this is what you get for being stupid” reactions when her quest puts everyone in danger because I felt sorry for her). Jump scares don’t bother me—they’re fun too!—and this movie definitely has some effective ones along with the creepy visuals (like the denizens of a graveyard (Sheila McKellan and others) approaching the Warrens’ car that only Lorraine can see). The paranormal attacks seemed more intense overall in the Conjuring films and Annabelle Creation, which are probably the three scariest entries in this franchise so far (though I liked this one and these characters better than Creation’s). The music, both the score and the 70s songs, was well used to creepy effect.

This movie might not have been necessary, strictly-speaking, since we already saw Annabelle get loose in the first Conjuring, but it was definitely a lot of spooky fun! It's a solid haunted house flick with a strong cast and that’s exactly what it needed to be. It’s also a good ending to Annabelle’s spin-off trilogy and got me ready for the next Conjuring with the focus shifting back to the Warrens (and maybe Judy this time?). You should definitely check this out!

Check out more of my reviews, opinions, and original short stories here!

[raeynbowboi]

My Favorite Pokemon of Each Type

I wonder how obvious it is which Pokemon Gen was my first? So I wanted to not only share my favorite Pokemon, but also the reasoning behind why I like them as much as I do. I also took the liberty to include in the descriptions below the 2nd and 3rd place runner ups for each type. A couple ground rules I held myself to: 1. No legendaries, mythical pokemon, or special event Pokemon 2. No Megas, no Alolan Forms

GRASS - SCEPTILE

My least favorite of the Hoenn starters, and the one I was last to do a playthrough with, Sceptile is still by far one of, if not the best grass starter in any generation. The Hoenn region being covered by a lot of water certainly does help its case, and gives it an edge over Team Aqua. Although, for being named Team Aqua, they sure don’t have a lot of water-type pokemon. Still, Sceptile’s speed made it quite the formidable pokemon.

2nd - Tsareena 3rd - Trevenant

FIRE - BLAZIKEN

The first starter I ever completed a Hoenn playthrough with, Blaziken was often my go-to starter for the Hoenn region, largely due to how adorable Torchic was, and how strong Blaziken was. Honestly, I think it has one of the most broken, OP Mega forms in the game, and I absolutely adore it. You may have noticed my top 3 Fire types are all starter pokemon. Yeah, Fire Pokemon as a whole are not very good, so the starters tend to be the only really viable fire types in any given game.

2nd - Charizard 3rd - Infernape

WATER - MILOTIC

I freaking love this monstrosity. Pack this little lady up with Surf, Recover, Toxic, and Ice Beam, and you’ve got a self-regenerating wall. I’ve blown through entire teams with this dynamite creature. This thing has saved me from the brink of defeat, swept teams, stalled long enough to give me the advantage, and whatever else it could in so many battles that I do not do a playthrough without one on my team. I’m even willing to violate the “no repeating types” rule I tend to employ just to have this thing with me. I truly cannot sing its praises enough.

2nd - Kingdra 3rd - Azumarill

NORMAL - LOPUNNY

A very solid hitter, I ran one on a cutesy/beauty team a while back, and it sometimes swept entire teams. I still remember a fight where one of these lovely ladies punched her way through an entire team of Snorlaxes and she wasn’t even Mega-Evolved. I tended to run Power Up Punch, Drain Punch, Attract, and Fire Punch in case of ghosts. Her speed made her a phenomenal support, and the only reason I don’t use her as much any more is that she could benefit from more healing moves or just being bulkier.

2nd - Blissey 3rd - Eevee

ELECTRIC - ELECTIVIRE

Okay, so this thing is more physical than special, and most Electric moves are special, but I tended to just run  this guy with Wild Charge, Earthquake, Ice Punch, and Giga Impact. While not the greatest pokemon in the world, I certainly can recall numberous fights where it saved my butt. Plus, it just looks really awesome.

2nd - Luxray 3rd - Manectric

PSYCHIC - ESPEON

Prior to the introduction of Sylveon in gen VI, this thing was the undisputed best Eeveelution in my opinion. Now, I still hold Espeon as #1 due to its healing factor, but Sylveon is a very close 2nd place. I always run this Pokemon with Magic Bounce, and the moves Psychic, Dazzling Gleam, Calm Mind, and Morning Sun. While it’s not a perfect set and it doesn’t protect against physical moves, it has been useful in the past, and has even completely stonewalled opponents from being able to do anything. It’s also a great pokemon to send out first, since it counters set up Pokemon, and so it can set up Calm Mind while the opponent is busy swapping out for a Pokemon that can actually do damage. If possible, it’s a really good Pokemon to Baton Pass out because if you can send it out with raised Defense stats, the Magic Bounce will protect it from moves like Roar, Whirlwind, and other moves that would normally destroy a set up playing style.

2nd - Alakazam 3rd - Gallade

FIGHTING - LUCARIO

Not gonna lie, this one is more of a favorite due to cool factor and awesome design, as Fighting is really not one of my favorite types, and I’ve only actually used this Pokemon a couple of times. It’s good, really very good, but it’s just not one I instinctively say “yes, this is a must have on any team”, so it doesn’t get used very much.

2nd - Breloom 3rd - Toxicroak

ROCK - AGGRON

Another Pokemon I can remember liking more for design, I remember working very long and hard to get one for Pokemon Emerald, and I just caught a wild Lairon on Victory Road and trained it until it evolved. I don’t have a deep emotional connection to it, but when I need a bulky tank with an earthy kind of type, this pokemon is always the first to pop into my mind.

2nd - Tyranitar 3rd - Aerodactyl

GROUND - SWAMPERT

My very first starter pokemon ever, Swampert has always had a place in my heart, and its role as a bulky tank that hits hard has endeared it greatly in my heart. Although it suffers from a 4x weakness to grass, in the original Ruby and Sapphire games, this really wasn’t an issue, since most trainers lacked grass-type pokemon.

2nd - Garchomp 3rd - Flygon

FLYING - TOGEKISS

This thing is a freaking nightmare. You get this little lady with Ancient Power, Air Slash, Flamethrower, and Dazzling Gleam, and you’re looking at a non-stop flinching and stat boosting villain. I have completely curbstomped players with one of these, I cannot stress how great this thing is. And if you don’t feel like running Ancient Power, Thunder Wave can be great for eliminating whatever competition it might possible have for speed. And Roost can make this thing all the more annoying to try and kill. This thing is just great all around.

2nd - Gliscor 3rd - Crobat

BUG - SCOLIOPEDE

I’m not a big fan of bug-types. Most of them suck, and even most bug type moves are complete crap, so I don’t really use the type very much. Still, I have run one of these in the past, and Protect + Swords Dance + Speed Boost can turn this thing into a high speed sniper. I definitely have fond memories of this thing. And because it can learn Baton Pass, it’s a great stat gatherer too.

2nd - Ribombe 3rd - Beautifly

POISON - ROSERADE

Another type I don’t really use very much, my favortism for Roserade is mostly due to loving Drew’s Roselia in the anime, and just loving it’s design as a beautiful rose. A solid Pokemon, I don’t really use one anymore, but for a casual playthrough, it works well enough.

2nd - Dragalgae 3rd - Toxipex

DARK - GRENINJA

Let’s be real, everybody loves this thing. We all know why we love this thing. It doesn’t need to be spelled out. Greninja is awesome. The internet collectively agrees. This thing rocks.

2nd - Hydreigon 3rd - Absol

GHOST - MIMIKYU

Talk about a broken ability. With its Disguise ability, Mimikyu effectively has a free turn to do whatever. Whether you want to use Swords Dance to strengthen yourself, or if you wanna get in a strong Super Effective attack, Mimikyu really is just a free turn, and who can argue with that?

2nd - Aegislash 3rd - Mismagius

ICE - WALREIN

Another type I don’t use very much, I  can remember this thing being so hard to kill while fighting Glacia. This thing is an absolute wall, and it’s a shame it doesn’t have any healing moves because this thing would become an impregnable barrier.

2nd - Cloister 3rd - Frosslass

STEEL - METAGROSS

It’s an extremely overpowered pseudolegendary. Do I really have to say more? It’s a major fan favorite, and it’s a lot of people’s favorite steel type.

2nd - Steelix 3rd - Scizor

DRAGON - SALAMENCE

There are a lot of good dragons, but when I was a kid, this was the king dragon (except for Rayquaza), and you  were the envy of every kid on the playground if you had one of these guys. So for that reason, this guy is forever in my heart as the best dragon.

2nd - Noivern 3rd - Goodra

FAIRY - GARDEVOIR

Let me tell you, this little lady right here is hands down my absolute favorite pokemon, and no not because of waifu art. This thing right here is hands down one of the strongest pokemon in the series, one of the most popular, and is also extremely beautiful. I thought very little of Ralts when I saw them, but when I saw my rival’s Gardevoir, i fell in love so fast I actually restarted the game from scratch to go back and get myself a Ralts. I do not play a game without this pokemon on my team. Period. End of Discussion. I absolutely adore this pokemon, and the mega evolution only made its carnage all the more destructive. 10/10, #1 favorite pokemon. Just amazing. 

2nd - Sylveon 3rd - Clefairy

[thechaoticwonderland]

I finally have time to write, damn it! I have been MIA for the longest time (and Twitter has been basically my place for word vomit) but I swear I have been trying to write something here -- as proven by my numerous drafted posts. LOL. 😓

If you’ve been following me on Twitter or Instagram, I TURNED TWENTY FOUR a few months back. Yup, I have officially changed my profile every where to 24. I still can’t believe I am THAT old but meh. 

I celebrated my birthday walking dogs and getting drunk around Sheung Wan and Central Hongkong with my boyfriend -- super low key but probably one of the best birthday celebrations ever! 💜 But I’d probably save a different post for that -- WHEN I FIND THE TIME AND ENERGY TO DO SO. (Possibly never, but let’s see lol)

And since I am T W E N T Y F O U R (ack!), I have decided to come up with a blog post on 24 life realizations I have at 24 - some are realizations I’ve had leading up to my 24th but you get my point. 😂

1. Love comes when you least expect it - cliché, I know. But I met my boyfriend at this random birthday party I gate-crashed AKA his 30th birthday. 😁 Long story short, we’ve been going out for over a year now. We both weren’t looking for anything then since he just got out of a toxic relationship, and I was casually going out with random people. But here we are. 😜

2. No need to rush things, do things at your own pace - I started my Masters over 2 years ago, and you’ve guessed it, most of my batch mates have their Masters degree already. 🙆🏾 At some point, I wanted to study full-time cos I’ve gotten envious of my friends. But since my parents are still (yep, I know. Shame on me) paying for my tuition fee, I don’t want to burden them with allowance expenses + my living expenses (If you’re new here, I actually live alone lol) so I need to keep my job. Now I’m 1 subject away from defending my paper! I’m almost there! And it’s actually not bad. 🤗

3. Don’t live beyond your means - Ahh, my dad’s favorite life lesson. I never thought about it then since I was living under my parents’ support, but now that I live alone I have to make ends meet month on month. In layman’s terms IF YOU CAN’T AFFORD IT, JUST DON’T. 

4. Don’t put your eggs in one basket - I know I am not the best person to be all preachy about money (cos I am bad at handling my own finances, but I try) but I have 3 savings accounts in different banks. It comes in handy when one bank fucks shit up (like goes on a nationwide shut down *cough BPI*, or one that just eats up your card and your money from time to time *cough BDO*). 

5. Your past doesn’t define you or how you’d succeed in the future - Another cliché saying, but I swear you get to realize why people say it often. I’ve done so much shit when I was younger but believe me when I say such experiences will help you realize stuff later on. After all, we learn from our mistakes and such mistakes will push us to be better people tomorrow. 

6. Your choices in life are your own, don’t let people tell you otherwise - You will never share the exact same beliefs with everyone, I’m sure about that. Just do you and brush off other opinions, they don’t matter - believe me. 

7. Keep your circle close and small - Your real friends genuinely care, the others are just curious. Be cautious.

8. Always be kind - And this applies to everyone: guards, maids, janitors, etc. Believe me, if you’re nice to everyone, it’s easier to ask for favors. 😜

9. Travel alone - You should try this at least once in your life, me thinks. It gave me a sense of liberty and independence! I did this when I was trying to mend my cracked heart - and I came back to Manila feeling all refreshed and happy. I guess I learned that I don’t need a man to survive! HAHA! 😂

10. Don’t complain, do something about it - Ranting is fine, human nature. But if you will just sit down and whine when something could actually be done, then maybe you should rethink your life choices honey. Instead of wasting your time and energy complaining, why don’t you stop and think? Things and answers won’t always be served to you on a silver platter, FIND WAYS. 😊

11. Don’t forget to remove your make up at the end of the day - PLEASE. Do yourself a favor and let your face breathe! 😛 

12. ALWAYS MOISTURIZE AND PUT SPF - *i-capslock mo para intense!!!* I couldn’t stress this enough. I actually keep various moisturizers depending on the weather, I have intensive moisturizers for when I travel and light ones for the Philippine heat. Just please, never skip it! 

13. One at a time - My boyfriend would always tell me this when I’m stressing over work, school, among other things. It helps, actually. Stop, arrange your thoughts, and do things one at a time. 

12. Treat yourself - Now before you go crazy and tell me that this is a bad thing, I didn’t say you have to buy that expensive bag you’ve been eyeing on for so long because “I DESERVE IT”. Going back to point number 3, if you can’t afford it - IT’S A NO. It can be as simple as “I did a great job today, I deserve good coffee - not my usual pantry coffee”, which is my usual way of treating myself. If you can afford to buy that expensive bag to treat yourself, BY ALL MEANS DO IT. But always remember POINT NUMBER 3!  

13. Family will always come first - Ah, this is one of the many things I realized growing up. Of course I was super excited to grow up so I can go out with my friends whenever I wanted to before. But when I moved out, I always look forward to weekends so I can come home to my family. What a baby, I know right?  

14. Let go and let God - I am not the most religious person in the world, heck I barely even hear mass (I’m busy, but that’s not an excuse I’m sorry). But I really believe in greater power from above. I always find myself in hopeless situations, where I find my shitty ass crying myself to bed on most nights (add that I also live alone so imagine how bad it must be lol). But I usually find myself just getting through the worst days with little miracles. And I always thank God for that. 

15. If you feel so happy with the wrong person, image how happy you’d be with the right one? - Eep, another cliché saying c/o me lol. But seriously, I thought I couldn’t be happy anymore when I once got my heart broken HAHAHA. Cut to mid-last year, I’m extremely happy -- waaay happier than before. Not saying I’m already with the person for me, though I really do hope so (HAHAHA yuck cheese) but I’m happier than before and I’m sure the person I’m with is a better person amongst all the guys I went out with before.

16. Take long walks. - I enjoy this so much especially abroad. I went on a birthday trip in Hong Kong and I spent 70% of the time walking - thinking and reflecting. 😅 I think long peaceful walks are good for everyone’s sanity.

17. Cut off toxic people. -  Not everyone you lose is a loss. If they aren’t doing you good, what’s the use of keeping them? 

18. Life is what you make it. - If you want something to happen, the first step starts with you. 😅 If you don’t take the first step, nothing will happen. SERIOUSLY. Everything doesn’t happen by chance!!!!! 

19. You don’t have to have a reaction on everything. - I believe there are things better left unsaid. I know a lot of people would disagree. But I still think the saying “If you have nothing nice to say, just zip it” is still superior. Lol.

20. Work isn’t everything. - I recently had to stop working for a week and a half due to some health concerns. It sucked balls. But I came to realize work isn’t everything -- YOUR HEALTH (mental health included) IS WAY MORE IMPORTANT.

21. Quite connected to the bullet prior, Work can wait. - I have learned to keep work within working hours. Remember, work will always come and it will never be done. Know what’s most important and prioritize! That’s the key. Whatever’s left can be done tomorrow. You don’t have to spend 12 hours in the office all day and stress out on work, tbh.

22. Choose your battles. - Not everything is worth stressing over. (remember point 19!) 😋

23. Respect begets respect. - Respect opinions, respect people - young and old alike. Sometimes we just have to learn to agree to disagree. 

24. Live life to the fullest. - Another cliché saying, but honestly you’ll never be as young as you are today. Make mistakes so you will never make the same ones in the future, learn the ropes of life through the decisions you make everyday. Not everything will go our way, that’s for sure, but life is only what we make of it. 

I hope you got to pick something up from my blabbing. To be honest, it took me months to finish this list since I barely have time in my hands. Lol. 😬 

I missed you, Tumblr! ✨  

[meadowhilley]

it’s back

Today, my friends, is World Cancer Day. How exactly does one celebrate such an occasion, you wonder? That’s actually what I’m writing to find out. For starters it seems like a fitting moment to break my nearly year-long silence and tell you It’s back.

Not the cancer—I’m still “free,” as far as anyone can tell. No, what’s back with a vengeance is the sensation of living with an ugly and insidious thing growing inside me. The Get-It-The-Fuck-Out-Of-Me urgency that two and a half years ago made me drop everything, fall into a blue vinyl chair, and start blogging straight through my chemo infusions.

I still can’t explain by what internal mechanism this revelation about my compromised physical state triggered a visceral awareness that I’d been living with a different sort of malignancy for decades—a tangled knot of repressed emotion growing more potent and far-reaching as I happily went about the manic business of being a working mom. Or how I understood that my ability to heal bodily was predicated on my willingness to undergo a mental purge. Or how I knew with absolute certainty what I needed to do, even in those foggy predawn moments before the diagnosis had fully resolved into a clear picture of what awaited me in the days and months ahead.

Whether it was some atavistic survival instinct that kicked in or what they (dismissively) chalk up to “women’s intuition,” whether it was divine inspiration or something closer to unhinged delusion, at the very moment I received The Bad News I found myself in A State of Grace, like in a primal garden scintillating with dew where knowledge hangs low on the branch, hungry for the right mouth.

Glutton that I am, I bit. And instantly I came to understand that my body was a book I’d been writing for years without ever stopping to read it. At the center of my story was this malignant enigma, a living organism pregnant with meaning whose tendrils reached greedily through the space-time of my inner landscape, looking to occupy all my vital sites.

Stopping its spread and reversing the cancer’s insidious creep was the obvious goal of our immediate coordinated response. But as my three doctors each took up their weapons—poison, blade, and fire—I lay low like a meadow-turned-battlefield, bracing myself for the onslaught and devising an alternate plan, knowing that the only way to truly best this beastly part of me that fed on darkness was to draw it out, into the light.

So I painted my face. Obviously. Spent a week wearing only dresses. Naturally. Loitered seductively at the mouth of what I guessed might be my deepest emotional cavern. Patiently. Until one day, in the small round mirror of my compact case, I glimpsed a dark shade emerging against a background of shadow. Taking a sultry step forward in my red two-inch heels, I watched discretely as it advanced with predatory appetite, hypnotized by the allure of an easy meal. And at the very moment it crouched to pounce, I turned to face my Beast-Me.

Go ahead, I told my cancerous self, feeling beautiful for once and more powerful than ever. Show me how ugly I am inside. You will not be the first.

My plan wasn’t particularly well-formed. I was totally winging it, to be honest. With hindsight though it’s possible to list the major steps of my cancer-fighting campaign as:

1. Perform strength to psych myself up for the encounter.

2. Position myself as bait.

3. Coax the unknown threat out of hiding.

4. Subject it to intense examination.

5. Force it to reveal its origins.

6. Love the thing to death.

All on my terms, in a place where I felt safe and strong and well supported.

In other words, I would write the cancer out of me.

Out, like, in the open. Words confided to a private journal were not going cut it. An invasive species so entrenched would have to be pulled up by the roots into the glaring light of day and subjected to full exposure. This pathogen and its attending pathos should be left to shrivel and wilt under public scrutiny, I understood, until having lost all potency conferred by me, their host, they would reveal their true, pathetic nature and leave me whole.

If you’re not an exhibitionist by nature, writing publicly about your intimate past and present is highly ill-advised. Maybe you’re someone who cares about what people think of you. Or maybe you have a family to protect, a job you’d like to keep, or competing interests and hobbies. In my case, all of these inhibiting factors were compounded by the muzzling effect of four hundred years of injustice perpetrated by the West, which we have systematically justified by painting the Other as radically different—a threat to be mastered, a contagion to be contained.

How could I possibly talk about my challenging 13-year relationship with my African ex-husband, who was also a Muslim, without perpetuating these longstanding stereotypes and adding fuel to the fire? How could I tell my story without doing more harm than good? Fully aware of the risk that my experience would be generalized and my words misinterpreted, I felt compelled to write all the same. Common sense and fear, I came to feel, were my greatest enemies. To build a bridge, you’ve got to reach dangerously across the gaping abyss.

All this to say that hitting “Post” was never a mindless gesture for me. It required a force of will that ran counter to reason, and caution, and instinct.

Announcing that I had cancer in a Facebook status update was admittedly a shameless bid for your attention, like dancing carelessly on a mountain ledge. But I wouldn’t have sought your attention if I didn’t think it was absolutely vital to my healing. You, dear friends, were the gentle sunlight that scorched my disease better than a daily dose of photon rays at +$3,000 a pop x 25 sizzling pops. It was because you agreed to bear witness to my self-designed form of treatment by reading me as I attempted to decipher the book of my body that I got better. You did that. Each one of you made a difference. And it didn’t cost us anything but time.

So now it’s back. That oh-shit-here-we-go-again feeling, like there’s some creature dragging its claws through my gut from the inside. Only this time I’m even more reluctant to write publicly. For one, I’ve been writing privately, trying to build a bigger bridge, in silence, and that jealous pursuit demands all the attention I can afford to give it.

But, UGH. The world changed two weeks ago just as it did two years back with the diagnosis, and ten years before that when my first marriage ended: abruptly, dramatically, alarmingly. A rug has just been pulled out from under our feet, and with my introvert laid out in utter shock, my extrovert showed up, a rival sibling looking to compete for the same scant resources of time and attention, demanding I Do Something Now.

Don’t! shouted my introvert, albeit weakly from the floor. Keep to yourself, it pleaded. Focus your angst inward. Don’t be so arrogant as to think you have something of value to say in the here and now. Lay low. Leave this one to the activists and experts.

Reasonable arguments, all. But here’s the thing: on the subject of hostile takeovers, I am something of an expert. I devoted my doctoral dissertation to groups who used writing as a means of liberating themselves from their longtime oppressors. I lived for six years in a country that had only achieved its independence a generation earlier. Even more instructive, I personally survived the experience of being colonized twice: first mentally, by my domineering ex, then physically, by the cancer, whose insidious advance reminded me so much of the guy’s subtle way of methodically getting me to give up my freedoms, one by one, until it seemed I had nothing left. Claiming that others would be better suited to speaking out against the authoritarian power grab by the big bully now occupying the White House, that someone else would do a better job describing the risks his tyrannical methods pose to our liberty and national character, it’s all just bullshit, a way of shirking my responsibility.

So it’s with a certain authority that I can assure you: the cancer plaguing us today may wear a name other than ER/PR HER2-Positive Invasive Ductile Carcinoma, but it is just as deadly. It’s not only an oppressive ex haunting my own little psyche, but our current President doing a serious number on our collective consciousness. This shit’s not just in me this time, but it’s in you, too. And it’s going to poison the world over if we don’t all stand up to stop it now.

One of my first thoughts on getting the diagnosis was, Did I bring this on myself? My ongoing attempt to answer that question without wallowing in self-loathing has brought me on the greatest journey of my life, towards healing. The same can be true for us as a country.

Yes, we brought this on ourselves. But we also have the means to fix it. We are all cause and cure both. Niit niit mooy garabam, the Wolof proverb goes. Other people are our own best medicine. We need to turn and face this ugliness together, give ourselves permission to speak out, and shout a resounding Fuck No as one. The disease may have found its way into US, but in no way is it a definitive reflection of who we are. Not if we refuse to play host to its toxic presence.

So how should we celebrate World Cancer Day? I’ve come up with a couple suggestions, based on personal experience:

1. Start by making yourself feel good and beautiful and strong.

2. Don’t be afraid to draw fire. Welcome discomfort. Actively displace yourself.

3. Coax this shared malignancy out into the open.

4. Take a good, hard look at it, understanding that it offers us the blessed gift of insight.

5. Figure out where it comes from, and how it managed to take root within us.

6. Spread beauty and love in abundance.

Writing was the tool that best fit my own hand, but everyone has a custom-made means of expression, an instrument perfectly suited to doing the patient work of parsing out what’s healthy in us from what is corrosive. My girls got a great kick out of the Turnip sign that recently sprang up just feet away from the spot on Main Street where an enormous Trump sign has for months been planted like a foreign flag, causing Brewster residents to wonder who we are as a community.

Me, I can’t wait to see what you all come up with.

[5hfanfiction]

7107 islands

CHAPTER 4

Camila’s POV

“Lucy,” Lauren pleaded, “C'mon, please calm down for a second.”

I’m not so sure what they are arguing about; I’m just positive they’re having a conflict. Everyone can sense the annoyance radiating from Lauren’s voice, even though all four of us aren’t really listening. We can just really hear her irritated tone.

You might want to ask, are they dating? Well, maybe? I have caught them kissed a couple of times already. Even before the leaked photo. I don’t know. I don’t care, it’s none of my business anyway.

“Hey Camila, can I speak with you here, please?”

Alright, Lauren summoned me to the terrace.

Oh, she’s done with her phone call. “Yeah what’s up?” I questioned confused. Is she going to talk to me about Lucy?

“So when do we go? I made agreements with the management and label already, but they needed to know when do we leave exactly so they can sort things out for us.” Oh, right.

“Perhaps after the holidays Lolo. Why? Do you want to go sooner?”

“Kind of.”

“But we need to spend the holidays with our family, Lauren,” I countered. What is she even thinking?

Lauren looked at me for a while and then breathed out a deep sigh. “Okay, so can we go January 3?”

Well, look how the tables turned. Seems like she’s the one needing company for the trip instead of me. I nodded in response to her question. Guess the trip would be of mutual benefits now, considering the situation. Seems like she’s running away from something.

“Anything else we need to talk about?” I added.

“Uhm, yeah, we need to plan this out. We can’t be too spontaneous since we’re celebrities, you know,” she said smiling.

I grinned. “Can we go inside and list down everything?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Lauren stood up, leading the way for me.

She’s wearing a crop top and the usual boxer shorts when we’re here at our apartment. I did a once-over at her body because why not. She’s literally right in front of me, flaunting that body everyone could ever wish for.

I don’t know how exactly but I think she noticed. I just rolled my eyes when I caught her smirking from her side view. Isn’t she supposed to be used to it by now? Everyone knows she has this effect on everyone, whether she admits to do it on purpose or not. Must be the planet green eyes. Or those body curves…

We went to a table near the other girls while also acquiring a pen and paper.

“How long are we going to stay?” Lauren asked, while scribbling down the decided date of our flight. I pondered, “Maybe two weeks?”

“I think that’s too much,” Ally chimed in while pouting. Well, okay, I don’t know. It’s only a suggestion.

“Perhaps a week? I find it ridiculous that we’re literally going to fly half the globe, but leaving as soon as three days,” Lauren broadcasting her thoughts, “it just ain’t right, yeah, Camz?”

“Yeah,” I breathed out. She’s actually making efforts for this trip. “Any place you want to visit?”

“There’s this beach they call Boracay. But any beach is fine, really. You know that I’m a beach girl,” Lauren answered, while apparently also winking at Dinah.

“Well, I’m not concerned with wherever we are going. I just want to meet Jasmin and be able to surprise her. I’ll be leaving all that planning to you.” Now Dinah is smiling widely at me.

Uhm? Is there something going on?

I stared at them with a displeased face, furrowing my eyebrows. Dinah ignored me and went back to scrolling her phone. “Oh so you want to surprise her? How then will we know where she lives, buddy?”

Scoffing at her choice of pet name, I made a leave-it-to-me gesture anyway.

“Fine, but you have to do whatever you have to do ASAP. We need to know what city she lives in so we know what hotel to reserve.”

“What else are you writing down then?” I asked intrigued, she’s been writing a lot of things when we haven’t really planned every detail yet.

“Oh, these are just some of the activities we’ll be missing.”

Confused, I asked, “But what for?”

Lauren continued on writing for a few more seconds, paused, and then looked at me. “Just go do your thing. We have to know where your friend lives.” And then added a wink.

Unimpressed by her actions, I stood up and went to my room.

Lauren. Such a flirt.

Jasmin’s POV

It’s been 5 months since Karla and I first talked. I thought.

I’m currently in the shower, preparing for another sleepless night with endless amount of requirements to do. Emily and I are graduating students with one term left to finish our college degrees.

“I have so much shit to do!” I heard a girl screaming.

That would be Emily, the pressure already taking a toll on her. We haven’t had any time for ourselves for two months now. It’s been that long since we had a full night sleep, only averaging of 4 hours’ maximum every night.

Aside from Emily, I only have Karla as a distraction from all the stress. She’s been my rock throughout. Y'all understand that I can’t exactly rant to my bestfriend since we obviously share the same sentiments, right? Also, things are harder for her because she’s a scholar. She has higher expectations to meet and I try my best to guide her more as much as she does with me. Though stressed and at times discouraged, I think we’ll manage. Definitely positive of that.

Subsequently drying myself and putting my clothes on, I went back to my room.

Emily is at my bed working with her papers while I’m on my study table doing mine. However, she’s currently folded on my bed, hugging her knees like a cocoon ready for her metamorphosis.

I went near her and shook her shoulder to wake her up. Tonight is definitely not the right time to take a nap, and I know she did not intend to. After a few more push, I heard a sob.

Oh fuck, she’s crying.

“Uy Em, bat ka naiyak? (Hey Em, why are you crying?)” I asked her, getting more worried by the second.

She tried her best effort to face me and that’s when I realized she’s burning of fever. Seeing not just the redness from her eyes, but from her weak aura and flustered state, I also checked the intensity through her forehead.

“Oh crap,” I murmured, “Em, I need you to stay awake for me. Kelangan mo muna uminom ng gamot. Kuha lang ako ha, wait lang. (You still need to drink medicine. I’ll have to fetch it, wait.)”

Heading to the kitchen, I mentally listed the things I needed to gather for Emily. I prioritized heating some water in the kettle first, and then went to the medicine kit to acquire the necessary tablets. After also getting a glass of water, I went back to her and placed them on my bedside table.

Her position isn’t exactly appropriate for drinking, well unless I intended to choke her. So I took it upon myself to reposition her instead of just asking. Through this process, I was able to note that every part of her body is literally hot, even her breathe.

“Emily, inom muna gamot. Dali. (Emily, drink first your med. C'mon.)”

She opened her eyes for a second and then her mouth. I took the liberty of slipping the tablets in and then assisted her on drinking water. After a couple of gulps, she bobbed her head to the other side. I moved my way, heading downstairs, but I noticed she grabbed my hand. I heard her murmur something, but I couldn’t hear it.

With that, I moved closer to her so I can understand what she’s saying but at the same time, she bobbed her head towards my direction. Before I know it, her open mouth is attached on my upper lip. Enclosed and fits right in.

I was shocked, for a lack of better word. It took me a full second before I pulled myself away from her and went to the screaming kettle as fast as I can.

Damn it. That was both of our first kiss, Emily.

Lauren’s POV

Of almost 4 years in the group, Camila and I managed to deal with the sexual tension mixed in the air whenever we’re on the same room. Or maybe not really deal per se, since we’re not doing anything about it, we just kind of got used to it.

I have to admit that she’s been one of the key factors as to how I realized I’m equally attracted to women. But, both of our rational side got the best of us since we’re in the group. We both know how important our careers are to each other, and we understand the weight of our every action. Although it does get a bit lonely while on the road…

Personally, I’m living the dream already. I have gotten what I wanted. And I’m continuing this journey to just try maximize my opportunities and see to what extent can I reach. Besides, I am doing this for my other girls too, and we’re all on the same page as far as I remember.

Except maybe of Camila. We’re all aware of Camila’s other plans. And after much deliberation, Dinah, Normani, and Ally just decided to let go. Let go of the inevitable budding bitterness in their friendship towards her. Everyone just decided to be professional and civilized for everyone’s benefit. Considering, Camila’s mental state if I may add.

Well, them. I don’t include myself to that because it’s equally exhausting, physically and mentally. I prefer to generally ignore the problems and treat them all like nothing is at fault.

Meanwhile, I have a beautiful charming girlfriend to accompany me through it all, so I’m fine.

Actually, no. God, why is everyone toxic right now.

We need a vacation for fucks sake..

A/N

Either I’m busy or………… suffering a writer’s block. Geez. Sorry!

[729renegades]

BEING HEALTHY ON THE INSIDE AND OUT – PART 1

Here at Renegades we are constantly trying to show more and more business owners that there is more to life than the daily grind of self-employment. We are working hard behind the scenes to develop a stepped process that will allow business owners, regardless of where they are on their journey a system that if followed will lead to success in their business and personal lives.

Over the next 2 months I want to share a section of that process and here’s the first part for you.

Health and Wellbeing and being healthy on the inside and the outside is a huge part of being able to meet the demands of entrepreneurship when its coupled with a family or private life.

It doesn’t matter how you look at this.

You can have the best business in the world, plenty of money in the bank but if you don’t have your health and you’re not happy then quite frankly it’s all wasted on you.

Your physical and mental health is priceless and a great friend of mine always quotes, “health is wealth”, and he’s spot on.

Likewise, your general state of wellness and happiness has a huge bearing on your quality of life. You can’t or shouldn’t spend the rest of your life doing a job or running a business that fills your wallet but empties your soul.

What does being healthy on the inside and the outside mean to me?

Feeling good

Feeling motivated

Clarity of thought

Happiness

A spring in the step

A smile on my face

Energetic

Readiness to face all challenges and seize any opportunities

How do I make sure I tick all of those boxes? Let me explain what works for me.

One of the secrets that I know has had great results with me regarding my health and wellbeing has been the instilling and following of good, positive routines which allows me to be healthy on the inside and out.

When my life is good, and I am at my best. I’m in a certain groove and following a good, positive routine.

When life is bad, when I feel overwhelmed or down, when I lack energy and clarity you can guarantee I’m not in that grove and something has slipped, or I’m in a bad daily routine.

Routines make things work and keep people alive!!

Do what works for you – There is no right or wrong

For those who don’t know, I spent nearly 8 years in the Armed Forces in the UK, and this is why the Armed Forces and the Royal Navy in my case run everything by routine. People laugh at me when I say my time in the Forces was like being in prison but without the loss of liberty. That’s because everything, even minutia is run by routine. Obviously, this is so that everyone knows, where everyone should be and what they should be doing and who they should be doing it with at every point during any given day. You know when to eat, when to exercise, when to work, when to play, you know everything, every day. Same as prison, when to sleep, when to wake, when to wash, when to eat, when to exercise, when to get yard time, when to go back in, when to return to your cell and so it goes on. It avoids chaos reigning.

One of my old Charge Chief’s on HMS Gloucester used to spout, “fit in body, fit in mind” all the time and he was renowned for his health and especially his fitness. He had run the Field Gun in the Royal Tournament the maximum allowed 3 times. This is an event where a team of men are responsible for getting a cannon, which weighs in excess of 1.2 tonnes, across a course by taking it apart and putting it back together at the other side of an imaginary ravine and firing it, before doing it all again in reverse to the finish line!

Trust me, it’s as crazy as it sounds.

He sometimes trained 3 times a day and was one of the fittest guys I have ever met.

He had lost the index finger of his left hand, it was an ugly, gnarly stump that was left and I asked him about it. When he was running the gun, he was a wheel man. This meant that he was responsible for taking the huge wheel on the cannon off, carrying it and then putting it back on when required through the race.

The wheel is held in place by a metal split pin which you pull out or shove in dependant on what you are trying to do.

On his first ever tournament, in front of the Queen they were mid run and he lost the pin, he dropped it in the sand that covers the floor. Without the pin, the wheel would fall off and his team would lose, and it would be on him.

So, he put his finger in the hole and kept going.

The gun and wheel took his finger clean off but that wasn’t the end of it.

He had to carry on to the finish line by taking his own finger in and out of that hole another twice before they crossed the line. That was the type of team player he was. I urge you to google “Royal Navy Field Gun Race” and check out one of the YouTube clips. When you see them flying across with those wheels, picture him carrying his finger as well!!

What his fitness brought him was a boundless energy and a clarity of thought and action that made him a joy to be around and a great leader to boot. In difficult times when sleep was deprived in certain dangerous circumstances, he was the one that would see us through with his energy and actions.

You have to be really conscious and intentional because in my experience, it’s much, much easier to fall into bad routines than it is to follow good ones.

It’s funny how the brain works that way.

I want to put a disclaimer in here before I go on. First, I am not advocating that you follow what I do, I am simply telling you what works for me. If it works for you too, that’s superb. If not, find something that works for you.

Take some time and think about what you were doing when you felt on top form.

When are you at your best?

When you’ve established those answers and you can recall being at the peak of your performance and copy that.

Second, I am no fitness guru either. I am 18 stones, horizontally challenged and under tall for my weight. I should be about 8 foot 6. Putting it in lay man terms, I am a fat bloke that likes to keep relatively active and fit.

I find nothing worse than people harping on about what you should and shouldn’t eat or drink. I was once in a community of entrepreneurs where the leader or self-appointed guru used to ridicule and belittle people for enjoying alcohol, eating meat, or having any sugar in their diet!! My thought was. . . get a life! I didn’t stay long in that group.

Eat what works for you and be happy with your choices. If you eat like a pig and are as fat as a pig be happy with your choices, accept the consequences, don’t moan because you are carrying a few pounds. Likewise, if you eat a diet of lettuce and dust, have the body/fat composition of a beanpole, be happy with your choices, don’t preach at others and complain that you can’t put on weight and muscle. Each to their own and celebrate we are all different.

You won’t get any diet or exercise advice from me, unless you ask for it.

Again, I will outline what works for me.

I am no dietician, I’m not an Olympic athlete or a Personal Trainer.

I love a glass of wine and a take away and occasionally I have athletes’ foot!!, I guess that makes me normal then.

Lastly, I was totally not a morning person and I will talk more on this later.

I was always missing the school bus; I was last up in the ten to eight club my Navy days and I was always last up in the house.

I changed my routine because I knew that it wasn’t serving me, and I wanted to make the change.

Now if you want to stay in bed until 10am and work until 3am every day, that’s cool by me. Likewise, if you are up at 4am and in bed by 9pm, good on you also. Be happy with your choices and to repeat – DO WHAT WORKS FOR YOU – THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG.

One of the most sure-fire ways to not be healthy on the inside and the out is to start comparing yourself to others. You should compare yourself to who you were yesterday not to who someone else is today.

When I started looking at myself and making a conscious effort to be healthy on the inside and the outside, I quickly became more self-aware and was able to understand what worked for me.

One of the first things I stopped doing was watching, listening or reading the News. As a household we had breakfast news on from 6.30am, lunch was taken with the 1pm news and then evening meal was around the 6pm news swiftly followed by the 10pm news. Overload on negativity or what!!!

The amount of places I go and see that they have 24 hour news channels on in reception and all around the offices – that’s a big no no for me.

There is a reason why the last 1 minute of the news starts with, “and finally” and is a light hearted story otherwise we would all be leaving feeling pretty low about our lives and the world we live in.

I can promise you, if it’s important and it affects you, the news you need will find you quickly enough.

It’s toxic, do yourself a favour and don’t let it in!

It was then I realised that everything stems around exercise for me. It was that simple.

I noticed that if I did something like hitting the gym, walking, running, biking, swimming, then everything else aligned. I firstly felt better. I had more energy. I looked better, my complexion and skin were good, and I had a healthy glow about me. I was sharper in work and could sustain my concentration for longer periods. I ate better so that I watched what I ate and didn’t want to sabotage my efforts by eating crap. If I did go out for a meal or get a family take away, again I didn’t stress, I had earned it. Family life was better, I had more energy after work to devote to the family. I didn’t drink and because of that I slept better and deeper when I did get to my bed.

What was quickly apparent was the reverse of that when I had sustained periods of inactivity. When I don’t hit the gym, I feel lethargic, I struggle to get up in the morning. I think, who cares, let’s have a fry up or junk food because it’s the way I’m feeling – lazy. As soon as I’m home, I’m crashing on the sofa, watching sport or Netflix and getting stuck into a bottle of red wine and reach for the Diary Milk. That gives me heart burn and it means I don’t sleep well, and the cycle repeats itself. During these times my energy in work is poor, I am unable to concentrate for sustained periods and I generally feel crap. That horrible, “I can’t be bothered” attitude creeps into everything and everywhere. From work to home. Family life would suffer, I was impatient and short with the kids and would be sensitive and bicker with my wife. Does any of this resonate with you??

It’s funny though how sliding into the negative routine was so much easier and far more appealing than the positive routine!

Why is that?

Why are bad habits so easy to form and good one’s so hard?

Inevitably it’s because bad ones are simple and require very little thought or discipline and more than that most of the population are doing them on autopilot which makes it even harder to break years of conditioning and swimming against the tide of humanity.

When you look around you and analyse yourself, think of all your friends and family that follow a negative routine. Most follow it but have no idea or no thoughts of a different routine. There’s a total lack of self-awareness that it can change. Many of those around us are on auto pilot and live the negative routine I have just described.

My sister, Lisa, had issues with mental health and she will be the first to admit that she got into a cycle of negativity.

She spent her evenings watching things like the News and the UK Soaps like Eastenders and Coronation Street that are filled with negativity and depressing subjects. It fed a cycle of downward emotional energy that led to inactivity and poor diet which then surfaced in her mental health.

How did she break that cycle?

Firstly, through self-awareness and working out what wasn’t serving her.

She quickly realised that she had a great life and outside influences were forcing her to believe she had a bad one.

She quit the soaps and the news

She hit the gym

She took a personal trainer and as a worker in the NHS in the UK, she’s hardly on a king’s ransom as a salary!!

She decided to spend money on the right things and not the wrong things

Almost immediately she saw a difference.

Her mindset and mental health shifted.

She had more energy and her old smile came back.

Things that used to affect her or make her down could now be brushed off.

She was in control again.

Last year we ran the Cardiff Half Marathon together and she ran for the UK Charity MIND which is helping people with mental health issues and I was so proud to be there with her.

Next month I’ll continue with this article based on being healthy on the inside and out. I’ll tell you what works for me and about my routine. I’ll talk into some of the advice my father gave me and how I keep motivated with crazy challenges. I talk about that “To Do” list and how it isn’t helping you.

  To be continued. . .

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