#it's not even burnout this is a whole ass new level above burnout

[luwha]

.

[wovenstarlight]

YWBK update: chapter 25 + liner notes

yesterday will be kinder has updated! you can read chapter 25 here, or start from the beginning here

okay, on to notes and commentary! first time i’m doing these, let’s hope this works out. commentary under the cut to save people’s dashes

Hamin laughs. “Given how bad you are at not being suspicious, that’s understandable.” “Oh, come on, I’m not that bad.” Hamin screws up his whole face in a squint. “Okay, so maybe I’m a little bad.”

this part was really funny to me when i wrote it because i was like “hmm reasons for DHM to understand why HHJ wouldn’t work in the guild” and then i was like Wait. Their Whole First Meeting, Dude. DHM was lowkey convinced for the longest time that HHJ was like, on the run from the KR version of the mafia, and got plastic surgery to look like his little brothers, and is possibly in some sort of witness protection program??? or something??? how else does he not have cops on his ass this man is so suspicious all the time

“I don’t think… They said the dungeons were, like, different worlds? Did they find people there?”

mafia theory second place. dungeon theory first place

“Like, humans? Um. No, no humans.” “So then you can’t be from there. Okay.”

dungeon theory shot down. mafia theory back in the running

“Hey,” he says cautiously. “I’m— I’m gonna go get us some water, okay? Why don’t you… take a minute.” “Okay.” “The bathroom is over there, if you need it.” “Okay. Thank you.”

after four years working alongside a guy you start to notice when he’s feeling a little out of it and needs a bit of a break... but as JHW mentions later you also learn to be a little subtle about giving him one

jung heewon What’s with your typing? It reads like Jihye’s [HYJ]’s fine. Very energetic Too energetic? He’s going to burn out. How do I make him calm down

Epic Burnout Man makes a reappearance! when translating sclass one of the things that makes me want to shake HYJ most is his habit of constantly adding things to his to-do list while he already has 1 billion things on his plate. and all the time he’s whining about “UGH there’s SO MUCH WORK to do” No One Asked You To Do It

Anyway. the point is. HYJ isn’t about to be beat by HHJ at Developing Issues 😔

jung heewon I haven’t spoken to him directly about this because if he’s anything like you he’ll take it as an insult You wtf whts tht supposed 2 mean quit typing jung heewon Better not say shit, mr “No, I can’t take days off and cater to my interests or go out with friends or on a date, I’m too busy taking care of the kids and making sure their needs are met, no I don’t care that there are thousands of people out there balancing personal enjoyment and romance and work AND kids at the same time, are you suggesting I be a BAD GUARDIAN to MY KIDS?”

see above re: not being too direct with pointing out when HHJ’s having Issues because he doesn’t react well

You wht but our eyes r fine jung heewon Even if having glasses doesn’t run in the family, you should still get him checked, just in case

top 10 funny time travel moments: referring to you and your past self as “us” (our = my eyes are fine), but other people think you mean “our family” (our eyes are fine = no family history of long/shortsightedness)

Also. Sooyoung-ie says hi [Attachment: 20XX1213_144516.jpg] 

ok no lie this was one of the parts that pissed me off the most, even though it’s Literally One Line, because. i love chat exchanges. i really do. when done right they’re a lot of fun to read. But Do You Know How Long It Took Me To Figure Out A Calendar For The Events In This Fic. now everything’s TIMED i have to count HOW MANY DAYS IT’S BEEN since XY event so i can CORRECTLY NUMBER the FILE ATTACHMENTS!!! this sucks!!! it took me fucking forever to pin down a timeline just so i could write this chapter plus the few before and after it!!!!

anyway i gave up when i reached year. i just put 20XX. fuck it. we are running on fairy tail time now. (actually i think that’s XXnumber number? XX76? or was it X796. something like that. Who cares i stopped watching fairy tail forever ago)

Fuck it! Hamin will understand!! “If you Awaken you should come work with me,” Han Hyunjae says all in a rush. 

“HAMIN WILL UNDERSTAND” => he literally was cool with me giving zero context for half a dozen absolute balls to the wall nonsense bullshit things i’ve done before. he’ll be fine with this too. dog_in_burning_house_this_is_fine.png

“You already know about the guilds, those are going to be for dungeon Hunters, but I was thinking of forming something like an independent group of contractors. Awakened people with skills that aren’t useful for combat, but that might… that will be generally useful. It’d be you and me, and maybe one other guy I met recently. Probably more in the future.”

given that HHJ has no idea currently that peace exists (i’m so sorry baby i’ll find a way to shoehorn you in soon i miss you so much) he’s got no intentions to start a kiseungsu business yet! he mostly wants to live quietly while just acting as a manager for other Awakening-related services, like YMW’s forge and DHM’s tracking service, along with the information exchange/lowkey spy ring that he’s planning on setting up with JHW and the bar. since HYH is fine associating with him in this timeline, HHJ’s thinking he can get a foot in the door that way, then eventually spread out into dealings with most major guild leaders

RIP to this plan. you were well-made but you will not last long.

“Please, I can’t tell you how I know that, I really can’t, it’d put me and my brothers in danger if it got out. But—” “No need.” Hamin looks slightly alarmed, and Han Hyunjae feels himself settle at the obvious concern in his eyes.

MAFIA THEORY RAPIDLY RISING TO PROMINENCE??? THIS IS NOT HOW DO HAMIN WANTED HIS GUESS CONFIRMED

“I spoke to the Task Force Head and she said that there’s been discussion about hosting a meeting for the nearby high-rankers, where they’ll announce the guild proposal and see who else is interested in trying it out.”

“they’ll announce” i’m sorry king 💔 you deserved a nap

(OH ALSO FUN FACT choi eunyoung is a canon character, not an OC of mine! she appears in uhhh i think late 140s? 150s? something like that)

“I think there’s… probably only one other S-rank who’s Awakened right now?”

Hehehehehehehehehehehehehhehe

Hamin beams. “No, they’re doing great! Spookie’s taken really well to the new housing situation, but I think Spots might miss the store…”

shoutout to @daemonic-dawn​ for letting me borrow a pet name, love u king. i had a much longer ramble about pet names here but i finished typing and realized it was all entirely off topic so i removed it for convenience

Hyunjae makes an annoyed noise in the back of his throat. “Don’t— I mean.” He huffs, visibly taking a deep breath, and Yoojin frowns reflexively. [...] “Is everything alright?” Yoojin kind of wants to be annoyed at his tone on principle, but he forces his shoulders to relax, matching Hyunjae’s posture. Though he can’t stop himself from being a little short when he answers.

things the brothers have learned in four years living together: getting confrontational often leads to arguments that just fizzle out anyway, so it’s way fucking easier to consciously tone down their combativeness in advance when talking to each other about things they have problems with, instead of screaming their heads off and then having to calm yoohyun down afterwards to boot

“I guess. Whatever.” Yoojin slumps. “Can I…” “Hm?” Hyunjae blinks at Yoojin as he gestures to the spot on the bed beside him, then jolts. “Oh! Yeah, sure, c’mere.” He opens his arms, and Yoojin goes over and flumps on the bed, head in Hyunjae’s lap. Almost immediately, Hyunjae starts stroking fingers through his hair, and Yoojin relaxes into the touch, listening as Hyunjae continues speaking.

cuddles 🥺🥺🥺 sorry i don’t have any other commentary here just. cuddles. extremely and overwhelmingly comforting for a man who spent the better part of 8 years(?) with no major positive relationships, and a kid who spent 12 years of early life basically abandoned by his parents. you had best bet they gave up on not hugging each other 1 year into this whole mess

Yoojin hums in acknowledgement. It’s not like he’d ever let himself get hurt; he has too many responsibilities to his family and friends. If he wants to be good enough to keep up, he can’t afford to fuck up like that. But… hyung will worry if he keeps working so hard. He can slow down a little for him. 

Problems disorder man when will you stop. the way he sees “getting hurt” as an inconvenience and an obstacle to his duties rather than a danger to himself. the way he doesn’t really care if he himself gets hurt, but if it’ll worry his family, then it’s a no-no. it’s just. wow. i know i wrote this but i hate him

“Not really. I talk to Myeongwoo about it sometimes.” “Ah, right, Myeongwoo.”

haha gays

“Don’t be weird about him,” Yoojin warns[...]. “I won’t, promise.”

if the “i won’t” line had a dialogue tag it’d be “Han Hyunjae lied”

“Is Eunwoo still in his relationship?” “Mhm, happy as ever. Apparently they’re trying long-distance, now that Eunwoo’s gone off to university abroad.”

three guesses for who eunwoo’s dating and you won’t need the first two

Hyunjae raises his hands like he’s going to deny the accusations levelled against him, so Yoojin seizes him by the collar and shakes him until he cries for mercy

oh my o/rv ass struggled so bad with not writing “shakes him like a man betrayed” here. it killed me not to. but in the end i prevailed (against, uh, myself. don’t think about it too hard.)

“Jeez, okay, he’s an F-rank!” “Eh?! Then why—” “He’s also got an SS-rank potential skill,” Hyunjae admits[...].

play-by-play of this scene because god if i draw any scene in this fic it would be this one just for the sheer hysterical nature of HYJ’s reaction:

YOOJIN: I HATE YOU WHAT THE FUCK WHY. TELL ME HIS RANK

HYUNJAE: HE’S AN F

YOOJIN: WHAT? WHAT THE FUCK?

HYUNJAE: he’s also got an SS-rank skill,

YOOJIN:

[jeonggukkiepabo]

KILLER QUEEN [KTH] ♦ Secret Easter Bunny

IT’S POSTING WEEK! You, my love @yongcherie​ are my victim, hehe. I wrote this piece for you inspired by 5SOS’ cover of “Killer Queen”, I hope you like it. <3 Truly yours, lavender.

SUMMARY:  She’s all over the news, but she’s never been seen. Everyone talk about the Killer Queen, everyone wants to be the one to catch her. Police Officer Kim had a rough day and goes home with a woman he’d never seen but was yet so familiar.

WARNINGS: smut, sexual content, dom/sub tones, mentions of crime, hate sex, unprotected sex, choking, spitting.

WORD COUNT: 3.5k

To the world, you were almost a celebrity - loved and hated at the same time. To him, you were a mystery. You would never get caught, you would never leave anything behind that could help them find you. But, all of them knew who you were. Well, at least they knew the name you went by. The “Killer Queen” had her first appearance in the late 1930s when you started robbing banks all around Seoul. Women in crime weren’t a thing yet, most of them were still located at home, not allowed to leave their houses while taking care of their many children - unlike you. You were independent, not needing a man to buy you diamond rings, not needing a child to keep you company. All you needed, all you wanted, was the thrill of swimming in freshly stolen money.

He had never seen you, but your name was known worldwide, ever since you’ve started to leave delicious looking pieces of cake behind you whenever you left the crime scene.

“My love. My enemy. You will never find me, never get me. But don’t be sad, eat cake instead. xx Killer Queen”

You loved the game, the thrill of those policemen running after you but not being able to even come near you. You’d get secret invitations from them, who were you to decline the chance of a bank robbery? Little did they know that you’ve always been there before them, sometimes even hanging out in the bank while they were there, enjoying those beautiful men with masculine features and furrowed brows, screaming while realizing you were gone, once again.

Of course, neither of them knew what you looked like, nobody knew about your curly red hair, the green emerald eyes that were always surrounded by smokey eyes. Your beauty mark right above the corner of your lip that you tugged into a knowing grin whenever you walked past a police officer.

By now, you’ve had more than enough money, you wouldn’t even need to commit crimes anymore but you just loved the fun and games. You loved getting dressed like a fine lady, but having a gun hidden in your stockings. You loved wearing that one black dress that stopped right above your knees - a shame during those years -, but your overknees were hiding the piece of skin that you always showed whenever you needed to bewitch someone. Some man.

You knew you were pretty, beautiful even. You had several men walking after you, buying you whatever you wanted from caviar to cigarettes and you were well versed in etiquette to always smile and take their offers. Of course, you’d never take those men home, because literally none of them were the slightest bit attractive. Fat snobs with more beard than the Chinamen just weren’t your type. You loved the attention, but you weren’t a whore. To be exact, there was only one man on this world that you’ve laid your eyes on.

Kim Taehyung, one of the youngest police officers this decade. He just turned 21 when he absolved the test and ever since you’ve been playing that lovely game of cat and mouse with him. The first time you’ve seen him you were speechless. You knew all of the policemen, Min Yoongi, Kim Namjoon and even Jeon Jeongguk, their apprentice. But Kim Taehyung was a whole other level, his beauty almost being the reason you got caught because you kept staring at him for too long. At his black, permed hair. Those beautiful deep brown eyes with a glint of anger in them, but also… curiosity? Your favorite part of him was his defined jawline, sharp and precise like a strong Greek god. Obviously, you’ve had never seen him without his uniform, but you knew from experience that he had to be toned - they always were. At least Jeongguk was. But that’s a whole other story. Taehyung was taller, much taller than yourself, although your long legs had always been admired by men all over the world. But Kim Taehyung, he was a giant. Everything about him was huge. Even his hands, large and long, built to wrap around your throat easily. Just the thought of him was overwhelming you and ever since that day, you knew you had to get onto him.

Today would be the day, the lovely September breeze blowed through your freshly curled hair, causing you to shiver here and there. You were wearing your favorite black dress with lace details and heels that would never allow you to run, but you never needed to anyways. You even used your favorite perfume, the one that came straight from Paris, and applied some plumping gloss before you went out of your house, picking up a piece of cake from the bakery that you sprinkled with some gunpowder until a cursive KTH was readable on the pink icing. 

For today, you didn’t plan to rob a bank, you wanted more. Your first official meeting with Taehyung should be special, you had planned this for months now. Knowing his exact working schedule, you decided that today would be perfect. 

It was early afternoon, around 4.30 PM and you knew that Taehyung would be working until 9 PM the least. As of today, it was your biggest crime ever. Murder, just to get Taehyung's attention. But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, right? In the beginning, you opted to kill his roommate, Park Jimin, but his cute squishy cheeks and bright eyes just screamed innocence. Instead, you opted for some random jogger, did what you had to do as you hid in the trees to leave a piece of cake behind after you called the police to report a crime. 

Hours later, it was around 11 PM, you were sitting in Taehyung’s favorite bar, enjoying some cocktails by yourself while you waited for him to arrive. Once the door opened and Kim Taehyung walked in, not wearing his uniform anymore but a white shirt and black jeans instead, you couldn’t help but sit down right next to hime. “Hello stranger. You seem distracted”, placing a glass of his favorite bourbon in front of him, you sipped on you own cocktail. His eyes scanned you from head to toe, until he decided to give in. “Yeah, I am. Work stresses me out, I’m in need of a break but I can’t because we’re working on this one case and we can’t rest until we found her and…” “Oh, you’re a police officer? You seem so young!” You smiled politely at him while looking him right into the eyes. “You should take a break whenever you need it, stranger. Work won’t pay you once you’re suffering from burnout, right? Take you wife and go on a road trip, calm down and once you’re coming back, you could always return to your case. I mean, you’re not the only one working on it, are you?”

Taehyung laughed bitterly, swallowing his entire drink in one go, catching the last drop on his lips with a flick of his tongue. “No wife, just me ‘n my hyung. It’s not that her bank robs aren’t enough for us to handle, no. She just fucking killed someone! Ugh, sorry, you probably don’t want to hear me rumble”, he twists his glass before looking at you again. 

“I’ve never seen you here, what’s your name? I would always remember someone as beautiful as you.” You giggled at his lame pick up line, placing one hand on his shoulder while leaning over to his ear. “I’m Koya. But don’t tell anyone, please. I want to keep being the mysterious red haired girl at the bar”, you winked at him before ordering another round of drinks for the both of you.

“So, officer. There’s no wife, right? How? You’re handsome, you’re successful. What are you hiding inside that pretty head?” Crossing your legs, you accidentally brushed his by doing so. “I don’t know, really. It’s just that this case follows me everywhere. You’ve probably heard about the Killer Queen, she’s always in my head. I even dream about her, almost every fucking night. I don’t even know what she looks like, yet she won’t leave me alone!” He grabbed your hands in his much larger ones, squeezing them lightly. “I’m obsessed, Koya! Obsessed! She ruins my mind without even knowing it.” You just laughed it off before placing one hand on his forehead. “Are you sure you’re okay? Maybe someone should take you home, officer.” 

Taehyung shudders under your touch, sighing. “Maybe, yes. But my hyung’s home and I don’t want him to worry about yet another mysterious case. I’ll just stay here and-” “Or you’re coming home with me? I know how to take care of a lonely man, c’mon, pretty boy.” You held out your hand for him to take and once he reached out for you, you pulled him out of the bar. 

“You’ve never told me your name, officer. How should I call you, once you’re balls deep inside me?”, you were leaning over to Taehyung who already seemed a little tipsy. He turned his head in surprise, watching you carefully. “Tae… Taehyung.” “Alright then, Taehyung. Let’s take you home and I’ll take good care of you.”

Once you headed back to your apartment, you drag him into your bedroom, pressing your lips to his delicate neck and started to suck around his jawline, pressing kisses to his adams apple. You hadn’t even started - yet he was a moaning mess under your touch. In one swift motion, Taehyung grabs your chin, forcing his lips onto yours and kisses you roughly. You know you just won. Taehyung is yours for the night, all your wet dreams will be coming true and you almost forget what you had to do to get him into this position.

Taehyung’s hands hungrily roam your body, grabbing your ass and giving it a light slap that causes you to jump. “Who do you think is the one in charge here, babe?”, you bite his earlobe softly, pulling on the dangling earring while slipping your hand down his tight pants. Taehyung moans, head thrown back in pleasure. Giggling, you grab his aching cock through his underwear. “You’re right, it’s me. I’m the one that will make you feel good, that will make you come. You’ll do what I say, understand, darling? Be a good boy for me.” 

Taehyung laughs and shakes his head with a wide grin before throwing you onto your bed. The bounce almost presses the air out of your lungs and you can’t help the huff that leaves your lips. “Nah, love, I don’t think so.” Taehyung’s lips find your sweet spot way too easily, his tongue tickling the skin of your neck. You groan, trying to push him off, but his hands slip around your wrists to pin them above your head, his beautiful teeth smirking down at you. Once his mouth is right next to your ear, he huskily whispers. 

“Remember that I’m a police officer and domination is my job. Don’t you think you could change that. Mhh, you’re lucky I don’t have my cuffs with me, angel. Now, what does a pretty girl like you do in a bar? Drinking pretty drinks alone? Don’t fool me, Koya. You’ve been waiting for me, yet, I’ve never seen that angelic face of yours. Who are you, mysterious girl?” 

His fingertips slowly trail down your cleavage before he dips them in between your breasts. You try your best to hold back any moans, but you can’t help the whimpers falling past your lips as you breathlessly answer. “I already told you who I am.” Even though you’ve alway been the dominant part in any of your sexual relationships, you can’t help but submit to Taehyung. It’s like you’ve been waiting for years to find the right one to show you where your limits are. And you’re desperate to know.

“You’re not just the girl in the bar. You’re not just Koya. Tell me, what do you do? How do you know me?” Taehyung bites the soft skin behind your ear, fingers trailing down you legs, not caring to remove the heels that made them look so much more elegant. Sitting up, he looks down at you, trying to mesmerize your face. Those bright red curls, framing your head in contrast to your pale skin. Those green eyes, full of lust and admiration. Those lips, tainted by a knowing smirk. Your voice as you whisper your answer. “I’ll tell you once we’re done, as long as you’re being a good boy.”

Taehyung huffs, his lips leaving a wet trail right above your stockings. “Then I’m not going to touch you unless you beg for it, love. And your lips already made me wonder what the rest of you might taste like. Now c’mon, hurry up. Tell me who you are.” He ruffles your dress up to your stomach, your emerald lace thong now fully exposed to his starving eyes. “God, you’re a queen”, he lets out a shaky breath, growing even harder by just looking at you. 

You giggle, whispering a soft “little do you know” before pulling that dress off your body. Then, you point at his shirt, raising an eyebrow. “That needs to be off, I want to see how trained officers really are.” Taehyung raises an eyebrow as well before a cheeky smirk replaces his expression. “Mh, your smug tongue has to go, princess.” With that, Taehyung lifts his shirt over his head before stuffing it right into your mouth, smearing lipstick all over the fabric and your chin. “Sad enough that you can’t beg like this. Look at you, all dripping wet for me even though I didn’t even start yet.”

His fingers quickly pull on the expensive fabric of your thong, roughly ripping it in half, leaving the shreds wherever they landed before dipping one finger between your folds. “Mh, isn’t it sad that you don’t want to talk to me? Instead you’ll just have to lay here, watching me and enjoying the show, not getting any of it. You could’ve gotten my tongue, my fingers, my cock. Poor you.” Taehyung stands up, opens his jeans and pulls them and his boxers down his toned legs. His knees dip down besides your legs again, but this time his hands don’t explore your body. Instead, Taehyung roams his own chest, contours the abs that you want to lick so badly. His left hands reaches down to grab and massage his balls while he takes the right thumb between his soft lips, sucking on it slowly. “Mh, I’m still tasting you, Koya. Wish I could taste more of you, so delicious”, he hums with closed eyes.

Thumb still in his mouth, Taehyung grabs his cock and starts to glide his hand up and down, not being able to hold in the growl that leaves his chest. You try to sneak one hand between your legs, wanting to find at least a tiny bit of friction, but Taehyung wasn’t having it, slapping your hand away while flicking his index finger against your clit. He stops pleasuring himself for a second to pull his shirt out of your mouth. Are you still sure that you don’t want to tell me who you are? C’mon, angel, be nice. How. Do. You. Know. Me?”

You just roll your eyes, bored of his little games as you chew on your bottom lip, guiding two of your fingers in front of your mouth to spit on them. Saliva was running down your chin as you moisten your nipples and pinch them slowly. “I can play that game too, Tae.”

You move your fingers down your stomach, closer to the wet heat that throbs between your legs, circling your clit quickly before plunging two fingers into your cunt. “And I love playing games. If you don’t want to touch me, no problem. I can do it all by myself, just keep watching.” Your fingers move faster and faster while the other hand massages your breast. You know you’ll be close soon, this entire day has been riling you up enough already. Taehyung seems to notice too, pressing one hand onto your stomach to press it down, leaning over your pussy as he opens his mouth with a knowing smirk. Your eyes widen, not being able to hold back anymore as you come with a loud scream, messy and all over the bed - and Taehyung’s face. 

Looking down at Taehyung, your eyes widen as you see him trying to catch every drop with his tongue before swallowing down all you gave him. “Oh angel, look what you’ve done.” His thumb starts to rub over your sensitive clit again. “You’re such a bad girl, if I was on duty I would’ve probably gotten you arrested for your behavior, Killer Queen.”

Your smirk vanishes as you watch him with nervous eyes.

“What are you doing now, hm? You can’t run, you can’t hide. It was stupid to think I wouldn’t know, wouldn’t figure it out. Leaving a piece of cake, just for me, huh? I wish I could shove it down your pretty throat and leave you choking on it, love. I despise you. You’ve ruined so much for me. And now, killing someone just to get me to fuck you? You’re so pathetic. But I’ll take your wish for granted, slut.”

With that, he turns you around quickly, pulling you up on your fours before slapping your ass in such a pace that you couldn’t even count how many times Taehyung ended up spanking you. Then, without any warning, he slips right into you. Stretching you out so painfully, but oh so good. “You like that, bitch? Getting fucked by someone you’ve been running away from so long? Is that your game? Just to get my attention? You’re so pitiful.” Something wet lands between your shoulders, running down your spine to pool in the curve over your ass. Taehyung just spat on you. And you loved it. “I’m sure you want to feel like the guy you killed? Want to feel every little bit of oxygen leaving your body?” He whispers against the shell of your ear as he grabs your throat in his large hand. “Yes, Taehyung, fuck. Yes. Yes!”

You’re a moaning mess under his touch, obviously enjoying his roughness and dirty talk. “I’ve been watching you for so long, Taehyung. Always been there when you arrived at the crime scenes. I loved watching you getting angry, but also flustered at my remains. You never knew what I looked like, but you always wanted me. Don’t flatter yourself, Tae. You’re just as pathetic as I am. And-”, you let out more and more moans, nearly screaming as Taehyung pounds into you faster now. 

“Shut up! I can get you arrested at any time now that I know what you look like. I could never forget those tits”, he roughly grabs them with his free hand, “or this sinful mouth”, he turns your face to spit directly in between your gasping lips, “and you know that. You’re mine now, Koya. Mine.”

With that, he pushes into you one last time, feeling your walls clenching merciless around him, your wetness trailing down both your thighs.  “Turn around”, Taehyung demands as he waits for you to face him, not hesitating to shove his cock between your lips and down your throat. You swallow him down like the good girl you are, playing with his balls and looking up at him through teary eyes. His gaze was rough, not a tiny bit of affection was written in his eyes as a growl escapes his mouth, sweat dripping down his forehead onto his chest.

He pulls out just before reaching his orgasm, just to paint your face with his cum. After one last moan, he sits back down, still looking at you. “What am I supposed to do with you, Koya? You fucking killed someone, I couldn’t let you go, even if I wanted to. I must call my team. They’ll be here about twenty minutes after I’m gone, maybe even less. Be smart, Koya.”

Taehyung sighs while getting dressed, looking over just to see you lightning a cigarette without any rush. He shakes his head. “They will kill you, you know that? You’re a criminal. That’s your chance to run and never come back. Now that you’ve had me, nothing holds you here anymore. Be fucking smart!”

You just laugh it off, wiping the remains of his cum from your lips as you exhaled the toxic smoke. “And where would be the fun in that, Tae? C’mon, get them boys. Try to catch me.”

Frustration overcomes Taehyung as he grabs your cheeks. “I’m trying to help you, Koya. Run!” He presses his lips onto yours one last time before heading out the door. The last thing he heard was a faint “See you soon, Taehyung. Same place, same time? Maybe I will kidnap your little Jeonggukkie that time?” before he made his way towards the police station to report your address. 

All he could do was hoping that you were long gone before the squad enters your home. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a single chance to see you ever again. 

[fantroll-purgatory]

World: Alternia Name: Agleas Platar Age: 7.5 Sweeps

Theme/Story: Agleas used to be an ordinary troll, until some dickbrain violetblood beat her into a pulp for sport, breaking her bones and horns and covering her whole body with scars. She was found by a rustblood, who became her moirail and began nursing her back to health. Only Agleas, her moirail, and the violetblood know her blood color. (I’d like to make her olive but then people would scream Polypa clone at me) Before the incident, Agleas was an avid sports player, competent in many different arenas. Now, she can only watch sports on her morail’s tv. Her favourite to watch is wrestling, so she can see someone else get beaten up for once. To avoid being culled, she has to stay inside, not that she could just get up and walk outside anyway. 

I have to warn you right off the bat that you’re falling into some ableist stereotypes here. A disabled/scarred/disfigured troll isn’t an ‘unordinary’ troll, first of all. And the whole ‘character becomes disabled and is now meek and feels guilty about being dependent’ thing is a stereotype, too. Alternia actually seems, for the mostpart, to be rather disability-friendly. A disabled person could thrive there more than on earth, even, probably! There are disabled sports- those are something she could pursue or look into after her recovery to continue pursuing her passions. You can create a character who both is realistically limited by her abilities and experiences realistic levels of burnout from dealing with chronic conditions while also not having to rely on infantilizing and stripping independence from that disabled character. 

You say at the end of this review “I know bandages isn’t really a personality”, and I have to agree. This story definitely has potential, but is barebones and, as the children say colloquially, the character is “woobified.” I have a few avenues to look at in this review that will help you craft something more interesting, so here’s where we play our Choose Your Own Adventure Game. 

RUST: The EZ says that Rusts are hard to kill and I think she could benefit from that here. Maybe she could have been an up and coming athlete and high bloods were threatened by her presence in the sportosphere. She was beaten within an inch of death and just barely survived, because she’s always struggled to win despite the difficulties, she IS a survivor. Under this blood, she would still be ready to take on the world after everything. Her moirail would have to fight to keep her from trying to get back into sports right away, to take her time and rest. 

OLIVE: The EZ states that olives are lucky, and luck could just be what saved her from death. The EZ states olives never fall too far into hopelessness, but also that they keep a grudge like nothing else. Under this blood, she could be somewhat revenge motivated. She could really benefit from having a story that ISN’T just ‘she’s disabled and sad about it’. Disabled people are people beyond their disabilities. Tracking down the guy who tried to gank her and kicking their ass could be great fun. 

HIGHBLOOD: Somewhere in the cerulean-purple range, though I’m leaning Cerulean. Here you could craft a story about a rival highblood fucking her up. Maybe she was famous and she’s embarrassed about her fall from her previous position and that’s why she wants to keep her blood and identity a mystery from most everyone else? Her narrative could center around her learning that typical-ability isn’t the end-all be-all of worth and that she is perfectly talented without having to strive to change herself or push past her disability. 

Now that we’ve discussed the paths we can take, I’ll jump into the rest of the review! Goals: Everything Strife Specibus: Not anymore. Fetch Modus: Her morail, *dadum crash*

Not a great joke. A disabled person can still use a fetch modus! Even a recovering one. They’re a metaphysical thing that doesn’t require the use of your hands to utilize. You could do an archery modus or a chess modus or a basketball modus or a Heartrate Monitor Modus (has to get her heart to a certain rate to unlock particular items, like a Fitbit but it controls her inventory), or you could pick something simpler and less involved.  Blood Color: See that little section in Theme/Story Symbol and Meaning: See Blood Color Handle: Undecided

I’m thinking of something goofy like interminableJockstrap Quirk: quie+ly, as +o no+ move +oo much. uses + signs +o symbolize +he bandages.

We return once again to Bandages Aren’t A Personality. Her WHOLE identity doesn’t change just because she’s injured. If she’s dealing with chronic pain, maybe you could represent this with her making more typos. I know when my wrists are acting up, I am much less likely to go back and edit my mistakes.  Special Abilities: None Lusus/Guardian: Her lusus is dead, so her morail’s badger lusus helps take care of her. Interests: Sports like arena stickball, wrestling, and whatever troll hockey is called. Also has an interest in medicine, ironically.

An interest in medicine isn’t ironic, it’s just a neat additional idea. If she was interested in physical therapy for sports injuries, it’s something she could take into her new situation and try to adapt to help herself recover!  

Personality: Agleas is often jaded and unfriendly, pushing anyone away who tries to help. She isn’t very happy about having to ask her morail for everything, viewing it as her being weak. A little bit of her thinks being so badly injured was her fault, so she has to make up for it.

How did her and her moirail get together if Agleas is jaded and unfriendly? You have to understand that it’s a mutual relationship. It’s a kind of romance. If she pushes people away, how did they end up pale dating? And what does Agleas bring to the relationship? Disabled people put into relationships, too, they don’t only take. How does she feel about her moirail? What does she do for them? Are they healthy or unhealthy as a pair? Does her moirail make her feel like it’s an inconvenience to need help? 

Like I said up above though, you’ve got a couple different blood routes you could take that’ll help you set your personality course in stone a little more.  Lunar Sway: Derse probably. Title: Dunno.

I’d probably call her a Maid of Life, sticking in the life range makes the most sense because of the potential to grow and change, that directive energy that you could give her. 

Land: I’m absolutely AWFUL at lands.

Land of Turf and Tournaments, maybe? 

Okay, so yeah, “bandages” isn’t really a personality, but I tried my best. Any sort of ideas would be great. Sorry for submitting so many trolls lol.

Design time: 

This is something of a major overhaul, but she needed the help. The way you word things implies that there’s been enough time since the injury that she was able to forge a new relationship with someone. And if this is the case, she’s probably not going to be absolutely covered in bandages. The only recovery process I can think of that would involve that would be from burn scars, not broken bones. I kept her leg casted up just as a nod to it, though. 

Otherwise, I gave her an active wheelchair (crutches are NOT comfortable to use for any extended period of time) and put her in some real blank basics, allowing her to hide her blood color! 

I hope this all helps! 

[easyhairstylesbest]

The Nap Dress Must Be Stopped

Sleep has never been an especially easy task for me. Like many people, the unsoothing nature of the past year have made my attempts at a good night’s sleep acutely hellish. Lately, I do what I expect most of us do: jerk awake offensively early after spending hours clawing my way to sleep, spend a few minutes negotiating with my brain over its level of commitment to being awake before giving up, rolling over to pick up my phone, and blasting my retinas in the dark to see what what people on social media haves been up to. Recently, buying something called a “nap dress” is one thing many of them have been up to.

For months now, my social feeds have been dotted with declarations that someone else has “finally” ordered the Nap Dress, something I hadn’t heard of until New Yorker writer Rachel Syme wrote a piece about “The Nap Dress”, a line of dresses from Hill House Home. The dresses appear to be several styles of billowy prairie dresses propped up by the modern direct-to-consumer parlance that aims to establish an item as the only item of its kind. Their defining supremacy in the marketplace of other similar dresses aside, the nap-ability of these dresses seems to be more a matter of suggestion than function.

Even still, people I know and respect are pretty into buying and ostensibly sleeping in nap dresses. And good for them! I’m as keen on trying to fill my ever-expanding inner void with consumer goods as the next person. That said, the appeal of the Nap Dress eludes me, and not just because the style of dress they are has always been a little too cloying for me. As much as I would relish, as Syme puts it, “a childlike return to waking up bleary-eyed hours before dinner,” do I need to dress like an actual child in order to get that?

Most of my complaints are not aesthetic so much as functional. Not to be strident in the presence of adult children’s clothing, but please show me someone who regularly changes outfits before a nap. That smacks of a kind of carefree joy that doesn’t scream “daytime sleeper” to me. We all crave literally anything to break up the crushing monotony of our lives in quarantine, and I don’t mean to be all “I have a job and a kid and barely have time to collapse into 20-minutes to blurry, vibed out half-consciousness in my bed between meetings while listening for Slack chimes, let alone time to enrobe myself in a fresh, resplendent look for the occasion” but…that is indeed the case. I might have the same energy as the type of gaunt, melancholy-stricken Victorian wife who’s hidden from guests and floats around the manor grounds wearing what I imagine is the Nap Dress, but I lack her ample free time.

The appeal of the Nap Dress eludes me, and not just because the style of dress they are has always been a little too cloying.

Still, I can see the appeal. There are people who enjoy having a dedicated outfit for every discrete moment of their lives, and there are people (hello) who toil under an anxious fixation on their sleep or lack thereof. It’s rare enough for me to sleep more than four or five hours in one solid chunk that I’m earnestly surprised when I do. After especially rough nights, I routinely plan my entire day around a nap. Sleep occupies a considerably above average amount of psychic real estate for me. I’ve experimented endlessly with things that might help me sleep better, but the Nap Dress checks no boxes in this regard.

The sensory experience of being in the Nap Dress, which is devoid of meaningful support and structure, falls short of competitors like “old leggings” and “naked under a weighted blanket.” It’s light and spacious — who wants to feel untethered when they’re trying to calm down into a nap? Give me a feeling of being held together. This is not all that unusual: Most people’s bodies respond favorably to feeling pleasantly squeezed. Deep pressure stimulation (DPS) is a category of therapies that use firm but gentle squeezing, hugs, or holding to relax the nervous system. DPS is used — either with touch or products like weighted vests and blankets — in treatment of a wide range of things, but it all operates on the same principle: The nervous system is soothed by pressure. It operates on the same principle as tightly swaddling a fussy baby who’s in desperate need of a nap. It makes them feel calm on a core, neurological level. It chills them out and primes their bodies for sleep. That’s what I want to sleep in: something that tricks my nervous system into thinking it’s safely back in the womb.

While I don’t demand a full-body swaddling anymore, I do prefer to sleep in clothes that low-key carry the swaddling torch. The top part of Hill House’s Nap Dress has a flirty straight jacket vibe, which is spiritually heading in the right direction, but the bottom part is basically a napkin. Do not insult me by calling something nap attire when it has no ability to engage my parasympathetic nervous system! We’re exclusively taking stress naps in 2021 — anything called a “nap dress” needs to be equipped for the job, ideally meaning it’s filled with lead.

Do not insult me by calling something nap attire when it has no ability to engage my parasympathetic nervous system!

Of course, Hill House didn’t set out to create a medical device for improving sleep, so it’s not a fair standard to hold them to, and I’m not, but it does feel slightly ridiculous to see people snatching up a dress to sleep in despite it not being a particularly stylish dress (they’re fine!) nor uniquely good for sleep in any way. Anxiety can be a reason for needing a nap, not just boredom or malaise or a desire to be Kiera Knightly; The Stress Nap. If someone is buying a $100 cotton scrunchie to don for a midday snooze, I feel that chances are high that they are not, like, doing great. There are naps as a leisure activity and then there are naps that are more like necessary intervals of unconsciousness because of burnout, or perhaps desperately flinging oneself into slumber to escape everything on the surface. Not to get serious in whimsy’s house, but the preciousness of the Nap Dress paired with our recent collective decline in baseline mental health just bums me out.

Also, these dresses are just…nightgowns? My arguments against the Nap Dress are mostly predicated on my disinterest in feeling adrift in sleep attire when I would rather feel snuggly contained, but I have no judgment for people who wear and love nightgowns. Some of my best grandmothers wore nightgowns. I find their associations comforting, even if the experience of getting twisted up in their superfluous yards of fabric all night is not. But if that’s your bag, then my one hope is that you don’t dismiss all the other nightgowns of the world just because one of them happens to be called “The Nap Dress”. Play the field!

Next issue: The Nap Dress is incompatible with both hot and cold temperatures. They’re clearly meant for warm weather wear, but on a steamy summer afternoon of succumbing to the vapors or whatever, who wants to be trapped in a roasting bag, with your limbs left to their own swampy devices? I guess you could shove the fabric between your thighs, but then the dress part of the Nap Dress becomes a liability you have to work against — a bug, not a feature. Especially considering, again, the structural inefficiencies of the Nap Dress mean I would probably still need a weighted blanket if I wanted my randomly firing panic responses to subside enough for me to get in a nap at all.

I have no judgment for people who wear and love nightgowns. Some of my best grandmothers wore nightgowns.

This is where the Nap Dress loses me. I’m looking for more performance from nap clothing, which is an absurd thing to say, but arguably no more absurd than sliding on a whole-ass bodice before passing out on the couch surrounded by errant half-empty cans of seltzer. Times are distressing, and good sleep is scarce. Maybe that’s not true for everyone, but then, I assume those people don’t need a dedicated sleep outfit. It seems like those lucky people could sleep in anything, which is ultimately the point: any of us could sleep in anything. The little things we do to enliven the banality and temper the despair of our days are usually non-essential indulgences, chosen according to what delights us personally. When it comes to infusing your day with something special and useless, go with god, but also, I hate to see us all buy something that’s unremarkable compared to its countless peers just because of targeted Instagram ads and of-the-moment marketing. I don’t expect anything I wear to fully sedate me, but it should at least carry its weight. I don’t need a cottagecore hanky.

All that said, things are very bad, and we should give ourselves over to any dumb thing that dampens our malaise. No one is forcing me to buy one. If your exhaustion is abetted by drifting off after lunch in a wispy smock, then frankly, I envy your journey. Sleep tight.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

The Nap Dress Must Be Stopped

[holy-mountaineering]

This spread is for https://mirron91.tumblr.com/

Thank you for the donation!

You asked for the Qabalistic Tree of Life Spread that I do and here you are. What I’m going to do is go through and briefly explain each card, its position on the Tree, and then I’ll give you a summary/synopsis of the spread as a whole.

Think of this spread as a sort of quantum map, or even the land of a regular map, everything is happening at once, in each place. It’s important to think of yourself as moving “through” the map but you are also simultaneously everywhere at once. For the sake of this specific experiment, think of this as a map.

Where we’re starting the journey from is Kether, the monad, the first sign of creation. We’ll call this your hometown, since it is where you’re from originally. Here we have XXI The Universe, Saturn, Tau.

The Universe is the totality of what we can sense and know. The dance of the Woman with the cosmic serpent and the Eye destroying while everything constantly recreates. We see the Universe only from our position in it. You may send out your satellites to explore unknown areas but you can only process what they might mean from your place. The more we try to take into our restrictive minds and spirits, the more we know about the whole and ourselves and our place in the Universe.

Step back and look at the connections and totality of everything you know and experience. It’s quite a view.

In Chokmah, which is like your freeway getting you out onto the road out of your hometown is the Princess of Swords, the earthy part of Air.

This is the material situations that manifest from your way of thinking and communicating! You have to understand that we literally create reality with our perception, thoughts, and language. And that can get messy if we don’t keep them in check.

Get your head into the game as they say, you’re here right now and what is going on in this moment is what you need to focus on. Stay away from nostalgia and daydreaming, think on your situation, not possible scenarios.

In Binah, which is ruled by Saturn and for the sake of this reading we will call the first stop on your roadtrip. You haven’t really arrived anywhere but you’re stopping and getting a chance to repack your car in a more efficient way. Sitting in Binah is VIII Adjustment, Lamed, Libra.

These are the scales of balance in the higher order of things in your life. The scales are naturally balanced, but it is when we add things onto either side of the scale that it becomes tricky. To return to balance you have to remove things or add on things. Such is a balanced life.

The person who is the beam which the scales are balanced on is not blind justice, she wears a mask, not a blindfold. She carries the Sword of the Magus, which is to say she uses her reasoning powers to cut away imbalance.

You are the crux, balance your mind in higher regards. Add things or take away according to the balance it creates.

In Chesed which is ruled by Jupiter and again for the sake of this experiment we’ll say involves your influence and benevolence in your current trip is the Queen of Disks, the watery part of Earth or how you feel about what is going on in your material world of normal life stuff.

This Queen is above the landscape observing the river create life in the desert. The Queen of Disks is meditative and calm. She sees creation and is a part of it without getting her hands dirty.

This card shows what you feel about what is happening in your everyday “real world” life. The ideal here is to get out of the messy bullshit of “normal” stuff, get higher beyond mundanity, and look back down with new and more complete perspective.

Get above your situation so you can see more of the landscape.

Across the Tree in Geburah, which is Mars Town, where you find your drive and what you’re trying to accomplish/conquer is XVIII The Moon, Pieces, Qoph

.

This is the ‘Sun at midnight where you stand shines on the other side of the world’. The pull of night and day eventually rising illuminating what was once dark. As opposed to the old Aeon idea of the Sun dying, this is cyclic notion of the push and pull of the day and night. The dark give the light context and vis a versa.

See the light in the dark, accept the cyclic push and pull, if you don’t like what “time of day it is” in your life I assure you it will change like the tides.

In Tiphareth, the Sun and center of gravity holding all this in place, the heart pumping the blood through this, your heart is the 3 of Disks, Works or Work or Working.

Like all the 3s, this is the first formulation of the suit, Earth or material world things. The 3 sided pyramid pictured on this Tarot card sits on water propelled by Dharma Wheels, spinning and causing waves. The drive and energy of the war-like Mars has become stubborn and resolute in the goat-fish Capricorn.

This idea of work is not mindless toil. This is doing the very necessary things in your life so you don’t fuck yourself over on the basic things everyone needs to survive. This is formulating the most simple workable thing that gets your at least basic needs met so you can expand.

Put together a simple way of dealing with the material world, something that can be expanded on. Keep your wheels turning even if they feel like they’re just spinning. Make waves, they’ll go further and affect more than you think!

In Netzach, Venus town, where you have the realization about how this is going to change you as a person with a personality is the Princess of Cups, the earthy part of Water.

This is the canyon wall being ground down over the millennia by moving water. The nutrients and minerals in the earth are transported down river to the fertile delta. This is the natural, “following your feelings” within your daily life. Try not to fool yourself, follow your intuition, not just passing whims. Feel, don’t necessarily react immediately.

Go with what you feel and intuit, let yourself go with the flow, if you will. Allow your situation to move with your emotions and be patient with your progress.

In Mercury Town Hod-ville, where all the Universities are and everyone has real intellectual shit going on is the 7 of Cups Debauch.

This is Venus (beauty, personal growth) in Scorpio, the dark water where things growing aren’t seen so clearly. This is emotional composting so let things rot out to fertilize future emotional growth. But like a compost pile, you must turn it, give it Sun, and make sure that it doesn’t get rancid.

Emotionally things might seem rotten, but it’s just trying to become wonderful fertilizer for greater emotional maturity and better future relationships.

On the Moon in Yesod, the receptive and reflective place that is alot about the feelings that you’re picking up from all this is the Princess of Wands, the earthy part of Fire.

This is the material substance that comes from fuels action. Think of this: you have to make a fire because it is cold. You have a set amount of wood. You can make a big ass, bright ass fire that will leave you cold later that night when you’re out of wood, but jazzed while it’s happening. Or you can make a smaller, less exciting fire that will keep you warm all night.

There is also a message about the last step in any action is really to become the actions and to let them become you. When your very Earthly substance is in it, you are no longer doing you just are.

Don’t burn yourself out and exhaust your resources on what you’re tackling in life right now. Do this and you shall live to dance and play another night.

Down here in Malkuth-istan, the everyday life mundane, waking up pooping, and going to work world is the 2 of Cups, Love.

Like all the 2s the deuces of Water is building towards completion. This is the ever becomingness of love. Love never dies it is simply transformed like any other energy. Love isn’t a competition or something you can measure. You never stop loving someone/thing because you have “reached maximum love levels”, shake hands and walk away from it. There is no end-game to love and that’s why it’s scary and makes people act like idiots sometimes. Astrologically, Venus in Cancer can be interpreted as nurturing your emotional growth.

Build on what you’re feeling and don’t try to think about anything too concretely emotionally or intuitively. This is a building process so try not to focus on the final outcome but work with what you have now.

So, There are things in your life bout to give you a way bigger picture of everything and how you fit in as long as you can leave your head. There is balance in this not overthinking and new view which will, in a way, sort out the shit you’ve been worried about. As it tends to do.

Right now it’s important for you to get above the everyday sausage factory of life and feel yourself taking in and reflecting this change, that like everything else in this spread revolves around you doing the (W)ork to make it work. Again, do not overthink this, just do the thing that makes the wheels turn and the gears move. You can see the results of labor and if they’re good results, you’re doing the right thing.

Allow yourself to be who you are, even if that means feeling a bit swept away from time to time emotionally and how you connect with folks and yourself and what that means to your life, practically speaking. As rotten as the communication can be, rot is a natural process to use things to turn one thing into an(other) thing(s) and is pretty magical. Let that mess go away and turn into different, dare I say, more useful things. Mind your burn out with the “energy you take in” for lack of better terminology. Avoid burnout by saving your energy as much as you can for your “Work” (see cards in Tiphareth and Yesod “mirroring” each other) for now.

“Life’s like a river,” a sweet band once said in a bangin’ ‘80 powerballad, and they were fucking right. Love is also like a river, it has a source and if it’s good and strong and everything goes well, it will pour out into something greater. But it’s the river, not the source or destination of the river you need to focus on. The ebbs and flows, currents, and motion are what you need to see. Do not overthink this. This isn’t about the end result, it’s about your trip.

Ta DA, lemme know if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or criticisms and I’d be happy to work it out!

93

[everyoneneedsalisteningear]

Dear Friend, 

i am currently on leave for 2 days by accident due to medical appointment rescheduling. I am so happy to be well rested, but also so wrecked and chest-hurting by the end of the day once distractions are gone. I won’t see it as a bad thing though.

There are a few things which i would like to address and put out here, just because i think keeping it to myself in a clusterfuck of mess in my head is not useful at all, and counselling is too expensive to let her listen to my rambles and it should ideally be more on the “active” side where she can use her experience and knowledge and guidance to help me. 

Firstly its the guilt and all that i’ve felt over the weekend and today because i have not done any work at all. I really had a strong urge to cry last night, but in the end i realised its not actually worth crying about. My trigger last night was out of self-pity and guilt, that i am a useless human being as i didn’t manage to get any work done over the weekend nor do anything “productive” like work or chores or errands and all. But i do think that there are many other things that i have achieved, such as meeting with a close friend, spending alot of time with family, resting, dabbling in hobbies like skincare, shopping, musuem hopping, dressing up, makeup, games, delicious food and videos etc. Then i realised that i spent the weekend the way it was meant to be spent - for rest and recuperation. 

Sorry my mother is talking in an excessively loud voice and i’m getting riled up just by the sound of it. She pointed a very aggressive finger at me just a few hours ago ordering me to clean up a table we have in the room and i just thought it was so rude, so i just ignored her. No one should ever point a finger in your face. 

Okay i have put on earphones and listening to soothing music. 

I was sharing with my close friend during our meet-up, that everything in my life culminates on me passing my probation at work, because without my job, my 4 years in university would be wasted, and i would have to pay back 50k worth of scholarship bond, find a new job, and start anew in another place (provided i even get hired, because the reason of losing my job would be due to incompetence). And without a salary - i can’t pay insurance, i can’t pay allowance to my parents, i can’t buy clothes or skincare or any of the lifestyle i even have now or in the future. Literally i won’t be able to have a life or a future if i don’t pass probation. I thought of putting down a list of feedback that have been given to me over the last few months as to the main things i need to work on to pass probation - just to give me a sense of direction and that i am doing something wrt this life-or-death moment, instead of simply relying on experience and that “it will be okay” like i used to with day-to-day work. 

because i’ve been dreading work so much and i actually find acting professional very tiring and draining, i’ve been considering many things - whether this job is something i can do for decades or if i’m even cut out for working (which i know, is a weird ass thing to think about but i really feel that way)

my journey with probation has been a rocky one. Seniors have tried understanding, tried shadowing, tried feedbacking+++, stressing me out+++, or just leaving me to it. i tried to stress myself out, i tried to overwork myself saying that as long as i work hard, things will work out (it didn’t, it got worse as i made more careless mistakes), i tried to listen and emulate everybody i saw, i contemplated suicide, i tried meditation, i tried sleeping pills, i took MCs from breakdowns, i tried talking with family and friends (some helpful some not), i tried different mindsets - “its just work” vs “i nEED to do this” vs “let me just survive” vs “i need to do my best for patients!!” vs “i am already doing my best” and all. Recently i think i have to create a better work-life personality barrier as if not, i will die and burnout. 

its just - on one hand, passing my probation to be in this profession for decades to come is the most important thing, but at the same time, i don’t really want it to be the rest of my life. i cannot imagine myself struggling like this day-to-day everyday, forever. Because once i get good at one area, i get moved up to the next level. So i am just forever struggling. i don’t know if i can take this. i used to think i wanted a career that constantly challenges me intellectually and requires a personality that i would respect, and surround myself with people who are mostly kind-hearted and want to do morally correct things. But just to even THINK about going back to work on Wednesday and having to put on the “professional front” and having this hectic lifestyle where people keep expecting you to get everything done in a short amount of time, look unfazed and shit whilst dealing with such high stakes, i just don’t know if i want this to be my life anymore. On paper, in terms of ideals, it did seem like the best idea, but i don’t know now. 

Previously, before my previous counselling session, I did find something that binded me to this profession abit better - setting a long-term goal within the profession. For me, i thought of moving to a different type of work environment though still in the same profession - one that is less stressful and contains more of the type of work i am interested in achieving with patients (at least what i can tell from my ~1 year in this profession). I also thought of doing graduate studies abroad - to specialise, and also to gain some abroad experience. Ideally and if i see things from above, this profession still has alot to offer to my soul. But the day-to-day ground work is so energy-sapping and just..... so draining, that i don’t know if i can tolerate this. I do wonder if its just a matter of resilience, but i just see how long i have tolerated my poor mental health of undiagnosed and untreated anxiety and depression to the point of multiple suicide thoughts for YEARS, and i don’t think my resilience is that bad. At least - i think i managed to see the purpose in life or that it was just too troublesome or effortful to die lol over the few years. But resilience in a high-stress, high-speed environment where you have to make quick decisions of high-stakes.... tbh this is the very reason why i didn’t choose a few other professions. I wanted a more easy going job but also meaningful and within this sector. But in order to get there - to move on to a different work environment... i need to survive this bond.....is it even worth it? I want to think back to when i was in school - how much drive i had to help people achieve their goals and the creativity and personal bond it took to achieve that. I frequently wondered what happened in my current work environment that caused such poor results sometimes - but seeing the conditions for myself, i understand why - many things are out of our control and we can only do what we can. There is a skill i want to perfect and master here as that will be useful down the road (”DP”). I will draw out a mindmap tomorrow. 

Things to do to pass probation:

- Collate feedback

- DP flowchart

- SF6

okay i’m done with the above. 

i feel that i’ve been so harped up about passing fucking probation that i have no life. its just very annoying because my parents are still telling me to be productive - day and night. And what they define as productive is work (they know i need to pass probation and shit coz my stressed out self vents sometimes) and chores. Then they tell me today (where i have literally rested the whole damn day) that they have never seen me smile so much and be so happy. Well wanna guess why? ? It’s annoying when you realise they have been telling you this shit since you were a kid, no wonder i always feel so fucking guilty whenever i take breaks or decide to put my own happiness before “productivity”. 

It’s dumb though, because no matter how much i worry and THINK that “I HAVE TO PASS PROBATION” and all that, there’s no point if i’m not actually doing anything about it. And i think i stressed myself out (also my seniors and my parents stressed me out) so much that i’m so scared that i will breakdown or even entertain the idea that i might fail, that i don’t even dare to do anything about it. So i’m just glad i finally made that list above. 

It would also be good if i firstly, stopped using words like “need” and “should” (i just edited the start of this sentence haha), but also that i solidify my long-term goal abit better. Do i intend to be an educator as well? 

Thing is, the progression in my profession is so hierachical and systematic, that its pretty standard for all new joinees. But i don’t really want to go down this route. I wish i didn’t join my current workplace now. This is not what i intended to do - i wanted to work in other types of environment since the start when i considered doing this for a living. But now i need to go through this system for 4 years and not get fired or burnt out to the point of committing suicide, or i will be in debt and rely on my parents again (and also, making everyone start to worry about me again and treat me like a child again.) sounds sucky as fuck. 

I’ll just take this as “good learning opportunity” and i will leave once my bond is up. Because all these knowledge and skills are still useful for future. The knowledge definitely is able to carryover, and in terms of skills - multitasking, DP like i mentioned above, keeping calm in high-stakes decisions, PR, planning (time, resources) and teamwork, i think these are all carryover material. 

I just need to keep reminding myself of my time during student days (2,3,4) and volunteering days. That’s what got me into the profession, and that will allow me to see further than tomorrow to survive for..

And other personal counselling thingos: Having my own opinions and thoughts, and standing up for them. Is a thing i want to cultivate. Reducing self-doubt and all. Perhaps I can try the whole accepting the cause and all, maybe that will help with mitigating the damages like my counsellor mentioned last session. Anyway that is her strong point. Might as well get value for money. Perhaps even things like what i comment on YT, or here on tumblr, things i like/dislike - these are all aspects of my own opinions and beliefs already. Perhaps this is worth diving into. 

Thanks for sorting things out with me! We will be lifelong friends. 

[actfact2-blog]

Adrenal Fatigue 101: Symptoms, Testing, Diet, and Supplements to Support Adrenal Burn-Out Recovery

People joke that you can catch adrenal fatigue just as easily as a head cold in New York City.

Especially if you’re a woman during the holiday season, juggling family obligations, end of year office grunt work, and a finely calibrated hormonal motherboard. So yeah, that’s everyone right?

In reality, adrenal fatigue is not something you catch, but rather a slow unraveling.

These little glands are in the endocrine chain of command (along with your thyroid), and are in charge of regulating the body’s stress response through adrenaline and cortisol, our chief fight or flight hormones.

If you’re a member of the HashiPosse or your thyroid is out of commission, the adrenals have to work extra hard to generate energy for the body. It’s the actual scenario of “running on fumes.” Without proper thyroid hormones to keep the wheels moving, you might be barreling full speed ahead on adrenaline and cortisol alone.

Unfortunately, like any well-oiled, but overused machine, your adrenals can only hang in there for so long without a break. Adrenal fatigue is what happens when you’ve used up all your cortisol reserves due to constant daily stress, another hormone imbalance (like hypothyroidism), or often, both.

I’ve struggled with adrenal fatigue symptoms on and off for the last decade, but it wasn’t until this past spring that I actually took a test. Since then, I’ve been meaning to write this deep dive on the best natural treatments, supplements and lifestyle strategies we can use to support our adrenals and give them a much needed recharge.

Below I get into what adrenal fatigue testing looks like, whether or not it’s actually worth knowing for sure, common symptoms, and ideas for recovery. Some include the usual de-stressing activities—tubbing, meditating, skipping your 3rd ugly sweater party. Things we should be more equipped to do in cold, cozy January. But I’ve also given some more specific tips that I use in my course 4 Weeks to Wellness for getting people back on track.

If you’re looking for a helping hand to implement any of these habits, it’s not too late to join my new year’s session, which starts January 14th. If you sign up before the 3rd, you’ll even get early bird pricing. Click here for more info.

In the meantime, read on for more on adrenal fatigue (how it differs from adrenal insufficiency) and how to recover from it.

With health and hedonism,

Phoebe

HOW TO TEST FOR ADRENAL FATIGUE

There’s much debate in the medical community about whether adrenal fatigue is an actual syndrome. The full-blown expression is Addison’s disease, also known as adrenal insufficiency, and you can test for it using the ACTH Stimulation Test, where cortisol levels are checked in the blood before and after a synthetic hormone (ACTH) is given by injection.

Adrenal fatigue, on the other hand, can be tested for using an at-home saliva test, which is more convenient, but not always covered by insurance. The feeling that testing for adrenal fatigue is unnecessary has also been seconded by plenty of holistic practitioners, since the reality of the matter, as I joked earlier, is that there are so many women who could benefit from more adrenal support.

For what it’s worth, I took the Labrix at-home saliva test for Adrenal Hormone Function. It involves spitting into a tube upon waking, shortly after waking, noon, evening and night. Your cortisol levels have a natural rise and drop throughout the day, so mapping the pattern via saliva is a more convenient way than via one blood test, since the levels can fluctuate quite a bit depending on when the blood is drawn.

The Adrenal Stress Index (ASI) test is another option that’s recommended by Dr. Jolene Brighten, one of my go-to’s for anything hormone health related.

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF ADRENAL FATIGUE?

First, let’s talk about what proper adrenal function looks like so you can better spot disfunction.

Ideally, your cortisol levels are highest in the morning, around 8am. Think of it as the body’s natural caffeine, helping us stay tuned in during the day. It gradually tapers off through the afternoon and evening, and hits its lowest point at 3am, since you need very little motivation while sleeping.

Things can go haywire in a variety of different ways. If you find yourself waking up in the middle of the night, it’s a sign that your cortisol might be spiking too early. More commonly, what leads to adrenal fatigue is ongoing high levels of cortisol during the day, thanks to too much coffee, stressful work schedules, disrupted sleep, and general anxiety.

You might be one of those high-functioning stress cases that feed off of the energy of cortisol. But when levels stay elevated, that’s a recipe for burnout.

When someone has adrenal fatigue, their tests will indicate that cortisol has flat-lined. You might still be following the right pattern throughout the day, but it’s far below the normal levels of production. This is adrenal fatigue at its core.

You’ll find many lists out there for adrenal fatigue symptoms, but I’m going to unpack some of the most common ones for you one by one so you can understand how these issues are interconnected and relate to your fluctuating hormone levels.

Exhaustion and fatigue: If you feel yourself dragging throughout the day, even after plenty of sleep, or dozing off during meetings, that’s an indication that your cortisol levels have been exhausted, and your whole body feels it. If you’ve ever pulled all-nighters to get through exams, then gotten home and slept for 5 days straight (and potentially also come down with the flu) this is low grade adrenal fatigue. In the real world, our exams don’t come along once a quarter, and it’s when a finals week situation turns into a full month of added stress and bad habits, that things can really go awry for your adrenals.

Weight gain: A very common symptom of adrenal fatigue, especially for women, is packing on pounds around your waistline. I’ll often hear this complaint from people in my program: “I’m working out constantly and eating the healthiest diet ever, and I can’t seem to lose a pound.” This really comes down to hormones. When your cortisol is spiking constantly (and this, by the way, can also happen from high intensity exercise) it indicates to your body that you’re in a life or death situation. Back in the bush, that meant food resources might be scarce for a while, so your body converts all the excess energy it can into fat for the “long winter” to come. Counterintuitively, skipping that high intensity workout might be a better course of action to lose weight if your adrenals are fatigued.

Disturbed sleep and waking up in the middle of the night: I already mentioned how cortisol patterns being off might cause a 3am wake-up. But it can also happen from unstable blood sugar. Which, of course, is usually one of the culprits of any hormonal imbalance. When your blood sugar is on the fritz, it might cause you to be hungry all the time, even an hour after a meal. You crave sugar and simple carbs, even though those things deregulate your blood sugar even further. A 3am wakeup is your body crying out for energy, and one way to fix it is to drink something high in fat before bed that can nourish you overnight. Mix some coconut oil into your nighttime tea, or drink a golden milk latte with coconut milk. Like high intensity exercise, it can also be counterintuitive for weight loss, but restricting calories or intermittent fasting will only make your body more stressed about its reserves and want to hold onto them.

Dehydration and dry skin: I talk about this one a bit in the water chapter of The Wellness Project book. Since the adrenals sit just above your kidneys, their other main function is to control your water levels. The more stress you have, the more hormones and salt they send out to circulate in the body. When your stress levels fall, all that sodium needs to be evacuated. Just think of a nervous puppy that has to pee all the time. That’s the stressed-out you, constantly flushing fluids, along with sodium, down the toilet. People with adrenal fatigue can drink their full daily water quota and still be dehydrated. If your lips are perpetually chapped and your skin is dry, yet you’re drinking plenty of water, it might be an indication that some electrolyte supplements are needed.

Digestive issues: You may remember from middle school science class that our nervous system has two modes: sympathetic and parasympathetic. The first is fight or flight, the second rest and digest. Needless to say, when we aren’t spending enough time in the latter, it can affect our stomach and gut. Elevated levels of cortisol can reduce levels of good bacteria in the gut, leading to more digestive issues down the line, even once cortisol reserves are depleted.

Anxiety and depression: Feeling on edge is a natural byproduct of too much cortisol, and the downstream effect of having too little can lead to depression. Also, given the powerful studies linking a damaged microbiome to depression and mood disorders, it’s no wonder why after periods of intense stress and adrenal burn out we might feel symptoms of depression.

Here are some other common indications of adrenal fatigue:

• Body aches and soreness • Dragging ass out of bed in the morning • Blood sugar imbalance / sugar cravings throughout the day • Getting sick all the time • Breakouts and acne • Low libido (see depression above) • Brain fog and memory loss • Poor circulation and dizziness • Irritability and mood swings • Hunger shortly after eating • Feeling at the end of your rope / snappish / about to crack

ADRENAL FATIGUE SUPPLEMENTS THAT SUPPORT RECOVERY

B Vitamin Complex: Tends to be deficient in people with adrenal fatigue (and Hashimoto’s for that matter!)

Liquid B12: If you can do at-home injections, even better for absorption.

Adaptogens: Those commonly used to support adrenals are ashwagandha, ginseng, holy basil, and rhodiola. Careful with blends, however, as not every adaptogen is for everyone.

Magnesium: Use a magnesium spray or a good old Epsom salt bath. I love the supplement magnesium calm. This will also help with hydration.

Electrolytes: Coconut water has natural electrolytes, but if you’re trying to balance your blood sugar at the same time, it might not be ideal. Something like this that’s sugar-free and can be added in drops to your morning water would be great.

Vitamin C: Helps with absorption of other vitamins and minerals, plus hydration.

THE BEST NATURAL TREATMENTS AND STRATEGIES FOR ADRENAL FATIGUE

If developing adrenal fatigue is a slow unraveling, you have to think of recovery as a long, steady climb back up Health Moutain. You know I already think of everything this way, but with healing your adrenals it is especially true. The process could take up to a year. It’s a marathon not a sprint.

That said, you don’t have to be perfect every day. You can, however, live every day with your adrenals in the back of your mind. For me, that has meant staying in more than I go out, setting myself up for success with my work expectations (which, as a self-employed blog lady means that the high bar usually comes from ME), and reducing caffeine to only when necessary.

In general, the themes are pretty obvious: rest as much as you can, reduce stress, eat an anti-inflammatory diet that doesn’t put added stress on the body, choose gentle movements, hydrate, sleep. You know, The Wellness Project. (Wink)

Here are some of my favorite healthy hedonist tips for adrenal fatigue:

Regulate Your Blood Sugar with a Vice Detox: If you’ve read The Wellness Project, you know that 30 days without caffeine, alcohol and sugar was as painful as it was beneficial. Part of getting your blood sugar and hormones back on track is giving your liver a boost so it can eliminate all the excess. My favorite way to do this is to get out of my own way. If this sounds miserable but you want to give it a try, we do a mini vice detox in my 4 Weeks to Wellness program and I have a ton of tips to make it easier. These 3 vices also are stimulants that increase cortisol and stress in the body, so it’s important to find moderation on going forward.

Eat Consistent Meals with Fat and Protein in the Morning: Going completely carb-free or intermittent fasting—two big trends right now—is probably not right for you if you have adrenal fatigue and your blood sugar is all over the map. A work around is to get a lot of healthy fats into your meals to make you feel full for longer, and to make sure to start and end the day with a good dose of them. If there’s any meal to go carb-free, it’s in the morning. This is called “carb cycling.” One study showed that people with cortisol issues were able to reprogram their curves by eating low-carb breakfasts, moderate amounts in the afternoon, and higher amounts of healthy carbs in the evening. See below for what that means.

Choose Complex Carbs: People are always talking about how you should eat “whole foods, ” but whole wheat bread does not a whole food make. The less processed an ingredient is, the better. Pasta made from brown rice flour is healthier than bleached white flour, yes, but eating a bowl of whole brown rice is far better. In general, whole foods—meaning literally whole foods cut into pieces and not pulverized by an industrial grinder—keep your blood sugar down and your gut bacteria happy, while simple carbs, though easy to digest, cause more long-term inflammation. Stick with brown rice, quinoa and sweet potatoes.

Add a pinch of sea salt: Salt has gotten a bad rap in the age of processed foods, despite the fact that it’s an essential nutrient. Salt is in the makeup of virtually all our bodily fluids, which means we’re constantly losing it in the form of sweat, urine, and tears. I recommend pink Himalayan sea salt because it’s less processed and thus retains important minerals that also aid in absorption and support electrolyte balance. I try to add a pinch of it to my morning lemon water or smoothie.

Make bone broth the new coconut water: Bone broth is literally so hot right now. If you want to maximize absorption, this is a much better option than sugar-packed coconut water. As the bones simmer for hours, they release amino acids, collagen and nutrients that help your body make the most of the liquid you put in it. It turns out that homemade chicken soup is just as good for your immune system as it is for the soul. And that’s especially important when you’re healing adrenal fatigue and your body might not be able to fight off pathogens as readily. It’s also a salve for your gut.

Don’t Do High-Intensity Workouts at Night (or At All): When you have adrenal fatigue, gentle and slow is better than fast and loose. Think pilates, yin yoga, walking, biking outside, or anything leisurely in nature. Cardio kickboxing is probably off the table, but especially at night when it can create an artificial cortisol spike and disrupt your sleep patterns. Cortisol and melatonin work in tandem, and the former needs to drop, for your chief sleep hormone to take over.

Get 8+ Hours of Non-Disrupted Sleep: Yes, that’s easier said than done. If you’re doing everything right from a lifestyle perspective—not drinking caffeine after noon, keeping your blood sugar stable, getting gentle exercise in the morning, keeping a consistent wake-up time, avoiding blue light before bed—you might want to explore these natural sleep aids to get the ball rolling.

Take a bath before bed: A drop in body temperature is a key prelude to sleep. If your internal thermostat is off, one way to hack it is to take a twenty-minute bath or shower. Though it’s counterintuitive that a hot tub will cool your body temperature, the sharp rise brought on by the warm water will be followed by a sharp fall once you’re out. Adding some relaxing lavender bath salts and sipping some ginger tea while in there is a sleep prep triple threat (in a good way). Plus, all these things are also great for de-stressing.

Choose a sacred night to refuel: I know that picking and choosing social plans so I can get eight hours of sleep will make me a better friend to others and myself. It’s not just alcohol or sugar or gluten, but the hustle and bustle of a night on the town that can overwhelm a sensitive system recovering from adrenal fatigue. I try to say yes to adventures that feed my spirit, not obligations that feel like drudgery. And a few nights a week—Sunday and Monday work well—I keep the schedule clear to have some downtime and catch up on sleep.

Have any more questions about adrenal fatigue recovery? Please leave them in the comments. 

Need more help refining your habits around diet, sleep, detox, movement and more? Let’s work together to create your path forward. My 4 Weeks to Wellness Course might just change your life. With 4-weeks worth of elimination diet-friendly recipes that are gluten, dairy, corn, soy and refined sugar free, not to mention tasty AF, it’s a perfect way to explore your food sensitivities and heal inner and outer chaos. Plus, one of the weeks is completely dedicated to overhauling your sleep hygiene, stress management and morning routine! Beyond natural remedies, I’ll help you set up all the rituals you need for a good nights sleep and recharged adrenals for the long haul.

FIND OUT MORE HERE 

Source: https://feedmephoebe.com/adrenal-fatigue-101-symptoms-testing-diet-and-supplements-to-support-adrenal-burn-out-recovery/

[hereticaloracles]

Mercury Retrograde- Tongue Tied

“Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.” – Charles Caleb Colton

Effective Dates: April 10th- May 4th 2017 (In Shadow May 5-21st)

Helios– Oh, it’s so hard when you have the right words to say, but the wrong ones wont stop getting in the way… That’s right, Heretics, Mercury is about to join Venus, Jupiter and Saturn in going Retrograde (Followed closely by Pluto, but I think four planets going backwards in the sky above us is enough for today, don’t you?)! I know, it feels like we JUST had a Mercury Retrograde, because we did! He rocketed through the signs to give us even more retrograde fun, because apparently he thinks we need more. *heavy sigh*

Angela, please call my attorney- I want to take out a restraining order on him.

For those who are new to this whole game, Mercury (Planet of Ideas, Communication, Siblings; Liars, Merchants, Thieves, Lawyers and Con Men) is going retrograde. This means that from our position on Terra Firma, it looks like the planet is actually moving backwards in the sky! Obviously this is impossible, and just an optical illusion, but astrologically this has some extremely annoying effects on our day-to-day life (He rules that too); Common wisdom during this time says things like not signing contracts or traveling unless you absolutely have to… that sort of thing. While these are good guidelines, there is always more to his story than just the base layer.

He will be starting his journey in Taurus, but will be moving through most of it in Aries- So he starts off plodding and ends up sprinting, the opposite of the Tortoise and the Hare from Aesop’s famous story. This changes what we have to avoid, what we should do instead. Mercury Retrograde is never a time for patience to come easily, but with it being in Aries, you will need to work twice as hard at keeping your cool and not jumping off the handle. This will be made even harder due to the influence of Mars (Planet of Action, War, Energy and Aggression) entering the sign where Mercury rules: Gemini. Since Mars rules the sign of Aries, where Mercury is transiting, this leads to a phenomenon called Mutual Reception, where energy flows between the two bastards much easier than it normally would. Think of it like they swapped apartments for a month, but are still meeting up to bro out, and hard. Like that one movie… *googles* The Holiday! Think of that, but bro-ier- And these two are the BIGGEST bros in the zodiac. Personally, I love it but I’ve been told that It’s an acquired taste.

So, we have to watch our tempers and our patience, as we are liable to jump off the handle without warning. Also, we have to not jump into anything new now- Businesses, get rich quick schemes, relationships, drug deals… You name it- Get it up and running before the retrograde or wait until after. While he is in Aries, Mercury has the annoying habit of rushing in on pure excitement and chutzpah, and not bothering to work out the details or nitty-gritty aspects of his ideas. With everything else on the line with the other Retrogrades, this can easily lead to ruin. Another annoying habit of this transit is to believe that you need to do everything on your own, taking on too much- This obviously leads to failure and burnout, not to mention mistrust between partners, but it is also an insidious form of self-sabotage. On some level, you feel that you don’t deserve success, and so you take on more and more until you do feel deserving. This must be avoided; You’ve put too much work in to turn back now.

Indeed, Mercury Retrograde will have you question absolutely everything about yourself, your life direction, and how you have failed miserably in your pathetic excuse of an existence- And that is just a normal transit! With the other planets retrograde as well, this is only exacerbated. These guys will have us questioning the worth of you, your girlfriend, your parents, your country… hell, when Pluto goes, he’ll ask us about the purpose of our whole damn species! I sure don’t want to be the one to field THAT one…. Anyways, sign no documents, duct tape your mouth, and make all decisions by committee and you should be fine.

Artemis- (Cards: 8 of Swords, Temperance, Magician)- Well, remember what we told you about Mercury in Aries? Yeah, well you avoided some shit, and now Mercury is backtracking through for a review. Like an editor who wont publish you without your following some certain guidelines, Mercury is going to show you exactly where you failed to speak your mind with the force of properly articulated arguments. Yeah, all those impassioned screaming fests and quick tempered snap backs are coming to bite you in the ass… And all those passive aggressive jabs are about to get a taste of towering confrontation. This transit wants you to double back and make those confrontations you chickened out of because Aries isn’t a goddamn coward. What? Did cowardice have your tongue?

With a Full Moon in Libra coming at us a after this retrograde begins, we will be called to become diplomats – conflict resolving in a time when all we want to do is deck the fucker in the face.  Keep your cool, Heretics, even though keeping your cool will be an absolute impossibility during this transit.  I recommend an intense meditation practice during these weeks, and with that intense meditation an intense contemplation.  Why are you flying off the handle now?  Should you have dealt with these issues when you had the chance – instead of running from them? Would that have kept you from exploding like a fucking volcano from the slightest provocation?

The thing is, you blinded yourself.  You chose not to see certain things or at the very least painted them in some sort of positive light so that you could continue on living in your life. Unfortunately, when you plug a leak it doesn’t vanish – it eventually gets bigger. Now we are about to have 5 planets in retrograde and the cosmic powers that be want you to realize that you can never truly gloss things over.  Mercury retrograding from Taurus into Aries will be a gradual build of anger.  At first, you will feel perturbed that you have to deal with this shit AGAIN, but the annoyances will continue building.  Unresolved shit will continue to tower over you until you want to decimate everything for the sake of quelling your anger.  

Ah, but these issues have always been there, Heretics! The anger should actually be directed at YOU not at them, for they showed their true colors the first time and you decided to take the “high road.”  Boundaries and tough love are necessary, and when Mercury loops backwards into Aries, the tough words will not be able to be stopped.  I recommend you resolve your issues ASAP with people so that you don’t rain blood all over them during this transit. Sure, raining blood on them will resolve the issue once and for all, but then you’ll have to deal with the fact that you’ve burned bridges for good. Learn your lesson the first time, because the second time is never as nice, and the third time makes you seem like a goddamn fool.

Expect a lot of hotheadedness from everyone around you – snappy come backs and general war mood during the entirety of this transit. People will speak their mind for once but it wont be pretty. It’s not going to be an easy transit for those with thin skin, so build yourself some defenses or find an emotional outlet for all the slights. Shit will go awry seemingly out of nowhere, and with Uranus/Eris combo not too far away from Mercury when he enters Aries again, the chaos of Mercury retrograde will become magnified. So fix all your leaks. There are those that don’t necessarily have your best interests in mind, and there is no way you will be able to ignore this anymore. You are going to need to take action to take your power back, whether it is on your terms or Mercury’s terms.     

Mercury Retrograde- Tongue Tied was originally published on Heretical Oracles