#the last week i spent writing and rewriting the last couple of paragraphs

[blood-darkened-moon]

(1/2) TEW question: If Ruben hadn’t been burned but was still a serial killer, what is his motive for killing? Since there’s no need for revenge, what would happen? SKs IIRC develop a fractured identity hidden behind a wall of primitive defenses, so it’s a horrible way of coping, like self-medicating (we know there’s trauma and a predisposition).

Ok, anon, I love horror movies and games and also read about some serial killers out of interest, but I’m not an expert on this topic, especially not on the psychological aspects. And I refuse to diagnose fictional characters with mental illnesses. The headcanons I write are just for fun and should be seen as an attempt to write a horror AU rather than an analysis based on the mindset of real people. I don’t think that I can give you a qualified answer to your questions, but I’ll try my best. Here’s a more analytical approach to the topic.

I agree with you that there was a predisposition, but was there trauma involved before the fire? I don’t think so, or at least I think there is absolutely no evidence for this within the game. Even Jimenez wrote in Research Entry #31, “After surviving the incident and subsequent abuse from his parents, it’s a miracle Ruben can function at all.” We know very little about Ruben’s past before the incident. Some information originates from Ruben’s documents or his recordings after the fire. At that time, he is deeply traumatized, hallucinates, and is overall mentally unstable, which becomes even noticeable in his records. His state likely influences his perception in a heavily subjective way. Due to this and the ongoing abuse by his father, he may evaluate his childhood as worse than it actually was. However, since there are no more reliable sources, I have to take his words for granted.

While I don’t see anything that could have traumatized Ruben as a child, I still think that there were conflicts that could have worsened even if the fire never happened. There was tension in his family, specifically with his father. Ruben already seemed to have a somewhat strained relationship with him before the incident. Yet, he still respected him, as Ruben stated in one of the recordings, “Father was a stern man. Proud, and I thought intelligent.” He was calm while he recorded this. Therefore, I think this statement is valid, and their relationship wasn’t that bad at first. On the other hand, Ruben also wrote: “He’s trying to punish me again. He always resented our closeness. Thinks he can use it against me.” He wrote this while he was clearly enraged, likely not fully accountable. It still indicates a conflict between the two.

The latter statement is somewhat strange, though. Why should Ernesto mind if his children get along well with each other? Isn’t this a good thing? Jimenez describes Ruben’s love for Laura as “almost on an incestuous level”, and considering Ruben’s records, that seems to be a legitimate interpretation. But the records are from after the fire when he was already a teenager or young adult. Moreover, he was locked up in the basement for years without any human contact (except for his father and a doctor, maybe). This long-term isolation would excuse Ruben’s affection for his sister reaching an abnormal level. Even in case little Ruben had a crush on Laura at that age (10 or younger), I think this would hardly be a reason to be concerned. He could likely outgrow it easily if he grew up under normal circumstances. So, it is unlikely that this was Ernesto’s issue.

I think it is possible that the statement relates to Ruben’s experiments in some way. We know Ernesto cannot cope well with problems that would damage his family’s reputation. After all, he preferred to lock his traumatized son away after the fire instead of organizing real help for him. Well, dissecting pig heads is not a normal behavior for a child, and yet Ruben had the equipment and a room where he could do his experiments. Why did Ernesto tolerate this behavior, which is significantly more concerning than suffering from physical and mental trauma after barely surviving a fire? (In the sense of the latter is an understandable reaction.) And why did he show it to Jimenez in the first place? This isn’t something that you show proudly around in the neighborhood. I assume that maybe Laura protected her brother, acted as the voice of reason, and convinced Ernesto that instead of punishing Ruben for his experiments, he should deal with it differently. Jimenez was just about 20 at the time he met Ruben. He can’t have been a doctor then. He was likely only a student. (The model in the game is older, probably due to time or budget reasons.) Jimenez wasn’t working at Beacon yet either. In Research Entry #16, he stated that he started working there but also mentioned Ruben, so he already knew him before that. Perhaps at Laura’s request, the Victorianos looked for someone with the necessary expertise to deal with Ruben’s behavior but who would do so in secrecy. Therefore, they went with a student. In the end, it backfired, and instead of talking Ruben out of his experiments, Jimenez confirmed his beliefs. Ernesto could take this amiss and think strict punishment would have worked better. This is highly speculative, though. Ruben also mentioned punishment in the document, but it is unclear what kind of punishment it was and when it happened. It could be something (long) before the fire, or he could relate to his recent confinement in the basement.

Another issue Ruvik mentioned is his hatred for the church and his father always supporting them. He said, “Somehow he always supported the church, no matter what the newspapers said. He waved away the allegations as if they were infallible. The wretched, the vermin, the stern... All were taken in by that church.”, followed by “They were promised salvation and eternal life. But there’s nothing they could promise that I couldn’t take away.” Where his hatred for the church originates from is again not clear. We know the church was a shady place, but had it anything to do with child-Ruben? I think it is also possible that Ruben developed his hatred later during his time in the basement. He thought his father had taken Laura away from him, the one person he loved the most. Perhaps he then decided to take something away from his father that he cherished deeply.

This covers the conflicts at home we know of. None of them seem to be a major issue before the fire, though. I doubt that these alone had the potential to set up Ruben on the path of a serial killer unless drastic changes occur. However, there are still some other aspects.

Jimenez is one of them. He is not a good influence on Ruben at all. He could have tried to channel Ruben’s interests onto a healthier path. Instead, he affirmed that ethical and moral standards in science must be questioned if true greatness is to be achieved. Ruben knew very well that his experiments were unacceptable when they met for the first time. Jimenez probably had a chance of convincing Ruben to give up on them. Later, he continues to be a toxic influence. Despite his sympathy for Ruben, Jimenez often disregards his poor mental state and only tries to gain profit from Ruben’s results. Only after the experiments reached an extreme level of gruesomeness and the death toll went through the roof did Jimenez realize that he made a big mistake. “I had taught him from a young age that the end shall justify the means, but I could not have predicted things to be this extreme.” Not that it would stop Jimenez from leeching further on Ruben’s work.

Now, before I come to the possibility of Ruben still becoming a serial killer without the fire, I want to speculate a bit about his early experiments, because they could hint at a predisposition. We know that Ruben dissected pig heads, but I think this can’t be the only thing he has done. I assume the pig heads are slaughterhouse waste. (He can’t have killed and decapitated a large pig alone at the age of 9, right?) Little Ruben doesn’t seem to have the proper equipment to prevent the decomposition in his room. (How fresh were the heads when he got them?) As far as I know, brain matter decomposes rather quickly, though. How far can he get with a half-decomposed pig brain? He can develop and improve his surgery skills. However, Jimenez mentions Ruben’s studies, and he is really impressed by them (“… but Ruben... Comparatively insignificant, but even at his young age, his studies are remarkable.”). While it is not shown or otherwise described in the game, I think it is likely that Ruben also experimented on other smaller animals that were either still alive or killed shortly before he started. We don’t know what kind of studies he performed, but I think you likely need a fresh or well-preserved brain for most experiments. Ruben was also hesitant to show his experiments to Jimenez. He said they are gross and that Jimenez now thinks he is a monster. Ruben did not try to justify them. Would this be the case if he only used slaughterhouse waste? It would still be gross and off for a child but a little less disturbing than experimenting on animals he had killed first. At least assuming that Jimenez might think he was a monster for doing so seems like an exaggeration to me since the pigs were slaughtered beforehand anyway.

Edit: In the room where Ruben dissects the pig’s head, there is an eviscerated dog carcass (which I’ve apparently always overlooked). So he has definitely killed other animals and experimented on them. The cages in the room also point to this. Judging by the size of the cages, he probably mainly used cats and dogs.

So much to the background, now what could have happened without the fire? Firstly, Laura was 17 when the fire occurred; Ruben was only 10. Laura probably wouldn’t have stayed with her parents forever. Maybe she would have gone to college the following year. Ruben spent his teenage years in the 80s, so no internet, and telephones weren’t constantly available either. He still has to live almost without Laura for several years. As I said before, I assume that Laura protected Ruben in some way from Ernesto. After she leaves, Ruben has to deal with his father mostly on his own. Their relationship was already strained before and would certainly not improve over the years, rather the opposite. I can’t say how far Ernesto would ultimately go with his punishments if Laura isn’t on-site without further information, though. We should also bear in mind that Ruben is getting older and can probably hide his activities better from his father. Jimenez might also be able to help him with this. I think, it is unlikely that the situation would take on similarly traumatizing proportions as after the fire, but there is still a certain conflict potential.

The bigger problem is, in my opinion, Jimenez. Without Laura and with a tense atmosphere at home, Ruben would probably spend more time with him. At least initially, Jimenez seemed to understand and support him. He recognized Ruben’s talent and was his mentor, even if not entirely for selfless reasons. I think it’s possible that even without fire, he could lead Ruben down a similar path as in the game, but probably at a slower pace. Seeing Laura again would no longer be Ruben’s driving force, but she wasn’t his only motivation in the game anyway. Ruben took a lot of pride in his research. He became furious when Jimenez stole and published his results (“That cockroach, that sycophant; living off of me, feeding off of my work.“). Sure, Jimenez is an asshole, but he was somewhat correct when he said Ruvik couldn’t have published it in a reputable journal otherwise. If Laura was really all Ruben wanted, he shouldn’t have been so angry about what Jimenez was doing. So, Ruben’s own ambitions as a scientist may have played a role, albeit a subordinate one.

Jimenez has persuaded Ruben from the beginning that the end justifies the means, plus there is Ruben’s potential predisposition, now adding some overambition, nurtured by his mentor, on top. Ruben would probably not shy away from human experiments, as they would be more reliable than the ones with animals. Jimenez would certainly provide him with test subjects, and he might even urge him to take this step once Ruben’s abilities were sufficient. After all, Jimenez also wants to profit from his work.

I don’t think Ruben would become an ordinary serial killer, but, for instance, I could imagine him evolving in a similar direction to Josef Mengele. In the game, he no longer sees the people he experiments on as people. He describes them as vermin and microbes. Without fire and the years in the basement, he should feel less hatred towards others, but with Jimenez as a mentor, he may have come to the conclusion that the death of some people is justified in order to help others through scientific advancement. His test subjects may no longer be vermin to him but laboratory supplies. He still would use and kill them as he pleased.

Serial killers often have a traumatic past and use the killing as a coping mechanism, but not all of them. It is not impossible that someone could become a serial killer for different reasons. The scenario above is the best I could do with the little information we have. I guess my answer isn’t really what you wanted, but I cannot see a canon reason for Ruben to snap if the fire and the abuse afterward never happened. If we knew more about his past, perhaps this would change. (I left Mobius out for simplicity, by the way.)

[xaphrin]

Hey!! I've recently started reading your fics on AO3 and I have a couple questions if you don't mind :)

1) since you've wrote Raven in a pairing with many characters, which one is your fave?

2) will novocaine, college try, dark little lies, a dragon's hoard and what lives in shadows be continued?

have a nice day <3

I genuinely have NO IDEA what my favorite pairing is. Honestly. It goes through cycles. Every one is a little bit different based on dynamics and personality and how I think they would interact with each other. So, if I want something soft and genuine, I might tilt towards one pairing. If I want drama and idiots being reluctant about their feelings, I might sway towards another. It's hard to pick a favorite, because there are just so many possibilities.

YES!

Novocain has a funny story attached to why I haven't updated it in a while - when I started it, I was determined not to have an explicit fic. Mature, yes. Explicit, no. After I finished the first two chapters, I started working on the third one, and I... couldn't help myself. So, I shelved it to try and find a way to not have it be porn central. And, recently, I decided - fuck it. Porn central it is. So, my hope is that I will pull it down from the shelf soon to just lean in to it at this point.

College Try is slated to finally be finished during the DamiRae smut week. Because there's literally one chapter left, and it definitely is porn central.

Dark Little Lies - UGH. UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I have a love-hate relationship with this fic. I had to scrap the last chapter I wrote because I hated it. It was awful. So, that's definitely on the shelf until I can unravel how I want it to work out. I have a general idea of how I want it to go, but I am trying to figure out how to get there without making Damian a complete asshole. A minor asshole, for sure. But not a complete asshole.

A Dragon's Hoard is (wonderfully) completely plotted out. I really just need to suck it up, sit down and write it. But, yay! there's porn in every. single. chapter. from here on out. Like. A lot of porn. I mean, I wanted to lean into the dragon-shifter porn a lot, but MAN. I did not realize how much porn I would be writing. It's a lot. There's... six-ish chapters left, and... technically I could write more after the final chapter. So... we'll see how that plays out.

What Lives in Shadows - The next chapter is super action heavy, and the only thing I do worse than angst is action. So I've spent the last year fighting with myself. I write a few paragraphs, hate it. Delete it. Rewrite it. Hate that. And then I continue the cycle all over again. Also something I need to just sit down and suck it up to finish.

[pumpkinpaix]

Hello! and PSA

*waves* hi everyone! so uh, I’ve kind of had a bit of a surge in followers recently, and I thought I would make a bit of a PSA/intro post with a bit more targeted info than my about page.

anyways, I’m cyan! statistically speaking, you are probably here for one of the following reasons:

my fic

my meta

my gifs

my translation

all of the above

this is pretty much an mdzs blog on main these days, but I also rb a lot of other misc things because I have never been good at keeping my interests separate. it’s also my personal blog, so expect some of that? i am very all or nothing ahaha. my opinions change very quickly as I process new information, so like, something I said last week or yesterday might be different now! I’ve seen several people going through some of my older posts, and I’m just like oh dear, I said a lot of things six months ago that I no longer vibe with. /o\ please keep that in mind as you go diving in my blog!

i don’t have a BYF or DNI policy, but I reserve the right to block anyone for any reason because this is a personal blog first and foremost, and I do need to be better about setting my boundaries and curating my own online space! on that same token, you are free to follow, unfollow, block, whatever, even if we’re mutuals. <3

you’re free to come talk to me in my inbox or dms, but please be aware that there’s a very high chance I will never get back to you /o\ it isn’t personal!! I am just very mentally ill and have many difficulties with keeping up social interactions or talking to people.

in the interest of trying to be more open about myself, my brain, and what that means for me in an online/fandom space, I’m gonna do a boatload of mental health talk under the cut (or, if you’re looking at this on my blog proper or somewhere where the cut doesn’t display, it starts right after this paragraph), including mentions of self-harm/thoughts of specific self-harm etc, just so you are warned! I’ve been thinking recently that it’s good to try and take steps towards being more open about my issues, both for my own sake and others’. It’s long, because one of the fun things about my mental illness is that I am hyperverbal ahahaha (if that... wasn’t already obvious orz)

so if you’ve read pfmmpd, you can kind of get a sense of what I’m working with. a lot of how i wrote lwj was drawn directly from shit happening in my own brain, but like? dial that up from the specific issues that lwj had in that fic and apply it unilaterally across the board to almost anything you can think of.

I hesitate to describe my OCD as debilitating, but only because my specific cocktail of compulsions and anxieties and triggers push me to be hyperachieving and hyperfunctional. I consider myself pretty fortunate (?) in that regard. on paper, you could never tell how absolutely batshit my internal landscape is! which is very good for me practically in that I can hold down a job, keep scholarships, graduate with honors, have good prospects for my future, hold onto relationships (usually yikes) etc. but the fact of the matter is, I’m like. oh boy.

to give you a peek, here’s a non-exhaustive list of things that have triggered me to varying degrees of severity within the last like, week or so:

my dog

a chinese folk song

my mother reading a chinese haiku to me written by a young gay man

a chinese reader of my fic lovingly and gently giving me a history lesson on china and on mdzs while praising me

stepping on a piece of snow that didn’t collapse in the precise way i expected it to

writing meta

reading meta

ruminating on my triggers (honestly, I played myself)

seeing a twitter thread going around tumblr with decent information but the OP is someone who was exceedingly cruel to a good friend of mine

visiting my grandmother’s grave

deciding to visit my grandmother’s grave

discussing the concept of cuddling my partner whom i love and have been with for four years

self-harming (truly the height of irony, being triggered into self-harm and then getting triggered by the result of the self-harm hahahahahaha)

dropping off a package

trying to explain queer-coding to my parents

talking about stressors in my life related to covid19

having a very pleasant conversation with a person i admire

editing my translation

the fact that the “close” button on my accessibility sidebar on the translation website is the wrong color

choosing between eating all the shiitake mushrooms in my soup and purposefully giving myself a bad reaction or throwing one out and wasting food

thinking about playing a fun game with my partner and a mutual friend

my mom asking me to take a photo of some tea for her

my mom asking my opinion on a photo she was photoshopping

animal crossing

writing this fucking post HAHAHAHA

like!! it goes on!! endlessly! obviously, these triggers are not simply “bad” things. the chinese folk song and the haiku were both really beautiful and i love them! but I did spend a good amount of time curled up on my floor in the dark sobbing as i played the song on repeat. the haiku was one of the last straws that ended up with me screaming and crying and hurting myself. the snow??? like wtf the snow thing. I stepped on the snow and it felt wrong and my brain just started screaming SMASH YOUR KNEECAP. ???? (I didn’t, for the record, and I would never.) I love my partner very much! I love my friends very much, and my mother, and my grandmother etc. my triggers are infinite, unpredictable, and bizarre.

I’m saying all of this because I want to be clear that MDZS/CQL fandom specifically triggers me on a daily basis, sometimes very very badly. this is just a fact! it is no one’s fault! I have decided it is worth it for me to stay anyways. it is impossible for me to request people tag for certain things because I myself have no idea what my triggers are until I encounter them. It’s like a fun mystery boss encounter! sometimes it’s low level and i’m well-equipped to handle it. other times it’s a one-hit KO. We just don’t know! there are lots of very cool content creators in this fandom that I can’t follow because it would make my dash that much more high stakes. the original source canon material triggers me! all the events leading up to Lotus Cove massacre? I was shaking at work for three hours after consuming it for the first time.

Meta specifically is something I know a lot of people like me for, but it’s 100% the most triggering activity I participate in for this fandom. like, that suibian meta post I wrote that’s currently going around? Probably took me four or five hours of concentrated effort to write because I was compulsively panicking and rewriting and editing and panicking more and qualifying and editing and qualifying some more and then debating whether I should post it or not and then fighting with myself about my wording and then immediately regretting it and then every time someone commented on it (regardless of positive or negative!) my anxiety spiked. I started a reply to a response on that post and had to stop after a few minutes because I was already starting to trigger myself over it.

this is actually a pretty good outcome when it comes to meta! I recognized that I was hurting myself before I got any further, and I only spent like, five hours on it! it was good exposure therapy for me! the bad outcome is. well. bad, as you might imagine lmao.

I like writing meta. I like talking to people about it too! I like participating in fandom, I like writing, I like translating, I like all of these things. they’re just also really hard for me! there’s a couple meta requests sitting in my inbox right now that I want to get to, but it might take me like. a long time because of. you know! *gestures* Everything takes me a long time. that first chapter of the translation took me literally five months from beginning the project to posting a final edited version. It’s just over 1k words. D8

I try really hard to be chill and kind in public and I largely think I succeed on the kind part (I hope!). If you thought I had even an ounce of chill before this, perhaps I have disabused of that notion entirely now lmao. I’m not saying this for pity, but like? just so we all know what we’re dealing with here. I don’t want anyone to get hurt when I don’t engage with them or feel snubbed if I never reply to them. and also like, hey, if someone relates it’s like hooray, high fave, solidarity! we’re not alone in this world! or maybe this will help someone understand OCD a little better! I don’t know. I hope this post is a positive thing. BUT! I’ve spent three hours on it already, and i’m definitely starting to compulsively spiral, so instead of going back and editing it over and over, I’m just going to post it. thank you everyone for your understanding! I hope you enjoy your time on my blog! (*´▽`*)

[smallblueandloud]

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 for the writing ask- I AM SO SORRY I COULDNT STOP!!! xoxo

aaaah these questions look SO GOOD thank you so much <3 <3 for this ask meme, which will be open all weekend!

1. tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

i pulled open all of my WIP google docs for this and my laptop started whirring ominously, lmao. this is going to be a Little Long but i love talking about my wips so who cares!! (under the cut because EXCERPTS)

guys and dolls but gay - very, very casual rewrite of guys and dolls if sky masterson was a woman. i’m loving how chill i’m being about this one because it’s so much fun to not have to worry how i’m going to write lyrics in a not-weird way and just focus on the story. this one’s first because it’s theoretically closest to being finished.

sky, laughing: “oh? people. all the people you turn down every day. well, i imagine there’s someone out there that’ll catch your eye.”

sarah, stiffening: ��...yes, there will be.”

sky: “and what might this person be like?”

sarah: “he will not be a gambler, for one.”

sky does not miss the pointed pronoun. “i’m not interested in what he won’t be, i’m interested in what he will be.” she sits down on the desk, in a pointedly masculine pose, and sets her fedora next to her - at her most Hot Queer, basically. “how will you know when he gets to you?”

my fic for the aos rarepair fic exchange - i can’t give any plot or ship details, for obvious reasons, but it’s 1.3k and i’m having fun with it!

steven roadtrip of destiny - canon divergent fic set at the end of steven universe future where steven goes on a roadtrip instead of... canon. it deals with some heavy emotions and it’s also a character study so it’s tentatively shelved until i get around to rewatching suf. but i am projecting on steven like crazy and it’s really, really cathartic. it’s taught me a lot about myself too lmao.

He’s never been anonymous before. He kind of likes it. It means he can fold his arms on the table and put his head down without Pearl worrying about his posture, or someone asking him if something’s okay.

In the last few months, he’s grown to hate people asking him how he’s doing, or if he’s okay. He always ends up lying, because he doesn’t want to worry them, and he ends up feeling worse.

Probably because it’s more of him supporting other people without supporting himself.

He should have told someone how he was feeling. He should have reached out. Sadie could’ve helped him. Lars would’ve listened. Connie would have hugged him and then found him the appropriate mental health professional.

(God, Steven wants a hug. Also the appropriate mental health professional? Whoever that would be.)

untitled aos fic - i don’t want to give a lot of details because :eye emoji: and also i don’t know much about what the plot of this is going to be anyway, lmao. but here’s an excerpt:

daisy “that actor who doesn’t shut up about data harvesting” johnson (@daisyquake) tweeted: two weeks :eyes emoji:

Elena Rodriguez | Seven Cents S2 Streaming On Netflix Now! (@yoyorodriguez) retweeted and added: the problem with being friends with daisy is that you SHOULD have some insight into what her tweets mean but you still have no idea

Fitz (@justfitz) retweeted and added: Try being married to her

untitled star wars twins fic - because i am a total and massive nerd. i’m just kind of stuffing everything i have feels about from the post-anh era into this and planning on figuring it out later? i’m really loving talking about the culture of alderaan (and the culture of the survivors) and also i just love writing luke and leia’s relationship... so much......

(no excerpt for that one because i’ve basically posted all of it in various posts lmao)

aos ds9 au - i’ve posted a LOT about this already and i want to keep the plot a surprise but fsk is in this and married and half the cast is aliens, what else do you need in life.

“Good morning,” says Jemma, coming into the room with her hair wet and her uniform crooked. “Hello, darling.”

“Hi,” says Daisy, turning her face up for a kiss. Jemma obliges absently as she walks past, looking around the room.

“Has anyone seen my hair clip?”

“No,” say Fitz and Daisy in unison.

and of course, last but never least in my heart, chapter 3 of the magnum opus - writing this is on hold until my brain decides to stop hitting me over the head at every possible moment, but there’s like... 2k written so far? it’s. it’s going.

“Yeah, yeah,” says Coulson, and makes quick work of the right gauntlet. It’s only halfway through the left one that his fingers slow and he says, quietly, “Simmons designed these, didn’t she?”

She lets out a quick breath. “Yeah.”

He stays quiet for a few more seconds, finishing up the last of the straps, making sure they’re tight enough. Finally, he says, “She should be helping you with these.”

Daisy pulls her arms back and swallows down some words, or maybe a couple of feelings, or maybe a sob. “Yeah, well.”

2. tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

the last sentence of the magnum opus!!!!!!!!!!

no, lmao, i’m gonna try to be serious. i really, really want to write some librarians fic in the near future? also MORE OF THE SENSE8 AU. i’m DYING to write some stuff about that. especially sam’s cluster, for some reason? Let’s Make Him Suffer (Comedically)! one day i’m gonna finish that list of what cluster/situation each song is about and then it’ll be over for all of us!

3. what is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

i spent about eight months imagining a scene where riza hawkeye was really injured and mustang was holding her in his arms (basically the promised day scene but with more privacy) so does that count?

hmm, just for some other possibilities: glinda telling dorothy about elphaba, laura somehow seeing or speaking to natasha during catws, a good omens au of the good place (specifically the ”i don’t even like you!” / “you doooooooo” scene), kencyrath au of star wars (ESPECIALLY THIS ONE, except setting up the first scene alone would take 7k, but i want to talk about leia and luke and their MESSED UP TRUST ISSUES in this au).

oh, also, something about star trek tng where jean-luc and beverly and jack were in love and then jack died and picard left. more specifically a scene set during the pilot episode where jean-luc very cordially offers beverly the option to transfer off the enterprise, that he wouldn’t dream of holding it against her, and beverly very cordially telling jean-luc to go fuck himself. i want to write 30k of that broken triad. i want it so bad. i dream of that fic. maybe one day when i find myself with a completely empty month or two, i’ll binge all of tng and Write Some Stuff.

4. share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

since you and i have tww in common, i’m gonna do a tww fic! otherwise i’d have to reread literally every fic i’ve ever written, lmao.

(this is long but i put this post under the cut so i have RIGHTS. also consider this a sneak peek for the j/d fic in the sense8 au?)

“It’s okay,” says Helen. She sits for a moment in silence, seeming thoughtful. “The Congressman and I are in the same cluster,” she says eventually. “I’d- I supposed that’s easier on the Secret Service?”

“Yes,” says Donna. “The-”

She stops herself from saying anything further. President Bartlet and the First Lady aren’t exactly quiet about who’s in their cluster, especially with senior staff, but that doesn’t mean she should go talking about it in an unsecured room in LA, of all places.

To cover for her blunder, she gives up something else: “The same with Josh. They got really lucky with him, actually. It’s just him and me, so they won’t have to worry about anyone threatening the Chief of Staff through the barista in the local Starbucks.”

Helen looks up from the Ohio numbers she’d drifted back to, a slow smile creeping up on her face. “Josh is in your cluster?”

“Uh-” says Donna, feeling like national security wasn’t worth whatever she’s just blundered into. Oops. “Josh- Josh is my cluster, ma’am.”

She catches her mistake the second it’s out of her mouth, but Helen doesn’t call her on it, more focused on other revelations. “No wonder you two look at each other the way you do!” she says, sounding delighted. Donna shuts her eyes, praying for this to go away. It’s not that she’s ashamed of Josh - it’s just so, so complicated, and other people never think about how difficult it was. Still is.

i’m just... i really liked the idea of donna fumbling and having to reveal this to cover up for what else she was going to say? i don’t know why i’m so charmed by this. i think it’s because it would be impossible in the show - you can’t show what someone was going to say on television, not without a lot of setup and very careful scripting. it’s just a really fun situation to write about and i’m really proud of this conversation in general.

also helen santos was a dream to write and i love her a lot. i kind of want to write one of the fics in the series about her and her cluster solely because like... look at her. she’s a delight in literally every scene. i love her.

5. what character that you’re writing do you most identify with?

daisy johnson!!! i love writing daisy johnson!!!! she is the most adhd character i’ve ever written and i literally just have to transcribe my own inner monologue and it works perfectly!!!!!

Swing shift: 1600 hours to 2400 hours. Daisy always ends up getting back to her quarters at like 0030 hours, when Jemma is asleep and Fitz is reading some kind of technical journal. Then she has to eat replicated pizza, alone, and freshly replicated pizza is actually pretty hot but it feels cold at that time of night, like, spiritually.

6. what character do you have the most fun writing?

...whoops i literally just answered that lmao. uh. i also really love writing sky masterson in the guys and dolls fic? she’s just weaponized hot queerness in a suit and i love her for it. she is intentionally trying to seduce this repressed lesbian and it’s really funny and also really hot of her and it’s so much fun to write.

also, i wrote chidi for the tgp fic and it was possibly the most fun i’ve ever had with a pov, although that was also because i was purposefully trying to mimic the tone of the show. i still think that line about michael and a grenade is, like, the funniest i have ever been in my life. but chidi’s panic was surprisingly easy to write? all of tgp’s characters have such STRONG voices, it makes writing fic ridiculously easy as long as you don’t get stuck on a plot for six months.

7. what do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? would others agree?

oof, this one is ALWAYS tricky. uh? uhh?? i’m going to ruin everything by saying this but i basically alternate between the same two sentence structures and i am really frustrated about it. i also alternate between the same two styles of endings and i always use the same beginning (set scene, main character pov, thoughts-as-exposition, back to scene).

BUT ON A MORE POSITIVE NOTE i like to talk about emotions and relationships and character development!! i have my “queer subtext goggles” superglued to my face, lmao. i like to think about how characters must have felt about things in canon and how it must’ve influenced them. i like making people deal with the consequences of their actions, especially how it’s influenced they themself. i also just really, really like writing people who love each other, whether it’s romantic or platonic or anything in between. i just want them to be happy! i just want them to stick together! doesn’t matter what fandom, i stand by it.

[meet-me-in-the-kitchen]

the reader passes out as soon as boyfriend!harry comes home from tour because she has been studying day and night to finish all her assignments before harry returns

EXHAUSTEDLY IN LOVE

It had been months since Harry had come home. Months spent sleeping on his side of the bed, burying her face in one of his pillows to catch his scent. Nights spent wearing his shirts, waiting for his calls, and settling with the recording of his voice during the voicemail message, in moments when she especially had missed him.

The point was, it had been ages since she’d seen her boyfriend, and Y/N is determined not to let coursework take away more time spent with him.

So, she scrambled to get it all done, in order to have more time for Harry’s kisses, cuddles, and love. She hadn’t felt him in so long, so without hesitation she’d buried herself under assignments, final projects, and studying for major examinations that would take place the following weeks. She started a few days before Harry was to get off the plane, starting with basic reviewing and taking creative breaks by writing and proofreading final essays and projects.

Somewhere along the way, she’d traded meals (the ones Harry had made with his own hands and left frozen for her in the fridge, because she can’t cook for shit and he’s too fond of her to let her become sick by eating burnt toast) for processed food, muffins and coffee. She stayed in their living room, where she had spread all of the work so it lid in unorganized heaps and papers scattered on the ground she could somehow navigate through. One half haphazardly crumpled and tossed ball of foil paper she’d eaten a muffin from had quickly turned to a couple, a dozen, and then bred to the point where it had escalated north to a much greater number. Wrappers littered the floor, despite her prior hate for disgusting messes rather than comfortable messes, she didn’t care. Coffee cups lay strewn aside, muffins half eaten, eyes bleary and nose sniffling a little from congestion.

The messiness crept up on her. Parts of her life began falling off, forming an eclectic debris that dribbled gradually into every corner. Empty sushi containers, Diet Coke cans, sweaters, sweatshirts (Harry’s), socks, her running shoes...when was the last time she’d washed her hair?

However, she really wanted to see Harry properly and get those assignments finished, so she writes that essay.

There is the thesis, which she painstakingly rewrites in every paragraph or else the teacher will say something like ‘???’. There is her restating the first bit of the thesis statement again, maybe with a different word or two. There’s that one character she does remember vaguely, and a purposefully verbose depiction of them so she can take up as much space as possible.

Transitional sentences she shambled together out of the remains of her hopes and dreams.

A rambling, off-topic sentence which probably should have been deleted but it's four in the morning and she honestly doesn’t care and I need those full ten pages. A drastic shift in the paper where for five seconds she actually thinks she knows what she’s talking about. There’s her analysis of a quote in which she tries to explain why it supports her thesis like explaining to a small child why the wind blows. It just does, okay, but I'm only going to be able to express this in really confused and circular speech. Here's her mentioning that character again, but this time she’s talking also about a second character. She secretly hopes she never has to take a test on this stuff. Concluding line. Transitional sentence, but with a vague sense of foreboding and dread attached to it. Her sore hands are starting to slow down. She has now grown to resent the two characters she has been talking about, and she sincerely hopes they both die in a fire, because literally nothing interesting happens to them; literally nothing interesting happened in this book whatsoever, but here's the analyzation of a quote dedicated to them.

When she’s sent in the last assignment and reviewed her brain numb, she feels wonder. Such magic. Somewhere in between killed-someone and just-saved-a-baby-dolphin. Euphoric. Such hope that she swears she just felt a rib snap. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. She falls back on their bed.

Then, there’s fatigue. Tiredness gnaws at her aching bones, her head heavy, and body feeling unusually cold. A little drowsy, too, because she’d grown alarmed at the distracting dry coughs she was having while reviewing macro economics two, and had downed a bunch of foul smelling (expired?) Tylenol, like taking shots.

Her fingers were blistered from writing down all of the information she remembers from anatomy class for the examination, because it’s been scientifically proven that if you physically write the information down, it’s easier to remember. She’s never been one to like organization, and seeing girls with carefully handwritten tumblr study notes makes her furious, because they’re so slow and her mind works so fast, she’s too impatient and unable to catch her train of thought before it flees the scene, and write in perfect times new roman, size twelve, double spaced and in gel pen shades of fuchsia. It comes to bite her in the ass when she witnesses the disastrous scene of flashcards and sushi and bad handwriting and realizes she must clean it up.

All in all, she wasn’t feeling her best, but Harry was here, and it would definitely pass, right?

—

The night came when Y/N drove to Heathrow airport to pick her boyfriend up, excited and eager to have him back, but also suppressing the low throbbing in her head. It was later at night, so rush hour has passed and traffic was laid back, and the crowd in the airport had significantly dwindled.

We’ll have a few moments privately to ourselves before the press come, she thought, content and dreaming of him.

The time comes when the lights start flashing, and she knows that he’s back.

“Harry,” she breathily laughed, biting her lips, and trying to blink back the welling tears in her eyes as she catches sight of his sparkling forest green eyes from behind the transparent barrier between them. He runs off of the plane, and she runs to him at the same time. It’s like a scene in the movie, before her body collided with his, his comforting, striking scent engulfing her and his strong arms wrapping around her, catching her as she jumped up into his arms. He buries his own face into her neck, breathing in her girlish scent. It’s a scene from a Lifetime movie. They both cry.

“I missed you so much.”

“I missed you more,” he whispered the promise, before sealing their lips in their first kiss in months.

There’s a lot to say behind that kiss. In his head, mainly. Questions and worry that had been intensifying every waking moment to the nights prior to this one, when he had called Y/N and she had responded hours and sometimes days later with a text saying she was fine. It had been so long since they’d had a proper conversation, and it would be a lie if Harry hadn’t thought the distance was affecting them. Causing her to care less. Now, he was confused. In love, definitely, but confused at how the woman who had seemingly avoided him for days was now leaping in his arms, holding on tightly to him like a koala bear and clinging for life.

The screams behind them started growing, cameras clicking, and fans growing desperate. After pushing one last kiss against her lips, Harry smiled at her adoringly, dimples poking out as her eyes fluttered open.

“Come on, it’s time to go, Princess.”

She nodded, and they kept their heads down, security surrounding them methodically as they moved through the gathering crowd. Through the middle of it, however, Y/N begins to feel a bit dazed. No, not now, she thinks to herself, nervously. The flashes and clicks and screams do nothing for her terribly painful headache, and worsen the heavy feeling in her chest. Her legs feel detached from the rest of her body, moving robotically and at a quick pace as they move hand in hand, Harry pulling her closer to his chest in order to protect her from the crowd. Her hands are becoming sweaty, and she wonders if he can feel it.

She’s taking deep breaths, training her expressionless face to the ground, and trying to focus on the steadiness of Harry’s arm around her waist, how it was warm and unwavering. However, this lessens her attention and causes her to forget that one step as Harry and her step into the elevator, hidden by the security who let them pass and keep everyone else out. They’re the only two going inside, when her foot slips into the little crack in the machine, and she lurches forward. Harry’s arms tense around her, pulling her inside the elevator before it shuts on her foot.

“Jesus, you alright, baby?”

She tries to make a confirming noise, but it comes out as more of a groan, and she’s so hungry, her stomach is painfully empty. This strikes his alarm, and so he places his large hands on her shoulders, finger tilting her chin up as he gazes down at her with tentative, cautious green eyes, his eyebrows furrowing.

“Mhm,” she mumbles, not quite wanting to let go of his chest just yet. It was warm and smelled of him, and she was afraid she’d lose her balance if she let go. Instead, she slung her arms around his hips and closed her eyes, face against his chest. Before murmuring: “I just missed you so much, H.”

He relaxes some at this, visibly becoming less tense. His expression softened as he looked over at his girl.

“Sleepy?” He asked softly, a finger stroking her cheek while his other arm wrapped itself around her waist, securing her to him. She hummed, and he kissed her hair.

“You smell nice,” she confessed. “Like.. like... Harry candles.”

“Come on, love,” he laughed lightly, guiding her out of the lift and brushing it off as she stumbled some, again, blaming it on her exhaustion. “Let’s get you home, in bed. Y’very sleepy.”

“No,” she protested, eyes narrowing while she pointed at his chest determinedly as she remembered all the work she had done, waiting for this moment. “I’ve made dinner, and you’re going to eat that, and then I’m going to put on lingerie and look irresistible and you’re going to seduce me into getting into bed with you.”

“I’m going to seduce you, hm?” Harry teased, a signature smirk on his face. He nuzzled his face into her neck and peppered kisses there, after they’d gotten into the car and he had sat in the drivers seat next to the passengers seat, where she sat. “You don’t need lingerie. You’re already irresistible.”

With a weak smile and a killer migraine, she rolled her eyes.

“Shut up and drive, Styles.”

—

The aching in her body would go, and then come back full force as Harry drives, one hand easy on the steering wheel, other grasping hers and rubbing circles into her much smaller palms as he talked of the places he’d traveled and how much he’d missed her, home.

She’d smile and nod, but what was this? She’d spent all of her energy finishing her assignments to spend time with him, but now she spent the time she had feeling sick.

They’d entered into their flat, and Harry had heaved a long sigh, comforted in the private confines of his home. Y/N had instructed him to freshen up, swatted away his lingering hands from her hips, and gotten dinner ready. She’d made his favorite.

She was just setting the wine on the candlelit table, when the all consuming drowsiness for her again, but she breathed in and out and gulped down some cool water, waiting for it to pass and then fixing the table, again.

He’d snuck up behind her, planting his hands on her hips and sponging kisses down her delicate neck when she clenched a bit in surprise, before relaxing slightly, still a bit stiff.

“Wow,” he’d muttered, green eyes sparkling as they ran over what she’d done. She’d pushed him down into a chair. “This is amazing, baby. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she promised, a small smile playing on her lips. “I’ve waited so long. Now, come on! There’s a cake you have to cut.”

There’s an apparent slow burn that situated itself in her ribcage, her stomach twisting in unease as she continued to smile and walk towards the counter, uncovering a big cake she had made for him in his favorite flavour and colours. She grabbed a lighter and quickly lit all the candles, the heat causing her chest to flush uncomfortably, arms prickling due to the unwanted warmth. Her head spun.

Carefully, she had began walking toward Harry with the cake, a faint smile still on her face as he stared at her lovingly. She had placed the cake in front of him.

“Welcome back home, baby,” she’d murmured, her arms wrapping around his shoulders as she held him, nuzzling her face into his neck, chest against his back. He lifted his hand to rest where hers did, before exhaling and blowing out the little fires on the candles, smoke billowing past them, as a result.

“I love you.”

She heard the phrase, but it sounded more distorted. The smoke and heat surrounding her becoming too much, migraine worsening, nausea uprising. She became more aware of her fatigue and hunger and dizziness. What was happening?

Harry’s own forehead had creased in concern as he eyed her after she hadn’t responded like she usually did. There was a strange, faraway look in her eyes, as he watched as her face fell with a frown downturning his own cherry lips. Eyes darkening in worry.

“Love?”

The last thing she felt was her own body turning against her, feeling weightless as her eyes closed shut. She collapsed, his arms quickly wrapping around her to break her fall.

—

Y/N felt as if she were nestled in a cloud, entrenched in softness and white and the warmth that could only be from the body heat of someone very close and very familiar. She yawned, stretching beneath the heavenly comforter. How long has it been since I’ve last slept here? Pushing the thought away, she had smiled sleepily. Harry must have changed the sheets into new, fresh ones. He was sweet.

Her eyes snapped wide open.

Harry.

“You’re awake.”

His voice was as gentle as the breeze, but his darkened eyes held emotions she couldn’t figure out, ones that caused her stomach to roll in unease.

“Drink,” he motioned to the glass filled with what looked like foggy water which he had ripped over slightly, nudging her lips. Inwardly grimacing, she parted her lips and he silently tipped the glass further into her mouth. Bleh. It was sugar water. “It’s to get your blood sugar up.”

“I spoke to the doctor,” he said. His voice hard as steel, but he restrained from sounding too firm or saying anything he didn’t mean. She already knew what he’d say.

“Harry,” Y/N whined, she was still tired. How about a rain check? She mused. On this conversation. I want to sleep some more.

“Y/N.”

His voice had a warning edge to it.

“You haven’t been eating,” he stared at her blankly as he stated the facts, but the worry in his eyes was now evident. She felt the urge to look away, but couldn’t. “—sleeping, and the doctor’s said you’ve been looking stressed. What’s going on? Tell me the truth.”

“I wanted to spend time with you..”

“So you deprived yourself of food and sleep?” He asked, disbelief colouring the sentence.

“I had a lot of coursework,” she confessed, looking down to where she fiddled with her fingers, a nervous habit. It all seemed so silly, now. “It’s becoming exam season, and I had a lot of projects and major assignments and reviewing to do.”

“You’re gone for ten months,” she pressed, a little pained. “I didn’t.. I didn’t want to spend the time I have with you doing coursework and stressing over prepositions and definitions, when we could be going places or doing nothing together. It’s been so long, Harry. I missed you.”

His eyes softened at the explanation, but hers were still downturned. She felt vulnerable. Had he missed her as much as she’d missed him?

“I guess, I kind of lost track of time and forgot to eat and stuff during all of the hustling to get things finished. I ate,” she offered with a weak smile, knowing it was futile. “I ate muffins and drank coffee.”

Harry shook his head at that.

“You silly girl,” he laughed wetly, tears springing to his own eyes as he pulled her near him, sponging soft kisses to her hairline and looking down at her sweetly. “I know the feeling. I hate being far from you, too, baby, but. You need to take care of yourself. You can’t be getting sick.”

She snuggled further into his warm chest, content with his familiar scent— of sandalwood and boy and home. His arms wrapped around her, holding her as close as physically possible, feeling every curve and dip he’d missed being against for so long.

“I was so worried,” he whispered. She felt her own heart ache at how he sounded a bit broken. “It was so sudden. One second you were smiling, and the next you’d fainted. I thought you were.. I thought something was wrong. I need you.”

“I’m sorry, H,” she apologized, sighing delicately as her boyfriend ran his fingers under the shirt (his) she was wearing, skin contacting with her warm back and tracing around until his palm lay flat against her bare stomach as he spooned her. “Hey.. did you change my clothes? “

She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively: “did you see my new lingerie?”

He rolled his eyes in amusement, before dramatically widening them for exaggerated emphasis. “Loving you,” he poked her nose. “Is exhausting. I’ve lost years off of m’life.”

“Yes, but you get to see me naked. So, you see, it’s all worth it in the end.”

It was. These months apart. The forces that tried to break them apart. Every ache, every second apart was worth it. She was worth it, and so was he.

He laughed, lips stretching into a wide smile as he pulled her closer to him while continuing to smother her squirming self with smacking kisses.

MASTERLIST

[binnie-binnie-bambam]

where I’ve been...?

hey. I feel like I owe y’all an explanation as to where I’ve been for the last 3 months. but imma put it the whole big detailed story under the cut just in case y’all don’t care haha and coz I don’t wanna clog up people’s feed with my incessant rambling.

TL;DR: I’ve been through 3 months of mental hell and that took a big toll on everything, including my love of a lot of things, so I’ve been struggling but I’m gonna try to be on here more and I’m sorry for being away for so long and not saying anything about it. Thank you to everyone who has tagged me in things and sent me messages during this time, I have seen it, I promise, even if I haven’t been in the right headspace to respond, you have made this time even just a bit more bearable, and for that I thank you greatly.

so yeah, things have been rough to say the least. I want to explain what’s been going on because I’ve always been pretty open on here and I know a lot of other people struggle with the same things so I don’t feel so alone. basically, I’ve fallen into another awful depression. I’ve lost my passion and drive and desire, I’ve lost the ability to find joy in things, I have no interest in hardly anything at all, I’m just not...me...right now.

I mean, my whole summer was crazy busy because I was spending almost all of my time doing wedding prep for my best friend/cousin’s wedding so I really didn’t have much time for myself and if I did, I was too exhausted to do anything I wanted to do. that’s when my partial inactivity started. I also started to see a new psychiatrist over the summer and he started me on new meds around August. since August, over a span of ~5 months, I’ve been on and off 6+ new meds, being treated for severe anxiety, panic attacks that resurfaced after being free of them for over 4 years, severe depression, ADHD, and trying different things to see if I had bipolar, as well as having a heart condition, thyroid issues, and fibromyalgia all going haywire.

I was pretty much ok through September, aside from some not so fun side effects that got me on and off 3 new meds in that month alone. like my mood and motivation and everything was fine, we had the engagement party and bachelorette party at the beginning of the month, I got to spend a bunch of time with the guy I have a (stupid) crush on, I was busy, things were going pretty great, honestly. but October rolled around. the first half wasn’t so bad, we had a girls’ trip for a weekend sort of as a last hoorah before my best friend got hitched and that was a lot of fun and I’m super thankful I was able to go, especially since I originally thought I wasn’t going to be able to make it due to family circumstances.

and wedding prep continued on, until I was driving over to my aunt’s house for the last day of prep and things started to hit me. my aunt and I got really close this past year and this was the last time I was spending with her for a long time, like sure we see each other once in a while but I was going over there and going shopping with her and doing all sorts of stuff multiple times a week and I think I just got scared of the idea that I was facing a new normal all over again when my normal had already changed so drastically at the beginning of last year. and also the fact that my best friend was getting married and moving an hour away when she used to be 10 minutes away and I saw her all the time. like we had the rehearsal dinner the Sunday before the wedding and my oldest cousin made this speech (because she knew she’d be sobbing too much to actually make it at the wedding) and she talked about us three girls as kids growing up and all this stuff about my best friend and how perfect her fiance was for her and it was just all really sobering I guess?

and I spent a lot of nights that week writing and rewriting a letter to the couple and I definitely spent most of that time sobbing over everything and sometime that week my mood just plummeted. my dad got /really/ concerned because the change in me was /so/ drastic but there wasn’t much we could do with only a few days until the wedding so we just hoped for the best and waited till my appointment with my psychiatrist to figure out the next step. I ended up getting a migraine at the wedding (I know it was from stress and from being so upset) so I couldn’t have a good time like I wanted to and I knew I’d regret it and I definitely regret it but I can’t change anything now. I got to hug the bride and groom goodbye just as they were leaving and I’ve never struggled so hard trying not to cry, which I mean, my best friend was sooo close to becoming a sobbing mess hugging me too, and the groom, well he was a blubbering mess (he’s a very emotional dude, all three of us have sobbed watching movies together, we’re a sight lmao) so I didn’t feel too strange haha. but it was a really weird feeling and it was really hard to sleep at the hotel that night. we drove home in the rain the next morning and did absolutely nothing the entire day.

then the news hit about Woojin and I spent my Monday night quite literally sobbing myself to sleep. at that time, I was still pretty new to skz but it still hurt like hell and I know my depression warped the emotions out of proportion but it was still so incredibly painful. but nothing could prepare me for the news about Wonho. nothing. I was already so deep into my depression and that just, I still don’t even have words. something hasn’t hit me that hard in I don’t even know how long. I couldn’t even cry, it took me over 2 months to cry about it because it just hurt too much. I still can’t listen to any of their music, I can’t even see photos of them without bursting into tears, and I’m ashamed at myself for being so attached to something that I react this badly, but even more so, I’m upset with myself that I can’t support them when they need it most because it causes me so much physical and emotional pain I just can’t deal with it. I’m not giving up on them, god no, I know it probably sounds like I am, but I swear I’m not. I love them way too much for that. it’s not even possible to describe how much mx and Wonho mean to me, I’m not giving up on them, I’m just handling things in my own way at my own pace, I guess.

from then on, things just spiraled out of control. on and off more meds, more and more problems arose, I really felt like I could not keep my head above water. and on top of it, I had the 7th anniversary of my grandma’s death in early November and the 10th anniversary of my grandfather’s death in early December and to say the least, that did not have the best effect on my mental health. it’s been 3 months of pretty much hell. I genuinely have /no/ interest in things I used to do, none of my hobbies, everything, and I mean everything, is a chore. it’s still like this. but I’m trying to do more to fix it. I’m seeing my doctor next week and I just spent 6 weeks getting another med out of my system so hopefully when I see him, he’ll try something new and we’ll actually make progress instead of taking 2 steps forward and 8 steps back. I haven’t lost hope yet.

there’s been many, many times in these past few months where I’ve felt like I’ve already hit rock bottom and I’m just waiting for the final blow to finish me off. but, if I’m being completely honest, what’s kept me going has been my really close friends on here that have stuck with me this whole time and my love for kpop which thankfully, god thank you, hasn’t diminished whatsoever despite everything. I can confidently say, I wouldn’t still be here without my friends, you know who you are my loves. y’all keep my world turning and no matter how painful it can get sometimes, I wouldn’t have made it this far, I wouldn’t want to keep going, I wouldn’t owe my life to you guys, so thank you, more than words can express. I love you all to the moon and back. and then some.

so this has just been paragraphs upon paragraphs of me rambling so I really don’t know why you would’ve stayed and read the whole damn thing, but if you did, thank you, I feel a lot better getting things off my chest. and this isn’t to say I’m back completely, I can’t guarantee how active I’ll actually be, but I’ll do my best to spend some more time on here because I genuinely do miss this place and all the amazing people in it. I’m so sorry I’ve been gone so long, especially without any real explanation. I’m going to do my best to rediscover my love for things, I may have lost it for a time, but it’s not gone completely.

~

until next time, this has been “aly won’t shut up”. thank you and goodnight, I love y’all

[correresmidestinoweb-blog]

How to Write a Paper in One Night

Being in college is a chore. It takes a lot of work, carefully planned over the course of a week, or a month, or a quarter to make sure everything gets done with the full attention it deserves….are you laughing yet? No one puts in the time "required" to properly complete their college work. No, rather it's a rush at the end every week or two to complete a 10 page paper or learn 200 years of ancient Roman history overnight. You all do it, I did it. It's probably a better training skill than all the random stuff you "learn", because honestly in real life do you think you'll have the time to sit and schedule everything that pops into your life ahead of time. Yeah…thought not.

Anyways, for those of you just entering college from the snore inducing boredom and ease of High School, you're probably incredibly unprepared for the shear amount of work you'll have to pull out in the last second. I'm not saying it's easy just because you'll procrastinate. No, it's still hard. You really should take the time to do your work properly. You just won't, and so you need to learn how to procrastinate. It's a fine art, in which I feel I've become something of a Renoir.

First off, make sure you've got all your books and notes. If you don't go to class, which is entirely likely for those of the procrastinating ilk, make sure you get them from a classmate. Also, double check and make sure your professor doesn't have a website. They'll usually tell you, but more than once I've found a class's notes sitting in an archive online, especially now that 90% of them put everything they teach you into PowerPoint presentations and then just read it to you for an hour every day (yeah, lazy). It's usually only an extra 30 seconds out of their day to put the stuff online, and then when they receive twenty plus emails a week asking for the lecture notes, they only have to point you to the website. Well, some are a bit more facetious about their pupils not even bothering to come to class and don't openly offer said notes. However, for sick students and whatnot, they'll put them online to save paper and all it takes is a couple of quick Google searches or an email to a sick student and you've got your notes. Or…just ask a classmate. But then you're relying on them actually paying attention.

You should have your books too. If you never bothered buying them because you would just take notes or go to sparknotes, then you'd better go buy them, because BSing your way through a paper is going to take at least some resources. You can't magically ascertain the information from just being near smarter people. School would be much easier if that were the case.

So, sit down and start reading. Yup, you're going to be reading a lot the night before your work is due. But, this is better than doing all the assigned reading, because now you're searching for specific information. Instead of general learning (which would only stick around and clutter up your brain later) you're doing targeted research. An eighth the time, and none of that pesky remembering it. You should have your topic at least. If not, start surfing message boards and snag one from someone smarter than you. Don't ever take their work though. The last thing you need is to get kicked out of school for plagiarism. It's lazy and embarrassing. Steal concepts, but never words. And if you steal a concept from the middle of their work, cite them. Your university will not take kindly to cheating. You'll be so red taped and black listed, you might as well go and get an application at Jack in the Box, and trust me you don't want to work in fast food.

You can't procrastinate now. You've done that for three weeks, so I'm sorry (I know it hurts), but in terms of actual physical writing time, you'll need at least three hours to type your paper, which speaks nothing of writing it. And writing it involves finding quotations and that ever so pesky chore of thinking. Sit down, grab an energy drink and a bag of chips, close your door and put some headphones on. No television, and put your phone on the charger. Now open up the word processor and just start typing.

You probably think you have writer's block. But, writer's block is completely unrelated to having absolutely no idea what you're talking about. You're stuck with the second one right now, so just keep on reading on your topic and finding bits and pieces to put together.

The thing here that most people don't realize is that the standard writing process isn't in effect for you. You're not drafting, or brainstorming. That's the stuff you should have done two weeks ago. No, you're writing your paper, so make sure you've got your idea and just start writing and keep writing until you create a thesis somehow.

I usually start as broad as possible, and just start talking about something. If I'm writing about the Hero Quest of Pip in Great Expectations, I start by talking about Greek Mythology and the origin of the classical hero. Working my way down, I'll talk about the modern hero, then about the alterations made in the industrial age, and how Dickens rewrote archetypes for his comedy, and finally start talking about Pip. By now you should have a general idea about what you want to say. It might be general but you'll clarify in your next few paragraphs, and then come back and rewrite the first paragraph.

Paragraph one is almost always trash. Especially with this method, because your weary, angered professor after reading 30 of these lovely last minute essays will put a big red X through anything that doesn't have to do with your paper, and those first few grasping sentences are completely unrelated. But now you can start stealing from the text. Snag a quote and make a point. Snag another quote and make another point. If your thesis ends up as something incredibly broad and useless like "Pip's quest from anonymity and worthlessness into a position of wealth and power in London mirrors the classical hero quests, but works through Dickensian views of industrial England" you're still good. It sounds intelligent and has a lot of promise. Now just find specific quotes and build a narrative. Start at the beginning of his change, talk about his childhood, then go to when he changes, then compare to the Hero quests of old, then show how they're different.

Almost any paper, if written quickly can boil down to something simple and incredibly easy to write, a compare and contrast paper. You choose a prominent theme from the book you just "read". Find a source that mirrors or better yet foils this theme and compare the two. Don't just list how they're different though. That's high school stuff right there. You'll want to write exactly how the outside source changes what you think of your book. It sounds hard but jus think about it. You've got Great Expectations. It has a main character who goes on a kind of quest. Now you have a classic archetype of which there are hundreds of sources to draw on. You take a basic outline of this archetype and apply it to Pip's quest and how he fits it, and when he doesn't fit it. Now you finish your paper by describing why he doesn't fit it sometimes. Which gets you back to the Dickensian views part. You've just pretty much written a paper that says, Pip's quest is classic but different because Dickens was writing about a different time in human history. Incredibly simple; you're not telling anyone anything new, but three things will guarantee a good grade.

If you write well at all. You've got to be a halfway decent writer, which if you're in college I'll assume you are.

Professors love outside references. It shows initiative and research and makes it seem like you did extra work (which you didn't). I've written papers overnight without drafts and without ever reading them back to myself and received comments that I must have spent hours working on it. Not quite.

Confidence in your assertions. Say everything with absolute certainty, and back it up with a quote. Do this enough and even if you're wrong, it'll seem like you've made a decent point, which gets you brownie points.

Writing a paper is a tumultuous task but it's also a scalable task that can be made incredibly quick and easy if you know how. My second to last quarter of college, I wrote three order thesis  papers in two days; two of them 10 pages, and one 25 pages, and received a 3.8, and two 3.7s. It's a matter of confidence and above all else an unmitigated fearlessness to be incredibly lazy.

[hecallsmehischild]

Musings

Disjointed paragraphs about current mental workings.

My schedule this month is weird. Husband and I road-tripped from Houston to Santa Monica in 2 days, starting off the month here. I leapfrog from here to Houston to Tennessee from 15-17, spend about a week and a half prepping for a wedding wherein I am a bridesmaid, and leapfrogging back from Tennessee to Houston to LA from 26-29. Come the last day of May, Husband and I are road-tripping back to Houston for 2 days. My time zones are going to be so out of whack by June.

I’m here in Santa Monica, attempting to cram as much visiting and hanging out into roughly 2 weeks as I humanly can. I get a very strange feeling, as I do. Like I don’t belong anymore. I catch myself on the brink of asking whoever I’m hanging out with, “Am I different?” Just feels weird.

After praying with a trusted pastor, I think that I need to stop buying the self help books. NOT AT ALL because they’re bad, they’re very good, but the REASON I am buying them is a frenzied never-again and keep-this-from-happening-in-the-future fear, and as I look at it, my fear is just binding me tighter to the person I’m trying to release and move on from. The REASON that I went into a reading frenzy is why I need to stop and not pursue this path. But I will finish reading the ones I already purchased, which are Where To Draw the Line by Anne Katherine and The New Codependency by Melody Beatte. I’m going to stop building a masterlist, too. Obsessing about this is not going to help me get free like I want to be.

I am loving my coloring journal. Especially since I picked up gel and felt pens.

I’m also loving how much reading I’m doing. I used to read a lot more than I do now. When I came off meds (about six years back) I spent all my time writing or doing art and next to NONE of it reading. It was like a backlog of creative fever that I finally got to unleash. That took several years to burn through. I wonder if that’s part of why there’s been an overall slowdown for the last year or so. Not that I am losing any love for writing, but that the backlog is depleted and I’m settling into a slightly slower pace as I balance out writing, art, reading, and, well, life.

Back home I have two or three people to touch base with and try to establish hangouts, or bring baked goods to, or do art with. I think this is a good thing. I’m nervous as I attempt to move from good acquaintance to closer friend. I’m scared of getting burned again after I’ve sunk in a lot of time, effort, and love. I’m still going to try. I’m going to try and act differently from old patterns that have proven to be bad, at least where I’m able to. I still can’t make conversation out of nothing, and sometimes there’s just nothing. But I can choose to go out instead of hide or wait for things to just happen around me. I can make things happen. I can change. Stop compensating. Stop disclaimering fifty million times. Haul back on my tongue and do not allow myself to try and “fix” something I said that suddenly sounds stupid or insulting once it’s out of my mouth because THAT IS LIKELY JUST MY OWN BRAIN’S ASSESSMENT.

Getting near to the end of Hey Spacejerk. I want to take a shot at writing out the whole ending and then parceling it out a chapter at a time. Give the buffer system a try. Maybe with Laughter Lines also. So nervous about Laughter Lines right now. Feel like I may have messed up at a few key points that are going to make it hard or stilted to pull off what I want to pull off. Considering a few side chapters in Previously On Other Peoples’ Heartache to develop a couple points of view I feel I’ve glossed over. Totally frozen on Burlap & Silk, unsure if I’ve gaffed majorly by trying to follow my old plot too closely, which is ridiculously out of character for everyone involved so at two chapters in do I rewrite what I have or just bulldoze ahead?

But the thing about all that writing insecurity is... it’s MY problem. It’s my problem, and while it’s very good to have writing friends to lean on, I realize my intention about that has also been wrong. I have been deferring decisions and I have not allowed myself to trust my own judgment and in the end I have to take responsibility for my own story. If there’s a block, that’s one thing. Brainstorming sessions are fabulous. But If I’m too scared to make the decision about where the story goes and I’m very nearly asking “permission,” that’s not okay. I need to own it, no matter how freaked out I am. I need to own it even if my decision is BAD. There are things about the Resilience Saga that I’m pretty sure I would change if I had a do-over, but I owned it through to the end and grew in my craft along the way. I need to be able to do that with the fics I have open now. I want to grow in my craft, not regress. And part of that means I can’t defer my story decisions onto other people. Whether it’s a good decision or a bad decision, it will be my decision.

I definitely missed the beach. I may hate most things about SoCal, but the beach (and walking proximity to a variety of coffee shops) is something I do miss.

I cannot believe someone loved Hey Spacejerk enough to translate it into Russian. I’m still utterly blown away by this. I’m super curious what kinds of reviews will come in (totally stalking those postings with Google Translate at the ready). Galactic Dumbass is about the best thing ever and I cannot get over it.

Yeah my brain is turning a bit to mush now. Time to wrap up and sleep. Goodnight.

[gsmatthews95]

Road trip: a microcosm of travelling. A Reflection upon holidaying

So. So. Wait third time lucky, so I am now rewriting this piece almost two years later t than I originally intended. What? Yeah that’s right. When I was contributing to christyful’s blog when we were in Vietnam about 20 months ago my final piece, a magnificent creation if I say so myself, was supposed to be on the highs and lows of travelling (or holidaying if you’re me, a less glamorous term but one that I feel is more accurate to the experiences had when abroad). I wrote it upon the rooftop of the flip flop hostel in Hanoi in Vietnam, a cool hostel that was a mini party hostel, lots of fun. But yeah I woke up one day and decided I have the time and motivation to write this masterpiece that encapsulates the beauty of holidaying, and, in my eyes, outline just why it can be so addictive. It is not all about the immense sights, the once in a lifetime moments always. I’m going to put my slightly controversial opinion forward, this will not be solely about my time in Australia I’m going to pick through my various holidays to really try to emphasise my point. It is my opinion that it is the rollercoaster nature of holidaying that makes it something so addictive and fun and that forces you to grow as a person. It is the lows that make the highs just so high, every feeling you have is doubled in magnitude, meaning that the best moments are incomparable to your best moments at home and the worst can feel even worse than anything you’ve felt when being at home.

Disclaimer: this post will be nothing like the previous one, it will be longer and more in depth but I can’t vouch for the end result, but I reckon it’ll be better.

Disclaimer 2.0: sorry family if you haven’t heard any of these stories before, I didn’t want to worry you.

So, the lows, the downs, the parts of a holiday you regret and may wish didn’t happen, these I believe are completely imperative to your experience and to making you grateful, even thankful for the time you’ve had. You may think in your life. Actually no. You think in your life (or at least I do a lot) what do I regret doing/not doing, it’s only human to think like this however negative it may feel because you think how can I improve. We were even sat round the fire the other night and someone asked “what would you have done differently in your time in Australia or barossa?”. I do this more than most, call it my perfectionist tendencies (or attempted perfectionist at least) or just my self critical nature but I think it is necessary to think back over the good and the bad (mainly the bad) to self improve and to truly appreciate the greater and more impressive moments of your life, and more accurately for this piece, your holiday.

So I got rethinking about this idea when I was reminiscing about the road trip and how not every single moment was perfect and nice, of course it wasn’t WE WERE CAMPING. But still I will look back upon it and remember the good times and the amount we saw and the amount of fun we had. For this reason I see he road trip as a microcosm of holidaying in general. We will always look back upon these times with rose tinted lenses remembering the best and most emotive times, when really there is just as much time spent being unhappy or down (please don’t read this thinking I’m depressed or doing my own weird twist on 13 reasons why by the way. Also what a series, we’re rewatching season one and I’m addicted, bring on season two, but that’s hardly the point of this rant). What I mean by this is that, like on a 2.5 week road trip where you’re camping in free camp sites eating pasta pesto or noodles every day, not everything you do is a amazing and memorable and if you think of the trip as a percentage you’ll find a large portion, probably the majority we were tired, hot, cold, hungry, thirsty, annoyed at each other or just quiet. This is only natural though when you’re spending so much time together in the desert driving for so long. But when you are in this state you appreciate the immense natural formations and experiences even more. For example when we got to the Mataranka hot springs after five or six hours driving the car was dead as I was writing, Chloe was plucking her legs, and Matt was looking at WikiCamps (I know what a cool group of people) but as soon as we got there the stupor was broken and energy weighed through us as we all got ready, chatting, laughing and joking. We then proceeded to having a sick time. The point I am trying to get at here is that you can’t have the best time 24/7 and sometimes it takes some worse times to make you fully appreciate the good. I know, knowledge bomb. I’m now gonna take a little trip down memory lane in these next paragraphs.

Now picture this there’s an 18 year old kid, he’s on his first big trip away from home alone. He’s been gone now for four months and has had a bangin time. Done new things, met new people and he’s done it all alone. Big learning curve. There were a lot of ups and downs on my gap year: getting wrong buses, getting too drunk, being threatened by a druggy local to name just a few of the downs, while I don’t believe I need to really explain the better parts, to read of these go look at my other blog that I had when I was on the gap year. All of these memorable moments and incredible places and sights that I had never seen and certainly won’t see for another long time, especially with my already long and always growing list of future holidays, were captured on my nice little digital camera, actually I think it may have been dads (sorry dad). I had never had the chance to back them up with no access to a proper computer. Guess where this story is going, yes I was on a bus and fell asleep with my bag at my feet and when I woke up a few hours later, the camera was gone. Great. A couple of thousand photos maybe, gone. But this made me realise, what are photos really? Do I really need them? Should I really mourn their loss? No. A great lesson was learnt that day, photos are nice, good memories but in the end as long as you remember where you’ve been, don’t cry about losing them. It also meant the next few months were better as I took the bare minimum photos possible and had an infinitely better time of it. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of my lost camera I rose and soared away to better times, that metaphors sounded better in my head.

We move on. Now I’ll take a look at my 20 year old self in Honduras, a dangerous country where I was making the journey from the border to the city with the highest percentage of murders per capita. Ok. Should be fine. The day was long I’d started in Guatemala and was embarking upon a 7 part journey or so including 2 boats, 3 buses and a taxi, ah no it was a six part journey, got it. I had done the hardest part of this colossus of a voyage and was at the border, it was about 3pm, not too bad I think. I stride across the border looking for my bus I’d just jumped off to get my passport stamped and couldn’t see it. Where could they be? I doubled back and chatted to the conductor in my suspect Spanish. What I gauged wasn’t great, the bus terminated there, eek. But he said it was fine there was a bus to San Pedro just over the border. I headed his words and wandered aimlessly with great trepidation scared for my safety. I got to the buses. There were a few, bangin. I asked each where the were going. No. No. No. then I found my bus, my vessel to safety. When do you leave mate? The response, 2-3 hours. Hmm bit long was that would get me into the murder capital at around 8pm. No thanks. I was stuck. Wondering what to do. I had no choice. So I got talking to some old Honduran men, it turned out they were going to San Pedro with a pickup truck. I jumped at this. Can I come with you in the back? They said yes but they had some places to go first. I didn’t care I jumped in the back with a load of bananas and a Honduran man and we were off. Still scared but at least heading towards my goal, I chilled briefly. They stopped a number of times at tiny villages and I asked why, naturally. It transpired they were bible salesmen, yes please. Men of god. The weirdest, luckiest and probably most memorable experiences of my life. It came from one of the scariest moments of my life. And the sense of relief just compounded the memorability and joy of that trip.

Sorry for the ridiculous length of this piece, I’m getting quite into reminiscing. The last segment of this essay, Vietnam. Mine and Christians little adventure. Anyone who has met me since this trip two years ago will undoubtably know which experience I will describe now. Many of you will have seen the video. Or maybe have seen my dramatic demise in sport (read sport as quidditch and squash). Yes I am talking about the great motorbike crash of 2016. It was massive. I won’t describe the actual ordeal or else we will be hear for hours more than we will be already. Setting the scene though, we were on the Ho Chi Minh highway. 70km from the nearest town and 100 from the nearest hospital. I crashed... straight over the metal barrier. Bike screwed and knee, also screwed. I know poor vocabulary choice but I feel it’s an accurate word for both. We had a task ahead of us, made no easier by the ten Vietnamese who had crowed around me and were offering no help. My first moment of clarity was when I yelled to Christian to get the keys our of my bike, even though there was no way it was driving. With no real medical supplies we did our best, Christian (genius) cut two socks open and slid them over my knee like and tubey grip and gave me 8 painkillers (still not enough). My job, stand up and start to try and put any kind of weight on it. His next task sort out the bike, the battery had fallen out. Apart from that there was no major damage but half the bike looked like it was falling off. We had to drive the 70km with the day fading, as we’d had to wait for me to recover, while I could not use my right leg (and consequentially, the back brake). Christian gave me a kickstart as I could not and I drove off, one leg hanging out and he followed me. When stopping he had to catch me as I rolled in slowly and help me off (my hero). We were 10km away and the rain started, oh I forgot to mention my lights didn’t work. But though all this we made it. We got codine and I lay in bed. To date the proudest achievement of my life, and at the time ones of Christians too. To make it to the hostel under those circumstances was something else I won’t forget.

Sorry for rambling like mad, I’ve enjoyed writing this a lot. I went quite off point but this is a blog and I’m not being marked so I don’t really care. Basically holidaying is full of ups and downs and without the downs you not appreciate those ups.

I hope hope you’ve Enjoyed this little reflection.

G out

Xo

Unlucky one

Reflection

[rivaco]

Technology and I: From typewriters to messaging apps

Old to new technology: A world apart

Do you remember typewriters?

I certainly do. When I entered high school, I sat down with my counselor, Mr. Z, and mapped out my classes for the next four years. With only one elective, he insisted that I take typing; on a typewriter no less.

He asserted it would make homework go faster and would encourage me to think before I typed, as every word counted and couldn’t be changed without messy white-out.

I hated the class.

It took me up to an hour to complete a flawless paragraph. That was what was considered productive in 1990.

Enter word processors. What took an hour before, could be done in 20 minutes.

Mistakes could be made and erased quickly. Between that and the fax machine, technology had hit an all-new high and one that many of us couldn’t imagine would ever be topped.

Boy, were we wrong.

Email gained popularity during the last couple of years while I was in college. It was an exciting thing to see two or three emails a day.

My productivity rose dramatically. No longer was there a need to walk a mile each way to ask my professors a question.

A 90-minute trip became a 5-minute email.

Those were the days, because in the working world, email became something different. It went from being a productivity enhancer to, at times, a suck of time and resources.

With email becoming the primary method of business communication, the number of emails waiting to be read has increased dramatically.

According to McKinsey Global Institute, an average employee spends 13 hours a week reading and responding to email. This equates to 650 hours a year spent on completely reactive, low-value work. Doing simple math, that means that 28% of a work week is consumed with email — much of which is not relative.

As high as that number is, I really believe it low-balls the amount of time we spend on email.

I could, of course, add more studies and stats, but I don’t need a study to state the obvious.

Email not only creates a lot of noise (I get about 100 emails a day in my personal account) but sometimes can take awhile to get done.

I can take 15 minutes, for instance, to write a simple email, especially when talking to a co-worker, manager or CEO.

The email could have four lines in it, but everything must be perfect.

I write, read, edit, rewrite, make sure I’m absolutely clear, do another check…and then hit send.

For an important email, I’ll wait for the response, and should I not receive one — I’ll send out that all annoying “gentle reminder” email. Sometimes, an email contains a simple question but as an email has become a formal document, everything must be perfect.

As a worker and team member, you can be judged based on your emails.

Technology continues to evolve and we are slowly pulling out of both the noise and formality of email.

Thanks to the widespread adoption of texting, we have learned to communicate directly and quickly, which has led to the proliferation of communication and business-focused messaging applications.

These messaging and collaboration platforms have not only increased our productivity, but also spurred creativity in us.

The modern workplace is made up of collaborative teams.

It is a fact that collaboration and creativity rely on effective, direct, and fast communication among coworkers.

Messaging dusts off the formality of emails and alleviates the waiting game for answers and frankly, eliminates confusion.

It allows banter to happen and a stream of consciousness for brainstorming. You can have direct communication without picking up the phone or sending an email. I can read body-language via video, clarify a misunderstanding via questions, create a team or to-do list, and save a history of the conversation.

Effectively speaking, I can get more done in a shorter amount of time, with more creativity and a deeper understanding of what the task demands.

Although I can’t clock the time spent — this much I know is true:

I receive about 10 emails a day, which is down from 100 emails at my last job. Five are relevant and those emails take time to read and craft.

I can tell via video conference how our teams in Brazil and Russia are doing that day based on body language.

I can brainstorm and shoot out ideas without having to worry about whether my sentence structure is perfect.

And I am much more productive than I have been in the past.

Oh, and did I mention the 10 emails a day?

Typewriter be gone.

-Authored by Christina Andrea Sarracino, who secretly misses writing on a typewriter. Also handles PR for Flock.

Want to make your marketing team more productive?

#Workfact: Tuesday is a team’s most productive day

Technology and I: From typewriters to messaging apps was originally published in Flock Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

[deathtoclones]

Hi Emma ^^ How has work been and do you have any plans for Seollal? ^^There’s this thought I have that I kinda wanted your take on if it’s alright? Have you ever been in phases where you are having good weeks and suddenly you feel like you’re in a slump? How did you get out if it? I have a few things bothering me. I finished a huge piece of work this week and suddenly feel a complete lack of motivation to continue with my other big project. Interestingly, I’ve sort of also lost the momentum(1/5)

in terms of my personal “projects”– journaling,studying for driving theory, searching for jobs and trying up to take up manycourses quickly so I don’t feel like a “fraud” when I apply for data analystjobs. I’ve also looked at last year’s finances and realised that I don’t saveas much (ard 36% of my pay) as I want to though I earn quite abit. I don’t evenspend much but a lot of money goes back to my parents (monthly allowance) andinsurance in particular =/ (2/5)

I feel depressed just thinking about it all.Yesterday I just signed up for a private life coaching thing for 6 sessionsthat adds up to about 750 bucks and I’m like…I do know I need some guidance toshift my negative thinking and lots of other issues I have, but 750 feels likea lot. Esp after looking at how little I save. And I still have to budget forvacations =/ (3/5)

To add to all that, I used to have “something”going on with this guy at work but it has completely just fallen off. Just likethat. I don’t see him around often anymore, not sure if he’s busy and all but.A part of me feels “rejected” in a sense. Like I wasn’t interesting enough forhim to pursue things further/I wasn’t good enough for him to behave moreconsistently and clearly with me. Doesn’t help that I get anxious whenever Iwalk around office for fear of (4/5)

bumping into him or his colleagues – who don’tspeak to me but just stare at me. Topping it all off, I just received newsyesterday that my grandma has malignant cancer and it’s kinda made the entirefamily really downcast. Sorry to unload so much on you but I just feel veryoverwhelmed and demotivated and I guess I’ve been bottling this up for sometime. Have you been through something like that before? I’m gonna go listen toa nice podcast right now to calm myself down (5/5)

Hey! First of all, don’t even apologize. It’stotally fine and I often find that one of the best ways for me to deal withthings is to just talk about them and get them out of my head. So definitelynot a problem and I don’t mind trying to help if I can. ^_^ I don’t haveeverything figured out and all, but if my experiences or opinions can help,then I don’t mind sharing.

I definitely have my fair share of slumps,sometimes right after I finish a big project and sometimes right in the middleof one. Usually because I get so overwhelmed by things (whether it’s theproject or whatever is going on in life at the time) that my brain just shutsdown and it’s hard to get back on track. It’s something that I’m sure a lot ofpeople go through, and it can be especially frustrating when you know you havestuff you need to get done but your brain is just like, “Nope. Uh-uh. Nothappening today.”

For me, honestly, I just have to give myself abit of time to not do anything. It’s hard, because I’m definitely someone whoinstantly starts feeling like a failure if I’m not working on something all thetime. But, I just have to remind myself that sometimes it’s okay to check-outfor a bit. You can’t always force yourself out of a slump or to feel happier or less depressed. Sometimes you have to ride it out. So, maybe instead of going home and working on an article, I just have anight where I veg out on the couch and watch whatever TV show I’m into at thetime or a movie. Or instead of working on stuff in between editing at work, I open up arandom story I’m writing or have written and read through it or add or edit. (Confession Time - My secret, go-to happy place is old fanfiction that I’ve written that will never see the light of day... I’ll go write a few paragraphs or rewrite something or just read it whenever I’m overwhelmed or feeling down and it actually kind of helps cheer me up.) Orbrowse through articles or Tumblr. Obviously, if there is something urgent, I’llforce myself to power through and get it done. But sometimes it’s good to just take a break.And usually after a bit the motivation will come back. Maybe I get inspired byan article or book I read, or a random YouTube documentary that I watch. Or Iget an interview that I had been trying for. That’s typically what works forme, though. I’m not sure how it is with others.

Money stuff, oh yes, have I been there. Upuntil recently I have been absolutely horrible with saving (as in, I basically hadno savings until last year). I was always good about making sure I saved up tobuy plane tickets to go home and such, but everything else. Just horrible. Iwould get so caught up in going out and enjoying time with my friends or takingcabs to work that I’d pretty much spend most or all of my paycheck every month.(Don’t even get me started on credit cards… >.

Ultimately, I think that if it’s something thatwill help you out in the long run, then it’s a good investment. With my Koreanclasses, I’ve had friends tell me that I pay too much and they could find me anothertutor for cheaper, but I tell them no thanks. Maybe it would cut my fees inhalf, but I’ve been using my tutor for three years now. She’s good, she knowsthe best ways to work with me and I am progressing. It’s worth paying a little bit more. (Though honestly, I think 50,000 won/hr - 270,000 won/mth is a fair price.)

With the guy, I hate feeling like that. Like Idid something or wasn’t good enough. But I think a good way to try and thinkabout it – at least for me - is that for whatever reason, it didn’t work outbecause it’s just wasn’t right for you or him. It’s not so much anyone didanything right or wrong or that either wasn’t good enough, it just wasn’t theright person or the right time. Or both. It wasn’t a good match. I’ve been trying tolook at my last few “almost relationships” over the past couple of years withthat kind of mind frame and it’s helped. Sometimes it’s a matter of just notbeing the right thing for you or him. And sometimes it’s because he’s asshole. It’skind of hard to really comment on since I don’t know the full story, but Isuppose in my experiences, I’ve been talking to guys and things were neverquite serious enough that they needed a “talk” to end them – they just kind ofended. Either he or I or both of us were just too busy to make anything of it.And ultimately, we weren’t really interested in each other enough to makesomething of it. So we moved on. Other times, we were far enough into thingsthat a sort of talk ending things was needed, but instead they just faded out.So definitely an asshole move in that situation.

And what the hell is with the co-workersstaring? Bleh, every office I’ve ever worked in has been so gossipy and I’vehated it. I’d probably end up glaring back or something, haha! Just ignorethem, if you can.  

I’m so, so sorry to hear about yourgrandmother. Cancer is super scary and it sucks. I went through it with Mom andGrams and it is… yea. I can’t even fully articulate how much I hate cancer. Andeven though I’ve been through it in my family, I still never really know whatto say when a friend or someone I know tells me that their mom or dad orgrandparent was just diagnosed. Hang it there. It’ll be rough for you and yourfamily. But, I guess just let your grandmother know that you’re there for her. She’llneed the whole family to support her through this fight. ^_^

I hope that helps. I totally understand how you’refeeling right now, but just hang in there. It does eventually get better. Andfor the holiday I will be resting. I only get Friday and Saturday off, but I’mworking late shift on Sunday and Monday, so in a way it still kind of feelslike getting a break since I get to sleep in. Tomorrow I’m filming twointerviews for my YouTube project and then going home and doing nothing but layon the couch and watching “Outlander” (just started season 2 last night). I’vebeen going non-stop the last two weeks and really just want a nice relaxingweekend at home, haha! This week has been especially hard since I’ve been upuntil 1 or 2 a.m. almost every night for one reason or another and I just wantto sleep. We’re hoping that we’ll get to leave at 4 p.m. today, so I’m happy toget out, go home and take a nap before I have to go to another magazine hoesikat 7 p.m. Or, I don’t know, I might just back out since I have to get up earlytomorrow to get ready for the shoot.

Hope you have a happy new year!!