#Association of image consulting

[aiciglobal]

Image consultants, Image consulting, AICI Global

The Association of Image Consultants International (AICI) is the leading and largest professional association of personal and corporate image consultants worldwide. A non-profit organization, AICI is dedicated to advancing the level of professionalism and enhancing the recognition of image consultants.

Our members counsel both individual and corporate clients on appearance, behavior, communication skills, etiquette, international protocol, and soft skills. As experts in image consulting, our members guide clients to achieve their specific goals with authenticity, credibility, and confidence. Supporting the development of the Image Consulting Profession, AICI brings together individuals and companies who seek image consulting services with the appropriate expert.

AICI enhances industry standards through a rigorous, three-tiered certification program and holds the world’s premier annual image consulting conference. AICI provides continuing education classes for image consultants. AICI acts as the voice of the image consulting profession and the media’s definitive source for experts on current issues and events that may affect the image profession.

To know more visit Our website: www.aici.org

[genelvavirtualstudio-blog]

Affaire Valsero vs l'International Camerounais et Attaquant de l'OM Faris Moumbagna : La Véritable Raison du Pourquoi

Dans le monde complexe du sport et de la musique, les rencontres inattendues peuvent parfois mener à des controverses inattendues. Récemment, une polémique entre l’attaquant de l’Olympique de Marseille, Faris Moumbagna, et l’artiste engagé camerounais Valsero, a secoué les médias sociaux et suscité des débats passionnés au sein de la communauté camerounaise. Tout a commencé lorsque Valsero a…

[the-returnofartemis]

THE TENTH HOUSE: ANSWERING THE CALL TO WEALTH

the 10th house (10H) is arguably one of the most important houses in astrology, closely tied to your midheaven (MC), which represents your public image, reputation, and the way you are recognized in the world. it symbolizes your legacy, the energy others associate with you, and the role you naturally embody in society. however, understanding your career path goes beyond than just identifying the sign in your 10th house. to gain a deeper insight, you should also analyze its planetary ruler and the house it occupies, as these factors will give you a better idea about the careers that align with your natural strengths.

below is a guide shared by astrokit, along with some additional insights i’ve added, highlighting careers based on planetary placements in the 10th house, as well as the house placements of its planetary ruler, to help you align with your destined career path!

➶ ➴ if you follow vedic astrology, I recommend analyzing the 10H in the navamsha (D9) and dashamsha (D10) charts alongside the 10H in the rashi (D1) chart. combining insights from all three, along with the nakshatra ruler of the 10H will give a more well-rounded understanding of the career best suited for you.

CAREERS BY PLANETS IN THE 10H

sun: leadership, authority, government, politician, fame, boss, CEO

moon: women, hospitality, nursing, children, restaurants, commerce, mass media, public relations, travel

mercury: media, writer, communications, teacher, editor, author, transportation, craftsmanship, marketing

venus: arts, music, beauty, luxury, jeweler, entertainment, tourism, hotel management, design, graphics, fashion

mars: fitness, sports, entrepreneur, law enforcement, surgeon, doctor, engineer, military, sculptor, carpenter, cook

jupiter: law, teaching, travel, advertising, education, charity

saturn: organizations, metal industry, agriculture, service, labor, construction

north node (rahu): internet, entertainment, pharmaceuticals, research, engineer, innovation, electricity, sales, photography

south node (ketu): religion, spirituality, metaphysics, renunciation, research, charity, astrology, diviniation

uranus: science, electronics, internet, astrology, innovation, inventions, technology, crypto

pluto: research, insurance, surveillance, risk-management, death, investigator

neptune: photographer, movies, entertainment, drugs, poetry, music, liquids, alcohol

CAREERS BY THE 10H RULING PLANET THROUGH THE HOUSES

1H: self-employment, brand ambassador, entrepreneur

2H: banking, finance, investments, assets, consulting, teaching, writing, restaurants, speaking, vocals, dentistry, property, family legacy

3H: communication, marketing, social media, sales, writing, publishing, advertising, blogging, media, authorship, teaching (early education)

4H: asset management, real estate, vehicles, water, family, women, hospitality

5H: movies, films, glamour, stockbroker, education, authority, fame, children, romance, dating, hobbies

6H: health, service, law, labor, food, waiters, doctors, crime, justice, litigation

7H: law, business, commerce, exchange, consulting, public relations, marriage, therapist, designer, interior design, wedding industry, event planning, counselors

8H: insurance, social work, psychology, sex industry, occult, security, espionage, surveillance, taxes, death industry, divorce, research

9H: teaching (university), travel industry, hospitality, law, religion, foreign exchange, wedding industry, event planning

10H: leadership, government, politics, manager, CEO, presidency, public figure

11H: finance, networking, social media, acting, entertainment industry, parties/event planning

12H: charity, social work, hospitals, prisons, travel, foreign lands, mental health industry, artist, musician, import/export

if you’ve made it this far, i hope you enjoyed this little corner of my world. thank you for reading and please feel free to share your thoughts! always remember to love yourself as if it’s your greatest romance.

the pictures featured in this post are from pinterest.

until next time,

artemis x

[botanicalsword]

Venus ✧ how you pursue love and beauty ♡⁀➷

Where Venus is located, that house is the area where we easily find satisfaction and happiness, a field where the energy of love and beauty manifests.

☽✧. ❦ • ✧• .✧ ✞

♡ Venus in the 1st House

This brings a beautiful appearance and a gentle personality to the Houser - They are skilled at dressing themselves and have good taste and temperament. They generally make a good first impression. Even if their genetics are not strong, they have great fashion and makeup skills.

♡ Venus in the 2nd House

Houser with this placement have a pursuit of a good life, and their way of earning money is related to art or luxury goods. They are willing to spend money to improve their quality of life as long as they are not severely afflicted by Saturn. Usually, they can easily earn money, and their quality of life is quite high. However, if they are heavily afflicted by Saturn, they may easily become materialistic or even take loans to consume luxury items.

♡ Venus in the 3rd House

People with this placement are interested in art or emotional intelligence. Generally, their communication style is pleasant and gives people a refreshing feeling. They have a great sense of aesthetics and tend to be specialist in the field of beauty. It is very comfortable talking with them without much pressure.

♡ Venus in the 4th House

This position indicates a strong concern for the home environment. They have high requirements for comfortable living and enjoy spending money on decoration and arranging their living environment. In childhood, they often come from families with love or artistic heritage tendencies.

♡ Venus in the 5th House

People with this placement have a strong sense of love and know how to indulge in romance and pleasure. They seek to experience and appreciate the beautiful things in life, such as art and music. They often have a good relationship with children as well. The 5th house represents children and Venus, a planet associated with femininity.

♡ Venus in the 6th House

In this position, the work atmosphere is usually good, or the work is related to art and beauty. Additionally, this is the house of health. Venus placed here can easily lead to problems due to unhealthy or indulgent habits. Venus is not a planet of discipline but rather seeks beauty, so it is natural to indulge in things like drinking milk tea occasionally - attention should be paid regarding healthcare.

♡ Venus in the 7th House

This position is quite favorable. The native understands interpersonal relationships well and has high emotional intelligence. They are particularly good at making themselves comfortable through one-on-one relationships, whether it is finding a partner or a business collaborator who can make their life better. However, they should be cautious not to develop a mindset of pleasing or appeasing others too much, nor should they become overly dependent or immersed in relationships.

♡ Venus in the 8th House

This position is beneficial for financial investments. They are adept at utilizing collective resources and have a keen sense. They often have good luck in inheritance and are interested in mysterious matters. They tend to have a deeper understanding of things.

♡ Venus in the 9th House

This is a sign of having exotic love affairs. People with Venus in 9th House are easily attracted to people from different cultural backgrounds and are likely to encounter romance and adventure during foreign or long-distance travels. They also enjoy different cultures and artistic topics. They are experts in discussing popular brands from abroad.

♡ Venus in the 10th House

They are highly concerned about their public image. They channel the energy of love and beauty into their careers and spread love and beauty to the public. They tend to work in industries, such as wedding photography, beauty salons, cosmetic procedures, makeup artistry, and image consulting, all of which are fields dedicated to spreading beauty.

♡ Venus in the 11th House

This benefits forming collaborations with like-minded people. People with Venus in the 11th house are often popular in groups, and they are skilled at finding common ground and creating a harmonious atmosphere. They tend to have many friends and acquaintances.

♡ Venus in the 12th House

This is a hidden placement, it often indicates the hidden traits of Venus. On one hand, people with this placement tend to be reserved in matters of the heart, which may lead to unrequited love or similar experiences. This can be used for understanding, but not for definitive judgments. Additionally, people with this placement have a good sense of art and often possess a unique charm.

☽✧. ❦ • ✧• .✧ ✞

>> Masterlist | explicit contents

[transmutationisms]

can u elaborate on posture being a lie

As Beth Linker explains in her book “Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America” (Princeton), a long history of anxiety about the proximity between human and bestial nature has played out in this area of social science. Linker, a historian of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that at the onset of the twentieth century the United States became gripped by what she characterizes as a poor-posture epidemic: a widespread social contagion of slumping that could, it was feared, have deleterious effects not just upon individual health but also upon the body politic. Sitting up straight would help remedy all kinds of failings, physical and moral [...] she sees the “past and present worries concerning posture as part of an enduring concern about so-called ‘diseases of civilization’ ”—grounded in a mythology of human ancestry that posits the hunter-gatherer as an ideal from which we have fallen.

[...]

In America at the turn of the twentieth century, anxieties about posture inevitably collided with anxieties not just about class but also about race. Stooping was associated with poverty and with manual, industrialized labor—the conditions of working-class immigrants from European countries who, in their physical debasement, were positioned well below the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment. Linker argues that, in this environment, “posture served as a marker of social status similar to skin color.” At the same time, populations that had been colonized and enslaved were held up as posture paradigms for the élite to emulate: the American Posture League rewarded successful students with congratulatory pins that featured an image of an extremely upright Lenape man. The head-carrying customs associated with African women were also adopted as training exercises for white girls of privilege, although Linker notes that Bancroft and her peers recommended that young ladies learn to balance not baskets and basins, which signified functionality, but piles of flat, slippery books, markers of their own access to leisure and education. For Black Americans, posture was even more fraught: despite the admiration granted to the posture of African women bearing loads atop their heads, community leaders like Dr. Algernon Jackson, who helped establish the National Negro Health Movement, criticized those Black youth who “too often slump along, stoop-shouldered and walk with a careless, lazy sort of dragging gait.” If slouching among privileged white Americans could indicate an enviable carelessness, it was seen as proof of indolence when adopted by the disadvantaged.

This being America, posture panic was swiftly commercialized, with a range of products marketed to appeal to the eighty per cent of the population whose carriage had been deemed inadequate by posture surveys. The footwear industry drafted orthopedic surgeons to consult on the design of shoes that would lessen foot and back pain without the stigma of corrective footwear: one brand, Trupedic, advertised itself as “a real anatomical shoe without the freak-show look.” The indefatigable Jessie Bancroft trained her sights on children’s clothing, endorsing a company that created a “Right-Posture” jacket, whose trim cut across the upper shoulders gave its schoolboy wearer little choice but to throw his shoulders back like Jordan Baker. Bancroft’s American Posture League endorsed girdles and corsets for women; similar garments were also adopted by men, who, by the early nineteen-fifties, were purchasing abdominal “bracers” by the millions.

It was in this era that what eventually proved to be the most contentious form of posture policing reached its height, when students entering college were required to submit to mandatory posture examinations, including the taking of nude or semi-nude photographs. For decades, incoming students had been evaluated for conditions such as scoliosis by means of a medical exam, which came to incorporate photography to create a visual record. Linker writes that for many male students, particularly those who had military training, undressing for the camera was no biggie. For female students, it was often a more disquieting undertaking. Sylvia Plath, who endured it in 1950, drew upon the experience in “The Bell Jar,” whose protagonist, Esther Greenwood, discovers that undressing for her boyfriend is as uncomfortably exposing as “knowing . . . that a picture of you stark naked, both full view and side view, is going into the college gym files.” The practice of taking posture photographs was gradually abandoned by colleges, thanks in part to the rise of the women’s movement, which gave coeds a new language with which to express their discomfort. It might have been largely forgotten were it not for a 1995 article in the Times Magazine, which raised the alarming possibility that there still existed stashes of nude photographs of famous former students of the Ivy League and the Seven Sisters, such as George H. W. Bush, Bob Woodward, Meryl Streep, and Hillary Clinton. Many of the photographs in question were taken and held not by the institutions themselves but by the mid-century psychologist William Herbert Sheldon. Sheldon was best known for his later discredited theories of somatotypes, whereby he attributed personality characteristics to individuals based on whether their build was ectomorphic, endomorphic, or mesomorphic.

[...]

Today, the descendants of Jessie Bancroft are figures like Esther Gokhale, a Bay Area acupuncturist and the creator of the Gokhale Method, who teaches “primal posture” courses to tech executives and whose recommendations are consonant with other fitness trends, such as barefoot running and “paleo” eating, that romanticize an ancestral past as a remedy for the ills of the present. The compulsory mass surveillance that ended when universities ceased the practice of posture photography has been replaced by voluntary individual surveillance, with the likes of Rafi the giraffe and the Nekoze cat monitoring a user’s vulnerability to “tech neck,” a newly named complaint brought on by excessive use of the kind of devices profitably developed by those paleo-eating, barefoot-running, yoga-practicing executives. Meanwhile, Linker reports, paleoanthropologists quietly working in places other than TikTok have begun to revise the popular idea that our ancient ancestors did not get aches and pains in their backs. Analysis of fossilized spines has revealed degenerative changes suggesting that “the first upright hominids to roam the earth likely experienced back pain, or would have been predisposed to such a condition if they had lived long enough.” Slouching, far from being a disease of civilization, then, seems to be something we’ve been prone to for as long as we have stood on our own two feet.

[mathildeaquisexta]

How to request a document reproduction on the French National Archives website (without paying anything)?

Setting the scene: I'd like to obtain a digital version of this file, because online, only a brief unhelpful description is shown and the visual is not available.

If you don't know how to navigate through the website to get to the archive you want, I've explained in this post how to search for a specific item in the French National Archives' virtual reading room. You really should read it before this post, because there are many details I won't go into again.

You're ready? Okay, let's get into it.

Once again, you don't go to the official website, but to the virtual reading room. This is systematically the place to go to search for documents and leaf through inventories. You can access it here.

In real life, if you go to the Paris or Saint-Denis sites and ask to consult the archives, you'll be required to register by filling in a form with your information (not much personal details, they often just want to know if you're here for personal stuff like genealogy, or if you're studying documents for university-related works), and you'll be given a card.

Here, online, it's basically the same thing. You'll need to create an account. Don't worry, it's completely free. Be careful to go to the Espace personnel" (personal account) and not the "Accès sécurisé" (secured access).

Once you have clicked, the website will inform you that creating an account will give you access to the following options:

Order or reserve a document

Request document reproductions

Request search assistance

Save your search results

So really, I insist, this is a step you shouldn't neglect. And of course, this also works if you live in a different country!

Okay now, let's get back to our document.

I'm not going to explain a second time what a class mark is and how to find it, once again I refer you to my other post which explains everything in detail. Just know that the item that interests me has F/7/6712 as its class mark.

There's a lot of information. Just know that the first thing to do is to set aside your document in what we call the “panier” (the cart). Yep, the shopping cart, just as if you were buying clothes on a website. There is also an option to “reserve” the document, but this implies that the archivists will put aside the physical version of the document and wait for you to come and consult it directly in Paris or Saint-Denis. Yeah, no. Let's save ourselves a shit ton of money, all of us are way too poor for this.

This is what the cart looks like (image below ↓). This is where you will store all the class marks that interest you, but which you can't or don't want to have reproduced immediately, so you can easily find them later. As you can see, I've already put aside a few. You need to look at the access conditions right away to check whether you can make your request or not. If you look carefully, you'll see that some of the Carnot family archives I wanted to obtain are blocked because they're in such poor condition that the archivists don't want to risk damaging them further by scanning or even opening them.

However, for the document I want to get today (the last one on the list), there's nothing written in this section, which means that everything is fine and I can proceed.

So we click on "Demander une reproduction" (ask for a reproduction) :

In this space, you need to be as specific as possible about what you want. For example, if the class mark is linked to a file with... let's say 600 items (and this often happens), you specify that you only need the documents associated with the numbers 4, 96 and 546, so that the archivist doesn't have to scan 600 documents one by one for nothing and cry all day.

Then here, you specify why you want this document and what you're going to use it for (for me, this will be personal and private use because this specific research of mine isn't related to work or university, but you can see the “professional use” option also exists).

And this is where you need to listen to me very carefully, because in the price list for document reproductions, there's only one free option, and that's the jpeg or pdf scan. Trust me, I systematically ask for this option, and the scans are always of excellent quality. Currently I got +1000 Fouché-related documents without paying anything and without needing to move from my couch.

Of course, the prices aren't exponential, in fact they're quite reasonable (for example, if you want a paper photocopy sent by regular mail, it'll cost you between 15 and 30 eurocents. That's fine for a single sheet, but if, like me, you need files with more than 300 pages, it quickly becomes a problem).

And finally, you submit your request and you wait for 3 to 6 months.

They will most likely send you an email with a password-protected link they'll give you, to a site where you can send very large files (they often use WeTransfer), and you'll have a limited time to open it so be careful to use an email adress you check regularly when you create your account.

And you have your document. Good job <3

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Reference: Colour Vitamins

11 key ‘colour vitamins’ related to a range of positive (+) and negative (–) attributes.

RED

+ up-beat, confident, assertive, exciting – aggressive, domineering, bossy, threatening

PINK

+ feminine, gentle, accessible, non-threatening – pathetic, unimportant, safe, under-confident

BLUE

+ peaceful, trustworthy, constant, orderly – ‘holier than thou’, tiresome, predictable, conservative

BROWN

+ earthy, homely, gregarious – safe, boring, unsophisticated

YELLOW

+ cheerful, hopeful, active, uninhibited – impulsive, tiresome, whirlwind, volatile

GREEN

+ self-reliant, tenacious, nurturing, dependable – boring, stubborn, riskaverse, predictable

ORANGE

+ vital, funny, enthusiastic, sociable, uninhibited – superficial, common, faddist, giddy

VIOLET

+ imaginative, sensitive, intuitive, unusual, unselfish – weird, impractical, immature, superior

GREY

+ respectable, neutral, balanced – non-committal, deceptive, uncertain, safe

BLACK

+ formal, sophisticated, mysterious, strong – mournful, aloof, negative, lifeless

WHITE

+ pure, clean, fresh, futuristic – clinical, ‘colourless’, cold, neutral

The symbolic or psychological associations of colours have a long history.

In the 12th century, a colour sequence for the liturgical year in the Roman Catholic Church was outlined by Pope Innocent III, and continues to be used today. Examples:

Red vestments are used at Pentecost or for the feasts of martyrs, the colour representing tongues of fire and the shedding of blood;

black vestments are the colour of mourning;

violet vestments represent the mitigation of black, in Advent and Lent; and

green is the ‘neutral’ colour, used ‘in ordinary time’, when there is no special period or feast-day being celebrated.

These and certain other colours (notably white, blue, gold, and rose) are also often used symbolically in many medieval religious paintings.

In modern times:

The psychological associations of colours, and thus the connotations of colour vocabulary, continue to be exploited in a wide range of contexts, such as in the description of paint shades, advertising language, and techniques of self-imaging.

The Color Me Beautiful system is a good example within the last category.

This consultancy was founded by Carole Jackson in the USA in 1974, and now has branches in many parts of the world. Its aim is to help women discover their natural beauty through colour, using the metaphor of the four seasons.

In much the same way as each season presents a distinct array of colours, a person’s colouring is said to be in harmony with one of these palettes, and advice is given about how to enhance these natural colours, and about how to choose additional colours (of make-up and clothing) (M. Spillane, 1991).

Source ⚜ More: On Colours ⚜ Colour Symbolisms ⚜ "Magical Uses" of Colours Writing Notes & References ⚜ On Symbolism

[afireintheflame]

POV: Missing your LaDs guy part 3

This is the final installment of my scent based/clothing fics this time for Caleb and Xavier

Pairing: Caleb x Reader Xavier x Reader

TW: No major ones that I can think of possibly thinking someone has passed/gone missing

Mentions of Xavier’s 5 star card Inflorescence Imprints

Xavier ✨⭐️🌌🗡️

Xavier never liked making you wait on him—but in your line of work, sometimes it was inevitable. The two of you were often paired on assignments, whether it was fighting Wanderers in the No Hunt zones or something lighter, like consulting on a film set for the Association’s PR team. You made a good team—he with his quiet strength and dry wit, you with your sharp instincts and steady focus.

But every now and then, Xavier was called away on special missions. Classified. Silent. Unreachable. He could be gone for days, sometimes weeks. This was one of those times.

The apartment felt too quiet without him. Even with his naturally sleepy nature, Xavier always added a certain softness to the space. The gentle rise and fall of his breathing, the occasional turn of a page as he read deep into the night—it was the kind of quiet that made you feel safe.

Now the bed just felt empty.

You shuffled out of it, restless and unable to sleep, drawn by a need for something grounding. Your feet took you to his closet, familiar in the half-light. Without thinking, you reached for his favorite white hoodie—the one that had seen too many washes and too many late nights. The fabric was soft as you pulled it over your head, sleeves slightly frayed, and the scent hit you all at once.

Fresh laundry. The clean green of forest trails. And something warm and uniquely him.

The hoodie was a poor replacement for the man you loved, but tonight, it would have to do. It wrapped around you like a memory. You hugged yourself and whispered into the silence, “I miss my star.”

You wandered through the apartment, letting your fingers drift along the edges of counters and doorframes. Then something caught your eye—half-tucked between the cluttered shelves, nestled beside a stack of his books.

A photograph.

You stepped closer and carefully pulled it free.

The image made you smile instantly. It was from the forest trip—Xavier’s surprise getaway. He’d claimed he found it by accident in some travel magazine, but the glint in his eyes told you he’d planned it down to the last detail.

You remembered the bed and breakfast tucked against the hillside, the cheerful receptionist who greeted you with stories of hidden forest trails and a sheep pasture not far from town.

“We’ll head to the forest tomorrow—it’s better in the morning light,” Xavier had said, sunlight catching in his blue eyes, softening them into something you could drown in.

You hadn’t even hesitated. “I want to pet the sheep!”

Your excitement had sent you skipping toward the pasture like a child, and Xavier had followed not far behind, laughing under his breath, camera in hand, probably already framing the shot that would now sit between your fingers.

You brushed your thumb gently over the photo.

For a moment, it was like he was still there.

You smiled down at the photo, and the memory unfolded in vivid color behind your eyes.

The pasture had stretched out under a golden afternoon sun, dotted with woolly shapes moving slowly through tall grass. The sheep were gentle, curious creatures, their coats warm and soft beneath your fingers. You'd been completely absorbed in the moment, crouched low to coo at a lamb, when you heard a startled yelp behind you.

Spinning around, you saw Xavier flat on his back in the grass, a blur of white and brown fur bouncing excitedly on top of him. The sheepdog—young, fast, and apparently in love with your partner—had tackled him like it was born for the job.

You couldn’t help yourself. You’d pulled out your phone and hit record, catching the moment Xavier tried, and utterly failed, to reclaim his dignity as the dog bathed his face in wet, enthusiastic kisses.

“Stop laughing and help me!” he’d groaned, arms flailing as you doubled over in the grass.

“You’re bonding!” you’d called back, barely able to hold the camera steady.

Later, when the dog had finally been coaxed away with a treat and Xavier was wiping grass out of his hair, he got his revenge by pulling out his film camera. He spent the next half hour capturing you—soft smiles, messy hair, sunlight turning your eyes to gold as you sat beneath a blossoming tree.

You remembered asking, voice shy beneath the quiet: “Can the last few be of us together?”

He’d looked up from the viewfinder, something gentle flickering across his face. “Of course.”

He’d set the camera on a nearby stump, used the timer, and pulled you close, his arm around your waist, his cheek brushing yours. You remembered how warm he’d felt. How still the world seemed for those few stolen seconds.

And now here you were, standing in your empty apartment, wrapped in his hoodie and holding a frozen moment from that perfect day.

You pressed the photo to your chest and closed your eyes.

“Come home to me soon, Xavier,” you whispered.

You lingered in the memory until the ache in your chest softened into something bittersweet. The photo, still warm from your hand, stayed pressed against your heart as you curled up on the couch. Wrapped in his hoodie, surrounded by the faint scent of him, you finally let your eyes drift shut.

Sleep came slowly, like sinking into a dream you didn’t want to end.

You didn’t hear the door open.

Didn’t see the silhouette that paused just inside the threshold, breath catching at the sight of you.

Xavier stepped into the room with quiet, deliberate care. His boots were worn, his shoulders heavy with exhaustion, his eyes rimmed with the telltale shadow of days spent without sleep. But the moment he saw you—curled up in his old hoodie, holding that photo like a precious talisman—his entire body softened.

He set down his gear with barely a sound.

Crossed the room with ghostlike steps.

For a long moment, he just stood there, looking at you. He took in every detail—the curve of your lashes, the way your hand cradled the photograph, the gentle rise and fall of your breath. His hoodie was too big on you, the sleeves covering your hands, but you looked so peaceful it made his chest ache.

Gently, he knelt beside the couch. Brushed a few strands of hair from your face.

He smiled, tired and full of something deeper.

“You waited for me,” he murmured softly, not expecting a reply.

And then, careful not to wake you, Xavier eased his arms under you. You stirred faintly but didn’t wake as he lifted you, holding you close against him like something sacred.

He carried you to the bed, the scent of you grounding him more than anything else could. As he lowered you onto the mattress, you shifted slightly in your sleep, sighing a quiet word.

“…Xavier…”

He froze, watching you.

Then, just as gently, he lay beside you, one arm slipping around your waist. You turned instinctively into the warmth, the photo now resting between you on the sheets.

Finally, finally, he closed his eyes.

Home.

You shifted closer in your sleep, drawn instinctively to his warmth. Xavier held you a little tighter, his cheek resting against your hair, the steady rhythm of your breathing lulling him into the first real rest he’d had in weeks.

Outside, the city slept.

Inside, in the quiet of shared space and old memories, the two of you were finally whole again—tangled together beneath the blankets, the photo a silent witness to everything you'd waited for.

No words were needed.

Just this.

Just you and him, wrapped in each other, safe for one more night.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Caleb 🦾🍽️🍎🏅

You were used to Caleb being away for long missions, but it still never made saying goodbye any easier. The scent of asiatic apples was always bittersweet for you, it was the scent of hard goodbyes. Now Caleb had made a promise to always return to you no matter what.

“Don’t sweat it pipsqueak, it’s just a routine flight in the Deepspace tunnel and I’ll be back before you know it” Caleb’s hand ruffling your hair with his causal lopsided smile.

”The last time you said that I almost lost you!” You said anxiously, you couldn’t help but feel worried every time he went into the deepspace tunnel there was always a chance he wouldn’t come home.

Caleb winced hearing those words, he knew you were right, flying in Deepspace was always a gamble, he thought him being causal about it might calm your nerves but now he definitely knows he screwed up.

”You’re right about that but now I have something to make sure I make it back to land.” Grabbing your hand he places a gentle kiss on your knuckles, it was a promise of a safe return.

”How long is the flight?” You asked, holding your hand close to your heart.

“It’s 3 days but it’s a well charted area of the Deepspace tunnel the Fleet detected changes in metaflux. They want us to collect data, observe and leave.” His voice was cold, he was in Colonel mode.

You knew that it was only 3 days but it was going to feel like an eternity. You had told the Association that you were going on a short vacation and house sit for a friend. Honestly you weren’t even sure why you thought staying at Caleb’s Skyheaven home would help but a small part of you thought that if you were closer to the tunnel that Caleb would feel your gravity and made sure he returned safely home.

Caleb had always said you were always welcome to his home whether he was there or not, you typed in his code, your birthday and heard the door open with a quiet click. You shook your head of course the code your birthday Caleb always placed small reminders of you in his routine just to help him feel less alone.

The scent hit you first asiatic apples they were always Caleb’s favorite, as for you it made your eyes well with tears. “These apples always bloomed when you would leave, the scent of goodbye.” You wiped your face, you promised yourself that this time you would be there waiting for his return so that way he wasn’t welcomed back to a cold house but instead to his “home” you and wrapped safely in your arms.

The house had changed a lot since the first time you had visited. Before the walls were barren except for a few pictures of your childhood. The rooms felt basic with just the bare essentials of a place to sleep. Now the walls where decorated with all the gifts and memories you had given him since his return. His bedroom that now had become your room had all your plushies, he’d won for you at the claw machines. Your favorite blanket draped on the bed. Even his new bedroom had some of your personal flair. His Sunny Apple plush sitting proudly on his bed and Azure Pilot on his desk. His room was always neat and tidy, spare his desk that always had some type of model he was tinkering with. It made you smile thinking of him still making models, he lost so many back in the explosion so now whenever he sees one from the past he buys it on impulse.

You watched as the sky grew darker from the floor to ceiling windows seeing the sun sink below the clouds of Skyheaven, painting it in orange and red hues. You could almost imagine Caleb flying his jet and making sky messages just for you like back at the DAA. You remembered the last one he wrote was his signature catch phrase “Stay Frosty.” You used to tease him about it all the time but now you’ve even adopted it into your own lexicon using the phrase on missions often.

Watching the sky made your heart ache, Caleb had always been your anchor and now you were his. You sent your silent prayers to whatever deity was listening. Night in the house felt darker than it did in Linkon, there was always the warm glow of city lights outside of your apartment window. Here in Skyheaven all you saw was an endless sea of clouds and the infinite sky above. You tried to sleep but all you could think of when you closed your eyes was Caleb. You wrestled yourself out of your sheets and made your way to his bedroom. You just needed a small piece of him, something that could ground you in that moment. The room felt welcoming, it was warm almost like Caleb was walking you inside. You didn’t mean to fall asleep on his bed. His scent surrounded you when you laid down across his comforter. Asiatic apples, leather, his shampoo on his pillows. It was all so comforting you felt your eyes grow heavy.

The memory came on slowly like a raising sun. You had wanted to make bamboo copters and race against each other. Caleb was delighted but he wanted to make the competition a little more exciting. He had asked Gideon and a few of his other friends to race in teams. It was silly now looking back on it, Caleb insisted to be on your team. As the group of elementary schoolers were furiously making bamboo copters in the heat of the summer sun. You all had your copters in hand heading over to the tallest hill in the playground. You all dropped your copters on the count of 3. Your’s and Calebs copter smoked the other kids copters as yours soared the farthest out of everyone’s. In hindsight Caleb had cheated with his evol but at the time you didn’t care. The gentle scent of apples and citrus wafting through the air.

Then it was eating shaved ice at the summer festival, the last one you would spend together before he went off to university and you to the hunters academy. It had been a day to remember as you didn’t want it to end. Caleb was holding your hand leading you through the crowds as you made your way to watch the fireworks. You complained you couldn’t see so he hoisted you on his shoulders with ease like you didn’t weight anything. You beamed down cupping his face making him look up at you. “Thank you for today.”

”Anytime pipsqueak.” His smile mirrored your own, he nuzzled into your palms. He was so warm the shaved ice had stained his lips a lovely shade of red. At the time you were too afraid to kiss him but now you wish that you had. You were curious if they would still taste like strawberry.

____________________________________________________________________

Caleb’s POV

He never wanted to leave you alone, he knew how worried you become when it comes to his missions in Deepspace. The last mission he did at the DAA was also supposed to be ’routine’ but he should have known better than to expect an easy flight. Out of everyone at the Academy, Caleb would always venture out the farthest and he had even charted some new flight paths. This was supposed to just be something easy, he had performed a hundred times before, yet something had changed. The metaflux changed and the gravitational force was stronger than what he had expected, hitting his plane with space debris knocking him off course. His comms where disconnected GPS signals disappeared without a trace. Everyone in the Skyheaven command center were panicking trying to find their best student pilot. Yet Caleb remained, calm he kissed his dog tags, hitting the emergency stablizer knowing it would only buy him slightly more time. He sent out the distress signal just like he was taught to do even if it felt it was useless.

Caleb’s mind started to wonder, time moved differently in the Deepspace tunnel. How long had he been floating out in the void. Wishing every second he could have told you how he felt. How much those summer memories meant to him, the love he felt was so intense it was frightening. He was trying his best to survive to hold on just for you. The oxygen was started to run low, Caleb slowed his breathing and as the oxygen thinned his last thought was the day of the festival when you had cupped his face and looked down at him. He wanted so badly for you to lean down and kiss him for his feelings to been seen behind the facad. Then he heard it, Gideons voice over the comms. “I’ve got him, his pulse is faint but he’s alive!” The plane moved in slow motion as they pulled him out of the tunnel. He was gone for 3 days somehow surviving dispite the odds.

The first thing he did when he regained consciousness in the hospital he called you. At first you were angry but the more he talked he had soothed your fears. By the end of the call the two of you where joking as if nothing had changed like he hadn’t been missing for the last 3 days.

This time Caleb was going to keep his promise and if anything seemed off he was retreating no matter how much hell the Fleet gave him. This promise meant everything and if it meant flying to the ends of the earth he would make it back to you.

____________________________________________________________________

Your POV

You didn’t hear the gentle hiss of his aircraft when it landed outside. You were asleep in Caleb’s bed. You tried to stay awake to welcome him home but you didn’t know exactly when he’d be returning. The living room was decorated with fairy lights, and a Welcome Home banner. You had put all of your plushies together like a parade. The door clicked open and Caleb was treated to the gentle glow of your mini welcome party. A faint smile crossed his lips. You were here waiting for him and that was all the welcome he needed. He headed straight for your room but paused when he saw his room door open. Caleb peered through the door and the sight made his knees weak. You were curled up in his bed wearing his sweater cuddling his Sunny Apple. Lips slightly parted as you whispered his name with a smile.

The bed dipped slightly as Caleb made his way over to your sleeping form. You stirred the scent of apples and leather was stronger now with a hint of the night air. Caleb was home, your eyes opened slowly still heavy with sleep.

”Welcome home,” you whispered, cuddling closer to Caleb. “Did you see your welcome party?”

“Course I did pips.” He gathered you in his arms and placed a kiss on the top of your head. “It’s nice to know I have someone on the ground waiting for me.”

You touched the dog tags he wore, the ones you made just for him before he left for the academy engraved, For When U Come Back on them. His hands met yours kissing your palms, slowly peppering kisses down your arm until his lips met yours. He tilts your chin up. “I missed you more than anything.” His kiss is warm, it was soft, reverent, saying all the words you had left unsaid.

It was moments like this that you wanted for Caleb something sweet so he didn’t always have to retreat back to the darkness. Now the scent of asiatic apples didn’t make you feel as sad as before because if these were the moments he would be returning too, you would learn to love the scent of his comings and goings.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this little series of fics I made. I have more in my drafts that I haven’t posted if you like them please show them love and I’ll try to post more :) I feel bad that Xavier’s ended up being the shortest in the series as he was my OG main when I started but it was difficult for me to find a plausible reason why Xavier had to be gone. But overall I’m happy with all of these fics. Caleb was also tough for me cause for whatever reason I have felt I had to explain a bunch of stuff so I was trying not to be exposition dump but yeah please enjoy!

[poetessinthepit]

One thing I think that is so insidious about the Pro-Israel narrative is that they don't even want you donating to the Palestinian cause to provide things like food or medical care for children. There is a concerted hasbara campaign to associate any NGO that provides any aid to palestinians with terrorism.

For example, if you attempt to raise money for the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, a charity rated 4 stars by Charity Navigator, you may be linked to a page on a website called NGO Monitor. At first glance, this appears to be a neutral charity rating website similar to Charity Navigator. It's not.

Try searching any charity with no connection to the Israel-Palestine conflict on NGO Monitor, and you'll get no result.

Do a little digging, and you'll find out that NGO Monitor was founded by Gerald Steinberg, a Likud party member and former Israeli Security Council consultant. It is essentially a right-wing Israeli front posing as a legitimate charity watchdog while spreading misinformation.

Or consider this racist parody song from Israel's version of SNL. It depicts a hjiab donning woman crying and begging for money in front of an image of shelled out buildings presumably in Gaza. It then cuts away to reveal it is all a set, and her crying is acting, alluding to the Pallywood conspiracy theory. This is followed by caricatures of Hamas members swimming in riches in a luxurious hotel room in Qatar chanting "dollar bills, dollar bills" as donations pile up. The implication is clear; if you give money to Palestine, you are giving money to Hamas. The fact that this video is in English tells you who the intended audience is. It was posted on instagram by Noa Tishby, a former Israeli spokesperson.

This all reflects the true cruelty of the Israeli regime. They don't just want to harm the Palestinians; they don't want you to help them.

[aiciglobal]

Image consultants, Image consulting, AICI Global

The Association of Image Consultants International (AICI) is the leading and largest professional association of personal and corporate image consultants worldwide. A non-profit organization, AICI is dedicated to advancing the level of professionalism and enhancing the recognition of image consultants.

Our members counsel both individual and corporate clients on appearance, behavior, communication skills, etiquette, international protocol, and soft skills. As experts in image consulting, our members guide clients to achieve their specific goals with authenticity, credibility, and confidence. Supporting the development of the Image Consulting Profession, AICI brings together individuals and companies who seek image consulting services with the appropriate expert.

AICI enhances industry standards through a rigorous, three-tiered certification program and holds the world’s premier annual image consulting conference. AICI provides continuing education classes for image consultants. AICI acts as the voice of the image consulting profession and the media’s definitive source for experts on current issues and events that may affect the image profession.To know more visit Our website: www.aici.org

[aliciavance4228]

I'm getting sick of Odysseus, who are some heroes in grerk mythology do you think should be getting more attention

Perseus

The reason why I'll start with him is due to the way his image remain clean, in the sense that he can still be considered a hero. Back in Ancient Greece the word hero used to define a person that was using strenght, bravery, cunning, cleverness etc. in order to acomplish great deeds. The term itself didn't strat to be associated with morality and virtue until centuries later, and yet Perseus manages to be considered a hero even by modern standards.

You might know him vaguely as the guy who beheaded Medusa. What you might not know about him is that he didn't kill her for things such as glory, wealth, power blah blah blah, but for a much noble purpose.

You see, his grandfather, Acrisius, was the King of Argos. He desired a male heir to the throne, but because he had only one daughter named Danaë and he was already quite old he consulted the Oracle of Delphi in order to find out wheter or not there some hope for him in this entire story. The Oracle told him that his daughter will give birth to a boy that will eventually kill him. Hearing this, Acrisius became desperate to avoid this fate at any price by locking her daughter either in a tower or a bronze chamber so that no man could touch her. But Zeus turned himself into a golden shower -No, not THAT golden shower...- in order to enter inside that room and impregnate her. Months later she gave birth to a son named Perseus, whom she tried to hide from her father. Unfortunately, one day Acrisius heard the kids' cries from her prison and, seeing that half of the prophecy already cane true, he threw Danaë and Perseus into a chest and cast it into the sea in order to keep them far from him.

The chest shipwrecked on the Seriphos Island, where a fisherman named Dictys found them and took pity of them two, so he decided to take care of them. Sounds like a happy ending, but there was one problem in this formula: Polydectes, the king of Seriphos and Dictys' brother, was in love with/lusted over Danaë and intented to marry her. But because she didn't want to be his wife and Perseus was here as her male guardian to protect her, Polydectes sent him away by asking him to bring him Medusa's head as a wedding gift, in the hope that he will eventually die.

Long story short, Perseus received numerous weapons from his half-siblings, Athena and Hermes, who helped him sneak into the gorgons' cave as they were sleeping and behead Medusa.

On his way back home he found himself somewhere in Aethiopia -not the modern Ethiopia, though some sources place it in North Africa- where he found a girl chained to a rock. The girl in question is Andromeda, the princess of Aethiopia whose mother boasted about how her daughter is more beautiful than the Nereids. This claim angered them, who then later asked Poseidon to do something about it. The entire kingdom ended up being threatened by a sea monster, which caused King Cepheus to consult the Oracle of Ammon in order to find a solution to thus problem. The Oracle told him that he must left his daughter as a meal for the sea monster in question. Yaaay...

Luckily, Perseus managed to kill the monster and save her. And because we're talking here about two dumb horny teenagers of coursly they instantly fell in love with each other and got married seconds later. This is the part of the story where we're about to watch a mini-boss fight. Andromeda was initially engaged with her uncle, Phineus, who got offended by the fact that that this stranger took his child-bride from him and wanted to marry her, as if someone who risked his own life to save hers is worthier than a depraved fossil who didn't bother to lift one finger in order to help her. Dude either planned to kill Perseus (in Ovid's Metamorphoses he straight-up ruined their wedding) in order to reclaim his hot arm candy, but because Perseus was smart and Phineus was dumb the latter one eventually got turned to stone.

After a lovely honeymoon and a baby Perseus and Andromeda returned to Seriphos, where Perseus turned Polydectes to stone, thus finally murdering her mother’s rapist/assaulter. Some time later Perseus went to Argos along with Danaë and Andromeda, where he ultimately ended up killing Acrisius, the most common version stating that it was in fact just an accident during an athletic contest. Perseus founded a fortified town of Argos called Mycenae, where him and Andromeda ruled as king and queen and had a bunch of other babies together. After their death, they two got placed into the night sky as constellations by Athena.

Cadmus

Now we're about introduce about my favourite hero in the scene, so I really hope that you're not tired yet! Luckily I've already talked about him in a post a wrote a while ago about the Royal Theban Family:

One of the greatest heroes before Heracles alongside Perseus and Bellerophon, Cadmus is the mythological founder king of Thebes. One interesting fact about him is that, despite of being considered a greek hero, Cadmus wasn't even greek in the first place. In fact he was phoencian and came from a city called Tyre. By ancient standards he would've been considered a "barbarian". Another irony is that Cadmus' initial purpose wasn't even to become a king, but to rescue his sister Europa, at that time kidnapped by Zeus in the shape of a bull. A further irony: Europe was named after an asian princess. Aaand another further irony: when the modern state of Hellas/Greece joined the European single currency, and so abandoned the drachma of old, it celebrated its accession and new monetary union by striking a coin bearing the image of Zeus disguised as a bull in the act of abducting (a polite way of masking the actual fact of rape) Europa.

Anyway, back to Cadmus: Once arrived in Boetia he intended to sacrifice a cow to Athena and asked his men to fetch water from the river. There was one single, little, tiny, itsy-bitsy problem though: the said river was guarded by the Ismenian Dragon, who also happened to be Ares' son. So Cadmus, just like any other hero, slayed the dragon and, listening to Athena's advice, planted the serpent's teeth. Out of these teeth a bunch of dudes grew up and started to fight (and consequently kill) each other, with the exception of five who survived: Echion, Udaeus, Chthonius, Hyperenor, and Pelor, who are now considered the ancestors of thebans.

Cadmus was punished for slaying the dragon by serving Ares for a eight years. Later, Athena assigned to him the government of Thebes and Zeus gave him Harmonia as his wife. Found another irony: Harmonia was the daughter of Ares, which makes him and Cadmus in-laws. Irony number five million: despite of being married with the personification of harmony herself, Cadmus' family tree is characterized by an entire disharmony. According to Statius, Harmonia received from Hephaestus a cursed necklace that brought unluck, which later got passed from one generation to another, causing one tragedy after another in their family tree.

Cadmus and Harmonia left Thebes after a series of catastrophes and emmigrated to Illyria where they battled various local tribes to found a new kingdom. Eventually, they two got turned into snakes and carried off to the Elysium to live a peaceful life.

Bellerophon

Now, out if all heroes from Greek Mythology Bellerophon is perhaps the most morally-grey one, as well as the figure many people usually have conflicting opinions about.

Hipponous was the son of a mortal woman named Eurynome/Eurymede, who was said to be thaught wit and wisdom by Athena herself, being considered as wise as the gods. Her father is either Glaucus or Poseidon, depending on the myth version.

The most common beginning of his story has him murdering his brother by accident, although another narrative involves him killing nobleman named Belleros (hence Bellerophon - "Slayer of Belleros") as a punishment for his action he was sent into exile in Argos, which at that time was ruled by King Proteus. Unfortunately this Proteus was a disgusting man, and his wife was just as disgusting as him. She fell in love with Bellerophon and intented to sleep with him, because he refused her advances she claimed that he assaulted her. But because killing your quest isn't exactly one of the most ethical thing to do in Ancient Greece, Proteus sent Bellerophon to his father-in-law, Iobantes of Xanthus, sending him a letter in order to make thingsclear from the beginning: "Please remove this bearer from the world: he attempted to violate my wife, your daughter."

After reading the letter Iobates realized that by killing Bellerophon he would risk to anger the Erinyes, so he decided to murder him indirectly by sending him on a dangerous mission: to kill the Chimera. During his journey Bellerophon eventually met his half-brother Pegasus (long story) and tamed him with the help of Athena. Bellerophon manages to kill Chimera and turned back to Iobates, who wasn't so pleased by his victory. So he sent him on numerous quests in the hope that he will eventually die, yet he returned to him vistorious each time. One of Bellerophon's exploits is calling the sea to flood the plain of Xanthus after an attempt on his life. Trying to appease him, the women from the palace lift their dresses up and rush to him. Alas for them, poor Bellerophon ran away for the hills when he saw all those naked women hell-bent on having their way with him. Finally, Iobates gave up and decided to give his daughter, Philonoe, to Bellerophon as his wife and shared him half the kingdom.

Now we're going to the part of the myth which is the most controversial and debatable one, namely his death. The most common version of it states that Bellerophon believed himself to be as great as the gods for killing the Chimera and tried to reach Mount Olympus by flying on Pegasus, only to have his hubris crushed by Zeus who threw gadfly to sting Pegasus so that Bellerophon will fall off him. Another myth version thoigh has him wanting to confront the gods due to all the suffering and pain he went through.

And finally...

Caeneus

He is an underrated, yet very interesting hero at the same time.

Caeneus was initially a woman named Caenis who got seduced by Poseidon and had intercourse with him. Poseidon promised Caenis that he will grant her any wish, and turned her into a strong, invulnerable man at her request. From here Caeneus' life seems to be quite underground, as there are few myth about him; a lot of them involve centaurs though.

Caeneus became the King of Lapiths and was said to worship his spear rather than the gods, which caused their anger and made Zeus sent the centaurs against him. He was present during the Centauromachy when, during Pirithous' wedding, the invited centaurs started to kill the men and rape the women out of nowhere. Due to his invincibility Caeneus managed to slay so many of them that the versions who consider the wedding the moment when Caeneus found his end usually have the centaurs hammering him into the ground with tree trunks and boulders in order to kill him. Nestor mentions him as the "mightiest" of warriors. Ovid has him getting turned into a bird. In Virgil's Aeneid Aeneas meets his shadow while visiting the Underworld. Hyginus' account has Caeneus commiting suicide.

Nervertheless, Caeneus' image in Greek Mythology is an overlap between greatness and mystery.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Patients With Long-COVID Show Abnormal Lung Perfusion Despite Normal CT Scans - Published Sept 12, 2024

VIENNA — Some patients who had mild COVID-19 infection during the first wave of the pandemic and continued to experience postinfection symptoms for at least 12 months after infection present abnormal perfusion despite showing normal CT scans. Researchers at the European Respiratory Society (ERS) 2024 International Congress called for more research to be done in this space to understand the underlying mechanism of the abnormalities observed and to find possible treatment options for this cohort of patients.

Laura Price, MD, PhD, a consultant respiratory physician at Royal Brompton Hospital and an honorary clinical senior lecturer at Imperial College London, London, told Medscape Medical News that this cohort of patients shows symptoms that seem to correlate with a pulmonary microangiopathy phenotype.

"Our clinics in the UK and around the world are full of people with long-COVID, persisting breathlessness, and fatigue. But it has been hard for people to put the finger on why patients experience these symptoms still," Timothy Hinks, associate professor and Wellcome Trust Career Development fellow at the Nuffield Department of Medicine, NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre senior research fellow, and honorary consultant at Oxford Special Airway Service at Oxford University Hospitals, England, who was not involved in the study, told Medscape Medical News.

The Study Researchers at Imperial College London recruited 41 patients who experienced persistent post-COVID-19 infection symptoms, such as breathlessness and fatigue, but normal CT scans after a mild COVID-19 infection that did not require hospitalization. Those with pulmonary emboli or interstitial lung disease were excluded. The cohort was predominantly female (87.8%) and nonsmokers (85%), with a mean age of 44.7 years. They were assessed over 1 year after the initial infection.

Exercise intolerance was the predominant symptom, affecting 95.1% of the group. A significant proportion (46.3%) presented with myopericarditis, while a smaller subset (n = 5) exhibited dysautonomia. Echocardiography did not reveal pulmonary hypertension. Laboratory findings showed elevated angiotensin-converting enzyme and antiphospholipid antibodies. "These patients are young, female, nonsmokers, and previously healthy. This is not what you would expect to see," Price said. Baseline pulmonary function tests showed preserved spirometry with forced expiratory volume in 1 second and forced vital capacity above 100% predicted. However, diffusion capacity was impaired, with a mean diffusing capacity of the lungs for carbon monoxide (DLCO) of 74.7%. The carbon monoxide transfer coefficient (KCO) and alveolar volume were also mildly reduced. Oxygen saturation was within normal limits.

These abnormalities were through advanced imaging techniques like dual-energy CT scans and ventilation-perfusion scans. These tests revealed a non-segmental and "patchy" perfusion abnormality in the upper lungs, suggesting that the problem was vascular, Price explained.

Cardiopulmonary exercise testing revealed further abnormalities in 41% of patients. Peak oxygen uptake was slightly reduced, and a significant proportion of patients showed elevated alveolar-arterial gradient and dead space ventilation during peak exercise, suggesting a ventilation-perfusion mismatch.

Over time, there was a statistically significant improvement in DLCO, from 70.4% to 74.4%, suggesting some degree of recovery in lung function. However, DLCO values did not return to normal. The KCO also improved from 71.9% to 74.4%, though this change did not reach statistical significance. Most patients (n = 26) were treated with apixaban, potentially contributing to the observed improvement in gas transfer parameters, Price said.

The researchers identified a distinct phenotype of patients with persistent post-COVID-19 infection symptoms characterized by abnormal lung perfusion and reduced gas diffusion capacity, even when CT scans appear normal. Price explains that this pulmonary microangiopathy may explain the persistent symptoms. However, questions remain about the underlying mechanisms, potential treatments, and long-term outcomes for this patient population.

Causes and Treatments Remain a Mystery Previous studies have suggested that COVID-19 causes endothelial dysfunction, which could affect the small blood vessels in the lungs. Other viral infections, such as HIV, have also been shown to cause endothelial dysfunction. However, researchers don't fully understand how this process plays out in patients with COVID-19.

"It is possible these patients have had inflammation insults that have damaged the pulmonary vascular endothelium, which predisposes them to either clotting at a microscopic level or ongoing inflammation," said Hinks.

Some patients (10 out of 41) in the cohort studied by the Imperial College London's researchers presented with Raynaud syndrome, which might suggest a physiological link, Hinks explains. "Raynaud's is a condition of vascular control or dysregulation, and potentially, there could be a common factor contributing to both breathlessness and Raynaud's."

He said there is an encouraging signal that these patients improve over time, but their recovery might be more complex and lengthy than for other patients. "This cohort will gradually get better. But it raises questions and gives a point that there is a true physiological deficit in some people with long-COVID."

Price encouraged physicians to look beyond conventional diagnostic tools when visiting a patient whose CT scan looks normal yet experiences fatigue and breathlessness. Not knowing what causes the abnormalities observed in this group of patients makes treatment extremely challenging. "We need more research to understand the treatment implications and long-term impact of these pulmonary vascular abnormalities in patients with long-COVID," Price concluded.

[mariacallous]

In early September, the U.S. Department of Justice unveiled a series of sweeping investigations and indictments into Russian information projects aimed at disrupting the 2024 U.S. presidential election. One of these projects, which secretly funded right-wing influencers to promote former President Donald Trump’s campaign, is an escalation from prior Russian information operations, such as their email hacks during the 2016 election.

But another Russian team, described in a planning document published by the Department of Justice, approached disrupting the election a little bit less directly.

The Russian plan describes the “Good Ol’ USA Project” as a “guerrilla media” campaign intended to target “sentiments that should be exploited in the course of an information campaign in/for the United States.” Written by Ilya Gambashidze, a figure already facing sanctions for his disinformation work aimed at smearing Ukraine, the document suggests focusing influence efforts on the “community of American gamers, users of Reddit and image boards, such as 4Chan,” since they are the “backbone of the right-wing trends” online in the United States.

The inclusion of gamers in this campaign points at emerging dynamics in a global struggle over human rights online—one that policymakers need to pay closer attention to.

According to the Entertainment Software Association, a trade group, around 65 percent of Americans—or 212 million people—regularly play video games. Globally, video games generate more than $280 billion in revenue, far larger than traditional culture industries such as film or book publishing. While a trickle of stories about other attempts to push Russian propaganda in video games have attracted some scrutiny from journalists, the question remains: Apart from scale, what is it about gamers that Russia thinks will make them receptive to its messaging?

For starters, video game culture has already become an important venue for extremist right-wing groups to share and normalize their ideas. Far-right groups modify video games to be more explicitly racist and violent than their designers intended. Even gaming spaces designed for children, such as Roblox, which allows players to create their own game worlds and storylines, have attracted thousands of people (many of them young teenagers) to use the game’s freewheeling mechanics to play-act fascist violence.

The prevalence of hate groups has shaped video games into a place where culture and politics are debated, often contentiously, with predictable fault lines emerging along U.S. partisan boundaries. While the industry itself has made considerable progress in improving representation and reducing acts of horrific sexual violence, it has received pushback from far-right figures who are angry at the so-called “wokes” for supposedly “ruining games.”

For a decade, repeated efforts to “reclaim” gaming from an imagined enemy composed of women, Black people, and LGBT+ folks have bubbled up from the darkest corners of the internet, often in places such as Reddit (where this Russian campaign aimed its influence activity). These movements have spilled over into more mainstream political movements that can shape election outcomes. Consider how Gamergate, a 2014 campaign to terrorize women working in the industry into invisibility, metastasized into an online troll army working to get former U.S. President Donald Trump elected in 2016.

These far-right efforts are ongoing, even without Russian help. Last year, a group of gamers who were angry at inclusive representation in games launched a harassment campaign—colloquially called Gamergate 2.0—against a story consulting company.

Earlier this year, when Ubisoft began promoting the latest installment of its popular Assassin’s Creed franchise, this time set in feudal Japan, the trailer prominently featured Yasuke, an African man who served as a samurai in 16th-century Japan. Despite being based on a real historical figure, this movement (egged on by X owner and billionaire Elon Musk) raged at the decision, as if acknowledging Black people in the past was somehow bad. In their quest to sow division within the United States, Russian information operations analysts do not need to look very far to find political allies in gaming communities.

It helps that Russia enjoys greater social legitimacy in gaming than it does in, say, news journalism. You can see this legitimacy reflected in the language gamers that use as they play. Around the same time as Gamergate, a vulgar Russian phrase began popping up in the chats that players use to communicate with each other in non-Russian game streams, primarily in the multiplayer first-person shooter Counterstrike: Global Offensive. The game has around 4 million Russian players, and as it grew in popularity in the mid-2010s, the Russian obscenity cyka blyad became common invective during frustrating moments of play. Its widespread adoption among non-Russian-speaking gamers struck many as odd.

Cyka blyad rose in prominence alongside Russia’s descent into becoming an international pariah, which has limited the spaces where Russian gamers can play games online. In 2014, Russia passed a law requiring websites that store the personal information of Russian citizens to do so on servers inside the country. This was compounded in 2022, when companies ranging from Activision Blizzard to Nintendo protested the invasion of Ukraine by either suspending sales or shutting down Russia-specific services. Despite its residents representing around 10 percent of Counterstrike’s player base, there are no host servers for the game anywhere in Russia.

So, when Russian players log on to find players for a match, they use servers based in Europe or sometimes North America. These servers place them into direct contact with players on the other side of international conflicts—something that many players within the European Union found deeply frustrating after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, as their games became places where people would argue about the annexation.

But another reason why Russian slang began infiltrating non-Russian gaming spaces is that after years of censorship and exclusion from both Russian and Western governments, games are one of the only spaces direct exchanges between ordinary Russian and Western people. Russians lack access to many Western social media platforms—such as Instagram (blocked by the Russian government in 2022, though earlier this year some Russian users regained access)—and were locked out of Western game stores, even as they kept access to many online games. As a result, matches in a game such as Counterstrike or Fortnite became one of the only places where these informal cultural exchanges could take place.

This narrowing of exchange spaces highlights how video games can become useful conduits for propaganda, and it demonstrates that video games are becoming an important, if underappreciated, site for ideological disputes over politics, speech, identity, and expression.

Other countries have begun to use video games for strategic communication. The U.S. government operates semiprofessional esports teams through the Defense Department, whose remit includes convincing young people to become interested in enlistment. China launched a military-produced first-person shooter game to boost recruitment and to humanize the image of the People’s Liberation Army abroad.

The Chinese developers of the hugely popular game Black Myth: Wukong instructed gaming influencers who were given early access to avoid discussing “feminist propaganda” while reviewing the game, apparently to adhere to government censorship rules. And Russian propaganda about the country’s war with Ukraine has begun appearing in games that allow user-generated content, such as Minecraft and the aforementioned Roblox, as the Kremlin seeks to persuade Westerners to end their support for Ukrainian freedom. In response, the U.S. State Department has begun developing its own games intended to train players to resist Russian disinformation.

This isn’t an abstract challenge. Scholars have drawn linkages between Russia’s propaganda efforts and President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 as both bots and human agents aggressively pushed narratives about the need to “pacify” an ostensibly violent Ukraine by invading. The invasion was further justified by the myth of Novorossiya, or a pan-Russian identity that views Ukrainians as misguided Russians who need to be forcibly reclaimed.

These efforts to spread propaganda through gaming are rarely successful. Few people wanted to, say, join Hezbollah after the Lebanese militant group launched its own game, Special Force, in 2003. The terrorist group al Qaeda has used video games for recruitment since 2006, but there is little evidence that any meaningful number of people have been recruited because of it. Scholars have fretted for years over the “militarization” of video games as the Pentagon gets more and more involved in the industry, yet U.S. military recruitment is in long-term decline, and public confidence in the nation’s military is at a two-decade low. If games-based propaganda works, we do not yet know where or how it does.

The revelations about Russian video game propaganda hint at some intriguing innovation in how strategic messages might be spread through nontraditional channels, but they also point to the areas where traditional channels for propaganda have closed down. Despite efforts by Republicans in Congress to falsely accuse agencies such as the Global Engagement Center of partisan bias when addressing foreign misinformation, the U.S. government takes the challenge seriously and, as this 2022 report on the propaganda channels , is working to thwart many of Russia’s best efforts to target Americans with propaganda, like when they sanctioned several Russian oligarchs who had been financing US-directed misinformation.

But even beyond government counterprogramming, there are plenty of obstacles to Russia’s efforts within the world of gaming. For example, Ukraine’s video games industry is respected in the United States and Europe. The developer 4A, which was based in Kyiv before the invasion, produces popular games such as the Metro franchise. That company, however, had to fly its employees abroad to keep them safe from the indiscriminate Russian barrages against the Ukrainian capital and other cities. This sent shockwaves through the industry, as it made some of the consequences of the invasion seem more viscerally real even to people who do not follow politics closely.

As a result of American and European sanctions, Russians have a more difficult experience legally purchasing software and services such as online gaming. (Some Russian game companies have since relocated abroad to more neutral countries, such as Cyprus, to continue operating globally). Wargaming, the Belarusian company that makes World of Tanks, also fled to Cyprus, which has become an informal hub of Russian game companies.

Looking forward, there are real questions about what video games are going to become in the information war between Russia and the West. Russian censors have proposed deploying neural networks to search for banned content in games, but it is unclear whether those systems might disrupt gaming for everyone else.

Long before the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow forced Activision to censor the infamous airport sequence in the rerelease of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (in which players assume the role of a Chechen terrorist and can slaughter hundreds of screaming civilians at Sheremetyevo International Airport), and it has not been shy about using government coercion to erase LGBT+ people from gaming (paralleling to its embrace of the U.S. far right). Policymakers should look at ensuring that global communication platforms—and that is what video games are—remain open to free speech and safeguard other basic human rights.

While the latest Russian effort to target games seems to have been thwarted by the U.S. Justice Department, there will undoubtedly be more programs looking to repeat and extend the success of Gamergate in empowering the far right, perhaps this time by enabling it to obstruct effective governance in the United States. The Good Ol’ USA Project also targeted its influence operations toward websites such as Reddit and 4Chan, both of which are as central to the sustainment of far-right movements as gaming. Emerging platforms—which range from popular Chinese games to channels such as the online chat service Discord, which is difficult to monitor at scale and routinely hosts leaks of sensitive military documents—present new opportunities where Russian influence could be targeted.

These strange spaces are the frontier where a global battle for speech is being fought.

[bestiarium]

The Bakunawa [Filipino mythology]!

Whether it is said to live in the sky, the ocean or deep in the underworld, the Bakunawa (also Baconaua or Bacunawa) is one of the most important spirits in the religion of the indigenous people from the Philippines. A creature of truly unimaginable proportions, the Bakunawa is so large that eclipses were claimed to have been caused by the great serpent devouring the moon.

This monster was also associated with natural disasters: it causes typhoons by blowing air through its cavernous maw, and creates earthquakes by shaking its titanic tail. It was for this reason that Visayan people would make noises (by shouting and beating empty cans) during natural disasters, to scare the snake and make it leave.

Among the Ilonggos people, the Bakunawa resembles a shark with a bright red tongue and whiskers around its mouth. It is equipped with ash-gray wings to soar through the heavens, and a series of smaller wings sprout from its sides. Fitting with its aquatic characteristics, the Bakunawa lives deep in the ocean.

Alternatively, the Visayan people describe the creature as a gargantuan dragon-like snake with a characteristic looped tail. This seems to be the most common depiction today. Belief in the Bakunawa is derived from Hinduism, and the name (which means ‘bent serpent’) is likely derived from Sanskrit.

In a Cebuano story, there were once seven moons in the sky. The Bakunawa, wanting to possess them, started devouring them one by one. After eating six moons, the god Bathala stopped him. Interestingly, an alternate Visayan story portrays the Bakunawa as a playful (but ultimately not malicious) animal enticed by the brightly shining moon. Believing it to be a ball, the gigantic snake played with the moon and swallowed it.

Yet another version, in Karay-a belief, has the Bakunawa be a species of monsters rather than a single individual. Some of them have a thin or transparent stomach – if these creatures eat the moon, a partial eclipse follows. Others have a thick-walled stomach, and they can cause a total eclipse.

Whether it is a shark or a snake differs between versions and regions, but the Bakunawa always retains its main defining trait of devouring the moon.

The Bakunawa is still alive today and its movements still influence our world: the supposed movement of the beast (on a 16-point chart) is the basis for the Visayan calendar. For example, at the start of each year, the creature’s head points to the north with its tail pointing to the south. This indigenous calendar was actually censored because of Christianity for a time.

As recent as the late 20th century, a belief persists that the orientation of a newly built house has to align with the creature. For example, the staircase has to face the Bakunawa’s back, or else the evil aura of the monster will enter the house and kill the homeowner’s family. For this purpose, people would consult a ritualist or ritual manual to determine the snake’s current position during construction.

Sources:

Mojares, R. B., 2012, “Dakbayan”, A Cultural History of Space in a Visayan City, Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, 40(3/4), pp. 170-186.

McCoy, A. W., 1982, Baylan: Animist religion and Philippine peasant ideology, Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, 10(3), pp. 141-194.

Gaverza, J. K. M., 2014, The Myths of the Philipines, An Undergraduate Thesis Submitted to the College of Social Science and Philosophy Diliman, Quezon City, as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of B. A. Linguistics, p. 28-29, 108-110, 177 pp.

Ramos, M. D., 1990, The Creatures of Philippine Lower Mythology, Phoenix Publishing House, p. 35-40, 424 pp.

(Image source 1: Eve Berthelette)

(Image source 2: Patricia de Vera)

[liaromancewriter]

Our Song

Premise: It’s almost time for the wedding, but they’re missing one crucial element.

Fandom: Open Heart Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Cassie Valentine); feat. Sienna Trinh Rating/Category: Teen. Fluff. Words: 1,180

A/N: Submission to @choicescommunityevents June challenge prompt "love"

Cassie Valentine grabbed two chocolate pudding cups—it had been a trying day so far—paid for her purchases, and parked herself in an empty booth in the corner of the bustling cafeteria.

Checking her wristwatch, she figured she could spare twenty minutes for a quick mental break before afternoon rounds. Rolling her shoulders to work out the kinks, she pushed aside her messy side ponytail and dug into the sugary, fatty goodness that never failed to lift her mood.

When her phone signaled an incoming text, she almost ignored it until she saw it was from the group chat for her wedding preparations.

She suspected her mother and her bestie, Sienna Trinh, had a separate one for the nitty-gritty stuff. Knowing how much the two of them loved to plan events, she shuddered to think what that chat might entail.

Fortunately, this one was reserved for updates and anything that required input from the wedding party. She quickly swiped the notification on the screen to read the message.

At Sienna’s heart emoji response, Cassie set her phone down on the table, a quiet unease settling over her.

Did she and Ethan have a song? If they did, why couldn’t she remember it?

To this day, whenever she heard Matt Nathanson’s Come On Get Higher, she was transported to a smoky concert hall, slow dancing with Jackson as the music washed over them. They had only been dating a few weeks at the time, but that song would forever be associated with their relationship.

When it came to musical taste, she and Ethan couldn’t have been more different. She enjoyed all genres—Top 40 pop, rock, country and everything in between. He preferred opera, classical symphonies and the occasional jazz standard.

Of course, she knew he also enjoyed listening to the music he grew up with, which was mostly rock. But blasting Green Day on the car stereo didn’t exactly align with the sophisticated, cultured image Dr. Ramsey projected to the world. So, it remained their little secret.

Her break was almost over, and there was still no sign of Sienna. Her friend was completing an accelerated second residency in pediatrics, so Cassie figured she’d been pulled into something important.

She had just gathered her empty pudding cups and was about to leave when Sienna rushed over and dropped into the booth, breathless from the run.

“Sorry,” Sienna said with a rueful smile. “One of my patient’s parents had questions, and it took longer than I thought.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Cassie said, waving away the apology with a smile. “I know you’re busy, and we could’ve just talked about this tonight at home.”

“I’m on call tonight, so this works better. What couldn’t you say over text?”

Cassie grinned. Sienna was her best friend for a reason. After working and living together for four years, there was no hiding from her.

“Ethan and I don’t have a song!”

Sienna looked momentarily perplexed. “Are you sure?”

“I think so,” Cassie said, glancing away.

“Well, what comes to mind when you think of your relationship?” Sienna asked, eyes narrowing in problem-solving mode. “Don’t think—just say it!”

“The swoosh of the glass door to the diagnostic team’s office. The incessant beeping of monitors when we’d do a patient consult. The sound of beans grinding and the espresso machine hissing at Derry’s during our mid-morning coffee break.”

Cassie drummed her fingers on the table as she recalled the soundtrack of their life together.

“The ding of the elevator when it stops on his floor. The echo of waves lapping the shore beneath a moonlit balcony in Miami…”

And the soft moans escaping her lips when his hands and mouth worshipped her body in bed.

Blushing at the last thought, Cassie tugged out her ponytail and let her long blond hair fall around her face, hiding her flushed cheeks.

When Sienna didn’t respond, Cassie glanced over and saw tears streaming down her friend’s cheeks, a soft smile hovering on her lips.

“That’s so beautiful,” Sienna whispered, sniffling.

“And entirely unhelpful to you and my mom for finalizing the music setlist,” Cassie said, rolling her eyes.

Sienna shrugged, unfazed. “We’ve got time—just. Why don’t you and Ethan talk it over and let us know tomorrow?”

Her pager beeped. One glance at the screen and she was on her feet. “Oops. Gotta go.”

Cassie watched her rush out of the cafeteria and wondered: What would be the soundtrack of Sienna’s life?

Then her own pager buzzed seconds later, and she sighed. Break time was over.

A couple of hours later, Cassie slipped into the dimly lit auditorium where the M&M conference was underway. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she spotted the back of Ethan’s head in the middle row; seated a few rows apart from everyone else.

She silently made her way down the steps and slid into the seat beside him, taking his hand, interlacing their fingers, and resting her head on his shoulder.

Ethan turned to kiss her forehead, his hand tightening around hers. The vintage-style engagement ring he’d placed on her finger glittered in the dark.

“Hi,” she whispered, her laughing green eyes meeting his serious, laser-blue ones. She tilted her head toward the stage. “How’s that going?”

“Riveting,” he said drily, with a smirk. “Did the patient transfer from Portland go okay?”

“The nursing staff’s getting them settled, so I have a few minutes. Can we step outside?”

Ethan nodded and followed her up and out into the atrium.

He leaned against the door, facing her, her hands clasped in his.

“Is this about the text in the wedding group chat?”

“Yeah. I talked to Sienna earlier and realized… we don’t have a song,” Cassie said, pouting slightly. “We don’t, do we?”

“Dream a Little Dream,” Ethan answered without hesitation.

“Wha—how—?” Cassie sputtered, her jaw dropping in shock.

“Close your mouth, love,” he said, clearly amused. “It’s the song we always dance to whenever it comes on. If I recall correctly, it was the first song we danced to in my apartment—our first weekend together after I came back from Brazil, when you wanted to know if I could dance.”

“Okay… sorry.” Cassie shook her head in disbelief. “I’m just having a hard time reconciling how you—the oh-so-reserved Dr. Ramsey—knew that, and I didn’t. Bringing romance to our relationship is my thing!”

Ethan tugged her into his arms and framed her face between his hands, unbothered by the people moving around them.

“As I keep reminding you, Cassie….” His lips hovered above hers. “I’m a diagnostician. Observation and connecting the dots is literally my job.”

“Apparently, that also includes surprising me at every turn,” Cassie muttered, smiling against his mouth.

Ethan burst into laughter—deep and unguarded—a rare sound that made her fall deeper in love with him, every single time.

They might have a song, but the soundtrack of their life together was more than melody and lyrics.

It was built on moments like this: quiet, tender and impossible to define.

-----------------

All Fics & Edits: @bluebelle08 @coffeeheartaddict2 @jerzwriter @kyra75 @lady-calypso @loreofyore @potionsprefect @quixoticdreamer16 @snoopdogcone @tessa-liam @trappedinfanfiction

Submissions: @choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

Ethan & Cassie only: @custaroonie @youlookappropriate

[sosuigeneris]

Socialite series: Manufacturing your Personality

So you want to get into high society. I can give you a guideline as to how you can do that. 

I was born in high society, in India. I know how these systems work. Even across cultures, they’re quite similar. I know some German, Asian, American high society people. Certain things are very similar across continents. 

You can permanently secure your position by two ways: marriage, or by becoming somebody. 

In Indian high society, there’s two kinds of people: those who have lineage, and those who are rich. 

Those who have lineage are those (mostly bankrupt) Maharajas, artists, singers, musicians, poets for generations - it’s an art form or royalty handed down to their children. They have ✨culture, a legacy✨ that can only be obtained by birth. They want to mingle with the business rich so that they get access to the opportunities they need for their livelihoods. 

The business rich can be new or old money. It doesn’t matter. Their businesses are family businesses. They have money, but may lack class. Don’t be mistaken that only new money can be “tacky” - I know plenty of influential, old money families who are equally classless and tacky. 

They want to mingle with the lineage crowd because they need that ✨culture✨ to be seen as someone. They want to be associated with them, to improve their reputations. By connecting to the artistic and musical world, it shows that they have class and persona. 

Both groups, as you see, need each other. You may ask - can’t there be families where there’s both?

Yes there can. But that is not common. 

Let’s say you take the route of dating someone who is of high society, and are hoping to convert that into marriage. I’ll be very honest with you - you have to seriously stand out for Asian and Middle Eastern high society families to accept you if you lack both lineage and money. 

You need to have a strong educational background - you need to go to a great college or masters, or whatever - otherwise this is really not going to happen. This is requirement number 1. If you don’t have this, don’t even bother reading the rest. 

And in Asian and ME families, remember one thing. Marriages are between families, NOT individuals. You have to impress the family, the family’s friends, their maids and barbers and god knows who else. 

And here are Cherry’s insider tips, just for you, to fit right in. If you fit in comfortably, it makes your life and everyone else’s life easier. 

Extrovert tendencies 

don’t be intimidated by people, don’t be shy or awkward 

It’s better to mix in being a combination of “social + slightly bored” like “it’s nice to meet you, but I wouldn’t die to be here.” 

Be open without jumping around like a Disney kid. Being “overexcited” or jumpy, smiling and laughing at just about everything comes across as weird in some cultures, IF that’s not how you genuinely are. That might work in the US, but not everywhere else. 

If I had to very simply define an extrovert - approach new people with ease, learn the art of small talk and be a good listener. 

Confident 

have a sense of self: career, hobbies, likes or dislikes, experiences

Be a multi faceted person. Do things that YOU like. If you like reading Japanese literature and collecting quartz, great! That’s your thing! 

Good communication skills

articulate, small talk abilities, good listener, curious, engaging

be able to tell little stories about yourself without giving everything away 

Well dressed 

do an image consultation for your colours, understand your body shape type and find a style that works for you

Create a capsule wardrobe that is timeless 

Remember - modesty is ALWAYS the best idea for any event. 

Posture - stand up straight, be able to walk in heels, sit without slouching

if you don’t know how to walk in heels, learn to. Practice it. 

Sit up straight, do some yoga or something for good posture 

Maintenance- good skin, hair, fit body, skin, nails, teeth; good hygiene; smell good 

hygiene comes first. Shower regularly, wash your hair as often as needed. 

Put on perfume. 

Find a make up style that works for you. Again, this takes practice. It took me years to figure out what kind of eyeliner works on my eyes and that bronzer doesn’t suit me at all. Crazy make up, unnatural hair colours, visible tattoos or piercings will not sit well in these societies. 

Etiquette 

dining etiquette- learn how to eat properly. This is not just for white culture but for other cultures as well. Understand broadly how popular cultures etiquettes work - Japanese eating etiquettes, European fork and knife etiquette, Korean drinking etiquette, Indian and Middle Eastern etiquette, etc. 

giving appropriate gifts to the host - bottle of wine or flowers 

Learn thank you etiquette- shoot a text message to the host thanking them for the event 

Intelligence

Show that you have some sort of a personality. 

Stay updated with current affairs

know your line of work and the relevant people (top companies, CEOs, etc), trends happening in your industry 

Be open to learning new things  

Put together

have a routine, show some form of discipline. 

This can be done by committing to something long term, such as healthy habits - exercise, reading, waking up early. 

Keep a watch on what you say 

people, especially women, who come across as bratty are seen as a big no no and can come across as exhausting and blood sucking. Zip it. 

Don’t talk about your failures, vulnerabilities, mistakes or mishaps. That’s confidential. 

Don’t complain or be snotty or a potty mouth. 

Do not put other people down in front of people who are not your absolute close friends. 

Poise (this is for your mental health and wellbeing)

Don’t be over eager. Being overly friendly can be seen as submissiveness. 

You’re overly friendly with someone because you want to be accepted by them. Acceptance only happens when you’re familiar with one another. When you become too familiar, it becomes a breeding ground for disrespect. Boundaries get crossed easily. 

Body language

practice practice and practice. 

Video yourself and have a fake conversation with someone. Or maybe FaceTime a friend and record yourself and see how you react to things. 

I used to watch those “try not to laugh/ get angry/ cry” videos to maintain a strong facial expression at all times. Not everyone deserves to see you vulnerable. 

Social media 

Take. Shit. Down. 

Go private if you don’t make money of social media. You’re perceived as more mysterious if you’re a private account. 

Remember, even if you’re private, it doesn’t mean that your pictures aren’t being shared. Someone’s taken a screenshot at some point for SURE or shown your account to someone else. Don’t give anyone anything to talk about. 

Don’t upload every second of every day. 

Don’t upload anything questionable- your break ups, your new boyfriend, girls nights, clubbing, your latest shopping spree etc etc. Keep things halal. Think of it this way - if your boss were to see those photos, how would you feel?

Overexposing yourself on social media comes across as desperate for attention. Limit that.

Cherry 🍒