#and I feel like my journals bear witness to life sometimes and like without a physical manifestation of who I was it didn’t even happen :/

[reidwitchsblog]

My Brian Thomas HC

Warning: 18+ content, dead dove do not eat, dark themes in general.

Author’s note: It was thanks to this man that my obsession for creepypastas came back after 10 years, so he has a special place in my heart. Hope you love him as much as I do.

Minors DNI

Personality

Despite his serious demeanor, Brian has a quirky sense of humor that only surfaces around people that he’s truly comfortable with. He sooooo tells dad jokes when he sees Toby upset.

He has a very analytical mind. He's meticulous in his approach to problem-solving, often dissecting situations methodically before taking action.

While he tends to keep his emotions in check, he is incredibly empathetic. He feels deeply for his friends and often takes on the role of the listener, offering support and understanding without expecting the same in return.

He holds himself to high standards, which sometimes leads to self-criticism. Brian strives for perfection in his work and personal endeavors, causing him to be hard on himself when things don't meet his expectations.

Despite his reserved nature, he has a vulnerability that he guards fiercely. He's careful about revealing his innermost thoughts and fears, choosing instead to navigate his emotions privately.

He has a strong sense of responsibility towards those he cares about. Brian takes it upon himself to ensure the safety and well-being of his friends, often putting their needs above his own.

Deep down, he grapples with internal conflict stemming from the events of the Marble Hornets project. He struggles to reconcile the horrors he's witnessed with his desire for a normal, peaceful life.

Physical

Brian has a defined jawline that adds to his serious and determined appearance. His eyebrows are naturally furrowed, giving him a perpetually focused expression, even when he's relaxed.

He typically maintains medium-length hair, often swept to the side or slightly tousled. It's dark brown, with natural highlights from spending time outdoors during filming or leisure activities.

His hands are notably steady, a testament to his composure even in stressful situations. They bear small calluses from his hobbies, like working on cars or handling camera equipment.

His voice carries a calm and measured tone, but there's an underlying intensity that emerges during moments of urgency or concern. It's a reassuring voice that his friends often turn to for guidance.

Brian's expressions are subtle but meaningful. A quirk of the lips when he's amused, a brief narrowing of the eyes when assessing a situation – these nuances add depth to his character, revealing more than his words sometimes do.

Apart from the scar on his left forearm, he has a few faint scars scattered on his hands and arms from various accidents during his younger years. There's also a small, barely noticeable scar above his right eyebrow from a childhood mishap.

Over time, his fashion might slightly evolve. Initially, his clothing might be more functional and nondescript, but as the story progresses, subtle changes might occur, such as opting for slightly more polished or mature attire.

RANDOM HC

Despite his focus on logical pursuits, Brian has a hidden talent for sketching. He occasionally doodles in a small sketchbook, creating intricate drawings as a way to unwind and express himself creatively.

He has a green thumb and a small collection of potted plants hidden away in his apartment. Taking care of these plants provides him with a sense of calm amidst the chaos in his life.

He has a habit of staying up late, not necessarily due to work but because he finds solace in the quiet of the night. It's during these late hours that he indulges in his hobbies or simply reflects on life.

Despite not being a master chef, he occasionally experiments in the kitchen. He follows intricate recipes he finds online, trying his hand at cuisines from around the world, often with mixed but sometimes surprising results.

Brian keeps a meticulous journal where he documents not only the events related to Marble Hornets but also his thoughts, observations, and sketches. This journal serves as a private outlet for his innermost thoughts and anxieties.

⋆｡°✩ — ©️ reidwitchsblog, 2023 - don’t repost, translate, copy, or claim

[bunnybunnyblogblog]

make it last longer

It’s been almost five years since I left Montreal and I’m no longer certain that any of it happened. That I had a life there. A life where I knew people! I went to parties! I had an apartment and two jobs and unending issues with the bank that required me to spend hours on the phone with a robot that only spoke French, like a fucked up oral exam where if you answer wrong you can’t buy dinner. A life made real by conversations that required no explanation: about the people and the parties and the apartment and the jobs and the library and the bank.

Real life requires stories with no explanation. Real life requires a witness. After my dad died last spring, my mom said she lost her alibi. She was left with her memories of everything they experienced just the two of them, but without any evidence that she was really there or that it really happened.

Memories are important, but I’m a person with a body. My favorite of the five senses is touch. I'm down to meet up in our dreams, but will you slip me a note? I want something I can keep forever.

maybe because he fears death

All I want is forever. All I want is to slow down time. I love life in a way that’s greedy and desperate, maybe it's lust, maybe it's a perverted fear of death. When I kiss someone I love all I can think is remember this remember this remember this. But I don’t mean “remember this.” I mean “more.” I mean “make it last.”

I’m trying to make it last through my iPhone camera. I’m trying to make it last when I stay out late and when I wake up early and when I take half an hour to finish my coffee so we can linger at the table. I’m grasping at permanence. I’m writing handwritten letters. I’m printing wallet-size nudes at Walgreens, just in case.

I’m treating everything like it’s important, because it is. I’m journaling and going to yoga and dutifully practicing mindfulness, presence, gratitude. Secretly, I'm eulogizing. In everything I do, a desperate prayer: I don’t take any of it for granted, I promise, please don’t take it away.

I have all the time I need

What I’m saying is that I’m a little delusional. I think there is a way to trick time and I think I’m going to figure it out.

sending postcards

One strategy I came up with: buy disposable cameras and ship them to your friends across the country. Make them use up half the film, then send the camera to someone else. Get the photos developed. Enjoy the mystery and the mismatch. Frame pictures of unfamiliar people and places. Bear witness to someone else’s life. Make it real.

from this article

Photos are proof of our existence. So are letters, playlists, books gifted to a friend with passages underlined or a handwritten note in the front inside cover. The practices of noticing, savoring, documenting, and sharing allow us to sink deeper into the moment. When we return to the moment later we'll find proof we were there.

if you've felt it before you can feel it again

All of this only helps so much. I still miss everything. I miss Montreal and I miss the Netherlands and I miss everywhere I’ve ever been for a long weekend. Sometimes I have a night that's so fun, thinking about it makes me sick. Because it already happened and it's over and it will never be exactly like that ever again. Anyways. The noticing and documenting only helps so much, but it helps a bit. I'm getting better at remembering that if I've felt it before I can feel it again. I'm getting better at releasing my grip on the past, better at allowing it to slip through my fingers and sink into the soil where it belongs. Eating the fruit that it grows. Letting the juice drip down my face.

[definegodliness]

Petty and stiff-bourgeois

When the internet gets to me with people displaying next-level pettiness and stiff-bourgeois demeanour, I sink back in my chair to remember the pre-internet age. Not because those days were better, hell no, but because it was so much easier to put things into perspective. Nowadays, I’ve noticed that some of the eighteen-forties narratives posted would make me groan like a dog growls when a random person passes the window, soft and prolonged. It got that bad. So I had to find an antidote. And so I think of the times when a brand new national dictionary would come out. Because when a brand new national dictionary came out, you’d shortly after always get a sent in letter in the newspaper.

Now the newspaper and I go way back. I know I was a weird kid for reading them. But I always, and still do, loved the smell of inky paper. Some people like the smell of gasoline, this is my tic. Back in the day I loved its stern black and white aesthetics as well, and I do think newspapers ruined themselves by colour printing, just like churches ruined themselves by adding central heating. Churches should be cold. I’m not even religious, but there can be no discussion. How else will people feel small and humbled? Get your comfort at home, sinner. This place has been surrendered to the elements. The way God intended. Discomfort keeps you on your toes, and so newspapers should be large, printed in black and white, and without those convenient staples in the middle keeping it together, because the truth is large, clumsy, and uncomfortable. 

Truth should stain your fingers.

Those newspapers made me study Journalism, right around the time old media extinguished. During that time, one thing happened that to this day baffles me still. Imagine this: a class of say twenty-five aspiring journalists, asked if they’d rather be sold dry facts or opinions, and all but I preferred to be sold opinions. I argued that one needs the dry facts to shape an opinion, and they all looked at me as if they saw water burning. And I remember the vacant stares when I mentioned I actually liked doing the effort to shape my own opinion. I have rarely felt so alien and misunderstood in my life. What happened to ‘the fly on the wall’? I wondered. The teacher chuckled. 

He was glad ‘we’ still had a purist. 

So that day I decided New-Age Journalism wasn’t for me. And, despite the nostalgia, I gradually stopped reading newspapers, like the rest of the world. Knowing the type of people who’d write what I was consuming of course didn’t help. But in the end I simply stopped reading because the truth had turned convenient, small, biased, and comfortable to whatever your affiliation is. To get a snippet of reality, I had to buy at least four different opinion pushers, which I did, and then puzzle my way toward the golden mean. It became such a chore I found myself solely enjoying the funnies, and, of course, the sent in letters.

When the internet gets to me with people displaying next-level pettiness and stiff-bourgeois demeanour, I think of what once was the rarest and most hilarious breed of human. You see, every time a brand new national dictionary would come out, there’d be sent in letters of people complaining about a myriad of words that our youth and good town folk in all decency should never be allowed to read. Cuss words, of course, but also words as uninspiring and plastic as ‘penis’, ‘vagina’, and ‘bosom’. Not to mention ‘scrotum’, or ‘nipple’. They’d go apeshit over ‘apeshit’, and in displaying their fifty shades of rigid fanaticism they’d become so grim, so helplessly humourless, that of course the contents of their letters became hilarious. 

Boob is not a funny word per se, well, it’s kind of funny, but there is little more absurdistically enjoyable than the word ‘boob’ leaving the pen of a sourpuss in genuine disgust.

There are, and have always been, people so petty and stiff-bourgeois that they’d go through the lengths of buying the latest edition of a dictionary on the first day of publishing to then immediately dedicate hours of their time, locked up in the study to remain undisturbed, executing a self-imposed divine calling. Taking their trusty and angry red pencil to tag, count, and mercilessly comment upon commonly used words. Words sometimes distilled to their driest version, leaving no synonym at all to describe for instance a bodily feature. The entire endeavour demands such tenacity and dedication in maintaining that level of maddened outrage that you cannot convince me there isn’t a moment somewhere halfway the process they’re thinking:

“What am I doing?!”

The must consciously ans repetitively shush that voice of reason. Then, after all that, they manage to go even further. Let’s zoom out for a second to appreciate the absurdity of the situation. Someone who has just finished scouring the dictionary for words deemed immoral, utilising a standard that would put even the most dedicated puritan to shame, now sits behind their desks and takes the time to write an actual handwritten letter utilising their freshly and painstakingly gathered information. Enraged, I reckon, for the red lettered filth by their own hand written. And this is the frame of mind in which they probably read it over a couple of times, checking for spelling mistakes, therefore unable to see the undeniable irony of writing all these words they condemn so deeply, for people all over the country to read. This should be another chance to favour a moment of reflection. However, they are already in too deep, and now can only live with themselves thinking the end justifies the means.

Then there’s the moment when they walk downstairs proudly waving that letter, already in its envelope.

“Debra, I’m gonna tell ‘em!”

And Debra also doesn’t offer a voice of reason. Debra doesn’t even look up from her crossword puzzle and says:

“That’s nice, honey.”

And so they walk on. Toward the mailbox. With a letter of Don Quixote-like insanity that bears their full name and address as a sign of sacred dedication. And even then I reckon they still could be sobered up by the fresh air, experiencing a moment of clarity, actually seeing the ridiculousness of the entire situation. Another chance at self-reflection. And then still, lastly, there is still one moment of possible hesitation and contemplation left, the moment where they slide that letter into the mailbox’s slit and fate is finally out of their hands.

These people exist.

There are around eight decision making moments in this what is the shortest summary of necessary circumstances wherein the windmill chasing self-proclaimed virtuous crusader decides against better judgement. Eight decision making moments in an entire day of living dedicated to removing the word ‘nipple’ from the national dictionary’s latest edition. That was then. And this was when solely the utmost madly bigoted, self-righteous, and oblivious otherworldly specimen of human could seep through the filters of media consumption. Offered a platform for nothing other than editorial shits and giggles. 

Now these people have internet:

Write, post.

Two decision making moments. And when the internet gets to me with narratives belonging to the eighteen-forties, I think of all the like-minded martyrs who in the time of ancient media went through all those steps aforementioned, only to bail out at the very last second of actually dropping off that dumb-ass letter in the mailbox. I think of the time when seven chances at contemplation was enough to save us from a mind-numbing display of mental deterioration. I imagine how vast this stiff-bourgeois crowd gets with every fewer necessary step. When the threshold has been lowered to merely two moments of chanced contemplation and reasoning.

When I sink back in my chair and groan like a dog growls when a random person passes the window, I make myself remember that who we are dealing with are non-threatening, hilarious crazies. Red pencil wielding dictionary condemners who have been shaken free from the threshold of effort. And I think we all tend to forget that. We forget to laugh at them. Laugh at them with all our hearts, shaking our heads simultaneously. We forget we are witnessing rarities. And must not allow ourselves to be cursed into taking the windmill chasers riding under the flag of anonymity seriously. When we forget to laugh at human absurdity, we become part of the joke ourselves. So let’s go out and wield some ‘lol’s and ‘tears of joy’-emojis.

[softsweetsuffering]

OC LIST (New)

Trey:

Has an ability to mimic or amplify abilities/powers of others, as well as telekinesis

Was previously part of a group of people who also had abilities, however after mistreatment and other issues within the group, he left.

He's got a good wealth behind him.

Extremely gentle

Handsome ;)

Loves photography

Has lavender hair

Respects all

'Secretly' Plays violin

Lowkey a sugardaddy

Hamrish Benat:

Has four eyes!

Pink and blonde hair

He loves parkour (as in climbing buildings and leaping around in gyms)

Has PTSD (There are two AUS of which I default as to how he obtained it)

Ready to deck a bitch

Trained nurse

Loves teddy bears and fuzzy pink socks.

Also goes by Hami/Hayden

Andy peters:

Strong, kind.

The quiet Big Type, doesn't always talk, but his heart is in good places.

Wishes he could do more

Buff + Tall

Wears a pair of dogtags.

Has red streaks in his hair for the fun of it

Is extremely brotherly to Adrian

is friends with Hami

Adrian Géarán:

Nervous Malnutritioned anxiety filled tired mess

Has emotionally linked fire abilities (does not like having them)

likes to make little robots!

Easily bullied

Missing an arm

Struggles with normal life

Blames himself for Andys death

Looks unintentionally vaguely like Fry from Futurama

Chris:

Leader of a summer camp for kiddos

Huge fan of the outdoors

Loves to garden

Red head with freckles

Healthy!

Good build, a little on the below-average male height

Likes to hike

Loves kids

Strong but pacifistic

Great smile

Surprisingly a little shy around other adults

Bisexual

Himbo energy

Douglas Connelly:

Just a regular chubby guy

His chub is only important because this man gives some of the best hugs, he's like a marshmallow

He is outwardly confident about his size, even if it sometimes worries him internally

He loves music, loves to groove in the kitchen while making snacks

Always open for roommates and new friends (one of his roommates is a hot bartender called Donovan)

A bit awkward but he tries his best.

Tucker:

Badass

Bunny hybrid (ears :3)

White hair

Likes to wear denim jackets

Fast runner

Has had experience working in the force

Izekiel Iris:

Bruised and abused in a facility

Was turned from human into A being of made of Paint (Useful? no. Fun? yes. Rainbow blood anyone?)

Loves painting

Wallflower

Easily anxious

Loves to draw on his own arms

Matthew Libelle:

Aka Matty Very delayed development wise as well as Autistic

Very much a texture lad, soft blankets are his thing.

Doesn't like loud sounds ( who does honestly).

Tries his hardest to function normally but it's hard.

Watermelon colours are his fav. Green hoodie is his fav.

Has watermelon pink hair.

Gale:

Eldritch bab

Was cursed by a group of guys who were messing with magics they didn't understand

Did in fact murder said group of guys and is traumatised by the idea he has become a monster

hears voices

Has Tendrils that have burst out of his back

Has the ability to move from this realm to the Eldritch planes and back. (is terrified of said planes)

Doesn't have a home

Black curly hair- frizzy- shimmers like Slick oil

Shy type kinda, tall Pale. cold.

Kinda wishes he could just go back to normal.

Would really like to eat some fresh warm bread.

Rowan maverick

Was abandoned as a teen

Also known as Rogue/Red.

Lost some of their tongues making them mute

Trained Assassin.

Previously part of a cult

Addict to painkillers (Caused by the mental issues from the cult and the loss of tongue.)

Bad with Physical affection

Could use a friend

Jace

Cop/Ex Cop.

Laid off after an incident

Has a pubby called Otis

Likes the occasional beer

Dad energy

Issac Merewen

Was previously a Teacher - grade 11/12s

Kidnapped and kept Drugged the hell up.

Was given the new name: Jess/Jack. AKA The Jester

Now has Amnesia problems .(Anomic aphasia)

Was stored Cramped in box.

Needs glasses. (Long sighted. Cant see Infront of him for shit without glasses. He specifically likes round ones :3)

Natrually Blonde

He was very inspired by the Chitty Chitty bang bang scene, “Doll on a music box”.

- He naturally has two different coloured eyes :D

-He likes podcast n occasionally audiobooks. Its good for learning/remembering words, and way easier than straining his eyes. Although it is upsetting occasionally when he can remember more of a book/podcast he’s into more than real words or real-life things.

Tyrone Li

Incubus.

Wise, Patient, caring.

Brown tattoos wind up his hips and torso, curling around his chest around his heart, and around his back, flaring at his neck.

Glasses.

Loves plants and flora

Sex lost meaning when he was younger. He wants true intimacy again but he wants to find the right person..

Glamors hide the following features:

Tail, brown that gradients into Green, Leaf like tip.

Horns, curled. (green tipped :0)

Glamors break usually after a certain period of time regardless of feeding, however, during bad situations/fight the body may unglamour to reserve the last of its energy.

Caspian:

Basically immortal but can die (Reincarnations)

Not a pacifist, but not instantly into violence

He was blessed by the Heart of the Ocean (Shes wonderful <3)

Can control water, can do minor healing with water

Can make water bubble/ boil when angry

Glowy veins when powers are active

He has had many many lives

Soft..caring..Doesnt remember alot of his past..

Doesn't know how many times hes died

Doesn't have alot of family or friends

Goes on many adventures

Elio Solren.

Nickname: Sunshine

Good lad.

Is a shapeshifter Dealt with being told he was happy and always upbeat. People leaving or ignoring him whenever he wasn't started building this sense of need to be happy all the time for others.

Lots of struggles with self image. Being perfect. Appeasing everyone. Poor self body love/self body image.

Is scared about The hate from humans about shifters. The jealousy and fear about them being able to hide behind other faces.

Smiles to hide the pain

Punk/hipster vibes

Intricate golden tattoos

Doesn't open up easily

Doesn't like to admit to being in pain

Kotori

AKA Corey

Owl lad!

Bright yellow piercing eyes. But is totally blind. (Face scars)

Loves music.

Plays the uke.. hums..sings sometimes.

Big wings- like barn owl.

Likes to perch in trees

Jeremey Caulfield

Winter baby

Was left bleeding in the snow at some point

Father Lovely old man (John)

Mother died (Ellie)

Birthday December 23h

Blue eyes

Black hair

Russel

Box boy

Glasses

Red hair

Real sweetheart

Really needs more dev ; ;

Jules

Loves tofu n chicken

Touchstarved

Stubborn af

Kicks ass!

Has Sass

Wears binders/sports bras for Lotsa running n such

Black hair big messy pigtails

Dark brown eyes.

Has a navy bear sleeps with it ‘doesn't care’ about it but does

Gymnast/kickboxing. Bandages around hands

Loved swinging bars since being a kiddo

Trampolines!!

Participates in Underground fight ring to make easy money

Sleeps on just a mattress

Has a laptop for study work but she's slowly giving up on bothering.

(She's not one originally but Werewolf Jules is one of my fav things)

Miles

Part mole, part orphan

Lives underground

Very light-sensitive

Is colourblind

Absolute nerd

loves tinkering with things

is scared of humans

very foggy memories of his parents.

Leilah/ Lei

Can make/control shadows.

Owns a Magic skull(Speaks to it)

Lives in the woods

Wears a skull to spook off people from her woods

Has Tattoos that are shadow/absorb shadows

Kinda bad at maintaining friendships

Emotionally Distant

Wears a cloak.

Bao Ketsuyki

Blood magic bab

Short

East Asian.

Pink/red medium length hair

Big pretty red flower scar from blood magic use on her shoulder/ back.

Little bit foolish, little bit reckless.

Has almost died a few times from her magic use.

Oran Audun

Pale

Punk

Irish

Plays Guitar

Writes in journal, occasionally song lyrics, occasionally little messy ink drawings.

Easy to aggravate (On edge) however is trying to learn how to meditate and be calmer

Covered head to toe in scars but still tries to find confidence in himself. He doesn't find it unattractive, but he feels like others have no need to witness his scars.

loves wearing leather/fabric wrist bracelets

Unwelcome hands have used his body as a research object

Very very against physical contact, needs to break into it.

Ray

Social worker works mainly with kids.

Has a Shy guy tattoo.

His family consists of a Good ma, younger sister, and super baby brother

Dad died but dad was good.

Dirty blonde hair, kinda messy

Short, 5’

Socks the pupper is his helpful lil buddy (hes so round and white and fluffy)

Super dad vibes.

Owen

a hockey player n gymnast.

His mother died when he was about 9.

has an older brother who is a bit of a big jock type

quite protective and caring of his two much younger siblings.

ended up in a nasty scuffle though at some point during his more competitive years in Hockey

This leads to following his passion for Gym

Pole vault, the rings, trampoline.

Still plays hockey among mates or strangers on the weekends in the cold months tho

Ends up taking a position as a gym teacher for kids after taking a childhood course since he was so good at it.

actually a really sweet guy

Soft but likes his sport and jokes.

He can hold his own somewhat more than he appears.

has blue tips/stripes in his blonde hair.

He often wears varsity jackets or baseball tees. As well as a couple other sport wear shirts. (A. Good few are from his bro ofc. Free merch)

He's short but he's got a fairly decent build on him.

He's got a surprisingly good tackle if you aren't careful. And a good grip strength.

Nohea

but everyone calls him Noah.

Works at a Boba tea cafe..

likes to surf.

has an Epic board.

Back and shoulders all littered with lines and tic tac toe-like scars.

he's the type to brush off any questions and change topic while smiling. But not super bubbly. Just. Go lucky.

has a few friends who like to hang out at the cafe

Was in a surfing accident that involved a lot of rocks.

Ila

4’8 Soft. Short.

Ready to protect.

Loves to bake!!!

Smells like a vanilla cupcake most of the time

Isn't afraid to fight although isn't trained

likes Yoga ( and yoga pants)

Needs glasses but doesn't wear them (tsk tsk, unless tryign to read recipes)

Dyes hair silver/white

Jake

Homeless

Snake hybrid can transform his lower half from human legs to tail

Also has fangs, and therefore venom

He's got a lot of sass

Can be a bit of an asshole but soft around the right people

Isn't used to kindness

doesn't cry easily

Steals food

Mac Hiato

Also known as Caf

5’6

Very Grumpy.

Very often has bags under his eyes.

Hoodie is life

Insomnia has serious trouble sleeping.

Has nightmares of strangulation

Occasionally sufferers sleep paralysis

Scared of dark- night lights

Owns a mouse called Bean

Does freelancing webdesgisn/coding as job.

Sits like a gay.

Lives on coffee

Minorly Lactose intolerant

Has One bad eye

Neema

Egyptian

Mechanic

Her dad's a mechanic and used to bring her to work all the time

dead mum: which affected her ability to emote.

Works part time at the garage

Dad likes to bring gifts on their small catch-ups that happen every once in a while.

Sheeee. Suffers a bit of resting bitch face.

she's kinda stunted emotionally because she was raised by her dad, who, isn't great with emotions himself being a man's man and all.

She's very much a tomboy gal. Doesn't exactly get dressed up. because she finds it tiresome and not "her".

Also if she did/does have friends the nickname Nemo 100% crops up because it's sadly alll too fitting but also kinda sweet.

She's actually really into cars and mechanics. Which is one of the few good reasons her dad and her are close.

She's hard to get to know, very quiet. And if you're someone who dominates the conversation she won't speak up much, but you'll be surprised to how much she's listened.

Just because she looks tired and done doesn't actually mean she feels that way.

Samson (Lemonade boi)

His name is Samson, but he prefers Sun/Sunny. (Other more affectionate nicknames include Lemondrop and Sunflower.)

He really likes going out to markets and stuff like that, little stalls or knick knack shops to find the odd kinda items.

He also really likes wandering big forests. (Hes got some o that fae energy) He collects various cool stones/rocks/plants from some of them. He also has some small vials from waterfalls and ponds he’s encountered)

He wants to practice magic to become a witch! He loves the candles and rocks and other cool things that come with the craft. (He inherited things from his father)

He really likes loose fitting shirts too, like flowy things, ones with sleeves that drape past your fingers, or has extra fabric on the bottom that dangle down past hips. (Sometimes they come from the ladies section just because they’re softer and have more variety. Others from op shops and other niche little stores.)

He bought a cologne from a witch that looks cursed but the only curse is that it makes the one who puts it on smell like citrus..so not much of curse. (The bottle looks fuckin neato tho)

He looves fizzy drinks. Doesn’t mind his alcohol either, however it takes a surprising amount to get him on his ass despite looking like a serious lightweight.

He’s pretty average in build, bit of muscle in his arms, some fat on his thighs. Slight pouch of a tum (cause no ones flat and thats unrealistic :<)

He’s about 5′4. So not tall, but not the shortest of the short.

He kinda likes to backpack about. Not staying in places long if they get boring. Which means he is kinda jack of all trades when it comes to work, offering to fix things for pay, lots of casual work doing various things.(One of his favorites was helping a little old lady run a paint shop.)

He occasionally snorts when he laughs and tries not to.

He has his ears pierced, and he has a little yellow gemed stud in his nose.

The ring around his neck he found in the middle of a patch of mushrooms.

He has a couple other tattoos. One of them is of bubbles up his wrist :3 He also has some stars on his ankle, and a sunflower on one of his fingers on his left hand.

He’s not super in to gardening but he does have his lemon tree. He also wants to grow some mandarins

His eyes look silver in a lot of lights, but occasionally there’s some strange hints of yellow, and other times blue.

He has freckles!!!! that look alot like bubbles ;)

He has a twin brother called Fraser.

Scrunches his nose

Hides his laughter behind his hand

[missizzy]

An Account of the Lives of the Weyard Sisters, and Fian Ollivander's Three Most Remarkable Descendants, Chapter 6

(Read entire work on AO3)

Unfortunately, the only real account we have of the confrontation between Dian and Gumboil of Wye is Dian's. Gumboil himself was not a writing man, or one who discussed his more tender feelings with anyone, and it seems when Dian's rejection hurt him enough he therefore did not talk about it, except to heap scorn on her, and tell a few tales that are almost certainly untrue. Dian does not deal with this meeting either in any great length, in the account she wrote of her history with Gumboil, she dedicated only a single paragraph to it:

We didde meet at the time and place at whiche we hadde agreed, and there I tolde him whatte I truly thought of him, giving him a fulle account of alle he had donne to offende. He didde shew himself to be a blinde foolle, for alle he had failed to see. He was taken with a madde fury, and hadde I been weaker with my wande I might have even feared for my swete lyfe. But he had not attemptede to laye hande nor wande on me, when he spoke curses to me insteade, if notte of the kind thate would do me harm, and then turned and lefte me there alone. Ne'er again woulde I lay eyes upon him.

The family might never have seen Gumboil again, but someone else would. Presumably looking to take revenge on Dian, and finding himself willing to do so by going after one of her loved ones, that afternoon he went to the market when Golpalott was known to be there making his daily purchases of potions ingredients, and contrived to "accidentally" fall in with him. An herbalist who recognized them both and witnessed the meeting, wrote about it in a letter to his sister, "All could see he meant it as no accident." According to him, Gumboil invited himself along with Golpalott while he finished up his shopping, and the latter, who of course would have no idea that they were no longer both seeking to marry a pair of sisters, seemed to welcome his company.

The two of them then went off together, and, unfortunately, theirs is another meeting of which there is little record. Golpalott did keep a journal, but he rarely wrote in great detail in it about anything other than his work, and in reference to that meeting, he only spoke of what Gumboil said to him as "enlightening," an adjective he would later retract when he learned that most of what the man said to him that day were lies.

Our only source of knowledge of what those lies were are third-hand, coming from what he told Gaius-Claudius, and what he told Nian much later, and then from what she wrote down about it. The basic gist of it appears to have been that not only had Dian admitted to him that she had led him on from the start without ever having an intention of accepting him, but he had also gotten out of her that apart from Fian, who had, according to Gumboil, only agreed to marry Gecundus to secure the financial support of the Ollivanders for her and her sisters, they had all agreed they would lead on and disappoint someone famous, as this would increase their powers. He accused Cian of doing that with Overdramblus.

He apparently was convincing enough that Golpalott not only believed him, but in his anger he decided to stand Nian up. All the afternoon and well into the evening Nian was left to sit waiting, until finally Gaius-Claudius Ollivander, having heard from Dian a less than honest account of what had happened between her and Gumboil, and determined to benefit from at least one advantageous match, decided to pay the famous potioneer a visit.

Golpalott, who had not believed any ill of the wandmaker, invited him in and informed him of Gumboil's accusations. This made him aware of Dian's deceit, but he was not entirely willing to believe the story that all of the sisters together had formed such a conspiracy, and he told the potioneer so. However, he seemed unwilling to admit to his own behavior in the matter of Overdramblus, and Golpalott seems to have sensed that he was being less than honest. It was likely partly due to this that his attempts to persuade him that Nian was innocent of wrongdoing did not succeed that night.

When he got home that night, he had a meeting with both sisters still living under his roof and their parents, where he informed Dian of the consequences of her actions, which by his own admission he might have exaggerated. All three of him, Nian, and Dian described her great distress upon learning what had happened. She first pleaded with her sister and parents for forgiveness, which they granted, as none of the three of them were ones to deny it when a member of their family had truly not intended the harm she had caused, and was so greatly repentant. Nian did call her a fool, however, something nobody protested. Gaius-Claudius ended the meaning with a promise to Nian to do what he could for her, one certainly sincere on his part.

However, if Dian's feelings of guilt did not go away after the meeting, in the hours afterwards, about which she later wrote, "I slepte not a wink thatte night," as she thought the situation over, she eventually found herself thinking, perhaps rightfully enough, that she was not the main one to blame, but that Nian's unhappiness was in fact because Gumboil had chosen to take his revenge in the way he had. By morning, when it became their unhappy task to visit their two married sisters and break the news to them, she had decided the most appropriate thing for her to do was take revenge herself on her former suitor.

Luckily for him, Gumboil of Wye, probably in reaction to such a great disappointment, chose that day to leave London, and in fact headed south and eventually left Britain all together for the continent, on which he would stay for a number of years. All of Dian's efforts to seek him out, done over the following weeks, would be in vain. However, her quest would bear other kinds of fruit.

She made her first attempt the day after, sneaking out of the Ollivander residence very early the next morning, before anyone else in the household woke up, and would repeat this pattern four more times in the following days. The first three days she lurked around Gumboil's residence, and met with no one more significant than his neighbors, who on her third visit told her they believed he was not currently there. One believed, mistakenly, that he had temporarily taken residence in a concealed place outside London. Her fourth morning out took Dian outside the city walls, trying to determine where that could possibly be. There she first met Tuck and Tarra Potter.

At this point in time, the later famous couple were so poor they did not even have a proper home. They were living out in the open, with only what spells they could cast to shield them from the elements, always on the move except when they had to stop to sleep, owning only what they could carry without too much extra effort. This was a life they took on with the same cheer that they would become known for doing everything with. When they happened upon a young, sad-looking witch, they thought nothing of inviting her to walk and talk with them until she had to go back home for the day.

To Dian, overwhelmed with anger and guilt and uncertainty about what she even wanted in life, the complete lack of these feelings from two people whom she recognized as being much more unfortunate than herself had been unfathomable. Their words and philosophy were ones which under most circumstances she likely would have scorned. But on that day, her mind was in the exact place where she instead listened, and their words had a great impact on her.

She certainly did not change her ways completely. She would even go out several more times in search of her vengeful lover. But each time, she would end the search early to instead spend the afternoon with her two new friends. She was by now becoming persuaded that the neighbor had either told or heard a false story, and with no other leads, it was not too difficult for the Potters to talk her into letting go of her quest.

Instead, the Potters introduced her to another friend of theirs, another potioneer named Sigrid Gurndrune. They probably did not do so with the thought that she might rope her into another quest for revenge, even one that would eventually prove unnecessary. And they certainly had not intended for Dian to goad Sigrid into openly trying to steal customers from Golpalott. Dian insists in her writings, however, that she did not need much encouragement. Apparently she was an ambitious woman.

By this time, several weeks had passed, during which Gaius-Claudius had not sat idle. He had now decided to admit the truth about Overdramblus, only to have two more attempts to talk to Golpalott rebuffed. Finally, he went to Overdramblus, and asked him to go to the potioneer and tell him exactly what had happened with Cian himself.

Overdramblus still was not happy with the wandmaker, and he almost certainly had an even lower opinion of him after that day, with him even afterwards quoted as viewing him as "the worst of grasping merchants." But he retained a strong fondness for all four of the Weyard sisters, as well as a great respect for Cian, and he admitted right away he disliked hearing her name slandered in such a manner. So a few days later, for their sake, he went to talk to Golpalott.

Nor had Nian been willing to give up the man she wanted without a fight. While her guardian had been trying to talk to him in person, she had written letters, lengthy ones, sometimes taking hours over them. She might not have continued had she known he threw out the first two unread, but when he received a third lengthy missive, delivered by what he described as "a likely overtired owl," he finally gave in and read it.

From both their accounts, it was mostly pleas, intermixed with the occasional ramblings about potions she thought he might be interested in reading. After reading it, Golpalott wrote "I can't doubt thatte she likes me very much, both from how much she wrotte and how close she has paid heed to alle I did saye to her, both about my own selfe, and about my work and my field of study." Still he was not entirely satisfied of her innocence. Also, he too was about to leave London for a few months, traveling to meet with a Welsh potioneer he was planning to exchange recipes and brew more experimental potions with. From his writings, it seems he decided not to think further on the matter until his return.

Many years later, Nian would express a wish that she had thought more about the fact that he hadn't sent her at least a brief note. "I woulde have rested far easier thatte month," she said, and she certainly would have. Instead she spent it writing letters that grew desperate, and then angry, and her letters from late in the intervening time period would include a few things that would actually give Golpalott further pause about forgiving her; he described some of her more angry words as far beyond anything he was used to hearing from anyone. Nian would also later wish she'd paid more attention to the obvious signs of his self-importance.

One wonders what would have happened had he at that time learned that her sister had instigated a conspiracy to steal his customers. But while he did note a slight drop in business that month, he apparently didn't think much of it. It wasn't enough to seriously inconvenience him financially, and he would never be all that interested in wealth.

While Dian and Sigrid's campaign to cause Golpalott trouble was not a success in its goals of truly hurting him or getting his attention, his rival's business did enjoy a substantial boost, and her profile rose in London's society. She began forming her own social circle, which of course included Dian, as well as the Potters. Gaius-Claudius also became something of a member of it, especially since he thought any potential husbands he picked out of it would likely be ones Dian would be willing to have.

Dian's sisters, too, also befriended her new friends. Fian and Gecundus grew very close to the Potters, especially since, of course, they would name their eldest two children after them. Gecundus would also set about trying to improve their situation, and they believed it was due to his influence that they shortly afterwards offered the place on the caravan traveling to Wales, where of course they would first develop the set of charms that would become their first claim to fame.

Also in Sigrid's circle was a distant cousin of hers named Brom Constantinis. Although only two years older than Dian, he was already know as an accomplished duelist, and if he had not had the kind of adventures Gumboil had been able to boast to her about, he was still very well-traveled. He seems not to have impressed her much at their initial meeting, and while her opinion of him was generally good, other older, more experienced duelists she was introduced to interested her more, at first.

It was instead Gauis-Claudius who singled him out as a good candidate for her husband. His reasons mostly involved who else he was related to. On his father's side he had two uncles, Rowan and Wiliam Constantinis, who were looking likely to make the Council sooner or later, and his great-grandmother, Margat of Harlowe, was a very famous witch, known for having traveled as far as China. Within days of meeting him, he was already plotting out how to maneuver them into marriage. He knew, of course, that Dian could not know of his hand in it. But Sigrid too had thought of the match, especially since while Brom had not quite caught Dian's eye, she had caught his. He easily persuaded her to work with him to bring it about.

Though Gauis-Claudius does not describe exactly how they managed it, he claims it was due to their machinations that the two youths found themselves spending time together regularly, running errands from their elders or even find each other's company during their free time. It did not take very long for Brom to fall fully in love, at which point he began to openly woo. Dian admits to being thoroughly charmed, and quite ready to be won. Gaius-Claudius must have felt triumphant indeed on the day she burst into his study and announce whom she wished to marry, and he genuinely surprised her when he said he approved of the match. So much so that she made no protest when he then suggested he do proper negotiations with both Brom and his parents.

Later, she would say that perhaps she ought to have suspected then she had not found her husband as independently as she'd believed. Although even then she did suspect Sigrid's hand in events, but her interference she didn't mind. She would, two years later, finally learn the truth, which would leave her quite irked at her former benefactor, but, she wrote, "however he became so, Brom is now mine own heart's love, and I shalle not give him up, merely for what Master Ollivander has donne; for I thinke my husbande hadde no knowledge of that." The evidence does indeed suggest Brom didn't know. It is unlikely either of their elders would have trusted him not to tell her.

Having finally brought about an advantageous match, Gaius-Claudius certainly not willing to risk losing it by giving Dian much time to find the truth out before the wedding. It had to be alarming enough when, a week after the engagement became official, Dian stormed into the house and declared all was over between the two of them, though it was only three hours later that an owl from Brom changed her mind back. Much later, everyone would become used to such behavior between the volatile couple, but at the time, both Gaius-Claudius and Brom's own family were keen to get things done as soon as possible. Within three months of negotiations starting, the young couple had received a settlement consisting largely of his grandmother's money, and they were married almost right after, on May 17, 1043. Initially they too settled in London, though they ultimately would not stay there very long.

By Dian's wedding, Golpalott had returned to town, and then he finally wrote to Nian, saying he would like an interview with both her and her benefactor. Arranging things with the latter took another month or so, during which the Weyards found one reason for joy: Cian was expecting the first of the five children she would ultimately give birth to. Nian expressed a worry for if they would like to have the stresses of children so soon, but generally the young couple and their families were pleased by this new development.

The grandparents-to-be, especially, began talking of trying to stay in London indefinitely. Arthur and Sinead had by now been there so long they had gotten used to the easier life they were able to live there. They were also old enough to start to lose their hardiness. Nian had even expressed a concern for her mother's health if she returned to their homestead. They and their daughters, having now become a reunited family, very much did not want to separate the way they had in the past either.

When Golpalott returned to the Ollivander household, it was considerably emptier than it had been when he'd last visited it. Still, he apparently decided to talk to everyone else in the household before talking to either his would-be bride or her guardian, including her parents. Gauis-Claudius was left to worry what his younger children would say about him. He need not have; Golpalott records them as having said nothing but good of their father. Sinead Weyard apparently rambled at length in response to only a couple of questions from him, and left him uncertain what to make of her words.

From Arthur Weyard, however, he got a clear, thoughtful appraisal of Gaius-Claudius Ollivander, as well as something of the story of what had happened between Dian and Gumboil, which seems to have finally cleared Nian of wrongdoing in Golpalott's mind. It might have even improved his opinion of the wandmaker enough to make him mind the subsequent negotiations with him less.

Finally, he asked to see Nian, and she was summoned downstairs to see him. She apparently had only become aware of his being there an hour previously, which was nonetheless time enough for her to write out and tear up several speeches to him. Her mother would comment to her the following day that she had never in her life seen the eldest of her daughters look uncertain or frightened, until she saw her descend the stairs.

She need have neither worried, nor gone to such lengths to prepare her words. Barely had she began her entreaties before Golpalott assured her they were no longer necessary, and things were quickly settled between them.

Between him and her guardian, however, matters took longer. During the subsequent months, Golpalott even seriously considered breaking negotiations off and marrying Nian without any aid or goodwill from her guardian. He might have even asked her to do it if not for Fian's being married into the man's family; he knew well that nothing was more important to the sisters than each other, and did not want to risk Gauis-Claudius pressuring her not to see them.

In the end, however, he finally got the wandmaker to be generous by offering to take not one, but all three of the final Weyards left in his house off of his hands. Everyone by then had become aware Arthur and Sinead did not want to go home. But Gaius-Claudius did not want to keep a pair of adults in his house for much longer, and Golpalott was quick to guess that.

He quickly hinted that a large settlement on Nian could be used to support her parents as well. Gauis-Claudius made an offer he afterwards declared as big as he'd hoped for, and the two men also made arrangements that would help them both acquire many of the ingredients of their respective trades in the years to come. They also talked about sharing and even collaborating on research, but their plans to do so would never come to fruition.

Nian Weyard was married to Golpalott on January 5, 1044. Dian wrote not long after it, "Nonne coulde look more triumphante on the day they wedde than she." She had reason to be, perhaps. Of the four sisters, she was the one who had truly fought for her choice of husband, and had suffered a true extended ordeal of not knowing if she would ever have him. Which makes it ironic that while her sisters' marriages would all have their ups and downs, Dian's especially, hers would be the one that was ultimately unhappy.

[theticklishpear]

Hi, I just wondered if you could help me with tips on how to write fiction in a diary format? Specifically creating tension as well as engaging scenes with mainly telling/summary. Some background without too much detail... its a horror short story involving the "haunting" of a MC where halfway through it'll change to normal narrative and the story unfolds real-time. Any other pointers you could would be useful for me to bear in mind would be appreciated. Thanks :)

The diary or journal format of story-telling is a near cousin to the epistolary, in which the story is told through letters. After all, aren’t diaries and journals basically just letters we write to ourselves? We’re not usually writing for it to be read by someone else - we’re trying our best to be real and say our true thoughts and feelings about a situation in a safe place. We use diaries and journals to be seen, even if that’s just helping ourselves see ourselves better.

So what makes a diary story work?

Voice.

These stories are all about the narrator being an actual person, not just some metaphorical god-voice describing life in as beautiful and highfalutin of terms possible. This is a real human being caught up in events they probably weren’t expecting, dealing with people they may not have thought they’d be dealing with, talking about real things happening to them. It’s key to the life and vitality of the story that it carry that voice to the audience and that the voice is strong. Just because you’re writing a diary doesn’t mean every entry has to start with, “Dear Diary.” In fact, depending on the character, it probably won’t.

While I said at the start that we often write to ourselves, sometimes diaries and journals are written as though someone might theoretically read them in the future. Consider how your character thinks of these entries. Are they trying to leave a message to someone who might come across the diary later? Are they writing to comfort themselves? Are they writing to an imaginary audience because it helps them to cope with what’s going on? What’s your character’s reason to write and relationship to their writings? That can help inform their tone and the kinds of things they might write about.

The device in D.J. MacHale’s Pendragon series is that the main character is on a different plane/planet/time from his friends who are receiving his journals periodically. His friends never know if it will be the last set of journals they’ll receive, and Bobby is writing his adventures specifically for his friends, so they are thorough and actually a fairly typical narrative structure in first person. This is possible because of the reason for Bobby’s writing them.

You still have standard narrative tools available to you; they just might look a little different. Descriptions that in an average narrative structure might have time to breathe and grow into longer, more detailed things will likely be shorter, more to-the-point, more visceral. You can feed on the real and disjointed way of describing that people have in conversation. Rather than needing it to sound “good” and to choose the perfect words to craft beautiful storytelling, you can embrace the garbage words we choose for ourselves. Descriptions can focus on fewer background details, fewer things we might include in longer stories to help build out the world.

Internal thoughts and monologues about what the character feels and thinks about what’s being witnessed are more able to be put front-and-center since these entries are directly from them. The story’s already purposefully being set behind a filter, so you might as well embrace it.

Dialogue is absolutely still an option for you. It may be just the essentials of a conversation, but don’t feel like you’re just constrained to telling. You can show, too; you just have to be judicious about it.

Tension comes from format as much as the events. When constructing these entries, take the practicality of sitting down to write an entry into account. Time is passing, always, for your character, even while they’re writing. Some days they won’t have time to write so you wind up with time gaps. These leave an audience looking at the dates from one entry to the next and wondering what could have happened to keep them from writing for so long. Sometimes your character only has five minutes to scribble down an update rather than write something long and detailed. Those short entries help to speed up pacing, which is a great way to get your reader turning those pages and tightening up subconsciously.

In the same vein, not every entry has to have a complete arc the way a scene does in a standard narrative structure. People get interrupted. These, like chapter cliffhangers, need to be used with enormous care and purpose, and sparingly. Remember that every entry will bring your character up to their present, even if it’s not what you think of as the present of the story.

In Tamora Pierce’s Beka Cooper books, which are all three written in journal format, Beka sometimes writes more than one entry per day as she has time to write throughout her chores and jobs. As a way to bring the audience into the urgency of a situation, entries will sometimes end with Beka remarking on something going on as she’s writing and then leaving it abruptly: “I’d drifted off, thinking of other things I had learned in Dale’s rooms, when I heard loud voices downstairs. I must go.” End entry.

Other times there may be simply a date but no entry, as though Beka intended to write but either didn’t have time, didn’t have anything to say on what had happened, or wasn’t quite ready to write. Sometimes there are more device-like endings in which Beka notes her tiredness and begins to spell poorly before an intense part of her day’s story, saying “[she] can barely see [her] page” and must sleep for now. This is a bit of a cheaper trick, but the forced pause for the reader does initiate some amount of excitement and trepidation for what’s to come.

Bobby in the Pendragon series often pauses his journals before something big is about to go down so he can send a final goodbye to his friends at the end: “The crazy thing was, this all came about because of two people who never could have foreseen the outcome of their actions. .... It was clear to me now. The turning point for Denduron wasn’t the battle between the Milago and the Bedoowan. ....[T]here was something else that became clear. I wasn’t going home. .... This may be my last journal I write to you, Mark and Courtney. If it is, then please know that it wasn’t your fault about the flashlight. All you did was help out a friend. The blame is all mine. If you don’t hear from me again, then please know I did everything I could to undo the mess I created. I may not be successful, but at least I tried. Thank you for reading this, and for being my friends. Hopefully this isn’t a final good-bye.” This helps remind the audience that, indeed, Bobby could die. Just because he appears to be the main character, and is the author of the journals, doesn’t mean he’s not in grave danger. He can still die, he can still be injured, and it helps to make the audience curious about how he gets out of his predicament.

That’s where your tension comes from. Making danger a reality for your protagonist and making your audience curious to see how it goes.

It is more important than ever to keep yourself present with your character. Tense and timeline can get tricky with diary entries, so make sure that when you’re writing an entry, you keep in mind exactly where in the timeline your character is. While you’re writing, don’t think about what’s coming up next for your character. That kind of thing has a tendency to sneak into these style of stories. Stay in the moment with your character, not in the future with your notes. Let them say things that are wrong because they don’t know the answer yet. Let them guess about their next step and what their plans are for tackling their situation, even if you know that’s most definitely not what’s going to happen.

Good luck!-Pear

[jet-playin-around]

I Hate My Life

I hate my life. 

I've begun so many pieces of writing with that very line, from my first journal entry as a child, to the countless stories I've attempted to write throughout my life. It's such a cliché, I understand, yet they are the words that get me moving. They begin the flow of words and ideas, and from them stems a wealth of inspiration. 

You see, in order to say those words, with the depth of feeling and meaning with which I infuse them, one must understand the perspective. A teenager can say the words with gusto - with the fervor of youth and a self centric viewpoint, and I was no exception. 

However, I am no longer a teenager. I'm a man of twenty-eight years. My education is complete, so to speak, my responsibilities are that of an adult; yet my experiences, my choices, still haunt me. I look back on my life and I wonder what might have been different. 

If I had chosen to say something when I could still have been helped. If I had trusted another when I couldn't bear the weight of my reality. Would I have ended up in that bathroom, bleeding on the floor in that cold, desolate room? Would I have felt that unbearable heat, the flames that scorched my soul despite leaving no visible mark on my body? Would I have witnessed the horrors that to this day steal my sleep and colour my actions?

Would I have accepted the mark, the brand that forever labelled me a traitor? 

My hatred for this life is not arbitrary. It doesn't come from feeling misunderstood or out of place, as every human does at some point. It comes from the very real, abhorrent experiences I've lived through. The madman in my home, poisoning my mind from the onset of my life, and the madman who came later. The values I was taught and the choices I made based on those values.

I sometimes wish I could go back, make those choices again, choose better. Choose correctly. 

Some might say that those choices weren't mine to make, but I disagree. It makes others more comfortable, when they interact with me, to believe that every action I took was a direct result of how I was raised, what I was taught. They aren’t wrong, but nothing in life is that simple. I don't hold it against them, but neither do I envy their blissful ignorance. 

If I could not accept that those were my choices, the fact that I made them, what kind of person would I be, now? I tortured children; what does it matter if that was at the orders of scoundrels? Enough of me chose to do it. I condemned an innocent animal to death; is it really so important that I didn’t understand the ramifications of that action? In that moment, enough of me wanted to exert my power. I am responsible for the death of a good man; who cares that I didn’t cast the curse that took his life? My mission, regardless of why I accepted it, drove us to that place, to that moment. Those were my choices and excusing them as someone else's does me, and everyone affected by them, a disservice: They're my lessons to learn, and I worked and suffered to learn them; to learn from them. 

You may ask, “If you’ve accepted responsibility and made peace with it, why do you hate your life?” It’s a fair question. If I may be frank, even though I strive to avoid making those mistakes again, I have to live with the knowledge that I made them, in the first place. I know the monster that I can become, and I know what it would take to create him again.

But, those who remain in my life refuse to understand. I believe they could, if they were to try. They won’t do that. The world reads my words and begs for more, yet cannot see the reality hidden in them. My mother still dotes, Pansy refuses to leave, Blaise remains his charming, boisterous self, Greg still follows me around and, sometimes, I even think I see him waiting for direction. 

And Potter.

Potter is, as he’s always been, the very worst. We fight fairly constantly, but he never uses my past against me. He looks at me with such understanding and tenderness. My stomach roils when he does. He says he understands, but how could he? If he understood, he wouldn’t speak to me, let alone touch me. But he does.

He’s lying beside me and I resist the urge to look at him. He’s too beautiful. The war, and what he had to do in it, don’t touch him. He has nightmares, just like I do, and he has difficulty interacting with people. But he… He’s still so kind, so pure, that it’s difficult to imagine he ever felt the things I do. 

So, how could he understand? How can he look at me without seeing everything I’ve done? He says he does see those things, that he knows perfectly well who I am. Well, then, how can he touch me, kiss me, fuck me? How could anyone?

But he does, and I’m not about to stop him. Because, deep down, I’m still that selfish, spoiled child, making the wrong choices and affecting the lives of those around me. I want him. For as long as I can have him, I want him, so I’ll be selfish, and I’ll make the wrong choice. The choice to keep him when he deserves better. The choice to fuck him when he deserves love.

I don’t know what love is, not really. Potter says he loves me, and I want to believe him, so I’ll choose to do that, too.

Harry shifts in his sleep, curling close to me and wrapping his arm around my waist, forcing me to lie back down. When my head hits my pillow, he presses closer, slotting himself into place. His hand on my chest, his lips on my neck, breathing hot air into my ear. His cock cupped by the crevice between the cheeks of my arse… and I wonder, do I hate my life?

I don’t know what love is. For all I know, this feeling  could be it.

[gg-astrology]

Hi gg..how have you been? Are you into asteroid astrology? I'm familiar with asteroids like Chiron, Juno, Ceres but are there any that relate to music/arts or fortune? Do any of the planet placements give insight to arts as well? Sorry if it's too many questions at once! :)

Hey there!! 💕 Thank you for dropping by!! 💕 I’m not that familiar with the more obscure ones… I think I’m still in the process of learning about them, but I did find something interesting that might be relevant to your interests?💕

[Below Cut: Asteroids -  Nine Muses ]

Note: I can’t believe this is coming from me but this is a long post so please be warned

There’s this thing called the ‘Nine Muses Asteroids’ that might be what you’re looking for (in terms of arts/music) – the asteroids themselves are daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (if you scroll down, it might give you a better idea of where it applies). 

Since they are muses that– through definition might seem like it applies to the more archaic type of entertainments/artistry, it can still be relevant in our society today. 

I think the most significant thing to take from it is that while we may excel at our artistry/expressions (natural talent in such fields) it doesn’t lead us to success/financial wealth in those fields/industry (or it can, this is just something to be wary of but it doesn’t indicate your success/not, you have to do that yourself!💕) 

The Nine Asteroids

Kalliope [22] 

The asteroid starts with a ‘K’ instead of the ‘C’ it was supposed to be (also: Klio/Clio) – Kalliope is like the General of the muses, she strategizes, take action, blend elements together to create mixture of intelligence and creative expressions together.

I personally think of her similar to Athena in some aspects, although most of these muses are blessed with incredible charm and beauty (in what they reign over) like Aphrodite as well.

With Kalliope, I think of her as sort of a mix between Athena, Aphrodite and Ares. She’s known as the Muse of Epic Poetry, but is also regarded as one of the biggest influence on eloquency, self-assertiveness, wisdom, skills and harmonious influential voice (charm).  She’s powerful in her own rights, despite rumours about whether or not she bears children – she teaches them how to use their gift to their benefits. 

Kalliope can be associated to writing, singing or the teaching of others of creative skills through her own wisdom and action. She’s great at explaining, and with that is wisdom/action-taking influence she often points to areas in which the individual might find them creatively transforming technical information into something that others can access/enjoy/learn from. 

She’s like a story-teller of sorts, she can also indicate dynamic/power or impactful speeches/writings the user utilizes. See where Kalliope is in your chart and if it’s aspecting anything (signs/houses/other placements) to check if it’s taking effect to anything specifically (*orb should be around 1′30 or less)  

*If you want a more material example of Kalliope : articles, non-fiction writing pieces, researches/essays, reports/documentaries, journalism pieces, life-reflective art pieces, singing, news reporting, etc.  

Erato [62] 

Muse of Love Poetry. This is like inspiration (muse) that shifts the narrative, it may come from love/passion for something/someone. Think of eros but with more fever – with Erato, it indicates both the need for space (in order to creativity to transpire) but also ‘freshness’ of love (not infatuation, but really just love). 

However, Erato doesn’t always have to indicate (through aspects) that these individuals write/speak about their loved ones (at least not always in synastry). They may however find that they inspire others by their speech, impacting others through their emotionality/passion and the dynamic of their love 

(Contrast between Erato and Kalliope is where the inspiration comes from.  With Erato it’s often clear that it’s coming from a place of emotional impact– love, inspiration, desire, passion. While Kalliope might talk more about the manifestation/transformation of the technical into self-asserted creativity/impact of the material/subjective forms.)  

Nor does Erato indicate that it can be successful venue for work. Although personal popularity might be implied– the individual might have to choose between their love/desire/passion and what it is they have/can do (sort of like being separated from their one true love – if this is badly aspected)  

To my understanding, it can also talk about music, writing or the arts (or all three) depending on the user themselves (and what it’s aspected to). It’s more associated with feeling love/passion and creativity for it, rather than the actual action-aspect of the asteroid. 

Erato is described as being charming, so this might indicate a harmonious (almost venusian) impact on others as well. She might become the muse to those around her if you think about it like this (in the context of popularity). 

*If you want a more material example of Erato: novels, particularly fictional ones that includes themes that may or may not involve adult contents. Mostly though, just an overlying theme of romance in the works themselves. 

Euterpe [27] - 

Muse of Music, Song, Lyric and Poetry. With Euterpe this is less about harmonious/subdued form of expression (personal popularity) but more about the thrill and joy of expressing the self.

In this case, Euterpe asteroid looks at where the person may experience a desire to give their self-expression at a core level; particularly as a performance or a ‘sharing joy with others’ kind of way (space for it to manifest if it makes sense, I think of her kind of like Artemis in a way).

While Erato may be more personal (sometimes it happens one on one basis) and Kalliope may concern more of the masses (if it’s aspected towards ‘public’ sphere where it can reach it’s audience)– Euterpe doesn’t have a ‘set’ public, it’s more about sharing this self-expression however it can. 

Which in our context, can point to self-publishing mediums/hobbies (i.e. youtube, blogposts, twitter, soundcloud etc.)    

Euterpe’s role is mainly concerning composition of the arts, the creation stage where you combine both your desire, ability and goals together. It’s an experimental spirit almost, in which if you think about composing a song– you have to mix a few things together and ‘test’ it out until it makes sense for you.

The same applies to writing, where you might follow the ‘progression’ of a story– but the content inside is something of personal interest/dynamic to you and your readers. Euterpe’s role is both experimental in nature (creative freedom) but also and alignment of goals together. 

Most of the time, her desires doesn’t have to be traditional. It’s often unconventional or progressive, sometimes can even ‘push’ the envelope a little if that was her desired ‘goal’ she wants to experiment towards.

Another thing to note is that she can sometimes be depicted wearing a laurel wreath, this can indicate the prosperity (and what you might consider ‘success’) or fame if it’s aspected well. 

The Aulos (kind of like flute) she plays can also indicate/symbolize the voice of the user being heard at a wider range without them noticing. (*this is just my own interpretation of it). Which– if you take that as popularity/success, can also be indicated if you read how she’s aspected.  

*If you want a more material example of Euterpe: musicians, producers, composers, lyricists, DJ, radio hosts, classical musicians to musical performers. Playing in a rock band to youtube covers. 

Thalia [23] - 

Muse of Comedy. May often offers wit, sharpness of tongue and a keen sense of humor that may throw others off-guard (in a good way) as a form of self-expression. 

This makes for a great TV personality (variety shows) as well as personal thinker/trainers who finds inspirational yet unconventional ways to help others achieve their goals.     

Thalia’s comedy/sense of wit also talks about the impact of their effect withstanding the test of time. Success in this case may come in being remembered for their phrases/original thinking.  

Imagine being between Mars-Jupiter, on one hand she doesn’t hold herself too seriously (thus sometimes she’s depicted as kind of mischievous). She prefers the sharpening her wit/skills with those who truly has skills– not someone’s statues/popularity/fame that got them to her. 

Thalia doesn’t talk about popularity through society class or advancement of classes in order to be considered successful, it’s success in terms of getting to flourish in her own ways. To experience and learn and the active sharpening of her skills. 

*If you want a more material example of Thalia: comedian, personalities, performers, comedian, sit-com writers, comedy writers, comic writers, cartoonists, satirical writers/pisces

Terpsichore [81] -

Muse of Dance, particularly the range/movement of the body and our ability to interpretate gestures/expressions in subtle charms – whether we’re dancing or not. Her charm lies in how effortlessly she makes it look, as well as her dominion over schoolings over the same discipline as hers. 

She made it look effortless because she has mastery over the craft through hard-work/experience. 

Terpsichore embodies creative freedom that comes from layers of hard work and control over her own body. In some cases this might also talk about flexibility, agility and the body expressing a translation/interpretation that came from other mediums (into it’s own self-expression).

Terpsichore has subtle charms even when she’s not dancing, it’s a sense of power/charm that comes with innate controlling of the body– maybe through posture or the way they walk that shows adequate/knowledge over their form (a good aspect)  

The main thing to remember about Terpsichore is that it’s not always harmonious, the end result may resolve in power/peace– but the path to it is through hard-work/leading the self through those transformation with a focused mind. 

Terpsichore doesn’t necessarily indicate solo/independent successes (by itself). Since Terpsichore can often talk about accompanying others with their skills, the Terpsichore may experience successes through collaborations (with a music/muse/artists/sponsor) or within the same group of Terpsichore as them. 

*If you want a more material example of Terpsichore: dancer, physiologist, physical therapist, massage therapist, chiropractitioner, fitness trainer, musical director, musical performer, dance teacher/unit, choreographer, producer (*to something physical related, maybe even martial arts), martial artists  

Polyhymnia [33] -

Muse of Hymns, Geometry, Meditation, particularly those that may be hidden behind a ‘veil’ of sorts (like in a studio, through a screen/youtube, actors behind camera– as well as rhetoric and mimicry– recitation of lines/roles and critical thinking) 

Polyhymnia has many stories to say, residing over songs, patterns, mathematical shapes, contemplation but also agriculture/gardening and spiritual secracy. Often she is known for many things, just the same as the user who may have many different interests.

She may deliver the indicator of someone who may be able to pursue different mediums in their careers, based on a stable ‘pillar’ they’ve built at their core/for themselves (regarding what they want to express). 

The main thing about Polyhymnia is that she is less– extroverted than her sister Thalia or even Terpsichore– she’s often a lot more collected, serene, sometimes even meditative in her posture/demeanor. 

It talks about strength in the self, that doesn’t have to be necessarily shown off. But through that modesty, also comes many mysterious praise from others around her (deriving from her name). 

Because she’s kind of — collected and secretive (without frivolity) she often’s more about the sophisticated arts/thinker between the realm. This makes great actors particularly when they need to ‘break’ into a character/roles, or those who may require to ‘embody a certain emotion’ for their singing. 

She also does well for behind the scenes work, such as those running the industries. Writers, producers, poets. Anything that needs a little more control and focused work into the details. She has the gift of diving deeper into things with steady mediation. 

Polyhymnia is mostly seen making aspects to those who have been writers in their formative years, because she brings praises– this often indicate successes in which their thinking/mind and the pillars they’ve built for others having been carried through in time. (Past their lifetimes/history)    

*If you want a more material example of Polyhymnia: writers, poets, actors, therapists, screen-writers, play-wrights, think-pieces. 

Klio [84] -

Muse of History,  but most commonly Fame. 

I think this might be what you’re pointing to when you mention success, but in Klio’s case it’s more about the immortalization of the person’s work/body of work that makes it through history (or learning from history in order to make success work – it could also indicate the area of which the person may come across fame as well) 

The name Klio derives from ‘to make famous’ – thus, the expression in this case isn’t about the artistic but more about the self (non-personal sometimes). 

It could talk about the person themselves, or manifestation of marketing/advertising that lead them to fame (by modern association to the term). 

Klio celebrates the success of themselves as well as the success of others, it’s a celebration that doesn’t have to do with personal (emotional) satisfaction so much as recognition from others that their work is successful (as a group/whole– think of like those annual award ceremonies) 

 Klio can talk about academic success, or ‘formal/official’ success if it’s aspected significantly/nicely. Academic texts/studies as well as declaration of the person’s success from others can also be part of what it could indicate (*this is my own interpretation).

*If you want a more material example of Klio: writers, researchers, academics, journalling (creative kind– like Anne Frank or Pliny the Younger who recorded events) poets.  

Melpomene [18] 

Muse of Tragedy, but in this case it’s more like Thespian in nature than actual tragedy befalling on the person. 

Melpomene and the way I interpret her is like the other sister to Erato (to make it easier to think about). 

She deals with the manifestation/actualization of the work as well as the self-expression that mirrors the depth of Erato’s passion – but more towards the tragedy-kind (And what comes with it: sadness, anger, disappointment– layers and depth of emotions) 

Melpomene is also talented in singing, because she used to be the Muse of Chorus (thus, reflective of those around her/empathetic and uses their expressions to vividly ‘play’ back what they go through for entertainment )

The thing about tragedy is that it’s memorable, comparatively the mundane or certain ‘happiness’ may be less prone to sticking into our conscious than the experience we’ve had when we befallen.

Melpomene doesn’t just indicate learning from the experience, she talks about transforming the pain/mundane/happiness into art that sticks.

Graphics creators (like mood boards/photographs) that sets these solemn moods are part of what might be applied by Melpomene (although it could largely just be another asteroid as well).

But mostly, the ability to inhabit emotional depth of others and use it actively (*important) to transform/translate into our self-expression is where Melpomene’s strength lies. 

*If you want a more material example of Melpomene: writers particularly horror/thriller or tragedy (angst)/drama writers. TV series producer/writers, graphic designers (reflects the human psychology) architect/designers, actors, singers, psychologist/therapists or those who works to reflect/help others. 

Urania [30] - 

Muse of Astronomy which back then is also Astrology, what this indicate is not just the scientific pursuit of knowledge but also the creative interpretation and freedom of such expressions as well. 

Urania is the oldest of the daughters, she embodies both wisdom but also unconditional/universal love and patience/love for philosophy. 

In a way, think of Urania as part of a universal force. If you put in time to study and really transcend your ideology/expressions into something, she’ll make sure your vibration for the imaginary to transcend material expectations (like that ‘transcending mind’ meme)

She governs mostly in the liberal arts area (as well as the more traditional/entertainment arts) but this might have more to do with the individual minds and the creative pursuit inside one self (similar to the moon, the subconscious/spirituality within the person) 

She offers healing/refugee to those in needs (like shelters) and thus– she can often be found in prophetic or sometimes religious individuals. 

*If you want a more material example of Urania: spiritual speeches/writing pieces, self-care/self-help, predictive writings, astronomy/astrology, 

Alternatively

You can also check:

Melete [56] 

Mnemosyne [57]

Bacchus [2063]

Apollo [1862] 

(Note: Becareful of Apollo because it can also indicate areas in which you may become obsessive/imbalanced onto something, so that you may have natural talent for/mastery in the area– but that may lead you to ignoring the obvious lessons it’s trying to teach you to have. Be more humble, basically.) 

For beginners: check for where Taurus/Pisces/Leo is on your chart, as well as Pars Fortunae and aspects to Pallas if it’s relevant. 

This is very broad, but it’ll help with learning how to interpret the basics for someone else as well.

More specific asteroids, try:

Harmonia [40] - Musical talent

Photographica [443] - photographs, visuals, graphic designs

Daedalus [1896] - designers, craftmanship, architect (*but also be cautious, because Daedalus was the one who created wings for Icarus’s flight) 

Poesia [946] - poetry, lyrical thinker (musing), composers

If you have any signs/indicators pointing towards these, please be sure to check the aspects being made with it. This is important because it can point to success as well as oppositions, so make sure to take note of those.

The Nine Muses might help you understand the direction/creative force that you’re being pushed towards, but you make the choice on what you want to pursue. It’s indicating talent/vocation that will help you in your career/muse so use it to your benefit. 💕

Also sorry for the long explanation and notes. There’s really no way out of this. To really understand the asteroids you might have to look up at the lore and study the characterization of these daughters, they all symbolize similar messages – but the way they embody them is different.

How To Read

Try to see if these asteroids lands in important areas of your life (houses) and what aspect it’s making to your axis (ASC/MC) or your planets (within a 1′30 orb preferably)

It could also indicate other people’s musical-artistic influences on you (i.e. it’s aspecting your IC) and also you may become a muse to others as well. Make sure to read aspects thoroughly. 

Ending Ment

I know this is very long and lengthy and probably doesn’t make much sense. But I hope you can gain something out of it ;; Honestly I’m not too strong on this topic as well, so definitely try to study on the asteroids yourself as well if you have time 💕

[amazingsutherland]

The Art of Redirecting Negative Thoughts

Buddha described the human mind as being full of monkeys, turning from branch to branch, screeching and babbling nonstop. That's why the mind is often referred to as your "ape mind." With so much going on in your life, it's reasonable how you can get shed in your ideas. This is particularly real when one monkey, worry, is especially loud with warnings of potential risks, both actual and visualized. The more you try to disregard it, the louder it appears to become. Fear offers a specific purpose-- to shield. This is such a primitive impulse that it can conveniently control your thoughts and, when left unchecked, causes unfavorable thought loopholes that play over and also over like an old record player that gets captured on repeat. Some instances of negative thoughts loops are:

I am not good enough.

I am afraid to fail.

I never have enough money.  

Without intervention, duplicated adverse idea loops gradually become strengthened as well as at some point a circuit is created in the brain, forming a behavior. This self-defeating cycle can bring about differing degrees of:

Depression

Anxiety

Anger

Guilt

In any one of these states, it's hard to envision the possibility of not really feeling in this way, or worse, you may assume it's a regular state of being, which assuredly is not true. The bright side is, there is something you can do concerning it. The human brain is an incredible creation and understanding what it's qualified of brings hope that modification is feasible. Research in neuroplasticity, which is the brain's ability to create as well as reorganize synaptic connections in response to learning or experiences, reveals that this ability expands right into late adulthood. That indicates it's time to start training (focus on training) that ape mind of yours to be favorable. As new habits are created, you are essentially re-wiring the brain and also producing brand-new circuits. Keep in mind at all times as well as power it considered the adverse thought loopholes to develop? That same power and also dedication requires to be used to rerouting unfavorable thoughts patterns toward ideas that are a lot more life-expanding rather than life-limiting. Today is an excellent day to obtain started.

Take Positive Action

Those that garden know that you need to keep on top of pulling weeds, or else, they proliferate promptly and also can crowd out the greenery you wish to grow. In this instance, you want positive ideas to be like weeds as well as group out the unfavorable ideas. To get going, ask on your own, "What are some things I directly enjoy doing? Who makes me rejoice when I'm around them?" Then, make it an indicate make plans that integrate that positivity right into your life. Here are some various other actions you can take that influence positive behaviors:

Gratitude journaling: The process of creating down what you are happy for every day can have a favorable influence on your life and your overview on the future. Hang around each night writing down 3-5 points for which you are happy. It can be as simple as, "I am happy for my heart that beats."

Seek stillness: Make an initiative to seek serenity in whatever type charms to you. The more you access stillness, the extra you can touch into your internal tranquility, truth, as well as stamina. It exists, just awaiting you to see. Try looking for tranquility with meditation, hiking in nature, paying attention to calming music, and exercising breathing exercises.

Surround yourself with favorable vibes: Seek out scenarios as well as people that are positive by checking out inspiring books, attending talks by individuals you appreciate, and also paying attention to favorable songs. (Music musician Michael Franti always causes the excellent feelings.)

Perform Seva: The word "Seva" in Sanskrit suggests "generous service." This sort of solution uplifts the cumulative via togetherness as well as empathy. Concentrate on just how you can be of solution by aiding people, pets, or the earth. Attempt choosing up trash, volunteering at organizations that fascinate you, or something as basic as acquiring coffee for a person else.

Use innovation for your benefit: If you are a technology individual, there are applications available that support boosting positivity, like Happify. Try it out and see the distinction it can make in your life.

Get to the Root

Keep in mind there was a reason that you got captured up in the negative idea loop( s) in the initial location. You can't overlook this fact. Obtaining to the source can take a while and also you may select to work with a professional. However, now, you have the power to alter HOW you respond to make sure that your capacity to get rid of challenges as well as settle issues ends up being reliable. Instead of wallowing around in the muck, decide and make a decision to make far better choices that result in an empowered life where you are the writer of your very own story.

Maintain a Sense of Humor

Humor is the best type of medication, so don't neglect to have a funny bone regarding on your own. You are doing the very best you can obviously, but your ape mind can get so carried away that if you catch yourself shed in a crazy idea loop, it can almost be amusing. This clip from the Bob Newhart Program reveals some wit around adverse self-talk. Although lots of concerns are too difficult to be taken this casually, it's always handy to maintain a feeling of lightness when considering your ape mind. And if all else falls short, take Bob's recommendations and also try informing yourself to just "quit it."

Redirecting Exercise

Replacing your negative idea loops with positive ones requires time and also energy. While the change will more than likely not happen overnight, it is possible with devotion and commitment to alter. Right here is a workout to assist the procedure: Observe Your Thought Patterns You can't repair what you don't recognize, which is why a good area to start is to passively observe your thought patterns. It is very important to not evaluate, however instead, visualize you are a reporter bearing in mind on your very own habits. At various moments throughout the day, ask on your own the following inquiries and also compose your answers down in a journal:

Where are you?

What are you doing?

Who are you with?

What are you thinking?

Was there something that triggered any unfavorable thoughts?

Initially, you may want to set an alarm as a pointer to sign in with on your own. Notice the themes that keep popping up. This exercise will certainly help bring awareness around negative thought loopholes or stories you are stuck on, even if it's just a general suggestion of what that may be. Once you have this recognition, you can start selecting to see things in a different way. Understand the Lesson The greatest lessons you discover sometimes comes with wonderful rivalry. List out your negative thought patterns that you either confirmed or discovered in the previous exercise. Following to each pattern, compose down what you gained from it. : Negative thought: I am not good enough. Lesson I learned: I found out exactly how to be a more caring person. This is where you begin to utilize your ideas instead that allowing your ideas to utilize you. You may begin to feel a change in viewpoint-- an opening in the heart as well as mind to the possibilities of what this suggests for you. Replace with Positive Statements Finally, draw up positive declarations starting with "I am ..." For instance: Negative thought: I am not good enough. Lesson I learned: I learned how to be an extra compassionate person. Positive Statement: I am utilizing my presents and also talents to aid others see the great in themselves. Choose a time in the early morning and also night to check out or state aloud your positive statements. You can put this in your calendar or set an alarm system as a reminder if you need some aid keeping self-control. If you discover it difficult to believe the declarations in the beginning, that's fine. Remember, you remain in training mode. By doing this exercise, you are proactively working with re-wiring the brain and creating a brand-new behavior. At some point what your heart desires and what your mind believes will align. Training your mind is like functioning a brand-new muscle. With normal engagement, there are durable effects. Pity for yourself while you do this job. Although you will never ever do away with your old patterns completely, it will be more challenging to slide back right into them as you create a much more positive expectation on life. It will resemble placing on clothing you have outgrown as well as no more require. At the time, they offered a function, today you have larger as well as far better options to pursue. As composed in the Structure for Inner Peace's A Course in Miracles, If you were to recall upon your life as well as reduce it to moment-by-moment frames, it would certainly come to be apparent every decision made was an option between a "complaint and a wonder." You've paid lots of tribute to your complaints, it's time to consider the miracles rather as well as see what life you can unfold for yourself. If you are really feeling called to grow your technique as well as aid others gain the rewards of a healthy, favorable way of living, obtaining licensed to show with Chopra Center Certifications may be the next step for you. Learn More.

[fleetwooded]

some processing, and deliberating on processing:

my mom came to mtl to help me pack up everything i own this weekend and we did very little work until the last morning and instead walked all over the whole city talking. getting to know my mom and starting to understand her has been one of the biggest joys of my adult life, and i feel very lucky to get to be honest with her and watch us grow together. i made her read this springsteen interview on friday, and we talked a lot about it, especially the bit where he says “as we age, the weight of our unsorted baggage becomes heavier... much heavier. With each passing year, the price of our refusal to do that sorting rises higher and higher.” our whole family has had to reckon with a lot of our history & dynamics recently, so we are all trying to do that sorting, together and separately. 

for me, part of that is processing my feelings through writing, and, often, sharing those feelings. things get muddled when they stay in my head, and while sometimes i can process by writing in a private journal, sometimes i need a record that feels more substantial, and posting stuff on semi-public platforms creates a sense of validation and formalization that makes me feel less adrift. i’m always extremely aware of the tension that is created by doing this on social media - i think that in the past, i turned to social media platforms because i wanted explicit validation of my feelings from other people, but didn’t want to endure the nakedness of being vulnerable. the internet allows us to connect and receive connection from a distance, and that means that there is a very fine line between productive community building/emotional support and empty, superficial validation that only acts as a bandaid, or further inhibits our ability to be sincere in our physical lives. 

now, i try to always check in before i post something. evaluate: how would i feel if i saw this on a social media feed? is it forcing my friends and strangers to see emotional volatility/distress that would be upsetting, or guilt them into providing emotional support beyond their capacity/responsibility? is it productive and healthy for me to share this processing, and do i think i would benefit from having people bear witness to these events and feelings? does this have the potential to spark deeper thinking or conversation that could be beneficial for both me and the other party? sometimes, i genuinely do not know, and i share things anyway. sometimes, i share things, and then immediately feel guilty or naked when someone interacts with the post and i know that someone other than me has seen it. i know that using this platform as both a personal diary and a fandom blog is playing with fire, but it’s the only internet space i keep completely separate from my real life, and therefore allows me to talk about things without being asked about them later. that’s part of the reason that i keep my circles on here as small as possible, and i don’t share this blog with any of my close fandom friends i met on other platforms.

anyways, i have no answers, i don’t know anything, and i likely will continue oversharing a lot about my life based solely on intuition re: whether or not it’ll make me feel better. i am now landed back at home and have to do some serious reckoning with what my future is going to look like, so stay posted on that i guess!

[trespassingassemblies]

Horror, history, and Guadagnino’s Suspiria

There are a number of things that make a film particularly likely to displease me. Firstly, if it is boring. Secondly, if there is non-consensual harm inflicted on people (especially women) for the purposes of the arousal of the audience (director). Thirdly if it doesn’t let you know what it is trying to do. Fourthly, when it does let you know what it is trying to do, but it isn’t doing that. Fifthly, when I feel like a good 30 minutes could be cut from it without it actually losing anything. I would argue that Luca Guadanigno’s ‘cover version’ (his words) of Dario Argento’s 1977 horror Suspiria is certainly guilty of the last three listed above. Nevertheless, it engaged and provoked me enough to take the time to write this.

I am going to say a bit about what I think is good and bad about the movie as well, but I’m going to start in a different place. Several days after seeing the film and having many thoughts and questions about it, I end up here – why is it that Guadanigno chose to ‘cover’ (that is not merely to remake, explode, develop, pay homage to, intervene in) Suspiria, and not, say, a more ‘art house’ piece such as, say Andrezj Zulawski’s Possession (1981), a film with which Guadanigno is clearly familiar. In particular, Guadanigno borrows from Possession the explicit setting of Wall-divided Berlin, and the Wall’s presence in key moments of the film, and the colour changing eyes of key female protagonists. However, these aesthetic choices are not supported by a deeper cinematic integration of the political with the macabre/occult, about which I will say more further on (and if youu have never seen anything by Zulawski, please watch Possession and The Third Part of the Night (1971) at your earliest opportunity, they are in my opinion some of the most extraordinary films ever made).

Argento’s Suspiria is a film that shouldn’t (and in some ways doesn’t) hang together, but is nevertheless very affecting for many viewers. The impression it left on me felt due to its bizarre colour grading and set, the infamous soundtrack by Goblin and the moments where these two came together to produce a kind of grinding yet psychedelic vertigo and a gut-twisting violent death (of which, if I recall correctly, there are 3 in the film). In one sense, there is a great deal lacking in that 1977 version. Dialogue is sparse, poorly written, sometimes inaudible. Everything strong about it is in sound, colour and gesture. Guadanigno’s Suspiria, by contrast, has replaced the garish colours and the idiosyncratic soundtrack with a fuller script, new and deepened characters, several key subplots and backdrops which simply do not exist in the Argento version, a new, far more minimal soundtrack by Thom Yorke, and a different ending. This results in an overly-full setpiece which explicitly foregrounds Germany’s Nazi past, the present day of the film as the days in October 1977 when a plane was hijacked by the a Palestinian liberation group to try to secure the release of imprisoned leftwing German terrorists from a group known as the RAF, an (attempted) meditation on the limits and patriarchal force of psychoanalysis, and even non-conformist Christianity from the US Mid-West (in the new version, the main character, Suzy Bannion, is from a repressive Mennonite clan with a dying mother). An actually rather sparse and impressionistic film has been transformed into a portmanteau of concerns and allusions. 

Watching the new version, I wanted all this embellishment and expansion to ‘work’. But I think it doesn’t. One reason for this is that the aspects surrounding the space and subject at the heart of the film – the witch-led dance academy in which an ancient witch is being brought back to life – simply don’t seem to actually have much to do with the film’s centre. It’s not clear enough to me why the psychoanalyst Dr Klemperer (also played by Swinton, and an obvious nod to Jewish diarist Victor Klemperer, who documented everyday life in the Third Reich and survived to tell the tale) wants to protect the women Patricia and Suzy from both the clutches of the witches, and their own psyches, and the Baader-Meinhof gang. It’s not clear why we need to know so much of Suzy’s Mennonite backstory – is it just so we know she’s a virgin, and so she can deny her birth mother at the end in order to lead the coven? It’s not like Guadagnino isn’t capable of making a more spare film; I’m a big fan of his 2009 Io Sono L’amore (I Am Love) which also stars Swinton in a far more nuanced and multifaceted role. The world of Argento’s Suspiria is by contrast fairly hermetic. In the scene I find most upsetting, when the blind pianist’s faithful support dog turns mad and rips his throat out in a deserted square, the municipal buildings are distinctly fascistic. Nevertheless, I think this is an aesthetic and not narrative choice on Argento’s part. It isn’t meant to set us wondering whether his wife died in a concentration camp or not. As soon as you explicitly bring in history, the audience is waiting for a moral judgement – preferably one that has to be tied into the ending.  Here’s another theory as to why this doesn’t hang together. I actually think the only way to make good work that touches on History in the explicit way that this Suspiria does is to be, feel, or make oneself implicated in that history. And Guadagnino, unlike Zulawski, isn’t. So when Zulawski constructs a hidden world, a separate sphere of bodily and psychological horror as he does in the two films mentioned above, he does it as a person who has witnessed and suffered in something of the horrors he alludes to. By contrast, but side-by-side with this, is one of the early scenes in Germany in Autumn (1978) Rainer Werner Fassbinder, one of the contributors to the film (which like Suspiria 2018 is both set in the ‘German Autumn’ of political unrest the year before and in recollections of the Third Reich), plays himself, speaking on the phone to his agent (?) about the suicides of three of the imprisoned RAF members, a moment also touched on, and also through a radio broadcast, in Suspiria 2018. In a scene which I think about over and over, naked Fassbinder says ‘What I think or what I don’t think doesn’t make any difference at all’. Nevertheless, he expresses opinions and anxieties, with growing distress, about the resurgence of a repressive state and an acquiescent public in the middle of the uprisings of recent months. This ensemble film, part documentary, part drama, dominated by Alexander Kluge and Fassbinder, is about as far from a horror film as it could be. Yet it absolutely places this question of implication at its heart, and then proceeds to thread it through interpersonal violence, public mourning, border checkpoints, journalism and sex. And I think Zulawski, through both psychological and body horror, tries to do the same thing – to draw the audience into the problem of their own implication in the conflicts that he presents. In Zulawski, saving a person, or attempting to, from their own actions, has both a personal an a political aspect. In Guadagnino’s Suspiria, it is Madame Blanc, the senior teacher/witch, who provides the only obvious link between the world outside the walls of the dance hall and its interior. A former student, Patricia, who we meet in the first scene desperately seeking refuge from Dr Klemperer the psychoanalyst, is rumoured to have fled to join the RAF (although Sara later discovers her zombified semi-living form in the school’s charnel house of a basement). Commenting on this, Madame Blanc voices approval that someone should have gone to follow their calling, done something brave. It seems to me we are supposed to see Madame Blanc’s approval of Patricia’s actions both as an anti-authoritarian sentiment (the school, we are told, suffered immensely under Hitler but persevered) but also as a convenient cover-up for the coven’s incorporation of rebellious Patricia into their body. It’s unconvincing on either level. The worlds of Berlin 1977 and the Markos Dance Academy can’t be integrated.  

I think Argento’s main aim in making his Suspiria was to shock and arouse, to transport people, and disconcert them. Guadagnino has grander ambitions, ostensibly; think one of these ambitions was to make the film ‘relevant’. At the end of the film I felt a kind of dull desire to say ‘Yes, this is a Suspiria for today’. But I don’t think it can – it so carefully attempts to fully allude to the pivotal moments of Germany’s self-horror in the 20th century that it seals them up and takes them away from us. As in the original, the strongest parts of the film are what aren’t fully explained and allowed to bear down impressionistically – the much-talked-about dance-torture ritual which kills Olga in the sealed mirror studio, Sara’s search which goes through that studio into the heart of the coven’s impressive selection of mutilated zombies. Oh, and as with Argento, the soundtrack is very creepy. Subtler, but the foley and sound mixing combined with Yorke’s sensitive and really multi-influenced music makes an excellent combination. I would have quite liked to have the images off for a while in places. Guadagnino should have had the confidence to make this sound a character too. There is a great deal said already, no doubt, about the relationship between horror as a cinematic genre and the matter of history, but I am not a film theorist. I just love film. And I do think at a time of deep political crisis, for Guadagnino to take this film and make it like this, is an audacious and unreflective act. He has tried to make Suspiria a more political piece, but in attempting to rethink and re-do it, no-one, not the audience, not the director, not even really the characters, is meaningfully politically implicated in totalitarianism, repression, fascism, justice, and so on. So it swirls around beautifully but never lands in a real (and by real I don’t mean realistic) moral and emotional place. The only place it can come to a halt, weakly, is the love story of the psychoanalyst Fritz Klemperer and his wife Anke – a story that has only really provided a kitschy Holocaust backdrop to the film, never the sense that the Holocaust existed in any present. The 1977 hijacking, too, is attractively dishevelled posters, some chanting, indistinct black-and-white faces of historical terrorists, attractively drab Osti set-dressing. When the ghost (?) presence (?) real person (? Who cares) of Suzy, now Top Witch, sits on the ailing Fritz’s bed and tells him that, contrary to the beautiful illusion of elderly Anke which brought him to the mouth of the witches’ Sabbath, Anke did in fact die in Terezin concentration camp (‘She was cold, but she was not alone’), I honestly just didn’t care. The world of the Markos Dance Academy is no more or less real than the Berlin Wall which runs parallel to its façade, and is constantly re-presented to us throughout the film with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop. In Guadagnino, the personal and the political seem to continue to erase each other, and neither the matters of the state or the matters of the occult seem to have a convincing bearing on the lives and selves of the characters, however much gore and weeping transpires.  And though the 152 minutes I spent in this film were often engaging and enjoyable for me, as I curiously reflected on the above I couldn’t help wishing someone had just done a shot-by-shot remake, and that Guadagnino had kept his idealisations of national trauma and forgetting to himself.

[rassilon-imprimatur]

The Master, Surviving Elemental

As she got nearer, Miranda got a good look at him. He was of average height, and looked very smart in his black suit and pressed shirt. He had neat black hair, greying at the temples and a small, pointed beard. But that wasn’t what Miranda concentrated on – she was struck by his eyes. They were black, but they burned into her, like he could read her mind. Like black lasers.

He smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “Hello, Miranda, my dear. I am the Headmaster.”

[...] 

The Doctor was disappointed to find himself in a perfectly ordinary Headmaster’s Office, or at least something doing a very good impression of one.

A large oil painting of the current Headmaster in academic robes glowered down at him as he began a quick search of the room. There was a grandfather clock in one corner… but there was something odd about it. Something wrong with the way it had been made – it didn’t look quite finished.

Opening the desk he found a glowing sphere, the size of a cricket ball. Space twisted around it.

‘A dimensional stabiliser,’ the Doctor heard himself saying. It was responsible for moving the office into the fifth dimension. No-one native to Earth could possibly enter the room while it was active.

He picked it up, found it responding to his thoughts. He could hear it talking to him. Yapping, like a loyal dog.

The Doctor asked it to go into standby mode, then slipped it into his pocket.

He quickly found a set of official school notebooks, like registers. But they were full of mathematics symbols, what looked like Greek writing, and a number of very interesting drawings. One looked remarkably like a scale diagram of a black hole. Another was a spiral, like a five dimensional whirlpool.

The Doctor scowled – he knew he should be able to read this, but he couldn’t. If it had been Greek, it wouldn’t be a problem. And he wasn’t sure he could ever decipher it – very few of the symbols were repeated. If it was an alphabet, it was a huge one.

‘It’s called the omegabet,’ a voice told him. ‘It has a million letters…’

‘…but only five vowels,’ the Doctor completed.

‘So you do remember?’

The Doctor frowned. ‘No…’

Then he turned. The Headmaster was there, covering him with what looked for all the world like a laser pistol. ‘

I knew you’d track me down, my dear Doctor. But you’re in the same boat, aren’t you?’

‘Boat?’

‘Where are you from, Doctor?’

‘I don’t know,’ the Doctor admitted.

‘Not this planet, though?’

‘No…’

‘Neither am I. We’re from the same place. Something’s happened to time. Something’s happened to… to…’ The headmaster squeezed his eyes together, tried to concentrate. ‘Wherever we came from, it’s gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘It never existed. That’s my theory.’

‘Of course it existed. Otherwise, how could we exist?’ ‘It’s paradoxical, it’s mindbending and upsetting. But… it’s exciting. Liberating. Full of potential. We can push things further, how far only depends on us.’

The Doctor looked at this strange man. He wasn’t a tall man, but there was something about him – his bearing, those eyes. He was a born leader.

‘And where do you want to “push things”?’ the Doctor asked, already suspecting what the answer would be.

‘If we don’t take control, someone else will,’ the headmaster insisted. ‘This is a perfect opportunity.’

[...] 

The Doctor was edging back towards the door.

‘We can’t do this alone. We have to recruit other… other people like us. We’d also need to root ourselves into this reality. I don’t know how yet, but we don’t have long. I don’t think there are many of us left. It’s why you’re special. It’s why your daughter is so special.’

‘Miranda’s adopted, she’s -’

‘I know who Miranda is, Doctor. I know the truth. There’s no need to hide it from me. I know.’

The Doctor tapped his lip. Until the Headmaster had mentioned Miranda this had been a game. But he was threatening her, now.

‘And you’d be our leader?’

‘We would have a universe, Doctor. A whole universe. The whole of space and time. Even I don’t think I could rule all that alone. We’d need an army, and what better place to raise an army than here on Earth?’

‘Then we’d divide up the universe between the three of us?’

‘Four. There’s another.’

‘Another time traveller?’

‘Someone else like us.’

‘But you said yourself that you don’t know what we are.’ ‘Precisely. But I know what I am not. I’m not a slave, not a servant, not a subject. I was born to rule, as were you. It’s our birthright, Doctor.’

- “The School of Doom,” Lance Parkin

Standing before the iron door – a still definitively and solidly locked iron door – is a dapper, sardonic-looking man dressed in a pristine dinner suit. His jet-black hair is slicked neatly back with oil. He is leaning, nonchalantly, on a silver-handled cane. 

‘Who. . . ?’ Anji’s voice falters with a curious mixture of relief and trepidation. ‘What. . . ?’ 

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ says the man. ‘You know perfectly well who I am. In a certain sense, anyway. And as to what I did. . . ’ He blows on the nails of his free hand. ‘You know how it is when you have any number of pets. Familiars, chimeras, creatures of hideous, diabolical and slitheringly unutterable evil, that sort of thing. One has to let them out occasionally. One has to keep them fed. It’s a bit of pain, sometimes, to tell you the truth, but it is rather expected of one.’

Abruptly he becomes brisk. ‘Well, I really should be going, for the moment. You’re swimming busily for the surface, I can see, but you still have a way to go yet. Never does to rush these things.’ 

He essays a formal little bow and shoots out a well-manicured hand. Anji has no time to lurch back in alarm before she realises that he is merely proffering her (as if for her inspection) a small pasteboard card. Still in something of a daze, she takes it. 

‘Feel free to drop by,’ the man says. ‘When you feel up to it. Any time at all.’ 

With that, he lays his cane over his shoulder, slides past her and strolls out of the alley, whistling a complicated little tune that Anji has never heard in her life, and will never hear again – though it strikes a chord somewhere inside her, some part of herself vaguely recalling troop trains and soldiers packing problems into their old kit bags and smiling, smiling, smiling.

- The Slow Empire, Dave Stone 

According to Scarlette’s journal – though not Lisa-Beth’s – during the fight one of the male denizens of the tavern edged his way through the violent crowds and quietly seated himself at Scarlette’s table. Though no name is given for the man, Scarlette says that he was ‘a gentleman of distinguished nature’, clean-shaven and dark-haired, and at first she thought he might have been in the market for business. She does note, however, that on the lapel of his black clothing he wore a rosette in blue-and-white. It would have marked him out as a member of the Opposition, but nonetheless he was quite gracious and civil.

[...] 

Assembling a picture out of all the accounts, he’s described as a cleanshaved, dark-haired man in distinguished middle age, handsome in some respects even though to some of the British witnesses he came across as ‘swarthy and difficult to place’. He was slim and well turned out, and he made an impression on the island by always dressing in tight, straightforward clothing of prim black. . . apart from the rosette of blue and white which he wore on his lapel. He would often be seen simply standing in the vicinity of the other guests, hands folded behind his back, observing intently without becoming involved in any of the visitors’ many disputes. Whenever people would ask each other about him, in muted whispers, the dark-haired gentleman would simply bow his head to them. His accent was English, although some said they detected a little Latin in his features.

[...] 

DOCTOR: Have we met? I’m sorry, my memory isn’t what it was. I shed most of it a long time ago. 

THE MAN: Met? Oh, I’d say so. Believe it or not, we used to know each other quite well. 

DOCTOR [with recognition?]: Good grief. 

THE MAN: Ah. Spoken like the man I used to know. 

DOCTOR: You’ve lost that terrible beard, then. 

THE MAN: But of course. I have whatever it is you lack. And vice versa. Have you forgotten? Oh, I’m so sorry. You’ve forgotten everything, haven’t you? [Irony?] 

DOCTOR: You’re behind all this? No, of course you’re not. Not your style at all. 

THE MAN: Here, Doctor, I’m simply a guest. Thank you for the invitation, by the way. Most touching. Admittedly, I would have preferred something more personal. . . 

DOCTOR: And would you mind telling me what that rosette’s meant to be? 

THE MAN: A sign of my allegiance to the great Whig cause. I’ve become an exponent of democracy. 

DOCTOR: Why does that not sound convincing? 

THE MAN: My dear Doctor, I’m telling you the truth. I told you. I have to offer the universe whatever you can’t. If you’ve decided to take on the colours of your new sweetheart, then it’s up to me to side with the Opposition. Perhaps one day you’ll consider destroying the universe. Then I’ll be in the awkward position of saving it. 

DOCTOR: You don’t expect me to believe that, surely? 

THE MAN: Your friend in red came closest to the truth. What does she call you, again? Her ‘elemental champion’? Very perceptive of her. There are only four of us left now, you know. Four of us in all of the universe. We have certain standards to uphold. 

DOCTOR: Then I suppose you’re going to say that you don’t want to kill me. 

THE MAN: It’s hardly the time for that any more, wouldn’t you agree? While our kind still walked tall, we had the whole of space and time as our battlefield. These days, I’m afraid our little duels would be utterly meaningless. You’ve met Sabbath, of course. 

DOCTOR: Yes. He reminds me of you. I think. 

THE MAN: How interesting. He reminds me of you. Our replacement, Doctor. The new breed. All our kind in one, and a mere human being, too. We can hardly return to our old routines, with his kind in charge. Can we? 

DOCTOR: I’m sick. I’m helpless. You must know that. 

THE MAN: I rather think that’s my point. Do your duty Doctor. However tedious it may be. Save the universe. Become King of Time. Go after that irritating black object in the sky. Whatever you think is necessary. Once you’ve done that. . . well, perhaps the universe will be ready for us again, who can say? Then we can set about destroying each other properly. Otherwise, I’m afraid this is hardly our arena any more.

- The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, Lawrence Miles

‘There were four of us left, apparently. You’d be number five.’ 

Marnal rounded on him. ‘Left after what?’ 

The Doctor hesitated. ‘I don’t know. Some disaster. I’ve picked up hints, seen the odd vision, but I was never able to follow up on anything.’ 

Marnal leant over him, sensing a moment of weakness. ‘Weren’t you, now? Not terribly enterprising of you. So you have no idea?’ 

The Doctor shrugged apologetically. Marnal raised his hand, and the Doctor thought he was going to hit him. Instead, Marnal touched the Doctor’s temple with a fingertip. 

‘Contact.’ 

For the briefest moment, the Doctor saw himself as Marnal saw him. Then back to vice versa. Then rapid alternations between the two viewpoints. It was dizzying. 

A man with a sallow face and small, pointed black beard, who wore a blue rosette; a young woman with long blonde hair in an extraordinary piece of haute couture; a tall man with a bent nose wearing a cravat and holding a pair of dice; the Doctor himself with close-cropped hair, sitting on an ornate throne, a newborn baby girl in his arms.

- The Gallifrey Chronicles, Lance Parkin

[balaclavastyles]

Bad Ideas

what happens when Y/N finds herself with a crush on an accident waiting to happen

warnings: language

word count:  2,187

requested: nope!

( masterlist )

There were a lot of things Y/N didn’t like. For one, she didn’t like sleeping with socks on (and couldn’t even begin to understand people who could). She also didn’t like slow walkers, especially when they all seem to be directly in front of her. Y/N also detested her roommate, Katherine. Though she knew it was wrong to feel so bothered by one person, she couldn’t help it. Y/N didn’t dislike Kathrine, or as her friends called her ‘Kathie’, right away, no, it was a slow descent into the pit of suffering.

The first day Y/N arrived at her dorm, she was excited, to say the very least. The idea that she’d finally be living on her own and everything that comes with it was something she had been wanting for a while. Even the mundane activities that came with university life, like microwaved dinners at ten pm, which is what she’d heard about since she was fifteen. Nothing seemed negative…until she met Katherine. Sometimes Y/N wishes she had a journal on hand at all times so she could write down all of the inane or ignorant comments Katherine would make on the daily. Surely it would be interesting to read ten, maybe twenty years from now. As much as Y/N wished she could find humor in Katherine’s offhand remarks, she couldn’t.

The first day in her dorm didn’t go as smoothly as one might hope. First off, settling in wasn’t the easiest when her lovely new roommate decided to basically have a going-away party in the cozy apartment. Why couldn’t her family just say goodbye at an earlier time and save the tears for home, Y/N thought. Though she barely knew her and decided to view the gesture as more endearing than annoying. Over the course of the next couple weeks, Y/N started to realize her first encounter with Katherine might’ve been foreshadowing for the days to come.

First, it was the disagreement between the rooms. Y/N had set up her suitcases and begun to unpack in one of the two bedrooms of the dorm. Though they seemed identical to her at the time, Katherine found them to be quite different. After her family finally left the over-crowded apartment, Katherine explained to Y/N why the rooms were very different and how they needed to sort out who got which room. (Bear in mind, this is all without so much as a ‘hello’). In the end, Y/N ended up keeping the room she had claimed in the first place, much to Katherine’s displeasure.

Now just a bit less then halfway through the year, Y/N has an understandable dislike for Katherine and her annoying antics. Though, ever the pacifist, Y/N tries to avoid conflict whenever she can. Why waste her breath on an argument when she can just spend her time studying in the campus café? It was a somewhat nice little coffee shop, though Y/N couldn’t say she enjoyed the walk back to the dorm in the darkness of night. Something about it managed to creep her out just a little, though who was she going to complain to? It wasn’t as if she’d manage to make any actual friends over the course of the semester. Obviously, she had made acquaintances, like the girl who sits next to her in English that she’d lent a pen to a couple times, or the boy she passes a couple of times as she walks to and from her classes. But in the way of real friends, Y/N didn’t really have any at this school. Text and calls from friends back home still existed, she’d even managed a couple Skype chats, but nothing beat real, face-to-face, human interaction.

It was a Thursday night and Y/N, once again, found herself sitting in the cozy café, some generic jazz playing through the speaker above her. The only way she could describe it was as an off-brand Starbucks that the university really went all out for. It was just hipster enough to be considered ‘cool’ but not as popular to the point where the line was out the door. Y/N was sure the actual Starbucks down the road had something to do with that, but she had more important things to think about.

Like who was sitting in her usual seat?

It wasn’t as if she was a newcomer to this café and there were plenty of open booths and tables all over, so why did he have to be sitting there? Y/N was already annoyed with the fact that she’d frequented the shop so often that the staff knew her order by heart. So the fact that now she’d have to give up one of the only consistent things in her life she enjoyed didn’t please her very much. Though, Y/N wasn’t one for confrontation so, with a huff, she swung her bag down onto the booth directly next to the one she’d grown accustomed to.

Everyone who had known Y/N her whole life knew she was not unfamiliar with the act of being passive-aggressive, especially when she was already in a bad mood. Though she was usually quite considerate of others, considering the fact the boy sat in the booth behind her probably had no clue that was her usual seat and he was there to study, just like she was, Y/N couldn’t help but play the music she listens to as she studies a bit louder than usual. She couldn’t really tell you why this entire situation set her over the edge a little bit, maybe it was the fact she had just taken a test that she thinks she may not have been the most prepared for, or maybe it’s that she knew Katherine had already made a lot of friends considering the many get-togethers held at their shared dorm. But whatever the circumstances were, Y/N knew her intentions were probably in the wrong place.

These somewhat rational thoughts she seemed to be having all of a sudden came to a brief halt when she felt a presence next to her. Carefully, feeling all the courage from before leave her body, her eyes glanced up at who she now realized was the man who had been sat behind her.

“You do realize this is a café, right? Not your bedroom, so can you please turn your music down, for god sake.” The words shot from his mouth like darts as her mouth stumbled to find the correct words to piece together a halfway-eloquent response.

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” Y/N spoke softly, reaching to click the volume down on her phone. Though this wasn’t the worst case scenario, he probably could’ve been a lot worse, she still just wanted to crawl into bed and watch Netflix until she fell asleep, but she had far too much studying to do for that. As much as she wished her mind was set on whatever ancient texts her English teacher wanted her to read now, Y/N had something much more interesting on her mind. Like how the boy speaking to her had really pretty eyes, even in the dim light of the coffee shop, or the tattoos poking out from under his shirt sleeve. Though Y/N was mature enough to know this would probably be their only interaction and pushing him out of her mind as soon as possible would be the smartest idea, something about him made her want to know more.

Y/N was pulled out of her trance as the man opened his mouth to speak again. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you ‘t’s not nice to stare, moppet?” She could feel the heat rising to her cheeks as a small smirk danced on his lips, that she now noticed were a lovely shade of pink. Once again, Y/N was at a loss for words, only finding herself being able to nod like a child who was just scolded by a parent. “I-um- yes, sorry.”

A breathy laugh slipped past his lips as he raised an eyebrow down at the girl sat so stiffly in the booth. “You sure do say sorry a lot, d’you know any other words?” He laughed sarcastically as he teased her. In any other situation, Y/N would’ve been fuming at this point, especially because she was already having an exhausting day. Though she couldn’t find the courage to be mad, instead, the only thing she could find was a rosy color slowly creeping onto her cheeks. Hoping that the dim light of the coffee shop would hide any actual evidence of her embarrassment, Y/N straightened herself up before clearing her throat. “Yes I do, and I would love to share my vocabulary with you, but I’m busy. So if you’d please go back to whatever you were doing so I can study in peace.” The girl forced out, hoping to sound more confident than she actually did.

Y/N soon found out whoever this guy was wasn’t going to be phased by her little show of courage. “Ooh, you’ve got a bit o’ a mouth on you, don’t you? I’d love to see what else you’ve got in store for me, but lucky fo’ you, I’ve also got some studying to do, but don’t think I’m gonna forget this-” He gestured between them, referring to their tense conversation. “-Au Revoir.” He spoke, his accent thick as he took his seat back in the booth behind her. Y/N was a bit stunned, to say the least, over what had just happened. Tiredly she ran a hand through her hair, trying to find the concentration she previously possessed as her focus moved back onto the laptop in front of her.

Y/N made her way back to the dorm, the autumn air nipping at her skin. Much to her dismay, she realized it was time to start wearing a jacket as she shivered slightly, her feet padding along the sidewalk. Part of Y/N had forgotten about Katherine’s very existence as her mind was so focused on the eventful conversation she’d just had. She couldn’t help but be filled with dread as the realization kicked in that whatever that interaction was between her and the guy was probably just a one-time thing and the rest of her time at university would be spent with Katherine’s constant whining and not whatever-his-name-was’s quick wit.  As she opened the door the apartment as quietly as she could, hoping Katherine might be in her room and not even notice that Y/N had returned. Unfortunately, Katherine was sat on the couch, watching some show Y/N definitely didn’t have time for.

“Oh, you’re back.” The ginger spat, turning back to Y/N for merely half a second before focusing her attention back to the television. This wasn’t unlike Katherine in any way, in fact, this was probably a nicer side to her than Y/N was used to, usually she hardly acknowledged her. With a quick nod, not wanting to engage in any sort of conversation, Y/N found herself slipping past the roommates spot on the couch and into her own room. Thankfully, Katherine didn’t care enough about her to stop and ask about her night, one of the few perks of despising your roommate is that they don’t care what you get up to, Y/N decided.

With a flick of her finger, the small ceiling light illuminated the room, one of the few places Y/N actually felt at home in. It wasn’t big or anything, but it had everything she had back in her old room at home, a little bookshelf crammed full of every genre she could imagine (her Harry Potter collection took up quite a bit of room), while on the opposing side of the room her dresser stood with small pictures of her with friends or family sitting in frames. Nothing in the small dorm room would ever be as good as home was, but it was a start.

Quickly changing into clothes that could serve as pajamas, meaning an old tee shirt from her junior year of high school that was several sizes too big even then and some old gym shorts that she could never wear outside of the privacy of her own room.

As Y/N sunk down onto her bed, she began to finally collect the thought swarming in her brain.

1) What was that guy’s name?

2) Did she actually bomb that test that badly?

3) would she ever see him again?

4) When, if ever, would Katherine stop being her actual worst nightmare

As much as she wished she wasn’t, Y/N was focused on some of those questions more than others. Part of her wanted to find out his name, be able to get more a vibe from him if she knew his name, right? But then again what if the vibe from his name and his actual personality were polar opposites. Like what if his name was Eugene? Not that there was anything wrong with the name Euegne, but Y/N really couldn’t see someone that cool having a name like that.

Nonetheless, name or no name, Y/N knew there was something different about him, as much as she wished she didn’t.

[biomedgrid]

Biomed Grid | Transpersonal Caring Relationship

Introduction

The enduring values and beliefs that brought me to nursing include a desire to have purpose in my life. This means I want to know that I did not waste my time on earth. Another belief is that every person deserves to be cared for by compassionate caregivers. My compassion for others comes from my belief in all people being children of God. My religious values are the most important beliefs I hold. Faith gives people a reason for everything they do. I believe we will be judged by God at the end of our time on earth and I want to be worthy of redemption. Caring for those who are sick or cannot care for themselves is, in my opinion, helping to do God’s work. Hopefully this work will assist in my being judged favorably.

This work is also valuable to society. Civilized societies take care of their members who are disabled, ill, and handicapped. Nursing can be very difficult at times. Nurses clean up feces, emesis, and blood. They sometimes bear the brunt of angry and hopeless outbursts caused by illness. They witness patient’s lives ending and sometimes are there when parents lose their children to accidents and disease. These tasks are part of the needs of society. These values and beliefs I bring to every nursing situation.

According to Parker & Smith [1], nursing’s metaparadigm consists of four domains. These domains are nurse, person/s, health, and environment. Insights gained regarding these realms include that we are all connected. Our humanness and the fact that we live our lives in societies and not as solitary beings help us to have empathy and compassion for others. According to Watson (1985), this connectedness guides our caring. It affirms nursing’s “professional ethic and mission to society—its raison d’être for the public.” [1]. I am realizing more profoundly as I acquire higher education and with maturity that we are cosmically connected through a belief in God. Working as a nurse it is, at times, difficult to find a purpose for all the suffering you witness. Without faith and the belief that there is something worthwhile waiting for us after we die, this profession could become very discouraging.

The transpersonal caring relationship is part of the nursing philosophy used in my practice setting. This theory becomes stronger with the wisdom that comes with age and with years of experience working with patients, some of whom had untreatable conditions. Even as a young nurse, however, I was concerned with my patient’s holistic well-being and not just the physical dimension of their care. An example of this is a patient I cared for at a long-term acute care hospital in 1997. Jeanie was in her late sixties. She had had diabetes for many years and her kidneys had failed, and she now needed dialysis every other day. She was in the hospital because she recently had a stroke leaving her paralyzed on the right side. She had also developed a pressure ulcer on her coccyx secondary to her immobility and incontinence.

Jeanie had been married to a man for over forty years, but he had passed away several years earlier. She had no children. In the several seeks she was a patient at this facility, she never had a visitor. Jeanie endured several pokes to assess her blood glucose level every day and painful daily dressing changes for her wound. She tried to put on a brave face when painful procedures had to be completed and she never complained. She rarely used the call bell and was very kind to all her caregivers. She did not speak well due to the paralysis caused by the stroke, but she could be understood. As I got to know Jeanie, I began to request her for my patient on the nights that I worked. As the days went by, I could see Jeanie’s health was declining and that she was losing the will to live. I asked her if I could read to her. She requested I read certain passages from the Bible. At the time, I felt this may help her find meaning in her existence. She was always very grateful, and I read to her whenever I could.

One night when I came in for my shift, I was informed by her day nurse that Jeanie had refused to go to dialysis and had stated she would not go any more. Jeanie and I discussed this that night and she made me understand that she was aware of the consequences of the decision. We read the Bible several more nights and Jeanie seemed to be at peace. Then one night when I came on for my shift, I learned that Jeanie had passed away. I felt sad and that I would miss her, but I also felt that I might have helped her just with my presence and caring about her. This experience improved me as a nurse. Our relationship went beyond nurse/patient to transpersonal. I also felt like this experience helped me as a person. It made me feel as though I serve a valuable purpose in the world.

Read More About this Article: https://biomedgrid.com/fulltext/volume3/transpersonal-caring-relationship.000631.php

For more about: Journals on Biomedical Science :Biomed Grid

[act1]

im curious - what are ur tips for character creation / making realistic characters? :o

wow you bet ! thanks for asking; i have to warn you right now, this is probably going to get pretty long

so when creating a character, there’s a lot of stuff you have to look at. 

it depends on what you’re using these characters for; i do writing with my characters, so i look at them from a writers perspective. but i’m sure it’s easily transferable to people who roleplay, draw, or simply like daydreaming about their characters.

personality traits are really important, and what i like talking about most, so i’m gonna start there. 

i don’t really believe in good traits and bad traits. i think any trait should be able to be seen in a positive or negative light. and i’ll take nise for example when looking at personality traits; one of nises biggest things is that he’s selfish. there’s the obvious when looking at selfishness; he does things that benefit himself and cause others harm, because to him, it doesn’t matter. they don’t matter. what matters is that things work out in his favour, in the path of least resistance. and that’s regarded as a bad thing, because it is, i mean, he’s an asshole. but selfishness has also lead him to do things like chase his dreams relentlessly, it’s got him to the place he’s at. it’s helped him brighten the lives of those he loves dearly. which is a benefit for him, and for them. 

and nise is also smart, which is typically seen as a positive trait. it’s good for him; he knows lots, he’s well read, and more than that, he’s got a quick mind. he can work his way out of situations by thinking it over, and he can use his quick wit to get things out of people. but because he’s so well-read, he tends to immediately assume other people are stupid, even if they’re close to him. especially if they’re like leucis, and don’t read much. this kinda goes in with the selfishness thing, he tends to view other people as not as capable as him, even if in reality they are more qualified. and nise also uses his ability to understand people to his advantage in manipulative ways; hailey mentioned this before that finnion, their character whom nise is married to, worries sometimes he’s being manipulated into loving nise. and so despite the fact that he doesn’t lie, he’s not very trustworthy, because he can manipulate people so well. and that’s an asshole thing to do. nise is just an asshole. 

and to go kinda into what i said above, your traits should tie together in some way. you can have a kind shy person, or a kind extroverted person, and those two traits should work in tandem. maybe the kind shy person sees someone hurt, and despite how much it scares them, they offer to help. maybe the kind extroverted person offers to help a struggling kid with their homework, and scares them away. because traits should be both good and bad, and maybe their kindness came off as too forgive. maybe the kind shy person lets others walk all over them because they have low self-image. because in real life, every single personality trait you have is going to do some good for you, and some bad. maybe you’re smart and getting top grades, but the stress to succeed gets to you and you crack. maybe your organization and tidy lifestyle lead you to be persnickety and uptight about everything being perfect.  

what i’m trying to say with these points is, make sure your characters personality traits aren’t sole good or bad, and that they don’t exist separate from eachother. 

another important thing when creating a character is fears and goals. i’m putting those together because i feel like, a lot of the time, fears and goals work together well. ill keep using nise as a example when i talk. so your character should be afraid of stuff for a reason, but if they have fears just because, that’s fine too. nise is afraid of bears because of a childhood incident with one. but nise is afraid of pain simply because pain is not fun or pleasurable, and seeing his own blood makes him freak out because that’s not supposed to be on the outside. but he’s also afriad of being restrained or unable to move, and of sensory deprivation, because he used to do work as an information broker, and never in his life did he want to feel as powerless and the people he was getting information out of. 

and then there’s his Big Main Fear, the one which affects his main goal directly. nises ultimate goal is to become a god, like cyric did. and he wants this so desperately because he’s afraid of being forgotten. of everything he’s done in his life being pointless, of his name being washed away with history. because he has such an interest in individual lives, he loves reading journals and letters from people who lived centuries ago, he doesn’t want to wind up like them. forgotten or almost forgotten. and he figures if he’s always around, there will always be someone to tell his story, to remember his name. 

now of course, your character doesn’t  need a big major fear linked to their big major goal. but i know this happens in real life a lot- i have a big major fear that drives me towards my big major goal. and your character doesn’t need a big major goal either, but most real actual people have got one. even if their goal is to get married, to get their dream job, to adopt a couple dogs, to beat or manage their mental illness. but humans (and by extension, humanoid creatures) don’t like living just for the sake of living. most people need something to strive towards. and giving your characters something personal to keep living for helps make them feel more rounded.

but those are the kinds of things you hear in your english class, so i mean, i’m probably not telling you anything new. 

backstories are important for your characters too. because in real life, the things we go through can affect us monumentally. for example with nise, he grew up without any friends. he spent his time reading, and talking with village elders, learning about them. so lots of his life was about learning, focusing on something for as long as it took to learn it, and then moving on. this affects his life now; he has a hard time getting involved in stuff. things, books, people will catch his attention until he’s learned as much about them as he can, and then he throws them away and moves on. and this complicates relationships a lot, because when he meets someone, like leucis or cieryllis or finnion, whom he actually truely loves, and wants to stick with, it’s hard for them to see him moving through people so quickly and not think he’s going to do the same to them. this was actually one of the major reasons he and cieryllis split up, because cie didn’t trust him to be faithful, and ended it before he could get hurt. 

and that kinda brings us back to fear; people do impulsive, dumb, irrational things out of fear. nise left leucis out of fear, and it’s his biggest regret. cie left nise out of fear of getting hurt again. people will give out information vital to their lives to prevent themselves from getting hurt, and people will prevent sharing things like abuse out of fear. and so characters acting out of fear, abandoning logic and acting on impulse because they’re afraid, can really add a level of reality to them; especially when a generally logical character does something out of fear, it can lend the reader a little look into their life, to help understand what drives them.

people can drastically alter your characters worldview too. like when nise met valas, when nise was still just a child, valas was the most interesting person young nise had ever encountered. and this made him realize, oh my, other people are so dreadfully interesting, and history is so rich, and it really affected his interests and stuff that way.

but people can also have negative effects on your characters. of course, abuse is something that can drastically affect a persons life. like in a book i actually just finished yesterday, a characters abusive partner used to call him a slut every time after they’d had sex, and try passing it off as a joke. and then once this character got out of that relationship, he would do the same to the other people he had had sex with, in a sort of ‘i’ll hurt you before you can hurt me’ tactic that really fucked with his ability to maintain relationships.

and character development throughout the story is something vitally important. because people are always changing, and so if your character remains the same person through their entire life, it’s not realistic. using nise as an example again, every single major relationship he’d ever been in taught him something. the first taught him that it’s important you let your partner know how you’re feeling, that communication is vital. the second taught him that the world does not revolve around him. the third, that people have different views of the world, and something that makes sense to you might not make sense to them. and that is okay. 

but character development isn’t always about them becoming better people. negative character development can be so interesting, and it’s often overlooked. like with nise again, when he first leaves the town he had grown up in, he’s shy. he’s polite. he sees the good in people, because he’s only had an outsiders view of most of the world, and he chooses to only see the good stuff. but then he gets robbed, and beaten, and he has to fight to make his way in the world, and he realizes the only person who he really has is himself. he has no qualms about hurting people- he becomes an information broker, abusing his charms for his own gain. he scoffs at the person he used to be, who thought he could help the world out. and he comes out ahead, because even though he had to do morally gray things to get there, and he had to go through a lot of changes as a person, he is in a position where he is content. 

but maybe that’s not negative enough. again, i really don’t like terms like positive and negative, but using them is easier to get my point across. 

maybe you’ve got a character who is easygoing, friendly, and generous. but something happens to them. someone steps on them a bit too hard, a loved one dies, or they have an epiphany. and now they’re rude to everyone they meet, they start fights for the sake of fighting, they do things that harm themself. and people are begging them to stop, to get help, but they like the person they’ve become, because now, nobody takes advantage of them. 

any sort of change a character goes through can help a reader to relate to the character, to understand them better, to make them more interesting, even if they aren’t exactly likable. 

and that’s another thing; characters don’t have to be morally good. i’d take a well-written morally evil character over a shoddy morally pure character any day. sure, a character who says rude things and talks in circles might not be very likable to other characters, but a reader might be drawn to them because they relate to the way they talk, or the idiosyncrasies they have. because people are rarely ever actually morally pure, and each of us have small strange tidbits we’d like to see represented in characters. 

so i’m a really picky eater, and i can’t eat a lot of food because the texture of it overwhelms me. but not a lot of characters are picky eaters, and even fewer have sensory issues related to food. but celia katchudorian does, she has the exact problems with food that i do, and i liked seeing that in a character. it’s bothersome to her family, because there’s stuff she can’t eat, and it’s not written as a positive thing. but it made me feel good to see a character like me, whos family regards her idiosyncrasies the same way my family does mine. 

so giving your characters ‘undesirable’ traits isn’t bad, because everyone has them. maybe they can’t talk over the phone, or their hands sake, or they’re obsessive about what time it is, or they have a habit of picking leaves off trees and pulling them apart. these kinds of little things help characters feel more real and relatable, especially to people who do those kinds of things themselves. 

when writing relationships, it’s important to make sure you know why the characters like or dislike eachother. especially with romantic relationships. i can’t tell you how many times ive read a book where the character talks about how their love could bend universes and turn back time and all that jazz, and i’m like, okay but are you guys even friends? think about the reasons why you like your friends. why you dislike the people you dislike. maybe your friend is interested in the same movie, and you guys like talking about that. your girlfriend has insomnia, just like you do, and the two of you stay up texting when you can’t sleep. but there’s other reasons people stay together too, and unhealthy relationships are not a bad thing to write about, so long as it’s understood they’re not to be seen as healthy or ideal relationships. a couple who is toted as a dream duo, but who do nothing but insult eachother, is not a good example of a well written relationship. but consider a relationship where person A reminds person B of person C, who has left person B’s life, and so person B has an unhealthy obsession with person A, and person A sticks around person B because they feel obliged to. this is not an example of a healthy relationship, but so long as it’s communicated that this is not to be idolized, that neither person is benefiting from this, and that it needs to be fixed or ended, it can be a well written relationship. and perhaps people who are in that situation might see it as non-normal, and seek help to get out of it. 

in real life, people in relationships joke. they laugh. they have inside memes. they can send a text to the other that just says ‘id fuck an alien’. but they also fight. they have things they disagree on, things they don’t want to talk about with the other. because no actual relationship is just kissing and cuddling and saying i love you 100 times, because no chemistry exists there. and no relationship is perfect, either. your partner might say something that offends you, or you might do something that hurts their feelings. but having characters who fuck up, and find a way to work through it, is a lot better than a relationship where everything is sunshine and perfectness. 

and this includes friendships. and enemy-ships. and even with acquaintances, where maybe your co-worker says something racist, and you start silently disliking them, but continue business as usual because you’re scared of starting a fight with them

so that was a lot of stuff. but i guess, tl;dr, human beings are flawed. people make mistakes, they’re assholes, they’re selfish, they do strange things. and it’s important to write characters who do those things too, because anyone looking into these characters from an outsiders perspective will find a flawed character much more interesting, relatable, and real than a character who is ideal and flawless.

[thejoy-fullone]

“Support me....please?” My Journey as a Woman of Hope

“Jordan, I want to wrap you in My grace and abound you with provision. Not just enough, but more than enough and overflowing to support all of the good work I have called you to do.” 

-What I wrote in my journal of what I heard God saying to me before I accepted my job at Women of Hope International

In so many ways, my life is panning out just how I’d always dreamed: 

I live in the United States, not too far from my family, with a wonderful job and support system.

I get to travel internationally frequently to work with people in the developing world and invest in something large, challenging, and meaningful.

I finished a master’s! WHOOOHOOO STILL NOT OVER THAT ONE.

I have a sweet and cute little apartment that I share with my African dog where I read, cook, hangout, and eat (probably too much) ice cream on a regular basis. 

But as with everyone, there are things that are difficult about this beautiful, peaceful little life that I lead. 

The biggest and most consistent challenge is raising support.

As an unconventional missionary with Women of Hope International, I am responsible for fundraising 1/3 of my monthly salary. 

But asking people for money is hard. 

Like, yikes, super awkward and uncomfortable and frustrating and exhausting. There’s always this feeling of begging. “Please, please won’t you support me? It’s a great cause! You’ll help me eat! Not to mention the great ministry that you are funding!”

I’ve had a lot of talks with God about why He would set up my life this way. Why can’t I just have a normal salary where I put in my 40 hours a week and walk away with a check that I spend on rent and groceries like everyone else?

Growing up, I learned a thing or two about trusting God. Recite with me: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding...” I know it, you know it, we’ve all had it memorized since we were probably 5. But what does it mean to give up my understanding for His? What does that look like, and how does it feel to be guided by His hand and receive provision from His table? Over these last few months, God has been showing me that the process of learning to embrace support raising is almost as important at the support itself. 

So, here are a few of the lessons I’ve learned along the way (with many more to come, I’m sure)

1. Trust 

For provision. For friends. For energy. For inspiration. For EVERYTHING. Trusting God isn’t just about one facet of life like finances. God wants to teach us to utterly trust Him, knowing that He is good and He loves to provide for His children.

“May the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13

2. God provides richly

Going into international development work, I never dreamed of making big bucks. So when I say God provides richly, I don’t mean that we all become rich. Richness is a subjective term anyway, and people feel both rich and poor in different ways. But God is such a generous and loving father who “loves to give good gifts to His children” and who delights in our joy. Sometimes the richness comes in the form of relationships. Sometimes through gorgeous weather that brightens our spirits. Sometimes he puts the perfect person at the right place at the right time to provide for a need, financially or otherwise. It can be big or small, but HE IS GOOD and loves us deeply and provides for us richly. 

“Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.” Psalms 34:8

3. All the money is His anyway

It’s so easy to get into our heads that life will be better or easier or we would be happier if we had more money in that checking account. Sure, paying bills is good and going on a vacation every now and again is good for our mental and emotional health, but at the end of the day is hoarding and obsessing over money really making our lives better? And at the end of my life, what will I be taking with me? Allowing God to decide how much I receive as well as how much I give puts Him in full control, allows me to have peace, and blesses others! It’s a win win win. So I’m learning to let Him control His money, and say thanks for what I have been given to steward, and then letting Him decide how I can share it. 

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19-21

4. I Don’t Decide Who is Blessed

Now, this one may come off a little conceited. As if I’m some cheesy salesman who says, “Help me help you!” or even the old missionary trope, “I went to bless them, but instead I was the one who received the blessing.” Sure, that is often true. But seriously, I don’t get to decide who is blessed in this mission journey. All I can do is be obedient to what God has asked me to do, which is work with Women of Hope, raise support for my salary, and love Him. There are a lot of people mixed up in that obedience: the people I work with here in the USA, the women and ministry leaders we work with in Sierra Leone and across the developing world, the people who support me financially and otherwise, and I’m sure many others who we come across randomly. Out of all of those people who are partnering with me, I don’t get to decide how God blesses them and uses them. It’s seems obvious that a woman who was previously begging on the street has probably gained a blessing by now having a steady income that brings her dignity. But what about people sending me checks? Are they being blessed by joining me in this ministry? THAT’S UP TO GOD, NOT ME. I just get to be the conduit. 

"You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.” John 15:16

4. It’s not me, it’s God

I’ve been reminded over and over again during this support raising journey that I truly cannot do this alone. If it was just me, I would have given up long ago and been discouraged, and might not be doing the incredible work that I am today. But when I remember that the work is God’s, the finances are God’s, the people who support me are God’s, the trips are God’s, the women in Sierra Leone are God’s, then the fear is stripped away and all I have to do is keep moving forward and asking without fear. It is so liberating to know that God already has it all planned out, I just have to keep walking in time with Him. So not only do I not need to be afraid, I can have so much joy in the process as well. 

“And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19

One last thought before I sign out: 

When the Children of Israel were wandering through the wilderness, they struggled, starved, thirsted, were bitten by snakes, and all around had a challenging time. But it was during that time that they learned to depend on God completely for their needs. He performed miracle after miracle to care for them: pillar of fire, manna, water from rock, golden serpent that healed sickness, quail, Jericho’s walls falling, parting seas, and the list goes on and on and on. Yes, it was tough. But after they made it to the promised land, God gave them multiple reminders, “Don’t forget about how you have trusted me. Don’t forget about how I have miraculously provided for you.” 

I see raising support as a kind of wilderness. It’s hard. It’s humbling. It’s sometimes painful. But this last quote is another thing I wrote in my journal as I was deciding to move forward with Women of Hope:

“I might be in the wilderness, but in the wilderness, you witness miracles.”