#anyway that's my serotonin sorted 4 the next while | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

blueprint-han · 4 years ago

Text

[Image ID: A black picture with the title “HOW TO SUPPORT FANFICTION AUTHORS” written in bold caps lock, colored with a winter forest picture. End ID.]

Well, this post has been made countless times, but I’m making one too because I’ve seen a lot of people say they’re new to tumblr and don’t know the whole “reblogging is better than liking” rule and other stuff. So without any further ado, here are ways YOU can support the fanfiction authors. Now keep in mind this applies to almost every author out there, not just the stayblr fandom, so if you’re a silent reader (or even if you aren’t), I advise you go through this post. Warning, this is a fairly long post going into detail, so yeah. I still expect you, the readers to read this, and if you’re a writer, feel free to lmk if i’ve written smth wrong or if you want me to add something! ^^

In this post I’ll go into thorough analysis of the pros and cons of each of the methods listed here and how YOU as a reader can show the authors whose fics you read more love and motivate them to produce content.

WARNING; LONG POST! GOES INTO A DECENT AMOUNT OF DETAIL. NOT EDITED, EXCUSE ANY TYPOS.

#1 : LIKING !

I think this is basic common knowledge, and a lot of people tend to do this. When you like the post, the author sees it, you see it, and if the author has their liked posts accessible (which majority of the time they don’t), and if someone deliberately goes to check it, then they see it. See why so many authors say just liking does nothing? Only liking says “Hey, I’m gonna tell you your story is not that good by simply liking it and not sharing it with other people. :D”

♯ PROS:

You’re telling the author that you've read their fic, and either you’ve enjoyed it to a certain extent, or you’re just saving it to read for later.

Likes are seen by you, the author and anyone who has access to your likes (which, most people don’t).

♯ CONS:

If you ONLY like, you’re not really helping the author’s work reach a wide audience because this site isn’t Instagram. Reblogging is the only way people can SEE our works. I’ll cover more on that in the next section.

In a nutshell, liking is good! But you should most likely use it in a combination with the other stuff I’ve listed below, because just the like itself doesn’t really do much in giving the author any feedback or interaction on their fics.

To clear shit up; I’m not talking about those people who don’t read the story or appreciate it in the first place. I’m talking about those who appreciate the fic, like it, but don’t leave any sort of feedback to show that.

#2 : REBLOGGING !

This is SO, SO important. I cannot stress on this enough. Let me explain WHY so many writers stress on reblogging content:

Tumblr’s tag system is inherently fucked up, and has grown more so over the year. I’m not kidding, at first, the fic either used to show up in the tags or it didn’t, but now, sometimes your fic can be REMOVED from the tags because of,,, idk tumblr tag shit. Anyways, as you can see, it’s very demotivating for authors at that point, because the major way for people to find their content and expand their blogs has been blocked.

Due to this reason, tumblr authors need to RELY on you, their followers to help spread their works to a wider audience. Now again, before you get me wrong, I’m not saying you ae forced to rb our works regardless of whether you like them or not. BUT, that being said, if you DO infact like the story, there’s no harm in reblogging, right? By doing this you’re indirectly telling the author — “hey! :D I liked your fic! Which is why I am gonna share it to my followers so they can read it too :D” Trust me, you’re doing nothing but helping the people who produce content for you to read. Seems like a worthy cause to hit the reblog button, right? It’s only a one, or maximum two step procedure.

Leave tags in your reblogs! Trust me, as an author myself and as much as I know from all my author friends, we oft check the tags of your reblogs to see if you found any part amazing or even if you have anything to say about the writing we put so much hard work into. Even a key smash or a “This was so [insert adjective] 🥺” is enough to leave a smile on your authors face.

♯ PROS :

You’re !! Sharing !! Your authors !! Works !! This leads to them getting more recognition, so for the content they’re so graciously providing for free, you’re promoting their blog and helping them expand it.

If the tags are being a shit, which majority of the time they are, then you’re literally making an author’s day by reblogging! You’re showing them that you, a follower and appreciator of their works are willingly sharing their content because it deserves to be seen by more people. Again before any dumb people decide to attack me, i am talking about people who like the fic but don't bother reblogging and are silent/ghost readers. I am not forcing anyone to read anybody’s work.

YOU’RE MAKING YOUR AUTHOR SO HAPPY WHAT MORE REASONS COULD YOU POSSIBLY WANT !! 🥺

♯ CONS :

Literally none, because as far as I remember no author is against reblogging of their works. It’s quite literally the way this platform functions. Reblogging is IMPORTANT.

#3 : COMMENTING/SENDING FEEDBACK !

This kind of overlaps with the previous section, but THIS IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT STEP !! When you leave feedback, you are directly giving the author something so much more valuable to them than high follower/note counts or money. Your feedback is literally our serotonin. I kid you not the number of times I’ve received a positive comment and smiled and it has made my day. There’s a reason youtubers (though not the best example, bear with me here because it was the only one I could think of) ask people to subscribe, like and COMMENT. The subscription is like a follow, the like is ofc like a heart, and the comment is equivalent to an rb with comments in the tags.

You might argue and tell me that a comment is basically like an ask so the reblogging step isn’t necessary, but I’m sure 99% of you use YouTube and you know that more comments leads to people’s videos boosted in the stream/trending charts. This is what reblogging does. Reblogging shares the piece with other people like minded, which leads to a boost in reads. You are literally helping your author grow.

It’s quite literally the same thing as youtubers. Youtubers NEED validation to keep their content creation going, so do writers, so do other ccs on this site. This post is however, focused on WRITERS, so keep that in mind.

♯ PROS :

By doing this, you’re giving author valuable feedback! It’s similar to what you do in rbing with tags. Interactivity with their fics boosts their note counts and helps expand their audience, so srsly, now think of it: your one comment is playing such a massive role to help ccs create more content.

Imagine how much of a difference the note counts will be in when every person who simply likes after reading the fic, reblogs, leaves a comment and sends an ask. the note counts would be high on each and every fic, which is validation in itself, but your comments would inspire the writer so much more! Please, don’t skip the commenting part. Even a simple one like: “this is so cute!” is wonderful.

♯ CONS :

Remember, if you’re gonna give constructive criticism (which I’m sure you all are smart enough to know if different from hate), make sure the author is okay with it. Authors need to be in a specific mindset and must be ready to accept criticism, so if you’re gonna give constructive criticism to them when they’re at a low point, it may demotivate them.

Just commenting, instead of reblogging and commenting in the tags/ reblogging and then leaving an ask in their inbox, while it gives validation in plenty, will not lead to the author’s work being spread. Therefore I suggest either reblogging and commenting in the tags or reblog and then leave an ask, or comment under the fic!

!! reminder; I am not saying that if you don’t rb and just leave feedback, your feedback has no value. We authors truly appreciate every bit of feedback, but this post is aimed to help you learn how to interact with and support authors, and make them feel more motivated, because the current scenario of liking and scrolling is taking a toll on their creative abilities. Take it from a person who’s been writing for a year.

#4 : COMMSIONING VIA THEIR KO-FI/OTHER APPS !

Before any of you attack me, let me tell you that this is not a step that is 100% necessary to do. ONLY donate if you can and if you genuinely want to, and if anyone is forcing you to pay for something against your will, you need to get yourself out of there.

Regardless, if an author has a kofi and you’re able to and you want to donate, you definitely should! It’s also a valid form of support.

#5 : ADDING THEM ON REC LISTS/ RECOMMENDING THEM TO REC BLOGS

This is such an underrated option, to be honest. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen my fic was recommended onto some rec list and it’s made me smile so hard. If you like some fics, create a rec list! They’re oft very popular amongst the fans too. Making rec posts is such a great way to share your favorite stories with others.

Rec blogs! I’ve seen a couple going around, and needless to say they are a great way to get someone else to read your favorite author’s work whilst also giving them your own feedback. These blogs oft accept recs via a form or ask box, and they leave your feedback along with their own, or else they’ll oft tag the author in the feedback post, so look! You’re basically helping your author share their fic to many more people, because you’ve given them feedback and a reblog.

♯ PROS :

Validation! Feedback! Reblogs! More exposure! Helping a blog grow! Spreading love! basically a run down of the stuff I’ve said before!

♯ CONS :

Literally no con of this. Unless, a one in a million case, this author says they don’t like receiving feedback/being tagged, and I’m sure NO person has said this before, at least none that I’ve heard of.

#6 : FINAL COMMENTS; MISC !

When an author points out about how the interactivity is drastically reducing, don’t just give them blind apologies. Yes, you feel sorry for not interacting as much, we understand, but rather show that you’ll become a better content consumer through your actions. We need to see that we’re not just throwing words into a void and that people are actually trying to be better content consumers.

Understand the fact that authors don’t get paid for this, and 99% of the time, these authors don’t take commissions either. They’re giving you novel worthy writings for free. Take Percy Jackson: You think the author would have felt motivated to write the subsequent parts, let alone two whole series based off of it if literally no one showed that they were interested? Rick Riordan has sales, he is being paid, there are millions of people and big agencies who provide him feedback. Now take that huge amount and simmer it down to an audience of maybe 10000 people This is what fanfic authors want. They don’t want your money, nor are they telling you to risk your lives for them. All they want is, a reblog, some tags, some feedback, some INTERACTIVITY. A sign that they aren’t throwing fics into the void and that people actually like them, some motivation to continue. Seems fairly easy to throw an rb with some tags, right?

Don’t bother to tell me that we do this for ourselves and we shouldn’t ask for likes and reblogs and feedback, because 1) you are consuming the content that we “write for ourselves” and 2) writers post their content here for interactivity and feedback. We could just not post and write and save our fics in our dungeon drafts for years. But we choose to post to entertain the readers, the consumers. And we aren’t even asking that much in return.

Don’t give me the whole “I’m scared that authors feel that comments are annoying” excuse either because seriously this has been DEBUNKED SO MANY TIMES. Istg, in the nicest way possible, if you still think writers are annoyed by interaction and feedback, after so many posts, long rants have been posted as to how we’re not, then you must truly be living under a rock. There, I said it. Please stop thinking this way, I’ll say it again, AUTHORS ARE NOT ANNOYED OF FEEDBACK, COMMENTS, TAGS, REBLOGS. WE LOVE IT. Saying this is like saying that the audience in a theatre play shouldn’t clap when the play ends because the actors would find it noisy. 🤡

I’ve seen some people saying they have anxiety issues and such, so pls note that I’m not invalidating your condition. If you’re trying to be more interactive, I really appreciate it! If you can’t, that’s fine too. You’re trying.

But for the people who have no reason other than feeling lazy to rb and comment, your lack of interactiveness is not excused. Please. Tumblr is a reblogging site. If you’re gonna consume content like authors are some sort of machines, I encourage you to go get some more perspective.

This site is not Instagram or the satan bird app. Your likes are appreciated but frankly speaking, they do nothing to the author except tell them “Hey i read ur fic but i'm not gonna support u :D” and honestly, that is detrimental to their creative capabilities and mental health.

DON’T FOLLOW AN ACC JUST TO MINDLESS RB THEIR SIGNAL BOOST POSTS AND THEIR REBLOGS OF GIFS AND NOT INTERACT WITH THEIR WRITING AT ALL ! Trust me, authors prefer a lower amount of interactive followers than a high count that doesn’t even give them any feedback. Again your follows are appreciated, but when you’re following, you know the type of content the author creates, so the author expects that the more followers, the more interactivity. These days, this is just becoming the opposite. So don’t do it! If you’re gonna follow to read, interact with their works. I promise, this will make both you and the author happy. A win-win situation.

In conclusion: SUPPORT YOUR FUCKING AUTHORS! THEY ARE NOT MACHINES THAT HAVE NO FEELINGS TO PRODUCE CONTENT FOR YOU! FICS TAKE DAYS AND DAYS OF PLANNING, PLOTTING, OUTLINING, WRITING, EDITING, MAKING TEASERS. SO JUST SHOW THEM YOU APPRECIATE THEM WITH AN RB. IT’S THE L E A S T YOU CAN DO.

I will be liking this post here written by the lovely @chaninfused and @scriptura-delirus . Please take time to read it because if you weren’t convinced by my arguments, you will see how much frustration we as writers face on a daily basis. Please, just show support. Here is the post by @stayndays about how to get more people to read your work, because it also has a note on reblogging. Please educate yourself, and put an end to this mindless consuming culutre and bring up some interactivity.

If you’ve read this far, I want you to go to two of your favorite authors and leave some feedback in their inbox, and tag me in it (either tag me yourself or ask the author to do so, they won’t mind). Show your writers that our words are taking effect and you are becoming better consumers. I mean it. I’m serious. I want every single one who reads this post to do this. besides valid reasons, if you’re lazy to do this, you’re a part of the problem. PLEASE get more perspective.

Also, feel free to add to this post! I’d love to read your thoughts too, remember to be kind though. And, if I think your rb is somehow contradicting my points and is bringing down the reason I made this post, I will politely ask you to delete your comment, because this post is about being truthful about the harsh reality of tumblr consumers and how we can change it. I’m sure none of you will let it get to that point, though. <3 love you guys. 💓

And, just a reminder, don’t just blindly like this too. Do what I said before, and while I am not forcing you, I’d appreciate your reblog, because seriously, it took me 3 whole days to write this, plus, I’m sure this will help more of your followers understand the fault in consumer culture. haha, that’s it! This post was way too long uff.

also, this is ur cue to not be stupid in my inbox. You have something to say? Think I worded smth wrongly? I’m sure it wasn’t my intention to do so, point it out with manners.

697 notes · View notes

neoculturetravesty · 3 years ago

Text

We met in online class - Last Part

Image adapted from here.

Pairing: Renjun x Reader Genre: College AU, romance, angst, fluff Warnings: Strong language Word Count: 3.4k

A/N: And so it comes to an end, and let me tell you guys, I am not okay 😔 This is going to be a bit of a longer A/N, so please bear with me. If you’d like to get straight to the story, I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND, so feel free to click Keep Reading!

Lowkey, I had a bit of a meltdown as I typed the final words on this fic because I hadn’t realized how attached I had grown to the characters. This is the first time I wrote three different chapter openers before deciding on one, because I simply couldn’t believe it was goodbye after this.

These mofos had constantly been on my mind for the past two months and a half. I would spend most days thinking about where to take them and then bringing them to life at night, after my entire day was over. When I wasn’t writing, I’d make little notes about thoughts I had into the night about them so that I wouldn’t forget them when morning comes.

This was my first ever (and as of right now, my only) chaptered fic. I had no idea parting with it would be as emotional as it was. When I think back to when I first received the prompt for this, I had never even imagined I could write Renjun, let alone a series. But there was something in the prompt that had gotten my wheels turning. And I am so immensely glad that it did. There were days when I thought “Oh man, what have I gotten myself into.” Some days, the story would just flow. Other days, I’d keep staring at the blinking cursor not knowing what to type. But when I did, I found my emotions so deeply connected with the characters. I was happy when they were happy. I was sad when they were sad. So, parting with them is very hard to say the least.

But through this journey, I got to experience the joy of reading all of your reviews and comments and honestly, it made it all worth it. THANK YOU to every single one of you that read this story and waited on it and laughed and cried with it. You have made my life better in more ways than you can imagine.

In this moment, I want to thank 🍙 anon, because it was their prompt that put me in this mess in the first place. And so, it is only fitting that I dedicate the final part to them 💛

“Oh, we definitely need a picture together. How about here? I think this place would fit everyone.” Kim Doyoung looks about, finding a spot best suited for the photo he wanted.

“I think right there on the platform would be better. We could get everyone in two tiers.” his assistant suggests.

“You’re a genius. Let’s gather everyone. It’s not often that so many NCTU grads and students come to Midnight Arthouse,” Doyoung nods.

“How many of us are here, anyway?” Renjun muses. The assistant looks at her iPad, checking once again.

“I think there’s 23 of you. So, let’s definitely go for the platform.” she nods.

“Okay, then.” Doyoung claps his hands together once, “Gather everyone,” he says to no one in particular and walks ahead with purpose. Renjun and the assistant’s eyes meet and they smirk. Of course this was directed to the both of them. So, they set about to work.

As it would turn out, gathering 23 people from a charity event with art and food and drinks would be a bit of a task. But somehow, they manage to gather all alumni and current students on the platform in three tiers instead of two for a somewhat chaotic picture. There must’ve been something in the water at NCTU because none of it’s students could stand still for very long. They get maybe one decent picture and several in which someone or the other was moving or pulling a face.

His friends aside, looking around at the group, Renjun realized that he recognized nearly all of them. Yangyang and Hendery and the rest of their frat were here. As were the 127s, old and new. Renjun recognized them all, except maybe two boys, who didn’t seem to know a lot of the others either. When the pictures were done and the main events were over and the crowd had started to dissipate, Renjun finally walked over to the artwork to observe it up close.

Honestly speaking, watching the work with his own two eyes left no doubt in his mind that this artist deserved to be spotlighted like this. This work was in a league of its own. Watching it makes Renjun smile; because looking at it makes him think back to a few months ago when he was sitting in Kim Doyoung’s office, thinking of himself as some sort of a big shot. But the truth is, there was no way he had that caliber then, and there is no way he has that caliber now, though he was sure as hell working on it.

“This is the piece I lost the bid on.” Renjun hears a voice and he turns around to see Zhong Chenle’s father observing the art with him. Renjun bows politely and smiles under his mask,

“I mean, this is a remarkable piece. You have good taste.” Renjun acknowledges.

“What about you? Why isn’t any of your artwork displayed here?” he asks and for a while, Renjun smiles a bit nostalgically. He could’ve been here, had he made something for the Annuale. Had he just selfishly taken that shot. Then again, there would’ve been no real guarantees. Because Kim Doyoung was pretty particular in the people he chose, whether they were recommended by his family or not. Working with him closely in the last couple of months had taught Renjun that. It had also taught him how underdeveloped his skill was in the real world context.

“I guess I still have a long way to go.” Renjun replies humbly.

“Don’t we all?” Chenle’s father nods, “Are you working here at this establishment?”

“Um, I… I suppose I am. I am Kim Doyoung’s apprentice. He is my mentor.” Renjun nods.

“So I might see your work here soon enough, eh?” Renjun assumes the kind man is smiling under his mask because his eyes seem to be making the same shape as Chenle’s do when he smiles. So Renjun grins back.

“I mean… if I work really hard, I might get to shoot my shot in the next Midnight Arthouse Annuale.” Renjun fantasizes.

“Or maybe you’d get lucky like this young artist,” he points his chin towards the artwork.

Renjun smiles, “I would credit her luck, too if I hadn’t seen her work. But her talent is… it kinda speaks for itself.”

“Oh, no, you should definitely credit her luck. Talent isn’t enough. The stars have to align. Luck, talent, the right place, the right time. It all has to come together.” he says nodding.

Renjun considers his words. They seem to be coming from the wisdom of experience.

What if Renjun hadn’t received the phone call about his grandma back then? Well, then he probably would’ve made something lackluster and gotten rejected. Working with Kim Doyoung has taught him as much. It didn’t matter who had put a word in for him. At the end of the day, his work had to be outclass.

What if he had received the phone call and then still had enough time to submit something for the Annuale? Then he still probably wouldn’t have because… well, because of you.

What if he had gone ahead, regardless of you or his grandma and just made something and submitted it? Then he still would’ve been rejected. Because the truth of the matter is, he just didn’t have the caliber that artists associated with Midnight Arthouse did.

In that sense, Renjun supposes everything was in fact happening at the right place and right time now. Doyoung was mentoring him and he was getting better by the day. The stars were aligning for him. He knew it in his heart.

“Then I would wish that it all comes together for me, too.” Renjun says.

“When it does, young man, I’ll be the first one to bid on your work.” he says and Renjun doesn’t even have the time to react when he feels a presence breeze in his direction and invade his personal space.

Renjun doesn’t even have to look up to know who it is. He can tell by the way this body fits perfectly into his side. He can tell by how naturally his own body responds and just puts his arm around it’s waist.

“Oh man, I missed all of it, didn’t I?” you lament, as you loop your arms around his neck from the side instead of a hello.

“Not all of it. The guys just left but your brother and his friends are still here. Besides, you had work.” Renjun turns his head and looks into your eyes to reassure you. “Y/N, this is Chenle’s father.”

“Oh, hello!” you say cheerfully and respectfully bow and give you greetings. “It is so nice to meet you. Chenle looks just like you!”

“Yes, I’ve been told I’m a more handsome version of him,” he smiles then turns to Renjun, “And who might this young lady be?”

“This is my girlfriend, Y/N. She goes to NCTU with us.” Renjun introduces you and you bow again. Oh, the thrill he got every time he got to introduce you as his girlfriend. Fuck, he’s pretty sure he’d never tire of it, even if it had just been a few months. The serotonin boost in his veins is strong and he gets the urge to squeeze you and hold you forever.

“Oh, that’s very nice. Come have a meal with us before we have to catch a plane back home, okay?” Chenle’s father invites the two of you.

“Oh, I would love to!” you say in your chipper tone before your eyes start darting around “I’m going to have to excuse myself for a little bit, I just wanna say hi to my brother.” you say and you politely bow before you start moving away.

“Babe, hang on…” Renjun says, holding you back by your hand. He brings his fingers delicately to the bridge of your nose and softly pinches down the mask over it so it sits more snugly on you. “There, it’s much safer now.” Renjun nods and watches the affectionate smile your eyes give before you move away. You looked so pretty today, even if you were just coming back from a four-hour internship. You were easily the most beautiful girl in this room, though Renjun suspected that you’d be the most beautiful girl in any room you entered.

Albeit sometimes, Renjun had to wonder if your talent or your beauty was greater. Because you had become the only junior in NCTU to land an internship at the SMK Trainee Drive. And now that you were a senior, you were somehow managing to keep your grades up alongside it.

Renjun, on the other hand, would find himself struggling with balancing his apprenticeship with his school work. So he knew firsthand how your discipline was something else altogether. Recently though, he had experienced a rise in his grades because you had been taking him on so many study dates that your organizational skills and motivation had started to rub off on him.

Renjun walks around the studio and the party and feels like it’s been too long till you’re finally back by his side.

“Love in the Time of Corona,” you read the title of an art piece displayed in front of you. “That was supposed to be our thing.”

Renjun laughs and has no qualms in looping his arms around your waist and finally pulling you into himself.

“I guess we should’ve realized then how un-novel the idea would become in a few months.” he comments.

“Un-novel is not a word, Huang Renjun.” you narrow your eyes at him.

Renjun laughs. “It is now,” he says and lets out a long exhale, “I missed you today.” he complains, though he looks down at you with warmth.

“Well, you’ve got me now. And you have me for the entire weekend.” you reassure him, your palms on his chest.

“Mhmm.” Renjun smiles and he wants to lean in to kiss you. But Kim Doyoung specifically had people assigned to walk around and make sure that everyone had their masks on when inside. “Also, we already have a thing.” he reminds you and winks.

You laugh, and say “I guess we do,” then let out a happy sigh as your eyes avert from his for a moment, taking in your surroundings. “Our Couple Thing should give you some ideas on what you can make when your work is displayed here in the 2022 Annuale. I won’t be late to that, I promise. I’ll take a day off from everything else in my life.”

Renjun's heart grows warmer still, and he’s sure his eyes reflect what he feels, “How can you be so sure my work will be displayed in the 2022 Annuale?”

“I don’t know, Huang Renjun. I just have a feeling about you.” you say and Renjun can see you smile even if your lips are covered by a mask. Your eyes always smiled before your mouth did, anyway.

“Y/N L/N, I have a feeling about you, too.” he retorts.

“And what feeling would that be?” you raise an eyebrow.

“It’s a secret.” he says, but now he sees your pout, even if he can’t see your mouth because your cheeks have puffed up over the mask. It makes him laugh.

“You’re no fun.” you protest.

“I’ll tell you once we get out of here.” Renjun offers.

“Well, I’m ready to leave.” you jut your chin up. Renjun grins and offers you his arm. You grab it with your entire body and the two of you start walking out together.

You had plans for the weekend, after all. And Renjun was determined to keep you all to himself for once, with no one else demanding your time. Not your internship, not your assignments, not any of your friends, and especially not Lee fucking Donghyuck. He was finally going to take you away where it could just be you and him and nobody else.

This moment felt way too surreal to Renjun.

The campfire had simmered down from a glorious roar to a comfortable burn, giving off just enough heat in the cool of an early winter evening. The sky was in it’s fading moments, where the pink of the light was slowly turning to violets and the violets were slowly merging into darks.

Renjun remembered suggesting to you all that time ago that maybe you could go somewhere together. But now that he was here, he hadn’t imagined that the moment would feel as surreal as it did.

Because now the two of you are sitting in front of your tent by the fire, entwined in one another. You’re sitting between his legs, arms around his neck, nuzzling your cheek inside his padded jacket while he supports your head on his arm and kisses you.

He’s holding you in his arms and kissing you and everything seems so perfect that for a moment, he has to pull away to watch your face and wonder if all of this was real. And though there is a gentle smile on your face, you’re not opening your eyes much. Because you know full well that Renjun’s lips would be back on yours in no time. So you play with his hair as they fall to his forehead and when he kisses you again, you press up into him so he would wrap his arms around you and hold you tighter. He does and he rubs his hands up and down your back and attempts to close his jacket around you.

“Are you cold?” he asks lovingly. You shake your head.

“No. I just want to crawl inside you.” you say, like it’s the most logical thing to be said.

“Creepy.” Renjun remarks but holds you closer still.

“You should be happy you haven’t seen my collection of your hair clippings.” you quip as you nip into the skin of his neck.

“Oh, sweet. That rivals all your used tissues I’ve kept in my shrine at home.”

“Aww, you shouldn’t have.” you coo at him and then lean up to kiss him some more and he laughs. But soon, he pushes the arm that you were using like a pillow up so your face would be closer to his and he could kiss you as deeply as he was truly craving.

The two of you keep kissing like that till the sky is dark. It was an odd sort of trance, being so lost in one another that neither of you cared about what time it was or how long you had been sitting here, wrapped up in one another. Your phones were zipped away in your bags and you hadn’t checked them even once since you had parked your camping van and set up your tent. It was a slow, peaceful sort of bliss, just sitting by the fire and kissing and kissing with nothing else on your minds but being here like this with one another.

“Renjun?” you say, your voice sounding like it was returning from a deep thought.

“Hmm?” Renjun asks as he combs your hair away from your pretty face.

“You know, I learnt today that a cactus can live anywhere between 10 and 200 years.” you tell him, idly tracing the birthmark on the back of his hand.

Renjun leans in and presses long into your lips. “Yeah?” he replies and watches your face. It seemed hazily focused, like it was trying to catch onto a faraway thought.

“I also learnt that it can take up to 30 years for a cactus to bear flowers.” you say in an introspective, wistful tone.

Renjun looks away to hide his smile. Oh God, you were so cute. “Yeah?” he says again, but it’s getting more and more difficult to keep a serious face.

“Sometimes, a cactus doesn’t flower at all.” you say and then you turn your head to look at him like you’ve resurfaced from your thoughts and are now in the moment. Renjun’s grin grows wider. “Renjunnn…” you whine and so he has no choice but to tenderly hold your cheeks in his palms and stroke your hair.

“What?” he chuckles.

“You said you’d think you’re worthy of my forgiveness when the cactus bears flowers.” you whine again and Renjun has to plant a loving kiss to your forehead.

“Is that what I said?” he chuckles some more and then leans in to kiss the anxious realization away from your lips.

“Renjun.” you pout and Renjun laughs and takes his beautiful, whiny, kindhearted girlfriend in his arms and hopes that his hold could chase away all the worries from her pretty, brilliant mind.

He kisses you because his heart can’t bear it any longer. How did he manage to hold a heart like yours in his hand?

Renjun feels an indescribable amount of happiness. Like he wasn’t sure that you were really here with him, in his arms, all for him to hold, with no worry or burden afflicting him. The happiness is so immense and so incredible and so heavy that for a moment, he feels it suffocating him. He wonders if he deserved this kind of happiness.

But right in the next moment, he stops himself. He knew how easy it was to relapse into those tempting, lonesome thoughts. But if there was anything that therapy was teaching him, it was that of course he deserved happiness.

Though right now, holding you in his arms, this happiness was choking him. He felt like his heart was swelling and pressing against his lungs and his chest couldn’t bear it and he could no longer breathe.

“Y/N…” he exhales, holding you back so he can look at your face and you could look up into his. He pauses to gather another breath. Then, he just says it. “I love you.”

And doing so does the trick. He feels his chest slowly getting lighter, because this is what it had been bursting with. Now, he’s told you. Now, it can be unburdened.

You look up at him and there is nothing but a sparkle in your eye, and tenderness in your smile. For a while, you say nothing, just looking upon his eyes like that. “Thank you.” you finally whisper back at him.

Renjun pauses for a moment. But then, he relaxes. This was okay. You didn’t have to say it back right away. Renjun was ready to give you as much time as you needed. So he presses his lips into your forehead once again till he feels you laughing against him. He pulls back in confusion and you grab at the lapel of his parka.

“Huang Renjun…” you say and he looks back at you with uncertainty, “... I love you, too.”

And Renjun can’t help it if he kisses you too hard. He can’t help it that he’s squeezing you too tight. He wouldn’t care if the night brightens back into morning and the morning fades back into night. He was going to hold you just like this for the rest of his life.

So he lays you down and kisses you deeper, like he wanted to make up for all the time he had lost. All the time in his life when he hadn’t known you. All the time he had known you and didn’t let himself have you. He was going to make up for it all. And as he zips the tent up and shields you from the rest of the world, he wonders if he could spend all of his days just like this. Holding you and loving you and knowing that you loved him back; and if he could, today was a damn good day to start.

The fire slows to a simmer till all that’s left are embers that keep being carried away by the breeze. But the two of you remain inside, in your own world, happy that you had found one another, happy that you could finally have one another. Happy that you could hold one another and say that you loved each other and have nothing in the world hold you back, not now, not ever.

You were Y/N and Renjun, Renjun and Y/N, two names that were forever intertwined because that’s how people would call you now. You were the couple that belonged so perfectly with one another that people would wonder if you’d been together for years. And any time someone with a burning curiosity would come up to you and ask,

“So, where did you guys meet?” you would just look at one another, smile and say, “Well, we met in online class.”

~THE END

#renjun fic #renjun fluff #renjun angst #ficscafe #kpopscape #neowritingsnet #dreamwritersnet #huang renjun #renjun #nct fic #nct dream #nct #nct dream fic #nct fluff #nct angst #nct college au #renjun x reader #we met in online class

377 notes · View notes

you-cant-spell-subtext-without · 4 years ago

Text

Before we start, I'd like to say that the below combination....speaks to me, on a personal level.

WHEW.

12x02: Mamma Mia

This episode *eyeroll* - there were like...five? good things about it.

(Mary Winchester as the OG John Winchester Apologist not being one of them.)

wrong.

Anyway, here is the only good stuff from 12x02.

INTERIOR: SAM AND TONI ARE IN BED RELAXING AND HOLDING GLASSES OF WINE.

For the life of me this is the ONLY DECENT THING I CAN FIND FOR this scene and I do not understand how that’s possible. You can’t even see her face. Damn.

There are so many good shots in this!!!! Someone make me a better .gif. Maybe cut Sam out of it?

Update: semi-acceptable follow-up image:

Sexual escapades are actually a continuing theme in the torture:

TONI

Good morning, Sam. Let's start again, shall we? Take our time. I've cleared my calendar. I would like names and locations of every Hunter... the passcodes to each and every Men of Letters database held in the bunker, and then – oh, yes – let's do discuss your relationship with the demon Ruby.

** Can’t find the actual reaction to this, so hey let’s play Sam reacts but wrong episodes ONLY**

SEXUAL ESCAPADE THEME RECURS HERE:

[INTERIOR: THE CELLAR, TONI LOOKS OVER HER TORTURE TOOLS AND PICKS UP BRASS KNUCKLES. SHE WALKS OVER AND SLUGS DEAN.]

TONI: Passcodes, Sam. Not yet?

[TONI LOOKS OVER AT DEAN WHO’S CHAINED WITH HIS HANDS OVER HIS HEAD.]

TONI: Anything to add?

DEAN: No. No, I just came by for some tea and a beating.

[TONI: PUTS DOWN THE BRASS KNUCKLES AND PICKS UP A CUP OF TEA.]

TONI: Really? See, I thought you might be on for a little chat about your mate, Benjamin Lafitte. I'm sorry. You called him Benny. You know, the vampire whom you released from Purgatory and...befriended.

***she sips her fucking tea after she says “befriended” suggestively. SHE. SIPS. HER. TEA. This is not a drill***

I see. Well... the English are nothing if not patient.

BONUS - actual footage of Lady Motherfucking Antonia Bevell deciphering the past 11 seasons of subtext in respect to Dean’s sexuality:

Bi!Dean confirmed.

QUEEN DID NOT COME TO PLAY.

Dean’s spiral at the bunker

CASTIEL: Okay, I understand. I'll call you in the morning.

[WHILE TALKING, DEAN RISES AND STARTS PACING.]

DEAN: Cass, hey. So, here's the thing. It's been kind of weird here with, you know, Mom being back. It's like we don't know how to act around each other, so we just kind of make this small talk and act normal, but it's – it's so not normal.

CASTIEL: Um, I'm – I'm not sure. What – what has she said to you?

DEAN: Well, nothing. That – that – that's the whole point.

CASTIEL: Okay, what have you said to her?

CASTIEL HANGS UP.

DEAN: Yeah. Great. That's helpful. Thanks.

***Dean is so OPEN with Cas on this call. You can tell this is a deeper, different dynamic and it really shows how close they’ve gotten after that heart wrenching Season 11 finale. these NEWLYWEDS. they are in a RELATIONSHIP. And Cas’s terrible attempt at helping also shows how new and fresh it is, how they’re working through how to “be” this new way together, Dean still working on how to express feelings without spiraling, Cas clumsily trying to support him. I AM GOOOOOOO.

This is a fucking warm blanket.

Also confirmed by the subsequent scene, because otherwise WHY EVEN HAVE THIS DIALOGUE in the follow-up call:

DEAN

Hey, Cass, what do you got?

[EXTERIOR: DAY, CASTIEL IS STANDING SLIGHTLY BEHIND A VERY LEAFY TREE.]

CASTIEL

I think I may have found Sam's location. It's a farm. It appears empty, but it was rented two weeks ago to a woman with an English accent.

[DURING THE CONVERSATION THE SCENE SWITCHES BETWEEN THE BUNKER AND THE EXTERIOR OF THE FARMHOUSE.]

DEAN

Did you have a look inside?

CASTIEL

No No, it's – it's powerfully warded.

***Cas asks because he’s not sure if Dean is trying to talk about his feelings again or if it’s still about the case, because this is THAT NEW (and he probably had an ENTIRE headcase moment about his prior horrific attempt to “help” so he’s worked up all sorts of tidbits of advice for next time) *** <- can someone ficlet this little plot hole? I need it in my life.

THAT IS THE ONLY REASON TO HAVE THIS HERE. THERE IS NO OTHER REASON.

BONUS:

Remember Castiel’s pimp mobile?

That new husband energy:

HES SO DAPPER HERE. All the heart eyes.

Helpful husband moment

[EXTERIOR: DAY, OUTSIDE THE FARMHOUSE. THE IMPALA PULLS UP. CASTIEL IS LEANING AGAINST THE TRUCK. DEAN AND MARY EXIT THE IMPALA AND WALK UP TO CASTIEL.]

DEAN

Where's all this warding you mentioned?

CASTIEL

It's cloaked. It's very powerful. You brought your mother?

MARY

Hello, Castiel. Yes, he did.

DEAN

You sure there's anyone inside?

CASTIEL

No. The agent said the lease was handled long distance, but someone warded the house.

DEAN

I'm gonna go have a closer look.

[MARY STARTS TO FOLLOW DEAN.]

DEAN: Mom, I got this.

[DEAN SHAKES HIS HEAD IN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT THEN LOOKS TO CASTIEL FOR HELP.]

DEAN: Thanks.

[[DEAN LOOKS AT CASTIEL GRATEFULLY AND WALKS AWAY.]

***This entire scene deserves a thorough rewatch. Go watch it now. Bathe in the serotonin. I watched it probably 6 times. THE BODY LANGUAGE. THE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS. Cas saying “you brought your mother” because he KNOWS how worried and overprotective Dean is of her, already. This is Destiel peak supportive husband and Mary is realizing it and its just all so fucking cute and happy. Bravo to all of your Acting Choices!

PIEEEEEEE

I will not go into my PhD dissertation about how pie is a metaphor for the true happiness and love Dean Winchester desires and DESERVES but feels like he cannot have because it will be snatched away from him.

I will not go into it at this time. (It will also make me even ANGRIER about what they DID TO PIE in 15x20. I am still healing).

I repeat, I will not go in to it - unless -

Kitchen confidential

Look where Dean is relaxing, with a beer or 3, and looking at old family pictures at the end. It’s not his room.

It’s the kitchen. He’s just hanging out in the kitchen, comfortably as if he does this often.

Remember when Lucifer was possessing Cas in 11x18 and we had this scene, where Cas is in his head but in the Winchesters’ kitchen and - I wondered -

If his happy place

was

the Winchesters’ kitchen. And why.

THIS SHOW.

I guess the good in this episode took up more space than expected. I’m sorry for spamming you guys with this long, back to back Season 12 content, but I have a dossier.

And I’m just getting started.

BONUS:

MICK

Here’s my number.

Also, picturing this, but in Casifer, said TO Rick Springfield.

#tbh this turned out longer than expected #maybe season 12 is actually the best season #I guess I should apologize for these treatises in advance #spn #destiel #spn family #spn fandom #supernatural #deancas #spn 12x02 #Toni bevell #spn meta #spn recap #spn season 12 #but seriously why rick springfield

116 notes · View notes

rigmarolling · 5 years ago

Text

Top 5 Things That Will Kill You In the Victorian Era

If you’ve ever spent more than two seconds with me, you know that I live and breathe the fog-choked air of Victorian London. All day. Every day of my life.

See, in many ways, the Victorians were the first version of us--overwhelmed by rapidly-changing technology (and its awful effect on the climate); dealing with incredible wealth gaps; grappling with rising crime and faster travel and out-of-control media and the whole, “God is dead, oh no” thing.

Also, everything was trying to kill you.

Like, literally almost everything.

From your clothes to your doctor to your canned food, here are the top five things that will kill you in the Victorian era.

5. Other Victorians

If the rise of penny dreadfuls (cheap magazines stuffed with horror stories for us morbidly-inclined goth types) was any indication, Victorians loved them some true crime.

And there was no shortage of subject matter to choose from: depending on where you ventured in London, at least, you could be subject to anything from pickpocketing to mugging to violent assault and, of course, murder.

There were a few reasons for this:

For one thing, the population in London alone increased by millions in the 19th century, and approximately no one was prepared for that. So, to accommodate the rapidly-booming population, the wealthy folks in charge reached out and lovingly ensured the masses of the disenfranchised poor were taken care of by redistributing resources and education and access to opportunities that improved lives on a both a personal and social level.

Lol, no, I’m totally kidding; they shoved them into slums and tenement buildings and pretended they didn’t exist.

So of course, there was a rise in crime, because if you have five kids and you can’t find gainful employment and your family will starve if you don’t steal that basket of food over there, or that purse that lady left sitting over THERE, what are you going to do? You’re going to steal the food and the purse to survive, Jean Valjean, I understand, I do.

Except the powers that be did NOT understand, and instead routinely espoused the idea that if people were poor, it was because they were morally bankrupt, or inherently bad, somehow, and the “criminal classes,” as they came to be known by the growing Victorian middle and upper-middle classes, were simply considered genetically bad to the bone and therefore undeserving of assistance.

Basically:

So ANYWAY.

Crime was on the rise and there were multiple efforts to stop it with varying degrees of success, but big city usually = big crime, especially when there’s a massive gap between the one percent-ers and THE REST OF US, WASHINGTON.

Ahem.

All that crime? The booming news industry loved it. The press ate it up and then spit it back out in salacious headlines that never even bothered with journalistic objectivity, like this gem:

I mean. Full disclosure: I, too, agree that cutting off a woman’s head, arms, and legs and then burning them is “awful, inhuman, & barbarous” but just...maybe...maybe tone it down? Just a bit?

No? Okay.

See, here’s the thing: crime sells. It always has. And papers went nuts with full illustrated spreads about the latest brutal murders so you could sit in your parlor and get anxiety poops thinking about how the butcher down the street looked at you funny the other day and oh, God, you’re probably next, oh God.

The most famous murderer of the era, was, of course, Jack the Ripper, which was just the orchestral climax of a hideously corrupted society that had bubbled into naught but a festering carbuncle, an ulcer upon the very soul of man, trussed up as a city of industry, but which is merely Salome, dancing with the Lamb’s head upon a platter and sending us all tumbling into a fiery pit.

....Ahem, again.

Some popular ways your fellow Victorians could kill you included: dueling (with swords but usually with revolvers), stabbing, garroting, and, probably the most popular method of the era, poisoning.

Speaking of which...

4. Anything dyed that hip shade of green

In 1775, a guy named Carl Wilhelm Scheele invented a new shade of green, cleverly called Scheele’s green, and it instantly became a hit. Pretty soon, manufacturers and tailors were dyeing everything this color.

Look at it. Bright, airy. Calls to mind a fresh, spring meadow. (What’s that, you ask? Well, before the Industrial Revolution belched out black smoke onto absolutely everything, there were these things called plants and grass and they were all over the place and you could frolic through them and it was very nice for your serotonin levels.)

I mean, listen, this isn’t really my color because anything vaguely yellow-ish makes my already yellow-ish skin look especially jaundiced, but it’s a lovely shade:

Besides using it to create beautiful dresses and tasteful waistcoats, they used it inside book covers:

And it was a super popular wallpaper color:

They had green candles and green cups and green kitchenwares and green paint.

But while Carl Wilhelm Scheele didn’t exactly murder anyone (even though he has three names like every serial killer ever), he sort of, accidentally, indirectly, kinda...did.

Because that springy dye contained every Victorian black widow’s favorite method to dispose of a troublesome husband: arsenic.

Scheele, of course, had no idea--no one did--so I’m fully exonerating him here, but the poison nonetheless started to take its toll.

Reports began to surface of kids getting sicker and sicker and then dying in their green wallpapered rooms; of fashionable ladies rocking those green dresses at balls and then ALSO getting sicker and sicker and breaking out in horrible sores before dying.

They even used this stuff to dye food green, so of course, anybody who tucked into Victorian green eggs and ham also, you know. Died.

And if they DIDN’T die, they got cancer, because if arsenic doesn’t kill you, it will give you cancer. And then kill you.

Eventually, as science advanced and went, “HEYO, there’s literal poison in this stuff,” consumers were like, “Well, shoot, this summer’s hottest beach shade just killed an entire boarding school,” and Scheele’s green finally fell out of favor.

It was, however, used as a pesticide up through the 1930s, so...way to use the...leftovers? I guess?

3. Your canned food

Hey, now that we’re on the topic of deadly chemicals being where they absolutely should not be, let’s talk about canned food.

In the Victorian era, it was the new Hot Thing (next to arsenic green). You mean I can can my food now? Like? Forever? Oh, only for a few months. Okay, cool. Still cool.

Above: Road trip snax.

Food preservation methods had existed long before canned meats and veggies and soups, but canned everything really started to gain traction around the middle of the 19th century, and people were stoked. Remember, the population exploded; people needed new methods of obtaining cheap food that didn’t spoil immediately. So: cans to the rescue!

Recycling hadn’t really been invented, though, so today, archaeologists constantly find giant Victorian trash pits filled with empty cans.

You know what also hadn’t been invented? Consumer health and safety boards.

So guess what was in the tin cans themselves?

No, no, don’t worry, it wasn’t arsenic.

It was lead.

Which, in case you weren’t aware, is also very, very bad for you.

So bad, in fact, that today, scientists are pretty sure lead-lined tins of canned food were partially responsible for the deaths on the disastrous Franklin Expedition, an ultimately futile trip to discover the Northwest Passage lead by Sir John Franklin in 1845. Every single man on board the two ships stranded in the Arctic died, and in the 1980s, when scientists discovered perfectly mummified bodies (GRAPHIC, if you don’t like that sort of thing, but awesome if you do) of some of the sailors, one of the mummies contained insane amounts of lead. They later tested the cans found scattered across the wreck site and whoops, they also contained insane amounts of lead.

Above: Some of the tin cans from the Franklin Expedition, which contained items like salted beef, vegetables, tea, lethal amounts of lead, and Chicken of the Sea.

Granted, other factors contributed to the Franklin deaths, like, you know, being stranded in the Arctic and starving to death, and also tuberculosis, but lead-lined canned food certainly didn’t help things along.

2. Your doctor

Here’s my advice if you’re in the Victorian era and you’re starting to feel sick: do not get sick. Just don’t. Because then that means you’ll have to go to the doctor. Which probably means you will die.

Hospitals in the 19th century were deadly. Often even more deadly than just staying at home, according to Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris, author of The Butchering Art. Nobody knew how to treat anything, really, because medical understanding of biology was in its infancy and antibiotics didn’t exist yet, so you were absolutely, definitely going to get some kind of infection the second you stepped foot in a Victorian hospital.

Above: The surgery, where nobody has any idea what they are doing, ever.

Doctors weren’t trying to kill you on purpose--they just didn’t know any better. And it super duper didn’t help that common treatments for everything from the common cold to tuberculosis included taking mercury (which kills you) and blood-letting, (which can also kill you) the tools for which are shown below:

Those might look like fun doodads for your astronomy class at Hogwarts, but they’re actually vials and a really, really sharp needle that pricks you until you bleed out a critically dangerous amount of blood into those vials.

The (ancient) school of thought behind blood-letting was that draining patients of “bad” blood would rebalance their “humours” and get rid of the icky thing that was making them sick. We might laugh at it now, but if you don’t know any better, logically, it makes sense.

Medically, oh my God, it’s the worst.

So if Doc didn’t bleed you to death, he might try surgery--done without anesthesia or antibiotics (until good old Dr. Lister came along--read The Butchering Art!), and then ship you and your amputated stump leg off to the hospital ward where, instead of healing, you’d get wheeled through hallways stained with every bodily fluid imaginable into rooms filled with people coughing up every bodily fluid imaginable, some of which would get into your leg stump, infect it, and then kill you dead.

“But what about medicine?” you ask. “Can’t I just take medicine?”

Sure! Just be aware that it definitely contains morphine and probably contains cocaine, or mercury, or arsenic, or sulfur, or pulverized bits of ancient Egyptian mummies (I am not kidding. True, the latter had started to fall out of favor in the 19th century, but, like. Stop).

Above: Hard drugs, but just for you.

You think I’m joking?

Above: PARTY TIME.

Sometimes, a doctor would just advise that you move to a “more temperate climate” like Rome or Spain if you were feeling chronically ill, which might help you get a tan and COULD help if you had sucky lungs, but eventually, you’d just die anyway, because what you really needed was a strong antibiotic or antiviral medication and the closest you were gonna get was Mrs. Hopplebopple’s Temperance Tonic, which was probably filled with ground up baby bones and just so much heroin.

And don’t even get me started on Victorian surgical tools:

Open wide.

1. Water

There are three rules in this life: don’t watch any Adam Sandler movies except for maybe Anger Management, don’t eat the yellow snow, and do not, ever, for any reason, ever drink water in Victorian England.

That’s because it was about as clean as a Victorian hospital.

Meaning it wasn’t. At all.

Victorian water--of the Thames variety--contained:

Cholera, one of the deadliest killers of the era and bad water’s favorite roommate.

Poop, human and otherwise, because a functioning sewer system? I don’t know her. (At least, not until the 1860s.)

Pee, human and otherwise, because nothing says, “Jolly Old England” like an open trench of piss rolling through the city.

Dead things, like animals, fish (which are animals, so why am I listing them as a separate thing?), and, occasionally, humans.

Chemicals, which spewed forth from the great factories in billowing, bubbling, belching rivers of sludge. (Ha! Omg, yes, I was an English major!)

The Thames was so filthy that Londoners called it “Monster Soup.”

Above: Same.

In 1855, scientist Michael Faraday (who was also kind of hot; tell me I’m wrong), wrote a letter to the Times about the disgusting state of the river:

"Near the bridges the feculence rolled up in clouds so dense that they were visible at the surface, even in water of this kind. ... The smell was very bad, and common to the whole of the water; it was the same as that which now comes up from the gully-holes in the streets; the whole river was for the time a real sewer."

Tl;dr: “It smelled like ass.”

In fact, it got so bad, so putrid, so horrifically clogged with every disgusting thing your mind and your butthole can possibly conjure up, that it lead to one of my favorite things to read about in the world: The Great Stink of 1858.

Yes, that’s the real name. I did not make that up. History is incredible.

Above: Summer vacation, 1858.

The summer of 1858 was miserably hot in London. And the Thames was miserably clogged with poop, and pee, and chemicals, and dead things, and, uh oh, cholera. During July and August that year, the smell wafting from the river was so offensive that Parliament was actually adjourned because everybody kept throwing up. Cholera devastated the city. The water was killing London.

Faced with either the prospect of living with a city-wide vomit-and-diarrhea smell for the rest of forever OR finally cleaning things up, the government actually did something right and chose the latter. They contracted civil engineer Joseph Bazalgette to overhaul the city’s sewer, to which Bazalgette, pinching his nose, responded, “FINALLY.”

Above: Joesph Bazalgette, savior of the London sewers and purveyor of a truly beautiful mustache.

Bazalgette proceeded to build the London sewer system still in use today. His efforts greatly reduced the number of cholera deaths, cleared the Thames of its Cronenberg-esque muck, and ensured that poop goes where it’s supposed to: way the hell out of HERE and way the hell under THERE.

Water sanitation still had a long way to go, though, which meant you either had to boil your water to kill the bacteria in it, or you could just drink alcohol instead, which was the safer option but which would also leave you very dehydrated and also, if imbibed excessively, would leave you very dead.

So really, you were doomed in some way no matter what you did, and if that isn’t the moral of the entire Victorian story, then I don’t know what is.

#victorian #listory

2K notes · View notes

bereft-of-frogs · 4 years ago

Note

Who are your top 5 mcu characters and top 5 star wars characters? I guess is may change sometimes, but for now. :)

oh goodness. this is an excellent question. I think it probably will change, especially for Star Wars as I continue my rereading of the old book series stuff, digging back in and what-not; but also for both as new things are released. (I’m now like ‘omg the whole of the Wandavision crew needs way more consideration for this top 5 list than I ever thought I’d give them what’.) Sorry it’s taken a couple days! This was hard.

Putting it under a cut for length:

MCU:

1. Sam Wilson. This was really hard to choose between all of Team Cap because I love them all equally, but out of the three Winter Soldier crew, I love Sam the best. ‘...if you eat that sort of thing’ ‘So do you like cats?’ ‘I hate you’ #iconic

2. Loki & Thor. Okay here’s where I cheat a little, because I couldn’t choose one and not the other.

3. Valkyrie. I just love her. (Debated putting Hela here instead, because I also love Hela in a similar but opposite way, if that makes sense?)

4. Nick Fury. Fine in Avengers, loved him after Winter Soldier, loved him even more after Captain Marvel stripped down his cool exterior and revealed him to be a bit of a dork who liked cats and was willing to help with the dishes. I hope we get to see more of him.

5. Wanda. Oh my God, Wandavision just came out of nowhere with the Wanda feels, didn’t it? I will say I was lukewarm-neutral on her, and then Wandavision recontextualized so much of her story and made me feel so much about her.

Honorable Mentions: all of the Guardians of the Galaxy because I couldn’t just pick one; Captain Marvel herself came close to getting Fury’s spot (’I have nothing to prove to you’ sobs); Vision was another surprise ‘oh no where did these feelings come from’ character post-Wandavision, (same with Darcy wth happened); Jimmy Woo should get his own series I will sign the petition

Star Wars:

1. Mace Windu. Okay this is an deep abiding love. How could I not love him when I was 10? The man had a purple lightsaber. (Purple was my favorite color, that was pretty much the extent of my character analysis back then.) This has only been confirmed as an adult by all of Shatterpoint. This is officially a Mace Windu appreciation blog.

2. Obi-Wan Kenobi. How can you not?

3. Qui-Gon Jinn. I left the fandom for like 20 years and came back and apparently he’s ~~problematic~~ and yes I will finally admit it, this is the character I’ve been vague-ing about the AO3 tags being a cesspool. He’s just such an interesting character...and that has apparently translated to ‘he’s the worst’ which okay thanks for letting me know I won’t like your fic but...man, the ‘Qui-Gon was literally the worst’ is suddenly everywhere and I’m confused. (again ‘suddenly’ I haven’t been super active in this fandom in a while, it might not have been sudden. Not quite 20 years but it’s been a while and I never noticed back then, idk if it’s a new development or just the product of me trying to sift through AO3 instead of relying on recs...anyway that’s my #confession for the day)

4. Cassian Andor. Okay partially for superficial reasons because Diego Luna is distractingly pretty. But I also love the more serious take on the rebel who knows that he has to get his hands dirty for the cause. He and Jyn’s embrace on the beach at the end is honestly one of my favorite Star Wars moments.

5. Din Djarin. He’s just a man trying to get an education for his son and know as little as possible about the plot of Star Wars, who accidentally ends up winning in battle the rulership of a planet he’s never seen. Poor man. He’s just doing his best. I can’t wait for next season.

Honorable Mentions: K-2SO was hilarious and the rest of the Rogue One crew should technically share the spot with Cassian but Diego Luna is just so pretty; the nanny/assassin droid that Taika Waititi played in The Mandalorian because I always surprise myself by crying when he sacrifices himself in the last episode; literally every female character because my list, like James Luceno, impressively does not pass the Bechdel Test (oof I’m aware, I get it, but I had to narrow this down to 5, and I’m sorry); special mention to Bo-Katan even though I’ve only seen two episodes with her in them (I didn’t, and honestly probably won’t, watch The Clone Wars) but also I might just have a crush on Katee Sackhoff...

Narrowing these down to 5 was super hard, this was quite the challenge, and I only cheated a little there, thank you anon. Sorry it’s taken me a couple days! This was hard! XD And I’m sure it will be updated as things progress with the Marvel series coming out. Also I just got a PS4 and Jedi Fallen Order from my brother in the mail, yes I did have him ship his old PS4 across a closed international border so I could play Fallen Order (and also nothing else is giving me serotonin any more and the internet suggests trying something novel to get the serotonin molecules boogieing, so let’s see if my video game redemption arc is a go).

#Anonymous #lol samuel l jackson appears on this list twice #before anyone chimes in i am aware that the clone wars is like the cornerstone of the modern fandom and i have tried #i just....cannot get into it #i managed one season before i was like...can't keep going #i'm sorry if it makes you feel better it's stressing me out too #there are characters i want to write about but i'm like...wait apparently they have an arc in tcw? and i lose like an hour to the wiki XD #anyway this was a very short list and there are many many more character that i love #this was hard #but!#thank you for asking!#my askbox is always open! <3

5 notes · View notes

artificialqueens · 5 years ago

Text

Not Nineteen Forever (4) (Branjie/Scyvie)- Ortega

a/n: i am absolutely hanging out my arse so editing and re-reading this chapter made me feel vaguely ill. i’ll pass it off as method acting xo thank you so much for the continued love and support for this fic, the fact that each chapter so far has broken 100 notes makes me piss my pants with excitement (watch now i’ve jinkxed it and this one’ll get like 8). in this installment Scarlet finds it hard to believe that she isn’t Victoria Beckham.

Trigger Warnings: explicit drug use, alcohol. unaaay.

Summary: Brooke, Yvie and Nina are three flatmates who forged a friendship in their first year of university and picked up some other waifs and strays along the way. Now in their final year, there are feelings that need to be unravelled and confessions to be made whilst navigating drunk nights, hungover mornings, takeaways, group chats, library meetups, cafe gossiping, and the small matter of getting a degree

***

Scarlet had to admit, she was enjoying the high life. As she sat up the back of the lecture theatre in the new fur coat she wasn’t planning on taking off anytime soon, blinking heavily with her £75 lash extensions, drumming her £50 acrylics against her notepad, she smiled to herself. This was definitely the kind of life she was suited to. Okay, she got a bit of a shock when the rent left her bank account, as well as her gas and electricity bills, but she still had a good amount there. Clenching her stomach, Scarlet thought about the number on her banking app. £3713.65. Slightly giddy, she pressed her lips together as she thought about it. How could she have spent over a thousand pounds in the space of two weeks? She thought through it in her mind. Rent, £550. Electricity, £30 split with Ra’Jah. Gas, £25, also split with Ra’Jah. But that only came to what…just under six hundred pounds? There was still so much unaccounted for. Scarlet thought about how much she’d paid for on nights out, the two shopping trips she’d been on since her scratchcard win, and the many, many Ubers she’d taken pretty much everywhere. It was time to reign the spending in.

It was crazy how much confidence it was giving her, though. Even on the group chat Scarlet felt self-assured enough to throw out barbs every so often, the girls all responding with keyboard smashes and capitalised laughter and giving her a boost of serotonin. It had even made her feel more confident around Yvie. Scarlet felt weird about the whole Yvie thing. Now that she’d realised she liked her, she didn’t really know what to do about it. She knew she would do something, she promised herself, as if she ended up in a situation like Vanjie’s she would scream. Scarlet cast a glance to the girl beside her, frantically typing notes into her laptop and listening intently. Bored, Scarlet took her fluffy-topped pen and wrote on her notepad, pushing it Vanjie’s way.

Lunch after this?

She watched as Vanjie looked down at her writing, looked back up, then nodded once. Scarlet smiled, glad that she had something to look forward to. It had been a while since she’d had a catchup with Vanjie, and part of her was excited to see if there had been any progress made between her and Brooke. Scarlet then realised it was a little selfish of her to think that way and, realising she hadn’t confided in anyone about her crush on Yvie yet, she decided she’d let Vanjie in on her secret.

When the lecture finished up they decided they would go for lunch at the Mexican place in town. It was a slightly longer walk than anywhere on campus but Vanjie was good company, chatting away happily about something funny her Mum had done back home and distracting Scarlet from the cold weather. They eventually reached the restaurant and got sat at a table, despite the fact Scarlet could have stood under the heaters that were blasting by the entrance forever. She watched as Vanjie shrugged her huge coat off then leant forward.

“So, how’s your lovely flatmate?” Vanjie asked, Scarlet letting out a snort and rolling her eyes.

“Our oven’s broken. She’s saying I broke it,” she explained, Vanessa tilting her head with intrigue.

“Why? What did you do?”

“I don’t know. Used it to cook food,” Scarlet said, her laugh giving away her monotone voice and causing Vanjie to giggle too. “It’s exhausting living with her! She just hates me for no reason! I swear she’s going to turn up by my bed in the middle of the night with a knife and her pillow to smother me with.”

“But then she’d have no-one to blame for the shit that goes wrong in the flat.”

“True. If I’m ever found murdered, though, you know who it was,” Scarlet raised her eyebrows knowingly, Vanessa having to stop herself from laughing as a waitress arrived at their table and took their drinks orders. Vanessa ordered a Corona and Scarlet almost joined her, then realised that beer on a lunch break when she still had a lecture in the afternoon was risky. She got a blood orange San Pellegrino instead. As the waitress walked away, Scarlet continued. “How’s Silky and Akeria? I’ve not seen them since last Saturday.”

“They’re good. Akeria’s stressing about Masters applications, even though I keep telling her every uni is gonna be fallin’ over themselves to accept her. Silk is fine. She’s always fine. I think she’s made peace with the fact she’s probably going to get a 2:2.”

“Nothing wrong with a 2:2,” Scarlet shrugged, even though she knew that if she was on course for a 2:2 she’d be crying as if her life was over.

“That’s true. Degree’s a degree. Still gon’ cry like a baby if I don’t get a 2:1 though,” Vanessa frowned, brightening up as the waitress returned and put their drinks in front of them.

“You will,” Scarlet said. It hadn’t been a lie- even though she only saw Vanessa working towards part of her PPE degree, she always seemed on the ball with lecture notes, got good grades in her essays, and you could never shut her up in tutorials. The other girl still narrowed her eyes at her as she took a drink.

“You have to say that, though. You’re my friend,” Vanessa said, Scarlet brightening up at the validation of her friendship. She’d never known if Vanessa had liked her at first, but over the years they’d eventually settled into being comfortable with each other. Vanessa sighed. “I worked out that if I want a 2:1 I need to get above 65% in everything until the end of the year.”

“That’s doable!” Scarlet insisted, pouring her can into the glass in front of her. She frowned and shook her head. “Anyway, let’s not worry any more about uni. How’s Brooke Lynn?”

Vanessa slid down in her seat and covered her face with the menu. “I don’t know, bitch, ask her.”

“You know what I mean! How are things going? Any progress?”

Vanessa screwed up her face. “I mean, I don’t know. Kind of? Maybe? It’s so hard to tell with that bitch.”

“What’s the maybe?”

“So last Monday we went for a drink after we went to the library. We were just talkin’ and somehow…I don’t even know how we got onto this topic…we started talkin’ about how we were…y'know, like in bed.”

Scarlet let out a screech. “OH my God. Amazing. How is that a maybe in any way?!”

“Nah, well, you know,” Vanessa smiled bashfully, fanning herself with the menu which neither of them had so much as glanced at. “It started to get deep and then I did my classic ha ha ha what a big joke this is I’m definitely not takin’ this serious in any way thing I always do with her. I think I made it awkward, ‘cuz I’ve not seen her since then. I mean we’ve talked on the chat but…yeah.”

Scarlet pouted, feeling sorry for her friend. “Oh, Vanj, no. It won’t be that at all. You know her and Plastique have got their portfolios due next week, she’ll just be busy!”

Vanessa bit her lip, then smiled slowly. “How about if I organise a lil somethin’ to take her mind off her work, then?”

Scarlet took a sip of her drink. “You’re going to turn up to her flat wearing nothing but a massive bow playing The Stripper through your phone speaker.”

As Vanessa howled, Scarlet realised a little too late that someone had come to take their order. She asked for five more minutes, neither of them having looked at the menu yet and having only used it as a prop for embarrassment.

“No, bitch,” Vanessa wheezed, finally getting her breath back. “Let’s see if we can get her to come out tonight.”

Scarlet felt her brows pulling together involuntarily. “On a Wednesday? She’ll be too responsible.”

Vanessa sighed and gave the menu a cursory glance. “Couldn’t we at least try? I just need to know if I’ve made things awkward so I can go about trying to fix them. Although how the fuck I’d do that, I don’t know.”

“I guess you could put it on the chat?” Scarlet shrugged.

Gleefully, Vanessa bounced about in her chair and grabbed her phone decisively, immediately typing. She put it back face-down on the table almost as quickly as she’d picked it up. “It’s sent. Although now we’re running the risk of everyone being free apart from Brooke Lynn, and if I’m honest I really don’t have the energy to go out otherwise.”

“We’re getting old,” Scarlet shrugged, her eyes scanning over tostadas, taquitos and empanadas without really being able to focus on any of them. “Do you remember the days when you could manage two nights out back to back?”

“I remember the days I could manage two nights out in one night,” Vanessa laughed, running a hand through her hair and exhaling. “Scarlet, why am I nervous? Tell me why I’m nervous.”

“Because you’ve just orchestrated a night out with our whole friendship group just so you can see one member of it. Instead of, you know. Asking her on a date,” Scarlet smiled teasingly, Vanessa laughing in self-depreciation. It occured to Scarlet that she still hadn’t told Vanessa about Yvie. “That reminds me-”

Just then she was cut off as the waitress appeared again at their table. Scarlet couldn’t bear to send her away again so she quickly ordered some fish tacos and some sort of cheesy beany quesadilla she had no idea the other ingredients of. Vanessa rapidly fired off an order for a pulled chicken burrito and pork taquitos which, Scarlet could glean from a quick glance at the menu, seemed to be served with radioactive levels of spice. As the waitress walked away, Scarlet frowned.

“Are those taquitos not really spicy?”

“Meh. I don’t mind spice. Worst case scenario I’ll have to install scaffolding round my ass for the next three days after I eat ‘em,” Vanessa shrugged and then leaned forward, hardly giving time for Scarlet to laugh at what she’d just said. “You said ‘that reminds me’ after we were talkin’ about dates, what’s up with that?”

“Oh uh, nothing,” Scarlet smiled shyly as she picked at a bit of dripped candle wax on the tabletop. “Just that I’m joining you in the crushing-on-my-best-friend club for the foreseeable future.”

Vanessa’s face lit up. “What is this?!”

Scarlet felt cheeks flush red as she said it. “I…think I have a crush on Yvie.”

Vanessa let out a quick screech of delight, drawing the gaze of a dining couple sitting at the opposite side of the room. Hushing herself, she leant close to Scarlet and continued. “Oh my God! Bitch! I love this. This is amazing. Aw, you’d be so cute together! I knew you were touchy with each other but I always thought that was just how your friendship was.”

“It is how our friendship is!” Scarlet protested, then put her head in her hands to cover her cheeks as she smiled. “I just…realised I like being touchy with her a little too much to be friendly.”

“Oh, I got it. You wanna be touchy with her in a different way,” Vanessa winked suggestively, Scarlet squealing in mortification and both the girls ending up howling with laughter. As the laughter died down, Vanessa smiled. “Well, welcome to the world of crushing on a friend, boo. It’s amazing, electric, and largely horrific. And painful. I’m not selling this well.”

“It sounds slightly sadomasochistic.”

“That’s actually what you get if you Google it,” Vanessa nodded faux-seriously, then put on a funny, posh-sounding voice. “If you liked getting shocked by a disused electrical socket twenty-five times in a row, perhaps you’d like: crushing on your best friend!”

Scarlet laughed, then shot a glance down at her phone as it sat face-down on the table. “I’m kinda hoping Yvie comes out tonight too now.”

“Ooh! We should check the chat,” Vanessa said, pouncing on her phone and her face dropping as she looked. Scarlet opened her own to see what had been said.

FORD TRANSIT VANJIE: me n Scarlet wanna go out tonight who’s down

large incongruous silkworm spiced praline: BITCH ARE U CRAZY WE AINT FRESHERS ANY MORE

large incongruous silkworm spiced praline: I GOTTA DATE WITH BRADLEY WALSH AND WHOEVER THE CHASER IS TODAY

Akeria Sainsburys Bag for Life: Girl we all know The Chase starts at 5pm you gotta think of a better excuse

Akeria Sainsburys Bag for Life: Sorry boo I’m out

large incongruous silkworm spiced praline: BITCH BACK TO BACK EPS ON CHALLENGE TV FROM 7 THANK U NEXT

Akeria Sainsburys Bag for Life: Need to be at the library early if I wanna get that 1st

Kim Kardashian-West: Placement :((((((( sorry babyyy

Akeria Sainsburys Bag for Life: I’ll see yall at pres though

Akeria Sainsburys Bag for Life: I’m guessing they’re gonna be at ours

Okay Then: Sorry girls our portfolios are due in like 9 days

Okay Then: big celebrations after though!!

Dave the Laugh: i’d actually be down

Scarlet felt guilty as her heart gave a jump, Vanessa sitting dejectedly across from her. “Hey, chin up! She’s not replied yet.”

“If Plastique is sayin’ no, she’ll be a no too,” she jerked her mouth to the side in a pained attempt at a smile. “Your girl’s down though, that’s good!”

“Stop. She’s not my girl.”

“Yet,” Vanessa smiled, a glint of disappointment still present in her eyes. Just then, Scarlet’s phone lit up in her hand.

mose: I’m going to follow the tradition of my entire university career making poor life choices and say yeah I’d be up for a night out

Scarlet looked with anticipation across to Vanessa, whose eyes were wide with excitement. She didn’t seem to know that she had a beaming smile on her face, and Scarlet couldn’t help but let out a chuckle, happy for the girl opposite her. “See? Good news!”

“Oh my God. It’s gonna be me, you, Yvie and Brooke Lynn. Fuckin’ double date night out,” Vanessa’s eyes scrunched up as she laughed happily. Scarlet felt her pulse start racing, nerves taking hold of her already. She was excited, though, for some time with Yvie in a slightly smaller setting. She hadn’t grabbed a coffee or done anything with just her in a while, and even though this wasn’t the ideal setting, it was still an opportunity. Vanessa was back typing quickly into her phone, and Scarlet watched the group chat progress.

FORD TRANSIT VANJIE: yall suck apart from Yvie and BrookeLynn

FORD TRANSIT VANJIE: come to mine for 9 then bitches! Xoxoxoxo

Mose: See ya then boo

Scarlet turned over her phone and raised an eyebrow at Vanessa. “You’re her boo.”

“Yeah fuck y’all bitches, I’m Brooke Lynn’s lil’ ghost,” she smiled and gave her hands a quick clap together in excitement, Scarlet spluttering a laugh at her friend’s adorable reaction. Just then, their food arrived and got placed down in front of them.

“Oh hey, can I grab another Corona?” Vanessa asked, holding up her empty one. The waitress took it and nodded, and Vanessa gave Scarlet a guilty look. “I should really head to the library after this but I’mma go back home and nap, then spend the next four hours gettin’ ready. Fuck, I don’t even know how I’m gonna afford goin’ out tonight.”

Scarlet took a bite of a taco, then thought. Lunch was only going to come to about forty-ish pounds altogether, and really, what was that out of her winnings? She swallowed, looked to Vanessa, and smiled.

“Hey. I’ll get us lunch,” she shrugged, shifting a little in her seat as Vanessa blinked at her.

“Serious? No, Scarlet, I can’t let you do that.”

“Honestly! My loan came in early,” she said, looking down at her plate as she lied. “Think of it as a celebratory, double-date-crush-night-out-whatever-the-fuck-this-is treat. And you can buy me a drink or something when we go out, call it even.”

As a waiter came by and placed another bottle in front of Vanessa, she gave a smile and raised it. “To coming out on the other side of tonight with girlfriends?”

Scarlet smiled as she clinked her glass against Vanessa’s beer. “Let’s not push it.”

The rest of her lunch with Vanessa passed by comfortably, Scarlet paying the bill when they were finished without a second thought and the girls saying goodbye with a hug and an excited squeal in anticipation of later on. Part of Scarlet wanted to head straight to the shops to look for something new to wear but she stopped herself, instead getting in an Uber and going back to the flat, the prospect of her returning to campus for her 3pm lecture growing thin. Turning the keys in her front door, she sighed when she heard loud music coming from Ra’Jah’s room. Scarlet had hoped she’d be out by now. Walking through to the living room to dump her shoes, coat and bag, she paused when she saw something on the messy, cluttered coffee table that she was sure hadn’t been there before.

It was a tiny, clear, plastic ziploc bag filled full of a white powder. Scarlet frowned as she picked it up, transferring the bag between her fingers and watching as the powder inside crumbled and broke up, the same sort of consistency as flour although slightly looser and whiter. The realisation of what she was holding suddenly hit her like a bus, nearly making her drop the bag. She stood silent for a couple of minutes, completely unsure of what to do. Then she heard the music in Ra’Jah’s room get turned up and that seemed to make her decision for her.

Storming back through into the hallway, Scarlet banged on her flatmate’s door. “Ra’Jah!”

The music got cut off and there was an eerie buzz of silence in the flat. The door in front of Scarlet swung open to reveal her flatmate, her face unimpressed. “Yes?”

Scarlet held up the bag, hoping it would elicit some emotion out of the other girl. It did not. “Can you not leave that shit lying around our flat?”

Ra’Jah smiled in amusement, showing a set of slightly uneven teeth. Scarlet felt her top lip curl up in a sneer. Ra'Jah wasn’t able to pull them off, not like Yvie with the cute gap she had between her front teeth. Fuck, was she really thinking of Yvie right now? Ra’Jah leant on the doorframe cockily. “What, a girl ain’t never seen cocaine before?”

“Of course I’ve seen it,” Scarlet lied, gripping the bag tight between her fingers. “I just don’t want the flat looking like a fucking crack den. I mean it’s not a potted plant, Ra’Jah, it’s a fucking class A drug. It’s not decorative.”

“Class A, ooh,” Ra’Jah mimicked mockingly, irritation washing over Scarlet. “Don’t shit yourself, bitch, it’s fine. I only put it down for, like, two seconds anyway. Just give it and I’ll put it somewhere safe.”

Scarlet went to pass it back to her, but something held her back. She looked at the powder again and a flash of thoughts flew through her head, of skinny, glamorous models and nightclub toilets and champagne. It was an illegal drug, and everything Scarlet had been brought up to believe told her it was fucking disgusting, and dangerous, and led to a spiral of addiction and debt. But still part of her was so insatiably curious, like she was addicted without even having tried it yet. She watched Ra’Jah’s expression change as Scarlet curled her fingers back. “Where’d you get it?”

“What is this, twenty fuckin’ questions?” her flatmate snapped back, rolling her eyes. “Just give me my narcotics, bitch.”

“Can I, um. I’ll buy it off you?” Scarlet stumbled out, causing Ra’Jah to look at her in disbelief.

“You want to buy cocaine?” she raised an eyebrow at her, speaking through a slight laugh. Scarlet’s hackles were up.

“Or give me the number of your dealer.”

Ra’Jah let out a small snort, shrugging her shoulders. “Ain’t any need to involve anyone else. Alright, that’s a gram. Give me sixty and it’s a deal.”

Scarlet felt her eyes widen involuntarily, Ra’Jah chuckling in response. “Girl, what did you think it was gonna be? Naomi Campbell snorts this shit for a reason, people use rolled up hundred dollar bills to snort this shit for a reason. It ain’t fuckin’ Cabbage Patch kids weed we talkin’ ‘bout here.”

Scarlet frowned and took out her phone, opening up her banking app. Just before she transferred the money, she looked at her flatmate suspiciously. Ra’Jah rolled her eyes.

“Look, I’m not taking you for a ride. I got it for fifty, a bitch wants to make a profit. Sixty is standard in some places. Others you’d be talkin’ seventy. Google it if you don’t believe me.”

“No, I believe you,” Scarlet simply said, hitting a button and just like that, sixty pounds flew out of her account. A nervous heartbeat felt entirely too fast and too loud in her body. Another hundred pounds gone.

“Thanks, bitch. This was great fun, maybe I’ll drop out and become a dealer,” Ra’Jah laughed, Scarlet saying nothing in reply as the door swung shut in her face. The bag seemed to make her right hand tingle, and a surge of nervous excitement shot through Scarlet like propane.

She got ready for the night ahead in a sort of daze, as the panic and the gravity of what she’d actually done began to sink in. She’d just bought a gram of cocaine for a night out. What the hell was she planning on doing with it? There was no way she’d be able to actually do any. Or was there? That was what Scarlet had always said about weed and now her and Yvie got high together all the time. Her pulse thrummed at her wrists when she thought about the other girl. Scarlet imagined bringing the small bag out in a toilet cubicle with her, watching her eyes grow wide, imagined her thinking holy shit, I never knew Scarlet was this type of girl at all. Imagined them both cutting it up with Scarlet’s bank card and snorting it, then hitting their high on the dancefloor, turning to her and letting Yvie lean in and kiss her in a haze of euphoria and lust.

Scarlet felt a throb of heat pulse between her legs, her doubts gone. This was a good decision.

Scarlet showed up to Vanessa’s flat only running a tiny bit late, ready with a bottle of vodka the size of her head and a couple of mixers in case any of the girls wanted to share. She got buzzed in quickly and was welcomed into the flat by Akeria who was looking a far cry from her usually-glamorous self, her hair piled on top of her head in a towel and a pair of pink flannel pyjamas on. Scarlet was shown through to their kitchen where she found Vanessa, Brooke and Yvie all sitting on the sofa or on chairs beside Silky who was also in her pyjamas and, just as she’d promised on the chat, was watching The Chase. The girls gave a small cry of delight as Scarlet walked in, Scarlet not missing the way Vanessa was sat on Brooke Lynn’s lap. Part of her prickled with jealousy, wishing that her and Yvie were in their place, but she didn’t mind too much. She was happy for Vanessa. Scarlet grabbed a glass, took a chair to sit in, and began pouring a drink as the girls continued to watch the TV.

“Low offer of minus four thousand pounds, high offer, please?”

“Fifty-one thousand pounds.”

“We’re watching The Chase,” Vanessa explained to Scarlet.

“I gathered.”

“If he takes the minus offer, I’m gonna reach through the TV and stab him,” Brooke said seriously, her face displeased.

“Nah, he’s gonna stick in the middle. I trust Nigel, 52, from Stockport,” Yvie drawled, taking a sip of her drink then smiling at Scarlet from her position on the chair beside her, reaching across and squeezing her hand. “Hey, girl, how are you?”

“I’m good, thanks,” she smiled shyly, giving Yvie’s hand a small squeeze back and admiring her crushed-velvet red dress. “You look good.”

Yvie momentarily looked as if she was about to say something cute in response when her eyes were suddenly ripped from Scarlet’s and back to the screen as the girls groaned loudly.

“He’s a fucking TRAITOR,” Silky yelled, launching a cushion at the TV. “Sheila brought back forty-five thousand for this asshole to take from it? NO MA’AM!”

“Well this is the most lit pres I’ve ever been to,” Scarlet deadpanned.

“I hate this motherfuckin’ game show. Silk, turn this shit off,” Vanessa rolled her eyes, her flatmate loudly complaining.

“It’s my fuckin’ flat too, hoe!”

“Yeah, some of us actually have to do work tomorrow,” Akeria piped up from her position at the oven, checking on whatever she’d put inside. “How come you’re out tonight anyway?”

Scarlet caught Vanessa’s eye and she just stopped herself from smiling. “Oh, you know. Sometimes you just fancy going out.”

“It’s called being spontaneous, Kiki. You should try it,” Brooke joined in as she brought both hands up around Vanessa’s waist, the other girl giving a happy sigh and Scarlet staring at them, jealousy burning under her skin. As the other girls bickered, Yvie turned to face her again.

“Hey. You alright?” she asked, concern etched on her face and making Scarlet’s heart swell up.

“No, yeah, I’m good!” she smiled, blinking and trying not to come out with the truth of I’m insanely jealous of how close and cuddly Brooke and Vanessa are being right now and I wish Silky would get up off the sofa so we can join them. Satisfied with her answer, Yvie smiled.

“That’s good. No sad allowed at pres,” she joked, then tapped her gently on the nose. “Also you’re not allowed to be upset, you’re, like, my favourite person. Don’t tell the others.”

Scarlet felt something akin to a tidal wave flood over her whole body. Boosted, she gave Yvie a small wink. “I won’t. I promise.”

Something behind Yvie’s eyes seemed taken-aback, but not in a negative way. Almost as if she hadn’t expected Scarlet to come back with something so flirty so quickly, and Scarlet had to hide her smile behind her hand when she saw Yvie’s cheeks turn slightly pink.

Two hours later, all of Scarlet’s vodka had been drank and the four girls had managed to navigate a drunk Uber ride and entry into one of the fanciest clubs in the city. Usually none of them would have been able to afford the entry fee, but Scarlet had paid the ten pounds for each of them without batting an eyelid. She probably should have cared, but Scarlet had hit that stage where the alcohol had her convinced that life was wonderful, she was invincible, and she would be young and rich forever. She laughed as she cast her eye around the small circle the girls had formed on the dancefloor. Vanessa was dancing, frankly, like a stripper, and Brooke seemed to be living for it, her hands on the other girl’s waist protectively. Yvie was bouncing and flailing about, completely intoxicated, and yelling along to whatever song was playing- Scarlet didn’t know it, but she didn’t really need to. Turning to Yvie, she grabbed her hands and laughed. Yvie looked at her curiously.

“You look like those things…those car lot things…they go like this in the wind,” Scarlet explained, suddenly demonstrating to Yvie and throwing her hands in the air. Yvie buckled over with laughter, her hands on her knees, and Scarlet was so pleased she’d made her laugh.

“Bitch you started doing the floss to Miami 2 Ibiza, shut the fuck up,” Yvie snorted, Scarlet howling beside her. Casting her eye again to Brooke and Vanjie, an idea planted itself in Scarlet’s head.

“Yvie, watch me dance like Vanessa,” she commanded, suddenly feeling emboldened enough to throw her arms around Yvie’s neck and push her body up against hers. She ran her hands through the other girl’s hair messily, Yvie’s eyes half-lidded as she laughed gently at her.

“Girl…messing up my hair,” she muttered, Scarlet smiling back brazenly.

“It was messed up when you did it,” she smiled cheekily, tapping Yvie on the nose like she’d done to her earlier. Without giving her a chance to respond, Scarlet dropped down onto the floor in a move she hoped would make her look irresistible. Instead, she toppled over and ended up flat on her back against the sticky floor, the crowd parting around her like the Red Sea. She looked up to see Yvie laughing hysterically, holding both her hands out to her. Scarlet took them gratefully and she was pulled up, beside Yvie again only this time with just a fraction of the confidence. Yvie must have seen her pouting as Scarlet felt her strong arms being wrapped around her in a hug.

“Aw baby, I like your dancing the way it is,” she slurred into her ear, a tingle shooting down Scarlet’s spine at the proximity of Yvie’s lips to her skin. Scarlet was about to do something, say something, when she suddenly felt herself being wrenched away from Yvie and dancing beside Vanessa, who was gripping her arm. Scarlet was confused until Vanessa leaned in close to her and yelled above the music.

“I got an idea,” she said, her voice thick with alcohol. “Gonna make them both jealous.”

Scarlet’s eyes widened, an electric shock running through her veins as Vanessa pulled her close, then tilted her head up and kissed her. There was little to no hesitation and Scarlet felt herself kissing back, feeling the eyes of the other girls on them both. Vanessa kissed as if she’d known Scarlet’s lips her whole life, hot and passionate, and it briefly ran through Scarlet’s mind that Vanessa probably had a certain Canadian blonde on her mind as she was doing it. She desperately wanted to open her eyes, to look over to Yvie to see if she even cared. Show over, Vanessa pulled away, beaming and laughing, and Scarlet felt herself laugh back. In her drunk state, the situation was funny- the pair of them getting with each other to try to make their two other friends jealous. It appeared to have worked, certainly in Scarlet’s case, as Yvie took her hand and pulled her back, an odd sort of smile on her face that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She shouted over the music at Scarlet, something that she couldn’t quite hear.

“What?”

Yvie raised her voice a little more. “I didn’t know you liked Vanessa like that!”

Scarlet laughed. “I don’t!”

Yvie gave her a funny look, a multitude of questions no doubt running around her head. Scarlet felt her confidence peak and she leaned in close to Yvie’s ear, Yvie’s arms snaking round her waist instinctively. “You jealous, girl?”

She felt Yvie’s body shake in a laugh Scarlet could tell was affected. “No…bitch.”

Scarlet leant her head on her shoulder and spoke against her neck. “Hey, 'f you’re lucky it might be you next time.”

She pressed a tiny kiss against Yvie’s skin and pulled away laughing, Yvie looking momentarily shaken then joining in with Scarlet’s laughter. Scarlet ran her tongue over her teeth. Fucking yes. Suddenly, she remembered the tiny bag she had in her bra. She caught the attention of the other girls and shouted over the music again. “Guys. Come pee with me.”

She began to make her way through the crowd to the toilets, hearing Vanessa and Yvie laugh at Brooke singing a parody of Come Fly With Me but replacing the word “fly” with “pee”. They eventually all managed to cram into a cubicle together, Scarlet counting her blessings that there was no toilet attendant on duty who would almost definitely have bundled them all out. The girls looked shocked as Scarlet turned around from locking the door and produced the bag from her bra.

“Is anyone down?” she asked lightly, Brooke letting out a nervous laugh beside her. Vanessa flipped her hair over her shoulder.

“What the fuck is that,” Yvie asked, her face set in a hesitant, concerned smile. Scarlet shrugged.

“It’s exactly what it looks like.”

Vanessa spoke first with a blase shrug. “Yeah, bitch, let’s do it.”

Scarlet smiled happily, part of her quite surprised at how readily Vanessa agreed to the whole thing. Her eyes darted to Yvie, who was still looking at the bag cautiously. Obviously noticing her eyes on her, Yvie gave her a look that Scarlet couldn’t quite decipher, then screwed her face up. “So this is a thing we all do now?”

Vanessa narrowed her eyes at her. “Aw Jesus, Yvie, it’s one key in a club on a night out, we’re not all about to turn into fuckin’ junkies.”

Scarlet’s confidence had been given a knock. She hesitantly caught Yvie’s eye. “I mean, you don’t have to, I just thought-”

“No, girl, I’ll do some. ’M not a fucking pussy,” she frowned, taking a breath that seemed to be shaky and turning to Brooke, who was still looking with wide eyes at Scarlet. “Brooke, you doing this?”

It occurred to Scarlet that this was the first time she’d ever seen Brooke look anything other than completely sure of herself. She was laughing awkwardly, almost nervously. Scarlet watched as Vanessa put a gentle hand on her arm. “You don’t have to, baby.”

“No, well, y'know me. Try anything once,” she slurred, leaning into Vanessa’s touch. “Okay, fuck, let’s do this shit.”

Scarlet moved to empty the bag out onto the toilet cistern, but Vanessa put out a hand to stop her. “Woah, girl, the fuck you doin’? Just take a key, ain’t no need for all that fuckin’ credit card shit.”

Scarlet frowned at her, confused in her drunken state. “Keys?”

Vanessa seemed to shrink back into herself as she saw all three girls looking at her intently, wondering how she knew so much about the process. Wordlessly, she gestured for the baggie and produced her keys from her gold clutch bag. She calmly opened the small plastic bag and fished into it with a single key, balancing some of the powder on the length of it. With a short glance up at the girls, she pressed a finger to one nostril and gave a quick, harsh sniff with the other. As quickly as it had appeared, the cocaine was gone. Vanessa rubbed quickly at her nose, sniffing awkwardly.

“Alright, who’s next?” she questioned. Scarlet could feel Yvie’s eyes on her.

“Well since Scarlet brought it, she should go next,” she said, something off to her tone and her stare that Scarlet couldn’t quite pinpoint. Scarlet shrugged stiffly, Vanessa reaching back into the bag with the key and holding some out for her. The butterflies in her stomach almost overwhelming, Scarlet leaned forward and mimicked what Vanessa had done. The first thing that she felt was the all-encompassing smell of petrol, followed by a horrific stinging at the back of her nose and mouth, Scarlet briefly being reminded of jumping into swimming pools when she was little and water shooting up her nose. She gave a cough and a big, follow-up sniff, Vanessa chuckling lightly.

Well, that just happened.

Nervously thrilled, Scarlet felt the butterflies in her stomach dissipate as she watched Vanessa hold a key out to Yvie. Yvie frowned and shook her head.

“Nah. Changed my mind. I’m out,” she said darkly, shooting Scarlet a glare that made her feel like a reprimanded child.

“Come on, Yvie, it’s fine,” Scarlet offered, the other girl scrunching up her face.

“No. It’s not happening. You guys have fun.”

Scarlet felt dejected. She wished she knew what she’d done wrong. Trying to push her feelings aside, Scarlet watched as Vanessa turned the key to Brooke. Brooke was looking from the key to the lock of the toilet stall, nervous. Vanessa reached up and touched a lock of her hair.

“You don’t have to, Brooky.”

“No, I will, I will. I’m just nervous. And excited,” she stammered out, Scarlet thinking she couldn’t have judged the girls’ reaction to this entire situation less accurately if she’d tried.

“You can rub it on your gums if you don’t wanna snort it,” Vanessa explained, part of Scarlet wishing she’d told her that before her turn. Brooke tilted her head, considering, then wet her finger, reached into the bag and took some. Then she put her finger back in her mouth and maneuvered it around, her eyes on Vanessa.

“You tryna flirt, boo?” the other girl questioned, her eyes half-lidded as she locked eyes with her.

Brooke let out a laugh. “Bitch I’m trying to take fucking drugs!”

Vanessa, Brooke and Scarlet burst out laughing, Yvie shushing them.

“Right, let’s go, junkies,” she said irritably. Scarlet frowned, sad that she seemed to have upset Yvie in some way. An idea came to her as they left the cubicle and wandered past the judgemental line of waiting girls.

“I’m gonna get us a bottle of champagne,” Scarlet decided, sure for a second that she saw Yvie roll her eyes, but she wasn’t too sure.

“Vanjie, does it look obvious we’ve been doing drugs?” Scarlet heard Brooke yell over the music, Vanessa laughing gently.

“Everyone here is on drugs, baby. Just chill. It’ll kick in in a minute,” she winked, taking both of Brooke’s hands and jumping a little on the dancefloor.

Scarlet watched as Brooke’s eyes darted to a security camera on the ceiling. “Guys. They can see us. They know.”

“Brooke, relax, nobody gives a shit,” Yvie rolled her eyes. Brooke turned to Scarlet, panic filling her eyes.

“Scarlet, what was in that? Is it all okay, yeah? It’s not got anything through it?”

“Oh, good. Well done, bitch, are you seeing this?” Yvie glared at Scarlet before she had a chance to reply to Brooke. “Brooke! It’s fine! You’re okay!”

The music seemed as if it had been turned up louder. Scarlet scrunched her eyes closed. “Brooke, it’s fine, okay? I’m going to the bar, who wants something?”

“Ugh, of course you are,” she thought she heard Yvie mutter. Suddenly irritated, Scarlet whipped around to face her.

“And what is that meant to mean, huh?” she snapped, Yvie’s eyes widening a little at being challenged.

“You, bitch! What the fuck is up with you these days?”

“Nothing’s up with me? What is this?!” Scarlet cried, a couple of heads turning their way then slowly turning back. She could feel her heart hammering in her chest as if she’d just drank fifty Red Bulls back to back, although she was unable to tell if this was the effect of the drugs or just how annoyed she was.

“Something’s off with you. Fucking…cocaine, champagne, this constant…buying everything for everyone like we’re all charity cases, behaving like you’re a fucking extra off Gossip Girl? This isn’t you, Scarlet!” Yvie yelled back, suddenly grasping her by the wrists and giving her a shake. “The normal Scarlet would have shit herself at the thought of doing a key, the normal Scarlet would want to go to Levels and pay a pound for entry instead of going here to dance around with a bunch of fucking Love Island rejects!”

Yvie’s words stung harshly at Scarlet’s heart. She knew the other girl could sometimes grow argumentative when she was drunk, but Scarlet had never had it directed at her. It wasn’t nice. Scarlet felt her tone switch a little as she spoke. “Yvie, you’re being kind of a dick.”

Yvie gave a laugh of disbelief. “Well breaking fucking news, Scarlet! So are you! I mean do you have any idea how shitty it is to see your best friend grow into a total asshole over the space of two weeks?”

“Guys,” Vanessa suddenly interrupted out of nowhere, and Scarlet had no idea how long they’d been fighting or at what volume. “Me and Brooke are gonna go. She’s not doing well.”

Yvie looked at Vanessa, panicked. She cast Scarlet one last withering look before dashing through the crowd, presumably to pick up their jackets. Scarlet felt a bubble of upset prick at her throat. She turned to Vanessa instead. “What’s happened?”

“She thinks she’s having a heart attack. I mean, she’s not, it’s just the drugs, but I’m still worried about her,” she frowned, biting her lip. Vanessa jerked a thumb back to where Yvie had slinked off. “The fuck was that all about?”

Scarlet shook her head silently, not trusting herself to speak unless she began to cry. She didn’t understand how she’d managed to fuck everything up so badly. Vanessa saw her upset and pulled her in for a quick hug.

“Baby. Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”

The four of them got their coats and joined the taxi queue in a blur. Yvie wouldn’t even look her way, and Scarlet didn’t trust herself to try to speak to her in case she managed to make things even worse. She seemed more concerned about Brooke anyway, who was chattering away, her teeth clicking together in the cold night air.

“Is the taxi driver going to know? Will he just drive us to the police station and hand us in? Do you think he’ll phone the police? What if the police were to just come here right now and say they’re giving random drug tests to everyone in the line? What if-”

“Oh my God, what if you shut the fuck up?” Yvie snapped, Brooke looking taken-aback. Vanessa wrapped her arms around Brooke’s waist protectively.

“Brooky. It’s alright. The police aren’t coming, the taxi driver isn’t gonna turn us in. We’re going back to your flat and we’ll get you into bed safe. You’ve got us, nothing’s gonna happen to you.”

Brooke let out a sound that was halfway between a sigh and a sob. She buried her face in Vanessa’s hair. “I love you, V’nessa.”

Scarlet saw something shut down behind Vanessa’s eyes as she squeezed Brooke tightly. “I love you too, baby.”

Scarlet couldn’t stop herself from casting her eyes across to Yvie, selfishly longing. If she hadn’t fucked everything up, maybe something could have happened. Now, though, it looked as if she’d have to piece their friendship back together, never mind anything more.

The line moved up, and they found themselves at the front. Brooke and Vanessa spilled in, then Yvie. Scarlet went to join them when she found the door getting pulled across in her face. Yvie scowled at her. “No. You’re not getting in with us. I don’t even want to speak to you right now.”

Scarlet could hear Vanessa protesting. “Yvie, for fuck’s sake-”

“You’re not coming with us, bitch. Make your own damn way home,” she reiterated, slamming the door shut.

As the taxi sped away, Scarlet couldn’t fix the slack-jawed look of complete hurt she could feel on her face. As the reality of what had just happened sank in, she felt her face crumple like a paper bag as she began to cry, stood on her own at the taxi rank in the small hours of the morning, and all she could do was wait.

#rpdr fanfiction #tw drug and alcohol use

126 notes · View notes

lucycates-anythingispossible · 6 years ago

Text

Complimentary Practices for Yogasanas

There is much to be said for the practices outside of yogasanas that support & enrich the practice we have on the mat.

During my time at Atmavikasa my teachers have gradually introduced us to ‘complimentary practices’ which can all combined deepen our practice, allow for detox (Physical, Mentally & Emotionally), give reverence to the traditional Hatha yoga system & philosophies, and last but not least further our spiritual work.

They can give you the energy to reflect upon yourself. Build the good intentions from the inside - easier with high energy( Water, Fruits/Veg, Barefoot Walking, Chanting, Pranayama, Meditation, Philosophy & Sungazing).

The most simple yet effective practices are given first:

Drinking Water

4 Litres of water minimum per day is needed for our bodies to function properly.

2 Litres per day (1 litre at a time, 2 separate times)

First one in morning after Asana, Pranayama & Kriya Practice

Second litre drank after mediation/class late afternoon 5:30pm

Temperature preferably room temperature/warm water allows your body to maintain homeostasis, optimally flushing out toxins and replenishing the cells.

We drink at once continuously to:

Rehydrate: After seven or eight hours of sleep, your body becomes dehydrated. Drinking water upon waking helps increase the flow of oxygen, and aids in the production of muscle and blood cells.

Jumpstart your metabolism: Drinking water in the morning can boost your body’s metabolism by about 24%, which can aid in maintaining a healthy weight.

Flush out your toxins: When you drink water in the morning before eating, you help to purify your colon, allowing nutrients to be absorbed more easily. Your kidneys also function better when you’re getting enough fluids.

Energise your brain: When you’re dehydrated, your brain is operating on low fuel. This can cause you to feel tired, drained, may lead to headaches, and you may even experience mood fluctuations.

Prevents & cures diseases: While you sleep your body repairs itself, replenishes energy and balances hormones. The result is toxins and other waste materials being released and waiting to be flushed out.

Be mindful that drinking water is one thing, however absorption & retaining is another.

Depending on nutrition & lifestyle factors, will govern the % of the water you drink that is being absorbed.

Salt intake, sugar, stress, coffee which will excite your nerves will have a connection to absorption. Along with your sleep regularity/patterns and of course the amount of toxins that you have in your body.

When you are constipated, this will not allow you to absorb the water.

Ironically the main cause of constipation is dehydration.

Drinking water when you wake up will not only cure dehydration but it will help relieve constipation, help to keep you regular and promote a morning bowel movement.

To check levels of dehydration, firstly you can watch the dryness of the mouth, if your lips are dry then you need more water. Also your urine if not clear/odourless it means you need more water to not only hydrate your body and cells but also to help your organs detoxify the waste you are holding onto.

Fruits and Vegetables

So here we come to the key aspect of healing, removing the impurities of the mind & deep connection to your true nature, which of course will allow much space for a pure practice.

Its a huge topic, massive industry, everybody has ‘the diet’ or ’the nutritional answer’ etc, so sometimes it can be difficult knowing what information to trust & how to discern.

It can be difficult to jump transition into a raw diet, so it must be taken slowly.

My teacher described the analogy that if you put a child into a room, with all different types of food, it will go for the natural food like fruits & vegetables that you can eat straight away without cooking/processed foods etc.

My teacher has recommended to read books/works by Dr T.C Fry & Herbert M. Shelton who champion the ideas of the Natural Hygiene health system. Would be worth having a look at for further research

(https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/natural-hygiene)

youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm14UgVrFNo

Our digestive systems have got so conditioned to cooked food, let along sugary, spicy & salty foods.

With each food there will be 3 elements stored in the body: gross, middle and subtle elements. The gross will become manifested in our body to excrement, the middle part is transformed into flesh, and the subtlest part goes to form the mind.

So it would be fair to say (but perhaps not verifiable other than from direct experience itself which requires discipline) that certain foods carry specific energies that will affect your body on all of these 3 levels.

Almost like a code or vibrational frequency that has been inbuilt from the cosmic intelligence contained with each matter. Reading on the Yoga Sutras & other Yogic philosophies will help cement these ideas on mind, matter & energy.

“When the food is pure, the mind becomes pure. When the mind becomes pure, memory becomes firm. And, when a man is in possession of firm memory, all the bonds which tie him down to the world are loosed.” Swami Budhananda

Our systems are not used to the prana that comes in from Yogasanas (Mediation, Pranayama, and all other complimentary practices). Sometimes are unable to handle the nerve energy that comes in, unless your body & mind knows how to handle this energy then there will be wastage along with misdirection of prana spent. So the importance is clearly there that we need foods that can keep the prana balanced & stabilised.

Prana = the energy that flows in the nerves. Comes out both as physical + mental energy.

Work from a policy of inclusion & exclusion; gradually start noticing the differences in your mind fluctuations, nerve energy, calmness & physical effects on the body.

My teachers greatly approve of Bananas - this fruit will give you great nutritional benefits along with sufficient calories for fruit, but furthermore to this it will disturb you the least out of all the foods(your mind & body).

Here is a blog that I written on the wonder of bananas, please feel free to read further here:

https://lucycates-anythingispossible.tumblr.com/post/179040307667/a-banana-can-help-but-only-you-do-the-final-break

Sungazing

The Science of Staring at the Sun - The sun is the bringer of life to all existence on this planet.

The theory is that the sun is the force of all life, and staring at it can infuse the body with large amounts of energy.

Our ancestors understood the relation between the sun and health. From the Aztecs to the ancient Egyptians, many past societies revered sungazing as an esoteric practice for high-ranking priests and shamans.

Here are important instructions for sungazing that must be followed strictly.

Timing: For beginners 5-10 minutes per day. In 2-3 months of daily practice, you can increase to 15 minutes

Types:

Active - Directly looking at the sun

Passive - Face to sun (eyes closed) feeling 3rd eye.

Conditions

Well Hydrated

Barefoot ( Grounded - Circuit complete)

2 hours after sunrise in the morning / 2 hours before sunset early evening.

10-30 seconds look directly at the sun

Stand on the mud - then you can go for barefoot

Benefits for sungazing

Nerves get more strength

Helps with hormonal issues

Improves digestion

Biggest Anti-Depressant (Boosts production of melatonin & serotonin)

Rise in energy levels

Increased the actual size of the pineal gland

Not all bodies can absorb the same way, it depends upon the condition of your nerves.

Side related issue - B12

Non- absorption of vitamins (+B12) into the blood, if you don’t get enough sun.

Increase your gut health - to increase also absorption of vitamin B12. We produce it inside our gut - Organic Veggies can help with this if you eat unwashed due to bacteria present in soil.

Also eating with hands ( Indian traditional method), and growing your own herbs / veg at home.

Hira Ratan Manekun(more commonly known as HRM) is a true sungazer and brought it to our Western world. He has founded the Solar Healing centers, and website.

http://solarhealing.com

He is a man who lives off of the energy that the sun provides and water only.

(Sometimes HRM will have tea, coffee or buttermilk for social purposes)

Here is a trailer to a documentary “Eat the sun” where HRM features & discusses his experience with sungazing.

youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM9iDdkKZ7M

In his own words, HRM states that the sun can be used to heal the mind, body and spirit. He also claims that as a result of sun gazing you will have better physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.

HRM has gone through three strict long term fasts and during those he was under the supervision and observation of various medical and scientific teams.

Personal Experiences

I have been drinking 4 litres of water per day now for 8 weeks, physically my skin is really clear, I have less appetite than I had previously ( I was dehydrated before). My body feels much lighter & fresher. It’s hard to describe exactly the feeling other than I feel good, fresh and that I can actually feel my body is being cleaned out from past toxins.

I have experienced a deep detox which initially started in the first 2 weeks as physical digestive detox. Some unexplainable things have been happening for example, never ending diahorrea despite fasting with the old rotten meat coming out of my intestines ( that’s what the smell was like anyway - putrid !) it’s key to note that I haven’t eaten meat for over 12 years now. All sorts of junk that has been stored in my intestines for years.

Next was the emotional detox / neurological / psychological (it’s still in process - I must have a lot of karma to resolve) which has been continuing now for 3-4 weeks. I can say since I have never detoxed in this way before, it’s hard to understand what is going on & why; the deeper spiritual reasons behind it. I know in the long run its worth it, to purify & clear out all the impurities of the body & mind once & for all.

To be able stop & remove any future disease from manifesting surely seems like a small temporary pain/discomfort price to pay. I’ll be completely transparent in saying that it really is not easy. Thank you to my Acharya for all her support, energy & guidance.

Aligning your body with nature - instinct.

http://www.atmavikasayoga.in

1 note · View note

in-paradox-space · 7 years ago

Text

when I'm high I'm able to realize nothing matters so I shouldn't worry about it. Shit doesn't always have to be bad, I can find happiness.

its been a long week and i have thoughts to purge.

When I'm not high I think about how everything is meaningless. We're tirelessly destroying the planet (probably) to keep our lives and expansion going but none of it matters. I am sad, empty and can't find reasons to be happy.

I think about a girl who I've only met twice in my life. She's not my type... If I even have a type. It hurts how much I want to be with her. I've stopped trying to make sense of it. I'm trying to ignore my feelings. Hoping one day the pain will stop. I'd go through so much pain if I knew I was guaranteed time with her at the end of it though. I spoke about her in September...

During my huge one week MDMA comedown which made me want to quit everything for good. It took a few weeks but I got over her. She was on my mind every second though. I couldn't make sense of it as I only met her once. I put it down to being very low after taking so much drugs and the fact that I literally never hang out with girls.

I put it down to that this time as well. 3 or 4 months later I got to meet her again. Last week, I went into town with two other friends. We met up with her there. I did coke for the first time that night too. Friday, December 15 2017 and the early hours the next day. I did coke. I almost got off with a 35 year old woman but my friends were there to stop me. We went to the girls house that night too. I sort of cuddled her while she slept but I was wide awake.

It was awkward but I was taking in the moment. The other two friends were in the same bed too. It was awkward. They was telling me to cuddle her. I would've never made that move myself. It felt like an arranged marraige. It was awkward because I knew she probably didn’t want me there but she kept saying its alright I can hold her.

In the end I just sat by myself, on my phone, wide awake, almost the last of my cough syrup, cocaine and too much booze slurring my mind left to right, while the others slept. We left at 10amish, went back to my friends house.

Last night. Two days ago. Wednesday. The girl and those two friends went into town again, but I was at my dads place so I didn't come along. Real shit if I knew she was there I might have just got a train that day. Maybe it was best I didn't. So my good bro, uhhhhh they all did MD, not a lot but they blacked out because they was drinking.

I need to stop going into so much detail here. I just feel like I'll read back on these in a few years and I don't want to forget. Why does it matter though?

Well, the girl I like said that my bro was making moves on her and probably fucked her that night. His gf was there too. Nobody remembers so nobody is really viable here.

(switching from mobile to PC typing here)

The girl seems to remember¿

well I think my friend and his gf are probably gonna break up for good. My friends pretty unstable right now.

I was planning on spending a nice night with a different friend, who would never get himself into this kind of mess, he's having a lot of people round and I wanted to be there.

I'm probably gonna be in a hospital waiting room with my friend the whole night though. Being alone right now can't be good for him. Being alone is painful for me right now. I used to like it.

so how do i feel about this?

a little imbalanced. a lot of different feelings.

I slept a full day after the coce.

I came down hard. My liver has been having some problems so I’m stopping drinking for good.

Had a funeral on the Monday. My grandmothers.

It’s sad to see her go.

It was a hopeful funeral though. A lot of tears but she knew how to turn a bad thing into a good thing. There was that feeling there. Surrounded by good family with good intentions and bad pasts.

Went to my fathers, on the other side of the country, later that day.

I’ve been so depressed there. In that wintery void.

I’ve been getting fevers and illnesses, likely from my liver. Nausea, fatigue, headaches, loss of appetite, unfortunately no weight loss (typical).

I had way too much of being isolated and alone on wednesday.

I came back yesterday. Was so depressed in the morning but I saw my friends. Had two joints with my bro which I mentioned before. I very rarely smoke weed. It was cool. I felt great.

Then the drama unfolded. My friend and his gf started arguing like fucking crazy. I was sat there for two hours extremely stoned and panicked by the screaming. I wanted to leave. His gf was telling me not to. Partly out of an awkward politeness, partly because she didn’t want my bro to be alone after the breakup because he’s usually unstable after they argue.

I left, went home, there was no electricity. Had to wait until today until I got more. Just slept in the dark.

I’ve been doing nofap for the past 3 weeks. Dying of liver failure (exaggeration) has made it easier because I really don’t have much libido.

I keep having wet dreams though. It’s common when you don’t fap, you just kinda let loose in your dreams.

They’re really inconvenient though because I have to change my underwear and shower.

I usually wear the same underwear for 3 days until I shower.

I wash my clothes like once every 2 weeks.

I had to wear an old pair of underwear last night.

A lot of people do but nobody ever really talks about it.

Now. Friday.

A lot went down in the past week.

I’ve been thinking about that girl every minute of the past week. Really fucking sad because I don’t have her.

There’s nothing going on in my life really.

I’m not making it out like that isn’t my fault for not actively making sure I have something to occupy me. That’s just how it is.

I’m gonna find work next year so I’m occupying myself with something, getting outside. This sad, empty loneliness is too much.

The fact that being around one girl for one night makes me think of her for the weeks ahead is just an eyeopener

I really need to get out more

I need to interact with more people

obviously I don’t really feel for that girl and no other girl

its just the fact that I was with her that night, along with the fact my serotonin is low and looking for a pick me up after the drugs and I have no other females on my mind to turn to

i have female friends yes but not IRL, I don’t really get feelings for them

I’m sick of the sadness.

I want to stop drugs. I have stopped codeine. I really have. I have no way to get more codeine other than CWE cocodomol pills which can be laborious to supply.

I haven’t touched it in weeks, other than 3 days where I kept overdosing just to feel high, the 3 days before the 15th.

I stopped for a week before then, went through the physical withdrawal.

I gave all the pills to my friend. They’re too expensive to just flush and I want to take them to America because people there appreciate it for more than just a painkiller.

This lifestyle.

It’s harming me in so many ways.

I want to find real sources of happiness. Not short term fixes.

I want to find my rat park.

During the sadness and isolation from friends (my dads place) I just wanted to be high

I just

I was so sad

I rarely smoke weed but I smoked it yesterday

because I wanted to remember what it was like when the sadness didn’t hurt or disconnect you.

It doesn’t hurt as much today as I’m not as under-stimulated.

I want to repair my liver. I’ve always had liver problems but I didn’t realize how seriously it was getting until recently.

The heavy drinking and daily codeine overdoses (300mg-520mg at a time) have been killing it off. I’ve been high on painkillers every day so I didn’t notice the liver pains.

I hope it’s not permanent. I’m getting symptoms of liver damage still but the liver pains have stopped.

and yeah

its hard but I’m stopping drugs

If i continue, I will come to a point when it isn’t a choice and it will be even harder

I’m planning to save up and do a big fucking sesh in january or february then not do drugs again except for maybe the occasional xtc every few months, or acid if i ever get the chance

i was going to invite the guys i went with on friday but they’ve all fallen out (probably) because of the drama

Februaryish, imma invite the girl out on the weekend

hopefully shes still single

we’ll get high if she even says yes, idk if she will. she has reasons to and reasons not to.

I’ll just tell her, I think shes awesome and I want to see her more.

She was never mine anyway. If this scares her away, so be it. I got over her last time, I’ll do it this time and I’ll do it again.

I have nothing to lose.

I think she just wants meaningless sex and drunken nights though.

I thought I wanted that but I don’t.

All I care about is being happy with friends.

Talking about random shit, often shitfaced, all night.

Whenever I get a chance with girls, I feel uncomfortable at the thought of it.

I don’t want to fuck girls. I am attracted to them but idk

i would rather just spend time with them

will I be like this forever

I know it isnt normal

I do sometimes make out with people I don’t know. guys or girls

but if I get to know them at all it throws me off

Like, they’re not anonymous, there’s a name to the face now, they know who I am.

I feel like there’s a witness to it, even if it’s only them

and I mainly associate shame, not pleasure, with sex.

Then there’s a witness to validate the shame.

I like this girl.

I had chances to make moves. I didn’t want to.

It’s like, if I do then it’s final. It’s a one night fling and nothing more. I also may have scared her away. I’m so ugly recently and I doubt she would’ve been into me then.

I was so happy just talking with her, fuckfaced, about everything.

It felt like I had a new IRL friend. I just want to talk with her

I wanted to be able to see her again.

If I did anything, even a kiss, with her that night then I’d feel ashamed whenever I thought about it.

Then the memory of her would be tainted.

she was high though

I doubt shes interested in me at all

but fuck it

after I’m over her, I can look at her objectively again

she’s just another regular young girl/woman

which isnt a bad thing

but it means I can look at her clearly, without all these feelings clouding my vision.

then every weekend

I’ll make plans with people, just so I can invite her out too

‘hey im gonna be in town with some friends this weekend, do u wanna come along we need more people’

sure, it’ll be weird

but the offer of free cocaine must take her fancy one night

and thats it

I’ll act like the world is ending

we’ll have a good time

and I’ll talk about what’s been eating me up for over half a year

Sure, I might get rejected but it must be easier than just carrying on, knowing she will go her separate way when it could have been.

I need closure. I don’t even think she’s the one or see a future with her, although that’d be great too.

I just want to go out with her for a few weeks, maybe half a year or so. then we both lose interest in each other, she dumps me

BUT I’LL HAVE CLOSURE THEN. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN DONE. MY FEELINGS WOULD HAVE BEEN PURGED. I USED TO BE HEARTLESS; IMMUNE TO THESE FEELINGS! WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?

I’m not gonna say ooo i love you, or anything

I’m not gonna ask her out

I’ll just say I really fucking like her, I think she’s great and I’d love to be able to see you often.

something like that

she can say whatever she thinks

probably that its weird i invited her out after all the drama that happened with my friends yesterday(current tense, as im typing this)

At least I will know then.

Man, I hope she doesn’t have someone by then but I won’t be surprised if she does.

so today

christmas is a good time isn’t it?

for me its lonely.

everything stops.

winter is already sad enough.

everyone wants to be with family, but the only day ill be with family is christmas day itself

im glad i get to be with my friends today, that was a nice surprise,

although i might have to leave to be with josh so that he doesnt hurt himself.

oops. mentioned his name, his anonymity has been erased. voila.

ive been typing my thoughts her for like an hour

a lot of shit I forgot to mention

but yeah

i need to do a lot of shit which ive been putting off

shower, wash my clothes, pay for electricity, go to my friends. im currently on emergency credit and i only remembered that was a thing an hour ago. after i slept in the dark.

I feel sad that I’ll probably not be with her, but in time that will pass.

I feel sad because winter is coming, i have nothing to occupy my time.

this will all pass in time, it hurts now, but I will feel happy again soon enough.

hang in there

#personal #her #drugs #long text post #so yeah im 'quitting' again

1 note · View note

clemenkind · 5 years ago

Text

Thought #4

Does it spark joy?

It’s four words. Four very good words that have helped me tremendously. An evocative verb paired with a happy noun. They spark joy.

The average American household has 3000 objects apparently. I think I, by myself, own more than that. I’m materialistic at heart - it’s a bit of a problem. I just like having things. A collection of me. But that’s a coy way to avoid saying that I surround myself with things to occupy my time. I’ll find better things to do eventually. Right now, I’m piling up all my empty notebooks and stashing another funky looking button up away in my already overflowing closet.

I’m naturally tidy, but sometimes I get distracted. A global pandemic makes things like cleaning up after yourself not as important. But I did that today! Clean space, clean mind - I can feel it! It works. Thanks Marie Kondo.

to the void:

- i made more lists. they keep me busy. i’m on break right now like how the whole rest of the world is. i haven’t done any of the things i actually should be. it’s concerning. maybe i should take a walk.

- i feel like a small domesticated animal. brain wise anyway. maybe personality too? i need short, direct, easy to accomplish tasks. too big, too vague, and my poor little brain cries a little. but writing out what to do? rough cutting videos? answering emails? easy. i do them and BOOM instant serotonin.

- there was one monday a week or two weeks or three weeks ago. it was gorgeous. does anyone else remember it? everyone was out on the green, it was so lovely. it was a simpler, more pastoral time.

- my friend showed me christina’s world a while ago. i felt: yearning, a bit of fear, but the familiarity of the country side. it reminded me of how i felt around fields. it’s not very pretty, but i have good memories of that sort of gray bucolic landscape.

- i put on a nice skirt, a nice shirt, dressed up to sit on the grass. loved it. i just thought i’d bring it up because i said serotonin. it felt like my brain was swimming in it that monday.

- i wanna play video games now. not the fancy ones. i haven’t learned how to use a ps4 controller yet. or any controller really. i’ll ask my frat boys next time i see them. but i wanna play simple games.

- oxenfree is my favorite. it’s not really a game though. but i liked it just the same.

- ah. i got distracted. i need to do things. lots of things.

0 notes

infolibrary · 5 years ago

Text

I Had 6 Months of Therapy, and Now I’m Ready to Tell You How People Slowly Go Crazy

New Post has been published on http://www.infolibrary.net/i-had-6-months-of-therapy-and-now-im-ready-to-tell-you-how-people-slowly-go-crazy/

I Had 6 Months of Therapy, and Now I’m Ready to Tell You How People Slowly Go Crazy

Hello, my name is Katya, and today I will tell you about my experience of visiting a psychotherapist. Spoiler alert: I did not hear any mysterious voices in my head and I didn’t think there was some kind of a world conspiracy. It’s just that at a certain time in my life, I couldn’t figure out the point of living or find pleasure in my life anymore and I couldn’t navigate through these feelings on my own.

I will share my psychotherapy adventures with Bright Side readers and I hope that my story will help someone to find peace with themselves. Or at least this story can help you take your first steps toward a normal life.

How I ended up going to a psychotherapist

This is what I looked like before I was sad all the time.

In 2012, at the age of 28, I became a widow. Nothing could have predicted what happened. We were a regular family raising a boy and I was pregnant with my second child. But in just several days, my life changed completely: my young husband got ill and died in just one week. So, there I was, 9 months pregnant and alone with a 3-year-old child.

Nothing changed around me: the sun was still there, the birds were still singing, and people went to work. I didn’t think I would be depressed — just because I had to be strong.

Of course, I was in mourning, I was shocked: how could something like this even happen to me? But now, 7 years later, I realize that I was sort of in a spacesuit: all the feelings I was having were kind of blunt because I wouldn’t let myself relax. I closed my heart to pain, I learned not to cry, and, as I found out later, I shouldn’t have.

This was me when I was depressed. Where are my cheeks?

Depression caught up with me when I thought I had already overcome my loss. I lost 45 pounds in one year — I just didn’t want to eat. And once, I thought that I had cancer or some other terminal disease. I became obsessed: I started looking for the “suitable” symptoms online, I went to doctors, but they couldn’t find any diseases. I was absolutely sure that I had something terrible and that I would die any day, so I took my temperature like 5 times a day, I looked for rashes or other spots on my skin, I even constantly checked my lymph nodes.

Once I felt like my heart was beating so fast that it was going to break my ribs. I was sweating, my hands were shaking, and I wanted to run somewhere. I thought something terrible was about to happen and I did not realize that this was my first panic attack.

My body kept screaming, “I’m hurt,” and I was breaking apart, but I didn’t want to acknowledge it and I thought it all would go away. And it was only when my clothes became several sizes bigger and I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning that I realized I needed a shrink.

I started searching for a good doctor online. Actually, psychotherapists are very expensive, but at a local hospital there was a specialist I could visit for free. Anyway, I had nothing to lose, so I decided to go and this was the start of my path to healing.

I visited the specialist for several months. Together, we found out that I had a reactive depression. This is a kind of depression, but it’s different from others. Usually depression is based on something that a person had in childhood, and this disorder is the brain’s response to a traumatizing experience.

I hoped that the doctor would just prescribe some antidepressants and let me go, but this is not how therapy works. In order to get rid of depression, you need to work on it.

This is what I realized after 6 months of therapy:

1. Realize that you’ll need more than pills to help you.

There is no such thing as a magic pill. There just isn’t. There is no pill that can make you happy. My therapist compared antidepressants with crutches. When a person breaks a leg, they have a bandage and crutches in order to be able to move. But this is a temporary solution: sooner or later they will have to ditch the crutches and learn to walk again.

The same goes for pills: they can remove the symptoms (like anxiety and fear), they can help you get through the darkest days, but they won’t heal you. Without the right therapy, you can take pills for years. Seriously, I have met people who are like foodies, they know all the different types of antidepressants. In order to get rid of depression, you need to do a lot of work.

2. Sometimes it hurts.

During my first sessions, I realized that I didn’t want to live. I didn’t have any plans for more than a couple of days. Why? We all will die one way or another… I didn’t see the point of doing a renovation or go to a hairstylist. Even taking a shower didn’t seem like a necessary procedure.

I had to learn to want to live. I had to. My therapist and I made lists of plans, I drew what I planned to do in the future. And also, I had to learn to control my negative thoughts. This can be really hard and really painful.

3. Only trust someone who is a medical expert.

It is best to trust a medical specialist who has a special education — a doctor can help you find the reasons for your problems and recommend the right treatment. Depression is a multi-faceted beast: sometimes it’s the hormones, sometimes the brain lacks serotonin, and sometimes, it’s about traumatizing experiences. A doctor can get to the bottom of it and find the best approach.

And most importantly — when someone has panic attacks or depression, they need to have a full medical examination like with an ECG, a neurologist and an endocrinologist, and they need to have their lungs checked. It is amazing how some diseases can pretend to be depression. So, while you are wasting time on the therapy, your health may be getting even worse.

4. People around you won’t get it.

Most people around me thought that all of my suffering was caused by the fact that I had nothing to do. Only lazy people have depression. “Drink some mint tea, get some good sleep, buy some new shoes and your depression will go away,” everyone around me said.

I’m glad I didn’t listen to them. Nothing made me happy and I was afraid of getting out of bed in the morning, I had panic attacks — and all of this was caused by laziness? And then I realized something, in order to admit that you are weak, you have to be brave. And in order to start treatment, you need to be 100 times braver. Don’t listen to anyone. And don’t follow their advice.

5. Recovery can be extremely slow.

Some of the recommendations from your doctor can seem completely silly. A psychotherapist might recommend that you start a diary, make a plan 3 years in advance, or draw a picture. I thought, “How is this supposed to help? Give me some pills and I’ll just go home.”

The thing is, all of these things really work, you just don’t notice it. The next morning, or a week later, I didn’t feel better. I didn’t understand that I was doing better until months later. I think that even the specialist didn’t know if it was going to work or not.

6. Setbacks are a part of the treatment.

Sometimes, it gets worse. “How can this be? I do visit the doctor, I do follow the recommendations, and I still don’t feel like laughing…” It’s okay to have setbacks. It is totally normal. You can’t do something big in just several days. You have to be patient and persistent.

7. A specialist won’t think you are insane.

People are often scared of visiting psychotherapists because they think it makes them “crazy” or something like that. Well, it doesn’t. It only makes them strong enough to realize that they have a problem and are willing to solve it.

8. It may be unpleasant to find out who you really are as a person.

Psychotherapy is your chance to get to know yourself better, but you might not like what you find out. I realized that my depression was based on anger and aggression. I was angry with my husband who died and left me alone with my children. I was angry with women who had husbands and children who had fathers. I was definitely the most unhappy woman in the world and I thought nobody could understand me.

9. Depression can come back. And it most likely will.

Just like drug and alcohol addiction, depression can return. Psychotherapists are not wizards, they can’t make you a totally different person, but they can give you the tools and the skills to overcome these situations.

There is no way you can become a superhuman who is never sad and doesn’t have any psychological problems. But you can learn to live in peace with yourself, deal with your problems, and explain certain things to yourself if you have to.

10. A sense of humor helps sometimes.

You should not “worship” your depression. Yes, it is a disease and it has to be treated. Don’t let it conquer your life. When you have a cold, you don’t pay much attention to it. When you have a problem, you need to solve it — that’s it. Don’t get desperate.

My sense of humor helped me tremendously. Sometimes I thought I was losing my mind. But I kept thinking, “Okay, I’m going to a mental hospital, at least I won’t have to do any cleaning, laundry, or other things.” Sometimes sarcasm is really healthy.

The conclusion

I visited a psychotherapist 6 years ago and I regret nothing. His recommendations helped me get out of a very difficult place and now I know how to avoid desperation. My experience was very positive, so when someone I know has signs of depression, anxiety, and other problems, I recommend that they see a specialist.

It is amazing how many people try to ignore these problems just because they think they might seem “crazy” to others. And some people are scared of psychotherapists and think that they’re going to put them into a hospital and inject them with tranquilizers or something like that.

Don’t be afraid of asking for help!

function runAnalytics() []; _comscore.push( c1: "2", c2: "19962933" ); (function() var s = document.createElement("script"), el = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; s.async = true; s.src = (document.location.protocol == "https:" ? "https://sb" : "http://b") + ".scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js"; el.parentNode.insertBefore(s, el); )(); Source link

#Inspiration. Creativity. Wonder.#Psychology

0 notes

writtenriva-blog · 8 years ago

Text

17 resolutions for a remarkable 2017

Well, here we are!

Let me offer my congratulations to you, dear friend, for making it this far. 2016 was anything but easy, however, can’t you say the same thing for all the other years? And like each year we become much stronger, we work a little harder, we get that much wiser.

If you don’t get this, you’re too young. Or too old. Depends.

And the best thing about the new year is that we get a shot at restarting, because I don’t understand why we can’t just change halfway through the year, it just seems like a universally unspoken rule that you don’t. Maybe we don’t know how to. Dunno either.

So obviously, for my part, I’ve finally decided to take the blog thing seriously. Hooray! That means instead of having weird conversations with myself, you, my friend, get to read about them!

On that exciting note, I share with you as my first post, my 17 resolutions for a remarkable 2017. Please keep in mind that this is my first time ever making a list of resolutions because I am your casual drifter, not your organized responsible girl. I do pray for more of that though! Therefore, if it doesn’t sound at all resolution-y, I am free from all blame.

Onward!

1. More God

“Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” (Proverbs 16:3)

I believe, more than anything, that work dedicated to God is work never in vain. For this year, beyond all others, we should have a firm and solid foundation as basis for living. That way through the successes and troubled times, we will always be reassured of God’s unwavering love and support. After all, He loved us far before we ever did, so turn off the burden of unhealthy pressure because you are loved, so why don’t you get to know the One who loves you?

2. Save Up

Because how on earth are you planning to fund all those awesome things you plan on doing this year? If you’re the type (like me) who’s used to having fantastic parents doing the funding, that’s great and everything, but hey! Pin up that responsibility badge because I think nothing is more rewarding than getting something through hard work. Though delayed gratification is difficult to practice, it makes the return oh so sweeter.

3. Give Love and not just on Christmas day

Combat the hate and stress with a whole lot of lovin’. Take note, this isn’t just you extending your love to others, but giving love to yourself too. Zip up that self-loathing and insecurity and throw it into the sea cause there's no need for that anymore. You are golden. Celebrate your wins! And what’s great is all the people you get to help out in the overflow. Sharing is caring!

4. Practice Positivity, Generate Gratitude, Cease Complaining

I don’t think anyone, not even themselves, like sad sopped potatoes, right? It’s not good for you, not good for me, for your next-door neighbor, or anybody’s pet. So have that mindset to STAY POSITIVE even if the rest of the world tells you otherwise. Keep an, In Case of Emergency: Listen for Good vibes playlist for those down in the dumps days. Count your blessings until you run out of known numbers, and quit complaining. You will be doing a lot of people such favor.

And who wouldn’t wanna be around happy bunnies?

5. Keep learning

Life is too beautiful to be bored. There are too many things we can do to be better contributors of society, and to be happier people even--and one of those ways is to keep learning. I personally want to study French again, and I’m doing this blogging thing which I’ve wanted to do since forever. So if you were into cross-stitching but couldn’t do it because you’re too busy now? WELL, YOU’RE ALWAYS GOING TO BE BUSY FRIEND, SO MAY AS WELL. Take up Taekwondo classes or whatever floats your boat, just don’t waste away your precious time with nothingness.

6. Enjoy family

One of the greatest things I’ve learned from my parents is the value of family. Friends are great, and some friends can even be counted as family, but those of your blood are in a way different box entirely. And yeah, we’ve all got to grow up and do whatever, but that don’t mean we forget family. So yeah, take out your parents for a dinner date and pay for once, or watch a movie with your siblings.

7. Meet new folk

Ah, there is such a fresh scent of fear when I have to meet new people, but to those I’ve met and became such great friends with? Nothing can compare. One of my best friends I met while auditioning for a play in Grade 5. Another girl I sat beside with in class turned out to be a huge Potterhead, and isn’t that a fabulous surprise? Never judge a person by how they seemingly appear. -Jane Austen in Pride & Prejudice, sort of

8. Be more brave

Speaking of Harry Potter, this year let’s all channel our inner Gryffindor. Fear in healthy doses are quite helpful, especially when they encourage you not to miss out on great opportunities, or even to satisfy your curiosity. I’ve been driving for two years now and I couldn’t drive elsewhere between school and my house because I was frightened. So ask yourself when you get faced with a difficult situation: What would Harry Potter do? that’s actually horrible advice cause he would probably get himself almost killed

Plus! Counter fear with faith. The One upstairs will equip you with what you need. (2 Peter 1:3)

9. Healthy is happy

FOOD. EXERCISE. THE WHOLE PACKAGE. We will never be younger than we are at this very moment, so the closest thing we can do is to stay healthy. If you’ve got the option to either cook up or have McDonalds delivered, just think about where all that burger-fries-coke combo will be going. And exercise, because no, it is not cute trying to catch your breath at the end of four flights of stairs. I look like a wheezing hyena myself.

10. Off with that phone

Technology is a paradox in which we connect with people more, but communicate with them less. I can’t even begin to say how sad I find it when I find my entire family looking down on our gadgets, when we could’ve asked each other how our day went, or if we wanted to do anything together the next weekend. Yeah, snapchat and twitter is pretty cool, but hey, put down your phone and talk. Snaps last for 24hrs. Developed relationships last lifetimes.

11. Schedule and enjoy your Me Time

I am utterly amazed with people who are completely comfortable spending time with just themselves. It’s just great to have a cup of tea or coffee and be there with your thoughts, maybe enjoying good music or basking in the morning sun. Find your Third Space: a place other than your house and school/work, like a nearby coffee shop or quiet garden. With all the craziness of today, learn to go back to basics--back to you.

12. Say no to procrastination

Oh goodness, I really, really will try so hard to stop procrastinating. And the key to that? Proper organization and! Self-discipline. It’s no sense in having your entire week scheduled, but refusing to follow through with it. Procrastinating only brings stress and tears, and I want none of it in 2017.

13. Amp-up your reading list

There are so many great works of literature to appreciate out there, and most of which really stick to you. Some people say, “Well, I’m not really a reader...I don’t read much,”. There’s nothing wrong with that, but sadly, learning through book osmosis still has not yet been developed. Also! There are stuff like audiobooks (check out Audible.com!), which are works read by some really cool people. Technically, you can read without really reading.

But who among you belong to the book-sniffer club, like me?

14. Make a Vision board, or The ‘What Makes Me Happy’ List

Cause sometimes you forget, don’t you? What makes you happy. And sometimes you just want to do it, get a burst of serotonin, but don’t know where to start? This is it! Create a vision board--cut out or print out photos that inspire you and remind you of what you want to do in life like, learn how to cook or, volunteer at an orphanage. And the ‘What Makes Me Happy’ List for those days when you got home late, or just ain’t feeling it? Consult your list and maybe bake a batch of cookies, or watch reruns of Sherlock. It sounds fantastic already.

15. I like to move it move it

Think of it as exercise, maybe? That doing this not only is good for your sometimes intense OC-ness, but also that moving around helps our natural breathing, which leads to an A+ for our body. Clean your room, change your sheets, wash the dishes maybe? Cook your dinner, do the laundry--the list is endless.

16. Expand your list!

Because I bet, reading through this long list of things I want to do, makes you think of the things that you want to do. So don’t let me stop you. Add your own resolutions, and think about the new person you’ll be at the end of it.

17. Be excellent in all you do

Since you’re doing it anyway, right? That’s one of the main things I learned from church. It’s to be excellent, because you’re not just doing things for you, you’re doing them for God too. God believes you’re the best, and He deserves the best, so why not just make it the best for everyone?

There!

I honestly hope I made sense even for 50% of the time, but there it is. Hopefully, 2017 will bring about joy, love, self-discovery and grace for everyone. Happy New Year!

#Happy New Year #Resolutions

0 notes