#i just can’t properly describe what im experiencing in a way that people understand the severity

[aviesfics]

Sorry for not writing anything this year with no explanation. I don’t want to label myself as ‘on hiatus’ in case I inexplicably find the motivation to write again and the feeling of breaking a self imposed hiatus feels too much, but yeah I’m not sure there will be any more fics for some time.

[httpiastri]

okay this is a really long ask again bc i cannot shut up so it’s spirituality first then a lot on paul and pee at the end

but NO WAY YOU LIKED NICKELODEON TOO OMG THAT USED TO ALSO BE MY ROUTINE AFTER SCJOOL like id get home and do everything i needed to do just so i could watch victorious, the thundermans, and more and it’s crazy that you have so many experiences surrounding nickelodeon omgomg AND THE FACT THAT YOU DREAMT OF IT?? ive always had dreams that foreshadowed many many events in my life, especially significant events, sometimes months or years before they would happen but sometimes it happens to me with silly little things too and i believe that it happened to you too omg

things like that have happened to me for as long as i can remember so i’m always asking if it’s intuition or me manifesting it and like… could be both tbh

although my intuition has always been crazy strong and i’ve never ignored it even once and it has paid off really well but then again, manifestation is basically just the belief that your thoughts create your reality, simple as that. if you believe it to be true, then it’s true, so sometimes i wonder if my intuition is just a reflection of what i believe to be true, and that in turn is what ends up manifesting? if that makes sense.

and you saying, “it's such a weird coincidence that's not rlly a coincidence....” ?? I AGREE?? 100% because you go about life with people and youre like omg we both did this in this year? and we were in the same place during this time? and we know so many people mutually? and we just dismiss it all as a coincidence until youre like… wait bc how many coincidences until it’s not a coincidence, yk? i feel like the way you put it is like the perfect way of describing everything

(and if paul does end up winning the feature race then… 🤭🤭) but speaking of paul… i find it so odd that the same thing happened in both F3 and F2?? with the win being snatched away at the last moment 🤧🤧 like the worst part is i can’t even be mad about paul not getting his win, like i’m def gutted for him but franco also won it fair and square (i don’t think he passed the track limits, from what i saw anyway) and so it just sucks that things like this happen but im also!! so incredibly proud of franco because i understand what it must mean for him to be the first Argentinean F2 race winner like he’s literally made history within those few seconds but i have no doubt paul’s going to be driving with incredible intensity tomorrow (this is unrelated but at the start of the season idk why i used to be a little afraid of how harsh (…?) he’d become in terms of his driving style… like sometimes i’d feel like it was almost a little dangerous, especially when there were a few conflicts with kimi and i used to be worried that paul might’ve been taking out some anger onto kimi and it used to worry me a bit but i think……. it’s better now? i really really hope so because conflict scares me so bad and especially since no one knows if kimi and paul are still friends, and even they aren’t, you can’t really blame paul because kimi really got two major things that mattered to paul but also idk i think i’m rambling atp but i hope that even if he drives madly tomorrow, it isn’t at the cost of the safety of any of the drivers on track, including him)

but i was actually heartbroken over pepe though 😕😕 i can’t imagine being in his position, probably hoping to get a fresh start after the break and doing so well in between only for this to happen… and like with the way they replayed the incident in the race it looked like he was in the wrong but i rewatched it and it seemed mutual?? so idk why he was the only one who received a penalty for it but like ive also been in positions where i just became a little out of sync with things i usually excel at, and idk how to word it properly but i have a feeling he’s probably experiencing it rn which sucks 😓😓 i hate that feeling so much because you just feel so icky and everything seems so disjointed and im just wishing the best for him tbh, especially since i think it’s pretty clear that he holds himself up to really high standards, and even when he’s in a position someone else might be more than happy with, he’s just not satisfied with it…?

i NEED for pepe to be happy again with race results for once like it’s really all ive been asking for recently

- 🪷

paul and pee, my loves 🥰 sjdkfhdj sorry i had to

but omfg you saying that about nickelodeon, that's so crazy !!!! dreams are such a cool thing, i used to dream like every night but now it's rarely ever.... wish i had more clear examples of stuff ive dreamed about happening irl because i have a very strong feeling that it has happened at least a couple of times? but i can't come up with a single example rn?? 😭

that's also really cool!! and yes i think it makes sense, it's a very interesting thought. i always feel like my intuition is strong when it's about like little silly things, like "how many stones are under this cup", but im thinking like... what if i do trust my intuition way more than i remember, maybe i just haven't acknowledged it or really recognized that that's what im doing? im definitely gonna be more open-minded when it comes to my intuition and kinda try to see what happens 🤭

YES YES exactly!! how many coincidences until it's not a coincidence????????? because when i talk to people about stuff like this, most of them are just "yeah weird coincidence lol" but when does it become something bigger? it's v v v interesting, i personally don't think there have to be a lot of them to actually maybe be something more...

also kinda off topic but also not?? i dont want this to become a religious thing because idk how you feel about that, but i used to be kinda christian when i was younger just because i refused to believe that i just "happened" to land on this planet at this time as a human being. like you're telling me that the universe has been a thing for billions and billions of years, and that it's infinitely large, and i just happen to be a living human here right now?????? there's just no way. like rn idk if i would say that im religious but i believe that there's a reason that im here right now. i believe that there's something or someone (or whatever) kinda making up the world or guiding things, or something, and that's why i don't really see a lot of things as coincidences? like a lot of the time i say "it's a sign 😁" when there are "coincidences" and people think im joking but im usually at least a bit serious on the inside lol. idk if you get what im saying? if any part of this was okay to understand?? but yeah basically people around me have always looked at me weirdly for believing in spiritual stuff etc, so ive tried to hide and repress it but you're waking up all of these emotions in me and i just 😭

i think i jinxed paul win by talking too much about it... the times when ive been right haven't rlly been intentional so i think i shouldn't have shared this with everyone 😭 welp... but yes that's very odd!! and just like franco having his maiden f3 win in the imola sprint two years ago? and now maiden f2 win in the sprint?? 😦 and for example baku is an interesting circuit, ollie taking his maiden f2 win there in the sprint and then winning the feature too, and what happened at the same track two years earlier?? juri vips took his maiden f2 win in a sprint and then won the feature aswell..... an estonian driver in a hitech, will we see the same this year in baku?????????? (or do we have to wait until next year bcs so far it's been every other year? 😭)

yeah im super happy for franco too, i also think it was just a great move 🤭 but omg i totally see what you mean about paul and his driving style.... ive been so worried that he's gonna crash into kimi and just 😭 like yk what he wrote in his insta channel thing? about "i would've won the race if antonelli didn't do his wonder kid thing and ruin my race" after melbourne 😭 he's so so cocky istg (ALSO OMG did you see the clip from the press conference yesterday abt beating most of the big names in the championship??? 😶) but i still love him loads. but yeah i too feel more safe with him on the track, maybe especially since he has turned out to be doing better than i (and probs him too) expected and now he doesn't wanna ruin this lol. but yeah he must have such a complicated relationship with kimi, they used to be cute friends but it's very understandable to feel conflicted when kimi got everything paul should've had 😭

we were heartbroken yesterday already, but today... after this race...... i didn't even focus on all of the replays tbh because i was watching an hour late and in the car, but :(( even if it was his fault, that's not fair 💔 sdjfhdkfj. but yes gosh i agree with everything you're saying, he's so calm and cool off the track but so competitive and like a sore loser (this isn't exactly what i mean but english doesn't have a word for the swedish term im thinking of) in a good way? not in the way that he blames other people incessantly when he loses, but more that he hates it and blames himself and needs to do it better the next time. so this weekend.... 🥲 but yes yes i relate to that feeling too.... it feels so common in sports to do really well one week and the next you're like "?? what's going on????" :(((( and y e s you're so right about him holding himself up to really high standards 🥲 so painful to see

but uh yeah he will do well in monaco, i trust it!! it will happen!!!!!!!

[quartercirclejab]

i'm laying in bed, waiting for muscle relaxers to kick in so i can sleep (still convalescing from a pinched sciatic nerve), and trying to formulate a coherent line of thought about FFVIIR, the odd relationship it has with the OG, and how it relates to modern fandom.

my own relationship with FF has shifted so dramatically over even just the last ten years. it's wild to look back on this blog and see what's changed. i guess i was once what you might have called a hardline traditionalist, and now i have a much more charitable way of viewing things.

the way i feel about FFVII hasn't changed much. it's still my favorite FF, for a number of reasons- objective critical analysis, nostalgic feelings, and deeply personal life experiences among them. i don't quite view it as a sacred cow, no FF game fits that description for me personally... but VII is probably the one that comes closest. it's not just a story that i hold dear, it's a story that i dearly wish to be properly experienced and understood. especially now- in 2021, there may be no FF story more relevant and vital than FFVII's.

i have so many problems with Remake. putting aside the fact that it's gutless in precisely the ways the OG was so biting, it fails on a conceptual level as a Remake... because it isn't one. it's ultimately a continuation, a self-congratulatory return to the Compilation of FFVII. prior knowledge is not an optional bonus, it is compulsory to understand the game's entire back half. "arrogant" doesn't even begin to describe it.

but- and this is where the charity comes in- i know so many people for whom VIIR is a special game. younger people, in some cases, who really only cut their Final Fantasy teeth on FFXV, but older ones, too, who never ventured into FF before now. i've heard the same story a few times: FFVIIR was their introduction to FFVII because the original game was too inaccessible, too difficult to play, or simply too intimidating. whatever their reason, for better or worse, VIIR was their introduction to the game. and their love for it was not diminished by the fact that they hadn't ever played the original.

i've been trying to reconcile that in my mind. it bothers me, naturally. to know that an entire generation is being introduced to this story i love so dearly, but as a bastardized, sanitized, overproduced Disneyland version of itself, is heartbreaking. it makes me want to shake them by the shoulders and shout. "the original game is still there! you can still play it! it's as beautiful and poignant and necessary and true as it was in 1997, and at times it may challenge you in ways you are not used to, but damn it, we need to be challenged sometimes!"

but lately, i think, what does this accomplish? what is gained, by telling new fans that they're not engaging with FFVII properly? who benefits from me insisting FFVIIR fans aren't doing fandom the right way, according to my own standards? nothing but my ego, i guess.

i still think it's important to view things with a critical eye and not be afraid to speak on what a piece of media does poorly. but it's hard line to walk- it's hard for me, personally, to disentangle my bias from my criticism, and to remove my personal feelings from the equation where fans are concerned.

that, and lately i think that the OG FFVII is not really the kind of game a person can engage with before they're ready. it can't be forced- and once they've started, the understanding can't be faked. they'll get it, or they won't. maybe the new fans who started with VIIR will come to the OG when they're ready. maybe they never will be, and VIIR will form a complete experience for them.

new fans have to find their own way. it may not be the same as mine. maybe that's for the best. it's not quite a case of "let people enjoy things", more like "some people aren't ready yet and a sermon is not likely to change their mind"

idk i think my muscle relaxers have kicked in and now im just rambling incoherently

[tomatowielder]

hey, i'm not any of the attack-y anons, im just genuinely curious: if you do not ID as having psychosis, how do you ID? do you see your voices as an issue unrelated to medicine or mental health? if so, how do you view your experiences? do you consider recovery and medication to be relevant to your experience?

Psychosis was a term invented by people who sought to categorise us like plants (literally like plants - most proto-psychiatrists were botanists). It was created as a violent category by people who saw us as animals & less than animals who sought to abuse us, and it’s still used in the same way today. It’s overdiagnosed in POC and people with learning disabilities. Treatments around unusual beliefs & voice hearing & other hallucinating usually seek to drown and strangle our voices and change our minds on what we think. These treatments, and this category (of psychosis, of schizophrenia, etc) weren’t created by us, by people who hallucinate & experience unusual beliefs. 

‘Psychotic’ isn’t a neutral term. It’s okay if others want to reclaim it into their self concept - that’s okay & I can see how that’s healing. You do you. But imo we should start accepting & supporting & actively including those who don’t want to reclaim it, and understanding it’s violent history, and that it’s okay if others don’t want that for themselves. (It feels kind of off to me that there seems to be a “you can’t sit with us unless you reclaim this violent term” vibe here.) ‘Psychosis’ has no place in how I see myself.

After years of psychiatric abuse, I was lucky enough to work with a mental health team, along with other survivors and voice hearers (hearing voices groups are completely peer led, and where a lot of these different conceptions come from - I’m surprised to see the psychosis model so popular on tumblr, when survivors in real life have often chosen a different approach), where we slowly weaned off meds. I had a lot of support to start talking to my voices, who had become my tormenters (at a certain point, my relationship with them was so bad that I was frequently dangerously self harming & hadn’t left the house in around six months).

But, imagine if you’re deeply, deeply hurt, and when you talk, there’s only one person who can hear you. Now imagine that person tries to ignore you and kill you. You’re going to get more angry, you’re going to get more brutal. That’s what my voices did. It was a slow and difficult process of changing that relationship, and today whilst I live well with voices I still hear some fairly cruel and disruptive voices.

Meds have no place in my relationship with hallucinations (I also visually see things & feel tactile things), although they once did, and it’s important to be person led. If a specific voice hearer wants meds, it’s nobody’s place to say no meds. (It’s also nobody’s place to say they shouldn’t identify as psychotic, by the way.) A lot of chronic distress comes with a history of trauma, and even when there’s no history of trauma, by the time the psychiatric system is done with you there probably is. No traumatised person ever starts to heal or gain autonomy if they don’t have fundamental control over their own decisions, and how they see themselves. So I’m super pro other people seeing themselves as psychotic and/or taking meds when they decide to do that. 

I would call myself a voice hearer, and someone who sees things and hallucinates, and I wouldn’t really use more words than that. I used to experience unusual beliefs but not anymore. I’d call myself traumatised. (I kind of like psycho-socially disabled or neurodivergent for some aspects of the experience, but I don’t know properly yet. I’m still figuring things out.)

Voices & hallucinations are a normal, beautiful part of the human experience and normal human variation. I just see voices as something normal people hear (even when said voices are disruptive & difficult). I think people have the choice to see them as psychotic & a sign of illness & people should be supported in the decision they choose to make about that - but ime, seeing voices as symptoms and signs of illness can impair our ability to empathise with our voices, and I don’t like that this model is forced on us. (By psychiatry, by society, etc - as voice hearers we often don’t get a *choice* in the narrative we decide for ourselves. “Voices aren’t a sign of illness” often isn’t presented as a workable option for us.) 

Anyway guess who’s not going to bother trying to get involved in the tumblr voice hearing & neurodivergence community. 😅

(And I guess the q about recovery - idk, I feel like recovery has some utility as a concept, but I feel like lived experience can often fit messily rather than neatly into the word and it’s hard to use it to describe lived experiences. What does recovery mean? Recovery from an illness, like you would a broken leg, where we were definitely ill once and now not anymore? Getting rid of our hallucinations? Does it mean learning to live well with voices and no longer feeling distressed by them? Or no longer feeling they cause disablement? No longer experiencing the systemic discrimination that comes with being someone who hallucinates? Idk.) 

[dxminic]

               *    ╱    it’s  ya  girl  𝒅𝒓𝒊  ( twenty,  she/her,  pst,  always  late ),  and  i  present  to  u  my  demon  boi  dominic  !  if  you’re  interested  in  plotting  connections,  feel  free  to  im  me  or  like  this  and  i'll  come  to  u  !

               𝙵𝙸𝙻𝙴    :    #D3M0N    //    STATS    »    dominic yoon,  ( appears to be )  twenty four,  cis male,  he/him,  software developer.    ATTRIBUTES    »    cordial,  impulsive,  loyal,  foolish.    SEEN    »    reading a book half past midnight,  lingering stares by candlelight,  broken cassette tapes.    DO NOT MISTAKE FOR    »    kim seokwoo  (  rowoon  ).

*    ╱    HISTORY.pdf

i’m gonna be honest with u, i know as much as dominic does about his life as a human — absolutely nothing !! once i settle down with some plots this might develop, but for now it’s not as important to know because a lot has gone on in his life (?) afterlife (?) since then !!

first off, i just wanna say that demons really got it Rough, huh ? they were human, forgot their life, were angels, forgot their life, & now they’re demons !! crazy shit !!

anyway, i just needed that to segue because the reason dominic is a demon is kind of .. i wanna say dumb but .. ok no yea he didn’t think that one through

    ⧼    ACT II  :  angelus.   ⧽

as an angel, he had always been fond of humans, the only reason he never lived among them being the stigma he realized some angels had toward those who did — they felt as though it was irresponsible to be so close to them

& he took his role as an angel Seriously !! it hurt him when those he looked after ended up passing .. it was a pain that angels tried to prevent by not residing on earth, but he still felt it as if he did :(( & the younger they were, the more guilt he felt bc he believed that he had failed in protecting them .. & a lot of them were kinda young ..

he had spent a long time acting from afar, not wanting to interfere with their lives, until one day he tried something different .. he wanted to see if he could change their fate — protect them even more — if he did interfere :0

an angel on earth had recently been terminated for reasons unknown (or rather, dominic just forgot — angels turning into demons wasn’t something rare, but he tended to mind his own business about such matters), so he took it upon himself to take over looking after one of his humans, using them for his little “experiment,” for lack of a better term

so dominic descended to earth to watch after humans on the same plane, but dominic became their friend especially, & a really good friend at that ! he presumed that if he was an important part of their life, they would be safer from any harm under his care 

& his plan kinda .. Backfired .. because he fell in Love & it was a love that was reciprocated .. but guess what !! angels are not allowed to fall in love with humans !! it’s one of the reasons why angels are wary about others descending to earth !! but yea !!

dominic had never felt this way about any human before .. perhaps it was because he had never actually .. met one properly .. but Still he was smitten & it was Bad 

when the angels found out they apprehended him — ‘come back from earth or lose ur status as an angel’ his ultimatum — & he had never gone through such a difficult decision before .. it hurt him to Think about it

but because he is dumb & believed that if they were meant to be together they’ll find him again in the future even though he’ll be a demon with no memory .. he said pull the lever kronk !! n subsequently ended this act of his life

    ⧼    ACT III  :  daemon.   ⧽

now a demon with no recollection of anything that had happened in his past, his fascination for humans was something that stuck with him and was reinvigorated the first time he was summoned

since he was there Just Doing His Job, it was a successful soul contract, but it kinda stuck with him how people could be so desperate as to summon a demon for their desires

but yeah after a couple successful contracts, he felt the urge to ascend to the human realm and the feeling he experienced was indescribable ? it was a nostalgia for something he can’t even remember, but he wouldn’t be able to figure that out anyway

so after many, many years, he now resides in lunehaven, a place he had traveled to in the past decade seeking a fresh start — living in one place for a long time might cause suspicion now matter how lowkey u live ur life !

being summoned can be a real pain in the ass when you’re also working at a company for a living, which is something he figured out really quick at his previous office job (which is why he had to quit and leave the city) so he works remotely as a software developer for some company in new york

he also ? became really bad at executing soul contracts, not gonna lie ! imagine this: someone summons a demon and the first thing they say to them is “are you SURE about this ?” 

also his demon name is decimus (as was his angel name ;/) but no one refers to him as such except for when he’s being summoned ofc

*    ╱    PERSONALITY.pdf

i’d say that throughout all of his .. phases of .. Being .. his core personality hasn’t really changed ? esp bc he doesn’t directly remember any events that could change that drastically, but he does have an internalized better understanding of the way the world & people work ! does that mean he’s smarter about his own actions ? absolutely not !

dominic’s fatal flaw is caring too much about other people — in the aloof, suppressed way he does, of course — & it leads to him getting hurt .. quite often

his way of thinking is like .. a mix of practical and idealistic ? like he’s a romantic at heart but existing for such a long time means he knows that life doesn’t work out like that

he’s a pretty friendly dude, open to conversation with most people, but some would describe him as ‘not always 100% here’ ;/ he gets lost in his own head a lot and is prone to spacing out in the middle of a sentence

remember his lost love ? yea .. he doesn’t remember them or even if he ever encountered them again, but it instilled a feeling of longing in his soul oof ! being a demon has further deepened that feeling and he tries to fill the empty space but in his previous relationships, things just don’t work out

coincidentally, he has a pretty bad memory which also fuels him spacing out every now and then ??

kind of an old soul ? despite being a developer, he loves traditional forms of things like books .. cassettes .. handwritten letters ..

[leta-the-strange]

Spoiler-free COG feelings/essay/thoughts before I see the movie. Spoiler-free because the movie isn’t out here til the end of the week but obviously, I’ve picked up info from trailers and interviews and things like that so sort of common knowledge stuff but I guess if you’ve avoided all the promos for the year I wouldn’t want to ruin it for you now so don’t read until after you’ve seen it if that’s the case (again, I only know basic info).

I have a lot of feelings that I’ve been sitting on for a while because frankly, large parts of the Fantastic Beasts and Harry Potter fandom terrify me. It’s why in my nineteen years (okay, thirteen years – I had to learn how to read) I’ve distanced myself from engaging in the fandom too much and when I do, I try and stick to as safe, neutral content as possible.

But I’m going to write a little bit a lot (my anxiety’s poppin off the charts right now) not to antagonise anyone or personally offend people just to get this pent up crap off my chest before I see the movie. 

I have Māori and Pākehā parentage. Although I am proud to be a Māori girl and I’m definitely not white-passing, I do acknowledge that out of my family, I was born with the lightest skin and being a lighter-skinned/mixed poc among my family and friends has made me recognise my privilege. That isn’t to say I haven’t experienced lifelong struggles with racism, bullying and discrimination but I will never experience the same micro-aggressions and experiences that they have. Although, I do have light-skinned privileges and I don’t ever want to take away the struggles of my family that I won’t experience on the same level, growing up looking a little different opened me up a lot of feelings of invalidation within my own culture. When I experienced racism as a child, I was also met with disdain for being upset about it when I wanted to talk about it. This was when I was a child and I didn’t understand lighter skinned privilege or the animosity from some of my own people. I am far more educated now, but during that confusing time I, like most children, turned to literature (which in turn is what helped me make sense of the world).

I’ve gotten a little off track – this isn’t overly important to what I’m writing about, but it is introducing my opinion as coming from a woman of colour who has experienced racism and horrible bullying, but I always feel the need to clarify my position as a lighter skinned poc before giving my opinion based on those experiences.

Obviously from my content, I love Leta Lestrange. Perhaps it started out as a matter of representation, but I feel like over the past year, I have become intrigued with her for a number of reasons. She’s striking me as a Sirius, Regulus and Andromeda Black type character. Different to her family and caught in a struggle of light and dark (magic, not skin colour). Loves magical creatures. I haven’t seen it yet but it seems like she is one of the centre point characters of the film. She seems to be connected to many of the main characters in one way or another and has always striked me as the most intriguing.

I really do hope I am wrong but the ‘other’ love interest’s in the Harry Potter universe are usually treated terribly. They experience character assassination to further the development of the canon/new interest.

I really hope this film doesn’t do the whole blow out a woc character to make the white, self-insert, classically beautiful, ‘im not like other girls’ character shine brighter.

Before everyone comes for me, I wouldn’t say I’m a Tina ‘anti’ whatever that is. There’s no like extreme hatred at all! I would say I don’t like Tina as a character, or Queenie for that matter. Not yet anyway. The new trailer gives me hope that this movie might win me over finally. It doesn’t need to be upsetting or offensive to anyone. There are lots of people out there with favourite and not-so-favourite characters. A lot of people dislike Ron, Dumbledore, Snape, even Harry…and there are people who have those characters as their favourite.  

There are a lot of reasons I don’t like Tina and Queenie. I may address them in a different post if being vague upsets people more than going in-depth but at this point, I am trying to stay as unconfrontational as possible but I have seen people get extremely furious when they don’t deem your reason for disliking them to be ‘good enough’ so if not saying exactly what I find uncomfortable about them is not as preferable as telling people then I can write it up as respectfully as possible if I’m treated the same way. All I’ll say is that I think Tina is a good person, but, in my opinion, not a great character. Queenie is the opposite. I would not like Queenie as a person but I have to admit, she’s a good character. But I’ll hold the rest of my opinions until after the second film. 

Honestly, the film adaptions leave some of my favourite book characters to be desired. Maybe if FB was a novel, I’d like Tina but I really dislike her in the movies. I have seen people blow up when this is said. I try to understand the outrage. I think one of the reasons I dislike Tina is one of the reasons why people love her. She is, at this point and in my opinion (which is ONLY an opinion), a self-insert character. Any Newt x Reader fanfiction can easily read as a Newtina fanfiction and vice versa. I know. Because I’m a FB fanfiction writer myself and tried to write her. Sometimes when you attach yourself to a character so much, it can feel personally offensive when someone says something as harmless such as they don’t like then. I don’t experience this as often. Every Reader/OC fanfiction is, perhaps unintentionally, but nearly always aimed at a white person in description. In actuality, nearly every character in literature is, intentionally or not, described with textbook white features or assumed white by the fandom/readers/watchers.

I know people are going to hate this opinion because I’ve seen people jump down other people’s throats when this gets brought up. I do believe, whether it is conscious or not, Leta not being white COULD, subconsciously, be a factor as to why she is so inherently hated. I’ve seen more hate for Leta than any other character – even the antagonist! I hate what they did to Lavender Brown, book and movie wise, but even she, being as over exaggeratedly unlikable as a romantic plot device, received and still receives far less fandom hate than Cho Chang (who was also eventually written to be ‘jealous, hysterical, unlikeable’, etc, etc – I don’t agree btw I love, understand and appreciate Cho and Lavender)  who was smart, talented, kind, traumatised, and until it was no longer convenient to the main characters romance for her to be ‘likeable’ anymore.

I wish I could enjoy going through the Leta tag but often, her and Newt can’t even be in a scene or photo together and people lose their minds with anger and hate. Literally, the comments on any scene/photo they are in are all along the lines of ‘stay away from newt!/poor tina/urgh, don’t flirt leta/leta WHAT ARE YOU DOING?’. Sorry, to break it to you guys but it isn’t a love triangle. It’s a love conga line. The only person getting in the way of ‘Newtina’ is Newt. Instagram is even worse. By worse, I mean horrible beyond belief. The better comments are the ones are the ones merely (though still grossly) comparing her to Tina and how much they dislike her, the other ones are wishes that she’ll get killed or join Grindelwald. It’s literally not even hidden the fact they wish either of these things happen so Newtina can happen faster. I’m not a Newtina shipper at all (Yet. Again, this might change if the films improve) but this would be one of the worst ways to further your ship. That is literally not going to change the fact that Newt’s still in love with her (you can have feelings for two people at the same time. The filmmakers confirmed - in fact, one of the first things about the new movie that they confirmed - that Newt is ‘absolutely still in love with her’), it just makes her conveniently unattainable. I do have a feeling that Leta might die and if it happens, it better not be because she’s unwillingly in the way of a ‘love triangle’ that people have forced these three characters into. If Newtina is going to happen in a way that isn’t awful, rushed and horrible, it will be slow-burn and it’s in own time AFTER Newt has healed and properly fixed things with Leta. You can’t be best friends and in love with someone for 15+ years and fall out of love with them immediately after they die, turn bad and settle for a woman you met for like two days and collectively spent maybe ten hours with. It might be a Ron/Hermione situation where it’s slow and eventual. That’s the only way I could possibly get on board and I think it could be done tastefully if they don’t resort to lazy writing. I do have my fingers crossed I’ll start to like the Goldsteins before this happens and I can enjoy it as much as everyone else does.

To be honest, after seeing the trailers, I see only two endings for Leta (and I hate them BOTH):

She joins Grindelwald: If this is the plot twist, it’s the shittiest plot twist ever. Pretty much 90% of the fans since seeing the first film have assumed/liked to believe she’s pure evil. Probably the characters themselves all assume she’s evil from her last name. I was worried the whole ‘haha, I was on Grindelwald’s side all along!’ situation was going to happen. We know JK hates Slytherins. My ‘Leta joins Grindelwald’ theory would be that she has always been on the good side – or trying to be – and after YEARS of oppression and discrimination and being distrusted by maybe the central characters in this film no matter how hard she tries AND maybe finally realising that Newt isn’t going to ever forgive her she just snaps and goes all ‘f*ck you guys then’ (I wouldn’t blame her tbh). HOWEVER, I doubt this. In a trailer, you literally see Leta THROW a fucking spell STANDING BY HERSELF (what u doin bby?) at Grindelwald. Trust me, if this was Tina it would have been all everyone was talking about but of course the fandom was all ‘yeah, see, she’s in the same frame as Grindelwald SHE’S EVIL’. One of the trailers is literally titled Leta vs. Grindelwald. Everything in the trailers/promos points to Queenie joining Grindelwald but *shrugs, I guess*.

Leta dies: I get this may seem the preferable way to appease the Leta haters and the Leta lovers especially if she dies after redeeming herself or heroically or whatever but urgh, no. I know everyone’s like ‘DoNt MAKe ThIS AbOUT RaCe’ when the woc character inevitably is killed but I’m sorry. To have been able to sit in a theatre as a little girl and see Leta Lestrange in the wizarding world would have blown my tiny mind. Honestly, as an older teen seeing Zoe Kravitz in that little photo frame in Newt’s case in the first film was iconic enough for me. After growing up being made to believe I was ‘unattractive’ because of how I looked, seeing total dreamboats like Callum Turner and Eddie Redmayne’s characters being all heart-eyes over Leta is, like...wow!  And I do have an uncomfortable truth for people who want Leta to die. That would possibly be the WORST thing to happen for the Newtina thing (would pretty much be the last nail in the coffin for me ever coming around to it). I’ve seen it happen in my family when someone you love dies. Your feelings for them essentially FREEZE. You can’t fall out of love with someone who is dead. That’s of course not to say that you don’t love again and just as much as the first time. But it takes time (LOTS of it) and there’s a little part of your heart that’s like…permanently sealed off. I don’t even like Newtina yet and I’m hoping for the sake of the Newtina fans that Leta doesn’t die because freakin’ yikes. Just let them heal and connect and be besties again goddammit, its POSSIBLE (and bet your ass I’ll write it my god damn self to prove it if they don’t). 

I know these are highly unpopular opinions and I HOPE that I am wrong, and they do her character justice and don’t discard her via death or the dark side.

In summary, I suppose my biggest struggle with Leta’s character is definitely the overwhelming fandom hate which I still can’t quite comprehend. I really want to believe it isn’t a race thing. Though, I have seen horrible posts about Leta, mean comments on nearly every Leta promo, Zoe Kravitz literally being called a c*nt in the comments of a Leta post on tumblr, a lot of fanfictions having her be primarily evil, selfish, manipulative, in some a rapist even, ugly, cruel, etc. But honestly, she’s literally not interfering in Newt having a relationship with anyone at all??? She’s literally been villainised because her friend can’t get over her (getting Snily nostalgia). But buggered if I’ve been able to find next to anything of that calibre about Jacob’s fiancée (literally a Queenie doppelganger) who left him, like, the day he met Queenie. I get that it was a deleted scene for those non-hardcore fans, but Leta-hate was literally kicked off by a picture in a photo frame and a comment made by a, in my opinion, kind of not-nearly-as-infallible-as-people-think character that barely knows Newt breaking into his head non-consensually (after being repeatedly told not to) who had an agenda to hook him up with her sister. Sooo…*shrugs*.

Even I personally have tried to keep out of the fandom debates, but I wrote a Leta and Newt story (still ongoing) that I stopped for a while because the kind of disgusting comments I was receiving about people hating the pairing. Which, I get. You don’t like a pairing, that’s cool? Why are you going and seeking out a piece about them and then taking the time to leave a comment? Whenever I start to read a story about Leta being this horrific monster of a person and being torn apart and compared and occasionally borderline racist, I just…click out? I know it’s only a small patch of weeds in what is likely a garden of roses, but I have never come across such an insecure fandom for a literal canon ship. If the relationship was that pure and strong, you wouldn’t feel the need to kill or villainise the (non-existent) ‘threat’. I just hope the writers feel the same way. You can write healthy closures and strong women of colour characters without casting them aside for plot development/man pain/stereotypical Caucasian romance/plot device, etc... I’m going to go into the theatre at the end of the week slightly optimistic to be fair but I’m also fully expecting to be disappointed but honestly, Leta could avada kedavra every character and she’s still going to be my favourite, I don’t make the rules. 

[jungblue]

Lol I’m actually scared to have sex or even do any penetrative masturbation. Which is okay. Actual sex is not something that’s gonna happen for a long time. I’m 20 and haven’t had a first kiss too 😂😂 I’m also scared to get drunk.

that’s okay. sex can seem scary. you being completely bare in front of someone when you’ve never done that is understandably nerve wracking. just take everything at your own pace and do what you’re comfortable with. as for the penetrative masturbation that’s totally your decision. i would say that there’s nothing to be scared of, but if it’s not something that you want to do then that’s perfectly fine! and eh getting drunk isn’t for everyone. it’s very easy to lose a handle on yourself if your overdo it. so it’s not something you need to do if you don’t want to!

Anonymous said: I just want to say you are a HUGE help from all this sex talk you are giving and that helps a lot coming from a virgin who doesn’t know a lot about sex but I would like to ask if it’s true for your first time that you would probably bleed and hurts a lot? or there just exaggerating from saying that so you wouldn’t lose your virginity at a young age?

i’m glad it can be a bit helpful! but as for your question, no it’s not supposed to be like that. if you’re properly aroused and there’s foreplay involved beforehand it shouldn’t be this life-ending pain that movies and stuff like to describe it as. it might be uncomfortable certainly bc most won’t be used to the stretch that’s going to happen, it’s nothing awful. as for the blood, i won’t say that there won’t be bleeding. personally i’ve had one incident where i bled during sex (and this was years into me being sexually active). the thing was i wasn’t hurting at all. like it felt good and i didn’t even notice until the guy said something. i was freaked out obviously bc it wasn’t my period, so i went to the doctor and they said that everything was fine. it was just being stretched a bit further than i’d usually been that did it. so you might experience bleeding. but the pain is definitely something that shouldn’t be fought through just bc you think that it’s how it’s supposed to feel bc it isn’t 

Anonymous said: This is kind of a funny sex story that I actually oddly feel comfortable telling you. Well, I had sex with my boyfriend and was very tired afterwards and really just didnt want to do anything okay? And I look up at him and tell him I have to pee and he laughs and we start talking about something until he remembers what I told him and I completely forgot until he literally pushed me out of the bed and said "go pee you beautiful human you!" 😂😂 -mognut anon

aww that’s really cute though! uh i hate the fact that you have to pee after sex. like the human anatomy is really fucking up my cuddle time lol

Anonymous said: ive had girls come up to me and tell me they had a lot of sex with a guy but didnt cum and i ask them if they masturbate and they dont? I feel its important to let girls kno exploring their bodies and knowing what they like helps them communicate the things they like during sex with their partners. I used to also believe that penises would magically make me cum but you really have to let the other person know what you like for them to hit that good!

yeah i think that letting yourself relax is a big part of being able to orgasm regardless of if you’re doing it yourself or actually having sex. which masturbating is the perfect practice for this bc you’re alone and there’s no pressure. you can learn so much about your body by masturbating concerning what you enjoy, to which you can then convey to your partner. i do think that it would be difficult to achieve an orgasm during sex in front of another person when you haven’t learned to relax and let it happen while you’re alone. not impossible of course, but it would certainly be easier if you already knew what you enjoyed beforehand

Anonymous said: i honestly have no idea why im even saying this but i have like,, a super high sexual drive and am constantly masturbating (ik tmi) and i read a whole lot of smut,, but when ive been given the chance to actually have sex, which has happened a couple of times,, i kinda, shut down?? idk if that makes any sense. i basically stop everything and tell them that i can't have sex with them and that kinda scares me,, like, am i broken or smth?

oh no please don’t think that about yourself! i promise that’s actually very normal. porn, smut, ect are all very contained. you experience that in your own privacy, which is completely different than opening yourself up to a person during sex. i promise that what you’re experiencing is completely fine. you don’t have to force yourself to be intimate with someone just bc you feel as though that’s what you should do. take your time and wait until you’re comfortable with the idea!

Anonymous said: omg i read through all the “sex” questions and omg i feel so much better about myself. i had a question though, i tried to finger myself once but it didn’t do anything it literally just felt like a tampon or a diva cup. what do i do? bc i’ve never been able to finish other than with like clit simulation

well most girls don’t get off from penetration alone actually, so the fact that you’ve only ever been able to get off from clitoral stimulation is completely normal and actually more common. it’s perfectly plausible that you just don’t enjoy self-penetration. but as a tip i used to also be this way until i started stimulating my gspot and that was how i eventually started reaching orgasms via penetration. you just have to rub against the front of your vaginal wall against the spot that a lot of people describe as uneven or ridgy. just make sure you’re decently aroused beforehand and experiment with different motions until it’s you find one that works for you!

Anonymous said: Honestly can u explain to me what squirting really is ?? Like i read it and i kinda know it but also abit lost about it !! Help

i mean i personally have never squirted, so the only info i have is also just from what you read online and stuff. and from those sources it’s usually just described as a combo of female ejaculate (it comes from some gland or something but i can’t remember) and urine. it’s usually happens when you stimulate the gspot

Anonymous said: hey! you’re so sweet to answer all these questions! i wanted to ask how exactly to shave down there. bc it like grows everywhere and i’m so scared to go anywhere with my razor lol 

Anonymous said: I've tried every trick for shaving, but I get so many ingrown hairs. Like my hair, even just on my legs, doesn't seem to be meant to be shaved. I like the shaved feeling but it's almost not worth the tons of ingrown hairs. The only way I can avoid them is using an electric razor, but of course that doesnt do a completely clean, smooth shave.

shaving can be tricky bc sometimes it seems you can follow all the steps that anyone tells you and the razor burn still happens. there are tons of youtube videos on this actually if you want to go look those up. but as a general run though lots of them will tell you to get a good razor (one with lots of blades. the more blades the smoother the shave and the less it catches the skin), shave in the direction of the hair follicle. also this is just from personal experience, but after you shave you might itch really badly down there. i know it’s tempting but don’t do it. you’re gonna be covered in razor bumps right after if you itch it. so just try to fight through that lol

Anonymous said: Honestly I think I started getting sexual urges pretty late bc I didn't start getting turned on until I was 17 and even then it was super hard, but I just figured out what worked for me. I'm a virgin now and only one person from my group of friends isn't and they're not pressuring me or anything but I just feel kind of left out you know? It just feels like a right of passage that everyone (and that one person) is experiencing except me. I'm going to Uni in 2019 and I'm kinda worried about it lol

i understand that there’s definitely a pressure to experience sex, especially when everyone around you is, but i promise it isn’t something that you should feel the need to rush into. everyone is different and goes at their own pace. sex changes nothing about who you are as a person. just do what makes you comfortable!

[thehumorousace]

My Asexual Story

Just wanted to share my story about being Asexual because i’ve never actually told anyone before and i don’t have anyone in person to tell, plus i need to get this off my chest because it’s something i’ve been keeping to myself, so don’t feel as if you have to read, i’m just having a moment here.

So basically around the age of 14/15 i realised i didn’t have sexual attractions towards people (Boys, girls or anyone in between) but at this point i didn’t know about the term ‘asexual’ and i especially didn’t realise that other people experienced this kinda thing, so i went a bit crazy thinking that i’d never find anyone and that i only had a couple months left to get in a relationship with someone and that even if i did get into a relationship i would only be with them for a short time coz, according to me, after the age of 16 people would just want sex in a relationship and there would be no hope for a weirdo like me who wasn't into that. I don’t know why i thought this but i was 15 and a mess of a human being. I do however recall the main source of why i thought this was the case was because prom was coming up (I’m British so we leave secondary school at 16 and have a prom) and in a lot of films thats the kinda time people do the nasty, on top of this i guess i just got it in my head that like what else is gunna happen between a girl and guy after a big fancy party, once again i was 15 and out of my mind and i now know this isn't necessarily the case. So during this time i went through all sorts of scenarios, at first i thought i was lesbian because i wasn't attracted to guys so i must have been attracted to girls, right? But no, that thought process lasted like a day and i went back to thinking i was just crazy and would die alone with my 50 cats, i also wondered that maybe i was ‘normal’ and i did have these sexual feelings and maybe didn’t realise them but after talking to some people i realised this was also not the case as just the way they described certain feelings weren't anything i'd ever felt and were something i honestly never wanted to experience.

Then around the time i turned 16 (March - so prom was still relatively far away but all the plans had been made and people had dates and stuff) i some how decided to look up the LGBT+ community and all the different types of sexualities and genders, i don’t 100% remember why, i think i was kinda looking for other sexualities that i might have been coz at the time i only knew to be hetrosexual, homosexual or bisexual so maybe i was looking for the right label as i knew there were other 'types' of orientation out there. I came across this list of a huge range of sexualities, orientations, genders ect. and seeing as Asexual begins with ‘A’ it was at the top of the list, the description for each definition was only brief and you could click to get more info, but the description for the first sexuality was something like ‘Someone who doesn’t experience sexual attraction’ (I know this is very brief and not 100% correct for everyone but like i said u could get more info and all the mini definitions were like 10 words long). So 16 year old me saw, by pure chance and thanks to the spelling of this word, this definition that matched me. I cannot explain the feeling that went through me in that exact moment, shock, excitement, disbelief. All i know is that i practically did a double take and i clicked on that link faster than i have clicked on anything before in my entire life and for the next 2-3 hours i read that page over and over to make sure i understood it all right, i read page after page on all different websites to make sure i was understanding it right and by the end of it i finally felt like by me just identifying with this label that i was somehow more okay, I know some people don’t like giving themselves labels as it can make them feel restricted (or for any other reasons - idk it’s an individual thing i guess), but for me personally that label made me feel like i wasn’t alone and that i wasn’t crazy for feeling the way i did and thats what i needed, i needed an explanation and thats what this one word did, it didn’t make me feel validated or give my life meaning it just gave me an reasonable explanation and the knowledge that i wasn’t alone. I never told anyone about this whole thing as i don’t think i was 100% convinced and i carried on researching asexuality to make sure i did have it all right because i didn’t want to say i was this sexuality and for someone to be like ‘um actually you’re *this*, not asexual’. I also made the decision not to go to prom, my friendship group were all going together and they'd asked me to go but the whole thing just wasn't me, due to me having anxiety and hating the idea of human contact (Which to my understanding is being touch repulsed? A new term i've recent heard some people use in the asexual/aromantic community) a big crowded room full of people i didn't like was my worst nightmare, plus i think that i still had the taught process of prom = sex at some point during the night.  

When i was 17 i ‘came out’ to someone for the first time in person. At the start she really didn’t understand it which made me feel kinda down but she listened, she didn’t tell me i was crazy or leave, she asked questions and let me explain what it all meant and how i felt.

Im now 18 and i've 'come out' to a bunch of people, pretty much everyone has had a good response but i will occasionally get the 'Oh here we go, other special snowflake' eyeroll of someone when i talk about it but i just ignore it, i can't change the way they think and if they're so close minded that they can't accept that someone thinks or feels differently to the way they do they're not worth my time and they're not going to get very far in life seeing as the world is so diverse and they're suck in the middle ages.

I have ups and downs with my sexuality all the time, when i first figured out there was something ‘different’ about me i hated it coz i thought it was some unnatural thing. But i never denied that it existed, i never tried to like the idea of sex or pretend to be something i wasn’t, i always accepted that whatever was happening wasn’t something i could change, but that didn’t mean i was okay with it. Especially around 17 i would constantly go through lows of wishing i wasn’t ‘like this’ and that because of ‘it’ i would never be able to live a ‘normal’ life. I’m someone who’s never been in a relationship before and i’m so curious about what it would like to be in one (But due to me having social anxiety and i guess me as a person i’ve never even been asked out properly before). I still fear the whole ‘dying alone with cats’ kinda thing and i do want to be in a relationship and i know not having a sexual drive will limit the amount of partners i’ll be able to find but at the end of the day what can i do about it? i can’t change myself to be some hetrosexual barbie doll, i can only be myself. So i guess as a nice message to anyone out there who is struggling with any identity issues just google it man, honestly just look up whatever it is and you might find something like i did, i didn’t have to go on any hike up a mountain and kill a mystical dragon to understand what i was going through i just had to type into google ‘List of sexualities’ and wham! i’m now a slightly smaller mess of a human being who can successfully answer the question of ‘What is your sexual orientation?’

But yeah, thats my little story of self discovery, if you did actually read this then thanks? Hope you enjoyed? Maybe I inspired you? Feel free to share your own experience (I’d honestly love to hear other people's stories)????

[deeeknows]

Wowwwwo im honored and excited for you to read this blog. This one was hard for me to write so dont hate me if it is less easy to understand. Id love to discuss anything you guys hate/love in the comments. See you on the other side.

June 28

today was a big day for me as i was looking forward to taking my math assessment all day. i should have studied but hindsight is 20/20. what i will note is my trip with Uesin. he selflessly gave up his afternoon to drive me to my house, to get food, and then to lanham. What i appreciate about him is how thoughtful all of his actions are. not even just the ones that place me on the receiving end but rather how he places purpose in every decision he makes. i want my relationship with God to mirror how his looks in these ways one day. but after we the assessment i drive back and there is a group meeting centered around Vaughn and he was telling us about his relocation story. a very humbling experience but it seems like God does that to many people that being give them a task they cannot complete on their own. Important Part There is no way for me to claim i trust God with my life and then not my child’s life. so when i feel called to move into the city and education for my child comes up i dont think I want the best for my children. i want what God has for my family and i trust that following his will we do the rest. secondly i learned there is no way to do this alone. no matter how much i tell myself i hate people and want to be alone community is neeeeeeded for relocation. not only will God get you plugged into the city but he will plant you in community with folks with the same mission as you. your church should represent where you live and the values of Christ. make the sacrifices needed to do Gods work if youre going to go there you might as well all the way do it. Important Part people call tell when youre just moving in as compared to bringing Jesus into their Community.

June 29

without much change in my day to day this week i was eager to see where my life would be challenged. my first adventure came when i went further out of the city with Megan and Lestle to the bank. our walk confused me slightly because of what i anticipated to be true about the city was just not lining up to be true at all. everyone thinks the city is the worst part of baltimore but Important Part i am starting to believe i have reason to believe that the people who live outside the city before they are in the county technically that have the most strenuous places. ostracized from the county because they arent good enough and without the “resources” of the city. its a hard life out here. fastforward to dinner time im walking to hiphop chicken and a woman starts screaming to me if i want to buy any movies. its in my nature to stop and talk because i just cant pretend like i cant hear someone speaking directly to me or keep walking when someone is trying to get my attention. so tell her i dont have any interest in any DVDs or console games or perfume but that also wasnt good enough for her. so she crosses the street to better communicate her need for a dollar just have something to drink. the thing that was catching me was we were on our way to eat dinner and i had already decided i wasnt going to spend my money because i wasnt to hungry. so i told her i didn’t have any singles but she can have and i assured her that if i did she would be in luck. shortly after i ended up giving her the 5 to her surprise and she starts crying. i ask her name and then she tells me and i say i will be praying for her but my family group was standing a ways off and were waiting for me to go to dinner. as i tried to walk away she reaches out for me and asks for me to pray for her now. by the time im finished she is in full blown tears and i just gotta go because i cant be out here crying in these streets. i tell this story because i think for me and her it was more than about the mere 5. Important Part while the 5 would get her something to drink it wasnt going to meet all of her needs and we both knew that. the immediacy she wanted her interaction with her Savior right then. and it just teaches me not walk past anyone again because besides “costing me” 5 dollars which was only mine for all of 5 minutes i was able to be with her in her interaction which i believe she will remember way longer than she will remember the 5 i dont even remember what it looked like.

June 30

Who am I. Question I’ve found in all of my conversations since Sunday. Looking for ways I could define myself without telling people what I’m not. Today’s thought provoking comments came by the brilliant minds of Feitian and Lestle. After I was taking notes on my Asian culture 101 class I started to realize my questions weren’t specific to myself and that many other people groups go through the very same things I do. Seeking to find ones self. Feitian communicated to me the exact thing that I knew I couldn’t have been the only other person thinking. That people don’t want to know you, they’d rather skip all the time it would take to get to know each person and use what they have gathered previously through most times skewed lens to contextualize you. Important Part Who you are and who you aren’t are two different people trapped in one body. And most times we are stuck in between looking for someone else to shine some light on us to help determine where our strengths and almost-strengths lie. But I didn’t come to this until the 3 of us went around and spoke about how we were having such immense difficulty communicating who we were to the next person or how hard it was without describing what we weren’t. I believe we live in our pursuit for purpose in our lives and we start with figuring out who we are and what we like. Most times we never make it to the second part without placing our identity in Christ. Important Part It sounds super corny but I have been thinking all week and those are the only concrete things I can describe myself with that others cannot change the definitions to. Who knows. Maybe one day I won’t be afraid of someone knowing me better than I do. But I can’t call it as of yet.

July 1

Writing this a day after wasn’t my smartest idea yet. But we didn’t do as much. It was comprised of a seminar on racial reconciliation. while this seems like a super broad topic and it is. the main parts of what we were doing were focused around a couple steps that really broke down the process into knowing who you are racially and ethnically and what that means for our society and how can we knowing our differences work to create heaven on earth. this whole seminar was a challenge as to what i thought heaven was going to look like. i can see now what a real working definition of unity looks like. unity is fully realized in diversity. as a puzzle works there are many many pieces and they are all shaped through cultures and experiences they have been in. Important Part we needed more than 1 uniqueshape to complete the image of God and thats what unity is about. accepting people who are different from you and working with them because we all together reflect God

After the seminar we went on a trip to the National Blacks in Wax museum. While it was a learning experience i would have enjoyed maybe another hour or 7 to properly pace myself to get to really digest the museum. The worst part about this whole thing for me is in the idea that many of the atrocious acts that were used to oppress black people in the past were not only “based” out of christian beliefs but also done by christian people. So to think about reconciliation for me is to attach myself to an agent that was used to divide people in the past didnt sound appealing at all. Important Part But i realize i serve a God that is big enough to take what some people manipulated to hurt and dehumanize my people and redeem not only what was taken but Christ’s name. This is so important to me because the more broken the more we can see God’s grace cover many times over.

July 2

as practicing sabbath becomes more and more a thing im getting used to im thankful for the time im putting aside to be alone. lol and be with

God. i went over to the Zubeks home and there i met so many new friends. these people im starting to see work together to get your will done and i say the way teamwork looks. vision casting and group work does more and helps to create a community that is dependent on each other. every part of me hates being dependent on someone else but im trying my best to do more than just isolate myself and grow to work with people towards a common goal. but today i went to worship at a mass. it was so new and short i didnt even realize it was over when it was. a different pace but not something i dont think id do long team. i dont see enough variability for myself. i like the experience. id want to get to understand why they do all of what they do for their practices.

July 3

monday was a day that we began to get back into everything with brother Jeff. as a starter we spent about 30 minutes in prayer interceding on behalf of the kids who were just coming back from camp, playing in the league, and the coaches. This is so valuable to me because of what the kids experienced while they were at summers best 2 weeks. This christian camp was a structure and environment that many different kids have in. Brother Jeff took these 7 kids and they all took MAJOR steps in their walk with Christ. And this is great to see but everyone isnt going to be at the best 2 weeks forever and the situations these kids are coming back to isnt one that would accidentally foster them to continue to grow. Important Part Which is why we were fighting in prayer for these kids to meet us halfway so we can continue to pour into them while they are around. becoming an intercessor is exciting me more and more because im becoming like my momma and i see the importance and value of what she does so well. pray for others. i might have to get me one of those closets that dont have a door since i feel like id get locked in and die. but thats besides the point. we then went shopping for the 4th and the weekend for him before coming back home and doing more admin things. then my favorite part of it all. spending time with the youth came. we took timmy*** to the park to hoop for quite some time. seeing and getting these kids to be themselves and slowly begin to look up to myself and lestle and begin to ASK us questions just shows how willing and eager they are to learn. cant wait for more times.

July 4

Writing this blog now I’m still experiencing the 4th in the city and so the nonstop fireworks kept me awake enough to write this entry. To begin my 4th I went to brother Jeffs home and had a cookout with the kids and some of his closest mentees. Over a couple games of uno, burgers, and corn we discussed among many other things honor. While it might seem like a little thing to you guys honor for these kids is VERY VERY important. As I believe it should be for everyone but in biased. Honor and respect is given to those who earn it and something you would never give up on your own accord without a fight. While I know this to be true in my life it didn’t settle in how serious this was until asked point blank where put in a situation you had to Choose walking away with your life or dying with your pride that some would choose to die. Not only did this seem almost ludicrous to me but it wasn’t until shortly after that “death before dishonor” really held any weight. Not only were these kids being put in these situations but they were being forced to make these decisions and would rather die and be known as a real one that held to their values than to flake even when your life is on the line. I love it when someone teaches me something new about myself and this was definitely a time i could realize who i was and where i could grow, Because just putting it in my Blog doesnt mean id be willing to give up my life for anything. Important Part These soldiers would be rocking it in the army of God but until we can get them to stand on the solid rock of Jesus things prolly not gon stay too bright.

My second part of my day I want to compare firework experiences. While they aren’t entertaining to me I enjoy seeing others amused by them. To start off we went to the Zubek Home to watch then after our crab feast. People start to filter onto the roof of their rowhome in SOWEBO and lean up pretty much with their significant others. As people all around the city shoot of their fireworks the thing that stuck out most to me in this situation was how people were celebrating. The laid back privileged group of christians versus the constant street show that we watched for close to an hour as they blocked off stricker less than 50 meters from our home opens my eyes to so many things and actually visible comfort zones. Important Part I want to remember to that the people in Baltimore are not here to put on a show for me on my rooftop but rather that im challenged to learn, experience, and love on the people to try and better understand them. Connections work wonders as we watched and listened to the fireworks go off from 9-2 am non stop.

While this blog was harder for me to write i think there were less Important Parts as well and i dont want yah to hate me for it. Hopefully the ones ive pointed out in this last week add help with anything you might have experienced once upon a time. My last impressions would be to find 3 things you can tell me about yourself without telling me who you arent. My challenge would be to try a vegetarian lifestyle for a week. And my question would be where would you put yourself on the death before dishonor scale?

[aroha-x-astro-blog]

Dear Sanha

Ok so i'm doing this on my phone so im sorry in advance for all the typos. so this is gonna be similar to the one i did for jinwoo's birthday so bear with me okay? ok, so today is the light in all of our lives birthday yoon sanha. i am really bad with words so idk how this is gonna turn out lol. anyway. sanha. you're officially 17. idk how to handle this tbh. you're still the smol child dancing on the i-teen stage to me sometimes and now that you're 17... it's a little shocking ngl. i know that every year after this one, i'm gonna say the same things, but wow.... you're really grown up. the ironic thing is that you're no were near done growing up. i can't wait to see how much of an amazing person you're going to turn out to be the older you become. i'm sitting here typing this up just thinking about how mature you've become and how much you've grown and i can't be more proud of you and i know that tomorrow i'm gonna say the same thing and that's because everyday you're growing and maturing and are more experienced than you were the day before and for me, knowing that makes me so proud of you every second of every day. you're still young and i want you to remember something. i know you'll never read this but i'm gonna say it anyway. i never want you to think that you have to act a certain way just because you're an idol. ever. you should always be yourself no matter what. we - arohas - want to see your true self and I know that this isn't really a problem in your life right now, and maybe it will never be one, but if you ever start feeling like you need to act a certain way for us to love too, throw those thoughts away. we love you. we love our dorky fun savage smol yet tol son being his true self more than anything else in the world Also!! this is an important one...maybe THE most important one. your health. your physical and metal well being. that's should always be your number one, always. your health is the most important thing to us. yes, we love seeing you on stage is great and it gives us all so much joy, but if you're sick it does the opposite thing. it makes us worry. it makes us want to make sure that you're not about to faint instead of enjoy the performance. it makes us want to tell you to go home and sleep for the rest of the day. you're always telling us to take care of ourselves, but the best way to lead is by example. so here's an idea, if you want us to really take care of ourselves, you have to show us what that looks like. thank you for always worrying about us, but worry about yourselves and take care of yourselves when you need it. stay home and sleep the whole day. eat all the food you want. get the proper amount of sleep every night and consistently too. make sure to not get injured, but if you do get injured, Take Care If Yourself PROPERLY. make sure that before you come back, you're completely healed. just.... my wish for you is that you're always happy and healthy. if i could wish for anything for you, it would be those two things, and i think that following these steps can help lead you closer to those goals. we love you for you. we love you're bright sassy savage personality and we love seeing you do aegyo. we love watching you laugh and enjoy yourself with your hyungs. we love just seeing you be yourself in any and every circumstance because that's who we know and love and fell in love with. never forget that. we love seeing you healthy and running around and properly fed and just- we all love seeing you be yourself and you don't understand what that means to me. every time i see a picture of you or i watch a video of you doing basically anything, it makes me smile. seeing your face alone makes my day 1000 times better. you have this wonderful affect on people that i can't describe, but whenever i see anything related to you, i get this warm fuzzy feeling in my chest that just keeps growing and never stops. i don't know how to explain this feeling really because i suck at english, but even just writing this makes me feel like this. i think what i would call this is happiness tbh. every time i see you i just feel happier. it doesn't matter what mood i was originally in, i could have been crying or already the happiest i've ever been, seeing you will make me happy. i wanted to say thank you for that. your personality is just so happy and pure that it makes arohas just... love you more than the last time we saw you when we thought that wasn't possible. we're always falling more and more in love with you and your smile and your laugh and everything about you every single second that we're thinking you. thank you for becoming the light of my life thank you for giving me hope that i can accomplish my dreams just like you did thank you for being your cute self thank you for being born thank you for learning how to play the guitar thank you for becoming a trainee at fantagio at such a young age thank you for staying a trainee at fantagio thank you for going thru the grueling i-teen stages and i'm sorry for the friends you most likely lost because of that thank you for becoming part of astro thank you for planing to debut with astro thank you for debuting and giving me one of the most special memories from your showcase thank you for going thru all the questionable clothing styles you went thru thank you for debuting with braces on thank you for letting us watch you grow up into the person you are today thank you in advance for everything you're going to do for us in the future thank you for being a part of my life that i can't live without thank you i love you i love you more than all the time that has passed since before the big bang i love you more than there have been things searched up on the internet since the beginning of the internet i love you more than there will be things searched up and uploaded to the internet for the rest of time i love you more than there is love and hate and all the other emotions in the world combined i love you more than i all these things combined i love you more than i'll ever be able to describe in words or in person i love you than you for becoming a part of my life that i would never want to live without happy birthday sanha 💜 i 💜 love 💜 you 💜

[foxgloveburning-inactive]

kayleigh “not so nice” oc asks

im doing all of them because i want to have fun and torture kayleigh (asks from here)

warning: it gets real fuckin dark fjdsfldsfhsf

trigger warnings: self harm, death, serious injury, graphic injury, car accidents, general angst and darkness

1. What is one word to shut them up?

“Stop.” you wanna dig right to her core AND trigger an explosive cocktail of anxiety and RSD in her head that she most likely won’t even tell you about?? just say “stop” in a very annoyed tone

2. What is the thing they feel the most guilty about?

she still regrets cutting contact with her sisters for a year after poison pop broke up the first time because she thinks she could’ve used their support during that time in her life, and they were all hurt by it

3. What is the worst pain they’ve ever experienced?

being trapped in the car right after she and blue wrecked, with multiple broken bones and a lot of other minor injuries

4. Describe their worst nightmare.

dying physically alone, in a way that no one even knows she’s dead

5. List 3 fears; one “surface level” fear, one “repressed” fear, and one “deep dark” fear.

drowning

everyone she loves forgetting her (and doing better for it)

and see above

6. What is something that never fails to make them feel sick?

people making suggestive comments about her/her sisters being in relationships with eachother

7. What feature (physical or otherwise) do they hate most about themselves?

despite healing from a lot of her insecurity surrounding it, she still doesn’t like her tendency to get angry/sad very easily

8. Do they have anything that triggers them?

flash cameras can send her into a panic attack if she’s not told abt it beforehand

9. What is their greatest physical weakness?

she is NOT strong lmaooo she can be agile but she is not very good at physical labor

10. What is their greatest mental weakness?

her need for validation, esp from the public

11. Do they have any vices?

she doesn’t drink or smoke but music........music things will get her (songwriting at 2am, buying maybe just too many instruments, etc, etc)

12. Have they ever done something illegal? What was it?

she stole a pack of chips and a coke from a gas station on a dare, she’s broken into a motel pool with friends, broken into a condemned abandoned house. she did a lot of dumb things when she was a teenager/young adult lmao

13. Which of the 7 Deadly Sins best describes them?

i don’t like this question so i’m not going to answer it! :D

14. Are they prone to outbursts (of violence, extreme emotion… exc… )?

she is indeed prone to being extremely emotional, usually anger or sadness, esp bc of her RSD, but she’s learned to manage it over the years

15. Who do they hate the most?

exploitative assholes in the music industry

16. Is there anyone who makes them feel inferior?

no one purposefully makes her feel inferior, but her anxiety/lack of self esteem tends to get to her when she starts comparing herself to her friends (esp when it comes to things that arent music)

17. What sound always gives them a headache?

bells ringing. they had a system in her house growing up where her mom would ring a bell whenever she wanted them to come down for a meal or to go somewhere etc because they had such a large family and going to everyone individually would be a pain

but bc of her exec dysfunction, sometimes she wouldn’t come down at the bell and her mom would just keep ringing it until someone came and got her

now the sound of a bell ringing continuously grates on her nerves more than anything else

18. Is there a certain flavor that disgusts them?

black licorice. everyone hates black licorice, yeah, but like. she has a PASSION for it

19. Do they consider themselves ugly?

she doesn’t think she’s supermodel attractive but she doesn’t think herself ugly either; at least, not anymore

20. Do they consider themselves unlovable?

when things get bad, she considers a lot of parts of herself unlovable, esp her emotions and personal issues, but nowadays she tends to be a little more confident in herself

21. What is something that causes them great anxiety?

fucking things up in conversation

22. Do they have any mental illnesses?

yes, multiple! adhd, anxiety, and depression, all diagnosed

(skipping two questions that involved sexual assault out of personal comfort)

25. Have they ever been betrayed by someone they thought they could trust?

in middle school, she had a group of friends who completely turned on her in seventh grade after she had a mental breakdown; they basically told her she had “too much baggage” for them and didn’t wanna deal with her anymore

26. Have they ever been seriously injured?

she was in a serious car accident in 2011 with blue, and ended up breaking her arm, her leg, and a couple ribs. thankfully she (and blue!) came out of it with no long term injuries. she’s been seriously injured before that but that was the worst

27. How many times have they been in the hospital?

quite a few times! she was a pretty rough-and-tumble kid and got a few bad cuts/injuries as a kid, then when her mental health got worse she was checked into the hospital once as a teenager and another time as an adult; then she got into the accident, which had her spending a lot of time in the hospital, mostly for physical therapy and making sure her injuries were healing properly

28. Is there a certain type of person that disgusts them?

see #15

29. Does what they cannot see scare them?

yes!

30. Have they ever been bullied?

yes, all throughout school she got bullied for being a nerdy kid, for being an alternative kid, and towards the end of highschool for being queer (despite not even being out to herself)

31. Do they have self-confidence or self-image issues?

abso-fuckin-lutely

32. Do they have a bad relationship with their parents?

nope! she loves her mom and dad quite a bit, and they love her too! she’s incredibly close with her family, and her parents were the ones who fuelled her passion for music

33. Have they ever been in a relationship that didn’t work out so well?

most of her relationships before blue ended badly (granted, there was only a few of them!)

34. Have they ever self harmed?

yes; she’s cut herself before, quite a bit, although most people don’t know that. pretty much just blue and her sisters and ryka know

35. If they could change one thing about themselves, what would it be?

she’s at a point where she understands that even her flaws are part of her, and she doesn’t really have the urge to change herself anymore

that being said? if she could have horns - like massive black demon horns, not those weird plastic surgery skin horns people get - she would have those

36. Are they in control of their emotions, or are their emotions in control of them?

she’s wrangled her emotions by now, but for most of her life, they controlled her

37. Have they ever had their freedom taken away?

not really?

38. Have they ever been imprisoned?

she spent a night in county jail for breaking into an abandoned house with her friends lol

39. Have they ever been accused of something they didn’t do?

her sisters would always blame petty shit on her when they were younger because she was the biggest troublemaker lol

40. Do they often blame themselves for other people’s problems?

she tries not to anymore, but she often takes responsibility for others’ emotional states

41. Do they get sick often?

not really!

42. Are they comfortable with where they are in life?

absolutely; she has a wonderful family, an awesome career, and general stability

43. Do they wish that they could change their pasts?

she tries to live on the “no regrets” philosophy, but there are definitely things she would do differently (the way the break-up happened, bottling up all her emotions all the time, not getting mental health care until her late 20s, etc)

44. What’s one thing they wish they could do more often, but can’t?

spend time with her family. the band makes her very busy and although she will often drop everything to do things with/for them, she still wishes she could be there more often

45. What is the emotion they most commonly experience?

contentment!

46. Have they ever contemplated suicide?

absolutely

47. Have they ever gone so far as to attempt suicide?

yes, twice; once when she was in college (which prompted her dropping out), and another time right after the break-up

48. Is there anyone that they would willingly kill?

no, she hates the idea of killing anyone at all

49. If [name] was put into ______ situation, they’d rather die than live to see it through.

if her kids were taken from her and placed into foster care. despite being an adopted kid herself, she knows that the foster care system is most often traumatizing and abusive for the kids in it and she’d rather die than see her kids go through that without a chance at helping them or getting them back