#ill try to make it clearer in future

[anxiousgaypanicking]

that last chapter felt more like borderline rape actually..

yes! its tagged as rape/noncon on ao3 for this reason, and thats why i always include dubcon/noncon tags on the hunger hurts chapters. i think i said in the past (i tried to find the exact ask and i couldnt, so i apologize if im remembering this wrong) that itd never be like screaming crying no/stop/etc, and that a lot of it would be more just like fear and whatnot. a lot of logans actual upset comes in the form of janus fucking with his mind as opposed to his body, but yeah, i definitely see how it feels more like rape, because it is assault.

i can start tagging things with tw/cw rape and stuff, but thats why ive been including the noncon tag, because the first half of this book is/will be very noncon-esque, and even the later chapters will be more stockholm until we can pivot to healthy (as healthy as this dynamic can be, i mean)

(i made sure to go through and add the cw/tw rape tags on all of the previous chapters, and will be doing so from now on. i apologize for any discomfort this negligence on my part has caused <3)

[nadvs]

the act of unravelling (part two)

pairing rafe cameron x pogue! female reader

rating mature 18+

summary you never expected you’d get tangled up with a kook, least of all, rafe cameron. one night, you make a life-altering decision to get revenge on someone you both despise. after you vow to keep what happened a secret, your relationship begins to twist into something more.

tags very dark! violence, homicide, drug and alcohol use, parental neglect, mental illness, s/a, trauma. no smut.

< prev

Rafe stands and looks down at the body, his fists clenched tightly. Reality is setting in now. He could go to prison. His future could be ruined.

He’s perpetually at the mercy of his impulsivity, thinking only of the minute he’s living in, burdened with the consequences later. But still, even with his head a little clearer, he doesn’t regret this.

Ripping away the life of a man who wronged him was a thrill. He spends every day feeling like he’s losing and the power he had in his hands tonight felt so fucking good. He won for once.

You feel heavy as you push yourself up off the floor. You wish you could curl up in your bathtub under hot, gushing water, washing away everything that happened tonight.

The corpse is harder to look at with every second that passes. You glance up at Rafe, blood splattered on his face as he stares down at what he’d done, at what you’d done, chillingly unfazed.

“We can’t leave anything that’ll point back to me,” he mumbles, his voice low over the fireworks still crackling outside.

“Or me,” you have to remind him tensely.

His eyes land on yours. He’s always only looking out for himself. He doesn’t know what it’s like to have to worry about someone else.

“I’m serious,” you urge. Your survival instinct rushes through you for the second time tonight. You refuse to let Rafe throw you to the wolves. “I saved your life. You owe me. I won’t take the fall for this.”

“Well, neither will I,” he snaps.

“You shot him.”

“I could say you did,” Rafe replies. “And it’d be your word against mine. What then?”

You scoff, in disbelief of his selfishness.

“I saved your life,” you repeat. “Does that mean nothing to you?”

Rafe swallows hard. He’s not sure many people would do what you did for him tonight. They’d watch. They’d let him die. The possibility that you might feel something for him makes his chest twist with an unfamiliar warmth.

“We’ll look out for each other, alright?” he relents, letting his guard down for a moment. “Let’s just clean this up.”

Your phone buzzes in your pocket again. You pull it out, seeing Pope’s name. Twelve missed calls.

You hope your friends don’t get so worried that they come up here, ignoring the Off Limits sign Porter had put up across the stairs. But they don’t know where you went. You’re almost certain.

“My friends keep calling me,” you whisper.

Rafe’s jaw tightens. His friends aren’t worrying about him.

“You can’t answer them,” he snaps.

“I know.” You let out a shaky sigh, tucking your phone back into your pocket. “We have to be fast. What do we do? Do we bury him?”

Rafe takes a beat to think.

“We dump him in the ocean,” he finally says. “We go to the marina and drive my boat out far enough where nobody will find him.”

“How do we move him so nobody sees? We can’t go through the house. We might run into someone.”

Rafe looks to the glass door on the other end of the room, the balcony offering a view of the inky night sky.

“There,” he says. “We’ll push him off and put him in the back of my truck.”

You consider it. Of the limited options you have, it seems like the only one worth trying.

“Okay. We have to clean the blood off the floor,” you say. “And everything we touch needs to be wiped. Maybe there’s something with bleach in it around here?”

For the first time since you entered this room, you feel hope. There’s a chance, a real chance, you could get away with this. You look back at the desk Rafe ransacked.

“Pick that stuff up,” you say. Frustration rolls through him. He never liked being bossed around. “I’ll try to find something to clean with.”

“Don’t let anyone see you,” Rafe mutters.

“How stupid do you think I am?” you huff before you turn towards the door.

You tiptoe through the second story, peeking into a bathroom cupboard. When you find a spray bottle that reads Cleaner and Bleach on the packaging, you grab it and head back to the room.

You and Rafe move quickly and quietly, using clothes you found in the closet to wipe everything with bleach. After a loud, consonant cracking of fireworks that you assume is the grand finale, the show ends. And you know people are on their way back to the house.

The neighbor’s private beach can’t be that far away. You have a minute. Maybe two.

You’re glad Rafe thinks to find the shell of the bullet. He puts it in his pocket. You spray the bleach over the floor again, cleaning every drop of blood you can see.

“Tuck this stuff under his shirt,” you say breathlessly, handing Rafe the bottle and the blood-soaked clothes.

You can’t do it. You know you’ll need to touch him when you move him, but you’d rather limit the contact you have with his body. Even dead, when he can’t hurt you, touching him is terrifying.

You pick the gun up off the floor, then open the balcony, relieved you can’t hear any voices yet. You peer over the edge to see the sandy ground. The balcony overlooks the side of the house, dark and secluded.

Rafe grunts as he drags the corpse out onto the balcony. You have to muster up every bit of strength you have as you help heave Porter’s body over the railing. He falls with a hard thud, facedown in the sand.

You have to jump the balcony. You can’t risk going downstairs. Rafe is wide-eyed as you hitch your leg over the railing, looking down with shaky breaths.

“Wait,” he whispers. “Let me go first. If you break something, we’re fucked.”

He shifts down as low as he can before letting his feet hang over the edge. He lets go, dropping hard, his ankles pinching with pain from the impact.

“Okay,” he says. “Go.”

You feel a splinter dig into your palm as you clutch onto the wooden railing with one hand while the other holds the gun. You make the split-second decision to keep the balcony door open to air out the smell of bleach.

You hope you cleaned away every drop of blood in the room. There’s no going back to it now.

You sink, hanging as low as you can, looking over your shoulder before you drop. Rafe’s arms wrap around you as your feet hit the ground, his chest hard against your back, breaking your fall.

“If someone comes,” he whispers in your ear, “run.”

Waiting for him to get his truck is torture. The humid night air presses against your face and you can’t bear to look down at the body on the ground.

Rafe returns and you move quickly, straining as you carry the body over the uneven terrain, the soles of your shoes slipping on the sand.

Once the body is in the trunk and Rafe unfolds the cover, blanketing the cab and concealing the evidence, you feel a shred less frightened.

You glance back into the darkness just in case. A glow of a phone screen is in the sand. Rafe is already behind the wheel, demanding that you get in, his voice carrying through the open rear window.

You feel for your phone. It’s still in your pocket.

“Do you have your phone?” you whisper.

He responds after a moment, “Yes. Get in.”

“I think his phone fell on the ground when we were carrying him,” you say. “We should–”

Faint laughs in the distance interrupt you. There’s no time to run back and get the phone without being seen.

“Get the hell in,” Rafe mutters angrily.

You obey, swinging open the door, barely closing it in time as Rafe peels away. Your muscles prick from the weight you’d just carried as you drive past the partygoers coming back from watching fireworks.

“Holy shit,” Rafe chuckles, near elated. “We did it.”

You stare ahead, your head foggy.

This will haunt you for the rest of your life. The thought forces a torrent of dread through you worse than you’ve ever felt before.

What if you’d run out of the room when Rafe and Porter came in? What if you’d left Rafe to deal with the body on his own?

What if you’d never gone upstairs?

You’re destined to agonize over the what if’s of tonight forever.

You gaze down at the gun in your lap and hold your hands out in front of you, skin stinging from the bleach. You’d wiped away the blood, but you think you’ll always see it on your hands.

You figure out that it’s a good thing you left Porter’s phone. If he was sharing his location, you’re sure the police could track where it was last before you threw it into the sea with him. They’d know exactly where to look for his body.

“We should shut off our phones,” you realize. “I think they can track GPS history from cell towers.”

Rafe digs into his pocket, glancing down to watch the screen go black.

“How’d you think of that?” he mumbles with a laugh. “Is this not your first time doing this, Pogue?”

“Nothing about this is funny,” you reply.

“Relax,” he says. “We got away with it.”

“You can’t be so sure,” you say. “One fingerprint in that room and…”

You can’t think about it.

In the paroxysm of emotions you’re already feeling, guilt digs a hole into your stomach when you see Pope’s most recent text before you power off your phone.

Answer the phone. We’re worried.

·········

The clock on Rafe’s dashboard reads 10:44 when you reach the marina. He parks right by the main dock. The place seems quiet, the water crowded with seemingly unoccupied boats.

“I’ll take a walk around to make sure we’re alone,” he says, pulling his key out of the ignition.

The car door slams shut and you’re left with a gun in your lap, a body in the trunk, and your tormenting thoughts.

Maybe you missed something back in that room.

You picture Porter’s phone lighting up in the sand. His last text to you said to come upstairs. When the cops inevitably start searching for answers, you’ll be questioned.

A minute later, Rafe swings open your door, pulling you out of your daze. You meet his glare, his hair tousled and sweaty.

“We’re good,” he says. “Move.”

Having to haul the body over the dock past darkened, quiet boats is unnerving. Ater you leave it at the back of Rafe’s boat, you stand behind him at the helm.

Your arms are crossed and the gun is tucked by your elbow, because if you learned anything tonight, it’s that you can’t trust anyone.

Rafe’s still a man. A man who takes what he wants when he wants it. A man who killed someone because he didn’t obey him. He could hurt you if he wanted to. It’s best not to be alone with him.

“I should wait in the car,” you mumble. Rafe shakes his head in frustration, driving the boat forward. The boat’s motor hums as you rock with its movements.

“No,” he mutters condescendingly. It reminds you of why underneath the stubborn pull you’ve always felt towards him, you’ve also harbored a quiet fear. Rafe is violent. Possibly enough to hurt you the same way Porter did.

You feel for the gun again. If two men have to die tonight, so be it. The fact that your mind went there chills you.

Rafe looks over at you, lips twisting in annoyance.

“Don’t feel bad for that asshole,” he mutters. “He asked for it.”

It’s the worst possible thing he could’ve said. Your throat is raw with the threat of tears. Asked for it. Would he say the same about what happened to you?

“I don’t regret it,” you tell him, sure that he’s assuming that that’s why you’re so tense. “I’m just worried we missed something.”

“If we did, nothin’ we can do about it now,” he says. You look ahead at the dark sea, moonlight shining over the water’s ripples.

“We need to figure our story out,” you say. “How’d you end up upstairs? Did anyone see you?”

“I stopped him while everyone was going outside to watch the show,” he recalls. “Told him to show me where he was keeping his coke because I heard he was selling again. It was loud. I don’t think anyone heard, but maybe someone saw. I don’t know.”

“Why do you sell?” you ask, face pinched in confusion. “Why did you even care that he was selling, too? You don't have enough money already?”

“I gotta keep your tips coming, don’t I?” he says smugly. You scoff, jarred by his blasé attitude, despising his cold arrogance.

He notices the angry scowl on your face. He’s convinced he’ll never break through the hatred you have for him.

“I want to make my own money. That’s why,” he admits. It’s half the truth, but it’s good enough.

It’s surprising to hear that Rafe, a man you thought coasted on the wealth he was born into, possesses a work ethic. Even though he uses it to deal drugs.

“Did anyone see you go upstairs?” he asks.

“I don’t think so,” you say.

“Why were you there?”

You chew on your lip, the truth sitting on your chest like a ton of bricks. There’s no point in telling him. He thinks your motive was the same as his. Money. And you’ll let him believe it.

Besides, talking about it now, merely an hour afterwards, will only make you cry again and your head is pounding from how much you’ve already wept tonight. How could you possibly say it out loud?

“To buy pot. Then I smoked too much and passed out.” You keep talking before he can ask anything else. “Are we far out enough?”

Rafe looks back to make sure the marina is out of sight before he kills the engine.

Pushing Porter’s body over the guardrail is harder than the other times you’d carried him tonight. The water is rocking the boat so much now that you’re far into the ocean. Your breath is strained as you heave him over the metal, his body hitting the water with a loud splash under the bright moon.

Rafe pulls out the bullet shell in his pocket and tosses it in the water. You know you have to throw the gun in, too. It’s hard to. But you do it.

Rafe looks over the edge now that everything is sinking to the bottom, his forearm brushing against yours. He notices how quickly you jerk away, refusing to let him touch you. The pull he feels towards you is obviously one-sided. Your eyes flit away when you look at him.

“You have blood on your face,” you tell him soberly. His temper flares, feeling stupid for thinking a girl could feel anything but afraid of him after he shot someone right in front of her. Even though she was the one who told him to do it.

You might have a deadly thirst for revenge in common, but that’s where the similarities end. He stalks past you to wash himself off in the bathroom below the deck.

You let out a shaky breath. The unexpected contact with Rafe startled you. After tonight, you’re sure you’ll always be scared to be around men you don’t know all that well. Even the ones that seem decent are just lions in sheep’s clothing. The monster that proved that to you is below the ocean’s surface now.

You look into the murky water, and despite the fear and the anxiety and dread weighing on your heart, you’re glad that this is how it ended. Porter paid the ultimate price for what he did to you. He doesn’t deserve to live, to smile, to feel anything ever again.

·········

You and Rafe sit behind the hull, the boat swaying with the tide. You start to piece together an alibi and decide to admit you were upstairs together. If even one person says they saw either one of you go up there, you won’t be caught in a lie.

As you talk, Rafe can’t take his eyes off of you. You’re clearly scared, but trying to stay level-headed. He doesn’t get how you do it. He’s always been bad at keeping his mind steady. He never had a reason to even try.

“So, I went up first after he texted me to come buy from him,” you say, hoping your voice doesn’t shake. “I got high and passed out. Then you came up with him to find his stash. We’re obviously going to have to come clean about the drugs.”

“What do you mean obviously?”

“You’re going to be a suspect the second the police start talking to people,” you tell him. “Everyone knows you had an issue with him. And why. You can’t lie about the coke. And they’ll have evidence that I was buying weed from him. We have to be honest about it. They’ll find out anyway.”

Rafe sighs, knowing you’re right.

You hug yourself as a cool breeze carries over the water. The weakness in your gaze reminds Rafe of the way you’d cried on the floor earlier tonight. Before all this, he only ever saw you as strong-willed and sharp-tongued.

Even though calming a man like Rafe down when he’s angry sounds like it’d be impossible, you figure it’s the only direction your alibi can go.

“We’ll say I talked you down and…” You shake your head. “It doesn’t make sense that we’d stay up there. I think we say we left him in his room and sat on the beach alone in front of the house to watch the fireworks from there.”

You worry it’s not enough. You’re certain that no one who knows either one of you would buy that you voluntarily spent time together.

“Maybe the cops would believe we hung out,” you mumble, “but nobody else would.”

Rafe stills. His friends like to give him crap about how much time he spends talking to you when he supposedly hates Pogues. If he told them he was with you all night, they’d say they saw it coming.

“They could,” he says after a few seconds of silence.

“My friends would never believe it,” you scoff. He purses his lips, pissed off at your tone, at the clear implication that you talk shit about him with your friends.

“It’s our only option,” he mutters sharply.

“You’re right,” you give in. “Then what? We went home before people got back? I guess that way if anyone saw us leave together, we have it covered.”

“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “That’s the story.”

“Okay. It’s not great, but it’s the best we can do.” You check your phone for the time, only to remember it’s turned off. “Can you drive me home now? I’ll say my phone died. You should do the same when people ask where you’ve been.”

Rafe doesn’t admit to you that nobody was checking up on him, that nobody ever does. He only stands up to drive back to the dock.

·········

Your first priority when you get home is to text your friends, guilt consuming you now that it’s been over two hours since you last saw them and they have no idea what happened to you.

You turn on your phone to see a string of missed calls and texts from the guys. You open the group-chat and type: I’m so sorry. I’m okay. Got too high and lost track of time. Home now.

They video call you to be sure that you really made it home safe, drunkenly rambling on about how they assumed you went to see the fireworks early, leaving them to search the neighbor’s beach for you.

As you listen to them talk over each other on the phone, it’s the first time you see your reflection since you left the house, when you were oblivious to the fact that the impending hours would change you forever.

You can see it in your eyes that you’re not the same. You can only hope that they don’t catch on.

·········

It’s been three days. You haven’t been sleeping. You’ve hardly been eating. And no matter how many times you tell yourself there’s no use in thinking about how different the night could have turned out, it doesn’t stop your head from spinning into hypotheticals.

All you told your friends was that you were with a boy and that they didn’t need to know any more. Because they all see you as a sister, they were happy to be spared the details.

If only they knew. A few nights ago, you promised them you wouldn’t talk about Rafe ever again. You never would’ve thought the reason would be because you’d committed a crime together.

You’re back at work. Smiling and chatting and serving drinks and acting like everything is fine is harder than you expected.

The thought of seeing Rafe again is oddly comforting. No matter how twisted it is, you have a bond now, held together by secrecy and shared trauma. He’s the closest to knowing what you’re going through.

Even though you were afraid of him on the boat, when he dropped you off, he waited until you got into the house before he drove off. Maybe he sees you as someone he needs to protect, even if it is for his own selfish reasons.

No matter how unhinged he is, having someone like him in your corner is comforting after what you’d suffered through.

You spot Rafe sitting alone at the near empty club bar on your way out and your heart settles, but when you catch a glimpse of the flatscreen mounted on the wall a moment later, it drops. You knew it was inevitable, but it doesn’t make it any better.

Rafe swallows bitter whiskey, gazing up at the tv. Under a photo of Porter reads MISSING as his parents speak to the press. What if he went missing? Who’d care? What would his dad say – at least it wasn’t Sarah?

He looks down at the bartop. The thrill of what he did has faded. It’s not a surprise. His life is nothing but a cycle of short-lived highs.

When he sees the look on Porter’s parents’ faces on the tv, jealousy and loneliness screw a hole into his heart. He knows it’s fucked up to envy the man he killed. He doesn’t care.

His eyes drift over the bar to see you standing on the other end. You’re in shock as you stare up at the broadcast, looking guilty as hell. He glares at you until you finally meet his eyes.

Rafe curtly gestures to you to sit next to him. Even though he looks mad, you’re relieved to close the distance between you.

“You’re being obvious,” he says quietly once you sit next to him, an edge to his tone.

You look back to see only a few other people sitting in the restaurant area behind you, far from earshot. You won’t be heard, but you both know you have to speak vaguely just in case.

“Someone I know is missing,” you reply. “It’s normal to be worried about that.”

“What do you know about normal?” he scoffs.

You lock eyes, sure that you’re both replaying the night in your minds, sure that you’re both far from sane after what you did. His gaze is cold, a reflection of how angry he is that you’re not handling what happened as well as he is.

“Great talking to you,” you snip sarcastically, shifting to stand up.

“Wait,” he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. He looks at you again, this time with a bit of the hardness in his eyes gone. “We need to talk.”

next >

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[wallterwall]

day 32

if you like my (cybrthrillz) content, please read this

tw for self harm and suicidal ideation

i want to take a break

this is not a victory or a win for anyone. if anything all of the harassment and relentless targeted hate has only made me even more motivated to make this little space ive created a more accepting place, and i will continue to be a voice of support for "weird and contradictory" queer identities because we all deserve to be happy and accepted

but, for a long time ive been putting myself in harms way, generally neglecting my own needs for the sake of other people, because i dont care about what happens to me as long as other people are happy and safe, and right now i dont think i can keep pushing myself like that anymore. im tired

i havent had a s/h problem since middle school but now those urges are resurfacing again when i thought id never have to deal with that again

i havent been able to relax or enjoy any of my time without having dreadful thoughts in the back of my mind

ill probably be changing things going forward too, or maybe things wont be changing at all. i dont know. i just know that i want to try and relax and watch those movies ive been meaning to watch and play more video games without feeling guilty that im not using my time for drawing.

the controversies have wounded me a lot but unfortunately regretevator is still my main hyperfixation so ill have trouble getting myself to draw anything else and i dont think i want to really avoid it. so ill still be drawing, but ill be drawing for myself without really worrying about posting schedules. ill still be active on discord, tumblr, instagram

im not going to kill myself today, nor am i going to in the future. because whether some people want to believe it or not, i know and my friends know that i always try my best to be a considerate and kind, overall good person. i know that i genuinely have positively impacted many people in life. i hope that ill be able to go back to regularly posting soon with a clearer state of mind because your support has genuinely improved my life both emotionally and financially, and i couldnt be more grateful.

but right now, its okay to be a little selfish for my sake. and i hope that you all can understand and be patient with me. thanks for stickin around

[envies-writing-corner]

Hello, Stranger

Genre: (F, A)

Includes: Mysta, Kyo, Shu

Word Count: 650

TW: mentioned Death, Meet-Cute cringe?

Concept/Title explained: Soulmate AUs

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

Mysta Rias: Red String

Mysta would not believe you if you told him he would wake up to find a red string attached to his pinky and it would lead here. He wouldn’t believe it for a second. Maybe that’s why it was so difficult to grasp the fact that it was true.

As the detective stepped out of the car, he looked towards his hand, the string growing tighter, leading into the graveyard in front of him. Every fiber of his being was begging that it wasn’t what he thought, that his soulmate was just visiting someone. Everyone knew soulmates were something important, that only one person was meant to be with the other end of the red string. He’d heard of how it’s supposed to be a magical moment when you meet your forever partner for the first time, his own friends Fulgur and Uki having tried to explain how it felt when they met in person. This moment was anything but a joyful fairytale scene as his string went taught, pausing in front of a grave.

Shock pierced through Mysta as he fell to his knees, unable to comprehend the words on the tombstone in front of him, desperately trying to pull the string from the packed dirt, giving up as it wouldn’t give. This was reality, his soulmate was dead… and he had found them too late.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry you died without me...”

Kyo Kaneko: Colorblind

For as long as Kyo could remember, the world had been dull and void of life. He had believed it to be because of his illnesses, that because of his constant hospitalizations the world just didn’t seem as it once did to him. When he was accepted as a member of Iluna, he quickly realized that wasn’t the case. His friends bustled with life, joy and excitement, just to make their fans and each other feel happy. They had always spoke of the colorful world they’d lived in, how Ren’s world was all black and blue, how Aster seemed to shine in his purple outfits, how soft Maria looked with her pink accents. Kyo wondered if he’d ever experience the beautiful world his friends kept gushing about.

Nothing prepared him for that day though, when a new student had joined the Iluna institute, his world bursting into color like an explosion, his eyes immediately landing on you and your beauty.

"That stranger...”

Shu Yamino: Timer

Shu’s timer always confused him. It never seemed to tick down, not by a second, minute, hour, or day. The clock on his wrist never changed. It didn’t help when he was thrown years forward into the future. In fact, when he did get transported, he forgot about the timer, not once checking it since he joined Luxiem.

When the topic of timers came up on stream a year later during a Zomboid collab, everyone had revealed what their timer said. Some, like Nina’s and Ren’s had already gone off, while others like Alban’s and Wilson’s had years to go. Shu could feel his heart in his throat when he noticed his only had a few more minutes. He wracked his brain, trying to think of who was part of the collab he hadn’t met, who was running late. His answer came a minute later, his timer down to under a minute when his doorbell rang. Muting his stream and running to the door, he saw you. You hadn’t noticed your timers going off as you looked at your phone, seemingly confusing the house with your friends as you look up, slightly annoyed.

Everything was in slow motion when you looked up, eyes locking with purple as your phone fell, quickly looking at your wrist then Shu’s as everything became clearer. He smiled, picking up your phone and handing it back to you, a teasing tone to his voice.

“Hello, stranger...”

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

A/N: thank you for your patience regarding new fics, I would like to state that due to recent news regarding Mysta Rias’ graduation, I will no longer write for Mysta unless requested, similar to how I write for Yugo. Until his graduation date, please support him and the rest of Luxiem through this difficult time, and stream Detect My Love. ~Iris

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

have you ever broken up with someone? i need to do it for mental health reasons (we're still quite in love) and it's obvs really hard. do you or the maggots have any ideas?

Hey anon maggot! I have, yeah, a few times, and the last time was kind of similar to your situation. It was a really healthy relationship and I loved them but I was in an awful space mentally and I had to break up with them. I'll put it in after the uh advice so you can read it if you want.

So my advice:

1. Be very clear about the breakup, and about your intentions for the future. Make sure both of you understand that you are ending it, don't sugarcoat that part. Don't call it taking time or a break or anything other than breaking up. You're ending the relationship.

2. Explain the reason for you breaking up, but make sure the fact that you still have feelings for each other doesn't make it seem like there's any leeway about the breakup. You are breaking up. If less detail is better, then do that.

3. I know opinions are divided on this, but in my past relationships I've always found that you should cut off contact for a good while, rather than "stay friends". It's not helpful while you're getting better and they're getting over you, you both need space. Maybe you can be friends later when the relationship is properly in the past. But that's later.

4. Be prepared for it to fucking suck. It hurts, a lot. And you'll know it's hurting the other person too. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's the wrong choice. It's just that you cared about each other and the relationship was valuable. That's a good thing. Let yourself be upset without trying to fix the situation. Don't go back and forth and make it messier for both you and them. You'll miss them. That's normal. The breakup was still needed.

5. Take care of yourself. Talk to people you love. Know that you'll be okay, eventually. The pain heals and becomes bittersweet. You become grateful for the good parts. You begin to see the situation clearer. But all of that shit takes time, and give yourself that time.

6. You'll have to become okay with letting go of the other person and accepting that maybe they will blame you or be hurt or will never want to talk to you again. It sucks and their feelings are entirely valid, but you still have to choose what's better for you and for both of you in the long run.

Take care of your mental health, anon maggot. Been there. Survive it. Sending all the love and healing. I hope it goes okay, as okay as it can be anyway, and take whatever is helpful from this advice and discard the rest. <3

The breakup story under the cut:

So like I said, i was in a healthy relationship with someone whom I loved and who had been my best friend before that. But i was very ill mentally and physically, and i had to end it.

However, I fudged it up, kind of, because it was a couple of months before a major exam for me, and I said we needed to break up until then at least. They understood because I hadn't been in contact with people for a month at that point, and that was upsetting them too. So we broke up, except, well...

I didn't end up getting better, if anything i got worse. And I think they were waiting for me and were... excited for after the exam. I found this out through a mutual friend and I had to tell the friend to tell them that we weren't really going to get back together.

Long story short, we still wish each for our birthday via a message forwarded by the mutual friend. But they don't want any further contact with me and it took them a very long time to feel okay. I still feel guilty for how I ended it, even if it was best I could with the mental space I was in then.

So yeah, from that experience and my past breakups, I learned a lot and hence the advice. Take care <3

[threefolddefencespeech]

WorldCon!

So - WorldCon's over. I'm safely back home, very tired, only mildly ill, definitely getting the con drop or at least experiencing far too many post con emotions (what do you mean there won't be another one nearby for five years?). So perfect time to write a bit about it. I'm not going to get everything in here, but let's ramble incoherently about some highlights.

The Hugos

My spouse (and the rest of their team) won a Hugo! I am so proud and happy for them - it is, I say with incredible bias and no objectivity, very very well deserved. How could getting to celebrate that not be a highlight?

So. Let's move on to some book opinions. This year, I managed to read almost all of the best novel finalists (bar Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, which I'm still a few chapters into and ping ponging off. Let's say I'm pretty sure where my opinion was going to lie). So I get to have some more detailed opinions than most years, which is fun/regrettable for anyone who got an earful from me about Starter Villain!

It's always interesting to see what makes the Hugo shortlist. This year, a truly massive gulf emerged between my two favourites, the middle-of-the-roads, and one real "no, really, why was this here?" option.

Out in front were Saint of Bright Doors (Vajra Chandrasekera) and Some Desperate Glory (Emily Tesh). I can already see this post getting enormous, so I'll try and be quick (this is a lie).

Saint of Bright Doors is wonderful - the first chapter introduces us to a clear chosen one narrative, with Fetter raised with a destiny: to kill his cult leader father. The second rejects it utterly. Fetter ignores his destiny and his mother's calls, and immigrates to a city - one that has elements of socialist ideal, but gradually reveals more and more of itself to be a fascist police state, and in every case is wonderfully strange. He joins a group of fellow religious "unchosen ones". He drifts. His father's cult grows in influence, and threatens to pull him once more into orbit - but this is not so conventional a story as to fully let it. And he becomes fascinated with the city's bright doors, which lead nowhere, and are unopenable. In a less talented writer's hands, this would feel disjointed. Instead it's wonderful - a dreamy-but-grounded, mythic-but-real story of aimless reality pitted against religious destiny, of cults and pogroms and the structures that lie beneath the world. I have my problems with the ending. But had I liked it more, I suspect it would have been a worse book.

Some Desperate Glory tells a story of a militarised future human society, living to avenge the Earth. It is also, in many ways, a cult. Where Some Desperate Glory particularly succeeds is that its protagonist isn't an outlier. How many dystopias have you read in which the lead is an outcast, or always felt subtly wrong in the society, never quite fit in? But Kyr is in so many ways this future society's model citizen. Which makes her growth - her experimentation in the wider world - and the ways in which this society still abuses her, and still fails her because she can't live up to its ideals, far more powerful. She's not a comfortable head to make a home in, at least to start with, but it's a far better novel for that. While what the novel's doing is far clearer than Saint, it does go to some interesting places - and explores these cultish power structures on various scales. I have quibbles and gripes. Do I wish more page space had been devoted to developing the novel's visions of alternative versions of Kyr, rather than slamming in character development in fast forward? Yes, and I would have happily sacrificed a few big action setpieces (which is where I suspect that space went) to get there. But it's still a powerful book.

Saint definitely my preference there, but both worthy winners.

Then we had the middle of the pack.

Leckie's Translation State was... fine? I expected more, though. We had some alien weirdness, but it was wrapped around a story which had the exact same plot arc as a typical YA arranged marriage novel, with the characters ending up in exactly the same places you'd expect. Aside from one, who simply gets forgotten about. It was perfectly pleasant, but revolutionising the genre this is not.

Martha Wells' Witch King is a secondary world fantasy, told with a flashback-interweaving-with-present-events structure, in a way that's far more evenly balanced between the two narratives than most, with the past narrative holding most of the explanation of characters and relationships highly relevant to the present. However, it fails to really make it work - it sacrifices a lot of character development and foreshadowing for the actual plot to get this structure working, which means the actual key revelations fall a little flat when they come. It's not a bad book! There's some fun magic system stuff, some mildly interesting possession-of-different-gendered body stuff... but it's not life changing, just a fun attempted structural twist on an otherwise pretty classic secondary world fantasy.

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi - well, it's a middle eastern pirate fantasy. The historical inspiration is great here - rich and vibrant. But the prose is clunky - it's doing Historical Feminism but in a really obvious, unsubtle way that's clearly just 2024 views projected backwards, or at least that's how it seems from the "ah, we mens often think x about a powerful lady, don't we?" narrator chapter. I like engaging with these topics, but can I wish for a bit more nuance and some better writing? Mind you, I'm only a few chapters into this one, and keep bouncing off. It might get better when I push through. From what others have said, I doubt it - but I can't really say. I'm maybe being harsh from initial impressions here.

So most of this middle group are small twists or weirdnesses upon otherwise pretty familiar genre novels.

Then there's Starter Villain, which is the only "really, why is this here?" novel of the list. I suspect just because Scalzi's a big name in SFF, and name recognition gets you a long way at the nomination stage. While I might quibble with the middle group - probably there was more interesting SFF published last year? - this was a novel-length shaggy dog story. It's not funny enough to be farce or satire - but it's not doing anything else. The protagonist's main defining traits are "very divorced", "likes cats", and I suppose "vaguely nice". Everyone speaks in the same way. And this goes nowhere - other than a few jokes about dolphins and venture capitalists along the way. Maybe if this hadn't been up for the Hugo, I wouldn't have hated this so much. But I expected something. This was my first Scalzi, and I probably won't choose to repeat the experience.

So, how'd the voting turn out? Some Desperate Glory won, which I vaguely suspected - felt like it had broader appeal as a slightly more traditional novel than Saint of Bright Doors anyway. But Hugo votership, why did you do Saint quite so dirty? It's so far down the list. On the other hand - faith marginally restored by Starter Villain ending up in a clear last place.

Which is to say: probably good job overall, Hugo votership, but you're on some shaky ground. :P

The Panels

Panels! I went to lots of them. I was terribly sabotaged by my very first panel, Revolutions in Speculative Fiction, setting the bar far too high. I was largely picking panels based on people + a vaguely interesting topic, with a few exceptions. Ada Palmer's and Arkady Martine's definitely proved that method of panel picking works well.

...after Dublin, the other thing I learned (alongside picking based on people) was that I really shouldn't plan my con too inflexibly or intensively. So despite wanting to go to 4 things in every slot, I paced myself - I missed out on an interesting panel and went to hang out with people or Do Food occasionally, especially when emotion + tiredness demanded it, and I probably had a better con for it.

There were worse panels too. Several on interestingly nuanced topics had a tendency to regress into more basic topics - particularly into cultural appropriation 101. Cultural Appropriation 101 is not a bad panel topic! It's an incredibly necessary one. But it's also a panel I have been to several times now, and while I think other panels should certainly touch on it where relevant, I wanted a bit more than Different Topic 101 from "Ancient Cultures and Context" and the discussion of religion in fantasy, for instance.

Overall though, I had a good time with the panels - even when frustrating (cough, Scalzi showboating and talking over other panelists in "Systems as Villains" when he didn't actually have anything to say, cough), they were fuel for conversation with interesting people, and there were some truly interesting ideas in there too. Maybe I'll manage to incorporate a few into my own writing. I hope so.

Self-Indulgent Gender Stuff

I'll try not to ramble about this too much, but it was pretty significant to my con experience. This was my first con since coming out as a trans woman (it also coincided with my 1 year anniversary of starting HRT). Honestly, coming up to it, I was pretty stressed - despite knowing on paper that a substantial part of WorldCon is queer nerds, it didn't quite make it through to my brain, or at least I suppose endocrine system (I worry about my appearance anyway, and was just coming off a bit of a doomspiral about my features at the 12 month mark, which may not have helped!).

But everyone was genuinely very nice about it - including everyone I already knew, but who hadn't seen me since pre-transition. And you know, it did feel really good to be able to present the way I actually wanted to at other cons (pre transition, I can't deny a certain - large - amount of envy at fem con + cosplay outfits, and I actually get to do some of that now). I even got some compliments on my outfits, which was very flattering (plus one person inexplicably wanting to draw me at the Hugo afterparty).

Did that stop me from worrying? Silly question. I still spent a lot of the con convinced I looked terrible in so, so many ways, and had to frequently borrow some reassurance from spouse and friend (I'm so sorry). There were a few low points. But I'm so glad I did it. Hopefully the start of many more cons presenting more comfortably.

Plus, I have discovered a great secret. My terrible dancing is drastically improved by the addition of a swooshy skirt. (Well, maybe some other stuff helped too, but I'll go with that)

People

I've talked a lot about official, organised things where I was there as a spectator: panels, the Hugos. But really, so much of WorldCon is just spending time with lovely people.

I got to do lots of the con with spouse and a soon-to-be-ex-Oxford friend, who I have really fond memories of doing other cons with. Lots of silly late night dancing. Lots of in depth discussions, from the deeply absurd to the (maybe) absurdly deep (or maybe just the former all over again). I got to see other Oxford friends in the magic con zone! @frith-in-tombs between track stuff and @vivelabagatelle occasionally too.

I got to catch up with other friends, especially the ex-Oxford folks! It was lovely to spend more time with @howlsmovinglibrary again (who also ran some excellent panels, and has definitely sold me on this villainess book), as well as Entourage, @cardboardmoose, and others (if I haven't named you explicitly it's probably because I thought the only way I've got of naming you might be too identifiable, and I don't know your name on here).

I got to meet new people, which honestly is one of the best things at a con. I spent a lovely night chatting to @canmom about all sorts of diversely interesting things, from opera to game design - completely unexpectedly after inexplicably working up the courage to venture a "hey, you're not [tumblr name] on tumblr, are you?" (at least I didn't comment on anybody's shoelaces, is all I can say in my defence). I met a distant friend from Discord and compared very different con plans - and a truly excellent crocheted Mr Pages. I chatted with a few more in panels. I finally got to hang out with Roseanna more than in passing (typically we've wound up communicating only through a mutual friend, Entourage since we've never really overlapped properly - I remember back when she asked me about reviewing, and look how the tables have tabled!) and had a great time dissecting the Hugos. (Another very well deserved Hugo win btw). I also learned that apparently I was referred to frequently as DAF by her and said friend, and she's completely forgotten what it stood for? I have a pressing need to solve this mystery.

And of course, there are some friends I dearly miss being able to con with too. Perhaps one day we'll be able to do so again.

What Next?

As I mentioned, so many post-con emotions! Five years really is too long between travellable worldcons for my liking.

Which means resolution 1 is: maybe I should do more cons? While flying transatlantic for WorldCon feels like a Lot, I've never made it to an Eastercon before, and I think I'd like to.

I've also reached out to plan a few meetups with nearby-ish worldcon people like Roseanna - I miss the con energy, and I think I'd like to get some more chats about books and such in my life. (Alas, distance remains a barrier for yet others!)

I also want to engage with more SFF writing - I read a fair few novels, but I feel like I miss out on a lot of reviews and criticism these days, and I miss that.

And as always, I come away wanting to put more energy into my own creative work - I've been planning a bigger IF-ish game (than my small silly/gift games I've made) for a long time, and maybe this is the time I'll manage the sustained effort to make it happen (and feel like I have My Own Stuff next WorldCon!). Hehe. Well, I can dream, anyway.

I should probably also catch up on sleep at some point.

It was a wonderful, exhausting, fascinating con - thank you to everyone who made it happen, whether more generally, or for me specifically. :)

[s0leinis]

── .✦ 𝔤𝔞𝔟𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔩 𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔰 𝔟𝔦𝔬𝔤𝔯𝔞𝔭𝔥𝔶

⟡ — is that GABRIEL ANDRIES i just saw walking around kilmer’s cove? i heard they’re a RESIDENT who’s been here for TEN YEARS. it slipped my mind, since they just tend to hang out at THE INN. at face value, they’re said to be CHARISMATIC and INTELLIGENT, but i don’t know… some people have said they can be quite CONDESCENDING and SELF-RIGHTEOUS. just don’t get on their bad side, i guess! don’t tell them i told you this, but i’ve heard they DO NOT believe in all the ghost stories around town. who knows what the future holds for them! (sophie, she/her, gmt-8)

full name: gabriel andries hometown: new york city, ny sexuality: painfully hetero (everyone boos) gender: cisman, he/him occupation: detective birthday: august 25th, 1988 zodiac: virgo (everyone boos again) height: 5'10" languages spoken: english face claim: nick sagar

── .✦ background

gabriel andries was the eldest of five children born to bernice and herman andries. he grew up with strict, religious parents who instilled in him the importance of following the rules. this upbringing gave gabriel a strong sense of right and wrong. being the oldest of five children, he also felt he had an obligation to protect.

after graduating high school, gabriel chose to enroll in the police academy, and in the years that followed, he applied to become a detective. he loved his career, relishing the opportunity to solve mysteries and serve his community. however, he soon found that the emotional toll of his job was becoming overwhelming.

one day, while on duty, gabriel was called to a particularly horrific crime scene. as he worked on the case, he uncovered several details that led him into morally grey territory. the weight of the investigation haunted him, causing him to lose sleep and, ultimately, pushing him to his breaking point.

realizing he needed to make a change, gabriel faced a dilemma: he couldn’t envision an identity beyond that of a detective. instead of abandoning his career altogether, he decided to seek a position in a much quieter, neighboring town. gabriel quit his job and applied for a position in kilmer's cove, hoping to finish out his career working on smaller, clearer-cut cases that would restore his peace of mind.

── .✦ personality

gabriel is smart but he knows it which is the worst kind of smart. he often uses his job as a way to try on flex on others but mostly to impress women. he is a pathological flirt and physically cannot help himself. turns the charm on by tenfold to get what he wants. he plays emotions as a joke because that's what they are to him ! he hates being perceived as weak! gabriel feels he has a really good judge of morality, but this job has clearly shown him that life isn't black/white.

── .✦ headcanons

has a three legged dog named scout

loves the outdoors, if he could he would spend days alone camping and fishing and what have you

why do i feel like he would love to gossip and weigh in on reality tv show commentary

i'll add more here later!

── .✦ connections

unlikely duo

past situationships/exes

friends

scallywags and hooligans in the area

enemies

maybe a mentorship situation?? with work??

uhhhmfuhhhh

ill add more later <3

[keezybees]

Hi! I follow you across social media and I really love your art and am super looking forward to reading Hello Sunshine! I wanted to reach out because I'm also Bipolar and I really appreciate the work you do to spread awareness about it but there's something that I find kind of harmful in how you talk about it, and it's just the insistance that it absolutely can't be treated through non-medical means. I fully understand that meds are life-saving and that depending on the severity of symptoms, length, and frequency of episodes, going without medication can be lethal. However, as someone with Bipolar I but controlled symptoms (and frankly symptoms that seem a lot less disruptive than yours, I'm sorry), hearing that there's no path forward without medication would easily have triggered suicidal thoughts when I was younger. There are a lot of reasons why people can't be medicated (for me it was a combination of family control and financial struggle), but hearing at your lowest that there's no way forward without something that you can't have is really damaging. I think it's totally possible to stress the importance of medical access and the need to work with your medical provider without erasing the ways that non-medical treatments can also be life-saving, depending on a person's situation/symptoms/etc and that some people can live full lives even if their symptoms aren't fully controlled. Anyway, I love your work and I just wanted to raise this alternate perspective because I think you're helping a lot of people, but I also think a lot of people can be harmed by this rhetoric, especially marginalized people who can't seek medication for any number of factors beyond their control.

Hi Anon! I totally hear what you're saying, and so I just wanted to run through a few things to clarify my stance, both for you and for others who might be reading this (omg I am SO sorry this is so long though haha):

I do emphasize treatment a lot, because I think it's really important for people to work with professionals to find ways to manage their illness. This is partly due to my own experience (I avoided treatment for a looong time) and anecdotally, but also because the research we have is pretty clear--untreated bipolar has much, much worse outcomes for a vast majority of people. However! When I say treatment, I don't necessarily mean medication, and certainly not only medication! I absolutely think some people (though it is sadly rare) can find ways of managing their illness medication-free. I just feel that it's best to do this work with the help of professionals + peers (whether that's a psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, social worker, support group, etc) who can help you find your way, and help you manage symptoms that do crop up (this is especially true if you're currently on medication and choosing to go off of it, since that can come with physical risks). I could definitely stand to make this distinction a lot clearer though, and I'll try to be more mindful of it in the future.

I also can definitely see how my words could imply that I think non-medication ways of treating bipolar aren't valuable, and I'll work on my phrasing going forward, because they absolutely are! My aim is not to dismiss stuff like self-help or lifestyle changes or meditation or exercise, because I think they're great--for example, that kind of stuff has helped a ton with my anxiety and overall quality of life, and I know for a lot of people they help with their bipolar symptoms. But for me, these things simply don't have much of an impact on the bipolar, and our culture's emphasis on them frustrates me because it prevented me from getting proper care for a very long time, and made me feel like a failure for not being able to control my symptoms despite working so hard. So I'll also try to be more clear in the future about whether I'm venting about my own situation vs speaking broadly.

I also definitely hope I've never said anything that implies that our symptoms are inevitably life-ruining! My symptoms aren't completely controlled (particularly my lows), either, and I like to think I live a pretty good life. I think for many people un-treated bipolar can be life-ruining, and I've just heard too many stories about people who thought they could manage on their own only to have an absolutely devastating manic episode to not warn people of the risk. But most of us will continue to experience some degree of symptoms throughout our lives, absolutely.

I totally understand why someone would want to go med-free, or at least try it, and I in no way think the medications we have now are flawless haha. Side effects are awful, life-changing, and can even be life-threatening (I've had some horrible experiences with side effects myself); the meds we have now aren't very effective against depressive episodes for a lot of people (myself included), and for some people they're not effective at all; meds for most people don't completely eradicate symptoms, etc. I'm fully on board with the med struggle, and I honestly spend a lot of time criticizing the options available to us, though less so publicly, since I don't want to further stigmatize the idea of taking psych meds in general!

One of the reasons I emphasize medication (when I do emphasize meds, specifically) is because when I was younger, I was terrified of even the idea of them. I avoided it for years and really, really suffered because of it. I think our culture does in general look down on psych meds, particularly the kind we usually take, so I'm trying to destigmatize the concept of them, and emphasize for people with similar fears that taking meds can be just as life-saving and healing as they are harmful and frustrating, and that it's at least worth trying.

I'm a YA cartoonist (and former teacher, barista at a youth coffeehouse, tutor, I worked for a kids' gaming website...actually all of my jobs apart from dishwashing have involved kids, now that I think of it lmao), so a lot of the time when I'm talking about this stuff on social media, my target audience is sort of...very young people and kids who think they have bipolar (or may have even been diagnosed) but are afraid to seek help and/or don't think they need help and/or don't think help is going to actually help. So my goal is to demystify and normalize the idea of taking meds and/or seeking treatment for those people, and to emphasize that just because they're able to manage their illness now, that might change in the future, and imo they need to be aware of the very real risks, which includes things like an incredibly high suicide rate for unmedicated individuals, and the reality that the illness can be progressive (episodes can get worse and harder to treat the more you have them--they certainly did for me, and I wish I had been more open to the idea much earlier).

On a similar note, it's also important to recognize that a lot of things can look like bipolar, and a lot of people don't really know what bipolar actually looks like to begin with (particularly if you're getting your info from tiktok or similar). So if you've self-diagnosed and never explored treatment options (emphasis on options!) you can easily be missing stuff like thyroid issues, epilepsy, brain tumors, vitamin deficiencies, or a myriad of other treatable mental illnesses that mimic bipolar, and I strongly believe that people deserve care and help for whatever they're struggling with, including the possibility that it isn't bipolar at all!

Finally, I truly hope I've never said anything that comes off like I'm looking down on or judging people who choose to not be medicated for whatever reason! If it works for you then that's phenomenal (I'm jealous tbh) but it's honestly none of my business haha. When I talk about this stuff I do try to stress most people, because we're of course not a monolith, and when I say something like 'a majority of people with bipolar will need some form of medication to flourish' I don't mean to dismiss those who aren't in that majority. It's more that I want people to be open to the idea that they're not failures for needing meds, that they're actually in very good company, as well as to combat the 'just meditate! or try harder!' narrative that's so prevalent in our culture.

Edit: one last thought, which is that part of my target audience is also parents or guardians whose kids might be struggling--kids are obviously the group with the least access to treatment on their own terms. My hope is that talking about my experiences and discussing the risks will help motivate guardians to get help for their kids, and also help motivate kids to seek their own treatment as soon as they're able. Most people develop bipolar in their late teens and early 20s (though my first hypomanic ep was at 16), so it's a relatively small percentage of folks in this situation, but I do see how a kid whose parents aren't willing to help them could take my words badly, so I'll try to keep that in mind!

I'm definitely going to be more careful about how I phrase things going forward, because I can absolutely see how my intent could be lost. Hopefully this clears things up a bit (although it's also possible that we simply disagree, and I think that's okay too--like I said, our community is not a monolith, and a lot of these conversations are fundamentally ongoing)!

tldr; I'll make an effort to watch my words so that it's clear that my target audience really isn't my bipolar peers, and that the target of my criticisms is anti-medication wellness culture + psych med stigma, not the concept of non-medication alternatives or additions in general. And I'll try to do a better job of highlighting when I'm speaking only for myself vs our community as a whole!

[beefscrap]

I feel like it’s going to be important to say this and I should try to make it clearer for anyone who stumbles upon my story that ends up wanting to read + keep up: This story WILL handle a lot of mature topics

Where it’s at now, it’s not too heavy. I don’t want that to trick anyone. In the future if I keep going I plan to delve into adult themes: drinking, drug usage (natural stuff, not hard drugs), mental illness. YES it is WOF! Wof is targeted for kids but I’m abt to be a legal adult and my autistic ass still loves WOF and wants to write a story with my dragon ocs. However I personally focus on mature stuff a lot

Of course I’ll make it clear I’ll NEVER EVER have nsfw in my wof stories (or any feral stories) because that’s horrible and gross

But because of the other shit I don’t want to attract like . Middle schoolers to my writing. Very unorganized way to say this atm but I wanna put it out there now while it’s sort of early

I’ll probably edit my page for this warning to be at the forefront/just generally be clearer. I just worry about people reading it that shouldn’t! If anyone has thoughts abt this lemme know - I tend to get paranoid about stuff like this, so second opinions are welcome

[rigelmejo]

More progress updates, because I'm having fun!

Glossika japanese: did 1248 sentences, 10,055 reps so far, it says I'm High A1 20.4%. I believe that based on the sentence quality I am getting, they are A1 sentences vocabulary wise. The grammar includes various higher level stuff, but the vocabulary is fairly basic and mostly review of stuff I've learned before and just forgotten or gotten rusty with). Glossika has articles that claim a good first goal is 25,000 sentence repetitions for a noticeable improvement in speaking. So i'll give a little review on progress compared to glossika's claim, when I get to 25,000 reps. Their articles also indicate the eventual goal is to do 100,000 reps in glossika for speaking fluency (i'd argue i'll probably have B1 speaking skills at best by then, but glossika's app claims B2 or C1 so i'm going to score them a bit harshly regardless). I dont think it will be especially hard to do 100,000 reps, as Ive done 10k from around 1000 sentences, and the app has 6500+ sentences, so just going through all sentences ill be around 65,000 reps and then its just a few weeks of reviews.

Reading 默读 by priest: I've read 3 chapters now. Both extensively (not looking up words) and intensively (looking up every word I don't fully know/remember the definition of or pronunciation of). My conclusion is that I am comprehending about 86% percent (like yesterday's calculation) CLEARLY and then another 10% I can guess roughly what's going on and be close enough to use those guesses to learn, or I can guess based on the plot I remember. With that much at least roughly comprehended, it makes reading 默读 extensively doable if I want to do it. I recognize most the hanzi, so when I slow down and read very slowly, I understand closer to 90% of the words (just having forgotten pronunciation), and then using context guess the few unknown hanzi and the words they make, so there's not a huge hit in story understanding. If I read fast, reading along with audio as it plays, I make vaguer guesses about what descriptions mean that use hanzi I know/one I dont in ways I'm unfamiliar with. So far my guesses have been rough, but generally in the ballpark, so I've been able to keep reading without pausing to look stuff up if I choose to.

I am thinking of doing an experiment with 默读. I will read it while listening, because that forces me to practice reading at a faster pace (speaking speed). I will only look words up if I feel like it (so not all the time, probably only occasionally). And I will note if in 20 chapters, 40 chapters etc, I am noticing if I have "learned" significantly more words, noticing if I've gotten better at comprehending words I know quicker while following along to spoken speed (so clearer understanding). The idea of reading comprehensible material to you (say 95% words you know or more), is in theory you pick up more vocabulary through context, and improve reading skills, over the course of reading. Growing up, literature classes and reading assignments basically give you mostly comphrehensible materials to read and that's a major way your vocabulary and reading skills build in your native language. Yes, some classes make you look up vocabulary for a particular literature book assigned (or defined terms in a science textbook). But the vast majority of free reading time is: pick a book for your age level, teacher encourages something slightly challenging but comprehensible. I have read simpler chinese novels extensively, and made progress. But 默读 would probably be the highest unique-vocab book I'd try it with. The upside is? I could potentially learn more new vocabulary from this book. And then in the future it will make reading other stuff easier. So yeah, I'll update on progress later.

Read chapter 3 of 默读. Listened to modu audiobook chapters 1-3. I noticed my listening skills just... fucking suck lol. I can read so much better than I can listen. I was getfing through the audiobook based on phrases I recognized and the dialogues, despite being able to READ those chapters... listening to them I just couldnt recognize as many words. I will also be extensively listening to the audiobook, as see how much sheer Volume of audio listened to helps me improve. I guess on the upside: i used to not comprehend the audiobook much, so this does feel essier, even if its still miles away from full comprehension.

Other things of note:

i find it funny that after a week of getting back into things, im quietly saying the hanzi as i read again. Apparently pronunciatioj WAS locked in my read somewhere, it was just rustier than visual recognition.

I may watch Absolute BL/zettai bl season 3 in japanese. Since its out?!! It exists!!! Which is news to me. It isnt fully translated yet. However, my japanese sucks so i might fail miserably. I Cannot Reach You On Netflix would be another choice (wirh japanese subs available and english). But i miss Mobu. ToT

Its shockingly weird how much reading skill works? Like... it rusts and you "forget" but then if you use it, it always comes back within a week or two. Thats what happens with reading french for me, and apparently with chinese too. I havent read in 6 months ish. Last week I tried to read SCI, i was fucking terrible. Confused as hell, even though it should be easier than modu. Well this week I'm reading modu, which has more unique words in it, and it feels fine and doable and fairly okay to understand. And to be fair, part of that is I just am much more comfortable parsing priest's writing style. So I go back to try reading SCI again today. Well? Easy. What the fuck. It was barely parseable last week. Now I can read: 办公室的门在受到撞击前的一刹那打开了，两人刹车不及，直接摔了进去，双双落地，正中地板。就听楼下有人隔着窗户朝上大喊：“你们刑警队的就不能消停一天？再这样下去，哪天真的地震了，整个楼里的人都不知道跑啦……” 张龙和王朝从地板上爬起来，就见白玉堂手上端着杯咖啡，靠在办公桌边似笑非笑地看着他俩。just fine. It's easy. Okay then.

Oh and also. Tao rans name? 陶然 the fact its the same ran as huran/turan/mengran so many "suddenly" words that come up at the beginning of a sentence, and tao ran's name Also comes up at the beginning of sentences, keeps throwing me off when I listen.

[jessepinwheel]

so how's padme doing? is she contacting a divorce lawyer yet?

well no not quite yet

The life of a private investigator isn't as exciting as a lot of people make it out to be from the holodramas. I make most of my paycheck looking things up in the Hall of Records for my colleagues, and when I'm not doing that, I'm usually waiting in my office and catching up on some light reading. Not a terrible way to spend a day, but not exactly a profitable one, either.

On this lazy afternoon, I was reorganizing my office--Bail had gotten tired of buying me more shirts, or realized there was a hard limit to how many of them I could wear, so he had started dropping hints that maybe my furniture was getting a little worn out. So I figured if an unsolicited gift was in my future, it might as well be something I actually needed. I was checking my cupboards when someone knocked on the door and entered.

"Detective," they said.

I turned to face my visitor. "Senator Amidala," I said. "Good afternoon. How are you?"

Amidala frowned. "You're not usually this polite to me."

I closed the cabinet. "You're in my office during business hours for what I must assume are professional reasons. I try to be polite to my clients when I can." I pulled up a chair. "Here, have a seat."

She sat. She was dressed down today, with a simple jacket and blouse and no jewelry--this far into the undercity that was probably for the best. She looked well-rested, but like she had something on her mind. A pretty big something, if she was willing to see me.

"Well," I said, taking the seat behind my desk, "you've come all this way. I take it you have some kind of job for me?"

Amidala nodded. "I've decided to go through with the divorce."

Oh. That was a surprise--it seemed like only yesterday she had thrown her drink at me for implying a marriage with a man who had attempted to kill me was maybe not completely beneficial. "My congratulations. But I'm not a lawyer or a divorce clerk and anything else is hardly my business."

"The last time we spoke, you gave me some advice," she said.

If I did, I certainly didn't recall. I'd been ill and slightly out of my mind at the time and everything about that evening up until I got back to my apartment and fell asleep on Bail's lap was kind of a blur. "You'll have to remind me."

"You told me that if I wanted to go through with this divorce, I should protect myself," Amidala said. "Well, I'm here to get some protection."

"I'm not a bodyguard," I replied.

"Not that kind of protection," Amidala said. "I need more...legal protection."

"I'm not a lawyer."

Amidala scowled. "I heard you the first time."

"Did you? Because so far, you haven't told me anything that's within my scope of practice that you would like me to do for you," I said. "In case you need reminding, I'm a private investigator. It even says so on that door you just walked through."

"I'm here because I need you to investigate something," Amidala said. "Or rather, I need you to collect evidence on something. Something that would be compelling in court if it comes down to it."

That...made things a little clearer. "Are you asking me to gather blackmail information for you?" I asked. "You are a woman with powerful political connections. Why do you think you need blackmail to get something as simple as a divorce to go through?"

"A no-fault divorce would be best, but I don't think he'll accept that," Amidala replied. "I'm sure we'll end up going to court. And I don't have time to stretch out proceedings--I want this divorce to happen as soon as possible. So I need a case against him."

"Dear, you don't need my help for that," I told her. "You can just talk to the former Captain Rex--I'm sure he'll be willing to testify about the incident where Skywalker nearly killed him, and me, and Ahsoka."

"I know. I'm planning to. But Anakin was altered at the time--it might not be strong enough of a case. I need something stronger, and that's where you come in."

I drummed my fingers on the desk. "What, Skywalker's done something worse than try to kill his own Padawan? The only thing courts would care more about than that would be actual murder."

There was an awkward pause as Amidala looked to the side.

My eyes narrowed. "No," I said. "He did?"

"Anakin told me they weren't people," Amidala said softly.

"They?" I asked. "He killed more than one?"

All in a rush, Amidala told me the sordid story. She told me about Tatooine, and trying to save Skywalker's mother from a tribe of indigenous people and failing, then taking their lives in payment for it. An entire people obliterated in a flash of blue plasma, a horrible anger and murderous rage that even I had difficult conceiving of.

"All of them, he said," Amidala told me. "Even the women and children. He was very explicit about that."

My stomach roiled. I felt ill, just thinking about it. I won't pretend I had much of an opinion of Skywalker to ruin, but this was beyond a simple murder or simple revenge. This was a slaughter. A massacre of innocents.

It wasn't as if I had never known anger--anger bad enough to kill someone for it. I'd killed a lot of people who probably didn't deserve it. But even in my darkest moments I could not imagine bringing myself to kill those who had not killed first. To look into a child's face and end their life with my bare hands for nothing more than some horrible and hollow emotional satisfaction.

I took a deep breath. "Senator Amidala. How long have you known about this?"

"Just over a year now," she said.

Just over a year. That put it before the war. Before she married Skywalker. "Are you telling me Skywalker confessed to you his massacre of an entire tribe of people, including innocent women and children, and your reaction was to marry him?"

Amidala pressed her lips together in displeasure. "That's not relevant to this conversation."

"No? You realize that Skywalker should be reported and tried, and that by concealing this knowledge, you've made yourself an accessory to his crimes, right?" I leaned over the desk. "I won't pretend to be a bastion of morality, Senator. But even I draw my lines somewhere and what Skywalker has done is far beyond anywhere my lines have ever been. Despite whatever you seem to think of me, I am a law-abiding citizen."

"You can't report what he's done to the authorities," Amidala said. "What he did was outside Republic jurisdiction--there's no court in the entire galaxy that could convict him, except perhaps Tatooine, and I'm sure they will find his story very sympathetic."

She was not wrong--the Republic cared little for crimes that occurred outside their borders. That didn't mean keeping quiet about everything, much less for as long as she had, had been the right thing to do. I found it hard to think of a less right thing to do--besides marrying the man, which Amidala had also done.

"So you think I should dig up information about it so you can drag it out in front of everyone in divorce court? What the hell do you think that's going to accomplish?" I demanded. "This is not a case of a tail job and some dirty photos because your husband has a side piece, this is a literal mass murderer. This is a man who reacts to things that upset him with extreme violence and you already know he won't take a divorce quietly. How is that safe?"

"I'm planning to leave immediately after the divorce. My handmaiden and I have made arrangements so Anakin can't get to me."

"Senator, I am not concerned about your safety. I am concerned about what the man who thinks murdering children is a reasonable form of collateral damage will do when the woman he's obsessed with divorces him and tells the whole world he's a murderer," I said. "I, for one, would like to prevent a similar tragedy from occurring in my own city."

"What? Anakin wouldn't do that, that would be--"

"Be what? Monstrous? Unbelievable? I agree," I told Amidala. "And yet here we are, discussing an equally monstrous and unbelievable atrocity." I sat back in my chair and took a deep breath. "You clearly expect him to cause you some kind of harm--you wouldn't be in such a damn hurry to get away from him and make such a comprehensive escape plan otherwise. Let me be clear, I support you entirely. You should have done this a year ago when he first told you what he did, but you have rather missed the ship on that one. Fine. The second best time to take action is now, and you've asked for my help, so I'll help. I would like there to be no more casualties at your husband's hands, and I would especially like to not be one of them." I sighed. I could already feel a headache coming on--one that I knew would not subside for a very long time. "Tell me, Senator. What brought this on?"

Amidala frowned. "What do you mean?"

"The divorce. Now. It seems not so long ago you were happily married and perfectly willing to sit on Skywalker's murders. Now you've completely turned around to drag Skywalker's name through the dirt to claw your way into a divorce. Obviously some inciting incident occurred between now and then that made you reconsider how you felt about your husband." I rubbed my beard slowly. "Not some violence against you or someone close to you--you wouldn't have come here to confess his crimes to me if you had evidence like that ready at hand. Did Skywalker ask you for something you're not willing to give? Is there some kind of line he crossed, or you think he will cross when he learns a secret you're--"

Amidala slammed her hands on the desk. "That is enough! I am here to hire you, not to have you speculate about my marriage!"

So something had happened. Something Amidala knew would make things with Skywalker infinitely worse, something she cared about more than she loved Skywalker, something that required cutting contact immediately and for the foreseen future.

I couldn't think of too many good reasons that would fit those criteria. But I could think of one.

"So you are," I said. "You know my rates, I'm sure."

"I'll pay," Amidala said.

"It's not that simple," I told her. "I'm a Coruscant-based detective for several reasons, one of which is a significant medical condition. You're asking me to go out to Tatooine, which is outside my area of operations, and incidentally takes me away from my son, as well as the other jobs I do while in Coruscant. All that incurs a significant opportunity cost, and I find that I do not feel very charitable when I deal with you."

"Name your price," Amidala said. "I want this divorce to happen as soon as possible and I know you will get the job done properly. If that means paying extra, then fine."

I named my price. I won't pretend it was fair, and Amidala didn't like it, but she didn't argue with it, either.

"I'll need to stop by the bank to transfer that much," she told me.

"I don't need the whole thing up front," I replied. "I'll accept one week's retainer now, and collect the rest on completion."

"Fine."

She took her credit chip out of her purse. It was fortunate for her that she was the one in the relationship who handled the purse strings--I have met many people in similar situations who were not so lucky. She transferred the money to me without so much as a wince. Either she was richer than I had estimated, or she really needed my work that badly. Maybe both.

"Very good," I said. "I'll need to talk to some people to arrange for my absence, but I expect I can head for Tatooine tomorrow and work on coming up with a way to safely break your marriage. As for you..." I jotted down a name, address, and comm code on a card, then handed it to Amidala. "You might consider seeing this person."

Amidala looked at the card. "Who is this?"

"She's someone who has a lot of experience working with cases like yours," I said. "She won't care who you are or what your circumstances are, and she knows how to keep her mouth shut."

Amidala didn't like that. "What is this person going to do that you can't?"

"Well for one thing," I said, "I'm not a gynecologist."

[jayflrt]

Hello Jayflrt!

Let me tell you firstly how I AM ABSOLUTELY loving the development of Yours forever in 786. It's obvious that you have put in a lot of thought and effort to craft this plot and the story and I love it I love it all.

I just have one point tho - maybe uou can consider it?

So, being a Social Media AU, we normally perceive that things happen one after another in rapid succession because that's how SM works.

So I was a bit thrown off when Jay mentioned how he knew Park Sunghoon the previous semester etc, so other than the Washington vacation as an event, a sense of time passing didn't come through for me . I kept wondering when I missed months and months of issues happening, like, Jay would have probably struggled over assignments, exams and so much more other than his investigation etc.

Like, if a party happened one weekend and the characters meet again for brunch on Thursday, then probably someone was stewing over what someone else said for nearly a week... that's what I meant. A sense of scale?

For future chapters, would it be possible to include a time or date marker (it could be a lockscreen for example) or a subheading in the chapter title so we get a sense of the time that has passed?

If it's not too much trouble.

Thank you again for writing this. You have a highly imaginative mind and we love the privilege of reading it all!

Here's a Jay that our OC could fall for

Love you 🫶

hello hello ml 🥰💘 hope you're doing well !! AHH thank you so much i'm so glad you're enjoying the story !! AND THANK YOU FOR THE JAY PICTURES THATS SOOOO 786 JAY 🫨 especially the last one GODDD

omg i totally get what you're saying !! it was definitely difficult for me figuring out how to incorporate time passing while i was plotting my story too. i'm going by the american semester system so the first act takes place from around august to december, and then act two starts from their winter break and goes throughout spring semester, so that's why jay mentioned meeting hoon the previous (fall) semester in the recent chapter !!

it definitely can be hard to grasp the timeline in this smau!! it wasn't a problem for my other smaus because i don't think the timeline was necessarily as important, but for this one there is a lot of back and forth so i can see why it can be confusing :') since it's a story though i can't really focus on minute details and sort of only have room for the details that are important to the plotline, which is why things jump around a bit. for example, jay doesn't talk about assignments/finals much because his major isn't anything he actually wants to do + he's more concerned about unknown and the order instead of schoolwork BUT you'll notice mc and her friend group mention schoolwork and finals a lot more because they're (real) students 🫠

the reason why i don't include timestamps is because i prefer showing instead of telling, so you would have to rely on context clues more to see how the time is passing. (i've added examples of characters mentioning events to give a better sense of the timeline)

SORRY if this was long winded but ill be more mindful of that and try making it clearer for the future !! 🥰 ty for bringing it to my attention love!!

[shiroi-shika]

The Stalker

Why did I get lost? My life was comfortable, I had a future full of possibilities and a history filled with nothing but success. By all means I should have known where I would go. I was the one who would have lived the life everyone else wants.

I didn’t have anyone or anything I needed to get away from, no complaints, no worries. And yet, there were those dreadful, knowing eyes. Whenever I would try to convince myself that I was truly happy, they would pierce right past my shallow facade. Her gaze was an inescapable constant in my life. I was told it was just in my head, that it must just be my anxiety playing tricks on me, and for a time I did try to comfort myself with the thought, but we both knew that I’d have to face it, face her eventually.

Everything I did right, every success, every celebration washed away, as my mind grew more and more defenseless.

She probably knew how I would feel, and now I have no doubt that she planned it all from the very beginning. 

No, that’s not it. She wasn’t cunning, and she wasn’t mean. I knew that. In her own way, she really only did want what was best for me.

It was more like she had witnessed my destiny, and now sought to guide me to it.

That is why I had to meet her. She was different. Where everyone else told me how I could live my best life, she knew I yearned for nothing more than to carve out my own path.

When I ran away that night, that was my decision and no one else’s.

There was no need, no obligation, just that tiny little ember, almost extinguished by my own complacency.

I knew it was a horrible idea to feed it, and I would just end up burnt, but I couldn’t let myself care anymore.

I took nothing with me but the clothes on my back, I didn’t need a keepsake or a lifeline. I went into the unknown ill-prepared, scared and aimless, but I did so on my own terms.

She was here too, of course she was. Just out of sight I felt her presence as it warmed me for what would come next.

In the deepest darkest woods, where the sun dares not to shine, where all sane men run away, I knew I would find my answer.

The howling wind whistled a sweet melody and the grand firs watch over me, and it was as though they were welcoming me. Their Bark, that had petrified centuries ago, were the sturdy walls of this new home I chose for myself. Their branches reached out to me, lending me a hand and leading me safely through the dark.

The grass, overgrown and dried up was the sturdy footing I needed, with each step it cracked under my weight and marked my footprints as though it were freshly fallen snow. With it’s help I would never again end up back where I don’t belong, and when I’ll break down, it will be there to break my fall, to catch me and let my soul rest.

The fauna, though shy, was the companionship I needed. They  watched and walked with me, fellow hermits who would never judge me, who would never crush me with the love I did not want.

I started to freeze, the cool night wind carrying all the memories I had run from. All of those who truly cared for me, who were there every step of the way, my friends, my family, my home, my passion. All of it was cursed and bitter, and as the breeze slowly lifted them off of my shoulders, I could feel myself getting lighter.

And as my mind got clearer and clearer, and I was rid of all that was wrong, I could now see more clearly than ever my one true companion, who was never fooled by my happiness, who never had to make me feel as though I deserve a good life. Even now she was still there, just outside of my field of view, but I knew that soon I would meet her and it would all make sense. In the center of these hallowed woods, that’s where my destiny was calling me.

I saw the bodies of the prey and the graves of the cowards, those who did not finish their journey, those who accepted a life that was good and kind.

Each headstone, and each rotting carcass strengthened my resolve. I knew that I would never again leave the forest, I couldn’t. It would break my heart. And besides, she was watching me all the way, and we both knew that my place was deeper inwards, where the crowns of the trees will hide us away from even the brightest stars. I can not stop until all light is gone from my world, all but her eyes. She will be there when everything else is gone, and I will finally know why.

As the hunger ravaged my body and the wolves crept in closer, the trees stretched their branches out further, clawing away more and more of the night sky, thousands of tiny cuts letting the constellations bleed out, and soon enough even the moon would see me for the very last time.

I was losing a lot of blood, my arm was pulled off as a monster with a familiar face tried to bring me back. It fought hard, refusing to let me go, unable to accept that I had chosen this path for myself.

It’s cries soon faded away as I felt her right behind me. With not a sound to break the beautiful silence, she let me know that I would find what I was looking for at long long last.

So, here I am, my wounds dragging me to the floor and all the friends of the forest here with me, ready to rip out all that I would leave behind. With heavy breath, I sit down against the tree I had been walking towards all this time. Barely awake I see her as she finally comes closer. All that could get in the way is gone. With nothing left to blind me, I can for the first time see her true beauty. Her light embraces me as the world fades to a blur. She sits down next to me and I can feel her chest move together with my dying breath.

“I have waited oh so very long, but I never worried, for you would find your path one way or another.

I feel as your eyelids grow heavy. You will die a truly pointless death, and with it will come the pain of all those who survive. To them it will be a devastating tragedy, I’m sure. To them this will seem like a cruel joke from destiny, but not to you, for you understand it’s mercy.. Be it a Tombstone visited by generations to come or an unmarked, empty grave in the darkest pits, you wouldn’t have found salvation no matter what. Rest, for you have nothing left to lose.” I close my eyes and smile. I stop breathing. I feel my body relax, and the last beat of my heart completes the painting, my corpse embraced by the water dyed red, my hand now too weak to hold the razor.

thank you 

[ericmhe]

"Hero-verse" Gigan - He's not as clearly defined in parts as Godzilla was, but he's mostly derived from his Showa design, though a couple elements from Trendmasters and a fan redesign that turned him into a sort of diamond-shaped fish looking levitating creature made there way in there a bit. He's a little heavy set looking which might cause some to underestimate him but his elbow and knee spikes help re-enforce his dirty fighter appearance. I saw some other artist claim Gigan was initially supposed to be feathered and I'm not sure if it's true but I thought it might add to his goofier appearance. Gigan was never really given his own episode in the hypothetical cartoon, he just sort of showed up as an extra monster to fight when the writers realized they'd put in too many Godzilla allies for the monster to seem like a challenge and that set the mood for most of his future appearances. There were plans to have him potentially ally with the heroic monsters against grander truly evil threats in season 2 but cancellation struck. His most referenced appearance online was the episode where he tried to quit monster villainy and just hang out with Megalon but by happenstance found his way into the episode's A plot and was thoroughly clobbered on general principle before fully realizing what had happened. "Horror-verse" Gigan - Design is pulling mostly from his Final Wars incarnation but makes some modifications to tone down his additional weaponry and work it all in. He still has a grappling hook move, attached to a reel on his right arm. There is a chainsaw but modest in size and singular, held back as a sort of switching out weapon on his left arm. Otherwise the main adjustment is to make a clearer distinction between his mechanical parts from the rest of him and turn his sails into a sort of anti-gravity technology. The edgy change here is simply that Gigan is more of an obvious hack job. The aliens that found a dying kaiju and turned into their cybernetic war machine had no regard for the creature's quality of life. As a result of the somewhat inept job Gigan's cybernetic attachment points are prone to bleeding where flesh meets metal and getting infected. Kaiju regeneration keeps the persistent infections from killing him but he's always pained from them. The ill-fitting mechanical parts combine with phantom limb pain to make Gigan entirely miserable which causes him to lash out and try to spread his pain. This suits the aliens that created him fine most of the time, but does mean sedation and overt brain control is sometimes necessary to keep him from turning on his "creators".

[astrologyusa]

How Career Guidance From A Psychic Advisor Works And Why It Helps

Career confusion can leave you feeling uncertain and unsure about your future. Many individuals face difficulty finding the right career path, especially when trying to align with their true passions. This confusion can arise at any stage of life and may occur multiple times. Major life events, like a career shift, parenthood, or illness, can add extra challenges to the decision-making process. You may question your next steps and feel overwhelmed by the choices ahead.

During these moments, many people turn to psychics for guidance. Psychic advisors use their intuitive abilities to provide valuable insights. They help you understand your strengths, passions, and potential career paths, guiding you through difficult decisions. Whether through energy readings, astrology, or other methods, they offer clarity and direction to make informed choices.

This article explores how a psychic advisor can offer guidance for making confident career decisions. You’ll also discover the key benefits of seeking career advice from a psychic to help you feel empowered in your professional journey. Let’s get started!

Understanding The Role Of The Psychic Advisor

A psychic is there when you need clarity during uncertain times. Various techniques help them provide insights and guide you through life’s challenges. Tools like tarot readings, astrology, and energy readings tap into your intuition. Through these methods, psychics can reveal hidden aspects of your life, including career paths. Tarot readings interpret cards to show where you stand and what lies ahead. Astrology uses your birth chart to reveal unique qualities and suggest career directions. Energy readings focus on understanding your emotions and overall energy, helping you see how they influence your choices.

What makes psychics truly valuable is their intuition. Their ability to sense things beyond the obvious helps uncover patterns and insights you may not notice. This intuition is especially useful when facing career decisions. Psychics provide seekers with clear insights that help them make better career decisions. Whether changing careers, overcoming obstacles, or making key choices, their intuitive guidance allows you to navigate challenges confidently. This support empowers you to take decisive action that aligns with your purpose and personal growth.

How Psychic Insights Can Influence Career Choices

Career transitions with confidence: If you're considering a job change, psychics offer perspective. They will help you clarify whether the new job aligns with your overall life goals and aspirations. They will also help you see how a new role fits into your long-term plans. They can reveal potential obstacles or opportunities, making transitions smoother and more confident. With their guidance, career changes feel more manageable.

Balancing your career with personal growth: Psychic insights help align your career with personal growth. Through energy readings or astrology, psychics show how your career influences your well-being. This understanding leads to greater satisfaction and fulfillment. When your career aligns with your growth, the journey feels more meaningful.

Receive Guidance for Major Career Decisions: Psychics offer clarity on potential outcomes when faced with tough decisions. They help you assess all possible paths by tapping into your energy and intuition. With this guidance, you can make informed choices that align with your long-term goals and bring more success.

Advantages Of Getting Career Advice From A Psychic

Psychic advisors offer clarity and a balanced perspective regarding career decisions. They provide insights into your future while helping you explore various career options without personal bias. This guidance lets you approach decisions with a clearer and more confident mindset. Psychic insights also provide alternative perspectives you may not have considered alone. These fresh perspectives can open doors to new opportunities and help you navigate your career in ways you may not have imagined. This clarity can lead to better decision-making, enabling you to pursue new possibilities.

Moreover, psychic advisors can help you identify and overcome obstacles blocking your career growth. They may uncover energy blockages or emotional barriers affecting your professional life. With this guidance, you can take actionable steps to address these issues and move forward easily.

Navigating Career Transitions And Uncovering New Paths With Psychic Insights

Career transitions and climbing the corporate ladder can feel overwhelming, but psychic guidance offers essential clarity. Psychics help you assess your strengths, weaknesses, and the opportunities around you. They provide valuable insights into the timing of important decisions, like when to pursue a new role or ask for a promotion.

Their intuitive insights can also help you navigate workplace dynamics, offering advice on managing relationships or adapting to team changes. With psychic guidance, you can build confidence, reduce self-doubt, and align your career choices with your true passions. As you understand your future possibilities, career changes will become more manageable, making it easier to take the necessary steps toward fulfilling growth and success.

[longpahern]

How To Eradicate Your Emotional Health Problems Including In...

The tension and stress of every day life can bring with it a series of psychological health issue. These can consist of tension and stress, tension and stress and anxiety and stress and anxiety, panic, sleeping conditions and swelling attacks. In this post I blog about each of these prospective issues and encourage services to control them. Tension and stress and anxiety I guarantee that everyone end up being depressed at various times of our life, I definitely do. It is fundamental to let individuals and things get us down. We can begin to have empathy with ourselves and to believe that the world is working versus us. The brain has 2 halves, unfavorable and advantageous. In these durations of tension and stress and anxiety the unfavorable side presumes control and it can end up being extremely hard to leave this rut. I see the helpful side of my brain as an apple and the unfavorable side as a pear. I will not be able to experience the enjoyment of taking in apples if I merely ever take in pears. Basically I need to provide the advantageous side a possibility to assist me to reach a state of enjoyment and I require to discover to disregard the unfavorable. Stress and tension and stress and anxiety and tension and stress and anxiety attack Typically individuals begin ending up fidgeting about their future or potentially about their present scenario. This can in particular cases even lead on to stress attacks. In my viewpoint stressing does not assist the scenario, it just makes things even worse. When this happens I attempt really tough to break the cycle and I even talk with the devils in my head. I inform them that they will not win which I will not stress any longer. Sleeping conditions Having issue with sleeping throughout the night can take place for a variety of aspects, the primary among which is tension. Other causes are snoring, a consumption of severe caffeine, a loud environment or tension and stress and anxiety. I have in truth blogged about tension and tension and stress and anxiety currently, it is likewise time to reduce the coffee. A basic guideline in maybe handling sleeping conditions, is to have a look at a book in bed before trying to get to sleep. This book needs to assist you to get your mind far from any stress and tension and stress and anxieties you might have, it needs to unwind your body and requires to likewise tire your eyes. Swelling When individuals lose sleep or work to hard they can end up being over damaged and this can cause swelling. This can trigger individuals to have a greater pulse rate, making their muscles feel tight and can leave individuals likewise feeling sluggish and distressed. It is important to since of that make sure that you get a much of hours sleep per night (a minimum of 7) which you merely work a particular quantity of hours weekly. Cash is essential to individuals, nevertheless in my point of view health need to be the leading issue. Solutions to these psychological illness I have actually anxious comprehend that I require to treat myself from time to time. I have actually constantly discovered it difficult to relax and would frequently feel stressed out and under pressure. I now utilize different methods at many times of the year to assist me to relax a bit and to reward my body. These consist of aromatherapy, using natural items, going to tai chi lessons and I have truly even attempted Yoga. I need to confess I might never ever get to grips with Yoga, however have in reality heard it can expose to be in fact helpful to individuals who can. Meditation My preferred sort of relaxation is by practicing meditation. I do this by resting on a straight back chair and by essentially focusing with my eyes closed. I pay specific notification to my breathing and it has in reality definitely assisted me to see things in a much clearer technique. In conclusion there are lots of methods of reducing psychological health issue and with option you have the ability to see your technique to a much better and brighter future. Steve Hill The tension and stress of every day life can bring with it a range of psychological illness. These can consist of tension and tension, stress and anxiety and stress and anxiety and stress, panic, swelling and sleeping conditions attacks. In this post I comprise about each of these prospective issues and encourage services to control them. It is fundamental to let individuals and things get us down. I need to confess I might never ever get to grips with Yoga, nevertheless have in reality heard it can expose to be extremely helpful to individuals who can. These can include stress, stress and anxiety and tension and tension and stress and anxiety, panic, sleeping conditions and swelling attacks. I have actually blogged about tension and tension and stress and anxiety currently, it is likewise time to reduce the coffee. This book needs to assist you to get your mind far from any stress and tension and stress and anxieties you might have, it needs to unwind your body and requires to likewise tire your eyes. I need to confess I might never ever get to grips with Yoga, nevertheless have in reality heard it can expose to be genuinely valuable to individuals who can. These can include stress, stress and anxiety and tension and tension and stress and anxiety, panic, swelling and sleeping conditions attacks. These can consist of tension and stress and anxiety, tension and stress and stress and anxiety, panic, sleeping conditions and swelling attacks. I have in reality blogged about tension and tension and stress and anxiety currently, it is likewise time to reduce the coffee. These can consist of tension and stress and anxiety, stress and anxiety and tension and stress, panic, swelling and sleeping conditions attacks. These can consist of stress and anxiety, stress and tension and tension and stress and anxiety, panic, sleeping conditions and swelling attacks. I have actually blogged about tension and tension and stress and anxiety currently, it is likewise time to reduce the coffee.

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