#remind me never to tag bbc because omg that's not

[r-ate-9]

These quotes are cool because they showcase that Morgana *became* his darkness and Merlin *became* her doom by the actions they took. Kilgarrah may have called Morgana "the witch" and told Merlin she was evil and not to be trusted, which is *why* she became "evil" and "not to be trusted". If he hadn't listened to the dragon, then his Darkness could have been someone else.

“You have learnt an important lesson, Merlin. Your determination to see goodness in people will be your undoing. But I fear that your futures are now joined forever. She is the darkness to your light, the hatred to your love.” — The Tears of Uther Pendragon “You are right to be afraid, Morgana. Your enemies will rue this day and all the destruction it brings, but you must beware. Tearing the veil between the worlds has created a new world, and you will not walk through it alone. The one they call Emrys will walk in your shadow. He is your destiny, and he is your doom.” — The Darkest Hour MERLIN MEME [2/2] PROPHECIES ▸ Morgana and Emrys

[studysnooze]

i kind of felt like i needed to make this post because i have been stressed out of my actual mind as of late and that isn’t helping me with my anxiety so i thought i would share some tips with you guys- friends in hopes that this helps you and also in turn helps me bc i am s t r u g g l i n g right now haha 

If you find yourself in panic attack/mental breakdown situations (during studying, sleeping, whenever):

1. TAKE A DEEP BREATH: this is legit some of the most underrated advice but this is so so so so so important. i often find myself holding my breath without thinking and even if you look stupid forcing yourself to breath between shaking and crying just do it. please. you will instantly feel better because bottling things up is legit the most toxic thing you could do to yourself

2. if the resource is there: talk to someone. talk to a trusted adult like a teacher, mentor, counselor, or even your parents. i know how it is: you might not trust them, believe me- i have had a fair share of adults who have let me down from time to time and trust me, once you find someone that is perfect for you to talk to, you will cherish that person for the rest of your life. I will never forget my first middle school counselor, i don’t know her name mainly because i was having a panic attack when i met her but i’ll remember her face and her hospitality forever. and she was a stranger to me at the time: sometimes you need that outside stranger to talk to you know? that way, you get a less biased? (idk weird wording there but you get it) response

3. FOOD AND WATER: i cannot tell you how bad i am at drinking water like it’s hopeless at this point but its SOOO important for you! pleaseee drink water. i think water tastes like nothing and it’s pointless to drink it but that is really crazy thinking so don’t follow me on that please because i am seriously working on it these days and my skin has started to clear up majorly but i also feel so much better in general? like hydration does wonders i’m serious- you might not even notice but it’s doing something nice at least to your body. food food food food food please eat something. i know sometimes when i dont eat a few meals because i am so caught up in work, i forget what it feels like to be hungry and that is absolutely ridiculous, do not skip that many meals. i don’t care if your grade depends on it tomorrow for chem or that you need to finish your slide for that group project: if you cannot remember what you ate last literally drop whatever you are doing and get a freaking granola bar- not even- get a sandwich, some chips, and a water or a salad or some carrots and hummus LITERALLY ANYTHING put it in your mouth and chew it slowly and savor your food and thank the universe that your food is making you more energetic to complete your work because honestly not eating makes you feel so weak and it shuts you down. and you know what? when you shut down, it gives you more room to be stressed and anxious because that happens to me too many times in my life and it is the worst feeling in the world: being anxious, sleep deprived, weak :( its not okay and i need my people to stop suffering so eat your carrots kiddos❤

4. nap! this is also extremely simple but soooo underrated. literally nap for like 10 minutes and you will feel SO GOOD afterwards. i know it takes me at least 30 minutes to fall asleep because that’s just me but as soon as i feel sleepy, i turn on my alarm. shutting your brain off for a few minutes does wonders: it actually recharges and resets your brain for a little bit and as long as you don’t sleep for too long, you will wake up more motivated than ever before! 

4.5 going off of the previous point: if you are truly tired, sleep. sleep. sleep. i cannot tell you this enough. there is absolutely no point and no shame in going to bed if you have a headache, your eyes are closing and you cannot focus anymore. plain and simple: it’s just a major waste of time and you will have to end up studying it again anyways. i try to get to bed around 11 which i know is already pushing the late boundaries but if you go to sleep and really, truly, need to finish your work in the morning, wake up a couple hours earlier and finish it quickly- maybe catch a few more z’s. it’s better to get your hours in earlier and wake up feeling better than going to bed at 4:30 (cough thanks nonso) and waking up 3 minutes before school because you shut off your alarm. i’m only telling you guys my stupid mistakes just so you know there are consequences to not following this advice people- this is first hand experience haha

5. TAKE YA MEDS KIDDOS: that’s literally it, you may have forgotten and now are in deep doodoo with yourself whoops set a reminder

if you have trouble sleeping/resting at night or whenever:

1. i have had trouble staying asleep throughout the night for the past few years now. i’m not sure how it started but my brain is just too hot wired these days to stay put: there are some quick things i do when i wake up shaking, panicking, restless, miserable, whatever in the middle of the night: 

 listen to rain sounds on spotify

listen to my favorite podcasts (i gotta make a post about this, message me if you want podcasts like asap after reading this something)

watch “planet earth” or “round planet” on netflix-  round planet is by BBC so there’s that old british guy talking and i think it’s nice :) overall, it’s super therapeutic i highly recommend 

make a warm cup of tea or milk: i usually put honey and cinnamon in my milk or honey in my tea and it’s quite nice i think, it makes me sleepy again

sometimes i wrap myself in extra blankets and cuddle with more stuffed animals to help me fall/fall back asleep. i think there is some nostalgic feeling about being tucked in and being all warm and safe that makes me calm down again i’m not sure why 

if you’re having trouble focusing while studying (i got through this at least once a day omg):

1. take a breather! drinks a glass of cold water, stare around the room for a bit, walk around the neighborhood or the house or the library or wherever you are for a bit- get that blood flowing again

2. look at something motivational! i have a motivation tag kind of thing on my page called #feelgood so you can check it out if you want haha but there are tons of motivational videos and posts from the studyblr community so :)

3. study something you are interested first! this is by far the most useful study advice i have ever received because it motivates me to subconsciously focus my brain and keep me in a “grind” kind of mood 

3.5 related to the previous point, study in small chunks! also switch up on the subject if you get bored.

4. do a hobby! i LOVE reading for fun during study breaks or when i can’t focus especially when i’m super interested in the book because i get sucked into that universe and after i finish a chapter i want to finish more work in order to keep reading- it’s great. i also love doodling intricate designs on my moleskine to keep my busy and i also like writing poems or editing photos. just find something that is calming to you in order to give your brain a break! once you have that little reset, i promise you will feel better going back to work 

5. stop studying? sometimes i burnt out in the middle of studying and you just have to realize when you’ve reached your limit for the night/day so just stop and get some sleep, there’s nothing wrong with sleeping or taking a rest just a reminder <3 and sometimes that means you can get back to your work later or not and that’s okay :)

along with my finals series, i’m going to dedicate an entire post for reasons as to why you should stop comparing yourself so look for that in the next couple of days or so :) 

and just a reminder that you can do it! no matter your barriers you WILL overcome them with flying colors and you will have an amazing summer very soon✨

love,

Nonso

[abnahaya]

Jesy Nelson and I Can Finally Look at Our Old Photos Without Feeling Bad

I’m not a famous person, I can still count how many cruel online comments that I get, but I remember them all. There was a time when I was a dancer in a nightclub and they uploaded my picture with my fellow dancer who was younger and cuter —according to society’s beauty standard, and many of the people made fun of my features. Or another time when I received a weird and offensive question on a social media platform about how I gained so much weight. Even though I know that these aren’t the slightest true statements, and that I shouldn’t think of them, I can’t erase them from my mind. I try not to dwell on them but it’s so easy to recall those moments in a flash.

Now imagine hundreds or even thousands of hates comments every day for five years.

A few days ago, I watch a documentary of Jesy Nelson, a personnel of British girl group Little Mix. I like Little Mix but honestly, I don’t follow their journey from the start, they just caught my attention when “Wings” was released. Apparently, ever since their X-factor days, Jesy had been bullied online because of her looks and it affected her a lot. It broke my heart when Jesy told the BBC three that on the night Little Mix won X-factor, she was actually sad and devastated, she didn’t care about winning, all she wanted was to go home, but she couldn’t destroy the joy of her fellow band mates. At that point, all the bullying had gotten inside her head, overwriting her own ideas of herself. Not even the achievement of her dreams could chase the fears away. In the documentary that left audience weeping —including yours truly, Jesy told how she couldn’t look at her old pictures and videos because of deep trauma they evoked. Even after losing weight and applying makeup, she still hated herself.

***

I remember when I met my teacher from Junior High School days and the first thing she told me was, “Oh you’re prettier now, you used to be pitch black” (not trying to be racist but she literally said the word). I told my mum and she laughed it off—because it’s true, she said. And even though deep in my heart I wasn’t flattered one bit by that statement, I had to brush it off and forcefully telling myself that I was at least getting better. But even so, I couldn’t bring myself to look at my old photos because I thought I looked horrible. I erased all the old profile pictures and hid the tagged photos on Facebook. One time my friend uploaded one of our old picture and I felt so disgusted with my own face —although all I said to her was: “OMG LOL”.

I must say I’m lucky I’m a nobody, because I can easily forget about the times those “bad memories” comes into surface and they don’t pop up that often if not because of Facebook Most of my friends were too busy with their life to reminisce the old days, and I wouldn’t even do it in a million years, or so I thought.  However, once it happens, it’s like watching a horror movie. I don’t want to see it, even the sound itself already scares me, yet everyone keep shoving it into my face and telling me to look until I have to peek from between my fingers. Usually ends up with me looking for a brief two minutes that feels so long, before I squeak and close my eyes again, hoping that the image that has been carved into my brain can disappear quickly. But of course, it doesn’t, instead it’s going to haunt me for a couple of nights and making me feel uneasy.

I hated looking at my own face because it reminded me of how “ugly” I was, that all the features I had back in the days were laughable. It also made me sad that I thought there were so many wonderful memories, great stories and experiences, yet what people would remember from me was just how unattractive I was. I know vividly that my look was a big insecurity for me in those years, and even though some of my closest people were cheering for me at that time, as time pass by, they said the same thing with the bullies. One time my mum told me that she mentioned the name Naomi Campbell the supermodel only to make me feel better, but she never thought that Naomi was pretty, she was just simply stating we share the same skin tone. She laughed again as she continued describing how silly I was to believe her so easily, and that my teacher was right.

I tried to laugh it off many times, too. After all, those time has passed. I am now good in applying makeup, knows what clothes to wear, and not as terrible looking as before. I have grown into an adult and expected to face “criticism” with grace and a light heart. I tried not to be one of the “snowflake generation” whom offended easily in trivial matters. At least that was what I was told.

***

I believe how Jesy’s documentary could reach so many hearts are that because many people have been through similar experiences. Maybe not online, and maybe not by thousands of people, but just enough to hurt them. Others can also relate to the symptoms she describes on tape, maybe these people didn’t even think of getting bullied but at some points, they understand how it feels to just despise the image you see in the mirror. We all know very well how powerful words are, sadly, because at some points we have been hurt by others’ words.

Jesy went to see a beauty image consultant and we could watch short sessions between the two of them. In the second visit, Jesy was showed her old footage from the X-factor days and even further back to her childhood pictures, it was the first time she saw them after years. The consultant asked her what the old Jesy would think if she was told that she would have her dream coming true in the future, would she think of being sad? Of course not. The wake-up call for Jesy was when she was reminded that who she had become today was the result of the evolution of her past self, that she wouldn’t be able to reach her dream without the past Jesy inside her, and that she wouldn’t survive and become stronger if not from the painful journey the past Jesy had gone through to become the present Jesy.

I had a similar revelation, despite that I didn’t have to visit any consultant and simply just had extra time to look within myself. My wake-up call was just when I scrolled my Twitter timeline and finding a post where a guy put his new picture and a childhood picture together, saying that he didn’t change much. I looked through my tagged photos and saved a few of my old Junior High School pictures, the period when I was in a weird transition, leaving my cute childhood behind and not yet arriving into the graceful adult, basically the worst pages of my life lookbook. I stared at both pictures from different decades, puberty didn’t hit me like a truck, but I sure have evolved with time.

I mean, maybe I’d have a slightly better picture if iphone —or at least Xiaomi had existed in early 2000s. But that’s the point. Time has changed. I have changed. There have been so many things came in my way ever since and I survived. That skinny, curly-haired girl is still here inside me as I am inside her. I wouldn’t be able to be who I am now if she hadn’t put so much effort and positivity all along. Just as I picked up another picture from my golden days, when I was in Uni, the period in which I miss almost everything —slim figure, fun days, dancing non-stop, life free of responsibilities, and not having any more regrets. I no longer hate my few extra kgs or how my leg feels weaker when I twerk, not anymore, because I have everything in the present me. I have me.

We heard many wisdom sayings, like: life is like a roller coaster, just enjoy the ride —or some sort. It’s not wrong. I just want to add a bit of a note, that is to go to the toilet and take a look at the mirror. Appreciate yourself today. You are alive. Then remember another quote: life is a gift, that’s why we call it present. Your life today is the gift given by you from yesterday, last week, and even 8 years ago. Enjoy it. If it’s a bit too much today, scream it out, remember, everyone in the roller coaster are freaking out anyway. You’re not alone and you are beautiful.

[jestbee]

June 22: Ships that pass in the night (Chapter Two)

[igsy-blog]

BBC 100 books (with commentary)

thanks for the tag @thegreatorangedragon  As an English major I was compelled to read a lot of these, and I may only have skimmed/read chunks of some of them if I could get away with it....

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen: not my favorite Austen, actually (Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility are 1 & 2) The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - OMG, SO many times. My siblings and I had rituals around the reading of LOTR.

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte.  Yes - it’s OK Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - Yes!  My kids grew up to them and the experience was almost as good as the books.  But I also really enjoyed watching Rowling mature as a writer over the course of the series.  I don’t ask for perfection from my writers, but warmth and growth.  :-)  Also, they got my stubborn non-reader sons to READ. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee  - like probably every other person who went to MS/HS in the US. The Bible - yes, and twice all the way through.  once at about 10, and then more recently along with Slate’s Blogging the Bible (ok it was just the Old Testament).  That was a stage on my journey to my current fallen-catholicness 
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - yes, but prefer the Pat Benatar song :D Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell - yes and really need a re-read 
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - No, keep meaning to. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
.  Yes, and can I say I love Dickens - LOVE Dickens - but I hate this book.  I think it’s always assigned because it’s shortish.  I regularly reread the glorious messes that are Pickwick Papers, Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, and my fav, the insane Our Mutual Friend (but ONLY the Lizzie Hexam/Eugene Wrayburn segments). Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - and the sequels.  I think Jo’s Boys might actually be my favorite. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
.  yes - I am pretty sure??? Catch 22 - Joseph Heller.  read enough of it to count Complete Works of Shakespeare - William Shakespeare; yes! my mom was a Zefferelli Romeo & Juliet junkie - we had the album of the film - and I must have heard it 3 dozen times before I was 7.  She bought a complete works and I read all of it over the years. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier. No 
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - Yes.  My husband’s favorite book.  And I really liked the Rankin-Bass film, when I was young.  Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk  No Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - yeah The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger  Realllly?  This is a good book but I’m not sure it belongs on this list.  First novel and feels fresh out of an MFA program.  My other complaints I won’t say here because I tend to get very snarky about this book. (Another book I read around the same time [mid-oughts] was Then We Came to the End, the debut novel of Joshua Ferris - much better, like DeLillo without the air of self-importance.) Middlemarch - George Eliot; love me some Eliot (but prefer Silas Marner, mainly because of a very good tv adaption). Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - Again: really?  I read this book because I spent the summer between HS and college in a really small town with a teeny library and I basically read my way through the fiction stacks.  Won’t say more than that, because I would get political. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald Yes, but not a favorite. Bleak House - Charles Dickens. A great, great book for which two amazing miniseries have been done in my lifetime.  But rightly criticized, IMO, for the annoying tone of its first-person narrator, Esther.  Dickens was dazzlingly, spectacularly wrong in writing about women.  Not to mention other groups.  But my god did he skewer institutions on behalf of the (British) poor - none better. This book wins for the Jo’s death scene and its sweeping, bitter, critique of church and state and society and everything - and so human.  “Dead!  And dying thus around us, everyday.”  I was 12 when I first read that, recovering from chicken pox, and I sat straight up in bed.  This is the book that made me a socialist. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy This is so horrible, but I haven’t! The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams.  Yes, fun, but not a favorite. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh - No.  I started to and have a copy at work, for some reason I don’t even remember.  But not enough to county Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky  No :( Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck.  Yes, oh and my grandma’s family were Okies.  Everyone in my family has a copy of the Sacramento Bee front page story sneering about the dust bowl immigrants arriving in town and my great-grandmother is mentioned by name (though they mistakenly think she is her widowed father’s wife).  I love Cali, and Sactown, but we have a long history of being not-so-welcoming to everyone at certain times (was it in the 80s where the “Welcome to California, Now Go Home” bumper stickers were everywhere?).

Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - yes The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - yes but so long ago I don’t remember it at all Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy yes. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens.  Yes, not his best by far.  Another “easy” read like Great Expectations Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - and many other of his works, when I was trying NOT to be an atheist - Mere Christianity, his sci-fi trilogy and Til We Have Faces, a retelling of my favorite myth, Psyche and Cupid.  I like the more obscure books in this series best - The Silver Chair and The Horse and his Boy. Emma - Jane Austen Persuasion - Jane Austen - oh, here it is!


The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis .... uh, yes The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - was a group read at work a couple of years ago.  recommend. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne - yes Animal Farm - George Orwell - another book I want to re-read. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - nope 
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez; YES A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving 
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ... did I?  I’m pretty sure. Or was it The Moonstone? Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery.  YES.  Anxiously awaiting the new adaption.  Why is it so hard to get Anne of Windy Poplars on kindle?  That is the funniest one.  And Rilla of Ingleside so heartbreaking 
Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy 
The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood, yes and ever so long ago.  Another book to re-read soon (haven’t started watching the series yet) Lord of the Flies - William Golding Atonement - Ian McEwan; LOVE this book and his writing in general.  He also wrote the screenplay, and the movie and the book are a perfect match in tone. 
Life of Pi - Yann Martel No, but on my list Dune - Frank Herbert - no Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - yes, Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - yay! 
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon 
A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - my intro to Dickens, though not his best Brave New World - Aldous Huxley - starting to get depressed at all this dystopian fiction that needs to be re-read as a primer for the present times 
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - lives at my desk at work.  Not even a favorite book of mine, but I love diving into his words every once in a while Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov The Secret History - Donna Tartt The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold  - when I saw the movie it reminded me why I wasn’t into reading the book Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - plot better than the story 
On The Road - Jack Kerouac Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy - yeah, I had to read so much Hardy Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie - no, want to though 
Moby Dick - Herman Melville; I can’t even think about this book without remembering our class discussion of the “circle jerk” chapter.  I remember literally nothing else. 
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - meh Dracula - Bram Stoker 
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett  - an ALL-TIME favorite Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson Ulysses - James Joyce; all hail the master, and the bastard responsible for my sick dependence on the em-dash The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome Germinal - Emile Zola Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray - unfortunately, yes Possession - AS Byatt A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens; of course Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell The Color Purple - Alice Walker - excellent The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry Charlotte’s Web - EB White: yes The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Yes.  I prefer Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter series hands-down, but despite her association with Tolkien, Lewis, et al, she got squashed between Conan Doyle and Christie.  Her Gaudy Night is one of my top five books.

The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - yeah The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery heck, yeah The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks Watership Down - Richard Adams yes A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole - my kids read this book in HS, so I have a copy lying around, but have never read it A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas Hamlet - William Shakespeare - yes, probably too many times.  What are my favorite Shakespeare dramas?  Maybe King Lear, Richard III? Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl. yes 
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo