#this feels like a situation where you schedule an orientation for day 1

[thedarklyblue]

starting to worry that i'm toeing the line of being actually annoying to these folks but in my defense i start tomorrow and they have not told me SHIT

[thebreakfastgenie]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 🤍

Oh man. Oh jeez. Okay. I'm gonna get annoying about this. Just remember you invited this.

1. The Emergency Room - The West Wing

“You were supposed to leave—” he couldn’t remember when Donna had said her flight was. He remembered too much, but it was never the right things. “—already,” he finished lamely. “Well, I didn’t.” On Christmas Eve, Donna takes Josh to the emergency room. Post-Noël.

This is probably still my favorite thing I've ever written. I really feel like I achieved something with the prose here that I've been striving to do ever since. Since the whole point of this is self-promotion; this fic will probably make sense even if you haven't seen The West Wing. It takes place the same day Josh is diagnosed with PTSD, a few months after being shot. It focuses on Josh and Donna, but it's not romantic. If you ship them, it will feel like pre-relationship, if you don't it will feel like friendship. I alway catch myself thinking this fic came easily, because I pretty much tortured myself over this one but the result was so worth it. Here's a little excerpt from one of my favorite scenes:

A streetlight flickered above them. He watched through the windshield as a few wet flakes drifted down.

“We can deal with that.” Donna was solution-oriented; it was a valuable skill in an assistant. Even now, he knew, she was making plans—drafting memos, rearranging his schedule. She’d ban music from the building if she thought it would protect him. He felt a surge of appreciation—affection, even���but protection wasn’t what he needed now. “Next time it could be something else.” The implicit acknowledgment hung between them like frozen breath. There would be a next time. Donna turned up the heat. “We can deal with that too.”

It's really all about hope and getting better, but at this very early, awkward moment. It also explores, without discussing it head-on, the idea floated in the episode that Josh may have had suicidal thoughts. The conclusion this fic comes to is that he lived because he wanted to live.

2. hills like white elephants - M*A*S*H

“Margaret,” he says for a third time. “The result of this test… the one that goes in your file, the one we tell Colonel Potter… it doesn’t have to be positive. Not if you don’t want it to be.” Margaret laughs, because it’s just like him to think he can make a test say what he wants. “I think people would notice when I had a baby,” she says, trying hard to sound funny. “If you have a baby,” Hawkeye says quietly. Seriously. An AU of What's Up Doc? where Margaret is pregnant, but still doesn't want to be. Hawkeye offers her another choice.

The abortion fic! This one means a lot to me. I've had a couple people tell me they've read it more than once, and that means a lot to me in and of itself. I think we need more stories about abortion, especially ones where abortion is shown as it is: a procedure that rescues women from really difficult situations. I had a lot of fun writing this one, even if my post-Dobbs feelings were very much on my mind. I had a lot of fun writing Margaret and I feel good about how I wrote her in this one. It was nice to focus on her and her interiority. I originally envisioned the fic as a mix between Hawkeye and Margaret POV, and I almost cut the one short Hawkeye POV scene I ended up with because it was so close to being entirely Margaret. The reason I didn't is that it was very important to me to imply BJ knew what happened, but he and Hawkeye chose not to discuss it for safety. I really loved the Hawkeye-Margaret dynamic I hit in this one, too. This is my signature "if you ship them, you can read it a pre-romance, but that's not necessary" dynamic. Hawkeye's willingness to go out on a limb to help is important and I think the story is stronger for not suggesting it's motivated by romantic love. A little excerpt two little excerpts because I can't pick and they go together:

“Why are you doing this?” she blurts out.  He looks at her sideways.  “Just because we can’t do it in the hospital doesn’t mean we’re abandoning safety.”  “No,” she says, frustrated, “I mean… When I told you that I might be… you practically started knitting booties.”  He doesn’t say anything.  “You think I should have this baby,” she accuses.  “It doesn’t matter what I think,” he says softly.  “It matters to me.”  She’s even softer; she’s not sure he can hear her, but he does.  “Why?” he asks. 

and

“Maybe,” she says, but she knows she won’t. After a moment, she asks, “What would you want?” He raises his eyebrows.  “You mean besides a maternity girdle?”  She laughs, properly this time.  “I meant in Donald’s position,” she scolds.  He thinks for a moment.  “I’d want you to be happy,” he says. “That’s what I want in my position, too.”  She sighs.  “Not all men are like you.” 

I knew from the very beginning I had to get a couple Hawkeye pregnancy jokes in there. The booties line is my own little reference to the "baby booties" line in GFA. I also wrote an author's note where I wished death on a couple of Supreme Court justices.

3. the play's the thing - M*A*S*H

“Oh, yeah, in college I played Hamlet,” he brags. “No kidding.” Sidney stares at him, and he has a funny feeling he can see all of it. “I was pre-med. I was the only one who could get my hands on a skull,” he says, attempting to explain what he’s never been able to explain to himself. Hawkeye plays Hamlet and is very mentally ill about it.

This was not the first M*A*S*H fic I started, but it was the first one I finished and posted, so it's very special to me! I had a lot of fun writing this one. It kind on of turned Hamlet into my signature Shakespeare play. Hawkeye playing Hamlet being true is a near and dear headcanon to me. I knew that I wanted my Hawkeye acting story to be that he did it once and was very good at it and then never did it again. I was really worried about making actor Hawkeye different from Alan Alda and without knowing it, I succeeded at this by making Hawkeye memorize his lines without meaning to; Alan Alda was awful at learning lines (see: all the blooper reels). All the non-Hawkeye perspectives were added in fairly late in the process and I think it was absolutely worth it. Gloria also became much more significant; originally, she was just the cute girl he cited as his reason for auditioning. I really grew to love her. I loved her so much I had to give them a good ending; for all my reputation as an angstmonger, I'm a total sap. Gloria's last name, Mayer, is for my great-grandfather who worked in the ticket office on Broadway. A short excerpt:

He doesn’t say anything. He’s staring at the skull. It’ll spend one last night in the safe hiding spot he’s found for it backstage—protected from the world by the thin cloth of the bag—and in the morning he’ll slip in Searles 103B and return it. If Professor Grable has noticed it’s missing, he hasn’t said anything, and he sees him three times a week for anatomy lab. He finds himself a little sad at the thought that he won’t see it every day anymore. A man and his skull can grow very close, he thinks. 

This part is relatable to me in a way I can't quite explain. The image of college freshman Hawkeye showing up to the audition with the portion already memorized and his own skull charmed me and still does, but the skull just took on a life of its own, even for me. I didn't get too deep in the weeds researching this fic, but I did find a building at Bowdoin that was already built in the early 1940s and is currently a science building, and I used a plausible room number. I also did a quick, panicked rewrite when I remembered it wasn't co-ed yet. I just love this fic a lot.

4. Campfire - The West Wing

The fic I wrote in the woods. Huge chunks of it came to mind and I was so anxious about getting home in time to write it down, I ended up writing pieces of it in my notes app during lunch and in the car. Since I posted this, I've been really overwhelmed by the willingness of my fellow fans to put up with what I call "summer camp bullshit." It's a very different setting from the White House and it's about kids. That part of the story was intended to be shorter and darker, but these three kids basically invented themselves and said "what if Josh had friends?" and it really changed the whole tone of the story for the better. This was the second time I did this one-shot-two-narratives thing and I'd like to do it again. A small excerpt:

“You didn’t have older siblings growing up,” CJ continues. “It teaches you humility. And how to fight dirty.” His fist tightens around his beer. “I did,” he says softly. CJ looks surprised, then confused. “You did?” she asks. He nods. “But I thought… I mean, when we sent that card, after your dad— we checked with Leo, about who to address it to, and he said just your mom and you.” Josh looks at the floor. “Her name was Joanie,” he says, so he won’t have to say she died.

I've had bits jotted down for years that never saw the light of day but got at both parts of this fic. Josh talking about Joanie at summer camp and having it go badly, and CJ being the first person from the Bartlet campaign he told. I love Josh and CJ's brother-sister relationship, but I also think telling CJ first just makes the most sense because of her role in The Crackpots and These Women. This was also a September fic; one of the reasons I latched onto Josh was the experience of losing a close peer at a young age, and I certainly had feelings going into this fic. The only thing is I wish it had a better title! I couldn't think of anything better so I just went with this, but I love the titles for the other fics I've mentioned here.

5. safe travels - M*A*S*H

“Of course, this is all just speculation. I couldn’t tell you what happened in Seoul on that particular day.” BJ looks like he wants to say something, but Hawkeye beats him to it. “I never made it that far,” he admits, his voice dropping. Post-ep for 9.01 The Best of Enemies. With some encouragement, Hawkeye tells the truth about what happened after the left the 4077th.

I had a really hard time choosing a fifth fic, so I reread several, and I remembered how much I love this one. I posted the play's the thing first, but I started writing this one first, and it was almost finished for a very long time. I struggled to get it over the finish line, but I had so much fun with it! This was the first time I wrote BJ and I had a blast; since then, he's been difficult for me to write. I felt good about how I captured a bunch of different characters in this fic--BJ, Potter, Charles, and in a very brief appearance Mulcahy--and there are several pieces of dialogue I'm really, really happy with. I ended the first two sections on dialogue by chance and decided to keep it up throughout the fic. I don't think it was necessary, but it was fun to play with. When I reread it, I noticed some parallelism I don't remember consciously putting in, like both BJ and Hawkeye missing/ignoring their cues, so I'm very pleased with myself. A couple of small excerpts:

Sherman sits for a moment. It takes that long for the man’s words to sink in. “You’re serious.” “You thought I was kidding?” He’s not too old to feel the flush of shame. “I’m sorry.” “People always think I’m kidding,” Pierce shrugs it off. “Of course, most of the time, I am.”

This bit of dialogue came in early and I'm very fond of it.

“Hawk, he held a gun to your head!” BJ explodes. The thought of Hawkeye at gunpoint enrages him nearly as much as it frightens him. “What would you do if it was me?” Hawkeye asks. “If I had a chest full of shrapnel, bleeding into my brain—” “I—I’d try to make some burr holes. Get some pressure on the arteries—” “What if you weren’t a doctor?” Hawkeye presses. “What if you were… a farmer, or something, and one day the army said ‘sorry, Charlie, you’re ours now,’ and took you away from your plow and your family and your ox and gave you a gun? And the whole thing is just, completely unbearable, except for the guy standing next to you. He has has own family, and his own farm, and his own ox, or at least he did before the army took his pitchfork out of his hand and gave him a gun. And then suddenly he’s dying and all you have is this is stupid, lousy gun. What would you do?” “What if it was me? What if I had the 24 hour pass? What if someone held a gun to my head? Would you be so understanding then?”

This conversation--or rather, most of it; the Hawkeye speech came in later and was both fun and extremely hard to write--is where it all started. Hawkeye defending the man who abducted him was important to me. They formed a sort of bond by the end and I don't expect BJ or anyone else to understand that. I made a choice early on not to raise the question "what would Hawkeye do if it was BJ?" but instead "what would BJ do if it was Hawkeye?" I still alluded to the former, when Hawkeye himself wonders what he would do if it was any of his friends, but I gave more time to the latter. It just felt right; of course Hawkeye, who's been through it on the other side, has thought about it. BJ needs to be confronted with the question, and I found that more interesting. And of course it opens the door for BJ to ask how Hawkeye would feel if The Best of Enemies happened to BJ instead. I don't answer any of these questions, because that's the reader's job. If you have thoughts about these answers I'd love to hear them; I wrote this fic because I was absolutely consumed by this episode, and I still am.

[miekasa]

the babysitter’s club (1)

+ pairing: levi ackerman + (fem) reader, featuring bright-eyed but very easily intimidated interns and part-time babysitters eren and armin who are trying their best

+ genres and warnings: modern au, parents au, fluff, yes the dog’s name is captain and he’s tiny what about it

+ summary: eren and armin are good subordinates, who happen to be pretty good babysitter, too. usually. 

+ word count: 2.7k

+ notes: this was just something fun i edited and reworked again, also to provide some more insight about dad levi and my oc kids; this focuses only on holden, who is the oldest of the bunch, but you’ll more about the rest as they go

It’s not that Levi doesn’t trust Holden’s babysitters, he just would rather watch over her himself. Moreover, he would rather have the time to spend with his small daughter instead of having to leave her in the care of someone else who isn’t you, but sometimes life gets busy, and babysitters come in real handy.

He still doesn’t understand why Erwin would schedule the both of you to attend such important work-related meetings on the same weekend; much less, to send you half-way around the world for yours, and then book Levi for damn near twelve hours on a Saturday. He would murder Erwin if he weren’t his direct boss, and a long-time friend. But shit happens, and while it’s a major inconvenience and pain in his ass to be working on a weekend, it’s good to know he could rely on the brats at the office to step up on such short notice.

“I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that if anything happens, I won’t hesitate to dismember you,” Levi says calmly, closing his briefcase after triple-checking its contents.

“Of course,” Armin stiffens visibly, awkward laughter seeping through his words, “Eren and I would never let anything happen to Holden.”

To his left, Holden has already tugged Eren to the coffee table for a game of children’s Scrabble, determined to show off her new skills. Levi smiles slightly as he remembers playing the game with her last week, and how awe-struck she was to have seen Levi create a word bigger than “unattainable”—which is currently the longest word in her four-year-old vocabulary. But he’s certain she would have no trouble beating Eren.

He gives Armin a slight nod. He knows Holden is in good hands; or good enough hands with Armin, anyway. It’s not the first time the duo has babysat, and for as air-headed and clumsy Eren could be at the office, he seemed to be pretty damn good with kids if Holden’s attachment to the brunette was anything to go by.

Levi recounts that you’ve questioned on multiple occasions why Eren was so dedicated to being your PA when he seemed to have a potential career in taking care of, and maybe even teaching children. Not that he’s not a good assistant to you, but he’s certainly not as organized or detailed-oriented as Armin. Levi shrugs away the thought. Eren’s career choices are none of his business; his only concern is that he keeps his daughter safe and sound.

“Right. My card is on the kitchen island, you can buy lunch and dinner or whatever, I don’t think there’s much in the fridge,” Levi informs Armin. He looks briefly to the clock on the wall; he really should get going. “Remember to walk Captain at some point, and no matter what Holden says, he absolutely does need a leash on him. If Erwin isn’t being a complete asshat, I’ll be home by nine. (Y/N) will probably still be on her flight, so call me if you need anything.”

Armin nods enthusiastically, promising Levi that they would take care of everything. They’d better.

“Alright, I’m heading out,” Levi announces, pulling his keys from the table near the door, “Be good, Holden. Tell Armin and Eren if you need anything.”

Holden’s head perks up at the sound of her name. Elegantly, or as elegantly as a four-year-old can be, she stands from her seated crisscross position, to run over to Levi by the door. He should remind her that she should use walking feet inside the house, but he can’t bring himself to, instead crouching down to meet her height.

“Bye, daddy,” she tells him sweetly. Levi reaches a hand out to ruffle the top of her head, much to the small girl’s chagrin. She sports a grimace almost identical to his as he reaches up to try and smooth out the aftermath of her father’s affections, “Daddy!”

Levi can’t help but chuckle, reaching two fingers out to poke at his daughter’s forehead. “Be good. I’ll be back soon.”

“Mommy too?”

Levi sighs, “No, mommy doesn’t come back until Tuesday.”

“That’s four days away,” Holden’s doesn’t hesitate to express her dissatisfaction. Levi nods, a little proud of how quickly she’d calculated that in her head, “Can Eren stay until Tuesday?”

“No, Eren cannot.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Holden crinkles her nose. Levi really has got to do something about her fascination with Eren.

Holden looks backwards to where Eren is still seated around the coffee table, he and Armin watching the father-daughter duo. After reconciling with the fact that Eren does, in fact, have his own home to go back to at the end of the day, Holden turns back around, and holds her hand up, palm facing Levi. He does the same, bringing his larger palm to hers, so that her hand is pushed against the middle of his.

Not one for hugs, kisses, or larger displays of affection, Holden simply turns her palm so that her hand grabs around Levi’s as best as possible, hooking her thumb around his pinky finger—what Levi’s heard the young girl call a hand hug.

“Bye, daddy,” she repeats, squeezing his hand, “Come back soon.”

Levi bends his fingers to wrap around her hand, “I will.”

“Keep an eye on her,” Levi reminds Armin and Eren, after standing back up and gripping his briefcase in his hand, “Don’t cause too much trouble.”

“Holden never causes trouble,” Eren says in response, but his words are spoken in coos to the young girl, who’s already back at his side. 

Levi scoffs, “I was talking to you.” 

“We’ll be fine, boss, don’t worry,” Eren chuckles with an awkward blush, “We love looking after Holden.”

“I’m not your boss,” Levi deadpans, double-checking his pockets for his keys, “You’d better hope everything is fine. Call me if anything happens, I’ll be back soon.” 

With one final round of good-byes, and a wave from his daughter, Levi’s out the door, and stepping into his car with a grimace. It was just one stupid day out of his life. Besides, Holden would be fine with Armin and Eren; she always is. Levi is just grumpy that he can’t be the one to spend the day with her. 

He sighs, reluctantly, putting his keys in the ignition. The sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could come back to Holden. Everything would be fine in the meantime; for now, he had to focus on how he was going to get himself to sit through Erwin’s long-ass meeting. 

“Levi! Hi! Um… okay, so don’t freak out, but Armin and I are at the hospital with Holden right now—don’t freak out—because there was a small incident at lunch—don’t freak out and fire me please—but! It’s all gonna be okay, they’re already treating her and she’s doing fine now, so don’t freak—”  

“Tell me not to freak out one more fucking time and I’ll castrate Armin and feed you his balls myself.”

“You sound a little freaked out,” Eren placates, wincing and holding his phone away from his ear when Levi growls in response.

“You have five seconds to tell me what you two idiots did to my daughter and explain why I shouldn’t decapitate you immediately.”

“It’s a funny story, actually—so, um, we think Holden might be allergic to nuts…?”

“What do you mean might be, Jaeger?”

Eren can feel his heart in his throat. He eyes Armin on the other side of Holden’s hospital bed. He looks no better—color almost completely drained from his face, but Eren doesn’t think he can say much else to his boss before his knees give out from underneath him.

“Uh, well, it was a lot of technical terms, and—I—um, actually I’m going to let Armin explain!” Eren hurries, all but chucking his phone at the unsuspecting blonde.

Armin’s blue eyes look almost grey with anxiety, but before he can protest, Eren is flailing his hands and pointing fingers and reminding him that Levi will kill them both if he doesn’t start talking.

Reluctant, and terrified, Armin finally lifts the phone to his ear, stuttering out a pathetic hello, but Levi cuts him off before he can say anything else.

“Save it. Send me your location, and pray I don’t kill you when I get there.” Armin chokes out a “yes, sir,” before slowly bringing the phone down to his side.

The good news is that Holden’s allergic reaction wasn’t too severe: her throat had been irritated, and hives had emerged as a result, but it hadn’t been closing up. And luckily, Eren had the endurance to run nearly a mile and half with a four year old tucked under his arm; because with the traffic Armin observed whilst he and Captain huffed and lagged behind, it would have taken thrice as long to get Holden to the ER had they waited and called for an ambulance.

Even better was that Holden was an unnervingly calm kid, even whilst having an allergic reaction. She looked almost back to normal now, save for a few red looking blotches on her neck and upper arm; and seemed more than content to be watching a video on Eren’s phone, despite the situation. She was a little bummed out to find out that she could never eat the new ice cream she liked so much ever again, but she seemed to quickly get over it once Eren reminded her that there were lots of other flavors out there for her to try. Flavors that wouldn’t make her choke to death.

Still, Eren and Armin could probably kiss their jobs goodbye, seeing as they had nearly just poisoned their bosses’ daughter. Holden seemed to like them enough, but, unfortunately, Holden wasn’t the Ackerman who signed their checks.

At the very least, Eren doesn’t think you’ll be too upset with him. He doesn’t think you’ll be ecstatic to hear that while you were away on your already inconvenient work-trip on the other side of the globe, that he also managed to land your daughter in a hospital bed… but you were the more forgiving one. Then again, maybe not so forgiving when it comes to the health and wellbeing of your daughter. 

Eren falls back against the wall in dread. You weren’t even in the same country as him and he was worried about what you might say or do to him. Levi was probably less than twenty minutes away and fully capable of beheading him.

“You… uh, you think the Interior Branch is still looking for interns?” Eren breaks the silence, looking towards Armin, who’s taken the seat next to Holden’s bed, petting Captain robotically as the dog sits in his lap.

“I don’t think it matters,” Armin responds, “They won’t hire corpses.”

Fifteen minutes, and several run red lights later, Levi is bursting through the doors to the pediatric wing of the emergency room. He doesn’t care about the old woman at the reception yelling at him for causing a ruckus, or the other parents, doctors, or visitors eyeing him for marching around like he owned the place. Holden was in there somewhere, and he was going to get to her.

“Holden—oh, god, Holden,” Levi coos, frantic, as he marches into Holden’s room, scurrying to the side of her hospital bed. A cold hand reaches up to stroke her face. Angry, red bumps litter the sides of neck, her cheeks are puffier than usual, and the perimeter of her mouth seems a bit irritated, but Levi is relieved. She’s okay, his baby girl is okay.

“’M fine, daddy,” Holden assures him. She’s almost overly-perceptive for her age, able to pick up on her father’s out of character antics, and does her best to console him. “Eren ran with me all the way here when I started coughing and itchin.’”

Levi nods, the dark grey splotches in Holden’s eyes bringing him comfort, ensuring him that she was okay. “They gave me a shot, and I don’t like needles, but I didn’t even cry at all. Ask, Armin and Eren, they saw! Captain, too.”

“Brave girl,” Levi smiles, reaching his hand up to push her hair out of her face then leans over to press a kiss to her forehead.

Levi had almost forgotten that Eren and Armin were in the room until he hears a blundering cough from behind him. The younger boys look petrified, Eren practically shaking in his shoes, while Armin doesn’t even have the confidence to look him in the eye.

“We’re really sorry, Levi,” Eren apologizes, voice scratchy and wobbly, like he’d been the one to just get a shot, “We didn’t know—and when she started coughing and saying she couldn’t breathe, I swear, I ran here as fast as I could—”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s… fine?”

Levi sighs. Maybe he’d been a little harsh with them on the phone, letting his emotions get the best of him. He’d already been pissed off enough to not have the time to spend with Holden this weekend; hearing that she’d been hurt was just the final push over the edge for him, but it wasn’t necessarily Armin or Eren’s fault.

“I didn’t know either,” Levi exhales, reaching at hand out to pet the top of Holden’s head again, the young girl now distracted once again by the phone in her hand, “She’s never had a reaction to anything before, and neither (Y/N) or I have any strong allergies.”

Armin shuffles where he’s standing. “The doctor said she might be allergic to tree nuts. We, uh, we gave her pistachio ice cream after lunch.”

If there’s anything concerning Levi, it’s that they gave Holden ice cream before dinner, but he supposes he can let it go for now.

“Eren told me to try it, and it tasted good, daddy,” Holden interjects, “Before I started coughing, it was good.”

“Ah, well, you can’t—you shouldn’t eat things that make you feel sick!” Eren stutters loudly.

“But it was good,” Holden pouts, “And you said to try new things, Eri. I won’t know if it makes me sick if I don’t try them.”

Levi holds back his laughter. He knows that Holden definitely wouldn’t want to try the same same flavor again knowing now that she was allergic to it; she was just pulling at Eren’s leg. Levi would have to keep an eye out for the stuff anyway, especially if her oh-so-precious Eren has expressed any former love for it. 

“Um, Levi, sir,” Armin calls, pulling Levi’s attention towards the blonde, “We didn’t know if (Y/N) would have landed already, but do you think you should call her, to, um, let her know?”

Levi’s face pales three shades when he realizes that none of them had already informed you that your daughter was currently hospitalized with a new found allergy.

“You can call her,” Levi says, a shudder in his spine at the thought of relaying this information to you, “That’s your death sentence, not mine.”

[siancore]

Hi Siancore, how’s your day? I wanted to ask how you write Sambucky Fanfics. Because I want to write a Sambucky chapter book, and I don’t really know how to write their personalities. Can you please help if not it’s ok. Thanks have a good day/night☺️

Hey. I’m doing okay today. Thank you for asking. I hope you’re well! 

I’m happy to help you by going through how I write:

1. Their personalities 2. Chaptered fics

Firstly, I have drawn a lot from their 616 personalities as well as the little we’ve seen on screen pre-FATWS.

Let’s start with Sam. Some personality traits, attributes, and skills:

- Care-giver

- Compassionate

- Empathetic

- Adrenaline junkie 

- Risk-taker

- Smart

- Charming

- Funny

- Staunch 

- Physical prowess 

Next, Bucky:

- Protector

- Morbid/wry sense of humour

- Self-deprecating

- Intuitive

- Caring 

- Funny

- Dangerously skillful 

- Empathetic 

- Flirty

- Driven 

Now, some mannerism that you should include:

- Sam crosses his arms over his chest when he is making a point

- Bucky narrows his eyes when he is concentrating 

- Sam’s smile is bright

- Bucky’s smile makes his eyes crinkle at the corners

- Sam isn’t a fast runner, and Bucky never runs fast when he is with Sam

- Sam can fly, but choses to run (slowly) with Bucky

- They have been protective of one another in the heat of battle using their own physicality 

- Both are super precise with their attacking and parrying 

- Both have looked at one another with heart-eyes (it’s canon!)

- Both love to bicker with the other

Let’s now look at story structure:

Your overall goal: What story do you want to tell? What happens? How does it end?

For story ideas, this is the structure I follow:

1. Orientation: Who? Where? When?

2. Complication: Situation that causes difficulty for one or more of the characters.

3. Resolution: How the characters navigate the difficulty; how it has changed them.

4. Ending (optional): How they have learned from the changes.

For chapter outlines, I make sure to cover the following:

1. Setting/Time

2. Characters - main and background

3. Problem/Difficulty

4. Solution

I then use plot points as a chapter outline. By elaborating on the plot points (a paragraph per point - 250 words, give or take), I flesh out my story. Points are what you want to explore in the chapter, the story is the details that stem from the points i.e. what characters are doing/feeling/saying.

For writing in general, set a schedule. Word count goals are useful, too e.g. setting a goal for yourself to write 2 paragraphs of your story per day. If you stick to a standard chapter (2,500-3,000 words), writing 2-3 paragraphs per day, and then editing and proofreading on the weekend, means you could have an update posted each week.

Please keep in mind the following:

- Motivation to write will fluctuate

- Finding inspiration can sometimes be difficult

Don’t force it! Your story will come to you. Take your time. Allow yourself to be happy with what you have come up with before you share it.

Here’s a little example for you, if you wanted to tell a short multi-chapter romcom fluff fic about SamBucky being shy about asking one another on a date, you might flesh your idea out like this using plot points:

Overall Goal: Sam wants to ask Bucky out on a date, but he’s not had much success in the dating game for a while. They like one another, but both are shy and out of practice. Fluff ensues.

Chapter 1:

 - Meet cute through mutual friend

 - Instant attraction

 - Shyness

 - Difficulty: Not being confident enough to make their move

Chapter 2:

 - Mutual pining

 - Running into one another again

 - General awkwardness

 - Talking about their crush to their mutual friend

 - Being persuaded by friend to act on feelings

 - Difficulty: Misunderstanding - thinking their feelings are not reciprocated

Chapter 3:

 - Getting to spend some time together without help of mutual friend

 - Flirting

 - Playful banter

 - Finding that they are a good match

 - Crushing on one another even more

 - Awkwardness about the previous misunderstanding

 - Finally asking the other person out

 - Date is confirmed! Yay!

Chapter 4:

 - Excited about date

 - Nervous about the date

 - Worrying they will screw it up

 - The obligatory scene where a good friend helps them get ready

 - Actual date

 - Climax, ending in a kiss, another date, time jump to their wedding etc.

With your plot points, you can elaborate on them, and have your story flowing sequentially. Each point can end up being at least two paragraphs (around 250 words each). Always have your ending worked out, and use your plot points to get there.

Remember to follow your narrative structure in each chapter by setting the scene and showing which characters are involved.

Good dialogue enables you to show what is happening in your scene through your characters.

Space your ideas out and decide on which scenes you want to detail in each chapter. Don’t try to do too much! You don’t want your chapter to be convoluted; you don’t want impactful scenes to be lost because too much is happening.

Your first sentence of each chapter should grab your reader, and your final sentence should leave them wanting more.

One strategy that works for me when I need to flesh out an idea is to write the scene (plot point) as if it’s a recount I am telling someone. I then go back through the recount, and change it so it fits the narrative structure. For example, if we used the above story idea, the outline for Chapter 1 could look like this:

 - SamBucky met through mutual friend, Steve.

 - They hadn’t been known to one another before, but found one another very attractive. 

- Both were shy, and a little out of practice since they had not dated with much success after their long-term relationships had broken down.

 - Bucky thought Sam was smart, pretty, funny, easy-going. 

- Sam thought Bucky was charming, handsome, kind, easy to talk to. 

- Sam thought about asking him out.

 - He thought about asking Sam out.  

- They both wanted to see one another again, but was it too soon? They had only just met.

 - There was an opening for one to ask the other on a date, but lack of confidence got in the way 

- They missed their opportunity

All of these can be expanded on and fleshed out with: - Details about setting - What characters are thinking - What characters are feelings - What they are saying - What complications arise - How, if at all, it is resolved

Basically, if you know where you want your characters to end up, and you know which part of your story you want to focus on in which chapter, all you have to do is provide the details.

Chapter titles help with this, as well:

Chapter 1: The Meet Cute

Chapter 2: He’s Just Not that into Me?

Chapter 3: A Good Match

Chapter 4: Oh My Gosh, I have Nothing to Wear!

Here are a few more tips I can think of: 

- Try to have a writing/updating schedule. 

- Set a daily goal to write at least one paragraph of your story, and at least one conversation. 

- Watch fanvids for inspiration. 

- Talk to other writers in forums. 

- Read! Read! Read! See what other fic writers are doing well and learn from them. 

 I hope this helps. Happy writing!

[zodiactalks]

Personality Traits of Virgo Man

Virgo’s unblemished character is almost impossible to overlook. His conversations are extremely interesting, his clothes are spotless, and his manners command absolute deference, bringing peace and order to whoever comes into his life.

However, he does not like to draw attention to himself, striving to go unnoticed. Therefore, we invite you to learn about some of his personality traits to identify him once he pops up on your radar:

#1. Virgo man has a very high intellectual capacity.

Virgo's intelligence is one of his greatest virtues. He has impressive logical reasoning, being able to analyze and understand complex situations in record time.

He needs to explain and place everything in the right pigeonhole. Therefore, he hates confusing situations and chaotic relationships, especially those extremely sensitive individuals who have unpredictable mood swings.

Moreover, he is passionate about deciphering tricky riddles and cryptic mysteries. Until he finds the right answer, the Virgo man won't put his marvelous mind and intellect to rest.

#2. He is humble and cares about feeling useful.

However, no matter how brilliant he is, the Virgo man is not interested in notoriety. He does his work because he genuinely enjoys it, and doesn't need someone else's praise to keep him going.

He also has no inclinations for activities meant only for personal gratification. He is talented and knows he can use those qualities to help make the world a better place.

#3. He is comfortable with routine and being part of a system.

Therefore, the Virgo man does not mind getting up early or sticking to his schedule. Moreover, he enjoys it greatly! Every day that passes is an opportunity to refine his performance.

Besides, he takes pride in knowing his role, no matter how small, is essential for the rest of the machinery to function properly. That's why you'll never see him complaining about his routine or needing some time off.

#4. He is obsessive about order and can be very self-critical.

As you may have already guessed, the Virgo man loves order! Perhaps a little too much. His standards are very high and he demands almost perfect results in whatever project he undertakes.

That's why he usually notices those details no one else spots and is capable of tearing everything down and starting from scratch just for the sake of it. He always finds something more to enhance, and he doesn't mind how long will it take to improve his skills.

This is where some of his self-esteem problems come from, as he tends to focus mainly on the flaws he needs to correct and not on the strengths he has already mastered.

#5. His achievements always involve a greater good.

The Virgo man is a service-oriented person. This is why he always participates in work or projects that benefit the rest of the world.

He is charitable and kind, being the first who offers to wash the dishes after dinner or the one who always invites others on social outings. He is concerned about the welfare of his loved ones and will never put his comfort above theirs.

#6. He struggles at times to accept abundance in his life.

For this reason, the Virgo man finds it hard to spend money on himself or on objects designed only to provide him with pleasure and amusement.

He finds it hard to accept compliments or lucky breaks, as his humble character makes him feel undeserving.

Therefore, it is important to encourage him towards ambition and not to feel guilty whenever good things happen in his life.

[funkymbtifiction]

It is interesting how ENFP process of self-discovery is almost identical to INFP yet it is in reversed order. I love how you describe it as "a tree being whipped by the wind. The branches sway all over the place, gathering thoughts, ideas, concepts, possibilities, and sometimes the moisture never gets down to the trunk, which is where “I” am" I can almost picture it and it is quite fascinating how different but similar ENFP and INFP's perspectives are.

So, from that point am I correct to assume that introvert and extrovert with the same function (like INFP ENFP or ESTP ISTP) are only similar in how their functions appear like Ne-Fi and Fi-Ne will be similar to some extent but when look deeper into their core, like in how they self-discovery and self-perceiving, they are very different so INFP will be more similar in their core to ISFP than to ENFP?

IFPs are like a slice of life series' protagonist who travels alone and learning to know themselves better along the way, maybe help people too but remains mostly in the background, and be more mature alone, as a result, while EFPs are an adventurer who travels on the road and help people along the way through their solid action to see more of the world and discover new way of seeing things as well as who they are as a person.

The other point I find intriguing is how you describe yourself as being worse than you are and that you are very harsh on yourself. I usually am not hard on myself as much. I know I have judgmental streak. I can be callous and distant at times and I certainly am not a perfectly decent person but I believe in not being too harsh on myself because I possess those qualities. It is a part of myself and will always be a part of who I am. So I need to learn to balance them with other good qualities I possess. And to balance those bad qualities to become a better person, I need time and I can't rush it. So mostly I'm very aware of my bad qualities but usually don't over focus on it, because I know that in time I will be better person because and it's not possible to change who I am at my core. But I can temper my bad qualities to be more balanced. So, it doesn't bother me as much and I also prefer to go slowly, learning and tweaking.

But instead, I tear my hair over work performance and how I fail to do some simple management task competently. It might be inferior Te at work here. Laying out steps and visualizing goals are easy enough, but the extensive management and unexpected situations will throw me off pretty quickly, like a rocking boat. I learned to be more careful and thorough with planning (no unnecessary leaping because I can't competently make split second decision.) But something like product comparison, charging for service or resource-and-cost-oriented decision are still really tough and I usually have no clue how to do it on my own without external system. And when I actually do it, I feel really bad it always nags me in my mind Do I charge too much? If I decide not to take their product, will the producers have a hard time? Usually I resort to ask my ETJ and ESFP friends for help. 

I wish I have more Te though, but that means I might get into Te-grip. So it's fine, for now. I take your advice and try to utilize other people's systems and it works! 

So, if you are willing, may I ask what is your experience to your Tert Te? 

You can understand your introverted or extroverted counterpart extremely well, because you are using all the same functions, just in a different order of preference. It has shocked me at times how identical my thinking is to most of the INFPs I know, except that they are more grounded in Self and I am more "open" to alternative possibilities. So no, I would not say they are more similar to ISFPs than to ENFPs -- ISFPs are more similar to ESFPs than to INFPs. They have a similar need to self-reference, and similar problems with inferior Te, but that is where the resemblance ends.

ISFPs use Se, which makes them far more aware of concrete reality and how their actions have real world consequences, whereas INFPs are dreamy idealists who aren't always aware of "repercussions" because it doesn't occur to them to source the real world when it comes to sharing their values. ISFPs are more realistic, whereas INFPs have the same problem ENFPs have with being too idealistic. It's much the same with the other types as well -- an ISTP understands and 'gets' an ESTP but finds them too quick to act, and an ESTP gets an ISTP but finds them too slow to act, etc.

Regarding the self-recrimination... it comes from having double Enneagram 1 wings in my tritype and and rating extremely high on the Big Five test for Conscientiousness. Being a 2w1 fixer, I want to be helpful, generous, and kind and am hard on myself for not living up to being more selfless, patient, good, etc. A 3 fixer or a 4 fixer doesn't think this way. But yes, I am hard on myself for my mistakes and beat myself up for them on a regular basis (a friendship falls apart through no fault of my own? It must be my fault :P). I get lost in an inner vortex of what my perceived bad behavior says about my inner state of being and what kind of a person it makes me.

Do not recommend.

Let's see, tert Te. Well, I really have no problem whatsoever changing a plan and going with something else -- the perks of being a Ne-dom. I just look at what is available or what isn't working and go a different way. I use Te pretty confidently and casually most of the time, but I do get stressed at work where I have to be more exact, scheduled, and I can very easily get "overwhelmed" and not know what to work on first. I WANT to organize myself for efficiency, but it takes me a little time to figure out what task to do in what order, which would be the most efficient use of my time and energy. That's why I read so many "useful" books (I read way more of those than novels these days) -- books that tell me how to prioritize tasks, that tell me how to organize my kitchen shelves, that tell me how to do things, how to stop procrastinating, how to make the most of my time, etc. I don't remember half of it, but I can usually pick up one or two useful things and go with it. Like you, I'm not super confident in setting prices and I often think they are too high unless I compare them to what other people are offering; I think part of that is being a feeler (can they afford this?) and part of it is being a little unsure of myself.

I can explain a little bit of something I did recently that might help you to see what I "go through" on a daily basis -- as you know, I'm working on a MBTI book. I started out writing it chronologically and then halfway into a couple of profiles, I thought -- this is stupid. What I need to do is write an extensive overview of each dominant function, then take that information and change it in the context of each place it appears in a functional stack. For example, write up a long profile on Ni-dom, then how it looks under Te and Fe, then how it looks under Se, and finally, how it acts in an inferior position. This streamlined my process and helped me finish the first draft in only a few weeks -- but I did not think of it "before" I started the project, I figured it out WHILE I was working on the project and felt that my process was moving along too slow. That's how I have to use Te -- I need to get in and try things with Ne, and then bring in Te to balance it out, help me decide what order to do things in, and make decisions about quality, content, etc. Te is kind of automatic for me -- when a friend says, "I am going to buy a house," instantly I think -- is this person a good financial investment for a bank loan? But the actual implementation of Te (step by step procedures, goals, plans, etc) is harder for me, especially when it becomes tedious. It's way more fun to organize my DVD collection than to take care of my taxes. :P

[angelicymp]

Perhaps a little coaxing is needed...

Good evening my literary friends,

I am hoping to find a suitable partner for specific cravings and ideas I have in mind.

My introduction will be brief and a bit more to the point than usual. I am quite thorough and detail-oriented when it comes to being a writer, including some of my rules and preferences. However, since I believe it to be quite a hassle to go through every point I’m making, my ad will be a bit more compact.

A brief recap: You can call me Imp; I am in my twenties and a student, striving to become a part-time freelancer as well. My main hobbies are photography, traveling, drawing and of course, the art of writing. Currently, I reside in Europe, so my timezone could differ from yours, unless you are also from a similar region.

Be sure to read through my ad to see if we’re compatible. Too many times I’ve encountered cases where the inquirers skimmed through all of the info and upon messaging me, were surprised to learn that we weren’t a match from the beginning. So if you haven’t properly read my ad, I’ll know. I’d like to urge everyone to stick with it so there won't be any misunderstandings and not waste everyone’s time.

————————


Me, myself and I

(art by: Ayami Kojima)

♦ Nickname: Imp

♦ Experience: 12 years and counting

♦ Style: 1:1 with the inclusion of doubling

♦ Rating: Mature

♦ Roleplaying Platform: Email and Google Docs

♦ Chatting Platform: Email, Google Hangouts or Discord

♦ Pet peeves: Slice of Life


After finishing the game of Resident Evil 8 Village, I was struck by yet another muse.




I am currently looking for either a pre-existing canon inspired roleplay, or, something completely original. Be sure you are above the age of eighteen, preferably 21 and upwards. I will not accept any inquires from minors - this is not negotiable.

What to expect

♢  Content: Mature. I am more interested in darker things like horror, occultism, the supernatural, you can maybe guess where I am going with this. My limits are few, safe for a couple of minor pet peeves that I have, I am pretty much open to some experimentation; such as violence, gore and sexual themes. When it comes to heavy scenes, I will not fade to black, unless it serves no purpose to the story. Not a huge fan of censorship. However, I will not force or push my partner into something they are not comfortable with. If you want to know the extent to how far I am willing to go, what sort of content, or how graphic my writing will be, you can ask me directly.



♢ Rating: I have little to no issues with delving into more sensitive topics. Since reality is often stranger than fiction, it is very interesting to explore all sides of human nature, including the less comfortable subjects such as psychology, crime, etc. But I also like to remind that this is a world of fiction and no one in their right mind would condone such things in real life. The world of adults is not easy to handle, but it sure is interesting to explore. So if you are a gentle soul and can’t take the heat of more serious moments within the roleplay, be it a character going through trying times, etc; this might not be ideal for you.

♢ Writing: My texts are considerably lengthy, detailed, and elaborate. Third-person is usually my preferred way of playing my character unless there’s a special case where an exception can be made. Word count usually fluctuates, though I have a standard form of 400-500+ words per reply. It also highly depends on the given situation.

♢ Romancing: I admit to being a hopeless romantic. There’s nothing more enjoyable than witnessing good and powerful chemistry between two characters. Preferably I go for the usual MxF pairing dynamic but I am also open to FxF and MxM, should it feel more fitting. While doubling, I can write the character/love interest to my partner’s desire, but I always aim to stay true to their personality and character. I hate nothing more than forcing characters into a relationship, especially if there’s no spark, so I won’t respond well to being pressured into letting characters act out of their personality. It’s just not realistic. As for smut, or what have you, I have no issues with adding a few spicy scenes, sometimes even drawing them out of our pleasure. When there is, however, a running theme where sexual themes are taking the focal point of the plot, it can become quite boring. It is never the center of any of my roleplays, so be warned.

♢ Plotting: I am fairly quick when it comes to building new characters, concepts, premises, storylines, backstories, etc. It allows me a certain latitude. Feel free to communicate your ideas and thoughts with me. I am happy to chat, even when it doesn’t involve the roleplay directly. Though this is a hobby, I am still extremely passionate about good storytelling and interesting character arcs. I hope to meet someone who is just as enthusiastic and willing to put in the same amount of effort. If it’s only me who’s pulling all the weight, I will lose interest and feel forced to end the correspondence.

No gos

♦ Won’t do: Pedophilia, Necrophilia, Bestiality, Scat, Vore, Toilet Play, etc. I am sure you can also think of many other strange fetishes that have developed over the years spent on the internet.

♦ Won’t write: The idea of supernatural beings trying to fit into human society. The typical bully x victim storyline. The run-of-the-mill vampires vs werewolf plot. BDSM centred stories. Slice of life. Flawless or excessively flawed characters.

What I expect

♢ Literacy: You should at least have a decent grasp of basic grammar and coherency in your spelling.

♢ Flexibility: Since we all have lives outside of the roleplay, we both need to be flexible. Sometimes our schedules may differ, and if life is currently intervening, we can take things a bit easier. Plus, I can’t always respond every second of every day, either. This should be considered a hobby and not a job. If a hiatus is on the rise, there is no problem with putting things on ice until things clear up.

♢ Experience: And by that, I don’t mean how many years you’ve roleplayed, rather the experience that comes with age and emotional maturity. Especially if you want to write stories with grit.

♢ Open to doubling: Quick explanation. Doubling is when we play two main characters each. The dynamic is as follows; I write your chosen love interest against your main character while you do the same for me.

♢ Long term: Only long-term partnerships.

♢ Sharing the spotlight: Don’t forget, this is all about you too! Let me know all your specific cravings, interests, or wants that you want to be included into the roleplay.

Cravings

♦ Urban fantasy: Supernaturals, demons, spirits, vampires, you name it. I’d be more interested in something original and unique, especially when it comes to vampirism and demonic entities.

♦ Dark Sci-Fi: So this is a bit inspired by Resident Evil. A world where monsters become a vicious reality, generating fear among the people they come in contact with. But as it turns out, these monsters are not supernatural, but rather infected or mutated by a virus that cannot be explained.

♦ History, mythology, and folklore: An interesting take on the historical timeline, where legends and myths were once a reality. However, their existence was greatly misrepresented in the storybooks, sometimes even completely distorted. Our characters could be accidental time travelers who have been sent from the future to see it with their own eyes. Inspirations are mostly Slavic, European, and ancient folklore from all over the world.

♦ Crime with a dark twist: Mafias, organized crime, and corrupted politicians run this town. All of them have one thing in common. A particular drug that grants humans superhuman abilities; but at a cost. The drug will turn force the users to reject their humanity to instead embrace their monstrosity.

Canon & Fandoms

♢ Castlevania: Rather the original games than the Netflix series. But I am also not opposed to tackling the Netflix universe.

♢ Devil May Cry: Every game is game. Except for the reboot. Never played that one.

♢ Invincible: Not so invincible.

♢ Resident Evil: Village is one of the best games I’ve ever played. Periodt.

♢ Harry Potter: Next gen anyone?

————————

If you made it this far, I am glad you managed to hold on, lol. If you found what I wrote, agreeable and have a similar interests to mine, feel free to message me on this email adress.

You can also contact me via DM on my Tumblr blog, though preferably, I would rather be more receptive on Email since I am more active there. And it’s a lot more personal as well.

Email: impish.and.angelic@gmail.com

Hope to see you there.

I wish you all a lovely day my fellow readers!

-Imp

[sorbet-hydratante]

Been going through a bit lately, and I feel like it would help me some if I write down my recent experiences. Although, if anyone is reading this and has any constructive criticism/ helpful input or advice to offer I think I'd like that, too. I'm calm now, just kind of tired. Placing under a read more so it doesn't take up space. Warning, boyfriend troubles.

Started when I got a new job. Yay job! Orientation started in a few days and I needed business clothing. So, my boyfriend decided to go clothes shopping with me the day before as it was the day that worked best for us.

My boyfriend hates shopping. Like, H A T E S it. I essentially had no money as I had been struggling to get a job beforehand, so that was why he was with me.

We went in knowing I needed dress slacks, white shirts, a jacket/blazer, and some ballet-style socks. I was working on the slacks and shirts.... but 1-2 hours of me doing this had annoyed my boyfriend. Me taking pictures of different clothing and showing them to him (because I value his input, I think his tastes are better than mine when it comes to business fashion) also ended up agitating him, he didn't see the point in it. I sensed how annoyed he was, so I tried to just go with the few items I was absolutely sure of and just maybe go back shopping later today. He points out I still need a blazer and socks, and that another department store is nearby so we should just go anyway. I managed to convince him I could buy the socks on my own (as the socks won't cost much), but we still had to look for a blazer. As orientation starts tomorrow, this had to be done today.

However, because I sensed his increasing agitation through his whole time here, I became more anxious and nervous.

So, second store. We're trying to find a nice, simple black blazer, but it was proving difficult due to high prices. He also wasn't satisfied with the shirts I got and felt I needed something nicer looking, so we looked at more white shirts. I'm starting to breathe fast, and it got to a point to where I needed to sit down and breathe/ calm down. I told him I needed a few minutes, maybe 10-15? He wasn't happy with it, but sat down with me. I start tearing up a bit, as is my response to stressful situations. Tells me I shouldn't be crying, I should be happy as I'm spending his money! He suggested that we ask an employee for help, and I agreed. Then he told me to at least make myself look presentable (as I learned later from him that you are not supposed to cry in public, ever; you're supposed to behave). The way he said that came off as very cold to me, so it took me a little bit longer to get myself together. We hadn't been able to find help however, so we left. I point out that he must be hungry at this point, so we should eat.

During this I texted my mom for advice on my work clothes (at one point I told him that I want to stop and shop with my mom instead; he said that I don't know what my mom's schedule was like for that day so it won't be possible). She said to try Kohl's, so we go there (we couldn't find anything). We then go to Macy's, and we finally found a blazer that works, if a bit tight. I had gift cards I wanted to use (and I wanted to lessen the amount my boyfriend had to spend) so I tried to use them, but they weren't working for me. While I'm trying to use gift cards, my boyfriend made a note of apologizing to an old lady behind us (he apparently also said something to me, but I was distracted with gift cards and thought he was just talking to the old lady behind us). He gets fed up, turns to me and bluntly says if he could just use his card. I was silent for a second, then said sure.

When leaving, he started getting at me for the gift cards. Said I should've called the numbers listed on the card first. I said I didn't know, and that I never had this issue until now. He looks at me with this forced smile on his face, made a motion with his hands, and said we're finished here. (He later tells me he didn't say this, and thinks I interpreted that from his hands. He definitely did, or said something very similar to the effect). On the way home I started full on crying. When we get to the parking lot, he slams his door shut.

I don't remember too much afterwards. He told me about behaving in public, that the old lady did her time and shouldn't have to wait, etc. We eventually both calmed down enough and said our sorries. Our problems reared back up again this morning, and I don't remember what sparked it, but I think beforehand we were discussing about our shopping experience. I told him that I didn't want to shop with him anymore as it was such a bad experience for me.

He got offended at this and said we should be able to shop together, and what's the point of us being together if we can't spend time together. He felt I was being distant with him, and that lately a lot of the things that I was doing was pissing him off, and that he doesn't know what he could do to make me feel better besides throwing money at me. He hates how moody I can be and that my attitude brings the whole environment down (the room, atmosphere, etc.). He also told me to not cry.

And, I'm trying not to cry. I end up failing on that part, but I tried to tell him what he could do, like toning down his approach some, and just being reassured it'll be okay. He asks if I just want him to be a yes man, I tell him no. I also tell him at one point I look to him for fashion advice, which he didn't seem to understand why as I'm capable of picking stuff out. We worked on a compromise for shopping, which is we have a clear set goal of what we're looking for and we spend an hour at most. Us talking it out does help some, and again, apologies.

......it should be over and done with but it's still weighing on me some. My boyfriend's the type to get over things quick, I'm the type that lingers and struggles. I tried to ask him a few times what I'm doing that pisses him off, but he brushes it off saying they're things that piss him off only in the moment or they're just pet peeves. Which.... okay, I guess, and maybe it's for the best? A small part of me still worries about it though, like what if it's something I could work on? But I guess I'm just not gonna know. I'm not really sure what I could do to stop myself from crying when in a tough discussion with someone, it's gonna be hard for me for sure. And the shopping..... I feel that could work if maybe we're getting just one or two items, but a whole outfit or more? I honestly don't know if I can try on outfits and figure out what works best under an hour or so. Just thinking about it is still filling me a bit of dread. If it's more than a few items I think I'll just opt to go shopping without him (and this time I'll have money so I'm not dependent on him). Thinking this is already making me feel bad, because compromise, but I need to take time to figure things out, and just..... ugh.

I'm also not entirely sure what he could do to make me feel better when I'm down/moody, which is a problem. I know that I would like his approach to be a bit softer when I'm getting anxious and nervous, like earlier. But when I know someone is mad/irritated at me? I feel lost.

Is this venting? I don't know. I honestly wish I could talk with a friend about this but I don't know who I could talk to. A small part of me is worried that I was being selfish, or irrational, and I don't want to be.... or maybe I was just completely in the wrong the whole time..? It just feels like I'm wrong, somehow.

[maiacroft]

Hello everyone, we wanted to take a moment to update the members on a few things and keep you all in the light.

A MESSAGE FROM THE ADMINS

We wanted to address some points with nothing but honesty.

Point #1: Inclusiveness

The first thing we would like to address is the issue with admins and their inclusiveness. In the months leading up to the holidays, the admins have not interacted with as many people as they should have been. When we acknowledge that we haven’t had threads with as many people as we should, it isn’t for a lack of trying. Every one of the admins wants to participate like any other member and we do try to have threads with as many people as we can but with balancing our personal schedules, maintaining the main (which we are still never perfect with), answering questions, organizing the grand plot, and managing the rest of the behind the scenes for the RP, sometimes we do struggle to have as many threads as we would like and as many threads as we expect our members to have with one another.

When we started this RP, each one of the admins had more free time to spare on RP in general. Obviously, a lot occurs and changes in your personal lives over the course of a year and a half, and despite the fact that we do have more things to balance on top of running the RP, we still want to see the grand plot through, we still want to run this group for the members that have been developing their characters here for so long and while the number of threads we are able to maintain is affected, many of the other responsibilities we have are also affected. This includes being able to come online regularly. If we come online with the intention of doing replies, if there are questions or concerns that have been brought to our attention, if they are matters we can handle alone, we are usually prioritizing those over doing our replies. Although it may not always show on the dash, we do want to have threads with everyone, and every time we plot with people OOC, we have every intention of seeing that plot through on the dash.

We don’t want to use our busyness as an excuse to not engage with everyone, but we do want to be transparent in saying that sometimes, us trying our best to maintain everything: not neglect our personal lives and have threads with everyone, is a lot, and it doesn’t always allow us to have threads with everyone that we would like to. We claim full responsibility for not reaching out to our members and plotting with them as much as we should have, and we take responsibility for not having threads with as many people as we should, and if the admins have made you feel excluded IC or OOC, we are truly sorry for that and it is never our intention. With that being said, we will be making a conscious effort to reach out more to our members for plotting purposes and threading purposes as well. Please understand that if we can’t be on to reply regularly or if we can’t get our plots on the dash quickly, etc. that we are trying our best.

Point #2: Our Top Priority

We have put so much work into the RP and we want to keep running it for as long as we can. A great deal of time, thought and effort goes into the overall plot of the RP. We sit down as a group and plan out the progression of the story months before you guys see any of it, to make sure it all makes sense and goes smoothly. Everything that happens during a plot drop — be it big or small — is deliberate and serves a purpose that a lot of thought goes into. This includes the secret reveals along with everything else. There’s a lot of care behind the scenes to make the plot as interesting and interactive as we can make it. For a year and a half, the admins have scheduled time to be online all together to work on these things. We put so much care into it, and because of the effort and time that we actively put into it, because it is challenging and even stressful at times, even just to keep it up and running on a base level, we would never intentionally exclude anyone from this group, whether IC or OOC. We care so much about the health of this RP because we want it to last.

We would never intentionally upset any of our members. When resolving OOC matters, our number one concern is resolving whatever has arisen for the betterment of the RP. The admins are a team of three separate people. That allows us to communicate from three different perspectives and consider multiple angles before making a decision. When dealing with members or situations where someone has broken the rules, our number one priority is to resolve whatever has occurred. As we have mentioned in a previous post, of course, we are people with feelings and sometimes we are frustrated and stressed as we are sure many of you have been frustrated and stressed with RP matters before. But we want to make it clear that any negative feelings we may have never take priority over the health of the RP. We set those feelings aside when speaking with you and when resolving issues. Simply put, we care more about the wellbeing of this RP than whatever negative feelings arise in the process of running it because we put so much work into it. We want it to last, and above just generally sticking around the main to answer questions, accept apps and update the pages, we have to approach everything in a solution oriented way.

Point #3: Warnings and Strikes

The third thing we would like to address is our method of issuing warnings or strikes. When it is clear to us that one of our members has blatantly broken a rule, we issue a warning or strike right away, depending on how serious the rule break is. Otherwise, we usually open a door for discussions when we happen to give out warnings or strikes to hear out the other side. If there doesn’t seem to be a reason why the other side acted the way they did, then we issue the warning or strike as we see fit. We have reached out to multiple members in the same manner when an OOC problem occurs and we always have discussions with them about the event that occurred. It is always our mission to handle things delicately with care to ensure that things don’t blow out of proportion when issues arise.

It is always very discouraging to see the very thing you have put your heart in receiving such a treatment. We do firmly believe, as stated multiple times by the admins, that if someone is unhappy with how we handle things to the point of sending us rude anons, being unhappy in the group, or starting OOC drama as a result, then we prefer for these members to leave our group. We believe that this is beneficial for both the member as well as the RP as a whole. RPing is meant to be a fun activity, if it becomes something that has a negative effect on an individual, then the best course of action is to leave the group instead of remaining unhappy. We try our best to make sure that our members are heard, but if the issue is with the plot or with how the admins choose to run the RP, then maybe it’s not a good match.

OUR NEXT STEPS

After days of contemplating what our next step should be with the RP, the admins believe that moving the RP to Discord and having it be a closed RP is the best choice for us. If you are interested in remaining in the RP, please send us a message BY MONDAY to let us know so we can include you in our future plans. We will be explaining the process of how Discord RP works to our members to help with the smooth transition. If there are any concerns regarding this, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the admins.

We will be following up again after the weekend once we have a clear timeline of when things get back into motion again. We thank our members who have stuck around and we hope things can get back to normal soon. We also want to thank all of you for your patience. We greatly appreciate it.

NOTE: We are aware that some of our members don’t like the way live events are conducted, but we wanted to say that Discord RPing is not the same format as live events. In Discord RPing, each member will have their own category where they can have regular threads, much like how it’s done on a tumblr dash. The format of this can be seen below:

[fyrapartnersearch]

♔ Let's try this again ♔

Good evening my literary friends,

I am hoping to find a suitable partner for specific cravings and ideas I have in mind. My introduction will be brief and a bit more to the point than usual. I am quite thorough and detail-oriented when it comes to being a writer, including some of my rules and preferences. However, since I believe it would be quite a hassle to go through every point, my ad will be a bit more compact. A brief recap: You can call me Imp; I am in my twenties and a student, striving to become a part-time freelancer as well. My main hobbies are photography, traveling, drawing and of course, the art of writing. Currently, I reside in Europe, so my timezone could differ from yours, unless you are also from a similar region. Be sure to read through my ad to see if we’re compatible. Too many times I’ve encountered cases where the inquirers skimmed through all of the info and upon messaging me, were surprised to learn that we weren’t a match from the beginning. So if you haven’t properly read my ad, I’ll know. I’d like to urge everyone to stick with it so there won't be any misunderstandings and not waste everyone’s time. ————————


Me, myself and I ♦ Nickname: Imp ♦ Experience: 12 years and counting

♦ Age: 28 years.

♦ Gender: Female. ♦ Style: 1:1 with the inclusion of doubling ♦ Rating: Mature ♦ Roleplay Platform: Email and Google Docs ♦ Chat Platform: Email, Google Hangouts or Discord ♦ Pet peeves: Slice of Life

♦ Timezone: GMT+2


After finishing the game of Resident Evil 8 Village, I was struck by yet another muse.


I am currently looking for either a pre-existing canon inspired roleplay, or, something completely original. Be sure you are above the age of eighteen, preferably 21 and upwards. I will not accept any inquires from minors - this is not negotiable.

What to expect ♢  Content: Mature. I am more interested in darker things like horror, occultism, the supernatural, you can maybe guess where I am going with this. My limits are few, safe for a couple of minor pet peeves that I have, I am pretty much open to some experimentation; such as violence, gore and sexual themes. When it comes to heavy scenes, I will not fade to black, unless it serves no purpose to the story. Not a huge fan of censorship. However, I will not force or push my partner into something they are not comfortable with. If you want to know the extent to how far I am willing to go, what sort of content, or how graphic my writing will be, you can ask me directly.

 ♢ Rating: I have little to no issues with delving into more sensitive topics. Since reality is often stranger than fiction, it is very interesting to explore all sides of human nature, including the less comfortable subjects such as psychology, crime, etc. But I also like to remind that this is a world of fiction and no one in their right mind would condone such things in real life. The world of adults is not easy to handle, but it sure is interesting to explore. So if you are a gentle soul and can’t take the heat of more serious moments within the roleplay, be it a character going through trying times, etc; this might not be ideal for you. ♢ Writing: My texts are considerably lengthy, detailed, and elaborate. Third-person is usually my preferred way of playing my character unless there’s a special case where an exception can be made. Word count usually fluctuates, though I have a standard form of 400-500+ words per reply. It also highly depends on the given situation. ♢ Romancing: I admit to being a hopeless romantic. There’s nothing more enjoyable than witnessing good and powerful chemistry between two characters. Preferably I go for the usual MxF pairing dynamic but I am also open to FxF and MxM, should it feel more fitting. While doubling, I can write the character/love interest to my partner’s desire, but I always aim to stay true to their personality and character. I hate nothing more than forcing characters into a relationship, especially if there’s no spark, so I won’t respond well to being pressured into letting characters act out of their personality. It’s just not realistic. As for smut, or what have you, I have no issues with adding a few spicy scenes, sometimes even drawing them out of our pleasure. When there is, however, a running theme where sexual themes are taking the focal point of the plot, it can become quite boring. It is never the center of any of my roleplays, so be warned. ♢ Plotting: I am fairly quick when it comes to building new characters, concepts, premises, storylines, backstories, etc. It allows me a certain latitude. Feel free to communicate your ideas and thoughts with me. I am happy to chat, even when it doesn’t involve the roleplay directly. Though this is a hobby, I am still extremely passionate about good storytelling and interesting character arcs. I hope to meet someone who is just as enthusiastic and willing to put in the same amount of effort. If it’s only me who’s pulling all the weight, I will lose interest and feel forced to end the correspondence. No gos ♦ Won’t do: Pedophilia, Necrophilia, Bestiality, Scat, Vore, Toilet Play or roleplaying with minors. I am sure you can also think of many other strange fetishes that have developed over the years spent on the internet. ♦ Won’t write: The idea of supernatural beings trying to fit into human society. The typical bully x victim storyline. The run-of-the-mill vampires vs werewolf plot. BDSM centred stories. Slice of life. Flawless or excessively flawed characters.

♦ No vulgarity: Let's keep it classy. There's nothing more I dislike than slipping into senseless vulgarity, be it language, unnecessary drawn out violent or tasteless smut scenes. I'd rather have things done beautifully, even if it a subject on the darker side.

What I expect ♢ Literacy: You should at least have a decent grasp of basic grammar and coherency in your spelling. ♢ Flexibility: Since we all have lives outside of the roleplay, we both need to be flexible. Sometimes our schedules may differ, and if life is currently intervening, we can take things a bit easier. Plus, I can’t always respond every second of every day, either. This should be considered a hobby and not a job. If a hiatus is on the rise, there is no problem with putting things on ice until things clear up. ♢ Experience: And by that, I don’t mean how many years you’ve roleplayed, rather the experience that comes with age and emotional maturity. Especially if you want to write stories with grit. ♢ Open to doubling: Quick explanation. Doubling is when we play two main characters each. The dynamic is as follows; I write your chosen love interest against your main character while you do the same for me. ♢ Long term: Only long-term partnerships. ♢ Sharing the spotlight: Don’t forget, this is all about you too! Let me know all your specific cravings, interests, or wants that you want to be included into the roleplay. Cravings ♦ Urban fantasy: Supernaturals, demons, spirits, vampires, you name it. I’d be more interested in something original and unique, especially when it comes to vampirism and demonic entities. ♦ Dark Sci-Fi: So this is a bit inspired by Resident Evil. A world where monsters become a vicious reality, generating fear among the people they come in contact with. But as it turns out, these monsters are not supernatural, but rather infected or mutated by a virus that cannot be explained. ♦ History, mythology, and folklore: An interesting take on the historical timeline, where legends and myths were once a reality. However, their existence was greatly misrepresented in the storybooks, sometimes even completely distorted. Our characters could be accidental time travelers who have been sent from the future to see it with their own eyes. Inspirations are mostly Slavic, European, and ancient folklore from all over the world. ♦ Crime with a dark twist: Mafias, organized crime, and corrupted politicians run this town. All of them have one thing in common. A particular drug that grants humans superhuman abilities; but at a cost. The drug will turn force the users to reject their humanity and embrace their monstrosity. Canon & Fandoms ♢ Castlevania: Rather the original games than the Netflix series. But I am also not opposed to tackling the Netflix universe. ♢ Devil May Cry: Every game is game. Except for the reboot. Never played that one. ♢ Invincible: Not so invincible. ♢ Resident Evil: Village is one of the best games I’ve ever played. Periodt. ♢ Harry Potter: Next gen anyone? ———————— If you made it this far, I am glad you managed to hold on, lol. If you found what I wrote, agreeable and have a similar interests to mine, feel free to message me on this email address. Email: impish.and.angelic@gmail.com Hope to see you there. I wish you all a lovely day my fellow readers! -Imp

[news4bees]

Things I do to make my ADD/ADHD slightly more manageable.

Full disclosure: everyone is different and non-neurotypical behaviors are not a copy-paste situation. What works for me might put others in the exact opposite head space and that’s okay. I just wanted to share what I’ve learned works for me over the years. I’ve been really struggling with my ADD/ADHD lately and I need to remind myself of the healthy coping mechanisms I’ve developed so I can implement them again.

1. Have a morning routine.

Working from home as a freelance editor / publishing consultant, I have a lot of autonomy over my day. Which is great… if I make the most of it. I learned a long time ago that I am most productive in the morning, so it’s important for me to get myself into the right head space as soon as possible. I set an alarm to get out of bed at 7:00am every day, I try and go on a walk around the neighborhood first thing (weather permitting—we don’t mess around with rain or snow), I eat breakfast (usually including either coffee or tea for caffeine purposes and warmth) and take my supplements, and prep for my day. It sounds super simple, but it’s really all about inertia. A body at rest will want to stay at rest. I’ve had just as many days where everything goes according to plan and I’m able to have a productive day as days where I don’t get out of bed until I have to drag myself to my service job in the afternoon. So having that morning routine and sticking to it can honestly be a night and day difference for me.

2. Make a schedule for my day.

I have a terrible concept of time. I can look at a task, assume it’s going to take several hours, and abandon it before I even begin. Or I can see a gap of time in my day (such as the two hours between lunch and when I have to get ready for work) and be worried it’s too small of a window to accomplish anything so I lie around instead. By creating a schedule, literally an hour-by-hour layout of how I want my day to progress, I have a tactical roadmap for how to achieve my goals. I also make sure I schedule little breaks and time to eat, walk around, shower, etc. into my day so I don’t forget. It doesn’t have to be perfect, and I have to remind myself not to get upset if I end up deviating from the schedule for one thing or another. It’s mainly supposed to help me look at my day in a way that makes more sense to me and how my brain processes time. I fully understand that there are others that might see my hour-by-hour schedule and be completely overwhelmed—that’s fine! Find what works for you.

3. Set attainable little goals.

This one goes hand in hand with making myself a schedule. If I have a giant task I need to complete at a future date, I really struggle with conceptualizing it as something I need to get started on now. I see that future date, feel overwhelmed, try to calm myself down by thinking, “It’s okay, I have time,” and will sit on that task until the last minute when I have to scramble to get it done. It’s procrastination, yes, but it’s also not feeling too overwhelmed to act on something until there is that “go go go!” anxiety-inducing pressure to get it done. So I break it down into smaller pieces and set little goals. A 352 page manuscript I have to create an index for by March? Scary. But indexing one or two chapters a day? Much more doable. This also helps me accomplish non work-related tasks, such as calling the bank or scheduling appointments or canceling a subscription—things I would have trouble accomplishing on my own otherwise because my I have trouble differentiating between “important” and “immediate”. Goals don’t have to be solely task oriented either. Set a goal to reach out to a friend you haven’t connected with in a while; set a goal to meditate for fifteen minutes, or be intentional about doing something you love like reading or art or exercise. Personally, the more things I can check off my “to-do” list the better, so I write out everything I want to try and get done, even if I would have done it regardless.

4. Keep distractions out of reach.

This one is extremely tricky for me since I work exclusively out of my room since I moved back home. I’m always surrounded by distractions, from my phone to my bookshelves to the dozens of internet tabs I constantly have open on my laptop. I have little tricks I know work for me: keeping my phone on the charger in a different room (but close enough that I can still connect to the Bluetooth), leaving the book I’m currently reading and the journal where I write my fiction in my work bag downstairs, blocking YouTube and other distracting sites from my laptop, and making my bed each morning so I’m not tempted to crawl under the covers when I’m feeling burnt out. But knowing these things will help eliminate distractions and actually implementing these techniques are two very different things for me. As I write this, my phone is on the charger next to me, my fiction journal is within easy reach and I have corresponding document opened in another tab, none of my site-brokers are enabled, and my bed is a mess of cozy blankets—all major distractions for me that I’m blatantly ignoring. So what can I do about this? Set a new goal: move my phone and journal out of the room, close unnecessary tabs, re-engage the site blockers, and make my bed. Little things to reset my headspace and get back on track.

5. Have an accountability buddy.

While freelancing gives me a lot of personal freedoms, it also means I function as my own boss. Some people might enjoy such responsibility, but I personally really struggle when I’m not constantly checking in with someone and showing them my progress. An accountability buddy doesn’t need to function like a micro-managing boss, but they should be someone you can go to and say, “Here’s what I set out to do today and here’s what I accomplished.” Currently, I do not have a good accountability buddy (my ex was my accountability buddy when we were together during my last semester at college, but he often criticized me for only working in short sprints and needing to take a lot of breaks, so I’ve been really hesitant to trust another person in that role ever since), but my mom often lets me inform her about my goals and will share some of her’s in turn; my dad and sister on the other hand get uncharacteristically angry when I ask about goals, so I’ve learned to steer clear. Mirroring is also a common strategy for ADD/ADHDers. The visual stimulation of seeing someone else working can often be a bit of a jumpstart to my brain that says, “Okay, it’s time to do things.” In the old days, this meant I would spend hours in the library or at coffee shop doing my homework instead of my apartment because I was surrounded by others with similar tasks. Now, if I find myself needing a mirror I’ll move my operation to the kitchen table so that I’m closer to where my mom works and I can feed off her productive energy, so to speak.

6. Give myself grace.

Whenever I have an unproductive day, my first instinct is to be angry or upset at myself. What kind of person spends the entire day in bed and doesn’t get a single thing done? This would lead me down a self-deprecating path of calling myself useless and a garbage person, which is a big trigger for my depression and I can easily find myself spiraling. ADD/ADHD means my brain functions differently, but at the end of the day my brain still works. It doesn’t mean I’m stupid or lazy, and a bad day doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. My schedule and my list of goals are a template to help me focus, but if something happens that gets me off task, whether intentional or unintentional, I have to remind myself that it is not the end of the world. I have to give myself grace and forgiveness, because things happen.

I’d be really interested to hear what other strategies people have developed to manage their ADD/ADHD, especially in the midst of a pandemic that might have altered the way we approach our days. Keep being awesome!

[wake-up-and]

EPIK Orientation

Good morning my beautiful rays of sunshine! ☀️

As a quick disclaimer, this was written soon after I finished orientation but I posted this (and all other Korvia/EPIK related posts) afterwards because 1) I’m not sure if I’m allowed to disclose any of the information I received and 2) I want to be able to answer any questions you all may have and I want to answer them fully and to the best of my abilities and I can’t really do that if I’m halfway through the process.

Because I applied to EPIK through Korvia, Korvia has a shuttle from the hotel to EPIK orientation. EPIK has their own shuttles from the airport to orientation. Once I got to the orientation location, which was Konkuk University (Global Campus), we got into lines to get our little orientation bag with goodies (a water bottle and pen), some snacks, our orientation manual, name tags, and keys to our rooms. The roommate situation is completely random but they’re just passing out keys to whoever’s next in line so expect it to be the person before or after you.

EPIK orientation is an 8-day orientation with day 1 and day 8 being moving in and out days. Day 1 is also the campus tour, opening ceremony, and welcome dinner. On your name tag, you’ll find your class on it (e.g., Class 1-A, 1-B, 2-A, 2-B). This will determine your lecture schedule for the rest of the orientation. Expect about four (4) lectures a day. Each lecture is about an hour and a half long. You’ll be in lectures pretty much all day from 9:00am to 5:30pm with breaks into between lectures and for lunch.

A big project that will happen during orientation is the Lesson Demonstration. This is where you’ll be assigned a group, a grade level, and lesson topic and have to come up with a lesson plan, materials and demonstrate the lesson in front of your class. I was in a group with two other ladies and we had high school grade 1 (so 10th grade US equivalent) and the topic was “Travel: Discover the Unexpected.” They will give you the textbook chapter to work with.

From this point, I’ll be telling you my intake’s schedule. The lectures may have changed or the order of certain things may have changed but the main idea is still there.

Day 1: Registration, Class Meeting, Opening Ceremony, Welcome Dinner

This was a simple day. Just moving into your rooms, getting information packets, campus tours, and basic orientation stuff.

Day 2: Medical Check-Up, Class Meeting, Korean History & Culture, EPIK Duties & Regulations

Medical Check-Up: There’s 9 tests that you have to go through: weight/height, eye exam, blood pressure, hearing & color test, medical interview, blood test, urine test, and x-ray. The blood test is the hardest for some people just ‘cause people don’t fair well with needles or having their blood drawn. 

Class Meeting: Here you’ll learn more about orientation like scheduling and some rules. You’ll learn a little bit more about the field that’s happening later, you’ll be placed in your groups for the lesson demonstration and you’ll get to elect a class leader.

Then you have two lectures: Korean History & Culture and EPIK Duties & Regulations.

Day 3: After School Classes & Vacation Camps, Lesson Planning I, Lesson Planning II, Lesson Observation

This day is a day of lectures. Lesson Observation is one you’ll get to see a NET (Native English Teacher) and KET (Korean English Teacher) teach a mini lesson just to kinda see what a normal class would look like, how co-teaching works, etc.

Day 4: Classroom Management, Cooperative Learning, Storytelling, Korean Class

Again, lectures. Korean Class is actually divided into three lessons: Survival Korean, Tour of Korea, and Learning KPOP Song. You have to pick one. I ended up in Survival Korean but it’s literally just the basics like “hello,” “thank you,” numbers...yeah, things like that.

Day 5: Field Trip

For our field trip, you could between traditional music instruments or takkyeon and making natural dyeing & Korean traditional ornaments or rowing. I did takkyeon and dyeing & ornaments. Later, we got to see the kids that did rowing do a little rowing competition.

Day 6: EPIK Life & School Culture, Lesson Demonstration Preparation, Sexual Harassment Awareness and Prevention Education, Making Your English More Comprehensible

More lectures. For Lesson Demonstration Preparation, you get with your group and plan and prepare your lesson demonstration.

Day 7: Lesson Demonstration and Feedback, Meeting with MOE/POE, Closing Ceremony & Farewell Dinner

This is the day where you and your group do your lesson demonstration and you’ll receive immediate feedback on what you did well and what needs improvement. Then, you’ll get to meet your head coordinator of your POE/MOE (Provincial Office of Education/Metropolitan? Office of Education). They’ll give you a quick run-down of each city and what’s cool about it and then give you your placement and you’ll sign the contract. They’ll also tell you what time you need to meet to load on the bus the next morning.

Day 8: Luggage Load on the POE/MOE bus and Escorted to each POE/MOE

Obviously, checking out and going to wherever you’ve been assigned to. I was on the bus with teachers going to the southern-ish area of Gangwon-do. So, Gangneung, Taebaek, Samcheok, Donghae. They’ll take you to the immigration office where you’ll meet your main co-teacher and apply for your ARC (alien registration card).

In my case, I was taken to my apartment by my co-teacher and got to take a quick look around and put my stuff down. Then, I was taken to the school where I got to meet some of my students, eat lunch with the other teachers, get a quick tour of the school, and chill in my office. And I stayed there for the rest of the day preparing my introduction lesson for the next day. So I was kinda thrown straight into teaching, some other teachers get a little bit more time to settle in and prepare.

I hope that helps! If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message. I hope you all have a wonderful day! Another post is coming soon so be ready to…wake up and shine. 😊

[kookscrescent]

Aconite (pt.1)┊knj

❖ Pairing: Namjoon x f reader ❖ A bad summary: “Oh great! You will have to spend time with mister sour face over there during your down time as well.” ❖ Genre: angst, fluff, marriage!au ❖ Warnings: none in this chapter  ❖ Word count: 2.656 ❖ Parts: 2/??

⇥ Masterlist ⇥ Aconite Masterlist  NB! This is all fiction! Nothing mentioned/written are facts and/or real! So please just keep that in mind when reading and enjoy! Thank you ♡

⇦ PREVIOUS // NEXT ⇨

The silence in the room is almost unbearable. Roughly, thirty minutes have passed since you arrived, and during those Namjoon has managed not speak a single word to you, only greeting you with a short and curt bow when you got here, and you don’t even think he has looked at you for longer than a few seconds.

Seriously, what is up that man’s ass? None of this is your doing! You are both here, meaning that you have both agreed to this arrangement and the terms of the contract, so the least he could do is be somewhat polite and not act like a total asshole. You are minutes away from being fake engaged for god’s sake!  

You have been working your way through the stack of legal documents – or contracts, if you will – in front of you, the pen in your hand scribbling your signature on the underlined parts. You have already read every page of it twice before coming here, and you even sent it over to your lawyer for him to proofread everything beforehand.  

Moving the pen across the white paper for the last time, you close the contract neatly and place the pen on top. 

“All done.” You announce with a sigh of relief, your hand aching slightly from holding it so long.

Looking next to you, Namjoon has already finished and is now occupying himself with his phone, but he looks up briefly when you speak. You look away, you don’t want to waste your energy trying to be nice to him at the moment. There are still a lot of details that needs to be gone over, so if he wants to sulk then by all means he can go ahead, but you are not going to entertain his mood.

Haeun comes over, taking both you and Namjoon’s fully signed contracts before handing them over to Bang Si-Hyuk. He takes them gladly, not looking at them he passes them to one of the HR managers behind him.

“Okay,” Chinhae, the leading director of this whole affair, claps his hands to get everyone’s attention. Even Namjoon puts down his phone for once to pay attention. “You have now both read, understood and signed the contract, correct?” He asks you both.

“Yes,” you answer in unison.

“Perfect! But I would like to just go over the basics one more time so that everyone is clear and on the same page of what is going to happen in the months leading forward.”

The majority of the questions you had leading into to this have already been answered by reading the contract, but you like that everyone is very detailed orientated just like yourself. Not a corner is left untouched in this.  

“As of, well right now actually, you, ____ and you, Namjoon, are engaged,” a round of applause goes around the room and you look awkwardly at Namjoon, deciding to shoot him a polite smile, but he still has the same sour mine on as the last time you looked at him. You roll your eyes and focus back on Chinhae. So much for wanting to be civil. “so, let us start with just the basics. You are both clear on why this is happening, so we won’t touch too much on that anymore. As stated in the contract, the duration of the first part of the engagement is six months. During these months we will schedule a few quick meetings when it is possible. These meetings will be spent going over the progress.”

He turns the page of the notebook in front of him, carefully taking his time before he starts talking again. “During the six months we will either call for meetings if we feel like it is needed, but you can also call for a meeting if there is anything you feel like we should go over.” He makes a gesture towards Haeun and Namjoon’s manager Sejin. “Haeun and Sejin have been appointed as your direct managers for this because of your familiarity with them. So any minor problems or issues gets directed towards them like it would in any normal situation. Are you both following so far?”

“Yes,” You say.

And for the first time, Namjoon opens his mouth to say more than a three letter word, his tone sounding almost pleasant. “Yes, but I’m just more curious as to know what is going to happen when the meeting finishes.”

“Of course,” Chinhae says flipping another page. “As you already know from reading the contract, your living situation will change slightly from this day forward. You are both living separately right now, and of course Namjoon you are living with the rest of your members, they have of course already been informed of all this,” he pauses and Namjoon nods in confirmation. “We have already acquired an apartment for you both to stay at, and because you are both busy people, it has been decided that all the days where you are both in Seoul, you will stay together at the apartment. That way you have a chance to get to know each other a little better outside of the official outings and meetings.”

Oh great! You will have to spend time with mister sour face over there during your down time as well. “Are we going to have access to each other’s schedule then?” You ask because that was not mentioned in the contract.

Chinhae looks to Bang Si-hyuk and he nods. “We can make that happen.”

“Okay, because I think that will make it somewhat easier to navigate then.”

“Sure. Namjoon do you have any more questions?”

“One,” He says sitting up straighter in the chair. “I know that the contract stated that we will be in the public eye together, but it didn’t really go into detail. So, what exactly is expected of us regarding to that?”

You have to admit that you are a little amazed right now. In the last few minutes, Namjoon has spoken more than he has in the two weeks you have been acquaintances. And it feels like he is starting to warm up a little bit.

“Later today, at exactly four o’clock, we will release the press statement of your engagement,” someone behind him hands him two files and he hands them over to you and Namjoon. You have each gotten two files. On one its reads ‘Official Press Statement’ and on the other one does not have a title. “Here is a copy of the official statement that will be released. We have fabricated a timeframe of how long you would have been dating secretly had this all been real.”

Huh?

You flip open the statement file. “Kim Namjoon of BTS and ____ _______ are officially engaged. The couple, both being signed under Big Hit Entertainment, have been fond of each other since early February of 2019. They both agreed upon keeping their romance under wraps for the sake of their own privacy and getting to know each other on a deeper level, but they have now decided to take their relationship a step further and is set to marry late next year.”

Wow! This all makes it seems so legit and real, when in reality none of this is real or genuine. It is all a PR stunt, but had you been on the other side of this, reading this as a fan of either of you, you would have thought it was real. But that is also the whole point you guess.

“So we would have been dating for about 10 months.” You confirm.

“Yes,” Chinhae replies. “The other file is just a loose guide of what we need from you guys in the public eye.”

You flip to the other file, seeing Namjoon doing the same thing out of the corner of your eye. Quickly, you scan the first few lines. Public appearances, speaking fondly about the relationship/each other, hand holding, dates, kissing, social media posts.

You gulp as you read the word kissing. You really do not want to put your lips on someone so spiteful as Namjoon, but you already signed the contract and you guess a small chaste peck won’t do you any harm.

Or at least not a lot of harm.

Flipping a page again, a timetable comes into view. At the top is tomorrows date and next to it is a scheduled outing. Yours and Namjoon’s first appearance as an engaged couple in the public eye.

“I have a recording session at the studio tomorrow.” Namjoon comments upon seeing the timetable.

“They know,” you are surprised to hear Sejin speaking for the first time. His voice is much deeper than you would have thought, and he speaks in a very calm and collect way. “Your session is early in the morning at 10 am and your date isn’t scheduled until 4 or 5 pm.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” you cut in. “4 or 5 pm?”

“Yes, for now the time is put loosely depending on when Namjoon finishes tomorrow. Could be earlier than 4 but no later than 5.” Sejin explains. “Buy you will be meeting here before the date, and Namjoon, because of his scheduled session, will already be here, so there shouldn’t be too many delays.”

You really want to make a comment about how you don’t want to live your daily life around his schedule and how he should just show up on time, but you know how recording sessions work, how stressful they can be at times and how much work and how many hours that gets put into it. Also, you decide to be the bigger person in this case, smiling and nodding an understanding okay.

From the side, Haeun taps Chinhae and he leans towards her. She whispers something in his ear that no one else is able to hear, but you can see the smile she spots clear as day.  

“Oh right!” Chinhae exclaims immediately after. “I almost forgot!” He scoots away from the table, grabbing his briefcase from the floor and begins digging in it. He pulls out a small square box in black velvet and glides it across the table till it stops in front of you.

“Your engagement ring!” He says as if you need any clarification as to what is inside the small box.

Pulling it towards you, you silently open the lid.

Holy shit! You nearly curse out loud seeing the ring inside. You can feel Namjoon’s gaze on you, his eyes watching your reaction closely.

Inside the box sits the most beautiful silver ring you have probably ever seen in your entire life. No exaggeration! What immediately catches your attention is the big cushion cut diamond in the middle of the ring, being surrounded by a halo of smaller round cut diamonds, framing the bigger it in the most beautiful and vintage looking way. Cascading around the entire band of the ring is even more diamonds and when the light catches it in just the right way, it sparkles in the most breathtaking way.

You are overwhelmed with the amount of diamonds that are on this ring and you are almost afraid to take it out of the box and put it on. What if one of the diamonds falls out or gets lost? Now, you are not sure of the price of this thing or the general cost of an engagement ring, but you would bet your left arm on it not being on the cheap side of the scale.

Holy shit! Whoever picked out this ring is a winner at life!

“It’s… It’s beautiful! Wow…” You are speechless.

You didn’t grow up with a lot of money and having nice things – having expensive things – like this wasn’t ever something you thought of or wanted. And granted, the life you have been lucky enough to be blessed with now, could easily provide you with such things, it has just never been of that much importance. But wow!

“Put it on!” Haeun eagerly urges you from the other side of the table. Her eyes are twinkling like Christmas lights, focusing solely on the ring.

“I’m almost afraid to put it on. I’m afraid to break it.” You joke and gently pry it out of its place.

“It can be replaced if so.” Bang Si-hyuk says making you stop and look at him. He only nods towards your hand with a genuine smile urging you to continue.

Sliding the ring down your finger, you admire your hand. You never thought you would be wearing an engagement ring at the mere age of 23, but life works in strange and mysterious ways. The ring fits like a glove, hugging your finger perfectly almost like it was custom made just for you.  

It is perfect and your right hand now pales in comparison.

“It’s beautiful,” you repeat your previous words. You don’t feel like there are any words good enough to really describe just how beautiful it is.

Feeling Namjoon move beside you, you turn your eyes to him. To his hands to be specific. Both of them are bare.

You frown. “Doesn’t Namjoon get a ring?” Of course, you know that guys typically don’t wear a ring when they get engaged, but looking at the ring you have gotten, you suddenly feel bad and you don’t want him to feel left out… even if he is being an ass. “I mean, I get to wear this,” you flash the ring. “and… I mean, I just don’t think it would be fair…” Your words fade as you find it hard to explain what you mean.

“It’s okay,” Namjoon assures you, his gaze shifting from the ring to your eyes. “This is how it works in ‘normal’ situations,” he air quotes. “you should get to wear the beautiful ring and feel special... Even if it is fake behind the scenes.”

For the first time, you hear him speak genuinely and it warms at your heart. Why could he not have been like this from the start? That would have made everything so much easier, and it sure as hell would have changed your first impression and opinion on him.

If only he continues to be like this everything will be fine and run smoothly. You just hope you haven’t spoken too soon.

“Alright perfect! Now that this is all in place, I think we can successfully wrap up the meeting, unless you have any last remarks sir?” Chinhae directs his last question towards Bang Si-Hyuk.

“I have no further remarks at the moment.” He says and stands from his chair.

Everyone else does the same, telling him goodbye as he leaves the room with the managers, leaving only you, Namjoon, Haeun, Sejin and Chinhae in the room.

You begin packing your stuff in your purse. Your copy of the contract, the statement and the ‘loose schedule’, and the black velvet box, but you halt with it in your hand, a thought suddenly occurs to you.

“Oh, should I wear this now?” You frown, referring to your ring.

“Uh…” Haeun hums, waiting for Chinhae to give you an answer.

“I mean, what if someone photographs me today wearing it?”

Chinhae checks his watch quickly. “No it’s okay, you can keep it on. It’s almost 4 o’clock anyways, so there should be no issues even if you are photographed wearing it.”

Silently, you nod, putting the velvet box in your purse carefully even though it is empty.

“I will see the both of you tomorrow between 4 and 5.” He chirps and leaves the room.

Now, only four people are left, but it seems that Namjoon is also in a hurry to leave, because as soon as Chinhae has disappeared though the door, he also makes a hasty retreat though it, Sejin right behind him.

So much for him starting to be nice and change his attitude…

“Happy engagement to me!” You jokingly scowl.

NEXT CHAPTER ⇨

This took me longer to get up than i initially wanted! But it’s here now, so i hope you enjoy! 

If you do, please remember to like and reblog!

[grapeicies]

8 Things 8 Years of Therapy Taught Me

(Working with a professional version)

1) STOP PUSSYFOOTING YOUR STRUGGLES AND PICK SOMETHING TO WORK ON.

It’s tempting to think that you can go into a therapist’s office with no game plan. 

It’ll go like this: you tell them something’s wrong, you clarify what you think is wrong, and they use their fancy degrees and licenses to eventually sus out what’s really wrong with you and come up with either a miracle medicine or say that one perfectly profound thing that will set your life into motion. 

Doesn’t work that way.

Your therapist is human. While they are more trained and more experienced with handling a wider variety of issues, struggles, and stories than the average person, they still cannot read your mind. They cannot understand how you tick by the short amount of time they have you for, especially when it’s weekly or monthly sessions. In order to get the best out of your sessions, you have to identify problem areas and at least start the process of brainstorming what direction you want to move in. 

Your therapist cannot fix you. They cannot force you to recover. 

You are always in charge of your own recovery. It doesn’t work otherwise.

Personally, I like following the CBT model and focusing on changing behaviors in order to change thoughts in order to change feelings. It feels less overwhelming to change my behaviors because my thoughts aren’t nearly as visible as how I behave and my feelings are involuntary reactions to my own thoughts and events happening around me. If you’re too overwhelmed to decide on just one behavior to work on, that’s what your therapist is there for. To guide you.

2) Do your fucking research.

Most people have the impression of therapy as an hour of you sitting on a chaise and talking the ear off of a nodding observer who takes notes and occasionally chimes in with profound bits of wisdom. Psychodynamic therapy is the most common form of therapy and it works for some people! It just doesn’t work for everyone. Know that if it didn’t work for you, there are still options out there for you to still try!

Just a short list of alternative therapies:

Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (My personal favorite experience!)

Art Therapy

Music Therapy

EDMR Therapy

And many more

There are also different levels of care (from highest to lowest; commentary is US-centric!)

Inpatient [Individual or Group] (Split into Residential and Acute) Meant for short-term stabilization in a medical/hospital setting in an emergency ONLY. 

Partial Hospitalization (PHP) [Group] the step down from inpatient; after a person is stabilized, they are placed in 5 days-a-week, 8 hours-a-day care where they commute from their residence to their program in order to reintroduce structure to them after a major disruption in their life (like an inpatient stay). Typically, group sessions are paired with a team of providers who advise a personal care counselor who supervises your progress. A person can be referred to PHP as either an alternative to inpatient or as a transition from inpatient, depending on their level of need. If you need PHP and cannot afford it: ASK ABOUT HOSPITAL CHARITY CARE OPTIONS. (Lasts anywhere from 1 week to 2 months)

Intensive Outpatient (IOP) [Group] can either be a step down from IP/PHP or a preventative measure to keep a person out of the higher levels of care (because IP and PHP are expensive and will 100% increase your insurance rates, unfortunately). An IOP schedule operates anywhere from 2-4 days a week, depending on your level of need. Most IOP will start you at 3 days a week and either increase or decrease the number of days you attend depending on their assessment of your wellness. Like a PHP, an IOP will typically pair group sessions with a team of providers and a single PCC who supervises your progress. Also typically has charity programs! I know! I benefited from them! You have to ask though! (Lasts anywhere from 3 - 12 months)

Routine Outpatient Care (ROC) [Individual or Group] the most common form of care. Is often either the precursor to or the ending point of higher levels of care. This is where a person has the most autonomy in the maintenance of their health and is the most long-term form. Most therapists have a sliding scale for payment options. The sliding scale, unfortunately, does not apply if you’re paying with insurance. Make sure to talk to them or their secretary about your financial options and look into potentially free options. (Lasts however long you can afford it or however long you need it to)

Support Groups [Group] (Typically) free community resources meant to explore and process difficult feelings in the company of other people who have gone through similar things! It’s most often in the form of 12-step programs but I hate those so I like to make sure that people know they have other, secular options available! Like SMART! And Facebook Groups! And Discord Servers! Places that are specifically oriented for people who want to feel supported while they recover!

3) Be picky.

I cannot overstate this enough. View therapists like you view a job interview because you are LITERALLY hiring them to help you manage that bitch of a blob of electrified fat sitting in your cranium. You’re setting up for an uncomfortable process; it should be with someone you feel like you can grow to trust.

Ask them:

“How long have you been practicing? What demographic do you specialize with? What are your strengths as a therapist? What are your weaknesses? What methods do you use for treatment? Have you been through therapy yourself? How recently? How often do you seek an outside opinion? Describe your ideal patient. Have you treated patients with similar problems to the ones I have described? How often do you anticipate seeing me? Do you assign homework? How should I prepare for our first session?”

If you are non-white, LGBTQIA+, (previously or currently) poor, disabled, or part of any other marginalized group I urge you to also ask these questions:

“What is your experience level working with my community? How do you view my community? How do you or would you adapt your treatment methods to accommodate people like me? What options are available for me? Do you know someone who might be better suited for my needs?”

I cannot emphasize enough just how much it radically changed my life to find therapy options in my community. There are just some things that all the education in the world cannot compensate for. Someone who meets you on most of your community needs is better than someone who meets you on literally none of your community needs. Not having that connection, feeling like I was being humored but not heard, almost drove me away from therapy entirely.

4) Understand that you are wired to troubleshoot.

If you feel in your gut that something isn’t right, understand that something is not right.

Here’s the caveat though:

What you think is wrong may not actually be what’s wrong. 

Building an accurate intuition for troubleshooting is a gained skill. If your upbringing wired you for dysfunctional relationships and fed into cognitive distortions that overtake your view on situations, then something is still off and still needs to be addressed. Or you’re just able to recognize that you’re in a shitty place and your environment needs to change. Or a whole host of other things. Troubleshooting is RARELY a one-solution fix and it is even more rarely a black-and-white issue. There’s nuances to the gears that keep you going. It often takes time and care to assess and then get to work on everything. If you keep maintenance up on your system and take care of things before they get unmanageable, you will eventually be able to workshop your own solutions. Still, we’re here for professional help because it is beyond a point where we are able to take in on ourselves.

Sit there with your fucking check engine light and do not turn it off because someone tells you to. 

Shine on, you immensely well-developed system, you.

5) DO YOUR GODSDAMNED HOMEWORK.

If your program/therapist asks you to do it, do it. 

This isn’t school. 

You will not be punished for not doing your homework. (Except for potentially being told you are harboring a therapy resistant behavior and that there’s nothing the therapist can do for you as the crushing disappointment from realizing you flaked on something important yet again sets in)

You will also not be rewarded for doing it if you avoid it. (Increased sense of trust between you and your therapist! A sense of accomplishment for having worked on yourself and delivering on a promised result! Increased self-confidence and dopamine rush from feeling reliable!) 

Homework is the way that you show your therapist how committed you are to the process and how accountable you are for your own development. It helps you build trust with them and helps you form a helpful habit.

But, like, also don’t treat it like those last minute assignments you would fill out literally as the teacher was walking through the door. There’s no guideline to this. Your homework is for your personal development. If it’s too insufferable to do consistently, talk to your therapist and figure out something else that does work for you. You are the master of your own destiny. Your therapist is there to make sure you’re held accountable for your progress and to help guide you towards being the best version of yourself.

Fully involve yourself with your homework and make it something you want to do.

5) Be your own snitch.

SNITCH ON YOURSELF.

TELL YOUR THERAPIST EVERYTHING THAT IMPEDED YOUR PROGRESS THAT WEEK/MONTH.

COME INTO YOUR FIRST SESSION WITH A FULLY ITEMIZED LIST OF POTENTIALLY THERAPY RESISTANT HABITS YOU HARBOR, TEACH YOUR THERAPIST HOW TO RECOGNIZE THOSE BEHAVIORS IN YOUR ACTIONS, EXPRESS HOW MUCH YOU WANT TO OVERCOME THEM, AND BE ACCOUNTABLE FOR YOUR OWN PROGRESS.

Don’t know what a therapy resistant behavior looks like? Here’s a PsychCentral post.

Resistance is a natural part of recovery. Everyone has resistance within them to change or new thoughts/habits/ideas/whatever. It’s how your brain protects your identity from the things that would wreck it.

And you are here to recognize that your identity is a construct and you are the person who defines it. 

If you are working with the right therapist, being honest will not kill you.

Even if it means being referred to a new therapist. Even if it means being asked to leave your program/your therapist’s practice. Even if it lands you in the hospital. (All have happened to me! It sucked! A lot! It hurt! A lot! I cried! A lot! I lived! A lot! Honestly! I was better for it!)

There’s a level of catharsis that comes with looking your worst fears in the face and answering them with radical honesty. When you’re willingly and brutally honest about the obstacles that come with working with you and the severity of your needs, you are giving your therapist the opportunity to set their limits and boundaries. You are helping them help you by allowing them to be honest about how well they can work within the parameters your situation has set for them. While sometimes the answer is yes, they can help you, sometimes the answer is no, they can’t help you. You must be willing to accept both.

You have to be willing to show your underbelly if you want to get anywhere meaningful.

6) Document the fuck out of everything.

You know those sessions of therapy where you know something important happened that week between now and last session? The ones where you, for the life of you, cannot resummon the thoughts and feelings and words you had when you were stuck in the thick of it?

Document them. 

Sit there and learn how to document every little step, every tear, every smile, every awful, terrible thought. Make vlogs, write letters, fill up journals and scrapbooks and sketchbooks and playlists and write songs and make memes and do everything in your power to make sure you’re able to hold onto what’s important so you can present it to your therapist. 

While you are in therapy, learn how to TAKE NOTES. 

You do not have to take traditional notes (my preferred method was to doodle while we talked and use the images to trigger the memories of what we talked about when I reviewed them later because that’s how my brain works). Understand that you need a reminder and a way to access the information from your sessions later so you can keep doing the work outside of therapy.

Beyond the fact that it is satisfying as fuck to hold your progress in your hands, it is also important because your therapist cannot work with a shrug and an “It was alright. Nothing really happened.” They are not your friend. 

They are there to help you. Help them help you.

7) Learn when it’s time to buckle down and when it’s time to let go.

The hardest skill I had to learn when I was going through therapy was learning when to recognize “I am no longer growing” and then look my therapist in the face and say “Thank you for everything. I’ve learned everything I can learn. I need to go.” But I’ve also heard from people who say they’ve had the opposite problem: they don’t know how to stay. They don’t know when to say “I have things to learn from you and I want to learn them.”

Therapy is a professional venture. While you are building meaningful relationships, it is impossible to complete your journey while relying on the guidance of a single person AND a loose network of fleeting connections is not a support system. It is support soup. 

People need a support *network* constructed from the various enriching relationships they have built for themselves. Therapy is not an exception to this.

Do not be afraid to challenge yourself and explore why you feel the way you do and your emotional urges. Challenge why you feel the urge to run. Challenge why you feel fear when you think of leaving. Understand that when those feelings arise, your growth often lies on the other side of the opposite action.

8) Keep going.

Develop the capacity for grit.

In a society that benefits from your self-hatred and animosity towards the other, it is your radiance and your defiant capacity for love and empathy that is the true revolution.

You cannot change the world. You cannot change your family. You cannot change people.

Let yourself resist those truths and then accept them.

Commit to accepting them.

And then operate within the boundaries placed before you.

You can influence the world around you when you invest in yourself and the people around you. When you demand better for yourself and work for it, you embolden other people to want the same. You may not be able to feel the impact of the mark you will leave on the world when you do better and still you must have faith that your mark is made.

This post is my effort to shape the world I live in using the tools I built for myself. And just like every thought, every quote, every gesture, every conversation, every hug, every tear, and every smile carved and shaped me into the person I am today, I have one wish for everyone who reads this:

I hope for all of you to one day wake up and realize you are currently the best version of yourself that you have ever been.

And that you will only continue to get better.

8 things 8 Years of Recovery Taught me

[deanismysavior]

This is my story

Trigger warnings for manipulation, ptsd, anxiety, mental illness, paranoia, possible stalking, toxic relationships

Words included but not pertaining to the actual story: rape, assault, abuse

1. 

In my freshman year of college, all I wanted to do was make friends. It was the sole purpose I moved from my small town in Connecticut to New York for college. I wanted to meet new people, and fine, I’ll say it, I was naive. Growing up around the same people your entire life can affect your expectations of people, and as someone who was generally pretty optimistic about most things, I had a tendency of giving people the benefit of the doubt. I never should have done that. 

My freshman year of college was the first time I ever felt something as close to what I can only describe as post-traumatic stress, but I guess I should start from the beginning. There was a boy in my Art History class who approached me on the second day of our class. I’ll call him Stan. He told me that he’d gotten his schedule mixed up and that he’d missed the first class. Seeing my opportunity to make a new friend, I offered to send him my notes from the first class, and we exchanged phone numbers. I was so relieved I had found someone in my class to exchange numbers with since that was what every orientation leader and RA I’d talked to had suggested to do on the first day of classes. That day, he walked me back to my dorm (on the opposite side of the residential campus to his own). At the time, I didn’t think much of it. I thought he was just being friendly and nice. Once we’d reached my dorm, he stopped me. 

“Come here. Give me a hug,” he said.

Now, I’m not someone who’s in the habit of hugging strangers or even acquaintances. The request made me feel off, but I couldn’t quite place why I felt that way. Not knowing what else to do, and not wanting to be rude to who I hoped would become my new friend, I hugged him. It felt wrong. I can’t describe the feeling, but it wasn’t how a hug was supposed to feel. A hug is supposed to make you feel warm. I walked to my dorm feeling completely cold. 

Now I wasn’t stupid, I considered that this interaction may have been the boy’s showing romantic interest, but I didn’t have much experience with that sort of attention coming from boys at the time, and I didn’t want to overthink it. 

Things were okay with Stan for a little while. He walked me back to my dorm again the next class, but it was about a few weeks into the semester when things started to change. After not showing up to class one day, Stan texted me. 

Hey, would you be able to do me a favor and sign my name on the attendance sheet today? I don’t want it to count against me, and I don’t know how many absences I get. I just really couldn’t come today.

I was not a rule-breaker, and I’m still not. I expressed my discomfort at the situation. If I got caught, I didn’t know what the repercussions of that action would be, but I didn’t know what to do. He told me I didn’t have to, but that it would be really helpful if I did. I didn’t want to let down someone I had just made friends with. I didn’t recognize how this behavior was manipulative at the time. He told me how awesome I was and how much he appreciated me. 

I thought that this was a one-time occurance, but sure enough, a couple weeks later, he texted me about it again. I told him he should really start coming to class.

After that, Stan stopped walking me back to my dorm. On the days he did show up to class, he showed up halfway through, just to sign his name on the attendance sheet I was sure. He didn’t bring a notebook. Sometimes he would do homework for other classes when he sat there. It began to frustrate me how little he cared. I started ignoring his texts. 

When the midterm came around, he texted me again. He told me that he didn’t have a copy of the textbook and asked if he could borrow mine. I told him I was busy with my other midterms and that I needed to use my textbook to study from. I was even more annoyed now. How had he gone halfway through the semester without the textbook?

I decided then that I wanted to distance myself from Stan. He didn’t seem to have much interest in being my friend anymore anyway. Maybe he never did. He’d just seen some eager freshman at the start of her college career and decided she would be an easy target. 

After the midterm, he texted me again. He said he didn’t do as well as he’d hoped.

Maybe we can study together. I know you know your stuff.

I know my stuff because I go to class, I replied. 

He told me he was really going to apply himself in the second half of the semester and that he wanted to bring his grade up. He said he was going to be better about coming to class. Like a fool, I believed him.

It only took him a week to start asking me to sign his name on the attendance sheet again. This time, I stopped replying for good. I realized that he hadn’t changed, and that he had no intention to. I was disappointed, but I wasn’t surprised.

It had been a few weeks since I’d talked to Stan. He would leave directly after class had ended, so I thought I’d shaken him off. I was relieved. Then, one day as I was walking back to my dorm, taking the walkway that went directly from the academic side of campus to the freshman dorm buildings, I ran into Stan, my lemonade and my lunch from our campus Au Bon Pain in my hand. I felt myself freeze.

He smiled at me and said hi, then he stopped me. 

“Hey, so I was thinking, would you want to get lunch sometime?” 

I felt the pit of my stomach sink, but Stan was close to six foot five inches, and he’d never technically done anything to me, right? I mean, maybe he didn’t even realize. I said sure, mostly so that the interaction would end and I could go back to my dorm and eat my lunch in peace.

I walked away, my heart racing. I had been alone in this enclosed walkway with this boy I barely knew, this boy who was older than I was, and much larger. I didn’t feel the tightness in my chest subside until I was safe on the other side of the turnstile into my dorm building. My mind started cycling through all of the possibilities. Was he asking me to lunch as a friend? But that didn’t make sense. He’d barely talked to me at all outside of texting me to help him out in class and he didn’t wait to talk to me after class anymore. Was he asking me to lunch to study? This was more plausible since it seemed like everything that he’d talked to me about all semester had been about his attendance or wanting help with notes or study materials. Was he asking me to lunch because he liked me? This was perhaps the most troubling option for me. He’d never once made me feel safe.

It was then that everything clicked for me. All the red flags I’d been ignoring. I realized how taken advantage of I’d been feeling the whole time, how one-sided this relationship had become. How one-sided I’d let it become. 

The next morning I told him I couldn’t make our lunch plans. He said that maybe we could reschedule. I said maybe some other time, but I knew that I didn’t mean it. 

In the following weeks, I started seeing Stan even more. I’d begun to notice that he started using the walkway to the freshman dorms more often, even though he wasn’t a freshman himself and on a couple occasions, I even saw him in the freshman dining hall. Why was an upperclassmen constantly hanging around an all-freshman dorm by himself? Maybe all of it was coincidence, but I began to feel paranoid, like he was purposely showing up in the places he knew I would be. It made my skin crawl. I ended up changing the way I walked home to my dorm, even though it took longer. The main walkway was far more crowded, so even if I did see him, I  would have backup if things turned south. It got to the point where I felt anxious in class, wondering if he would show up that day, and when he did, it became hard for me to concentrate, but more than that, I was afraid of going anywhere on campus by myself. I wouldn’t feel safe until I had the swipe-access-only turnstile of my dorm building between myself and the rest of the campus.

After I had taken some time avoiding Stan to the best of my abilities and ignoring his requests for me to sign him into class, he contacted me again, asking if I wanted to do the Museum Project with him. Our Art History professor had assigned us a paper that required us to travel into New York City to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art and write about one of the art pieces there. Luckily, I had already made plans to go with a few of my friends, and I told him as much. Traveling into one of the biggest cities in the United States with a guy I barely knew? I couldn’t even imagine what that would have been like.

After telling him no to the museum project and a few more failed attempts at asking me to sign the attendance sheet for him, I thought I had made it pretty clear where I stood with Stan, but by the time finals rolled around, he contacted me again asking me to study, and at this point, I’d had enough. I’m not proud of everything I said, but I am proud that I stood up for myself. I told him that at the beginning I’d wanted to help him because I thought we were friends, but that clearly he didn’t actually care about me and that he was only using me for help in class. I told him no, that I wasn’t there to save his ass. 

He came back at me, saying that he had tried to get to know me better when he’d asked me to lunch and to do the project, that he had gotten the book and been studying, and that he didn’t need anyone to save his grade in the class. His words made me second guess everything I’d been feeling. Did I even have any right to feel violated by him? I didn’t know. 

I decided to reach out to a friend and ask him what he thought of the situation. Was I overreacting? Was I being too cruel or too paranoid? 

“No, he knows he fucked up and now he’s trying to do damage control. Look at the way he’s taken every issue you brought up and pinned it back on you. He’s not taking any accountability for himself. If he’d really cared about preserving a friendship here, he would have apologized instead of blaming you. Don’t fall for it. He’s only trying to make you feel bad so that you apologize and he can feel better for his own shitty behavior.”

I’m glad I reached out. If I hadn’t, I probably would have caved. 

When I showed up for the final, I sat in the seat I always did, all the way over to the right in the first row. When Stan walked into the final, he sat down two rows from me, and about two minutes later, got up from his seat, and switched to the seat directly behind me. I can’t be sure of his intention, but my best guess was that he was trying to shake me, trying to get me back for not helping him; either that, or he was attempting to cheat off me. I want you all to know that I got an A on that final exam.

Though it’s gotten much better since my first semester of my freshman year ended, I still flinch whenever I see someone that reminds me of him. My heart still quickens its pace, and I still feel that nervousness in the pit of my stomach that makes me want to sweat. 

The worst part is that I don’t know if my actions were warranted. I knew that Stan certainly wasn’t the type of person I wanted to be friends with, but I didn’t know whether or not he was actually dangerous. A part of me still feels like maybe I overreacted, that maybe I should never have been scared in the first place, that maybe he’s actually a great guy, and I just didn’t give him enough of a chance. These are all things I tell myself constantly, but the truth is that I’ll never know. 

In September of 2018, I had the first day of my Greek and Roman History class. Stan was in that class. It was still difficult for me to be around him. I still didn’t feel safe, but this had been a class I had been looking forward to for months. I had to sit with the choice that I either had to drop the class that I loved, or I had to stay in it with this constant reminder of my trauma sitting halfway across the room. I convinced myself that I was strong and that I wouldn’t let him win. I stayed. 

Stan didn’t talk to me at all that semester. 

2. 

In the second half of my sophomore year, I started dating my first girlfriend. We were best friends before we had started dating, and though some of our mutual friends found it hard to adjust to our being together initially, they were, for the most part, supportive. I thought that because we had always gotten along and communicated well as friends that it would be the same when we were together, but it wasn’t. 

Now I won’t get into personal details about her, because I still want to respect her privacy, but there were problems I knew that we would face going into things. I just didn’t know how severe these issues would be. I thought I knew what to expect and that I could handle it, but that wasn’t how things turned out. 

Things were okay for a little while and I was happy exploring these new experiences, but it became clear pretty quickly that we weren’t on the same page. She needed to take things slow, which I was okay with. I made a conscious effort to respect her boundaries and I always tried to make sure that she felt comfortable and safe. She told me she wasn’t much for PDA. Again, I had figured that this would be fine with me since we wanted to keep things under the radar to begin with. We ran in a lot of the same circles and were involved in the same clubs, so we had both agreed that we didn’t want this relationship to affect our professionalism. She told me that she needed space sometimes. Being a natural introvert, I understood this need and tried my best to be mindful of her time.

It soon became apparent that these needs were much more confusing and complicated than I had at first envisioned. Her need to take things slow had morphed into a need to essentially never develop much of a physical relationship at all. Any time it seemed that I wanted to be close to her, she seemed cold toward the idea. Though I am not outwardly the most touchy-feely person, when it comes to the people I am close to, physical affection, as simple as just hugging or hand-holding is important to my bond with them. Her rejection of these things led me to experience these feelings of being unwanted. It was something that was important to me, but I respected her boundaries, and I wanted to make it work, so I compromised. 

Though she had said she wasn’t into PDA, it seemed like the only times that she would ever be physically affectionate were when we were out with our friends, and myself, starved for this attention, took it where I could get it. This left me feeling confused as to where her boundary was. She’d made it pretty clear at the outset that she didn’t want to be coupley in public, but then did the exact opposite thing. She would snuggle up to me and act protective if anyone else tried to sit next to me instead. She began telling people outside of our friend group about our relationship. It wasn’t that I was embarrassed of her or that I didn’t want her to tell her friends, but it was something that we had mutually agreed upon, and here she was, going back on her word. She hadn’t even had the decency to talk to me about it beforehand or renegotiate the terms we had set. Soon, there were people I didn’t even know who now knew that I was queer when I wasn’t even out to my family yet. I was frustrated. When I tried to bring it up to her, she made me feel guilty for trying to hide our relationship. I talked about it to one of our mutual friends and she told me that my girlfriend just wanted to show me off because she was proud to be with me and that I was making a bigger deal out of it than it was. They both made me feel like I was unwarranted in my frustration, and so I let it slide. I found myself again sacrificing my own needs and sense of comfort for what she wanted. 

At first the space didn’t bother me so much. I had my own friends and my own work to do, but it got to the point where it seemed like the only time she wanted to spend with me was when we were around other people. She’d be perfectly content to invite me out with all of her friends, but when I suggested we spend time together alone, she’d tell me she was exhausted or tired or stressed and that she needed space. I would have understood if it didn’t feel like she made time for everyone except me. When it came to her priorities, I always seemed to come in dead last. 

It didn’t get really bad until the summer. We didn’t live in the same state, so naturally we didn’t get to see each other too often, but I did make two trips up to see her. When I suggested that she come down to see me, she told me that she didn’t have the money or the means to transport herself (she couldn’t drive and she was always broke). That same summer, she took a bus to New Jersey to go to Bookcon and she traveled all the way into New York City just for a job interview. Throughout the summer though, I texted her a lot. I would tell her how much I missed her and I would always be the one who was reaching out. She would go days without replying to me, sometimes even weeks. Her excuse was always that she was busy working. It felt like I was begging her for attention. That past year, I had grown my confidence so much, but I’d never felt as worthless as I did that summer.

When she got back to school that year, she didn’t even tell me. I had to find out from a friend that she was back on campus. She apologized to me, but after that day, I barely saw her for the next few weeks. I got so sick of it, I confronted her about it. I told her that if she wanted to stay together that I had to be a priority to her. When I said this, she looked at her calendar sheepishly and told me that she could make time to go out with me a week out from then. 

I’d like to say that the reason we broke up is that I finally stood up for myself and realized that I’d had enough, but I can’t say that. That wasn’t the reason at all. I won’t get into the details here, because that isn’t the world’s business, but I told her that I didn’t see a point in continuing a relationship where that was never on the table. It was unceremonious. Like I said, she was my best friend, so at the time, I was devastated. A few days after that, we met up again to talk about it, and I ended things more finally that time. I guess it hadn’t sunk in for her that we were really breaking up. 

We tried to be friends for a little while after that, but it proved difficult for me. The more time I spent away from the situation, the more I realized that there were parts of this relationship that were completely not okay, but I’d let it slide because I cared about her. I had never thought my best friend would be capable of hurting me like that. In fact, it hadn’t been until a few weeks prior, before our breakup, when a few of our mutual friends had sat me down and talked to me about it that I even allowed myself to acknowledge how toxic that relationship had become. They told me that what happened in the relationship I had with her wasn’t normal. It was my first relationship and I hadn’t known any different. 

Things didn’t really come to a head until I snapped. At that time, I was still hanging out with that group of friends and I was walking back to my dorm with them. For a month, my ex had been making snarky, passive aggressive comments about our book club, a club that I was on the executive board of, because we had to make decisions about the club and how to run it that didn’t align with what she had apparently wanted out of this club. It had annoyed me at the time, but I had a lot of other things going on then and I didn’t want to create more problems, so I didn’t say anything, but that day, I was talking excitedly about the club and how I’d suggested this new book that I really wanted to read. I was explaining the premise to her and why I thought it would be a great pick for the month of October (it was The Institute by Stephen King), and she told me that she didn’t really want to read another book written by a white male author. Out of context, this might not have bothered me so much, but with the breakup and all of the negative things that she had already said about the club that I was really excited to be a part of (it had just started running the previous spring and so I was elected to their first official eboard), it just felt like another way in which she was trying to undervalue my own opinions and put the attention back on herself. I told her that I didn’t think the club was all about her. She did not take that well. That was the moment I think that I realized I had all of this unresolved anger and frustration towards the situation and I really started to realize how much it felt like she always made whatever I had to say feel less important than what she wanted to say. 

She texted me later to say that she didn’t appreciate the hostility and that I was being “really mean.” I was frustrated, and I told her that I wanted some space, but she kept digging at how mean I was being, and so I tried to explain my side of things. I told her that I felt like I was finally standing up for myself and that the things she was saying were really hurtful too. I told her how she did these kinds of things all the time and she never seemed to realize the way that her words affected people. I guess saying all of that at once was too much. 

Later, a couple of my friends called me to tell me that my ex had had a lapse in her mental health. Again, I don’t want to get into specifics here because that’s not my business to tell, but they told me that I shouldn’t have laid into her so hard and that I couldn’t talk to her like that. I had finally felt like I had given a voice to the feelings I’d been suppressing for months, and now I was being told to be quiet. It seemed like I was being blamed for the decline in her mental health when all I was trying to do was express my own frustrations. Now, I just felt even less heard and even more frustrated. 

I acknowledge that the way I handled things here was probably not the best, but as I said before, I was frustrated. I had felt like when I’d tried to address problems like this in the past, my ex had ignored me or explained away the problems I was having. I’m not here to say that you shouldn’t be sensitive to someone’s mental health, but I hadn’t known the extent of things. If I had, I might have acted differently. That being said, even if someone is struggling with their mental health, it isn’t an excuse not to take accountability, and it’s definitely not fair to blame it on someone else either. 

About a month after our breakup, the day after my birthday, my ex-girlfriend called me and told me that she was outside my dorm and asked if I could come down. She said she had something for me. I thought it was odd, but I wanted to make sure she was okay, so I went. She handed me a package she had wrapped in newspaper and told me, “Happy Birthday.” 

I hadn’t spoken to her much in the past few weeks and I felt uncomfortable accepting the gift, but I couldn’t just refuse it when she was standing there, tears streaming down her face, so I took it back up to my dorm room, where slowly, I tore back the newspaper wrapping. Inside was a copy of Paulo Coehlo’s “The Alchemist,” a book we had to read for our Popular Literature course, but she had written over the title. Inside, she had made blackout poetry, inserted her own typed-out poems, pasted pictures of us, and had drawn inside the book. At the end was an emotional letter saying how much she had messed up and that she hadn’t realized what she had until she’d lost me. She said she wanted to try to make things work again.

I didn’t know what to make of this. Maybe this would have been cute if it was something she’d done while we were together, but it just ended up feeling like a mockery. In the six months we were together, she had never once done anything for me. She only wanted to put the effort in when she realized that she had to in order to keep me. 

 I knew that I didn’t want to get back together, but now I had to close a door I thought was already shut. I texted her the following day that we should probably meet and talk about this. Going into that meeting, I wanted to make it clear that I didn’t want to get back together, that I was hurt and that I was still healing. When I arrived at her dorm that day, I sat down and took a breath.

“I don’t think that I should be with anyone right now,” I told her. “I lost a lot of myself in this relationship and I’m still trying to get myself back again. It’s going to take time for me to get back to a place where I’m feeling okay again and I’m probably going to need some space.”

I tried my best to get my point across without making her feel like shit. She had just poured her heart out to me on the page after all, and I didn’t want to be a complete asshole, but she took my words and twisted them, like she always seemed to do. She told me how she had prepared a whole speech for me about how she was going to try more and communicate better and how she was ready to change everything for me.

“But that’s all moot now,” she said with tears in her eyes.

I was trying not to actively roll my eyes at this. You’re not supposed to let on that you don’t believe someone, not even for a second when they say something like that. She kept trying to tell me that all of the things she had said when we first broke up weren’t really true and that she’d worked through them during her time back home (which was all of a matter of five days). She said she’d realized that those things were never really a problem for her but that she’d used them as an excuse to blame the failing of the relationship on that instead of on herself. I think this was only probably half true.

“But it’s okay,” she said, “because you’re still not ready.” I don’t think she understood how condescending she sounded. Somehow, it was still because of me that the relationship was ending. 

 She then started congratulating herself on how selfless she was being, about how good it felt to put me before her. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or if I was utterly repulsed by that statement.

At the end of everything, she seemed to come to the conclusion that I just wasn’t ready yet. She said she was going to wait for me. I knew then that she had never heard me, and that she’d never seen me either. 

The next weekend, she texted me while she was drunk at a party. I told her she shouldn’t be texting me. 

A month later, I get a text from her. She tells me she wants to give me back the bottle I’d left in her dorm room and I say okay and that I need to give her her sweatshirt back anyway. We meet halfway between our dorms. “Just so you know,” she says, “I started seeing someone.”

I honestly didn’t know why she told me. I didn’t want to know. It felt like apathy. It also felt like a punch to the gut. I told her I was happy for her, because that’s what you’re supposed to do. I wasn’t. I was angry. I was so goddamn angry. 

For months, she had been trying to construct ways to get me back, and now she was trying to make me jealous. I just wanted it to be over. That was the day I decided to stop talking to her completely. 

The following month, I decided that I wanted to post something on Instagram about the summation of my year. I wanted to talk about how hard that year had been for me, but that I was proud that I had made it out on top and that things were looking up for me. As I was scrolling through my feed the following day, I saw that my ex-girlfriend had posted something too. This post seemed to be in direct response to mine, about how she had really messed up this year and that she had lost people that were important to her. The only reason I could think that she would have posted something like that was to get other people to flock to her and give her attention and to get my attention. Four months after we had broken up, and it still seemed like she was hell-bent on dragging me back into her drama. I muted her on all of my social media. 

It felt like every time I was trying to make progress towards getting over the situation, she would try to find some kind of way to come back into my life and make me miss her and care about her again. I would have maybe understood if it actually seemed like she cared about how I was feeling at all, but she didn’t. As always, the language and the tactics she used were all about her. 

Things were quiet for a few months, and I was feeling really good, probably the best I’d felt in years. I finally felt like I had re-built a support system at school (a lot of my friends were mutual friends with my ex and most of them had elected to stay in her friend group), and I was feeling like I was coming down off of some of my anger. I guess my ex thought that it was only a matter of time before my walls would wear down, because she tried speaking with me again. When I was standing and waiting for a friend in the student center, she asked me if I was waiting to have dinner with someone, and I replied saying, “Yes.” It struck me as odd because outside of professional situations, I hadn’t spoken to her in months, and even then I’d tried my best to avoid engaging with her directly as much as possible. I think she was trying to invite me to lunch with my old friend group, but I shook it off and continued to carry on. A few weeks later, she tried to start up a conversation with me like nothing had ever happened. I couldn’t leave without looking rude, and maybe I let my guard down a little bit, but I think she mistook my being polite for my forgiving her behavior over the past few months. 

In mid April, after the self-isolation started, I got a text from her saying that she was “checking in” and that she hoped that my family wasn’t driving me too crazy right now. I chose to ignore it.

In early May, she reached out to me again, this time with a much longer message. She said that she was tired of being angry about “relationship stuff.” She said, “I miss my best friend, and I would like her back.” She said she was looking at old pictures of us and that she “started sobbing.” She said that she “wanted to make the first move” in case I had been hesitant to do so. I’m not sure if she was really that delusional about the reality of the situation or if she was just making one more desperate grab at getting me back. Maybe it was both. 

There was a time when I might have thought this was sweet, but I know better now. I’ve learned to recognize that she tries to use my emotions against me and that she’s been doing it the entire time, whether she was conscious of it or not. She would only show me affection when she saw I was paying more attention to someone else than I was to her. This was no different. Now she was trying to tell me how sad she was so that I’d feel bad for being angry and resentful towards her, but there was nowhere in her message that she wanted to own up to any of her behaviors and all of her purposes in wanting to “reignite” our friendship seemed to be entirely self-serving. I don’t know, maybe I was too disillusioned by that point to care. I chose to ignore that text too. 

3.

I’m not trying to say that I played the right cards in all of these instances. In fact, I think there are a lot of ways I could have probably dealt with these situations better, but these situations took a lot out of me, and I only had so much bandwidth with which to deal with them. 

We talk a lot in our society about rape, about abuse, about harassment, but what about the stories that don’t quite fit in those categories, the ones that fall through the cracks? Why don’t we ever talk about manipulative behavior and how it can cause just as much trauma. I’m not trying to equate any of these things, because I’ll never understand what another person’s experience would be like, but I can speak to the lasting effects these situations have had on me. 

I still experience anxiety and a physical reaction any time I see a taller male figure wearing a baseball cap. Some days it’s better than others, but there are times that I get completely taken off guard and I jump. It’s hard to explain to my friends why I pause and go quiet on the walkway sometimes.

As much as I don’t like the fact, my relationship with my ex still affects my everyday life too. As I tried to enter a new relationship not too long ago, I realized that the emotional trauma I was carrying from the poor communication of that relationship negatively affected the way that I interacted with this new person. I was nervous that it would be the same thing all over again. 

With this situation, the lasting effects are certainly worse. I was much closer to my ex than I was to Stan, so moving on from the situation has been a much more arduous, drawn out process. It also doesn’t help that I’m still forced to, at least in some capacity, keep contact with her. Up until recently, she was in two of my classes. She’s still friends with a lot of my friends, which has forced me to become more distant from them as a result, but nonetheless, I still end up seeing her more often because of it. She is currently a part of the same club I am on eboard for, so blocking her number from my phone isn’t really an option I have. This constant exposure has definitely had a negative impact on me, as it affects the way that I perform in that group setting. It makes it hard to be present sometimes in a club that used to feel like a safe space to me. It makes me sad that I lost that feeling, but the club is too important for me to give up.

Most recently though, the lasting impact of the relationship affected my eboard position in a way I wasn’t expecting. I am in charge of the Public Relations for this club, and so I maintain and oversee everything that happens with our social media. One of the girls from the club approached me with the idea that we should make a TikTok account for our club, and I had to go through the very uncomfortable process of explaining that one of the most popular social media apps right now was one of my biggest triggers. When I would get to spend time alone with my ex, I wanted it to be quality time and I wanted to talk to her, but she always seemed uncomfortable with silence and needed a way to fill it. Even though I didn’t particularly care for them, she’d always start watching TikTok videos when we were alone together, which frustrated me immensely. Now, any time I see them, it takes me back to that feeling of being unwanted and not being a priority. This made my job as the chair of Public Relations extremely difficult, as I didn’t want to prevent my club from the publicity that jumping on a trend like TikTok could garner us. I decided it was in my best interest to delegate this. I told the girl that while I think it would be a good idea for the club, I couldn’t be the person to run it. 

In situations like these, there is no real way to get the kind of physical distance that one needs in order to fully heal, and it’s hard to find support when there are not a lot of resources being offered for students when their cases aren’t severe enough to require university intervention. Counseling is always a good option, and I was actually scheduled to begin seeing a counselor when the pandemic hit. I had to cancel that appointment, however, because I am an out-of-state student and I can’t travel to the school in order to make the appointments. As of right now, the university has only adapted its health services to a phone triage system, meaning that there are no formal counseling  services available to all students whilst we’ve seen the highest uptick in mental-health related crises in years. Even during a normal semester though, counseling can only work internally; it can help me to work through my emotional baggage, but it can’t act as a prevention to situations like this occurring again. It is only doing damage control. 

I will say here that I am now fairing with these situations much better, and I am actively seeking help to unlearn my own behaviors and better process these emotions, but my point still stands. 

My point is that we are not taught how to read these red flags. We’re not really ever told about when a friend is asking too much from you or how to recognize if a relationship is becoming toxic without it becoming abusive. Too often I think we seem to conflate these as the same thing, that being taken advantage of automatically means that an assault occurred or that toxicity in a relationship only rears its head when there is constant fighting. These are misconceptions. I wish that someone had told me enough to be able to recognize when I needed to get help, but we are not able to learn about these things from school or friends or the media. Too often, the only way we learn to recognize these red flags is from experience. 

In Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire says, “Concern for humanization leads at once to the recognition of dehumanization, not only as an ontological possibility but as an historical reality” (Freire 43). I’d argue that’s exactly what is happening here, an allowance for dehumanization to occur. In not addressing manipulative behaviors as detrimental and writing them off as products of a person’s personality or their primary motivations (oh, maybe he’s just into you) (that’s just how she is) (they can’t help it, it’s a product of their mental illness), it not only enables these behaviors to persist, it also acts in speaking over the voices of the people who are affected by these behaviors and attempts to minimize the weight of their experiences. It’s not a mistake when people who have been manipulated say that they feel “used.” It is in this very act of using someone else that that person no longer becomes a person to you, but an object, and a means at attaining your own goals. People that show cycles of manipulative behavior dehumanize the people around them to serve their own purposes, but in ignoring these actions, we too become bystanders in this act of dehumanization. 

Works Cited

Freire, Paulo, et al. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.

[zahraasl]

Five Ways to get the Most out of Music Lessons

This article gives advice about how to ensure the student has the best possible learning environment for their music lessons, from what age to start to what materials to use.

These guidelines will help you to have a successful, rewarding experience learning an instrument. These are practical tips that we have discovered from years of teaching and our experiences with teaching hundreds of students each year.

1. HOW YOUNG IS TOO YOUNG - STARTING AT THE RIGHT AGE

Adults can start any instrument at any time. Their success is based on how willing an adult is to commit to practicing. We teach many beginner students in their 60’s and 70’s.

For children, starting at the right age is a key element to the success of their lessons. Some people will tell you “the sooner the better” but this attitude can actually backfire and be a negative. If a child is put into lessons too soon they may feel overwhelmed and frustrated and want to stop lessons. The last thing you want to do is turn a child off music just because they had one unpleasant experience which could have been prevented. Sometimes if the child waits a year to start lessons their progress can be much faster. Children who are older than the suggested earliest starting age usually do very well. Children also usually pick the right instrument for themselves, so it is best to let them try it! The following are guidelines we have found to be successful in determining how young a child can start taking music lessons.

3 - 4 Years Old

If a pre-schooler has a keen desire and wants to start music, a group preschool music class will give them a good foundation in music basics which will be helpful in later private lessons. At this age, private lessons generally do not work as the child has not yet experienced the formal learning environment of kindergarten or school and learns more effectively through the game-oriented preschool environment.

Piano/Keyboard

At our school 5 years old is the youngest age that we start children in private piano lessons. At this age they have begun to develop longer attention spans and can retain material with ease. Children under this age may not last the duration of the lesson.

Guitar - Acoustic, Electric and Bass

Children under 8 generally have small hands and may find playing uncomfortable. Visit your instrument retailer to get sized for the correct guitar, and ask for Nylon strings, to make it easier on the fingers. Bass guitar students generally are 10 years old and older.

Drums

This varies greatly depending on the size of the child. They have to be able to reach both the pedals and the cymbals, but some basic skills can be taught to younger/smaller students.

Flute, Clarinet & Saxophone

Due to lung capacity (and in the case of the saxophone the size of the instrument), we recommend that most woodwind beginners are in grade 5 or 6, but as children’s sizes differ, this is not a hard and fast rule. Visit your instrument retailer to properly check sizes.

Violin, Viola, Cello

We accept string students as young as 4. Some teachers will start children as young as 3, but experience has shown us the most productive learning occurs when the beginner is a bit older. There are string instruments made in small sizes for kids

Brass

Most Brass physical requires some physical exertion, lung power, and a fair size. Cornet is best for smaller kids, but other instruments can work, as well. 8 years old is usually the youngest we start kids on brass, but there are always exceptions.

2. INSIST ON PRIVATE LESSONS WHEN LEARNING A SPECIFIC INSTRUMENT

Group classes work well for preschool music programs, and theory lessons. However, when actually learning how to play an instrument, private lessons are far superior since in private lessons it is hard to miss anything, and each student can learn at their own pace. This means the teacher does not have to teach a class at a middle of the road level, but has the time and focus to work on the individual student’s strengths and weaknesses. For that lesson period, the student is the primary focus of the teacher. The teachers also enjoy this as they do not have to divide their attention between 5 - 10 students at a time and can help the student be the best they can be.

3. TAKE LESSONS IN A PROFESSIONAL TEACHING ENVIRONMENT

Learning music is not just a matter of having a qualified teacher, but also having an environment that is focused on music education. In a professional school environment a student cannot be distracted by t.v., pets, ringing phones, siblings or anything else. With only 1/2 to one hour of lesson time per week, a professional school environment can produce better results since the only focus at that time is learning music. Students in a school environment are also motivated by hearing peers who are at different levels and by being exposed to a variety of musical instruments. In a music school, the lessons are not just a hobby or sideline for the teacher but a responsibility which is taken very seriously.

4. MAKE PRACTICING EASIER

As with anything, improving in music takes practice. One of the main problems with music lessons is the drudgery of practicing and the fight between parents and students to practice every day. Here are some ways to make practicing easier:

Time

Set the same time every day to practice so it becomes part of a routine or habit. This works particularly well for children. Generally the earlier in the day the practicing can occur, the less reminding is required by parents to get the child to practice.

Repetition

We use this method quite often when setting practice schedules for beginners. For a young child 20 or 30 minutes seems like an eternity. Instead of setting a time frame, we use repetition. For example, practice this piece 4 times every day, and this scale 5 times a day. The child then does not pay attention to the amount of time they are practicing their instrument, but knows if they are on repetition number 3 they are almost finished.

Rewards

This works very well for both children and adult students. Some adults reward themselves with a cappuccino after a successful week of practicing. Parents can encourage children to practice by granting them occasional rewards for successful practicing. In our school we reward young children for a successful week of practicing with stars and stickers on their work. Praise tends to be the most coveted award - there just is no substitute for a pat on the back for a job well done. Sometimes we all have a week with little practicing, in that case there is always next week.

5. USE RECOGNIZED TEACHING MATERIALS

There are some excellent materials developed by professional music educators that are made for students in a variety of situations. For example in piano, there are books for very young beginners, and books for adult students that have never played before. There are books that can start you at a level you are comfortable with. These materials have been researched and are continually upgraded and improved to make learning easier. These materials ensure that no important part of learning the instrument can inadvertently be left out. If you ever have to move to a different part of the country, qualified teachers and institutions will recognize the materials and be able to smoothly continue from where the previous teacher left off.

Most Importantly . . . HAVE FUN!!

Music should be something that you enjoy for a lifetime. So, try not to put unrealistic expectations on yourself or your children to learn too quickly. Everyone learns at a different pace and the key is to be able to enjoy the journey.