#trying to live a life where you avoid doing it completely is literally impossible

[vacantgodling]

what applying the term emotional labor to daily interactions should’ve meant: i have a better grasp of my own personal needs and how those intersect with caring for other people. i can now better manage my own energy and monitor when it’s low so i can take steps to recharge it and not take it out on those i love when i simply have a low supply. i am going to care so much more efficiently now!

what people have taken it as: cArInG aBouT OTHerS is SoOoOooo hARD why does no one think about ME the MAIN CHARACTER!!! if anyone makes me perform even one act of giving a fuck i am going on an emotional labor STRIKE!!!!!!!!

[classic80sand90smovieloves2]

Lestat wooing you would include~

(Not my gif)(Requested by anonymous)

( I wrote this draft a while ago, and only now edited and finished it, so hopefully I'll still like it after my next viewing of IWTV lol. I tried to balance romance with Lestats naturally manipulative and toxic side. And I tried to make a neutral set of headcanons for something I think would really depend on the type of person.)

- When he can, and when he wants to be, Lestat is like a dream personified: one you feel so vividly and yearn for so ardently that you pray you’ll never breach the waking world again. He sweeps you off your feet; both figuratively and literally, until all that’s left of you is a foggy haze that can think only of fairytales and fantasy. 

- And yet, the dream is bound to end as nothing short of a nightmare. 

- Lestat views mortals as toys, things he can do with as he pleases, and dispose of as quickly and as often as it suits him. He hardly ever takes into consideration the feelings and the value of those around him, save for when he decides he wants them: and even then, he can’t help but play cruel little games. 

- Lestat’s love, in general, is a game. It’s a game of cat and mouse, one that only he ever manages to win. No matter how long it may take, no matter how hard you may try to avoid it, no matter how much it might hurt you, you’ll end up being his in one way or another, even if it kills you....

- At first, Lestat is very open about his infatuation with you, introducing himself to you in the dead of night as you walk the streets or sit in your garden. He apologizes for scaring you, ignoring how strange his sudden appearance may be; how it seems almost impossible for him to be where he is right in that moment.

- Though you're too distracted by his physical appearance to truly consider the logistics. Too distracted by his complexion and his hair that seems to be glowing in the moonlight, how striking his eyes are, how expensive his clothes are. He's completely foreign to you; both in physical attributes and status, and because of that, you're taken with him from the start.

- Being with him is thrilling, it's exhilarating, and it feels almost dangerous, so comparably taboo to everything you've ever been taught to yearn for. You would have never imagined that you'd be sneaking away in the middle of the night, tiptoeing past your parents room or climbing down the steep side of your home's architecture: all to meet with a man who only ever appears to you in dark corners and secluded spaces. You would have never imagined slipping back inside just as the sun rises and hiding your exhaustion in the morning at the breakfast table, knowing that if your father ever found out he'd lock you away.

- But just being with Lestat is enough to make you forget about any and all consequences that you may face. He's able to strip away your worries: waxing poetic about how he loves you and how he'll never allow anything to happen to you. About how he's capable of giving you a life that you couldn't even imagine.

- He's worse than the devil when telling you how he'll let you live deliciously: promising you no more pain or sorrow for the rest of time, how not even sickness or death could ever touch you again. But only if you'll trust in him, love him, accept him, him, him, him. His tone is never above a whisper yet it's deafening, rendering the world around you silent so that all you can hear is the beating of your heart and the softness of his voice.

- When he talks to you about the future, it's as though he can read your mind: as though he understands you on some deep and emotional level, perfectly summing up your deepest and darkest feelings that you do your best to hide. He promises to change the things you wish to change, to give you the things you have always yearned for, to rid you of the grievances and the heartaches that you have grown to worry about. Out of everyone in your life, it is a complete stranger who seems to know you best, and it makes you feel as though you are somehow one in the same, connected on some otherworldly level.

- He flirts with you in your more lighthearted moments together: making you laugh and flush and hide your face. He speaks so smoothly, so charmingly, so intelligently. All the boys you've ever met have either been perfectly plain or dreadfully boring, and Lestat is the total opposite: so full of life and passion and romance. It's like he holds your heart in his hands and tells it when to beat.

- He calls you such beautiful things: things reserved for your parents or the letters between history's greatest lovers. Some are comparably innocent to others, holding the affection of a guardian rather than a lover. Pet, lambkin, sugarplum, treasure, angel, beloved, darling, dove, lover, my love, my dearest, my heart, etc. Not to mention when he speaks in his native tongue.

- It's easy to forget who you actually are when every name he seems to call you is a term of endearment or your name spoken in a tone that you've never heard before. He makes it seem so foreign and different: makes you feel different.

- And when he feels his words are no longer enough, he moves on to gifts: covering you in gems and jewels and satins. You tuck them away in the bottom of your dresser, keeping them hidden away from your families prying eyes. The first time you visit his home, you're shown a room that's already made for you: it's closets and dressers full of luxuries that you've never known.

- When he zips and clasps you into them, his fingers linger on the pulse beneath his touch. He kisses your wrists and your neck as his hands slide across your body, listening to the heartbeat racing in your chest and the thoughts crossing your mind, knowing that his affection is filling you with burning heat.

- It's an age of innocence that you live in, and Lestat is a creature of sin: when he woos you, it's bound to include seduction and lust. He wants to sway you towards a life of debauchery, the type of life he has lived for quite some time, the type of life that he can give to you: one without punishment and restriction, one with only pleasure.

- He tries to lower your inhibitions: tries to trap you in a whirlwind of excitement, and romance, and affection, until all that's left is a dizzying love that makes you want to give yourself to him and only him. When he feels he can get away with it, he'll lean in close, staring straight into your eyes as his mouth draws nearer to your own. A grin pulls at his lips, feeling as though he is seconds away from stealing a kiss and sealing your fate.

- It's then that you pull away, wanting to; needing to, preserve your chastity, not wanting to allow yourself to get carried away and do irreversible damage; to be a fool for the sake of love. On one hand, he loves it. On the other, it infuriates him. He soothes himself with your touch, pausing only for a moment as your head turns away from his own before dropping his face into the crook of your neck or burying it in your hair, feeling your softness against him; a promise of what he is capable of winning as long as he can remain patient.

- You're so soft, so warm, so sweet: all attributes he tries to imitate himself; wanting you to trust him more than anything. He drapes himself across you, lays his head in your lap or rests his chin on your shoulders, wanting to seem gentler than he is. He is a monster, yes, but he's determined to convince you that he is not: as though he holds less control than he actual does, as though he is weaker than he is. Perhaps in a way, he is weaker: weak for you, for your touch, for your acceptance, for your love.

- And in convincing you that he is weak for you, he manages to win you over and turn you away from your family, planting seeds of doubt in your mind and ideas about running away with him. He introduces you to passion, to all of the things your family taught you to stay away from because they're sinful and will lead you down a dark path. He questions why something so beautiful and pleasureful would be so wrong for you to engage in. Why god would mean to keep you from enjoying them, from enjoying life and enjoying him, enjoying all the pleasure that he convinces you to let him give to you.

- At some point, he will find himself an entry point into your regular life: likely by attending a party that you and your family are at, and making himself known as an honored guest or sponsor; someone that the people around him are bound to respect and trust. He pretends not to know you when the two of you are introduced, though the way he looks at you when he kisses your hand will tell anyone who's watching that that is simply not the case.

- He plays nice in the presence of others, treating you more like a child than a potential wife: acting like a protective uncle when in the company of your family, friends, or suitors. He cultivates a close relationship in public with you under this pretense, lowering your families guards and making them believe that he truly has your best interests in mind. When other men come around, he is not seen as a competitor, but rather a guardian, someone that they must convince to like them if they wish to get close to you

- Yet for all of this acting, there always comes a time in the middle of the night when he finds you alone, acting as though a switch has been flipped and he cannot keep himself off or away from you. He grabs you from amongst the darkness, concealing your shrieks of surprise as he holds you close to him, growling about how he's missed you and cooing at you as grumble about how he's treated you all evening. He reminds you that you must keep your love a secret; whether it was initially his idea or your own, and against your better judgement, you begin to soften once more; forgiving him as he smiles at and hugs you close to him.

- He keeps you close to him at parties once he feels he has earned the right to; or even when he feels he hasn't, urging you to sit with him at his side and leaning into you so that he can murmur little comments in your ear, grinning as you giggle and try to hide it. You sit at his side as he plays the piano, watching his fingers fly across the keys as he quietly makes lighthearted conversation or teasing quips.

- In the presence of others, his affection turns gentle and innocent: tapping your chin, booping your nose, patting your cheek, escorting you around by your interlocked arms. In private his affection is more intimate: brushing your hair from your face, toying with your jewelry, lingering caresses, purposefully placed hands, long and gentle kisses. It's hard to grow used to the difference: how he can be one man one moment, and seem like a totally different one the next.

- But Lestat enjoys this difference, this game of his that he gets to play with you. It's a game he takes even further in an effort to make you jealous, to make you even more interested in him: to invoke some kind of strong reaction in you and bring the two of you closer in the long run. It's a rotten and dangerous game that he plays: brushing you off in favor of another, disregarding how happy you are to see him, taking pleasure in your confusion and disappointment.

- He expects to bite then lap at the wound like a dog, be the one to hurt you then strip you of the pain. He expects you to eagerly accept his undivided attention later on: for you to feel fortunate for the scraps, to wait for his beck and call. And how rewarding it is for you when you ensure that his plan backfires. Two can play at that game, you reason, and you watch as he conceals his own jealousy in response to your actions.

- When he stands you up during your nightly meetings, you don't show up the next day yourself. When you're at a mutual party, you dance and stay by the side of a boy your father boisterously insists you'll marry one day. When you need fresh air, you take the boy with you and sit in the garden side by side. And oh how Lestat could snap his neck like a twig: drain him right in front of you and sully your little saintlike dress. There's still a chance that he will....

- Your attention is like a drug to him and when he is left with none of it, he festers in sickness and in agony, rotting from the inside as he suffers from withdrawals. He must remind himself to be patient when he thinks about sweeping you away, about making you his and forcing you to stay with him until the end of time.

- He'll undoubtedly interrupt you, whether during your sit down with your potential suitor or after it happens: either scaring the boy off with the sheer tension and anger that radiates off of him, or stealing you away when his back is turned, grabbing you in the blink of an eye; reminiscent of times when you were both in much more jovial moods. His ability to suddenly appear will never cease to shock you, to startle you before you gain your bearings and sigh at the sight of him; whether in relief or annoyance.

- It's in these moments that he has to be very careful. He feels the need to turn you, to ensure that you're not going anywhere, but in doing that, he is playing a very dangerous game. Lestat believes that you could grow to love him over time, that you would get over the initial resentment of being turned once you realize the gift that he's bestowed upon you. But what if you don't? What if he loses you all the same? You'd be as good as dead then, wouldn't you? Immortal and yet refusing to be by his side. He wouldn't let you, but that's besides the point.

- If he does manage to quell those urges, manage to convince himself that now is not the time to change you, then he must decide on how to deal with you accordingly: decide if anger is the way to go, if sorrow is, if kindness should prevail above all else. Sometimes his temper gets the better of him and his sweetened words turn sour, making you wonder if the man standing before you is the same man you've grown to love.

- Oftentimes, you respond just as angrily, lashing out at him in the same venomous way, your pain and your exhaustion showing through. He can't help but love it, love the anger and the passion that you show him. He finds your fury exhilarating: proof of why he chose you in the first place, proof of how perfect you are for each other.

- It's then that he turns on the charm: smiling and laughing in amusement, somehow turning this rage of yours into a bonding moment. It's baffling to witness, and it gives you much to think about. It's in these moments that he might be forced to turn you, seeing the conflict on your face, hearing the words leave your lips, orders for him to leave you alone, how you never wish to see him again.

- He can't allow you to make that decision, to leave him and be rid of him forever. He'll ensure that you're unable to: that no matter where you go and no matter how far you run, he will continue to be the only one you can turn to, the only one who can understand and guide you. You'll learn to love him then, he'll make sure of it. Despite all the aggravation, a life without him will be even more unbearable, ...and you'll realize that soon enough.

- There's a very likely chance that he'll woo you after he bites you, that he'll turn you during your first meeting, or feed from you and later convince you to let him change you. For the sake of these headcanons, I've pretended as though there's a reason he's unable to steal you away in the middle of the night and run away with you. Just let it be known that under different circumstances, he might react very differently when trying to win you over.

- That being said: Lestat does try to give you the choice when deciding whether or not to change you; regardless of your history together. Although, it isn't much of a choice, is it? It's either change or die: a sort of "pick your poison" type of scenario.

- I can see him making his secret known in an attempt to win you over and intrigue you, to fascinate you with his mere existence and draw you towards him even more. Your interest in him facilitates his beliefs about you: about how you're made for his world and not your own. The fact that you're not terrified of him; that you still yearn to be near him even after learning what he is, proves to him that you're different from everyone else, that there's a reason he chose you out of every other person on Earth.

- Logistically, you know that things like him should not exist: that even if they do, they're dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. And yet, you find yourself incapable of of doing so. Knowing that he exists frightens you, and yet it fascinates you even more, making you want to continue seeing him: scared of losing this double life of yours that has allowed you to see things beyond your own comprehension and the set of beliefs that you've been taught since birth. If you turn from him, you risk going back to a normal and boring life, forced into realism after getting a taste of true fantasy.

- It's a hard decision to make; whether you'll choose to continue seeing him or not, yet you should rest assured that Lestat is seldom finished with a person even when they fully believe him to be. If he wants something, there is simply no preventing him from having it. And the thing he wants most is you....

[captainjacklyn]

Twisted Wonderland x Captain Jack Sparrow!Reader, PART 2 :

A/N : here is part 2 for this 1000+ follower special, thank you all for supporting my blog so far. I'm really really grateful, you all have a splendid day.

-Captain Jacklyn

Personality : According to screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, Sparrow is a trickster who uses wit and deceit to attain his goals, preferring to end disputes verbally instead of by force. He walks with a slightly drunken swagger and has slurred speech and flailing hand gestures. Sparrow is shrewd, calculating, and eccentric.

Warning(s) : the reader is gender neutral, just wanted to give our favourite pirate some appreciation so the reader has his personality, skills & background, pronouns are you cause...it's literally just you. mentions of drinking habits, I've seen teenagers drink their heart out but the age of the reader isn't mentioned so make up your mind, killing, thieving cause its a pirate what did you expect ?

All characters with a Jack Sparrow!Reader :

OCTAVINELLE

Azul コ:彡 - When you found out he was a merman you instantly began to walk away slowly saying : "I've dealt with you fish people and I think I've had my dose in life, please stay far away from me." only to be dragged back by Jack. He found you..a little weird and he took a disliking to your job the moment you explained your occupation as a pirate. They are one of the most common enemy to merfolk people and knowing that you were not someone who he could easily trust he kept his distances from you...He at least tried to but since you were tasked to stop his contract madness by the headmaster, you were messing with his plans over and over again. What he found even more bothersome is when you realized just how easy it was to grab his contract on the table, immediately stopping everyone else from falling into his obvious trap. And don't get me started when leona revealed that you created an entire plan that managed to defeat someone as smart as him. "No..That drunken pirate can't be the reason for this ! It's impossible !" "Not probable..actually."

Floyd �� - He likes you but you try to avoid him and his weird hugs. He especially likes the way you run away from him like the earth was tilting. "Shrimpy~ whatcha doing here ?" "Is this a dream ?" "..No ?" "I thought so, there would be rum if it was." Like you/I said before, you've once had a not so friendly experience with mermaids and Floyd was the exact example of it. The way you run away from his squeezing attempts is like that scene where Jack runs from the group of island people screaming for his life- what movie was that again there are way too many of them..

Jade 𓆞 - You avoid Jade even more, people might say he's better than his brother but you say he's a lot worse than Floyd. "So prefect..what do you think of my faglutatilia muncosh mushrooms ?" "....I wash my hands of this weirdness." proceed to run for your life. He is a menace and people will shove the idea of him being the definition of satan incarnate simply because he acts polite with a so-called friendly smile. You don't like him, though he loves to scare the crap out of you.

SCARABIA

Kalim Al-Asim ♕ - Like I said before, some students will find your behavior humorous, and in a nice way at that. Kalim is one of them, he pretty much loves to hear you talk about your adventures as a pirate and the jokes you make which are not actually jokes make him laugh so hard. He will always invite you to his dorm to have a feast, and the best part is the amount of times that you managed to convince him to bring you to his treasure room because dear lord he's that one rich best friend who will buy you a mansion even though you never even asked. During chapter 4, you pretty much pitied Kalim. He was completely heart broken at the fact that his trusted 'friend' and vice dorm leader was conspiring against him. But as someone who lives in a world where trust isn't possible, it wasn't difficult to understand him. "Listen to me Kalim..just close your eyes and think that this is all a bad dream, that'd how I get by." "Does that really work..?" "Well..to be honest..it won't work for you now that I think about it, you're too soft and way too naive...if pirates were like you they would die on day one. But that's good for you cause you ain't a pirate..know what I'm saying ?"

Jamil 𓆗 - "The deepest circle of hell is reserved for betrayers and mutineers, Jamil." those were the words you told him during your time at Scarabia, your appearance and mannerism made you look stupid and weak, but when one survives through betrayal countless of times...it isn't hard to spot untrustworthy people. You saw through his facade and he never expected it in a million years..he was suspicious of you but not once did he think you were a threat to his plan. When you managed to escape and bring back the octavinelle trio with you, he knew just how shrewd and tactical your methods were. Even after his overblot was over, you greatly disliked each other, he was the worse type of traitor and even though it was ironic for you to say so, a captain never abandons his ship...and a ship is nothing without a crew. He hated you because of how you tricked him, he especially loathes the fact that he respect your strong mind and that his admiration goes far beyond.

Thanks and bolognese.

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Completed Chaptered AU Fics (2) Masterlist

part one

88 keys (ao3) - bluessunset

Summary: After years of saving up his money and asking his parents, Dan Howell finally has a chance to attend a boarding school for musical arts. The only thing he dreamed of for years. But the experience is a lot more than he imagined it to be.

a night to remember (ao3) - tinyalligaytor

Summary: roxie, who prefers the label exotic performer over stripper, is a star amongst people who are out when the sun goes down. who better for a close-minded phil who has despised what he labels as lowlifes to suddenly obsess over than Roxie himself?

aka the one where phil gets pathetically hung up on dan, better known as roxie and is desperate to get to know him better.

A Rose of Winter (ao3) - Nefertiti1052 (Succubusphan)

Summary: All Daniel wanted to do was escape the stifling life as a Stark of Winterfell and travel the world. Between the looming threat North of The Wall and the den of lions in the capital, he unexpectedly finds love in the midst of a war set to tear Westeros apart. Caught between loyalty to his family and duty, he is torn in a thousand directions that all point to one man: Philip Flowers.

A Stolen Ring (ao3) - orphan_account

Summary: Dan’s not normal. Why?

He's not human, he has a mysterious ring, and he hates Phil Lester. They have a strange past, one filled with bullying and avoidance, but when Dan turns into an incubus, everything changes. He struggles with his identity and cries himself to sleep most nights, yearning to be normal. And somehow the universe makes it worse by bringing him and Phil together - in the most literal sense.

Between The Lines (ao3) - Koolhotsweetloveberries

Summary: Attorney Dan Howell is faced with winning an impossible case or loosing his job.

All evidence points towards his client being guilty. Except for critical evidence provided by Forensic Linguist, Phil Lester.

The man Dan turned down a year ago.

Dan the Personal Assistant (ao3) - blissedoutphil

Summary: Dan has to submit an application video to be an assistant for a company President, Mr. Lester. But what happens when he accidentally sends a wrong video?

Forever Frozen Still (ao3) - jestbee

Summary: Phil is a wedding photographer, capturing the beauty of people’s weddings day after day even if it’s beginning to wear a little thin. Then he meets Dan, a cynical and irritating wedding planner who doesn’t believe in love and finally, he finds something that inspires him.

hooked (on you) (ao3) - calvinahobbes

Summary: Rentboy AU. Dan is a hooker trying to make it on his own in Manchester. Phil is his customer who ends up becoming more involved than he expected. What started out as a business transaction ends up being something neither of them anticipated.

I Fell For You (ao3) - TheWolfWithinMe

Summary: Thrown out of Heaven, Dan walks the streets of London, caring about nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except a blue eyed, black haired boy standing on the edge of a rooftop. Angel!Dan Suicidal!Phil

In My Way (ao3) - INeverHadMyInternetPhase (BirbWatcher)

Summary: Daniel Howell is 21 and Britain’s newest star. He’s just been cast in the much-anticipated film adaption of Last Man Standing, the popular teen fantasy novel with a huge fanbase hanging off his every tweet. In other words, Dan has made it big.

Phil Lester couldn’t care less. He’s a stressed out PHD student working part time at a bookshop while he struggles to get into post-production. He’s 26 and still lives in a tiny flat on the fifth floor of a building with a lift more broken than it is in use. He loves books, but he thinks big film adaptions screw with the plot too much.

Needless to say, Phil is less than impressed when Last Man Standing is getting filmed in his hometown. And he certainly doesn’t want anything to do with obnoxious, arrogant, so irritatingly perfect leading actor Daniel Howell.

Just Like Magic (ao3) - waylesssad

Summary: There is a lot more to magic than waving your wand and saying a few funny words.

Mind Reader (ao3) - orphan_account

Summary: Dan's head was always filled with noise. He'd been blessed/cursed with the power to read minds, but not the power to control it. He heard the thoughts of everyone near him, and the constant voices in his head were close to driving him mad.

That is, of course, until he met Phil Lester, the only one who could make his mind go silent.

My Spirit Love (ao3) - MySecretsX

Summary: If you fall in love with a spirit who drains you both away, do you live together for twenty years, or stay alone each day?

Phil has lived in his house since he was born, but it was when he turned seven he met Dan for the first time. It's all childish games and the muse of a naïve brain until your fifteen-year-old son claims to have fallen in love with the boy you've never seen.

Is anything possible for love?

scratch bark bite (oh, love me, i lied) (ao3) - Tarredion

Summary: Music & Drama teacher Dan Howell has a well-known rivalry with his coworker, English teacher Phil Lester.

An unforeseen event flips everything Dan thought he knew about Phil and himself on its head. Slowly but surely, the grudge withers, and the two of them cross the line between enemy and friend. But what will happen when their true intents and feelings get revealed? And was what they had ever really a rivalry? Was it even mutual?

Sidetracked (ao3) - phanimist

Summary: Dan and Phil are both contestants on ‘The Bachelorette’, but fall in love with each other instead of the girl.

Siren Call (ao3) - natigail

Summary: Beware of the siren’s call, they tell you.

Dan had heard enough horror stories about sirens to be thoroughly terrified. He never wanted to go near the water, but as fate would have it, Dan’s father had to sign him up for on a merchant’s ship bound for the siren’s passage. Dan had a sinking feeling that he was not going to survive an encounter with one of the deadly predators. Those touched by the siren’s kiss were bound to drown. Except… it doesn’t go quite like that.

The Canary (ao3) - galaxy_ash

Summary: Dan is a famous singer called The Capricious Canary, but known as The Canary by his fans and the public. Phil is a paparazzo who hates his job and is assigned to stalk Dan to get insider pictures.

To Dwell on Dreams (ao3) - carltzmann

Summary: “Taking in the whole image, though, it hardly hurt. Watching this perfect version of himself smile and wave and talk to his friends, bathing in success and appreciation, Dan suddenly started to believe that maybe all that was possible, even with the confirmation of a terrifying secret.”

Dan and Phil meet at the Mirror of Erised.

Trust Me, I'm Broken Too (ao3) - natigail

Summary: The Lesters – the royal family of his homeland – was nothing like Dan thought they would be. Well, the King was just as horrible as he had heard but the King’s brother’s son, who was third in line for the throne, was nothing like Dan thought he’d be. Dan had been adrift for three years going from one “place of employment” to another, only his life was seen as worthless and he was more property than an employee. He had never imagined he’s end up as the property of Prince Philip.

The Prince had no intention of ever taking on a personal servant, which was a fancy name to disguise the fact a law essentially enslaved people. Phil often had to do things he didn’t want to or risk being removed from the succession to the crown. If that happened, who knew who his tyrant of an uncle would pick as a successor? When pressured into the choosing, he’d wanted to go for the most innocent, young girl, but hard brown eyes caught his attention instead.

where we belong (ao3) - parentaladvisorybullshitcontent

Summary: “Only you,” Martyn says.

“Only me what?”

“Only you could end up stranded in the middle of nowhere with a gay author who writes gay books. Jesus Christ, Phil.”

In which Phil is snowed in with nobody but the mysterious dark haired author next door for company.

[ladyluscinia]

Why do some people say Izzy is homophobic? Flippant jokes I get, but there are people claiming this seriously. Yes, he's often very mean towards characters who just so happen to be homosexuals... But what in the world would make anyone conclude he's not a perfectly equal-opportunity mean person?!? Same with the racism accusations. Probably preaching to the choir here... And I personally don't even like Izzy (as a person; as a character he's brilliant), but it still gets annoying.

I mean... if the question is whether or not Izzy Hands can plausibly be interpreted as homophobic, then I think the answer is unambiguously yes.

I don't think it was avoidable with the story they are trying to tell. Homophobia is pretty deeply entangled with expressions of masculinity and how people see gay relationships. Izzy's literal purpose as an antagonist is to be so against the BlackBonnet relationship that he was willing to try and get Stede killed over it. And thematically, to do anything interesting with stuff like embracing self-expression or arguing that open honesty and vulnerability are good for people, someone has to fill the role of objector. In a televised medium especially - where you aren't sitting in Izzy's POV and you definitely can't read his mind - there is going to be a level of interpretation to his motivations and what, exactly, he's finding objectionable, and some people will come to the conclusion that he's a homophobe. 🤷‍♀️

It's a side effect of trying to say something not completely shallow in your writing - you will run up against grey areas and you can't make the audience unanimously stay in the intended track. Multiple plausible interpretations will exist. A character who objects to other masculine characters expressing emotional vulnerability will plausibly be read as homophobic.

It's our job as we watch the show to look at all the plausible interpretations and decide which is the strongest, just like it's the writers' job to make sure their intended interpretation is the one the most audience members settle on. Complete consensus is impossible, so I'm not, like, surprised that some people are sticking to their guns on that one, but I'm still pretty confident Izzy being homophobic will end up the weaker interpretation.

I actually think Izzy being more or less doomed to being plausibly homophobic is what makes the writing for him so good. Because a much easier option, or a weaker writing team, would have gone in on it. Yet another story about homophobes making gays' lives unhappy, only this time the twist is we make the homophobes a punchline. It's way harder and more interesting to pull off an antagonist that hates a gay relationship but is only plausibly homophobic, and there's a perfectly valid and even encouraged read of the show where he's not. That's actually cool (and why I'll be pretty disappointed if it turns out he is just Mr. Internalized Homophobia).

🤔 My more controversial opinion, though, is probably that I think once you get to a certain level of theorizing unconscious / unintended homophobia in fiction then it functionally doesn't exist. That's pretty much what I'm trying to say here. In real life there is some value to recognizing that everyone has some unconscious biases they're probably acting on without realizing, but in a story... if the character / their actions won't be acknowledged or treated as homophobic, or they won't make the leap to homophobia at any point in unpacking or addressing their flaws, and you aren't trying to say anything about the author's personal biases or blindspots coming through? If a tree falls in a fictional universe but nobody writes about it, does it make a sound? Did it even fall?

[overflowchute]

it's kinda annoying bc it means i literally cannot be fucking normal abt anything competitive, or, hell, about anywhere my skill (or anything about me?) is judged by others. i hate thinking abt anything as competition bc if i see myself as a loser i get frothing mad at myself. also weirdly tied to gender sometimes in my head. i hate gender but i think society often tries to induce this kind of perspective as a male thing. nothing matters unless you're winning! sympathy is an excuse to not try harder! its very american

a really sad element ig is that i want to be non-binary really badly, i want to not even be human really badly, i want to be something else actually, bc i hate being judged and compared as i feel that i always always always am a failure as a human being and as a competitor. but a lot of the time bc i have this framework in my head, i intrinsically associate this frame with society's idea of how a man thinks or what a man's neuroses and failures are like, and combined w difficulty w my body and presentation i feel i will always be seen as a man

a lot of why i get fed up with aspects of manhood. i think that competition is a difficult road where you have to be winning in some regard. if you rly care abt competition you might take losses in stride but its bc you know you will win eventually later if you try. but i have this thing where i get so fed up holding back and constantly being a loser and a failure that i go thats it im trying now, and then when i fail when im really seriously trying, its really really difficult for me to recover from that mentally lol...

and idk this comes up in many many spheres of life. i'm simultaneously obsessed with competition and seemingly completely incapable of having a healthy relationship with it. for various reasons its almost impossible for me to consistently practice and work at a difficult task ...which makes me regularly unable to compete with anyone who cares enough or has the ability to do so, lol. doesnt matter if its games or an artistic field or a physical skill or whatever. and the worst bit is that i know that being upset and compary abt this is kinda pitiful

at the end of the day what this really speaks to is a lack of confidence, right? i think everyone else is better than me, i take failure as a sign i am valueless, i don't feel like if i try my best it'll have any impact on the results... i know that my perspective is wrong. but no matter how hard i try i just dont really have the mindset needed to be a winner and a grinder. i hate working desperately for something that isnt guaranteed. i often dont trust the kind words or positive assessments of other ppl, i only trust self-evidency

its a wild hell: i want to have a healthy relationship with competition, or trying, or anything really. but i can only prove to myself its worth it through solid achievements, which i consistently find im not very good at reaching. so i want to avoid it, and yet, im drawn to it. idk gender is a funny side element i brought up but its like. well everyone will see me as a guy and its not like i rly hate that hugely. but i hate being reduced to being the same as others, if im the same type of being as others i know i will always be worse in comparison

if i am a man then i am a complete failure of a man, and i hate the expectations of others. and so on and so on. i dislike living by any framework of what i should be that aligns me with others. but its also miserably alienating to be unable to like myself around other ppl

[sparkedblaze]

wh—what if you talked more about the delanceys in your modern au 👉🏻👈🏻

I guess I'm answering Nox's first anon, sorry. My phone is literally deleting half my post every time I try to save or post it :)

Idk what I'm gonna put in here, so I'm gonna have the usual Delanceys t/w on here and come back if I need more: Violence, fighting, cursing

I've given the overall look for the Delanceys, so here are just little things that I think about with them + modern au:

They both would hate fast food. It's greasy and disguting.

Oscar's the one who cooks the food for them. Morris can if he really tries, but Oscar's just better at it.

They have a joint twitter account, it's just easier that way. Morris is absolute trash at remembering passwords (look at me projecting) so it's easier when Oscar also knows the log in info, and uses it regularly so he doesn't also forget.

Oscar is aro/ace, and is hella confused and frustrated when Morris gets crushes because they're supposed to be in this together

Morris doesn't understand why Oscar is so upset that he mentioned how pretty York had been that day. It was just an observation.

That's how all his crushes start. An observation. "Did you see York's hair was in a ponytail instead of a bun today?" "Did Graves finally have the surgery he'd been planning?" "Jack Kelly has a boyfriend now. His eyes are blue like the sky." It's the little differences he notices that always catch his attention.

Oscar doesn't make Morris eat things he doesn't like. This might not seem like a big deal, but their Uncle Wies had always made them finish what was on their plate, even if Morris was sobbing and pleading and begging not to.

Oscar, on the other hand, will clear a plate no matter the contents. He's grateful just to have food at all (though he doesn't cook anything he doesn't like, so this is mostly for get togethers)

Their job is more than just them liking fighting. It's about quenching a bloodthirst that sits deep in their bellies. It makes them feel whole, whereas someone like York does it because he's good at it and makes decent money. He isn't completely dependent on the actions in the ring to live a complete life.

Morris isn't good with words. Putting them together is hard. Remembering them is even harder. And trying to string along enough to make sense to someone that isn't Oscar is next to impossible.

That being said, he's incredibly good with numbers. Birthdays, holidays, counting. Once he learns how to do number things, he remembers is. Once he learns long division, he can do that shit in his head.

I feel like I need to put a list of the stims and quirks I think Morris has, so here: Chirping when excited, flappy hands (both when excited and when trying to get off the bad sensories), crab claws when thinking, hopping over the last step in a staircase, clacking his teeth together when he's anxious, snapping when he needs to/is trying to remember something, rocking back and forth, tapping his fingers, cracking knuckles.

Oscar collects vinyl records. And Morris likes to go to the vinyl section of every store that has them to find something for Oscar.

Morris likes rock music. Oscar does too, but prefers quieter music. He probably really likes something lame like jazz, but uses rock or metal to get pumped before a fight.

Morris is still wearing most of the same clothes he wore in high school (why fix what ain't broke?)

Oscar dresses nicely. They grew up with practically nothing. He allows himself to have nice clothes, to remind him of where they came from and what all their hard work has achieved.

They avoid Wiesel. They avoid the Refuge. They're always traveling, and don't have a house. They don't have roots set down. They feel like they don't belong anywhere because of this. Because they're always staying in different hotel rooms and going to different states for different fights.

I hope this tickles your fancy. These are thoughts making it through my frustrated haze, so I'm sorry if this sucks :)

Ily <3!!!

[wack-ashimself]

Know what I never want to hear again, not even ONCE, the rest of my life?

"Our government would never do that."

YES, THE FUCK, THEY WOULD. THEY HAVE. THEY DID. THEY WILL, EASILY, AGAIN.

If we could also include to avoid: "Our government never did that" and "Our government COULDN'T do that*" It would be much appreciated.

During #JFK: They wanted to do a #falseflag, and blame it on #Cuba. During #Nixon: Crack to the blacks.

In the 70s, the #CIA OPENLY admitted they had a gun with a dissolving bullet that could cause an undetectable, natural looking heart attack. NOW, they have radar dishes they can point at people to give them execrating pain, making them nearly immobile.

We started with a genocide to fund the #usa, had slavery for far too long, made concentration camps for Japanese-Americans during #WW2 where we stole BILLIONS from their houses and assets, and today? Today we have the largest #prison#slave population in human history; yes, more than when we actually had legalized slavery. The biggest military EVER, which, historically, has killed more than any other military with new age weapons. Yeah-can't deny the whole white phosphorus, regular ole bombs, and of course, NUCLEAR WEAPONS. What's ironic? Japan actually hates us more for the firebombs we used on them (more suffering instead of instant death). Didn't know about the #firebombs? MOST DON'T.

And then we get to 9/11. Ya know. When our government shut down all airports, but let a FEW special planes go out of #Florida just after it happened, containing some very unique individuals (proven). Or how about how not 1, not 2, but 3 buildings fell down perfectly straight, which is basically impossible from being hit on ONE side. Oh, and the 3rd building, building 7, which contained a lot of classified government documents was never HIT by anything!? Or how JUST before all this happened, the pentagon announced (not for the first OR last time**) they lost trillions of dollars, and had no idea where it went? OR how the guy who owned the #twintowers insured them for terrorist attacks just months before it happened?

Finally, today....where our #DEMOCRATIC president, brain dead #biden, is openly funneling guns, weapons, and worse to a terrorist colonizing state called #israel, against a nearly completely defenseless people in #Palestine? A #genocide, in real time, for MONTHS now, funded by our government. They're trying to pass another funding bill of billions as I type. Over 12k children killed in cold blood. MULTIPLE RAPES have been proven done by the israelis. You literally can not imagine a worse thing to happen due to a government (outside adding cannibalism).

SO PLEASE, never fucking god damn say again "Our government would never do that" when they have done it EVERY-FUCKING-TIME! <Forgot to mention the experimentation on their own citizens. That's a whole other post!>

Because when you live in an #oligarchy, you got to assume the rich in control will do ANYTHING IMAGINABLE AND UNIMAGINABLE to maintain their wealth and power. Historically, they always fucking do. WAKE UP!

*The technology they hold back and use against us may not come out to the public for DECADES. We have proven weather modification is real AND works. Not a debate. And Direct Energy Weapons (DEW) have been documented to being real just recently...You really think they can monitor, categorize, AND filter ALL THE DATA we say and do without AI? No. And they've been doing that for HOW long? Over 20 years? And when did we get access to AI? Side note-pentagon RIGHT NOW strong arming their way thru congress, trying to force them to allow the military to turn on AI's capabilities to choose what it kills. So that's...#terminator fun.

**The #pentagon, aka, the military, losing money has been a tried and true method of filtering money to the bad guys. It's kinda like how Tony Stark found out he was arming terrorists in Iron Man. You forget we helped for Al-Qaeda and #Isis? WE DID. Osama Bin Laden was a CIA asset! Why? To fuck with everyone in the Middle East all the way to Russia. Look it up if you didn't know.

<When we do physical or mental labor for taxes to be taken away, they usually go to murder. When you do your job, your taxes pay mostly for the rich to get richer and murder. Nothing else. If I'm wrong, look outside at how great it is, how free everyone is, and all the happy smiles. We allowed this to happen. We can create something better without them. What's the harm in trying? It can't get worse, sadly. But at the same time, inspiringly: we can only go up from here. :)>

No war but the class war.

[ina-nis]

To the anxious and nervous:

A lot of these feelings might be a response to external triggers.

Maybe it doesn’t feel like it. Maybe it might not feel like something is related - because your anxiety isn’t triggered by X situation since “it’s no big deal”; while Y situation is the one that you really have problems with. Maybe the feelings come and go, you make progress as long as you’re trying, but trying so hard all the time is very exhausting, isn’t it? Even more for something that come in waves, so you have to learn how to ride it. You might understand that as your current life and that’s how it is, and have been for a while.

The other piece is time.

Maybe you heard of “time heals all wounds” at some point and while that’s not absolutely true, time can have an important role in healing. Have you noticed how so many older people are chill and unbothered by things? They have the experience of time on their side, they may have seen a lot, they may have learned lots too. There’s no way around it but living and letting time pass.

The process to decreasing anxiety - especially, social anxiety - might have a lot to do with one’s environment and how patient they are in their own journey.

See that first example: maybe X situation is a family member, maybe it’s your school or a workplace, maybe it’s a friend. If you’ve been there for long enough, you might become desensitized by the harm - and it’s not exactly like you have a choice, you might think: “what am I supposed to do? Abandon my family? Drop out of school? Quit my job? Cut off my friend?“ Maybe it’s not safe to make any choices... maybe your family and friend are the only social support you have, maybe school is your one chance to network and find people in your field, maybe you need your job to literally survive and not starve or become homeless.

Regardless of the reason, maybe these situations (and many more) are active, on-going triggers for anxieties, even if it doesn’t feel like it anymore. Your brain is smart, it does its best to protect you from harm, and numbing things out or maybe watering down these stress triggers are a way to keep you going without losing your mind.

Back to the first example: you see all these Y situations and they’re your main triggers, it could be phone calls, it could be going outside, it could be being in spaces with people at all, it could be making eye contact and asking questions, and so on. In these, you do feel very anxious, and you might either avoid these situations, or you might rehearse them to exhaustion so you don’t “mess up” or do them in any way that can soothe you.

When you stop to think about it, it might not make sense that X situations and Y situations are related: what does your abusive father has to do with you having difficulties making calls? What do your back-breaking menial job has to do with you having difficulties with eye contact and small talk? They might, indeed, have no relation to each other whatsoever.

The point is you might live in a constant, low-key, maybe even imperceptible state of anxiety. Dealing with people, dealing with phones, dealing with talks and so on might be what takes for your brain to be unable to cope any more.

Anxiety is hard because it has this top-to-bottom construction. The bottom, you cope well with, “it’s how it’s been for a long time”; the top is panic attack-inducing, it’s your everyday activities and how bad they are, huh?

You might not be able to conquer these situations on the top, if you don’t address the bottom of the issue, and that’s where environment and time come into account.

It might be hard, it might feel impossible, or even something completely foolish and absolutely risky to break away from some of these root causes - “what am I supposed to do? Abandon my family? Drop out of school? Quit my job? Cut off my friend?“ - yes, these could be things you might have to do in order to be able to actually address your anxiety once and for all.

It’s not easy but it’s definitely possible. The healing process comes with lots of pain. This is all a huge part of it. And time will help you cope and soothe you, whatever happens.

You can keep using stopgaps, you can keep on coping with active triggers while dealing with the presence of old triggers that might not hurt you anymore. But they all hurt you nonetheless, you just stop feeling or getting bothered by it because you need to keep going.

There’s more outside of all this, but it’s a risk you might need to take.

You might lose your family, a friend, your job and school, but you gain another chance in life, you gain control over your life because you put yourself first... and you can always form your own family, make new friends, start again at school or with a new job. There’s no time-limit for these things. There’s no time-limit for healing either.

You’ll get to it whenever you’re ready.

[revunant]

𝐃𝐘𝐈𝐍𝐆;

                                          𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 -                                𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮.

𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐈𝐍.

It’s a process Jean knows well, and he’s almost upsettingly routine about it when he sees it coming. If you’re close enough to him that not only does he think you’ll have to experience it first-hand, but also would like to avoid subjecting you to unnecessary stress, he’ll probably make some effort to prepare you for what's to come.

You're familiar with dead bodies, at least on paper. I’ll be cold, I’ll have no pulse, I won’t be breathing. If rigor mortis never sets in, that’s a good thing. If it does set in, uh - I don't know what happened, but you might want to start planning a funeral. Lay me down somewhere that the cops can’t find me and wait. Hide me in the wheelie bin if you have to. I’m usually out for two or three days; if it’s longer, don’t panic. Be patient. Defying nature can take time. When I wake up, I’ll be confused. I might be scared. I’ll probably be bleeding, depending on what offed me. Don’t get too handsy, uh- actually, try to keep your distance. I won’t be capable of much, but I don’t want to hurt you, and if I'm scared enough, I'll probably try. If I start hurting myself, let it happen. Let me come down. I’ll remember who I was and where I am and things will be peachy again.

It’s simple enough, assuming you don’t want to know any more than that. He dies, he enters stasis, his body regenerates as much as it needs to in order to sustain life, and he returns. Jean would prefer that you avoid asking many questions about it, even if you have no intention of asking them out loud. But, for the sake of science, let’s go against his wishes.

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐃𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐆𝐎 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐑𝐄 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐃?

Ekt; the Chasm herself. Cihnem Lis'ekt, Spinewalker, is in some ways a very literal title - except the Chasm doesn't really have a spine. Dormant as she is (with no solid evidence that she's ever been awake) she's less of a deity and more of a plane of existence. A living, ever-growing, ever-shifting purgatory. She guides the dead to the next life as you might guide a bug onto a leaf.

Cihnem Lis'ekt are to her like the opposite of a vaccine. An intruder inoculated with an inert dose of her own blood, enough to make them unrecognisable. If the other dead are insects being ferried back outside, then Spinewalkers crawl unseen under her skin; are parasites. The relationship between goddess and champion is not a conscious one, or even a consenting one.

Jean refers to the act of returning to Earth as being rejected, but the truth is the Chasm never knows he's there. In fact, the Chasm lets him stay there forever.

Each death is infinite and mind-breaking. An average of two days in the real world equates to something without end in the Chasm. It feels like an impossibility for him to wake up somewhere else at all, having spent an eternity walking across her back, and an eternity isn't supposed to have a finish line.

The time there is spent walking. There isn't much else to do, but something about the landscape consumes him with both a compulsion to move forward and a dread of what his destination might be. The landscape is both constantly shifting, and completely unchanging. It's completely white, with a black sky, but at the same time it's brilliant with red and blue and yellow that make your brain bleed to look at. The ground is flat. The ravines are bottomless. The mountains break the sky open.

𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐄𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐒?

Jean would say no, and he’d be anywhere between lying and mistaken, depending on the point in time at which you ask him.

There are lasting effects. In every way, there are lasting effects. His body suffers for it, his mind suffers for it, there’s every possibility that his soul suffers for it*, depending on your belief in souls. Beyond the lethal injuries themselves, the act of dying and coming back has a deteriorative effect, especially on his brain, notably the limbic system & anterior cingulate cortex.

This isn’t because of actual injury; rather due to the Chasm being a pretty extreme cognitohazard. As time spent in the Chasm accumulates, behavioural and emotional conduct deteriorate, among other things (empathy, self preservation, fear & pain processing, memory, etc.). The penalty from a single death is small, but there's no way of reversing the damage once it's been done.

Comparatively, the strain on his body is slight. When he was first inoculated, Ekt's blood caused so much damage to his blood vessels and heart that it killed him in a matter of hours - most tributes would not have come back from this kind of reaction, but Jean was fortunate (or unfortunate) to have been kept alive for long enough that by the time he died, he was already part of the Chasm.

His assumption is that every time he visits the Chasm, this circulatory damage gets worse, and this is why his body gets worse at keeping itself warm. What he doesn't know is that he's not really that much more susceptible to dying of hypothermia than a regular person would be, and that this chill is less about physical damage and more about his connection to Ekt, and his closeness to her frozen expanse. It boils down to this; how much of her blood is in his?

There are the expected things on top of this; wear and tear, lethal wounds, nonlethal wounds, result in scar tissue, chronic pain, missing pieces. Though Jean's body is a little more adept at healing some things, he's far from invulnerable. The only reasons he'd be harder to kill than a human not affiliated with Ekt is because it's near impossible for him to die from exsanguination (a gift from Ekt) and because he's horribly, horribly determined (completely unrelated to Ekt).

Something that can only be observed when comparing one reality's version of a Cihnem Lis'ekt to another's is what it is that has an effect on their brain. The hidden truth is that it's the pace at which they cross the Chasm's back. The further you travel, the more she reaches into you; the more she is part of you. The worse the dread gets.

Every time Jean dies, he gets closer to something. And it's scraping away at the things that make him human.

*Author note; some characters have noted that there is damage done to Jean's soul with every death. I say it like that because in his setting there aren't really souls as a separate thing from someone's mind and consciousness, and as such there's no canon to the effects on his soul, or what it looks like, or how it copes. Jean doesn't know, Jean doesn't want to know, and I think it's more fun for the characters who are able to see/sense souls to have their own interpretation. The same goes for his aura, or magical signature, etc, etc, etc.

𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐃𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍 𝐓𝐎 𝐀 𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐃?

The rules, as Jean knows them, are as follows: he can be hurt, he can get sick (though most pathogens and parasites struggle to survive in his body), and he can die. He ages - or at least he thinks he does.

His healing factor is abnormal, especially after death, prioritising small-scale, widespread damage. Injury and abnormality on a cellular and chromosomal level are healed almost instantly; lesser injuries such as bruises, small wounds and sprains heal at a noticeably quicker rate; severe wounds and broken bones heal at a more-or-less normal one. Cancers stand even less of a chance than pathogens and parasites.

Mortal wounds, however, will heal at an accelerated rate while Jean’s body is still dead, up to (and, for security, a little past) the point required for it to sustain life again. Long-term mechanical damage is usually at least limited, if not negated entirely; though old wounds can still hurt, can still scar, and missing parts do not grow back.

In the event that his body is destroyed rather than just killed, life finds a way. It's not quite as gnarly as being stitched together from the exact ashes, or atoms, that once comprised his body. After anywhere between a few minutes to a few weeks, he wakes up, in an intact, uninjured, naked body.

And he always wakes up in the same place; on the dusty stone altar near which the traces of Ekt's blood were found, hidden in a cave near Mardin, Turkey. Beyond being existentially upsetting (what was he formed from? how did his life know which body to return to? how does he know he's still the same person?) it's, as you can imagine, a bit inconvenient. He tries to avoid this scenario if he can help it, but it's happened a couple of times in the last 15 years.

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐂𝐀𝐍'𝐓 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐋?

This is the part Jean doesn’t like to think about, if he can help it. It's not, however, something he tries especially hard to avoid, partially because it's an entirely theoretical outcome. To him.

There are stories and even some depictions of Cihnem Lis'ekt reanimating with their ribcages wrapped around spears and axes and swords, like a tree growing around a fence or a sign or a gravestone. Stories of champions whose bodies simply didn't have it in them to close a wound and so tore holes elsewhere in order to patch themselves up, breaking down and sloughing off and rebuilding in an agonising and seemingly never-ending cycle.

Champions whose problem wasn't that they didn't heal enough, but that they healed too much; who rejected all medical treatment, and for whom a broken bone meant the bone growing out, through, and over the skin in order to prevent being broken again. Eldritch forms of stone man syndrome. Bodies twisting around and over themselves to guard their soft stomachs.

The reasons for these consequences, as with a lot of things related to Ekt and her champions, are unknown. Many Cihnem Lis'ekt could break bones and be impaled and contain foreign bodies without suffering any effects not seen in normal humans (Jean, for instance, in one reality, spent 50 years trapped in a cave-in, dying over and over with a pike in his side, and only got a nasty scar for his trouble).

It's suggested that these champions, though cursed to live out the rest of their days in some kind of agony, were Ekt's favourites. Not only did they survive the trials required to become her champion, but were believed to have been somehow actively chosen by the sleeping god; not only accepted, but picked out. The twisting cage that became of their skeletons, or the ever-shifting landscape of rifts and ravines that became of their flesh, was a power bestowed unto them, a mark of pride, a blessing.

Because they looked like Her.

Evidently, the Chasm, simultaneously asleep and inanimate and incomprehensibly non-human, doesn't know what a privilege is supposed to look like, probably doesn't know what causes living things pain; and rewards her chosen ones in ways that amount to horrific, lifelong torture. It's not known if she's able to love her chosen, but if she does, her way of feeling love is something that humans can never hope to comprehend.

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐂𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐖𝐀𝐘 𝐈𝐍?

It's known that ancient Cehim Lis'ekt had a different experience than the modern one does. The definite is that ancient champions, after making it through their gruelling trials, were revered and worshipped, treated as something between royalty and a messiah, while Jean was killed a few times for science and then used as an attack dog for several years, locked in a white room, barely eating or sleeping.

A bigger difference is that, judging by his reaction to Ekt's blood, he was never supposed to walk her spine to begin with. It's only by virtue of modern medicine that he stayed alive for long enough for her blood to take root in him. The Chasm doesn't seem to know the difference. Pieter, at least, didn't observe any great change in Jean versus his predecessors from millennia ago.

...Due to Jean not being a very reliable narrator, or test subject, and struggling to properly convey the things that Pieter couldn't figure out by observation alone. Ancient Cihnem Lis'ekt, while not all were chosen by Ekt, were at least accepted, or acknowledged, by her. They would die, and be turned away.

Jean, with only a few hours of life support, managed to sneak through her defences. She doesn't know he exists. He dies, and goes unseen. He trespasses. He wanders infinitely. Worse, still; the fact that he wasn't the one who forced his way in, but that someone else did it on his behalf.

[redrockbutch]

The Group Therapy Debacle:

This was not my first group therapy rodeo. If you look back on my tumblr archive, you'll notice the singular 6mo absence where I was in residential treatment for Troubled Youths. On the scale of Troubled Youth Industry, I would say it was pretty low. It still wasn't great and there's a lot of stuff I'm still unpacking from that, but we slept indoors and they fed us 3x a day, so. Could've been way worse there.

It continually blows my mind that this group therapy experience, The Group Therapy Experience, was less helpful to my mental health than the one that happened when I was living with teens who had been kidnapped in the night and didn't want to be there.

My living situation at the time was really, really bad. I didn't have any relief from my mental or physical symptoms, or my [redacted]. I was begging anyone I talked to for tools to help process and guide what I was going through. With that in mind, my therapist at the time (also bad) managed to get me a spot in a Group Therapy Telehealth To Learn Skills. It was a specific program but I'm not gonna name it (iykyk) because I'm fairly sure my experience was unusually bad. I know there are much worse things to have happened to people, but when I was literally begging every single mental health professional I talked to to please point me in the right direction because I was terrified I was going to hurt myself, it was genuinely and truly infuriating. So much for "asking for help" and all of that!! I might be alive out of spite about this bullshit tbqh.

When I called to be admitted to the program, I asked the person on the phone for confirmation: this is just like a normal class, right? I won't be expected to interact with anyone else there. I've been in group therapy like that (Troubled Teen Therapy) and I didn't want my therapy to be held up by someone who didn't want to be there, particularly when I was paying a lot of money for it. They confirmed that in no way would I be required to interact with anyone else there. This was a complete and total lie :) Most of the therapy was either interacting with strangers or dissociating while they went over the homework with the group leaders. Everyone hated this. It was so fucking uncomfortable and useless, and I doubt I was the only one who avoided talking about my real problems in front of 7 random strangers who didn't want to hear about them.

Everyone in the program talked a big game about how if someone isn't learning something, the program is the issue and not the patient. When I expressed this to my individual therapist, she gave me the silent treatment until I apologized, and then told me to try being less negative about wasting 3 hours of my life per week and a lot of money on something that was not helping me

If someone didn't do the homework, nobody cared, but in the weirdest and most specific way. The homework was required for understanding what they were teaching, but "understanding what they were teaching and applying it to life" seemed to be pretty low on the priorities, since we never got through lessons at all. Nobody made sure you understood what was going on or asked if there was anything that would make the homework easier. They just publicly shamed you and demanded to know which of Your Issues made the homework impossible and how you're going to make sure that never ever happens again, bc this is your healing on the line!!! They did not seem to be aware of the fact that I cannot use the coping skills I've learned to help make sure I finish the homework when they haven't fully taught any coping skills :)

The group leaders had clear and obvious favorites. They would spend much more time with them talking about anything, and scold the rest of us if we ever piped up. One time I typed a joke in chat to be less disruptive (after several Favorites had been joking aloud and holding up the lesson) and was immediately told to pay attention and stop being disrespectful

I was mocked for not being able to drive as a disabled person. Most of the group laughed. Group leaders did nothing.

Same person frequently made connections between intelligence and straight As and was never corrected. It's honestly very sad to me, because there were times this person was clearly and obviously crying out for help and to view themselves as more than a Strong Academic; their grades had suffered in the wake of a traumatic incident and they now felt worthless. The group leaders encouraged them to stick to their standards of only viewing good students as humans worthy of love bc that was Their Viewpoint uwu

Several people passed through the program and finished it, and during their goodbyes all of them said they felt like they didn't know enough and weren't ready to leave bc they didn't really understand the skills. The group leaders went, "awww!" as though this was cute, and not someone saying to their faces that they were terrible at their job

Every example they had to teach the skills was the most namby pamby little oopsie. "Ohhh I wanted to go to work but there was an icky spider in my car! I don't have a phobia but I think they're kinda gross teehee. What could I have done in this impossible situation???" was literally one of the example situations used. I could never see how their examples of how to apply the skills could possibly apply to my life where I was battling PTSD, chronic pain, and [redacted]. They seemed shocked to hear that their teaching methods didn't really scale to severe traumas

When I wanted to get in touch w the group leaders to talk privately about some of my concerns as opposed to in the middle of group with people who had been ableist directly to my fucking face, I was treated like I was stalking them and this was dangerous and scary. When I was given their emails, it was stressed like 8 times that THEY DON'T USUALLY DO THIS!!! Weird that you don't usually allow people to discuss issues privately !

When I was able to find someone who did skills training individually as opposed to in a group (which was actually helpful and I loved her), I informed The Group of this and they told me they were going to keep charging the card on file even if I didn't show up. They called this a compromise.

When I finally fucking left forever I told them that I felt I had been taken advantage of financially, that them refusing to stop charging my card had made my life genuinely dangerous, and their services were far, far from financially accessible. In response, one of the group leaders told me I'd be welcome to rejoin the program if I wanted

And to cap it all off, I was told several times that this specific program/form of therapy was "the only hope I had"

I have since learned that this type of therapy is useless/possibly extra harmful when you are actively experiencing trauma, and yet none of the mental health professionals involved saw a problem w the stuff I described in my life. I truly feel like they scammed me, and given that I had no source of income at the time and was getting kicked out of my housing, personally I find that Genuinely Evil :)

[megatownac]

I don't want to talk about Ankha, but I'm going to, just once

To the person who's sent me three asks this week regarding Ankha's status as a meme, both accusing me of not caring about her and then insisting that I must care because of all my totally-normal posts about her:

I'm not going to post the text of your messages, because, frankly, I don't want to. I try to keep this blog safe for all ages, even if I do dance around some adult or risque topics. I'll joke about giving Henry a sound thrashing, or burying Tom Nook alive, or, and this is what seems to have upset you, the fact that NSFW artwork of Ankha exists. But that's where it ends. I try to avoid swearing or using any explicit language, and you went for it in your asks, and that's why I won't be posting that text here.

You've asked me to speak out against the meme of Ankha as a "sex doll," saying that sickos on the internet are ruining her, and making it impossible for people to find normal, work-safe fanart of her.

I'm not gonna speak up FOR that, for sure, but I can't speak against it, because I disagree with your basic premise. I don't think that it's become impossible to find the cute artwork, and I don't think she's being ruined by anyone. As I said myself in my post on Sunday with my latest character poll, on this blog, Ankha is just living her simulated life on Supertown, completely unaware of anything else that might be said or done on the internet. She's just hanging out, like any other Snooty islander.

Maybe it IS hard to look up Ankha on Google image search, or even here on Tumblr, without finding her drawn in ways that differ greatly from her Animal Crossing character design, which is, let's not forget, this:

She looks like a child. She has the exact same proportions, the same mesh, as every other cat, male and female. She's just there, a blob, in fun makeup and with a fun hat that looks like a smiling snake. That's not what's turning people on. They're projecting a fantasy onto her. It's not her. It's them.

And it sucks! And I wish it wouldn't happen! But I do not have some kind of dark and terrible power that I can use to "call upon the Animal Crossing fandom" to do anything about it beyond saying what should already be obvious: you shouldn't post stuff that isn't work-safe in places where kids will stumble upon it. That's not a hot take. That doesn't need ME, of all people, standing up on my soapbox shouting it. You know how many people actually read this blog on a regular basis? Maybe half a dozen, tops. My "last three days" activity view right now says I've gotten eight notes across my most recent 13 posts, man. MOST of my posts get zero engagement with the internet at large.

This kind of thing happens in EVERY fandom, to some degree. Maybe you're old enough to remember when My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic actually tried to embrace their older male audience? It made the online fandom for that show pretty hard to tolerate!

I'm a big JRPG guy. Have been for over thirty years, because, as I've pointed out in the past, I'M OLD. I remember as a teenager, in the early days of the internet, finding NSFW fanart of my most beloved game and cartoon characters and being very upset about it, too.

If you're upset about, say, the Zone cartoon that featured Ankha, I've got news for you there, too: Zone's motto literally used to be a boast about how he's been ruining people's childhoods since 2000. This is a thing that happens, and we all just have to ignore it and move on.

I get it. You like Ankha. A lot. You used a different account, but I'm pretty sure you're the person who did this:

You went back a decade and liked hundreds of my posts featuring Ankha. That's great! I'm really glad that you enjoyed seeing her through the years. I love Ankha, too. She's wonderful. Hang onto that. Don't stress about what other people are doing with Ankha. Ankha does not mind. Ankha is not a real person. Ankha is a video game character. Everybody who has Ankha in their town has their own copy of Ankha, in the same way that everybody who bought a Rainbow Dash figurine has their own copy of it, no matter what extremely gross things they've chosen to do with them. It does not "ruin" Rainbow Dash for other children that there are people doing messed-up things with theirs. It does not "ruin" Ankha that people are getting turned on looking at artwork that other people have drawn and posted to the internet.

Does it make it harder to be a fan? Yes, of course it does. And that sucks. It makes it hard to find the cute stuff that you're looking for. I'm telling you this as someone who first started going online and looking up his interests when he was 1) a young teenager, and 2) a HUGE fan of Final Fantasy 7. The original one, back in 1997. And BOY HOWDY, even THEN, even with a 56k modem that took several minutes to download a single image, I sure did accidentally stumble upon some absolutely gross stuff. It made me angry! And all I could do was focus on the good in the world, and it taught me how to do that, to where now I can play Mario games without thinking about Bowsette, for example.

(Though I actually rather like Bowsette as a concept, I do not like scrolling Twitter and suddenly seeing adult images of the character without asking for them)

If you won't take it from me, take it from Sonic the Hedgehog.

Trust him. If there's ANYONE out there who would know what it means to have fans who are ruining him on the internet, it's Sonic the Hedgehog.

Now, please, go back to peacefully enjoying cute little Ankha the adorable yellow cat in a children's video game, and I'll go back to making silly posts about her that waste everyone's time and clog up the tags so that people have to block me.

[homemade-ghosts]

You are really good with words REALLY, so you may help me a bit there is something eating my brain: Some people have said that the only way to close Ricky's arc is to make him go away once he graduates and leave Salt Lake. And I disagree I can't point yet why, I guess a part of me feels like Ricky's arc about change is connected to his parents and he reflected that on Nini, letting her go and dating Gina was a step. I don't think going away will solve his problems I guess. What do you think?

You: “You are really good with words […]”

Me:

— but thank you for saying that lol, it means a lot, though I’m afraid I don’t always live up to that expectation.

I’ve never actually seen anyone say that Ricky needs to move away (for college or otherwise) from SLC as a sort of capstone to his arc of accepting change after he graduates high school. It’s an interesting idea and I’m not opposed to it, but I agree with you, I don’t think it’s necessary.

College is a big life adjustment in & of itself. Ricky’s going to be surrounded by & bombarded with change regardless of if he goes to a university across the country or 20 minutes outside of his hometown. No matter what, it will be a new place with new people and new responsibilities, so it’s not as if Ricky needs to “go away” & completely sever ties with SLC to experience any of that.

Besides, it’s Nini whose arc has always been tied to a place, not Ricky. It’s her who craved that external change, who needed it. At one point in s2, she tells Ricky something to the effect of “being in Denver didn’t feel right, but I liked who I was there.” Not because she thought that being in a new city had the power to fundamentally change her as a person (no one place can do that for you, you have to do that yourself) but rather because she had already changed and, I think, being in a place where everyone had all these preconceived notions about who she was & what she wanted, where they only ever saw her as this “old” version of herself, was stifling for her. Growing up in the same town, going to the same school with the same people, there is always going to be some pressure to be the person you have always been. It’s why Nini needed somewhere without a past, where she didn’t feel forced to be the Nini everyone had come to know, the Nini that everyone expected. She could just be all of herself, without restriction. 

Ricky’s fear of change has always been less external than Nini’s desire for it, less about the place, specifically, and more about the people in it. It’s been about learning & accepting the fact that people, including himself, change & grow. No matter where they are.

& aside from the fact that moving away for school isn’t a necessity for Ricky’s character growth, it’s also not particularly logical. Out-of-state universities, public or private, are typically very expensive and we know, given the fact that he had to move out of his childhood home because they could no longer afford it, that Ricky’s dad doesn’t make a lot of money. There’s scholarships, but we’ve been told, on a couple occasions, that Ricky doesn’t turn in or finish his assignments and he’s on the verge of failing at least one class (English, I think? They mention it briefly in the Quinceañero episode) so it’s not likely he’d qualify a lot of those, at least not on the basis of academics.

Ricky’s a smart, talented person, who’s been going through a lot, emotionally, this past year, so I’m not trying to put him down by suggesting it’s impossible for him to get into an out-of-state college, I just wanted to throw out the idea that it might be more realistic if he went to a state school — but, hey, Troy Bolton managed to somehow avoid making a decision about what college he’d attend until they were literally at graduation (which is not a thing you can do, he would’ve lost his spot) and (again, somehow) got into the very competitive UC Berkeley, despite not being perceived as a very booksmart guy, so realism isn’t always at the forefront of storytelling.

I think Ricky could really thrive in college, wherever he goes, but I get the feeling that he doesn't see it that way -- I'm excited to see that change in s4, for him to believe in himself as much as Gina believes in him.

EDIT: @blues-valentine has a much better answer than I did! (here)

[lorisystem]

Sorry about to be negative but need vent

So i had a rlly difficult day and tbh this probably doesnt help but these thoughts i have them all the time its a constant opinion and not just a negative spiral. Although right now feeling this a lot and affecting me more than usual

Anyway like i got back from paid leave last week and my job is like rlly demanding. Im gonna say for me because my threshold for difficult is really low. But yea its just the workload is fairly heavy, theres a lot of pressure, and theres a lot of drama etc. To be fair my neurotypical coworkers are also struggling etc.

But anyway one of the things about paid leave is that when you are able to be off for enough days in a row (like 3 weeks in my case) it really feels like. I was fine during paid leave enjoying my little life doing whatever i wanted being paid etc. You go back to work and its like. Why am i subjecting myself to this. Why. Whats the point. It doesnt even matter. Do i have to even? Why did we all decide to just be doing this. So whatever but thats one thing going on etc

Idkkkk if its like. Haha seasonal or what but im having slightly more suicidal ideation than usual. Like this is not worrying at all like im not in danger or anything. Disclaimer i wont do anything etc. And im saying this completely deadpan non emotionally- Buttt like to give an idea even at my happiest / euphoric i always think of dying as a good thing. I rlly have a hard time finding anything worth it. Literally best i can do is "yeah for this reason i can endure until i die of natural/accidental causes but rlly glad that it does end at some point". So thats my baseline i live like this and most of the time im fine cause like, my number one priority in life is to avoid whatever causes me suffering and stress and like the thing about suicide is that non violent methods are inaccessible to me which i think is unethical but thats my own issue lol. So basically as long as my life is less painful than suicide im at no risk of dying and i do my best to minimize suffering, doing fine on that, so everything is fine. Alright

But like anyway i was thinking that my number one problem in life currently and idk how to solve it its impossible right?

Is like. I want to live a life where i can be myself/not mask. That is to say be authentically who i am speak like i think act like i think dress how i want use the pronouns i use etc (im talking about displaying asd traits, dressing weird, being trans, ace, polyam queer etc) like just harmless things that are my core personality and defining traits right. AND be respected as a human being.

That is to say like id like to go outside and participate in society sometimes without having to pretend to be "normal" and also at the same time to not get weird looks, not get nasty looks, not get catcalled, not get harassed, not get commented upon, not get someone coming up to me to comment on my outfit or be mean to me, not get someone feeling entitled to treat me as subhuman, not stalked, not at fear of being assaulted, not get rumors spread about me, not followed around, not preyed upon etc etc just for existing <3 bc i dare to look abnormal and vulnerable ppl notice and think im not human.

Ive had all those happen to me and thankfully nothing too bad either like it happens to some ppl so i will display a certain amount of disgusting gratefulness bc of course i have some privilege so there is obviously way worse than me. Somehow still enough to make me traumatized and agoraphobic!

I just want to exist and that its ok and that ppl dont wonder if thats ok if they should take advantage of me or try to help and correct whatever is wrong with me.

And that is too much to ask! Its literally too much to ask.

We live in a world where we cant expect especially marginalized ppl, to be respected. To exist outside or in public etc and just not get someone to make us understand thats somth is wrong with us.

I have to pretend to be normal, all this effort so at the end of the day not only am i dead inside but also i still know ppl think theres still somth off about me.

So anyway this is my pipe dream and the reason ill never think anything is good or worth it. Is there in the world a happy place like this? I think about it all the time, where is the land i can be happy and ppl act normal to me.

Anyway a dream ive had is to save up and buy a house on a mortgage and like. I have a good salary at the moment for a single person, its pretty good. But my spouse is struggling to find a job and anything resembling takes a lot of energy from them so idk if its viable long term even and on my salary alone thats impossible. So idk. And like thats fine but its sad cause my spouse is rlly depressed about it etc.... capitalism does this to us.. yk how it is..

Im thinking maybe i should just attempt to start a thing to get disability aid or somth which is. The amount is basically only the minimum to live for one person if you leave in a shoebox and have no expense. So like the quality of life for myself and my spouse would seriously decrease in terms of living space and other nice things so like meh. But most importantly id have to get reevaluated every few years etc at risk of losing it if i stop qualifying it. Which can reasonably happen even if the doctor i have changes and they decide no longer disabled or someth even. That is if i even get it cause like i am actually capable at least for now to work full time in the way i do. Sucks the whole time, but capable. So idk what to do. Maybe i reduce my time of work. Idk. The fear of losing the disability is rlly too much for me too like. I have no financial support if that happens i cant count on my family at all for anything. Im too scared/traumatized by poverty to not have stability.

Honestly i think its just this forever then? Ig i should make another therapy appointment but last time my therapist said something that set me off and now i dont wanna go again its so dumb cause i rlly like her and been w her for like. Idk almost 2 years now. And she just said one thing which i think even she meant nothing by it and now im just like. I rlly hate that its happening i just feel the ick.

I was telling this to my spouse too like when you repress your emotions so much all the time you stop feeling sadness or anger etc you just feel the ick. Like profoundly uncomfortable with no words to put on it rlly

So thats going on for me ♡ sorry for being negative though just going through my mind but ill be ok etc

[foul-milk]

tw su*cidal ideation

I feel so so lost in where I am in life right now. I feel like I can't do anything right and won't ever have it in me to amount to anything. And the environment I'm in is making it so much worse. I never wanted to go to uni, but I still applied and went because my parents were pressuring me massively. I literally cried through the entire summer because that's how much I didn't want to go and I knew 100% that I would hate it. And now the semester has started and I was absolutely right. I hate the course, I hate the topic of the lectures, the professors and even my classmates. They're exactly the type of people that I never ever want to become like. My depression is back in full swing after 2 years and it terrifies me that I'm back in a mindset where I want to **** myself every day. I worked so hard to get out of this pit of darkness the first time and I'm so scared that I'm back in the same mental state as the worst period of my life. I'm back to not being able to enjoy anything and feeling like I'll never be happy here. There is just no way. This was never the life that I wanted to live and it's tearing at me that I have to put so much effort and work into something that I despise. I wanted to learn a well paying trade so I could earn some capital to start my business. I even chose the course and had everything planned out. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and that was the only thing that I was motivated for because I knew that I could achieve the life that I wanted. But this was not even an option in my parents eyes. They basically said that it's either uni or I'm out of the house, and of course I didn't want to get kicked out so I went, but I have realised that I cannot do this. I'm not the type of person to just put my head down and accept a situation when I can change it. But it's just such an impossible situation because I don't want to disappoint my parents but also I can't keep doing what I'm doing right now. I feel like I'm going to **** myself if I don't leave immediately. I don't even know how to explain it but I just feel so desperate like if I don't leave I'm going to suffocate. I see no future in my major and the type of doors it could open for me I would rather not take thank you. I know for sure that I'm dropping out in the next month because if not I'm literally going to either go insane or **** myself. I hate myself so much because why can't I be normal for once and just go to uni. Like why do I have to be so fucked up. And I can't even talk about this with anyone because no one understands what I'm feeling or really even cares about how I'm doing. No one can relate and they're either indifferent or just straight up tell me that I'm an idiot. My parents are acting like I'm going to be some sub-human species if I don't get a degree but It's hard to listen to the advice of people who are living the type of life that I'm trying to avoid. They're putting so much pressure on me to do everything like they did when they're still unhappy. And not even wealthy either, so I really don't see why they're so desperate to get me to be like them. I realise that I sound like a whiny brat saying all this but I'm desperate at this point. I keep trying to start conductive conversations with my parents and they just scoff at me. It makes me feel worthless that I tell them that I want to **** myself and they just ignore it. They know this is not the first time I've felt like this but they don't even care because they're living in their own idea of what uni is like and not reality. They keep saying that college was the best time of their lives and that's when they were happiest and it's my fault that I don't like it because I'm doing everything wrong, all the while ignoring everything I'm telling them about my experience and how it's completely different to how it was 30 years ago. It's so bad and I have no motivation to endure it because I don't even want to work in this field and I never even wanted to go here in the first place. Honestly, what am I supposed to do now? I'm so lost.

[ruchirathior]

How To Find Happiness Within Yourself

Introduction

There is no need to look outside yourself for happiness. In fact, if you do so, you will end up disappointed. Happiness comes from within, and it's something that we all have the ability to create for ourselves. It doesn't matter what your circumstances are in life; you can still find joy right where you are at this very moment—and then share it with others! Here are some tips on how to do just that:

Don't look for happiness in other people.

Whether it’s your partner, family members, friends or colleagues – don’t rely on them to make you feel happy.

No one can be responsible for your happiness except you. So don’t expect others to be happy when they are not. Don’t expect other people to be happy for you when they aren’t and don't expect that others should be happy with you if they aren't either.

Let go of the idea of perfection.

●     The idea of perfection is a myth. Nobody is perfect, and nobody can be perfect—not even you. If you think there’s such a thing as perfection, then it quite literally cannot happen because it would have to be complete and absolute. You don’t have to strive for being “perfect” any more than you have to strive for being “superhuman.”

●     Perfection must not be the goal for your happiness! It doesn't exist in our world, so why force yourself into thinking that it does? Instead of making yourself miserable trying to achieve something that isn't possible, focus on being happy with who you are now and what has happened in your past (no matter how painful).

Clarify your values, and then live by them.

Values are the things that you believe in and stand for. They're not just about what you do, but who you are. If your values don't guide your actions, they're not really values at all—they're just words on a page or in a list of priorities.

Values help you make decisions. They help you choose between options when everything else feels the same. For example: Is this worth my time? Am I willing to devote this much effort toward this goal? What does it mean for me if I achieve my goal? If success means sacrificing myself for others or compromising my values, would it be worth it?

To clarify what's important to us and align our lives with our core beliefs and principles is an ongoing process...

Remember to take care of yourself.

Remember to take care of yourself. It’s easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of life and forget about your own needs. But self-care is important, and it doesn’t have to be expensive or time consuming. Take a walk on your lunch break, play with your kids for an hour every day or make sure you get enough sleep each night—all these things can help you feel happy!

We all face challenges throughout our lives, but it’s important that we learn how best to cope with them when they arise. If you have ever been through something difficult or traumatic, it might seem impossible that happiness could ever return again. But by incorporating some simple habits into your life (such as those outlined above), improving your well-being will become much easier than you think.

Become comfortable with the idea of change.

Change is a natural part of life, and you can't avoid it. You can, however, prepare for it by accepting the fact that change is inevitable and learn to live with it. Change is a good thing—it allows us to grow as individuals and as a society. But when change happens quickly without warning or preparation, we often experience negative emotions such as fear and anxiety. To deal with these feelings about your own personal situation:

Smile at least once a day.

Smiling can make you feel better. It is a good way to start the day, as you are waking up and setting goals for yourself. It is also a great way to end the day, as it helps you reflect on what happened throughout your day and reassures you that everything is okay. Looking More visit ruchi rathior.

Smiling is also a great way to break the ice with strangers! If someone looks at me and smiles, I'll automatically smile back because they just gave me their approval of my presence in this world and we're going to be friends now. And if they don't smile back or say anything like "Hi" or "What's up?" then I know that person isn't worth my time because it means he/she doesn't appreciate my existence anymore than I do theirs (which isn't much).

Know that you don't have to have it all together all the time.

A lot of us are stuck in the “all or nothing” mindset. We want to be perfect, but we also don’t want to admit that we have flaws and weaknesses. As a result, we feel like we can't be happy because there's always something more that needs to happen for us to feel whole or successful (i.e., losing 10 pounds, getting married, having kids). But knowing that you don't have it all together all the time is actually freeing—you can relax into yourself and be your best self without feeling pressured by an unrealistic standard of perfection.

It helps if you acknowledge these imperfections and embrace them: “I make mistakes sometimes; thank goodness! It means I'm human." Or: "I am flawed in many ways; it makes me uniquely me!" Or even just: "I have strengths and weaknesses just like everyone else."

Learn to accept love from others.

●     Learn to accept love from others.

●     Don’t be afraid to show your feelings.

●     Don’t take things personally.

●     Don't be afraid to ask for help.

●     Be vulnerable and let people in, even if they will hurt you in the end.

Letting go of unrealistic expectations will help you live your life in a happier way

Letting go of unrealistic expectations will help you live your life in a happier way. You need to be realistic about what you can achieve, but also be willing to let go of the things that are not important or worth achieving. This will bring peace into your life and make it easier for you to enjoy the good things around you.

Conclusion

There are many ways to find happiness within yourself. It doesn't always come easy, but with practice and patience you can learn to love yourself for who you are.