#something about helping someone learn a language is very appealing to me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

elysiansparadise · 1 year

Text

Degrees Observations VIII

🟫People with Venus in 05°, 10°, 17°, 22°, 29° (Mars applies to but to a lesser extent) they tend to feel very attracted to professional people, people who have achieved or want to achieve great things in life. They often have standards that others may find high, but they are simply people who know what they want. They may be drawn to the businessman or empowered woman archetype. Despite their incredible physical attractiveness, these natives do not usually rush into relationships, as they take the task of finding a partner quite seriously.

🟫Some natives with Moon in the 01°, 13° or 25° feel the need to stay active and productive, it bothers them to feel useless or lazy. Many of them prefer to be busy to avoid thinking about their discomfort, they lack some gentleness with themselves on many occasions and this can be seen a lot in their self-talk. These people are very determined and quick when it comes to leaving a place that doesn't make them happy, and they always try to be honest with what they think and feel if it involves another person.

🟫When Lilith is at 03°, 15° or 27° we have natives who know the power of their mind, the impact of their words and who usually have information from the whole world without even looking for it. There is something in their voice, in their way of addressing others that instantly captivates them. Their appeal is dual and that leaves others frozen, without knowing exactly how to react, they oscillate between the sweetness of a curious and charming look to the most mischievous and seductive smile. They have that facility to discover what you like, what excites you and turns you on and they know how to use it very well to have you at their feet in an instant. They master and speak the language of seduction to perfection, no matter who you are and how much you think you master it, they will make you doubt your abilities a bit. Without giving you a chance to think about it, you will find yourself trapped by their charm, and believe me they will remain impregnated in your mind for a long time, because a lover like them is not easily forgotten.

🟫Those who have a Chiron in the 02°, 14° or 26° may be people who have rarely felt what stability was like in their lives, and this, in turn, may lead them to think that they are not very stable people. They may fear opening up for fear of having negative experiences and may have difficulty leaving their comfort zone. Many of them struggle to see their own worth and can have very intense ups and downs in terms of their self-esteem.

🟫Having fixed degrees in the MC (02°, 05°, 08°, 11°, 14°, 17°, 20°, 23°, 26°, 29°) makes other people feel like they have to earn your approval from Somehow, people who want to level with you before you notice them. I have noticed this more in Leo and Scorpio degrees.

🟫People with Uranus in Leo degrees (05°, 17°, 29°) tend to excel when they dare to be different and do things their own way. Their personality is quite open, future-oriented and innovative. It is very likely that due to life circumstances they have had to learn to do things on their own from a very young age, but they have this tendency not to ask for help no matter how much they need it. They stand out a lot for their genius-like mind, many of them can have a lot of intelligence and creative power, as well as an ability to imagine and deduce multiple possible outcomes of the same situation. Reputation of someone multitalented.

🟫When someone has 04°, 16° or 28° in Venus it makes them a person who becomes very soft when in a relationship, no matter what sign they are in, their big three or other factors in their chart, I have seen that In all cases they are incredibly giving and affectionate people with their partners. They love pampering their partner and, even if they don't admit it openly, that their partner pampers them and loves them with great sweetness. They love physical contact and spending a lot of quality time with their beloved.

🟫Uranus in 03°, 15°, 27° are people with incredible writing skills, they are generators of ideas and can have this creative rain at the least unexpected moments. Those with these degrees can easily calm their nerves or capture their thoughts through writing. They stand out for their intellect and people, as their main quality, can emphasize their inventive and intellectual capacity. It’s worth mentioning that these natives may consciously or unconsciously try to do more than one thing at a time.

🟫Mercury in 02°, 07°, 14°, 19°, 26° have a highly seductive tone of voice, people can pay a lot of attention to them precisely because of this. Her voice is melodious and has somewhat sexy touches. In men we can find a baritone tone of voice, while in women it can oscillate between mezzo-soprano and contralto. Any of these degrees can give a natural liking for singing and above all, great ability.

🟫Having 05°, 17° or 29° in the cusp of the 5th house, 10th house or 11th house gives great stage presence. Even if they are nervous, these natives have a certain charisma when it comes to being on stage or in front of many people.

🟫Venus in the 12° or 24° tend to have a delicate beauty, their lips are an extremely attractive point and may be less thin than other people's. They seem to have been taken from the most distant fantasy, since their beauty borders on the magical and unique. Their faces are imbued in the minds of those they come across.

🟫People who have Moon in the 08°, 10°, 20° or 22° may seem distant at first glance, they give you the impression of not being very affectionate. But once they trust you and open up, they can be the most caring people you'll ever meet. These natives can be reserved with their vulnerable side for fear of being harmed or not taken seriously, but deep down they want constant love and affection.

🟫Those who have Mars in the 07°, 12°, 19° or 24° dance with great grace and beauty, the talent and potential they have to dance is evident. They can easily catch eyes, because they even pay attention to the features they perform while dancing and that these go according to the dance they are doing.

🟫I consider it important to mention that having water degrees in Mars (04°, 08°, 12°, 16°, 20°, 24°, 28°) makes body movements more fluid and adaptable to the rhythm of the music, therefore that favors on the charts of those who are passionate about dance.

🟫Pluto in the 02°, 14° or 26° can be very protective of what they love. They may resent having their things taken without their permission and may be a bit jealous deep down. They are constant in their reassurance, physical touch is something very important to them and they like to be close to those they love, no matter if it is in good or bad times. It is necessary to mention that they are very magnetic people, there is something about them that is naturally very attractive, the fixation of their gaze and the intensity with which they try to decipher you. They fall in love intensely and just as they fall for you, so do you. Constant intensity in their feelings that drives you crazy about them, people find it easy to be constantly thinking of them or wanting to have them all to themselves.

🟫Something I have noticed is that people with Neptune or Moon in 04°, 12°, 16°, 24° or 28° tend to give very healing hugs, they are people who seem to make you forget about your problems and discomfort with their hugs, because these they feel firm, but gentle. Its warmth makes them unique hugs after having felt the coldness of other hugs.

🟫Having Pluto in the 01°, 13° or 25° makes the native an imposing person as a presence. Regardless of their traits, they are people who exude a lot of confidence and a very powerful energy, they give you the impression of being people you shouldn't mess up with. These people keep their passions very well hidden, but that does not diminish their intensity because what they feel is usually very extreme and strong. They are endowed with strong intuition, and the ability to read the core of the people around them.

🟫Mercury in 06°, 12°, 18° or 24° think a lot but say little. You know they trust you when they talk a lot, joke around, and share personal things like what they like to do and how they feel. They may have a preference for listening over talking and they think very well what they are going to say before saying it.

🟫The degree that Mars is in can tell you which of your physical traits people find most attractive, for example, people with Mars in 09°, 21° can have very attractive legs, especially because of the shape they have.

🟫People with 6th house, Saturn or MC in 10° or 22° are self-controlled people and very devoted to their work. These people are noted for their excellent work ethic and many may find it admirable how these people seem to have everything under control even if they don't see it that way themselves. They give the impression of being very rational, of not acting without premeditating things beforehand and of being very organized.

🟫People with Sun in the 08°, 12°, 20° or 24° give the impression of hiding something or of being a person who keeps some sides of their personality to themselves. Many people may ask you what you think of very often. The fact that they seem to be hiding something is that they get very lost in their thoughts, they can stare at a specific point and wander into corners of their mind, not necessarily planning something, more like remembering things or the like.

#astrology notes #astrology observations #degrees in astrology #degrees observations #degrees notes #astrology #astro content #natal placements #astro notes #astro observations

3K notes · View notes

hexagon-club · 3 months

Note

I’ve been thinking about your reblog where you stated that “there's something about the way gendies argue where I can't help but get the feeling that they don't even comprehend opposing views” and especially the line “they understand so little of how other people think that they don't even understand that they don't understand how others think.”

I remember arguing with a TRA and explaining to her that I wholly supported womens (ie., females) right to be as masculine and gender-non-conforming as they wanted. Somehow we started arguing about this TIM who has a full-on beard and basically makes no effort to convey that he wishes to be perceived as a woman. I said that I wouldn’t want someone like that in women’s spaces, and the TRA I was arguing with said, “It’s funny how you talk about her beard, and then parade around like you don’t care if women are masculine.” Like, she really thought my issue was that the TIM we were arguing about was masculine, not that he was male. She couldn’t even conceptualize the idea that I did not view him as a woman.

I think TRAs are such a unique category of people with delusional beliefs, because every other group of people with delusional beliefs at least has the language and vocabulary to articulate what they think (religious people, conspiracy theorists, etc). They can at least demonstrate a degree of reasoning behind their thoughts, no matter how flawed that reasoning may be. TRAs don’t even have that—they don’t even pretend to. It’s just circular definitions and the assertion that their internal feelings change material reality. I’m so dismayed that this ideology which is not grounded in linguistics, science, reason, material reality, or anything else has gained the popularity that it has.

I wanted to ask you what you think will become of the trans movement in the next five to ten years? Do you think we will continue to descend more and more into unreason? Do you think radfems will become more appealing in the process? I would love to know your thoughts.

I think you're on to something. Other belief systems, even ones that are considered to be absurd by the general public, have a consistent internal vocabulary based on words that have a very clear meaning among the group members. Often they will use words in a way that is different to the way people outside the group would use them, cults love jargon after all, but they can generally communicate quite clearly with each other. If not with outsiders.

One of the many things that makes arguing with TRAs difficult is that they are not even on the same page as each other, there's the trutrans/transtrender divide, but even among the "transtrenders" which have become the mainstream of the trans movement their beliefs seem weirdly inconsistent. One of them will try to make a point, I'll debunk it, and then another will accuse me of attacking a strawman and insist that no trans person believes the thing I just debunked. They can't even clearly communicate their beliefs to each other, so they're not on the same page. But in a weird sort of way this is a strength not a weakness, because it means we're constantly trying to hit a moving target, can't really debunk an ideology if the ideology is so inconsistent no one can agree on what it even is.

On that note I just realised something, so I don't know how aware you are of this, I only learned about this after the fact, but there was something of a war on tumblr in the early 2010s between the two wings of the trans movement. The trutrans/transmedicalists represent what was essentially the mainstream of the transgender movement in the 2000s, their philosophy is essentially that being trans is something akin to a chronic illness. One that can be treated through transition, but not cured. This is in contrast to the more modern wave of TRAs who think of "gender" something more like a form of self expression. The trutrans were actually some of the earliest critics of tumblr identities and mogai stuff, because they saw that as making light of (what they believed to be) their legitimate medical disorder.

Anyway, my point is that I don't think the current mainstream of the trans community even have a word for themselves. The trutrans people call them tucutes and transtrenders. But they don't seem to have a word that refers exclusively to themselves, but not to the trutrans. That's weird, they don't even have the language to acknowledge that they are a subfaction of a larger ideology.

As to your last paragraph, I really don't know where we go from here, it's amazing that the trans movement has gotten as far as it has given how ideologically incoherent it is. But it is incredibly profitable, gender affirming care is big business, and plastic surgeons and drug companies aren't going to want to leave money on the table by letting it become less accessible. Incidentally I think this is one of the reasons why other trans identities (transrace, transage, transabled, otherkin) are never going to catch on, they are much harder to monetise, so there's no point marketing them.

The left seems to have decided this is the hill they want to die on. They seem to view gender as a sort of individual freedom. And think that people not acknowledging it is the same thing as trying to force people into rigidly defined gender roles. Like, in their minds, if they hear me say something like "non-binary is nonsense" they equate that to me saying "all women need to become stay at home housewives who wear high heels and dresses." Because they equate the word "woman" to the feminine gender role, and don't even really understand the concept of it as a purely biological classification. Even though that's what they basically all believed 15 years ago.

If the current trans position becomes untenable I think there will probably be a retreat to the "trutrans" identity. People like Blair White, Marcus Dibbs, and Buck Angel are hated by a lot of the mainstream trans community, but they are actually helping them out by preparing a fallback position for when mainstream society gets sick of their shit. I think people will mostly tolerate that, not that I think "trutrans" makes any more sense than the current position, but it's less evangelical and overall less annoying than what they currently preach. Also, quite frankly I think there are a lot of men (left wing and right wing) who are sick of TRA nonsense, but are also deeply antifeminist, and who will want to keep transgender ideology alive because they can use it against feminists.

I'm thinking of this meme I got from Sargon of Akkad's twitter account:

So there's a group of men who know that transgender ideology is nonsense, but still get a certain sadistic pleasure at seeing it get used against women.

I'm not really sure if things are going to get more irrational from here. Both the left and the right seem to be getting more and more unhinged, the left has chosen transgender/queer ideology as its cult of choice, whereas the right has QAnon and it's weird offshoots. It does seem like we are entering an era of unreality where people are giving up on the concept of a shared objective truth and are retreating into fantasy.

That's a depressing note to end on, sorry if I rambled a bit.

35 notes · View notes

eddiemunsons80sbaby · 11 months

Text

Nobody's Fool: Chapter 7

Pairing: EddieXReader

Summary: You have bartended for years after you were forced to drop out of college due to family circumstances. You have dated your fair share of musicians, had your heart broken by one particular one, and have learned they are not be trusted. You have sworn off of them for the rest of your life. Then, one night, a new band plays at the bar, and against your better judgement, you can't help noticing the lead singer and guitar player. Could he possibly be different from the ones who came before him?

Warnings: 18+ Only due to eventual smut and language. There is also a toxic family relationship with a narcissistic mother if that is triggering for you.

MasterList

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28

“He’s taking you to the carnival?” Jen asked. “Oh my god, that is so cute.”

You laughed, changing your shirt for the fifth time. You were struggling with what to wear tonight. You didn’t want to look like you were trying too hard because it was just a casual date, outside hanging at a carnival. And that's all your wanted it to be, casual, fun, nothing serious. But you also didn’t want to look like you weren't trying at all. You finally settled on a red tank top and jean shorts. It was a hot night and you didn’t want to be sweaty within the first hour.

“Is that the one or do we need to try something else?” Jen teased.

“What?”

“You’ve tried on, like, twelve different outfits. I don’t know if I have ever seen you so nervous before a date,” she commented, resting her chin on her fist, smirking at you. “This guy must be something special. He really has you all wound up.”

“He doesn’t have me wound up. I am the opposite of wound up. I am completely loose,” you argued, wiggling your arms around. You looked in the mirror, fluffing up you hair and adding a sheer lipgloss. “It’s not anything serious or special. We’re just having fun together, you know? It’s casual.”

“Mmm…so casual that you’re red as a tomato right now, looking all flustered, and hyper obsessed with how you look.”

“Shut up,” you groaned. “I like him, okay? He’s, well, he seems nice and he’s sexy as hell. But I am not looking for anything serious with someone like him. I’m keeping it relaxed and just enjoying his company. Guys like him aren’t built for the long-term so I’m just enjoying it while it lasts without having any expectations.”

“You keep saying shit like that, but you don’t know,” Jen said. “You can’t judge him based on Sebas…”

“Can we just not say that name anymore, please?” you groaned, holding your hand up like it could shield you from the very idea of him. Six months later and talking about him still made your insides tense. He had made a complete fool out of you and you would never forgive yourself for being so stupid, so naïve, so fucking trusting.

“I know he hurt you,” your friend said gently. “I sat with you through it. I bought the pints of ice cream. I handed you the endless tissues. I dragged you out of bed and back into the world when it was getting out of hand. But you can’t hold every guy responsible for his choices.”

“I don’t,” you scoffed, shaking your head. “Just the ones who are just like him and Eddie is just like him. And, lest you forget, he we don't name wasn’t the only one.”

“Okay, but those were rebound guys,” Jen scoffed. “You were angry and hurt and you jumped in bed with the first pretty rocker guy you saw. Maybe a few different times." She cringed, shrugging her shoulder. "Those guys were clearly only looking for one thing. I mean, did you really not expect that to end badly?”

“Guys like him, they know they have sex appeal. They use it to their advantage. They don’t want to settle down or have a long-term girlfriend because they know there’s always another show and that means the next pretty face heading their way,” you explained shrugging it off. “It’s fine. I’m going into this with my eyes wide open. I don’t want anything serious right now anyway. I don’t think I’m ready for serious, so…fun. I'm not totally breaking my rule, just bending it a bit.”

Their conversation was interrupted by a knock on the door and you felt your chest tighten as if it was calling you a liar, seeing right through the words that had just come out of your mouth. He was here. You glanced over at Jen, who rolled her eyes with a smile, catching how anxious you looked. She walked over and opened the door.

Eddie stood there, his usual jeans on, but this time he was wearing a cut-off Iron Maiden tee and your eyes couldn’t help focusing on the lean muscles and tattoos that ran along his exposed arms. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail in the middle of his head, loose waves escaping to frame his face, and shit if he didn’t look even more sexy. That familiar throbbing that the mere sight of him caused cropped up between your legs again and you wondered if you were making a giant mistake.

“Well, this explains a lot,” Jen commented, her eyes roaming up and down him as she smiled.

“Excuse me?” Eddie asked, confused.

“Nothing,” you muttered quickly. “Just ignore her. It's better that way.”

“No, don’t ignore me. You need to know me because I’m Jen, her best friend and roommate,” your friend said, walking forward and extending her hand. “It’s so nice to finally put a face to the man that has monopolized all of our conversations for the past few days.”

You shot your friend a look. Jesus, could she make this anymore uncomfortable? You were trying to keep this thing easy breezy. The last thing you needed was for Eddie to know that you had been talking about him constantly. You loved Jen but sometimes you wanted to shove a sock in her mouth. She had no idea when to stop talking.

“Oh really?” he asked, one side of his mouth lifting up into an adorable smile.

“She’s delusional,” you snorted, shaking your head. “I, maybe, mentioned you once when I told her about our night out. Maybe twice because I told her about tonight. I mean, just in casual conversation, definitely not all the time.”

Eddie continued smiling, his arm resting on the frame of the door as he leaned into you. Jesus Christ, he smelled so damn good. Your senses were overloaded on Eddie right now, every nerve ending tingling, your body knowing exactly what it wanted, your brain working overtime to keep it in line.

“If you say so sweetheart. Are you ready to go?”

“Yes. Please,” you answered, waving to Jen. “Bye.”

“I won’t wait up,” her friend teased, waving.

You couldn’t get out of there fast enough. You could not let Eddie around Jen for too long or you risked her saying something even more mortifying.

______________________________________________________________

“The elephant ear is definitely superior to the funnel cake,” you argued.

“Nope, powdered sugar! The powdered sugar is where it’s at,” countered Eddie.

You laughed. “You're wrong. Completely wrong. Cinnamon sugar trumps powdered sugar.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Well, then I guess we have to agree to disagree,” you stated, pulling off another piece of your elephant ear.

You were sitting at a picnic table at the carnival. Eddie had offered to buy you a funnel cake and you had quickly informed him if he was buying you anything it was going to be an elephant ear. He had looked scandalized that you would choose anything over a funnel cake and that had led to a pretty heated debate about the merits of each.

“So, you don’t like funnel cake?” he asked in disbelief, sounding genuinely offended.

“I didn’t say that. If an elephant ear was not an option, then funnel cake would be perfectly fine. However, an elephant ear is an option, so,” you shrugged, tearing off a piece and offering it to him. He took it, popping it in his mouth and you smiled. “You know it’s better.”

“You will never get me to say that,” Eddie said, shaking his head. "It's good but it's no funnel cake."

“Okay, fine, but you’re crazy.”

“Oh sweetheart, I am definitely crazy,” he laughed. “Ask almost anyone around this town. I was the resident freak in high school. The girls all steered well clear of me. No one wants to be attached to the scary, weird guy."

“Really?”

You were surprised to hear that. The way he looked, you would have thought he would have been pretty damn popular with the ladies in high school. Not to mention the confidence he carried himself with. What was wrong with the girls in that high school?

“Oh yeah. I was a metalhead and a D&D master so everyone thought I summoned the devil or something,” Eddie explained, glancing at you as if wondering how you would react to this information. “My dad took off when I was a kid and my mom went to jail so I had to stay with my uncle in his trailer. So, on top of being the Satan worshipping nerd, I was also trailer trash. Not a great combination for scoring popularity points. Most kept their distance from me.”

You were taken aback, surprised he had shared all of that with you so freely. This was only your second, no third according to him, date. You couldn’t help but be touched by the fact that he already trusted you enough to share what was clearly a sensitive subject for him. You reached out instinctively, taking his hands in your own, hating all of that for him.

“That’s bullshit, just so you know,” you assured him. “People were judging you based on what they saw and heard, not what they knew. People love to judge. It’s a favorite human pastime, makes them feel better about their fucked up lives. I don’t know you that well, but from what I see, if they had taken a second to actually get to know you, they would have seen that you are a pretty good guy.”

“Really?” he asked with a grin. “Wait a minute. So the girl who judged me because I wear leather and denim, have long hair, and play a guitar thinks it’s bullshit to judge someone on looks alone? Does that mean I've finally won the challenge? If you think I’m a good guy, then you definitely can’t think I’m like all those other guys who were clearly douchebags and made you hate anyone who looks like me.”

You couldn’t help but laugh. Damn, he'd definitely gotten you. “Okay, fine. I admit, you do seem different. It might be a little early to tell, but I can admit when I’m wrong. Maybe you’re not quite like all the other musicians I’ve seen.”

“When you say other musicians, how many are we talking about?” he asked, one eyebrow raising.

“I don’t really think that’s any of your business,” you teased, rising from the table. “This is only date number, what did you say, three now. You don’t get to know everything about me just yet. Definitely not how many guys I've dated because, trust me, I bet my number doesn't come close to touching yours.”

“Oh! We're making assumptions again, are we? I thought we'd moved past that. I'm hurt," Eddie lamented, sticking his lower lip out. How could a grown man pouting be anything but ridiculous? But it wasn't. His pouting was adorable.

You rolled your eyes, taking another bite of elephant ear, "Okay, fine. Sorry. I won't assume. But I also don't need to know. I'm not telling you about my number and I don't need to know yours."

"Okay but how about you tell me something, anything about you?” he asked. “I’m over here laying out embarrassing details about myself. I'm revealing my past as the nerdy satan worshiping trailer park trash freak over here. That's good stuff. I mean, this is the part where we get to know each other but you’re like damn Fort Knox over there. Tell me about yourself, tell me something real.”

“I love reading,” you offered, feeling like it was a safe thing to share. “I read a lot. I average a couple novels a week in a good week. I always have. Reading is an escape. It’s a way to feel like you’re far away from the world, from all of your problems. When I read I can pretend that I am walking along the Seine in Paris or on the savannah in Africa or on a grand adventure through Middle Earth. There’s no…”

“Whoa, wait a minute,” Eddie cried out, grabbing onto your arm. “You’re a Tolkien fan?”

You laughed, “Yeah, why?”

“And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend…” he began.

You cut him off, finishing, “Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge.”

“Damn, you know your shit! I’m impressed. Man, Lord of the Rings is my obsession!” he exclaimed, grinning like a little boy. “Like, the most amazing story ever. See, that just proves that we’re made for each other.”

“I don’t think liking the same book means we’re meant to be,” you argued, shaking your head, feeling like you needed to put a pause on this, slow the boy down. It was date three. You definitely were not ready to be talking about fate. "We don't like the same delicious fried fair treat."

“That's just food. It doesn't matter. Tolkien, that's deal breaking shit. I don’t know that I could commit to someone who doesn’t appreciate the riveting adventures of Frodo Baggins. Ohh!” he suddenly yelled, grabbing your hand. “Come on! Let’s do the Ferris Wheel!”

“Oh, Eddie,” you groaned as he pulled you toward the round monstrosity. “I don’t like ferris wheels.”

“What? Why?”

“Look, I like roller coasters. You go fast and you're moving the whole time and it's over before you know it. But ferris wheels are...I don’t like when they stop, way up high, and I have too much time to look down and consider my death when I inevitably fall and hit the pavement.”

“I would never let you fall,” he said gently, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, that slight touch sending shivers straight down your spine. “Do you trust me?”

Did you trust him? That felt like a loaded question. You knew you shouldn’t. You definitely didn’t want to. The very idea terrified you, shook you to your core. Your brain was flashing warnings like a neon sign. Danger! Proceed with caution! But shit, there was something about those eyes, those sweet soulful eyes that told you that you could. You knew this was only the third time you had seen him, but if you had to be honest with yourself, yes, you already trusted him against your better judgement.

“Okay, but if I die, I am coming back to haunt your ass,” you threatened. “I mean it. I will follow you around, constantly reminding you that you caused me to plummet to my death before I’d ever really lived. I will be the most annoying ghost ever. I will randomly break your guitar strings so you have to replace them all the time.”

“Damn, vengeful ghost, but sounds fair,” he laughed, shrugging.

He took your hand and led you up to the ferris wheel. The ride worker helped you into a car, closing you in. Your stomach instantly turned over when it began to move, rising ever higher. Jesus, you hated this. Why had you let him talk you into this? You would do just about any other ride he wanted you to, but you hated the thought of just hanging in mid-air or moving at an agonizingly slow pace. On a roller coaster, you didn’t have time to think about what could happen. On a ferris wheel, you had eons of time to contemplate all the worst case scenarios.

As the car rose higher, it paused and you let out a squeak of fear, covering your hands with your eyes. You heard Eddie’s deep laughter next to you and you wanted to hit him for getting you into this mess, but you were too scared to move.

“Hey, princess,” Eddie said softly, and his hands covered your own. Had he just called you princess? “I’ve got you. You’re safe.” He gently pried your hands away from your eyes but you kept them clenched tight. “Trust me. Just open your eyes.”

“No,” you stubbornly refused, shaking your head. “I may have gotten on here with you but you can’t make me watch.”

“Okay,” he said, and then his hands were on your face, cradling it gently. “I have better ideas of how to spend our time up here anyway.” His lips molded against your own and all of your fears about falling to your death vanished, replaced with only the sensation of his lips and hands on your skin.

Taglist

@tlclick73 @bebe07011 @emma77645 @corrodedcoffincumslut @babeyglo @kimmi-kat @bblunuh @vintagehellfire @hellfire--cult

#eddie munson #eddie the banished #stranger things eddie #eddie munson smut #eddie munson fic #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x femreader #eddie the freak munson #eddie x you #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson angst #eddie munson series #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson au #eddie munson x reader angst #eddie munson fanfic

116 notes · View notes

the-remaining-half · 7 months

Text

I think I have finally slowly internalised the fact that motivation is a feeling, an emotion just like any other. It comes and goes as it please.

And well my study schedule cannot change to adjust to my bouts of motivation.

The key for me, I realised, was discipline.

Yes it’s hard and sucky and I hate it. But I do it anyway. Because if I don’t, the regret that I feel later on makes me hate myself. And I fear that regret so much.

So for me its a choice - I can either suffer the pain of discipline or I can suffer the pain of regret. And if I’m going to be in pain anyway, why the heck should I not gain something out of it?

So I sit down to study.

Sure I also add things that will make it easy for me to do that. Because I, I love studying. Once I start, I really really enjoy the subjects I have chosen and the concepts I understand. I love learning.

But for me the really hard part is sitting down to study. So I work on that…

1. I just sit down. On time. With a schedule that I follow everyday so that I exert less mental strength trying to convince myself. I just know its time for me to study if I follow my schedule.

2. I am all about the little things, all about feeling good and in control. So I do that. I make a big and aesthetic affair out of sitting down to study. I prepare myself a snack and get myself something to drink and set my study area and books - I create a visual setup that appeals to me and makes me want to study.

3. I limit how many times I get up. I know people say that our attention span is short and we should use the pomodoro technique, but personally speaking it just does not work for me. I find it hard to get in the study zone but really easy to stay once I am there and concentrating and so taking many breaks actually really distracts me and take me out of my study zone. So I take less breaks and I make sure I already have everything I need with me before I sit down to study so that I do not have to get up.

4. I make the process fun for me. I know my way of studying, my strengths and my weaknesses. So I use them to my advantage. I am a very conceptual learner, I am a visual learner, I am prefer to write things down to slow myself and understand, I prefer my study material in my own language and my own way of explaining, I am a very organised person. I am very bad at memorising random facts that have no logic. So I incorporate all these in my notes - I make my notes very organised and aesthetic notes that help me memorise. I add diagrams and flowcharts of my own explanations. I use mnemonics that relate to me and are easy for me to remember (they are usually jokes that make people thing I have a very broken sense of humour).

5. I do not study in groups. I know again this is very controversial specially for med school but when I am understanding a new topic, I find the presence of people around me very distracting. I prefer to study in my room by myself. On the other hand, once I have studied the topic, I benefit from group discussions. I sit down with my friends and make them understand the topic… this helps them and it helps me. Teaching someone else is a very good way of revising for me and their questions make me think and understand parts I may have missed while studying.

6. I plan what I am going to study the next day, the might before. I put my pen on the first page of the topic or chapter or whatever and shut the book. This way I know I simply have to open my book and get down to study because everything else has been done before. It’s almost like I get rid of my possible excuses before hand. I decrease the resistance.

I feel sitting down and understanding your way of studying is important for this very reason. So that you can make your plan and study accordingly. It decreases so much resistance and makes you so sure of your ways.

It makes me enjoy studying and study better all the way!

46 notes · View notes

bcbdrums · 1 month

Note

🍓🕯️🔪

"🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction?"

well. one day in 2004 when visiting my cousin in the hospital after her car accident. i missed an episode of Bonanza, due to...you know, being at the hospital. this was back in ye olden days of TV guides, recording things on VCR's, and....no....wikis.... not like we have now. no sites to tell you everything, no screencaps, no youtube... and ye olde dial-up internet days. and anyway.... the TV guide descrip made that episode sound thrilling. and...and i just had to know!

and i knew... i remember, knowing in my heart. that if i went online and tried to find out what happened. i'd never get off the computer again. well, i was right. the short conclusion to this tale is i found specific Bonanza fansites loaded with fanfiction!!! and i devoured it. i wanna say within the same month? i was hand-writing fanfic in spiral notebooks for Bonanza. still have that spiral notebook and that unfinished fic, literally locked in a treasure chest. and i still remember the entire plot, what i planned to do with it... yeah.

no, i never did find out what was in that episode i missed/didn't get to record... like i said, no wikis or anything of that nature... (we had to leave from school that day so i didn't get to go home and program the VCR; i'd not known that morning we'd be going to the hospital later.) and they didn't re-run the episode again... so i've still not seen it... but, i started writing fanfic that summer. a defining moment in my life. and yes, my cousin is well!

"🕯️ ⇢ on a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy editing? why is that?"

ohhh, hmmm... idk if i could scale it. maybe right in the middle, a 5 or 6? this will make more sense if i describe my process perhaps.

so if i'm really in the writing zone, i just...plow ahead until i'm finished. and then i go back and edit. when i'm "in the zone" oftentimes i don't see things that could genuinely be improved by better phrasing, better language choices... they just elude me cuz i'm so hyperfixated on the story and it's so clear in my head, so, of course it's great on the page! (example: Forfeit was written this way.) usually i then just quickly fix obvious typos/grammar things and toss the fic into the void. then i'll return a few months later when it's no longer fresh, and then see soooo many things that could be better, and depending on my mood i'll go back and heavily edit, or, i won't.

the other process... if i'm not "in the zone" usually i write a few lines, get stuck, and to get myself unstuck i go back and edit what i've done. fixing things, adding things... and usually once those few lines are edited i have the next ones ready to be written in my head. it's a slower process overall.

editing for other people is a whole different ball game. i love doing that (as long as i'm in the mood/have the energy/time) because it helps me refine my writing craft too, in trying to assist someone with a totally different style than mine. it's great. and i've edited/beta-read for so many diff people now with such a variety of styles it's really making me more aware of my own, and how it's changed over the years. and i also just enjoy helping people.

the idea of something getting better just appeals to me i guess. it's a good feeling, it's productive. so in that sense, i enjoy editing. if i feel really stuck on a project, then it can become just another slow-down however. that would be the only negative i suppose.

"🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?"

haha, already answered this in a prior ask but i'll choose a different one.

i spent days learning how to waltz properly. all the techniques, and the process by which one learns... to write one character teaching another character, very, very methodically. and apparently i did it well, i received a comment about it from someone who actually waltzes professionally if i remember correctly who was very pleased with my writing of it! can i waltz? or dance at all? no, no i cannot. but i could probably talk someone else through how to learn!

thank you SO much for the ask!!! ^_^

#ask answer #bonanza #kim possible #drakgo #sherlock #the waltzing was in a sherlock fic

9 notes · View notes

kitkatsudon · 5 months

Text

KitKat reads the TKEM Novel: Introduction & Prologue & Chapter 1

Hello all! Those that have seen my account over the past couple of days will know that I have recently come into possession of copies of both volumes of the TKEM novel. I always had the vague idea in my mind that these would contain information that we don’t see in the show, characters’ inner monologues and such like, so as someone seemingly on a quest to find out everything there is to know about this show (how did it end up like this? I’m not going to dwell on that before I start regretting all my life choices), I have taken it upon myself to read these books and share this knowledge with the rest of what’s left of this fandom.

These books, of course, are in Korean, which is a language I do not speak and don’t have any intention of learning in the near future. I definitely couldn’t learn Korean in a quick enough time frame to be able to read these books in a satisfyingly short amount of time, so instead I’m utilising the power of the internet and using two online translation services, and then sort of combining the two with my preexisting knowledge of the show to create a usable translation that feels mostly right. So here’s my disclaimer: some of this stuff could very easily be mistranslated, because I’m embarking on this journey with just the powers of the internet, homosexual audacity, and autism to help me along.

So! Here’s how this is going to work. For every chapter of the book I manage to translate, I’m going to make a new post where I summarise the events of the chapter, share my thoughts on it, and then share any specific new details that we’ve learnt. All of them will be tagged with ‘kitkat reads the tkem novel’ so if you want any of the information in this series for whatever reason, hopefully these posts will be easy to find. In this post I’ll cover the prologue and chapter 1 because the prologue is barely anything at all, but from here on out it’ll be one chapter per post… whenever I finish the next chapter.

Ok then. Shall we begin?

Prologue

The novel starts with a bit of preamble about the show’s lore, not much that anyone who had already seen the show wouldn’t know, but I suppose it makes sense to open like this if they were trying to appeal to people who hadn’t already seen the show? It’s an interesting choice, though, because some of this stuff is information we don’t find out until a little later in the show, for example how the two worlds split thanks to the life/death of Crown Prince Sohyeon. However, without the visual nature of the show to keep it appealing, having a little bit of backstory about the Kingdom of Corea would be nice to have so new readers aren’t totally confused about the setting of the novel when it begins.

The only semi-new thing we really learn from the prologue is that the palace (which I will call Haeungung Palace from here on out as part of my personal mission to spread this information) is located specifically on Dongbaekseom island in Busan. This is something I had pretty much figured out already by being a big nerd and looking at screenshots of the show and comparing those to maps of Busan, but it’s nice to have this for real confirmed by a canon source. Another thing to maybe mention is that the flower symbol of the royal Jeonju Lee family is a plum blossom, but this is also something that you could probably work out beforehand.

In conclusion, this is a good introduction… but a little useless to established fans of the show, who I think would make up most of the demographic of this book. Still, it’s best for them to cover their bases.

Chapter 1: Find the clock rabbit

The first thing to mention here is that “clock rabbit” refers to the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, which the English subs on Netflix call “the white rabbit with the clock” but I’m going to say “clock rabbit” because that seems to be the direct translation, and it makes all Yeong’s lines about “Is it a rabbit or a clock?” make a lot more sense in my mind. This chapter covers four scenes from episode 1 of the show: the scene where Gon is being dressed by his new attendant Park Gyubong and he catches the talismans that Lady Noh put in his room, the scene where Gon and Koo Seoryeong have their meeting after Gon goes riding, pretty much all of the rowing scene sequence from the race to Gon going to chase after the “clock rabbit,” and then Gon very briefly in his study alone, looking at his Alice in Wonderland book.

What stood out to me the most while reading, getting over the fact that they’ve changed the order of the scenes from the show (Cheonjongo in 1994 is happening next chapter), is how much extra dialogue they’ve cut out. Again… I guess it makes sense, if they’re trying to condense a sixteen episode drama into two volumes of a book then of course they’re going to want to get straight to the point, but this is disappointing for me personally because a lot of what they cut out are the fun, familiar conversations that Gon had with Yeong throughout episode 1. For example, Gon and Yeong never have their conversation after Gon finishes his ride where Yeong reveals that there are more talismans than Gon thought, and they also cut out the conversation between Gon and Yeong in his study after the race day, which means we don’t get “are you having fun, Captain Jo?” and we don’t get their following conversation about Gon wanting to find his saviour, and Yeong assuring him that he’s grown up well and he doesn’t need anyone to save him anymore. Which is… fine. It’s fine, but it’s still disappointing. Even without coming at this from a Gonjo angle, their friendship is still very important to me, and it’s disheartening to find out that where the show abandoned it very quickly, the book doesn’t seem to be developing it at all. That’s not to say that there aren’t moments, but it’s not as much as I would have liked.

The other big thing that stood out to me is… well… how do I put this? The book really wants you to know that Gon is perfect and amazing and handsome and the best man in all of Corea and no one else could ever compare and he’s just so incredible and wonderful and everybody loves him so much and every woman is in love with him because he’s just that good. Which is hilarious to me, as a loser (affectionate) Gon truther, because this man exists in my head as an adorable mess of mathematical equations, overthinking, and pretending to be fine, and it’s just… no matter how many times they tell me how perfect and shiny he is, I’m just not going to believe it. Let me give you an excerpt, so you can see the tone of this and know what I’m talking about.

Gon’s body, which he trained to protect himself against any danger, was perfect because his safety was the security of the kingdom. Gyubong was impressed anew by a glimpse of his hard and wide shoulders.

Gyubong glanced at the pride of the Kingdom of Corea before he could meet his indifferent eyes. His sharp nose, smooth lips, and sharp jawline stood out under his straight eyebrows. The third king of the Kingdom of Corea boasted an appearance that deserved the love of the kingdom’s people.

Like— it’s so unserious! They’re really trying so hard to ram it down your throat how utterly perfect Lee Gon is - and in this scene it reads like Gon’s eyebrows may be straight but Park Gyubong sure isn’t. They also mention Gon’s “long legs” when he’s running after his clock rabbit and… wow, does this answer that age old question? Is this what Yeong knows that Gon uses his long legs for - running away and giving Yeong a headache?

So, after all this, what have we learnt so far?

Park Gyubong is either very confident in his heterosexuality or he has a huge crush on King Lee Gon

“The royal courtiers often found the principled Captain of the Guard more difficult than the easy-going king” which… hurts me, a little, to imagine the palace staff bitching about Yeong behind his back. Does it make sense? …yes, to be fair yes, yes it does, it makes a lot of sense for Yeong to rule Haeungung palace with an iron fist as he tries desperately to take care of Gon’s safety, so I just hope that none of the other members of staff are being too mean about our beloved Yeongie :(

Yeong’s naval rank is confirmed to be a Soryeong/Lieutenant Commander! If you’ve seen my post about military ranks in TKEM then you’ll see that this is something that you can see in the show by looking at his epaulettes, but it’s nice to have it confirmed in writing here

Yeong was described as being “born and bred to serve the king.” This is something we knew already, but having it said explicitly here… it’s doing something to me, so it’s getting its own point.

Yeong specifically says to Park Gyubong that “His Majesty doesn’t like other people’s hands touching his body.” It’s not just any touch, he specifically mentions hands. Fanfic nation, do with this information what you will.

Mentioning the moment where little Yeong joined little Gon in crying after Lee Ho’s funeral is something that hurts Yeong’s pride. We can only assume that Gon knows this because he has brought it up in the past and Yeong has got very flustered about it.

On that topic, Gon thinks about that moment after his dad’s funeral after Yeong is like !!!!! when Park Gyubong mentions covering Gon’s scar.

Lady Noh has been noticeably anxious about finding Gon a partner ever since he turned thirty (Korean age). Gon isn’t sure if it was before that, but thirty is the age that he mentions. The Korean word for partner used is 짝, which Wordreference tells me means “pair, mate, buddy.” Interestingly, not necessarily wife, very gender neutral. This is in Gon’s internal monologue so again, fanfic nation, this one’s for you.

It’s also said that Lady Noh is more like a mother to Gon than his own mother was, which again is something we already knew but it’s very nice to have it written.

It’s crossed Lady Noh’s mind that Gon might have a secret mistress and that’s why he has never been interested in getting married, but she figured that this was illogical because Gon is always being watched while he’s in the palace. Thank you for your hard work, Jo Yeong!

The issue of marriage is apparently the only duty of Gon’s that he ever abandons, which… idk, there’s something there.

Gon feels like he’s free of all his worries when he goes riding, especially with Maximus, so riding is basically like Gon’s therapy :D

Maximus is his “favourite horse” which is something else that’s just nice to have in writing

It is mentioned several times in this chapter that Gon “is the favourite of every woman in the kingdom.” It’s giving… heteronormative, but that doesn’t surprise me. However, Koo Seoryeong doesn’t count herself as being one of these women because she can see up close how Gon is putting on as much of an act as she is.

Koo Seoryeong’s ex-husband was not only from a chaebol family but also a conglomerate leader. This is interesting to me because it’s mentioned in the show that he’s the second son so… what happened to the first son? Is he the leader of his own separate corporation? Was he just not as good as his younger brother?

Gon finds the way Koo Seoryeong is clear about expressing her desires uncomfortable because, as the king, he’s never been able to have his own desires or express his own desires freely

“Yeong’s nerves were on edge” while Gon was rowing in the competition, because it was an outdoor event. He finds these things stressful because Gon already came close to death once, and you never know if it’ll happen again

As soon as he hears a gunshot, Gon is immediately transported back to the night of the treason. Even if he doesn’t show it outwardly, it’s crossing his mind at the slightest trigger.

That time at the rowing competition is the first time that Gon has run away during an outdoor event. He runs away often and he knows he causes trouble for the Royal Guard, but this is the first time he’s done it at an event like that.

Gon can recognise Yeong just by his footsteps

Gon leaves his duties in the palace once or twice a year - either because he wants some personal time, or he’s in desperate need of it because he feels too overwhelmed by his regular life. I already assumed it was because of that, but to have it confirmed… fanfic nation, this is for you again

Gon was still thinking about the night of the treason when he got his Alice in Wonderland book out at the end of episode 1, and he could still vividly feel the sticky blood on the soles of his feet, and the feeling of something constricting around his neck. He felt like it could still happen again at any moment. Clearly, Lee Gon needs some better therapy than just going riding with Maximus.

Final thoughts: I’m very much enjoying seeing into the characters’ minds like this, especially Gon, since we’ve had a lot of him this chapter. I like how the book is able to show how often Gon is thinking about the night of the treason, making it and therefore his PTSD a much more present thing than in the show. It remains to be seen whether the currently hilarious Gon-worshipping is going to become annoying after a while, or whether or not seeing the characters’ inner thoughts is going to start annoying me when the main romance plot gets going. If it’s in the same tone as the Gon-worshipping… yeesh. That’ll be an experience.

My main thought so far? Not enough Yeong. There’s not as much Yeong as there was in the show, and there isn’t even much Yeong there. This book could be greatly improved with more Yeong. I suppose we’ll have to stick to fanfiction for that.

#kitkat reads the tkem novel #tkem #the king: eternal monarch #I can’t help but think… if Gon is always being watched by Yeong #and Lady Noh figures that Gon can’t have a secret mistress because people would have noticed #the only person that Gon can be alone with without Yeong being too overprotective is… Yeong himself #idk guys that’s just a silly little thought haha #these posts are of course for everyone in the fandom and not just the gonjo side of it #but I know that most of my audience also suffers from gonjo brainrot soooo…

15 notes · View notes

cursedbyastro · 2 years

Text

❝𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐲❞

❝𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞❞: do not copy, steal, or plagiarize my work WHATSOEVER. reblogs and references are okay as long as you give me my credit. thank you, enjoy ♡

— aphrodite is the ancient greek goddess of love, beauty, lust, pleasure and procreation

— so, in turn the asteroid aphrodite represents beauty, pleasure, passion, prosperity, your relationship with your physical body, the physical manifestation of things you love, talent, what attracts you/what catches your eye, and sex appeal. it shares many aspects with venus.

— mercury represents communication, the mind, youth, speaking, perception, writing, transportation, mannerisms & gestures, education, details, hands, curiosity, how we think, learning, humor, intelligence, design, logic, poetry, singing, mimicking, eyes, visual aid, exploring, travel, and music.

— conjunction is a most powerful aspects. it mutually intensifies the effects of the involved astrological bodies beneficially or detrimentally depending on the energies at hand.

— beauty with brains trope/girlboss

— it could also give you a youthfulness to your nature because of the mercury contact. so, people may think you are younger than you actually are because of this.

— the way that you communicate is very alluring and attractive. you quite literally have the voice of a god/goddess. some people can worship the words you say quote you or mimic you speaking methods. this gets you a lot of praise.

— people could also worship you for how much you know or how smart you are. they find your knowledge intriguing. you just have an interesting take on everything.

— you could also be praised or worshipped for your way of thinking, intelligence, and mannerisms.

— you can find success in fields that deal with communication, teaching, knowledge, or any of the general themes of mercury.

— you could use a lot of enduring words or sound sweet and/or sensual. you try to to always speak from your heart, even if the idea of being vulnerable is scary sometimes.

— you can easily charm someone into doing things for you or have them wrapped up in your words for hours. you take time to choose your words wisely and frame them to suit your target audience and make sure your message is received as intended. a good marketing aspect and good for storytelling. you make people want to listen to you.

— a big "i love you" or "be safe" person to people they care about.

— many people might find your voice comforting or say that you have a way with words, people might even feel comfortable coming to you about their secrets or trouble. it is a natural talent.

— you also have a natural attention to detail. you notice the small things.

— you could have an enticing singing voice, and you could even have a pretty handwriting/be an amazing writer.

— flirting comes naturally to you without having to try. your humor is very clever and mischievous like a chesire cat. you love to flirt and tease obviously.

— words of affirmation could be a love language for you. you also probably love little love letters or texts too (they are so cute <3)

— you take people’s word seriously, so when they tell you something you almost always take it literally. you don’t like when people tell lies or break promises.

— (nsfw) this could lead to a praise/degrading kink lol i’m sorry. but, it could be stimulating for you. you could also appreciate loving words during smexy time to heighten you sense and experience.

— this also applies to yourself as well. speaking words of affirmations to yourself can help you to appreciate your body and image more. can definitely give you a confidence or motivation boost.

— in terms of attraction, you are very attracted to intelligence and depth in a person. a pretty face and material wealth is nice, but you truly value substance.

— you value knowledge. to you, knowledge is both powerful and sexy. you constantly want to learn as much as you can about anything that you have a passion for. the more you get to know about someone, the more invested you become.

— good communication and mutual understandings is important for your platonic, familial business, and romantic relationships. you like to make sure that you and every party involved is heard.

— this can also show that others are attracted to you because of your own intelligence, depth, and humor.

— you could attract youthful lovers, scholars, intelligent suitors, or virgo or gemini placements.

— you learn a lot about the world, yourself, others, etc. from romantic or sexual relationships.

— when you see mannerisms, words, or humor that you find alluring or pleasing, you can tend to copy it or mimic it in a way and make it your own.

— since mercury also rules the eyes, you could be deeply attracted to a strong gaze or gorgeous eyes.

— you could have very gorgeous lips, eyes, teeth, and even hands (could also receive compliments for them)

— because aphrodite also deals with the body, the mercury contact could make you thinner in certain areas of your body or face. these areas could also fluctuate in appearance.

— it could also make you more critical or precise about your body. you like to look a certain way, put together. you are very selective about the things that you eat or wear.

— you like natural things or things of the earth, minimalistic fashion or items, items that help your practically. you constantly change your style or aesthetic, but it always looks good.

— could have a lot of good beauty/fashion advice. probably dresses in earth tones or minimalistically like hoodies or plain clothing. but, you always make it look clean and just the right amount of style.

— however, intelligence and knowledge is not everything, and sometimes you tend to people please often to avoid conflict. remember that sometimes conflict is necessary to inspire change and it is okay to be truthful.

— also be careful not to become to vain, manipulative, or self-centered.

— make sure to be careful about how "flirty" or "friendly" you come off to others. your friendless can translate to "they want to fuck me" to another person. so, clear and honest communication is VITAL. they just can't resist ;)

— you probably have a nice social media account. pretty pictures os a certain aesthetic.

— some people can even be jealous of how fluidly and elegantly you communicate. people may gossip a lot about you, especially on social media or what you post on social media.

— since aphrodite can also show what you get jealous about in others (based on the lore of aphrodite), you could ironically be jealous of how others communicate, express themselves, or even manifest.

— also, because mercury rules perception and environment, you could see the world through rose-colored glasses. you like to see the good in the world and try to improve it everyday.

— you probably prefer a beautiful environment to perform or feel your like your best self.

— you also probably have a youthful appearance, or appear younger than you are. you might age beautifully.

let me know your feedback, thought, or own observations. until next time, with much love, E ♡

218 notes · View notes

honestlywtfisgoingon · 2 years

Text

When You Weren’t Looking — pt. 2/?

PROFESSOR!OBI-WAN KENOBI x READER

PART 1

an au where you and you literature professor realize you both have things to learn about love, and yourselves, outside of class. (as we all know, this can only be done through a big scoop of angst and a smutty cherry on top)

summary: you and obi-wan have begun to enjoy simply spending time together in his office

warnings: language maybe, tb to filler sentences i actually used in my essay rough drafts

a/n: not my fav but it’s little bit of a set-up for the next chapter which is when things get real interesting hehe. also i didn’t edit a lot sry :/ but if the spacing is weird it’s bc of tumblr not me lol

words: 1,342 once again a lil short

It had been a couple of weeks since you’d begun to show up to Professor Kenobi’s office after every one of your classes with him. Your initial purpose for being there was just to file papers and organize things in his surprising very messy office. You had pegged your professor as someone who preferred for things to remain immaculate at all times, his beard always trimmed so neatly and his shirts always pressed to perfection. The more you thought about it though, the more it made sense.

It was a known fact, mainly due to his impromptu rants during class, that he loved what he taught. He breathed in knowledge and books, a true intellectual, and the articles scattered on every surface of his office were probably objects of comfort. The books, mugs drained of tea(many of which had horrendous puns), and various trinkets and collectibles such as labeled kyber crystals, all reflected his interests. He was familiar with his passions and it made his office safe and pleasant for him to be in.

While you still spent some of your time cleaning, most of your two hours with the professor ended up allowing you to rewrite your essay and finish assignments for other classes. He even let you grade some small homework assignments for him.

Anakin you’re out of a job

Professor Kenobi also felt that it was important to make sure you knew he was always there if you needed help. There was a sincerity to his offer that you appreciated. On occasion, he would even ask you for your opinion on something he had just read. The idea that he valued your opinions which could be considered amateur, flattered you immensely. These little here and their actions always spawned an engaging conversation—before he made you get back to work of course.

“fair enough,” you shrugged in response one time after he told you to start “dusting or…something” again. He let out a small breath of a laugh that made you feel warm.

Part of you felt like he always stopped the conversation when you had both begun to be truly invested in what the other was saying. That point usually came with neither of you finding the desire to break eye contact anymore. Sometimes you thought of his gaze for hours after you saw him, the gaze that you had committed to memory by now.

Your preferred spot in the office was a seat adjacent to his, a large oak desk in between you two. There was something about the way he leaned over that large oak desk though. He sat in a wooden swivel chair that presumably came with the table, to which he added a small back pillow. His glasses had slipped slightly down his nose, tie discarded in favor of unbuttoning the top of his collar. He looked exactly like the idea of a classic professor. You found something appealing about it. it didn’t project overt masculinity, and yet somehow it made him seem strong and whole, like he was made of the same polished oak. You couldn’t deny that noticing the maturity he wore was attractive.

Not to be a traitor to your generation, but the men your age weren’t men to you, not in a classic sense anyway. They were closer to your idea of boys, lacking the confidence and the thoughtfulness that showed in everything that your professor did.

You weren’t afraid to admit that it was a little bit hypocritical of you, seeing as how you weren’t exactly the most studious individual either. You didn’t think it was cocky to consider yourself smart, as did many of your teachers, but you were also pretty easily distracted and had to take a break from staring at your screen once you had begun to get too fidgety. Today you were pacing slowly around the room, the tips of your fingers reached out to glide along a surface or a book.

As long as I get my work done, which I always do

“I think you’ve done a few miles by now,” Professor Kenobi said. You could see the small upward tilt of his lips.

“I can't walk in here?” you asked playfully.

“Please, by all means, do what you like, but I can't help but ask, well, aren’t you tired of it by now?” He had turned to face you by now.

“busy thinking I guess,” your mind was in fact reeling at the moment.

“about?” he inquired.

“wouldn’t you like to know.” a teasing smirk on your face. You had grown bolder with each conversation you had with him. He had become more relaxed, easier to joke with. He had a dry and sarcastic humor. another thing you didn’t expect but found that it fit him.

“I would actually. I can never tell what you’re thinking, darling, but I’ve found it’s always something compelling,” That was a recent development. He had taken to calling you darling casually. You assumed it was just…British. They called each other “love” all the time in movies. He could call any woman darling, it was just an endearing term. Still, it made you feel special like you weren’t just another student, and you couldn’t deny that it always caused you to look at the floor in case the heat you felt was in fact a blush. But, that train of thought, of any…attraction, was a dead end you wanted to avoid, and yet you always failed to do so.

“Was that a compliment from the Professor Kenobi?” you pressed your hand to your chest in an exaggeratingly flattered expression.

“If you’d like it to be,” there was a tiny glint in his eye that you would’ve missed if you weren’t already studying how blue they were.

“Well then thank you, Professor,” you added a subtle tilt in your voice when you addressed him. you would never intentionally flirt with him, but it slipped out in such a way.

His cheeks had a fresh tinge of pink and he shifted slightly in his chair before clearing his throat.

“I do have another compliment for you though,”

“Oh I like this,” you laughed lightly.

“I’m already regretting this,” he jokingly rolled his eyes.

“Aww,” you responded in false disappointment.

“But y/n, in all earnest, you’ve made immense progress, and I’m very proud,” he smiled at you with such softness.

You smiled, filled with pride by the praise that had come from someone who you admired. That smile quickly dropped when you realized, how could he have read your essay? You had shown him some of it but that was at the very beginning when you had barely changed much.

“How could you know?”

“You do know I have access to your document since you already submitted it before don’t you?” Your eyes widened in horror as you thought about the very thing he started to mention.

“I do enjoy the filler sentences though,” he looked down at his laptop, presumably at your essay. He cleared his throat. “blah blah insert bullshit or quote later—“

“Oh my maker! That’s a total invasion of privacy!” You ran around to his side of the desk to look at what part of your essay he was on. You only realized few moments later that he had turned his head towards you as you leaned over his shoulder. His face was so close to yours, and his lashes so long that you swore they could brush up against your skin if you leaned in a bit further. Neither of you moved for a moment until… whatever that interaction was… was cut short by a buzz coming from his phone. He hesitated to turn away from you for a second before picking up his phone. saying hi to whoever was on the other end.

You noticed the clock behind him signaled that it was time for you to go. You gathered your things quietly and whispered a quick goodbye, to which he shot you a smile and a light wave. You returned the smile, and it stayed on your face as you walked out the door and all the way down the hall.

PART 3

#obi wan and anakin #obi wan kenobi #star wars #anakin skywalker #aotc #obi wan #obi wan kenobi x y/n #obi wan smut #obi wan x reader #star wars fanfiction #professor!obi wan #professor au #obi wan fluff #padme amidala #padme #anakin #obi wan kenobi au #star wars au

153 notes · View notes

shadyruinskryptonite · 5 months

Text

Titan Bending Chapter 9

Warning: Violence consistent with cannon, NSFW so MDNI, language, major character death (both consistent with canon of both AOT and ATLA as well as diverging from canon), so much trauma literally everyone is so traumatized, very much slow burn, a little enemies to lovers, SO MUCH ANGST, hurt/comfort, hurt and delayed comfort, AFAB reader

Chapter Warnings: Justification of “killing a few to save the many” (I’m not saying I think this way btw, just in the context of this chapter it’s to attempt to help them feel better), this is also taking place in the torture episode so while I don’t describe what’s happening it’s notable that it’s going on, super brief mention of reader being sexually active, talk of recurring nightmares

WC: 3250

Previous Chapter, Next Chapter

Masterlist

Tags: @mochminnie @sseleniaa

It turns out, I didn’t have time to ruminate on the difficulty of the night, because our job wasn’t over yet.

After discussing where we’d meet Dimo Reeves and the members of the Interior Police, we head there immediately to ensure we’d beat them there since we had to move on foot.

Catching up with Levi, I whisper so as to not worry everyone else, but I have to air out my worries about this plan.

“Levi, do you really think this will work? We didn’t have to do anything to turn Reeves. How do we know he won’t run right to them, give up our location, and instead of a wagon with two Interior Police it’s an entire brigade?”

“We don’t know,” he deadpans. I stand there waiting for him to elaborate and after a beat, he does. “The only thing we have going for us is that the Interior Police coerced his cooperation. We brought it about through appealing to his humanity. I don’t often put my faith in humanity,” he pauses to glance at me and then quickly looks away again before finishing, “but I think I trust humanity more than the MPs.”

I nod, contemplative silence engulfs us.

“Levi?” I ask.

“What?” he responds, without the bite that his tone normally has towards me.

“...what’s the difference between MPs and the Interior Police? And…what does MP stand for?” I’ve learned a lot, but there are still things I can’t piece together with context clues alone.

He looks at me again, and this time I swear his face is softer, almost like he’s speaking to a child.

I don’t know what’s worse, being looked at like a child or being berated.

Much to my surprise, he explains what the Military Police are and how the Interior Police are a part of the larger group. Most importantly though, he explains why the MPs aren’t trustworthy.

“Glad to see that some things never change, regardless of culture or location,” I muse more to myself than to him.

“Human greed is one of the only guarantees in life,” Levi states as we arrive at our destination.

Did I just have a good, real conversation with Levi? I…I don’t think I can believe it.

Not long after we arrive at what looks like an old farmhouse, we hear a wagon coming over the hill. The stone is in place. All we can do is wait.

The sound of Reeves speaking with someone is slightly comforting, and as they begin to crest the hill I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding at the sight of only one wagon.

So, he did help us. Damn y/n, maybe you should stop being so judgemental. First Levi, now this guy? Maybe everyone isn’t always a bad person…

I overhear Reeves speaking harshly with his son, something about smelling easy money and long-term profit.

Ah, nope, still a bad person. Just his greed lines up with the greater good for now. At least I’m founded in the way I see people.

The two members of the Interior Police are separated into different cells. What kind of farmhouse has cells? Levi bans us from coming down. Soon, the tell-tale sounds of violence can be heard, even with the door to the basement closed. After sitting there, listening in varying degrees of horror, Hange bursts into the house with Moblit not far behind. We make eye contact and I nonchalantly motion my head towards the door. Reclining in the dining chair, I mildly state, “follow the screams.” Not another word is said as they disappear downstairs to join Levi.

As the yelling intensifies, everyones’ stomachs turn. Even mine.

I know I’ve seen a lot in my day but, this…this is too much even for me. I don’t know how the kids are even upright.

I’m in my own world, disassociating. Everything is slightly blurry. Noises muffled. I haven’t visited this corner of my mind in a while, but I know it’s safe. It always has been and always will be.

When I realize I’m disassociating, I force myself back into reality.

This is a slippery slope for you y/n. Come on, pull it together. If not for you, for them.

When I tune back into the conversation, I hear Armin say, “...it’s just that their views are different. No, it’s just that they’re in a different group. And for that, we’ll take their lives.”

“Armin,” Mikasa tries to intervene.

“We’re not good people, not anymore at least.” As Armin finishes speaking, I can tell they’re all taking what he’s saying to heart.

I decide to break the silence before any of them are left alone with their own thoughts for too long. “Ya know, while I’m only barely older than each of you, I’ve seen a lot of life in my day. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there’s really no such thing as ‘good people’ or ‘bad people.’ People might choose to do good or bad things, but that’s not what makes them who they are.” I pause to look around, and it seems like only Armin is looking at me. Like he’s desperately searching for me to give him a way out of how he currently feels.

I continue, “Of course, there are exceptions to this concept, I would say anyone that finds joy in doing bad things is a bad person. But the harsh reality of the world is that the few bad people, force good people to do bad things. At the end of the day it’s kill or be killed.”

Mikasa bristles beside me and at this point, I know they’re all hearing me but I can’t tell if it’s helping. So, I switch tactics. “Think about it this way: we all believe that one way or another, Eren is going to be the key to finding new information and, hopefully, eliminating the titans, right?” I pause until I see them all nod. “We don’t know what these people have planned. Maybe they want to kill him. Maybe they just want to keep him locked away to prevent us from finding answers. Either way, their actions are directly preventing us from using the only tool at our disposal which in turn prevents us from saving humanity. If they aren’t stopped now, whatever beliefs they’re protecting could hurt the larger society. I know, it doesn’t make the idea or practice of taking out real people any more palatable, but that’s because all of you are good people.”

When I step down from my soap box, I can feel them all internalizing what I was talking about. Maybe I’m just gaslighting myself so that I can feel better, but looking at all of their faces it seems like what I said did end up helping.

In the softest voice, Armin speaks up next to me and asks, “what about the torture though? It’s not ‘torture or be tortured.’”

As if to prove his point, another blood curdling cry can be heard ringing out and we all flinch. I turn back to him and, with a hand on his arm, I say the only thing I can think of. “If the day comes that one of us,” I motion to everyone at the table, “has to torture someone, then we’ll talk about it. But for now, let’s just cope knowing that we aren’t in that position.”

Since no one was really in the mood to sleep, I suggested we all go outside and keep watch together. They liked that idea.

I stayed behind momentarily to make us all some tea, and it was as I strode across the kitchen that I heard the man in the basement berating Hange and Levi. It took every ounce of strength I had for me to not march down there like some entitled mother accosting their child’s bully. Luckily, I didn’t have to restrain myself for very long because Levi then quickly called a break.

When they came upstairs for a breather, I could tell how much the task weighed on them.

If there were another way, they’d have taken it. If there were another way, they’d have taken it. If there were another way, they’d have taken it.

As I repeat my little mantra to myself, I offer all of them, Moblit included, cups of tea.

“I’m making a big batch for the kids, would any of you like a cup? I had them go outside to ‘keep watch together’ since no one was tired, but I already figured I’d make enough for the three of you anyway.” I smile as kindly as I can at them.

They’re going through so much as well, they don’t have the luxury of going outside.

Hange begins to decline my offer saying, “Thanks b-”

“Sure, I’ll take a cup. It better not be shitty though,” Levi cuts her off.

I grin widely at them now and, while pouring three cups, say, “Zuko’s uncle that I traveled with now owns his own tea shop in Ba Sing Se’s version of the interior so you could say I learned from the best.”

Placing the cups in front of them, I accidentally bump Levi’s hand. Luckily he had taken his gloves off, but it still made me jump a little. Holding eye contact with just Levi, I say to the group, “you’ll have to give me a review once you try it.” I turn back around and start loading the six teacups for the kids and I onto a big plate I found to act as a tray.

Levi raises an eyebrow at me and says, “you sure you got that?”

I pick up the tray with ease and smirk at him, smugly saying, “I was a waitress in Uncle Iroh’s tea shop, I think I’ll manage.”

With that, I’m out the door to deliver tea and they’re off to continue what they’ve gotta do.

The six of us quietly look at the stars for a while and, disregarding the day’s events, it was almost peaceful. However, we’re not out there for 15 minutes before Moblit is coming to fetch us because they have information.

Once all of us have reentered the house, they waste no time in telling us that Historia is the rightful heir to the throne. Hange also tells us that she thinks if a mindless titan were to eat someone with abilities like Eren’s that they’d turn back into a human. And when she says there’s a chance the government has their OWN titan, Mikasa loses her shit.

I think Levi might be the only one strong enough to hold her back…when did I even get on board with this “Humanity’s Strongest” bullshit?

And so, the long night gets longer as we head to Reis’s estate. However, that wasn’t going to be a quick or easy trip, especially not without horses or wagons. So, camping in the woods became a necessity.

Living in the woods. Now we’re speaking my language.

We adopted a typical setup - someone kept watch while the others rested. Levi volunteered for the first watch and I volunteered for the second. Funny though, seeing as neither of us sleep very much, so we just sort of did both shifts together.

We sit on high alert, completely silent, for what feels like hours. It wasn’t until I assumed his shift was supposed to technically be ending that either one of us spoke.

“I’m not going to sleep any time soon, if you want I’ll just take your shift and you can get some rest,” Levi spoke softly in my direction.

I respond at the same volume, “If I thought I’d be able to sleep, I’d have done it hours ago. You’re welcome to join me for my shift, the company and the second set of eyes both greatly appreciated, but you certainly don’t have to. If you can sleep, I implore you to.”

Levi settles back in, and I’m assuming that will be the end of our conversation, but I’m surprised when he speaks again. “You don’t sleep much.”

I snort. “Was that a question or an observation?”

“Both.”

“In that case, I could ask you the same thing.”

We stare at each other for a moment. For the first time, I notice that he’s so pale that it looks like he’s almost glowing in the moonlight. His skin is in stark contrast to his dark hair, which if it weren’t for the shine, would disappear completely into the surroundings.

Yo, what the fuck dude? Why are you analyzing this little shit like this?

At my thoughts, I break eye contact and he finally says, “well, in that case, you’d be correct.”

I have to strain to even remember what we were talking about in the first place.

Shit it’s been a long time since I got laid. I can’t believe a little eye contact with a man - with LEVI at that - has got my wires all crossed.

When I finally remember, I simply ask, “Why is that?”

Almost too quickly, he responds, “too much work to be done.”

“How many times have you rehearsed that line?”

I can feel him snap to look at me, but I keep staring into the distance. When he doesn’t respond, I chuckle to myself before following up by saying, “oh come on, you’ve seen nightmare inducing shit in the time I’ve known you. That’s not to mention whatever the hell you’ve seen that’s made your survival instincts so sharp.”

At this, I finally turn to him and I’m surprised by what I see. There’s shock on his face but something else entirely that I can’t quite place. Vulnerability, maybe? Whatever it is, this is the first time he doesn’t wipe his face clear of emotion the second someone looks at him. Realizing he won’t say anything of his own accord, I put my hand on his shoulder and smile empathetically.

I say, “I have ‘em too, if that makes you feel better. I guessed you did because, from experience, no one chooses to get less than four hours of sleep a night.”

He looks away, and almost under his breath mumbles, “it doesn’t.”

I’m confused. “What doesn’t?”

“It doesn’t make me feel better that you have them too. I wouldn’t wish them on anyone, let alone…a comrade.”

His pause strikes me as odd, but I don’t think much about it. Instead I just reply, “yeah, I’m with ya there.”

Silence blankets us once again, but this time it feels different. Any tension, mistrust, or ill-will I previously harbored towards Levi seems to have mostly evaporated. Now, the silence is comfortable.

Again, I’m surprised when Levi speaks. This time, there’s a bit more authority to his voice when he asks, “so, can I anticipate you always being that reckless on missions or was today first-time-nerves?”

I raise an eyebrow. “Reckless? What did I do today that was reckless?”

He huffs. “It would be easier to tell you what wasn’t reckless.”

Now I’m downright indignant. “I still don’t understand. I didn’t get hurt, I didn’t get anyone else hurt. Honestly, I don’t see any instance where I was more reckless than you.”

He side eyes me, but this doesn’t seem to ruffle him as much as I had wanted it to. “Despite me specifically saying you were to stay with me, you intentionally left my side twice: once on the roof and once when we were using gear. Not to mention standing in between the shooter and Jean.”

All I can do is roll my eyes. “None of what you just said was reckless, I merely took some calculated risks. If I hadn’t gotten off that roof, Kenny at the very least would have seen me and then known he was looking for two people instead of just you. My ODM skills aren’t strong enough to out maneuver him. And on that same topic, that’s also the reason I split off from you later. I was already using ODM gear and I knew I had a better chance against anyone that wasn’t Kenny. And I was right. They weren’t able to harm a single hair on my head whereas I took out, like, four or five of them. Plus, if I had followed you, I would have been in your way. It’s hard enough to survive when you’re only looking out for yourself but if you had had to worry about me, too? It’s possible we wouldn’t even be having this conversation now. As for getting in front of Jean…” I stop.

Realistically, I know that it was a bit reckless to do that. But I’m not about to admit that to Levi.

“I knew I could disarm her better than Jean could. Especially given that he had just lost his weapon. Disarming her gave her enough pause that Armin could kill her. I also figured that if necessary, I’d have an easier time killing her than Jean since he had already hesitated once.” I got a lot quieter as I finished talking.

Levi contemplates what I said before saying, “I’ll give you that your reasoning was sound for separating. I still think it was dangerous and would have been safer if you had just stuck with me like I had told you,” I roll my eyes again, which he ignores, “but throwing yourself in front of a gun is still downright reckless. I can’t support that choice even though you may have thought it out.”

The mood is heavy but I just smile and shrug, hoping to lighten the mood by saying, “agree to disagree.”

He scoffs again, but clearly opts to not press the matter further. Perhaps it’s because the sun was rising and with it, everyone would be waking up soon.

Before everyone else wakes up, I decide to return the olive branch that he had extended to me by changing to a lighter topic. “You never told me how the tea was.”

Truth be told, I was expecting a glowing review, even from him. So when he simply shrugs and says, “it was…fine,” I was more than a little offended.

“Fine?! I tasted that tea myself, it was better than fine.” I scoff and turn away from him, mumbling to myself, “and just when I was starting to think you were a halfway decent person.”

For the umpteenth time tonight, he surprises me, this time by chuckling. I snap my head back to look at him and find him already glancing in my direction. His eye contact mixed with his amusement and, dare I say, warmth made me feel…strange. Not bad, not uncomfortable. Just, strange.

Still looking at me, he explains, “it wasn’t bad, I just think your water wasn’t hot enough.”

I smirk at his words and decide to poke a little fun at him, “well, next time I make you tea I’ll make sure it’s so hot that it’ll melt the skin off your mouth. Maybe then you won’t be quite so annoying.”

His eyebrows shoot up, but he’s clearly not angry when he retorts, “Oh really now? I’m the annoying one?”

Before I have a chance to respond our attention is pulled away by the sound of some of the kids starting to stir. Sasha’s sleepy eyes suddenly make me very jealous of the rest she and the others got and if I had known what the coming days would hold, I might have tried harder to get some sleep.

12 notes · View notes

drdemonprince · 1 year

Note

i tried doing a search (although tumblr’s search function is basically useless) and didn’t see anything so feel free to pass over this if you’ve already answered it, but do you have any thoughts/essays about self help books? twice in the last year someone has recommended I read a couple (one rec was from a therapist) but I’ve always felt alienated by them, which made me feel like I was Doing Therapy Wrong. how do you differentiate between a self help book with actual merit and one that’s just useless pop psych?

Prescriptive fiction is a very wide genre with a really large readership, and it's also one where the intellectual rigor expected of its authors is not exactly high. The diversity of quality is pretty staggering. And much of the genre leans on an appeal to authority that deserves very little weight -- the fact an author has a PhD or an LSCW is really not a good reason to believe any claims they make about how one should live their life. That's not something scientific evidence can answer, even if these authors had strong support for their claims, and many of them don't.

All of my books are classed as prescriptive fiction (the industry term for self help) and I've always aspired to be really thorough in my sources and citations and to note the caveats to the research I'm leaning on, both in the text and in my work's index. and there are certainly greats in the genre. but even most of the self help books I find myself recommended suffer from the overly generic language, broad examples, lack of systems analysis, and latent regurgitation of the culture's predominant values that the shittiest of self-help books dole out in huge heaps.

Like, I love Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents and How to Deal with Emotionally Explosive People and even those books have those problems. Brene Brown's best stuff still takes a degree of baseline fatphobia as a given and tacitly endorses it. Jess Fern's Polysecure reinforces very capitalist notions of independence. and on and on. I like these books and authors! But digesting them carefully and critically remains essential. Same is true of my shit of course.

I don't think there's a shortcut to developing one's own power of discernment but for becoming more discerning with pop psych books I'd recommend:

Reading a lot, and reading widely

Paying attention to who backs up their claims with sources

actually reading up on those sources to see if they genuinely support the point the author is trying to make

Reading not only books, but journal articles, reviews, collected chapters, blogs, critiques, etc

Noticing gaps in the authors' awareness, especially regarding systems of oppression or intersections thereof

Leaving lots of notes in the margins or in a notebook as you read, tracking your own reactions to things -- which ideas seem underdeveloped or cliched, which tips seem applicable to only some situations but not others, lingering questions you have, internal contradictions you have noticed, ways in which one book disagrees with another that you've read

talking with your therapist about what you've been reading and getting their reactions

Talking about the books with others, comparing and contrasting other people's experiences

and basically just continuing to do all of that with any thing you ever aspire to learn about until you die lol. there's a lot of charlatans out there in the self help book world, but there are also a lot of reasonably accomplished scientists and therapists who have helpful insights to share but write in frustratingly simplistic ways because that's a hallmark of the genre and what publishers believe laypeople need in order to understand. this means it can be difficult sometimes to tell the difference between a decent idea put way too simply and a shitty idea phrased compellingly. but i think basically the only way one gets better at telling the difference is by reading a lot and thinking a lot. this stuff comes pretty naturally to me now but that's only because i've spend about two decades doing it nonstop.

27 notes · View notes

venacoeurva · 1 year

Note

Love Wren! 3 and 12 for the couple ask game, if it’s still going on :]

3. What's their favorite thing to tease each other about?

Oh, they tease and make dry jabs at each other all the time lol. It's practically another love language for them. The easiest one is Wren’s height, which Teldryn loves to point out, but he also finds it pretty endearing which is also why he points it out a lot. Wren, meanwhile, enjoys teasing him about him sounding like a cantankerous old man a lot of the time, which the fact that Wren has about a decade on him makes that funnier to him.

Wren also likes to take Nerevarine jokes from himself and will just stop and pull out a map and start talking about where they need to go whenever Teldryn says his “Nerevar guide me” line in battle and he thinks he’s hilarious for it. Seriously, they can keep escalating jabs and you'd think they were bitter exes if you don't know them but they find mutual entertainment in it like a sport. Miraak is. very confused at first.

12. What struggle have they seen each other through?

So far I don't think either of them have really had any current (201ish +) substantial personal or highly involved external issues or struggles while a thing, aside from Wren amputating his own damn leg, which required downtime and adjustment as well as some help getting around the house and Teldryn's cough, which I imagine is worse some days than others and some days he couldn't do much and I can see him getting really frustrated about that. Of course, the civil war is happening but they stay out of that mess as much as possible. Miraak could have been a problem but Wren managed to get him to behave and stop posturing (via a punch with his lipstick on his knuckles and paralyzing him on the floor for an hour, which earned his respect somehow)

They did have some interpersonal issues, more so on Wren's end, like Wren explaining he's the Nerevarine and all the baggage with it, and it took about a solid year and a half of knowing him for Wren to even attempt to bring it up organically. Wren is also a bit lost on the process of ancestor worship since he basically never had access, never learned how (it felt very much looking in from the outside with cultural rituals while in vvardenfell) and doesn't even know who they are on any side or where they came from other than Vvardenfell (the orphanage caretakers had that information and everything else got lost other than a fragment (and misinterpretation) of information about Uthryn--someone familiar with them but wanting to avoid getting killed too referred to Wren as the son of Uthryn thus why he was called Wren/Ren/Rin as a game of very confused telephone watering down the info until they just settled on Wren).

That being said, I think Teldryn was happy to explain it to him judging by how much he just likes talking about what Dunmer do, but it had to operate as more of being an example with his own ancestors since Wren, y'know, doesn't know his own and can only do so much regarding his own--feels like an empty appeal for them to make themselves known so he can even actually START, y'know? His parents just kind of showed up one day because they finally realized they're dead. That was probably in about 4e 206ish, so a while after the effort started. A lot of information is still lost because family graves are now destroyed and even they don’t know who some of their ancestors were. Vavani showing up and being there is semi canon, but he hadn’t been keeping track of his descendants for like a solid few centuries.

I can't see Teldryn hanging onto some past issues he may have had, a very "well that happened, okay then let's keep movin'" person for the most part and doesn't want to talk about most of them as he sees them as not very significant unless someone else is going through something similar.

#I'm guessing this is for teldwren since everyone is asking about that lol #ask meme #not art #wrenposting #they got to have their personal crises BEFORE they met in the long term #barring their first encounter but I’ll explain that in a different ask

8 notes · View notes

mythandlaur · 2 years

Text

Epithet Erased Week - Day 9 (FINAL)

Welp. I've never managed to get past the first day of one of these things before dropping it, so finishing this is actually a big deal for me even if it wasn't all great work. Thanks to everyone who liked or reblogged this stuff--writing doesn't get as much attention as art, so it's really nice to know at least someone read and enjoyed it.

Have something slightly shorter to make up for my absolute novella yesterday. Warning for an extremely dramatic emeto fakeout because Trixie is a goblin. Also why have I now made two of these about an annoying retail customer. I've never even worked retail I don't have that trauma I think I just osmosised it from friends.

Going to the Toy Emporium to do homework at least once a week worked out pretty well for all three of them. They got to see each other consistently (because there was no telling when Molly's family would make her do something for them on her day off), Feenie helped with language arts homework, Trixie helped with science homework, and Molly was the only one of the three who could kind of do math, however reluctantly she'd learned.

This did, however, come with the agreement that the two stay quiet while Molly was dealing with customers, and while they were willing to comply on most days, today it seemed that would be...difficult.

"Karen alert," Trixie mutters over the tiny plastic table, scrunching up their nose as if they'd just eaten a lemon.

Feenie blinks. "You know that woman?"

"No, I mean a Karen."

"Oh."

As if on cue, the woman defines Trixie's terminology by slamming her hands on the counter, making Molly visibly flinch.

"What do you mean you don't do replacements?!"

Feenie stands from her chair to peek over Trixie's head at the lady currently harassing their friend. The lady's wearing a tacky floral blouse and has a fake designer bag. Her posture is absolutely ramrod straight and intimidating even though she's shorter than Molly standing on a stool behind the counter.

"Ma'am," Molly replies, already sounding exhausted despite the plastered smile on her face. "Not all the toys in here came from a factory. In fact, most are handmade! Which is kind of the appeal! So...we can't always do replacements."

"Can't you just make another one?"

"W-well, you'd need to pay for the materials and probably wait a few days..."

"It's not my fault the dog got it! Why should I have to pay?"

"...The poor woman's been reduced to wearing drapery," Feenie whispers, and Trixie has to put her sleeves over her face to stifle a snort. There was really no telling whether Feenie meant it as viciously as it had come out or not.

"Um...maybe we can fix it!" Molly's clearly desperate to defuse this situation. "Do you have a picture of the damage or...aaaaanything...?"

"You don't believe me?!"

Trixie quickly sobers up, eye narrowing. "Dude. She's totally trying to scum Molly for a free--what was it? A doll?"

"Why would anyone do that," Feenie asks, putting a finger to her lower lip.

"Because people want free stuff! That's why I have to keep telling you not to give your wallet to anyone who asks!"

"But the orphans!"

Trixie rolls her eye. "Anyway, Molly's dad might be trash, but he makes good stuff."

"So what do we do?"

"I'm thinking. See?" Trixie points at her nose as she sets her face in a deep frown. "This is my thinking face."

"...You just look very uncomfortable, dear."

"I am thinking uncomfortably!"

"It's not that I don't believe you," Molly tells the customer, shrinking back away from her yelling. "I'm just trying to help."

"If you want to help then get me another one! And you'd better not expect me to pay for your shoddy service!"

"We can't do that, ma'am."

"It was a birthday gift!"

"If you can show me it was destroyed, we can give you half your money back so you can get your daughter something else."

"Do you think I'm stupid?"

"Yes," Trixie mutters. They nudge Feenie out of the way as they stand up, cracking their knuckles and their neck very loudly like Xerxes had taught them for intimidation factor. "We can't let Molly cave. Follow my lead."

Molly waves her hands in a placating gesture, stress and over-stimulation clearly breaking through the customer service attitude. "No, no, I never said that."

"Then why are you trying to scam me?"

"We don't even have the capital to scam people!"

Trixie abruptly lurches forward, doubling over. She lets out a very loud groaning noise. "URRRRRRGH HOLY SHIIIIIT."

"Trixie!" Feenie covers her ears for a moment, until she's certain Trixie won't say any more swears, then rushes forward to put a hand on their shoulders. "Wh-what's wrong?"

"I think the tacos got me," Trixie moans, looking ready to collapse on the floor.

"But--we didn't--"

Trixie elbows Feenie hard in the stomach, covering it up with another pained groan. Now the woman and Molly are definitely staring at her.

Trixie staggers towards the counter, causing the woman to step aside with an alarmed expression. They try to shoot a wink at Molly, but aren't sure it really comes across with their hair. "HURRRRRRGH."

"What's wrong with you," the woman asks, and Trixie turns on her, face red with exertion.

"I--I think--"

"Yes?" Feenie wrings her hands.

"I think I'm gonna...!"

"What is it," the woman demands, clearly unnerved.

"I THINK I'M GONNA..."

Trixie takes a huge, deep breath.

"HOOOOOOOOOOORF!"

Trixie lunges at the woman, making a big show of choking. The woman shrieks and leaps backwards, shoving her away before rushing to the door. Feenie rushes to grab Trixie, who falls into a coughing fit.

"Trixie!" Feenie violently shakes them. "Trixie, are you okay?! Do you need to go to the hospital?!"

"Nope--I--spit down the wrong hatch," Trixie wheezes as Molly hurries around the counter. Feenie pats Trixie on the back--or, more accurately, rapidly paps at her back in a manner that would be utterly ineffective were she actually choking to death.

It takes Trixie a few seconds to recover, by which point the customer is long gone. She stands upright, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a huge sigh, followed by one final, tiny cough.

A horrible grin slowly splits across their face. "Okay, but you gotta tell me what her face looked like."

"Trixie!" Feenie steps back, a hand over her heart. Her panic quickly fades to indignation, and she sets her hands on her hips. "You had me worried!"

"I told you to follow my lead! And hey, you did perfectly!"

"I never know what that means with you," Feenie wails.

Molly rests a hand on the side of the counter, doubling over to catch her own breath. The other two fall silent and watch her, now worried.

"...You guys know she's probably never gonna come back, right," Molly says eventually, voice completely flat.

Trixie just raises an eyebrow in response.

Molly sighs, shoulders sagging. "Thank goodness."

Trixie cackles like a witch, while Feenie quickly rushes over to hug Molly and ask if she needs anything. Molly hugs her back, smiling faintly.

Yes, having a homework day at the Toy Emporium is definitely a good thing. For all three of them.

#epithet erased #epithet week #molly blyndeff #trixie roughouse #phoenica fleecity #my writing

35 notes · View notes

hatari-translations · 2 years

Note

Could someone translate Last Man Standing (fortnite song) to icelandic please?

Hey! Thanks for the ask. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to attempt this one, for a couple of reasons:

Translating English lyrics into Icelandic is not really what this blog is for. I'm here trying to make Icelandic stuff accessible to people who don't speak Icelandic, and to answer questions for people learning Icelandic, which can involve translating phrases or explaining how you'd say miscellaneous things. Translating entire song lyrics isn't really something that helps learners of the target language, though, except to the extent that the existence of some kind of Icelandic text with an English equivalent does - and for that purpose, taking English lyrics and translating them into Icelandic is a very roundabout way of going about it. By the nature of this blog, most people reading it are not fluent in Icelandic and would just not get anything useful out of a set of Icelandic lyrics for a song that's already in English.

English to Icelandic translation is not really my strong suit. Normally translators translate into their native language, but English is full of concepts that don't to my knowledge even have an Icelandic translation, and I spend a lot more time these days writing English than Icelandic; I frequently find myself drawing a blank on how on earth I'd say something in Icelandic if I had to.

Now, I did do an Icelandic translation of a song that one time. I chose to do it, despite the above, because when I listened to the song and read the lyrics, I kind of wanted to try translating them. Some lines immediately came to me; the rest took more thought but I still immediately knew they'd be translatable. Also, the song appealed to my own interest in the dark and fucked-up and psychological; all in all, it just seemed like a fun, interesting but totally doable challenge, and I enjoyed doing it.

"Last Man Standing", meanwhile, is about a video game I have never played and know nothing about. The lyrics are 80% slang and all about shooting people - which isn't something I can personally get terribly excited about as a lifelong pacifist, but more importantly is something I just barely even know how to talk about in Icelandic. We don't have an army, we don't have gun culture, we don't even have translated video games. I have zero idea how to even begin to translate a phrase like "I'm locked and loaded up". I guess I can sort of vaguely imagine how I might go about trying to find out, maybe, but the idea sounds pretty tedious and draining and enormously time-consuming, and I just don't think I'm willing to go to all that trouble for a post that ultimately wouldn't really be very useful to anyone.

Please don't take this to mean I'm judging you for enjoying this song or Fortnite - it's totally valid, it's just not for me, and not very easy to translate into Icelandic. I'm sorry, anon!

#asks

4 notes · View notes

howtodisassembleyourdeviant · 2 years

Note

Hi! ❣️📱💘🧸🌳🎲?

Misc. Ask Meme

Hi! Hope you like reading!

❣️ - What are their love languages?

Android: If asked, he'd probably list off the top five most appealing languages in the world and give a sample of each (please don't ask. I'm lucky to know English and I just know google translate is going to bite me in the ass one day). However, Connor's love language is random acts of kindness. If he sees something and it reminds him of his significant other, he'll buy it. If he notices they seem down, he might go over and give them a hug or tell a bad joke. Just small things that seem to make a day a little brighter.

Human: While human Connor would also do random acts of kindness, his love language is food. It might sound ironic considering his eating disorder, but Amanda taught him that food is a reward. It is a prized gift to be given something to eat, and it's stuck to him his entire life, whether he wanted it to or not. As a result, he likes to buy his significant other their favorite foods. He might try to cook it, too, and it will be an absolute disaster and he might burn down his apartment, but it's the thought that counts, right?

📱 - What social media do they use the most?

Android: Connor doesn't really use social media all that often. He has a Twitter account, but it's mostly so he can check to see what his friends are up to or as a source of information.

Human: He also doesn't use social media all that often, but it's more like he's too tired to, rather than not wanting to. He does lurk on his Twitter, Instagram, and Tik-Tok, and used to do the same on Facebook but lost interest when they removed some of the games he liked to play.

💘 - What do they find attractive about their partner(s)?

The answer is the same for both of them. Connor is attracted to dedication. Something about seeing someone who is interested in something and the way they light up when they talk about it is attractive to him. People really start to unravel and open up when they're allowed their moment to express themselves, reassured that their interest is valid. Connor may not know anything about it, may not understand it, but it doesn't make it less interesting.

Unless specified for a specific partner, Connor is default single with no relationship status. @detective-phck is a main pairing, and Connor is attracted to his dedication to his job and how he fights to do the right thing. That he was able to learn from the mistakes of his past and uses the experience to be a better person. Even his weird obsession with finding things in the trash and bringing it home is endearing to him, as Gavin often talks enthusiastically about how the item only needs a few tweaks or a new paintjob. That perfect body of his is pretty attractive too.

🧸 - Do they have any stuffed animals? If so, are they decorative or do they sleep with them?

In both verses, Connor has a seven-foot-long whale shark plush that he has affectionately called 'Wally'. In both cases, it was a gift from Hank when they went to the aquarium. The difference is Hank took android Connor there when he found out his interest in fish and thought it would be good to let him see that life isn't just about doing tasks.

Human Connor got it when he was 10 and on a school field trip, which Hank agreed to chaperone. It wasn't even a year since he was pulled from Amanda's 'care', and he was very much still affected by it. Yet, at the aquarium, Connor started talking animatedly about each fish, excited to tell Hank each fact he knew, and happy to see how impressed Hank was, getting the approval he always craved from Amanda. It was the most he had ever talked, and the first time he wasn't afraid of punishment for doing 'god knows what' wrong. Hank wanted to get him something to remember the trip by, hoping it would help him feel more relaxed at home. Now, it's worn out and covered in patches, but still very much loved.

It generally stays against the backboard with the pillows resting against it, but if he had a long day or just feels lonely, he'll pull it from behind and hug it against himself as he gets some sleep.

(In the Reverse AU with detective-phck, Connor also has a worn-down puppy plush that he had stored in his closet to keep safe. It was torn up but not patched up, missing an eye and coming apart at the seams. He's had it for as long as he could remember, and sometimes likes to think it was a gift from his real mother, who wanted him to have a better life, not knowing the Hell she was cursing him to. However, he's more inclined to believe what Amanda told him, which is that he found it in the trash his mother dumped him in, and he wouldn't let go of it. The GV found it and patched it up, giving it a button eye to replace the missing one. It now stays in bed with him. It gives him hope that things will get better.)

🌳 - What’s their extended family like?

He doesn't know much about his extended family. From what he understands, Hank has a sister he doesn't see much that lives somewhere in Canada, and his parents moved to Florida when they retired. They visited many times while he was growing up, particularly during the holidays or a week during summer vacation, but Connor's fear of flying kept them from being able to visit them in Florida. They're pretty nice, down-to-earth people that seem to love him. His grandmother is always trying to fatten him up and his grandfather likes to take him fishing, especially ice fishing. He doesn't know really anything about Hank's wife's family.

🎲 - Pick a random question to answer from this list. 💖 - How and how often do they try to impress their partner(s)? How and how often do their partner(s) impress them?

Connor is always trying to impress his partner. He loves praise and compliments, and he wants his partner to be happy to be with him. Sometimes it backfires, with Connor making an ass out of himself instead, but he's trying.

To be honest, Connor is probably almost always impressed by his partner. Just being around them impresses him, how they can turn an ordinary day into an extraordinary one, make him smile when he feels like breaking down.

#rk-stateoftheart #A-Muse Meme #(Thank You!)#(I just made up Hank's family on the spot. I liked the thought of Connor having loving grandparents.)

2 notes · View notes

hopefullyhealing · 2 years

Text

The shit he put me through - Part 1: Boob fetish

CW : lots of misogyny, some sexual (not explicit) content, emotional abuse, religious trauma, body image, weight loss, disordered eating

Trauma dumping for an outlet as I process my divorce and the unhealthy relationship that I endured. Maybe someone can relate or learn from it.

1. Pressuring me to wear revealing clothing while also making demeaning comments about women wearing revealing clothing.

2. Constantly begging me to wear a push up bra that was uncomfortable. When I chose to go braless or wear something more comfortable he acted as though this was a personal insult to him.

3. Telling me the most attractive I ever was was when I was 10 weeks pregnant, lost 7 pounds in a week from throwing up daily, couldn't rest anything except plain rice, but my breasts were swelling. Years later he would still guilt me about not trying to squeeze into a fancy dress so he could enjoy my body when I was so attractive. (Nothing more appealing than wearing a restrictive too small dress while battling constant nausea am I right)

4. Giving me stretch mark reducing cream in my Christmas stocking while I was pregnant, to prevent my boobs from stretching too much. He also gave me a birthday card all about boobs.

5. Pouted when I didn't want to have sex anytime just because when his attempt at foreplay was simply squeezing my boobs. Started rejecting my kisses by blowing in my face anytime I tried. For years. His love language is physical touch ... But he rejected my kisses and hugs and cuddles. I desperately tried to speak his language while maintaining my boundaries and trying to not be objectified.

6. The many times over seven years I tried to communicate that I did not find his obsession with my breasts attractive and asked if he could tell me something he liked about my personality... Or even another body part... Asked for assurance that he would love me even if my body changed... (Spoiler; he wouldn't) He rolled his eyes. I just didn't understand men. He asked why I needed so much validation. Told me to read this book about codependency and stop being so needy. (I tried.)

7. After my daughter stopped breastfeeding and my breasts were less full, he told me I should work on losing weight. I did. I lost 25 lbs in 4 months. He cheered me on initially (the only positive reinforcement from him at the time) until he realized that my boobs were deflating even more. Then every time he touched them his face fell. He didn't want me anymore.

8. His response to me stating that women should not be objectified - insisting that he was a victim because I didn't let him "enjoy my body enough before it changed."

9. Telling me he was embarrassed for me when we went swimming because "some of the older women at the pool have nicer boobs than you do, and you're still so young" (when I've been trying to focus on body neutrality and appreciate my body for what it does and not what it looks like)

10. Told me he was unhappy in our marriage and the only thing he could think that might fix it was a boob job. (which he acknowledged was so unfair to me.)

I considered it. I talked to plastic surgeons. But ultimately it wasn't about my breasts, it was about disrespect and literally viewing my body as an object he was entitled to.

*Note we are from a very high demand religion (LDS) so no sexual contact including second base was allowed until marriage. I went into this marriage understanding he really liked boobs, but not understanding that (almost) the entire reason he wanted to marry was to have access to boobs he didn't have to feel guilty about looking at. I've been deconstructing purity culture for a while. I tried to help him overcome his shame but I got ^^^ instead.

#trauma dump #purity culture #misogyny #divorce #emotional abuse #women deserve better #unhealthy relationship #exmormon #fuck the patriarchy

2 notes · View notes