aashagalaxy

[aashagalaxy]

This might suck to hear, but if you're a people pleaser that is motivated by praise and avoids disagreements, you are easy to manipulate.

When I was in therapy after surviving years of domestic violence, my therapist had to tell me that my personality was primed for abuse and we needed to work on that so I would be better equipped to see the red flags and respond appropriately in the future.

I'm still working on this, and it's been 8 years. If you tell someone how you want to be treated, what behaviors you don't tolerate in your life, what you're looking for in that relationship, and they react negatively, don't compromise yourself. Just move on.

This one's for all the praise-kink girlies: differentiate, self-actualize, stay sexy

[aashagalaxy]

You need to draw and make art or else all the images will stay in your head and you'll get sick

[aashagalaxy]

Can you please share some words to use instead of "Look", I really struggle with that, it's always "She looked at him in shock" or "He looked at her with a smile". I know there's "Gazed" and "Glanced" but I wanted some advice to use "Look" less

Words To Use Instead of "Look"

Words Closest in Meaning (w diff connotations!):

stare

eye

study

behold

glimpse

peek

glance

notice

observe

inspect

regarding

view

review

look-see

get an eyeful

peer

give the eye

eyeball

size up

size up

check out

examine

contemplate

scan

recognize

sweep

once-over

judge

watch

glare

consider

spot

scrunitize

gaze

gander

ogle

yawp

Other (more fancy) words:

glimmer

sntach

zero in

take stock of

poke into

mope

glaze

grope

rummage

frisk

probe

rivet

distinguish

witness

explore

gloat

scowl

have a gander

comb

detect

surveillance

squint

keeping watch

rubberneck

pout

bore

slant

ignore

audit

pipe

search

note

speculation

simper

[aashagalaxy]

Words to Use Instead Of...

Beautiful

stunning

gorgeous

breath-taking

lovely

jaw-dropping

pretty

glowing

dazzling

exquisite

angelic

radiant

ravishing

excellent

ideal

sightly

wonderful

elegant

bewitching

captivating

mesmerizing

enthralling

magnetic

impressive

tasteful

charming

desirable

enchanting

Interesting

stricking

unusual

appealing

absorbing

srresting

gripping

riveting

alluring

amusing

exceptional

fascinating

impressive

provocative

prepossessing

exotic

readable

refreshing

entrancing

exceptional

Good

honest

upright

dutiful

enthical

pure

guiltless

lily-white

reputable

righteous

tractable

obedient

incorrupt

respectable

honorable

inculpable

irreprehensible

praiseworthy

well-behaved

uncorrupted

irreproachable

Awesome

wondrous

amazing

out-of-this-world

phenomenal

remarkable

stunning

fascinating

astounding

awe-inspiring

extraordinary

impressive

incredible

mind-blowing

mind-boggling

miraculous

stupendous

Cute

endeaing

adorable

lovable

sweet

lovely

appealing

engaging

delightful

darling charming

enchanting

attractive

bonny

cutesy

adorbs

dear

twee

Shy

modest

sel-effacing

sheepish

timid

way

reserved

unassured

skittish

chary

coy

hesitant

humble

introverted

unsocial

bashful

awkward

apprehensive

If you like my blog, buy me a coffee☕ and find me on instagram! 📸

[aashagalaxy]

my career advice isn't "do what you love" it's "do what will give you the most money without making you want to kill yourself"

[aashagalaxy]

I just made a 5 page long list of my favorite untranslatable words to show my Mom if anyone wants to see it

[aashagalaxy]

Intimacy is not just about sex. It's having heart-to-hearts, staying up all night talking, sharing childhood memories, thoughts, fears, dreams & hopes for the future. It's uncontrollable laughter, direct eye contact and feeling each other without touching - it's exchanging energy

[aashagalaxy]

Btw, if you have not had tragedy dropped on you before, grief does fuck you up in unexpected and physical ways. If you can’t sleep or sleep more than expected or have more or reduced appetite, or energy goes weird— your brain just had a bunch of emotions dropped on it and sometimes it reacts by hitting every button in your brain. It will pass. Just try to not get too frustrated with yourself.

It’s also fine if you feel normal. Grief literally hits everybody differently, and some people are made to be able to to keep the farm going the day after a death, and some of us turn into sleepless gargoyles and get really into trying to help, and some of us are just unspeakably sad. Grief is weird. Be kind to yourself.

[aashagalaxy]

“It’s so difficult to describe depression to someone who’s never been there, because it’s not sadness. I know sadness. Sadness is to cry and to feel. But it’s that cold absence of feeling— that really hollowed-out feeling.”

— J.K. Rowling

[aashagalaxy]

People are magnificently beautiful, to carve an arts of words and spells that feels like magic and evening rays from within. I love humans.

shadow, my shadow, my shadow

seungcheol: his name in your phone is cherries. no one gets it. it confuses all your friends. people don’t take the time to dissect what’s right in front of them. instead, they hope the answer will drop, release from its stem all on its own. here it is: he stains your skin; he fills your belly with laughter, with love, and it’s deep, an alluring maroon. the only color you ask for at the nail salon. the only color painted across your lips on a friday night. the only color saturating the sky in your dreams

jeonghan: he’s always just a telephone call away. he’s always just a handful of dialed digits away. he’s always close enough to touch before slipping away. he’s never close enough to believe. he’s a really fucking good dream, but it falters as soon as you wake up. he’s an almost. he’s an if only i had better luck

soonyoung: his embrace is overwhelming. it used to burn your skin. it used to keep you up for a night or two. it used to make you shake and press your hands against his chest, whispering too close, you’re too close to me. so you started to lay out in the sun and welcome the warmth. you started to visit tucked away cafes and drink delicious beverages. you started to welcome the love without argument, and his embrace became divine comfort, soft serenity, warm weather

wonwoo: your ceiling is beautiful. you’ve watched it for hours like a science project or a call to worship. sun rays display themselves so beautifully across it, covering crevices, blanketing stark white in something ethereal. you called in sick to work and haven’t looked at your phone since. you’ll stay just like this until nightfall and an embrace turns you away from the canvas high. he pulls you into him, whispers your name against your skin. you wonder if he says it as a reminder

seokmin: he’s beautiful. his constellated moles create your favorite sky—stars close enough to touch, and you’ve always wanted to touch stars. you drew fishing poles for three years as a kid, imagining a bucket filled with stars knocking your leg on the journey home. it sat beside number one on your christmas list, hoping santa clause would make a dream come true. he let it simmer, kept you waiting for a decade, kept you waiting long enough for the desire to slip, kept you waiting for so long that the real thing surpassed the imaginary

mingyu: he baked cookies for your birthday because you don’t like cake, and there’s something about the texture of frosting you can’t quite get behind—can’t trust the silky smooth. he brought home the milk that comes in a glass bottle. it’s delicious and thick and warms your heart with sweet nostalgia. you open his gifts first because he asked you to, and you find a beautiful goblet that’s the color of summer peaches. he fills it to the rim with glass-bottle milk. he fills his goblet too and presses a candle into the stack of cookies. the wish arrives as soon as you close your eyes

chan: he stands behind you in the kitchen, rests his chin on your shoulder while the sun rises. you’re early risers too. never were before. then this love unraveled in your living room, and you crave more of the day

[aashagalaxy]

“You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating.”

— Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

[aashagalaxy]

― Albert Camus, Notebooks: 1935-1951

[aashagalaxy]

“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden where the flowers are dead.”

— Oscar Wilde

[aashagalaxy]

“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.”

— Plato

[aashagalaxy]

musings on writing

Heaven Is Not Verbose: A Notebook by Vera Pavlova (tr. Steven Seymour), Letters Home by Sylvia Plath, MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood, A Breath of Life by Clarice Lispector, Isak Dinesen quoted by Raymond Carver, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath, from a letter to Max Brod by Franz Kafka, Conversations with Kafka by Gustav Janouch, The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

buy me a coffee

[aashagalaxy]

Maturity is when you stop trying to convince other people to treat you right. You just observe their choices, understand their character, and decide what you’re going to allow in your life.

[aashagalaxy]

If all that you experienced in your relationships was people pretending to like you and suddenly leaving you, crushes running away from you, being the second/third choice, manipulative/abusive situationships and people trying to use you, it's very normal that now it all seems scary to you. And even if you crave to experience love, the good type of love, you may unconsciously self sabotage yourself and run away from it, pretending to suddenly see flaws in it or in the person (even when you know it's not true deep down), or that you don't need it and are good by yourself (despite feeling lonely), feeling not enough for it or for that person, or fearing they may leave you or someone may come in between and ruin it all (abandonment issues and lacking trust basically, as your trust has been dumped many times in your past relationships).

It's not your fault: your only experiences in that field where very toxic and negative, how can you believe something you have only seen happening in movies and in other people's lives, happen to you too? "You're not worth of it. You need to be left alone or will be left alone everytime. Save yourself, don't even try": these are the words your mind is constantly repeating, making you pull out even from potentially safe relationships. It just want to avoid you being hurt but, does it really know you will be hurt again for sure?

No one ever really taught you what love is about, how it works, and you are probably still learning all this and how to deal with it: give yourself time but also the chance to try it first hand. At times that's the only way to learn something for real, even if it means potentially getting hurt again (but you don't know for sure, it could be different: you can recognize a negative situation and save yourself anyway now. Trust yourself). Know your fears, and try to heal what happened in your past. Forgive yourself: you didn't know many things, you didn't know how to act, you probably were naive also of the people around you as you trusted them for many things but maybe they didn't act as you'd wanted them to. You deserve to experience a good love now, to feel loved and to give love to the right people that will give it back to you. Don't let your past hinder you. Things do change at any given time, and you've changed: the love you deserve to experience has to be different too (and btw it may feel uncomfortable/scary at first, but try to get through that and do not give up: it's something new for you and you don't know how to deal with it... yet. Go slow, get acquainted, take your time and enjoy: receive it fully, you deserve my friend).