#I don't think anything major long-term is going to come out of either of those occurrences

[vilevampire]

if more than one minor event happens within a day I'm already like "damn hold the fuck on the world is moving too fast"

[mrs-monaghan]

Tbh I'm a jikooker, but I find it incredibly difficult to fit a healthy long-term relationship into the same timeline as all of jimin's solo work. It's not the pronouns or taking one lyric very literally, its the entire thing, plus comments from him and his producers. To me, you'd have to do some serious olympic level mental gymnastics to make that make sense. I don't doubt that jikook have a special bond, I've definitely seen things between them that definitely look like sexual attraction to me and things that surpass friendship boundaries, but I can't in good faith say that they're together in some official long-term way if I actually listen to jimin and his work.

I've seen some jikookers think they broke up for a while, but I have to question if those people have ever been through a breakup because the little bit of distance/separation/awkwardness we did see from them during chapter 2 is nothing compared to the type of tension that would be there if a relationship that intimate and intertwined had separated, especially considering the dark feelings jimin was feeling. He wouldn't have been cutely commenting on jungkook's lives and jungkook wouldn't have been asking to hang-out or getting excited to see jimin in his comments.

Idk, I'm sure someone could twist everything a certain way and only take certain things at face-value and then make everything else abstract, etc. to make the case that they are together, but I don't really see it. You look at face-off, alone, and just his general dark feelings during Face, then look at the creation of Muse and how him and his producers said he couldn't relate to the love-dovey beginning songs, which is how they ended up making Who (despite the fact that jikookers try to distance him from the song since he doesn't have writing credits even though he sat in the recording room telling them what he wanted and saying it felt like reading his diary). I think jimin could have very well gone through a pretty awful breakup along with the inner turmoil he was going through post-covid, but I don't think it was with jungkook if he did. I still enjoy jikook's bond either way at the end of the day, but yeah I don't really get how anyone can take an honest look at jimin's work and his words and think he was in a long-term healthy love-of-his-life relationship during that time or into chapter 2.

Not trying to change your opinion or anything, honestly I don't really see it discussed much in jikooker spaces (besides bad-faith stuff like tkkers stirring up shit over pronouns in lyrics which is just dumb) and when it is, some jikookers are pretty pick-and-choose about what they deem to be true to jimin's feelings and what isn't. Which I get being nuanced, but sometimes it does feel like a "well this fits my beliefs so clearly this is true to jimin and this doesn't so it means nothing because he didn't write it" or whatever. I honestly get annoyed with the bad-faith arguers because it prevents being able to have actual discussions about some of this stuff in our little jikooker corner of tumblr. Like "he said her, he's clearly straight! he danced with a girl, straight!" stfu.

I don't have much to say to you anon. Not really. Not anything that hasn't been said anyway. Which you've seen and decided its jkkrs doing mental gymnastics. "I'm a Jikooker but..." its never a great way to start a sentence. It just gives major insecure jkkr vibes which i just 😬😬😬😬😬😬😬 you either believe in them or you don't. There is no if, and or buts.

I will leave you with this; over the years, antis and (insecure) jkkrs alike have always found a way to conclude Jkk aren't as close anymore or they broke up or some other bullshit. But what happens everytime Jikook resurface and we see them together again?

NOTHING HAS CHANGED!!!

Nothing ever changes with these 2! They come back closer, more in sync, happier, more in love and their relationship more established than ever. This happens every👏🏽damn👏🏽time👏🏽 Everytime!

Then the insecure jkkrs will be like "jkk is real" again.

And then we will go without content for a while and once again we are back here with the jkk aren't as close argument. Once again. It is an exhausting cycle that I refuse to be a part of.

You can try and nit pick various reasons as to why Jikook aren't in an established rlship, but I will chose to focus on reasons why they are definitely 130000000% in a relationship. Like the fact that they are enlisted together rn, the fact that they could have done AYS with other members but chose eo. Or the fact that Jimin wrote his name on JK's chest with sunscreen and I dont even want to imagine how he did that. What position they were in that would justify people calling them brothers 😂

You do you anon. I'mma just be over here enjoying Jimin promote the hell out of his favourite JK song.

Tweet

Look at him so proud of his man 🥺🥺

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

#please don't use threads please please please please please

#why are y'all so eager to jump from one billionaire nightmare monopoly corporation to another

yeah so don't use meta threads lol

i mean it's no surprise but still

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam! I wanted to ask if you feel lately like you've been getting anything positive out of your therapy, because a lot of your initial thoughts about it kind of mirror mine. I'm very logical (except when I'm upset at myself) and very skeptical, so I feel like a therapist either isn't going to tell me anything new, or that I'm going to just disregard it because I can't trick myself into believing things that I just plain don't believe.

But I'm also starting to come to a realization, two years after my ADHD diagnosis and letting go (without therapy!) of most of the executive dysfunction-fueled self worth issues I was having, that I'm kind of Not Okay in other ways. I'm safe —going to work every day and doing my job so I won't lose my livelihood and have never had a self harm urge in my life— But I'm not really okay. I'm having major self esteem issues related to my personality separate from the executive dysfunction that are putting me in a bad place. I don't want to take antidepressants for reasons I won't go into but that means my other option is therapy and... I don't know if I'm a person that therapy will actually work on. I found a lot of validation in some of your perspectives, about affirmations being bullshit and "mindfulness" exercises feeling impossible and useless, about not having an inner monologue and how that might be causing issues with traditional methods. So I was just wondering, do you feel like therapy is working now that you've been in it longer?

I've wasted a lot of money on "elective" (and ultimately useless, back to square one) medical nonsense this year and I'm not eager to waste more, but I've also met my insurance deductible so it's the best time to try it if I'm going to.

I mean, it depends on the modality a little but I don't think trying basic talk therapy can hurt, as long as you find a decent therapist. And it's better to try it now when you're feeling Mostly Okay than waiting until you are Really Not Okay. But this entire paragraph comes with a lot of context so....

A lot of what I talked about in terms of struggling with mindfulness, etc. was less related to the therapy I am still in than it was to the DBT class I took at Therapist's suggestion. We were both aware that she was basically throwing stuff at the wall to see what stuck, and while it was an interesting class I don't think for me it was helpful. As you mention, I struggled with affirmations and visualization since neurologically I'm not really set up for those; I don't think they're objectively bullshit but I do think there's an assumption within the mental health industry that they will have function for everyone and that's simply untrue, and the expectation that it will is very damaging. I also struggled with the physical-intervention aspects (called TIPP usually) which didn't work at all for me and felt frankly like doctor-approved self harm. DBT can get very culty, which set off a ton of red flags for me -- possibly false flags, but they still waved real big.

And that's because I also have a lot of trust issues surrounding therapy. To the point where, the minute one of the people running the DBT class made actually quite gentle fun of me for asking a question he couldn't answer, I checked out on anything he said. We were learning about a DBT concept called Wise Mind and I asked, "If wise mind is an identifiable mental state, how do we know if we're in it?" and when he couldn't quite answer beyond "It's different for everyone" I said, "But if we know it's real there must be some kind of common denominator, a measurable data point," and he said "Well, Sam, you're not going to levitate" and the rest of the class laughed. Sorry bud, this is almost certainly an over-reaction, but I'm me and you lost me when you came at me instead of just admitting you didn't know. (Also it turns out I just live in Wise Mind like 80% of the time which is one reason I couldn't tell.)

But basic talk therapy outside of DBT is just...you talk at someone about your problems and come up with ways to try and solve them, which is a lot more straightforward and way less frustrating. You have to be an active participant, you have to both have a goal and be willing to discuss reaching it, but that goal can be as simple as just "figure out what my mental health goals should be" at first. You don't have to learn like, vocabulary for it.

The thing is, while I have seen some improvement in regulation issues, I also struggle with basic talk therapy. Most people, and this blew my mind, see measurable improvement in nine to eighteen therapy sessions. A lot of people don't go long-term, they just are having a moment and get help getting through the moment and then can disengage, with their therapist's approval.

I was in therapy consistently from the age of nine to eighteen and only stopped because I reached legal majority and physically refused to go.

Not one minute of those nine years did I want to be there. And, because none of the three therapists I saw across those years actually explained to me why I was there or how therapy worked, for me it felt like "Your punishment for having feelings is to speedrun every feeling you had this week in an hour, to a stranger." There was also what my current therapist believes to be some extremely unethical behavior going on, which didn't help.

So it has taken actually a lot of time to get to a place where I would even allow her to understand what help I need. I've been in therapy for about a year (generally weekly but there have been some gaps) and it has only recently gotten deeper than very basic interpersonal problem-solving.

Like, two weeks ago I told her, "I had a thought this week that I couldn't tell you about something I was doing because then you'd have material on me" (meaning blackmail material) "and that's a fucked-up thing to think." And once I'd actually identified it as fucked up I had zero issue telling her about it, wasn't even nervous as I did so. Who's she going to tell? She's literally legally constrained from telling.

I think well over half of what she does is either validate that whatever emotion I'm having is normal, affirm my reactions so I don't keep believing I behaved weirdly, or praise something I've done that was a positive act. Does this work? Not always, because I'm unfortunately very aware that it's part of her job to do those things. But yeah, sometimes. Even if you don't fully believe it, "Hey that was a really smart move" is nice to hear. Sometimes she helps me come up with a plan for stressful future events or (rarely) behavior modification, and sometimes she either provides me with research or points me towards research I can do on my own. We don't do meditation or affirmations or stuff like that.

Like, last week I brought up the fact that I hadn't really ever thought about how if I have a disability that causes emotional dysregulation and I got it from my parents, they also likely had undiagnosed emotional dysregulation when raising me. So she said I should look into research on children with emotionally dysregulated parents. I was pretty annoyed by what I found (the ONE TIME adults are the focus instead of the kids is the ONE TIME I needed to learn about the kids, really?) but it led to something that was both informative and upsetting, so we discussed that. And when I was stumped about how to move forward with the information, she suggested that my general coping mechanism of writing about it was probably a good plan.

(At which point I just silently advanced my powerpoint presentation to the next slide, where I had a series of quotes from the Shivadh novels where Michaelis, acting as a parent, repeatedly does the exact opposite of the upsetting thing, because I realized even before the meeting that it's an ongoing theme in my work whenever I deal with people being parents. It's a good thing she has a sense of humor and also that I do.)

So yeah. Going into therapy you have to be ready to reject a therapist if you don't like them or if they get weird and pushy, you have to be ready to be a self-advocate, but you are the client; it shouldn't be super difficult to find someone who can at least walk you through what you want from it and agree not to do the stuff you don't want, and if you want to stop going you just...stop going.

Good luck, in any case! I hope you get what you need, whether or not that ends up being therapy.

[ot3]

I mean this in entirely good faith, I promise, but I'd love to hear the "shortcomings" you think those shows have

she ra i mostly just found boring i don't think i could point to a single thing it did (out of what i watched, that is. i didn't finish the show) that i found to be an objectionable writing choice, but it just didn't do anything to keep my interest. which is a shame because i went into it REALLY excited!!! i had long been a fan of nimona so hearing that ND stevenson was getting the chance to make a cartoon i was SO prepared to be all over it. and i watched it and it all just fell pretty flat for me

steven universe and the owl house i feel like are shows with some pretty major structural issues. i really think they try to have their cake and eat it in terms of episodic moments vs overarching series narratives that are kind of at odds with each other.

with steven universe i feel like this manifested in some pretty bizarre tonal whiplash that prevented either of the shows angles from sticking its landing. i think if steven universe had either been an epic space opera about a kid inheriting his mother's war, it would have fucking banged. i think if steven universe had been a more slice-of-life oriented show about a boy coming of age by realizing he's sort of the living manifestation of the war trauma of the people around him and learning to navigate and help people heal from that through fantastical, alien super-powered twists on mundane life that would have banged in a completely different way. but as it stands i think trying to do both at the same time detracted from the overall experience.

it feels weird to have them fucking around at the barn when there is something that is going to literally hatch from the earth's crust like an egg and destroy the entire planet and theyre just ignoring it. it feels weird in a different way to have them visit an alien zoo full of human beings and know that the structure of the show means we will absolutely not be taking the time to fully unpack that one. for me this cognitive dissonance really reached its peak an episode where steven explicitly calls his mother a war criminal, but that was a throwaway line because the A plot was that lars, the guy who works at the donut shop, bakes as a hobby and is embarrassed by that. to be perfectly clear i don't think it's impossible to balance more mundane slice of life moments with big adventures to combat existential threats. but whatever that balance looks like is not what steven universe was doing

the owl house on the other hand i don't feel like was ever really willing to commit to a particular vibe long enough to get invested in it. it's trying to be a show about a girl who is a witch's apprentice, but that doesn't really feel quite fully realized because it's also trying to be a show about a Magic School, but we don't spend enough time at the Magic School to get invested in that setting as a framework for the character interactions and narrative events, but then it also starts trying to be this big adventure/questing show. and then before too long luz is the one teaching magic to everyone else? it refuses to really commit to any one thing it's trying and just kind of throws everything at you with out actually getting to spend time with its concepts

in general i also think luz was a weak protagonist. in terms of writing. i think she wasnt given enough meaningful flaws, didn't make enough mistakes, and didn't really have to learn any hard lessons or make decisions that fundamentally went against who she thought she was. her whole thing is basically being Nerdy and Kinda Weird which i think is kind of an outdated substitute for meaningful character writing in the current zeitgeist. im sure she is an absolutely fantastic power fantasy for a lot of 12 year old girls who consider reading books to be their main personality trait and i absolutely do not fault that for existing. i think that's a critical thing to exist and all those 12 year olds really deserve it. but it has no appeal to me as an adult woman who has grown out of that phase, yknow?

i feel like once again the comparison to akko from little witch academia invites itself very easily, and anne from amphibia too, which was also a disney teen girl isekai airing at the same time. i loved both of those two as protags a ton and i think its because they really fumbled repeatedly and went through the wringer in a way luz didn't

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Would I be an asshole if I reached out to a DND group I left on bad terms to apologize?

I was part of the group from ages ~17-19(+ maybe half a year on either side? idk man I have memory issues). we met at least once a week, usually late at night for me (one of the players was from New Zealand) and as an extremely sleep deprived, socially awkward, ADHD, mildly suicidal teenager with unmanaged chronic pain, I suffered from chronic foot-in-mouth disease. Pretty much every time I'd try to say something out of character, what would come out of my mouth was unnecessarily hostile or just straight up the opposite of what I meant. (note: this is not what I'm asking for judgement on, I was 100% TA here)

Now, that wasn't the only problem I had with the group (the DM tended to have "main" pcs, and was a big fan of pc death and secret one-on-one channels, so more than once something would go down in secret channels that started an entire subplot and resulted in PC major injuries, death, and massive plot progression, and character arcs tended to only be developed or resolved where no one but the individual player could see it) but it was the one that caused me to get kicked from it.

The DM was really into, and very good at, making actually terrifying villains. One night, another player startled me by sneezing directly into their microphone. What I *intended* to say was something along the lines of "that was the scariest sound I've ever heard," but what I *actually* said was "That noise was scarier than anything [DM] has ever come up with!" The joke... did not come across well, and I was asked to leave, and I did so without making the subsequent spiral the DM's problem. It was honestly crushing, at least at first — that was pretty much my main source of social interaction during the pandemic, and despite our differences in preferred play styles, I'd actually had a lot of fun playing those games.

But looking back, I was absolutely in the wrong with... just sort of most of it. It's been three years, coming up on four (? I think?), and I haven't had any contact with anyone from that group since leaving. I do want to apologize for how I acted, both the incident and my behavior in general, but I don't know if I would be the asshole for reaching out after so long just to apologize (I'm not really interested in being friends, and I wouldn't rejoin even if they offered — the difference in play style really is just too much).

What are these acronyms?

[bleue-flora]

I'm pretty sure c!Dream wanting c!Tommys trust was just to get the disk from him. Dreams tweet about it "help him with his goals"

I'm sure he didn't anticipate for c!tommys mental health to break down that much in exile so there would be a little bit of empathy thinking about his talk with c!punz. But majority of exile was him pretending to be c!tommys friend specifically to get c!tommy to hand him the disk. He didn't want c!tommy as an ally. The way he treated c!tubbo during the arc was very similar, pretending to be his friend until c!tubbo gave him that disk. It wouldn't make sense for c!dream to want to be allies with either of the two because he knew that without the separation of the two and him watching over, they would revert back to harming him again. c!dream wouldn't try to make allies with one of his enemies out of thin air knowing that they have different goals. His exile plan stopped when c!tubbo gave him the disk, and the disks allowed him to continue with the staged finale plan. And for the anon that brought up that early era truce, c!dream has no reason to trust c!tommy, they were constantly scamming each other back in the day theres an hour long vod of the two making fake disks and armors out of thinking the other will scam. I had to correct some of your past anons because some of them do not understand the motivation of exile.

For sure, I really don't think he thought or intended for Tommy's mental health to take such a dive. I think he was manipulating him obviously, but I don't think he was trying to break him. (I mean for starters because breaking people is not a good way to get what you want and Dream seems to know this, and plus Tommy spirals a whole lot without Dream's help so it doesn't seem intended...)

Anyways... I don't think Tommy has a disc, does he? I'm pretty sure Tubbo has one and Skeppy or Badboyhalo has one or something. So I don't that reasoning works. I do think he was probably trying to get the disc from Tubbo, but also I think his actions can be multifaceted. If his long term goal is a peaceful server and a big happy family, which we know is true because he damn well repeats it enough til the very end. Then forming a peaceful relations with Tubbo and L'manberg makes sense. Becoming Tommy's friend so he stops terrorizing the server, specifically his friends, makes sense. Tommy doesn't need Tubbo to get up to shenigans, he causes a lot of problems without Tubbo's involvement. Sure, Tubbo enables his behavior by usually having his back in the aftermath of those, where consequences of his actions come into play. But Tommy hurts Dream a whole even during Exile, no Tubbo needed and I don't think Tubbo ever seeks out to hurt Dream without it being apart of one of Tommy's schemes. In fact, Tubbo is actually the smart one usually trying to tell Tommy not to provoke Dream or do bad things. Tubbo is actually a very reasonable character, one I feel like without Tommy (and Wilbur by extension) and then later Quackity, he and Dream probably would have been allys or at least friends, more so than even Sapnap. Tubbo just wants to build things and be friends, he's not one to start conflict. In fact, despite Tubbo actually being the one to kill Dream in the cave in the beginning of the disc saga, he says in Daedalus that Tubbo might be one of the people who hasn't really done anything. And I think he kinda believes that, that Tubbo's actions have usually been lead by others or were reactions to things. I also think there is a difference especially in Dream's mind of ally and friend, I think later he still thinks Sapnap is his friend even is Sapnap is not longer his ally, so it doesn't seen unreasonable to me for him to try and become Tubbo's and Tommy's friend to get them to stop going after him all the time. Not that he actually expected them to become his allies and help him. There is a lot neutral ground between friend, ally and enemy, where he was perhaps trying to get Tommy and Tubbo similar to how he did with Sam later in Daedalus. So, it's perhaps less of trying to turn his enemy into ally out of thin air and more of how 'bout y'all just stop coming after me, which obviously didn't work since L'manberg started plotting to kill him.

Regardless, I think Dream's Exile plan ended the moment he planned to put himself in the prison, a good bit before Tubbo gave him the discs. At which time, he says this and I think it's pretty telling that perhaps his relations with L'manberg was not all disingenuous.

I don't know, it just sounds real to me. It sounds raw and betrayed and we know he was part of the plan in exploding the community house, so it's not about that like he frames it for the rest of the server. I think it more so has to do with the Green Festival, where they were quite literally about to backstab him. Making me think that the discs were a piece, but they weren't perhaps the whole focus during this time. That they didn't become the main focus until after he felt it necessary to get imprisoned and planned the staged finale.

I mean, is it so unreasonable to think that layered within his manipulation of Tommy and Tubbo, there was genuine yearning for friendship there? Can he not be logical and emotional? Strategic but also hopelessly optimistic? Just because Tommy doesn't think before he does, doesn't mean that characters can't have multiple plans and variables at play. It is so truly so unreasonable that what ended up happening wasn't Plan A, but Plan B, C, D... that he didn't start out with bad intentions, but was forced to constantly adjust based off circumstances.

[buddiebeginz]

Here’s another reason I’m confident Buddie is happening this season.

911 og and 911 Lone Star will essentially be competing with one another in a way that they didn’t before being on the same network. People might say well LS is in it’s final season so it doesn’t really matter but I’m sure it will matter to ABC if Fox can pull in higher numbers for the show they kept than ABC can for the one they took from them.

Despite all the talk about how homophobic Fox is they know Tarlos is a big draw for that show and will use them accordingly to get people to watch. They've already started using Tarlos on their social media to promote the new season.

No matter how much B*mmy fans want them to be their ship is not comparable to a ship like Tarlos. Especially not Tarlos in season 1 which had a lot of hype around them and was a will they/won’t they ship. I’m mentioning season 1 Tarlos because B/T is still a newbie ship like Tarlos were in season 1. Yet B/T hasn't had even half the development or promotion Tarlos did in season 1 of LS.

Despite how much a select few online yell about them B*mmy is just not a ship that is going to draw in a lot of new viewers. Some new people started watching the show after Buck came out but this was much more about Buck than B/T no matter what B*mmys say. Think about it you could replace T*mmy with any other guy and the reaction would probably have been about the same. That's because the big reaction (especially for people familiar with the show) was about Buck finally having his bi awakening. For those who were introduced to the show through clips of the kiss going around it was more of, oh look these two hot guys are kissing or oh look more queer rep let me check this show out.

Also listen to the things Oliver has said in interviews about the storyline. The messages he's been receiving from people have been primarily about people relating to Buck coming out later in life not about B/T. Yes some people like B/T and found the show because of their kiss but that's not the major draw and the ship is just not interesting enough (especially compared to other primetime couples and Buddie) to keep a significant amount of people tuned into the show long term.

Most primetime shows have a will they/won't they couple. For 911 that couple was Maddie and Chim for a long time. But going into s8 all of the big main canon couples are married at this point. I love all the couples on 911 and I love that they they're all settled and happy but the fact is happy settled couples don't bring in new viewers (Tim himself has even said as much before). So 911 is going to need a newer more exciting ship that will garner attention. If the intention was to have B/T be that new exciting ship I truly believe their relationship would have been handled a lot differently from the beginning.

Instead of them getting together pretty quickly I think things would have dragged out all season. Maybe after the bad date Buck and T*mmy don't meet for coffee and Buck thinks it's over only they run into one another again on a call and it's awkward. If they wanted to build the story and rope the audience in the show could have let us know there's feelings there between them both but neither wants to say anything. So they don't. Then Buck decides to go to a gay bar and runs into T*mmy again and sees him with another guy and that bothers him. And it's not until the end of the season that we get some big romantic moment showing that they do want to be together.

I'm saying all this to point out that if the plan was to build excitement for that ship 911 had time even in a shortened season and they didn't. Even if the intention was to leave us wanting more from B/T, just give us little bits of what's going on with them and fully develop them later in s8 they didn't do a great job with that either. Nearly every scene that B/T are in T*mmy comes across as a dismissive ass who just doesn't seem all that invested in Buck (including in the new deleted scene). They also had very little physical affection and often just didn't behave like a couple or even like two guys who are dating. I've seen people say that in scenes like the medal ceremony in 7x09 they would have never even known they were together if that was the only episode they saw.

My point is there is no way B/T can compete with Tarlos the only couple that can do that is Buddie. ABC and Tim know that if they even hint at Eddie coming out and Buddie canon no one will even remember that LS exists. The kind of attention that B/T has gotten will be nothing compared to the way the world is going to explode when Buddie goes canon. So many people (including a good number of B/T shippers who remain multishippers) have been waiting to see it happen for years.

This is no hate towards Tarlos and Lone Star who I love btw and I'm sad that show is getting canceled. I'm just pointing out that this is how networks think. I know Tim worked on LS for a while and I'm sure he still has love for that show and the cast but at that same time it's important for 911 to have high ratings if we want the show to continue long term.

I've been a fan of 911 almost since the show started and a Buddie fan pretty much as long. I've been hopeful in the past that Buddie could happen especially after the shooting. Which makes sense now given everything we've been told about how Buck was was probably going to come out in s4 and Eddie in s5. I lost a lot of hope for Buddie after s6 though. I wasn't even sure I wanted to keep watching tbh. Which is why I can't believe I'm at a point now where I feel more certain than ever that s8 will be our year. I know we've been hopeful in previous years but everything is pointing towards Buddie now more than it's ever been.

[elysianstars]

Part of being a fan of the Fell Xenologue, is frantically trying to come up with explanations for weird stuff the plot does.

Why do some people confuse both Alears, despite the gender swap? Why does Rafal not seem invested in Ivy's attempt to revive Sombron? What was Sombron actually trying to achieve with his heir/legacy nonsense, and how did Rafal expect to do that properly without understanding it? Why was Nil, the weaker and less useful twin, getting sent off to battlefields without Nel? Why could Alear only sense something strange about Nel's dragonstone, and Zelestia identify that as Sombron's magic, after it was shattered? How did Sombron, the world's worst parent, manage to spot the difference between Nil and Rafal? Why are Nel and Rafal not doing anything during Chapter 21 of the main story, if you have them recruited at that point? When did Gradlon sink during the Xenologue timeline, and if it was after Sombron's first defeat then where were all his surviving offspring hanging out for the next thousand years?

I've got elaborate headcanon answers for the majority of those, which let me sleep at night, but literally every time I replay, more questions manifest to torment me. Here's the latest set.

1. After the battle in Firene, why does nobody ask how the Bracelet of the Brash General came to be awakened with Fell power? Obviously 'Nil' knows, because he did it. Nel suspected the royals were Corrupted, and it would make sense that whatever Fell sibling was responsible for that would have woken the Bracelet at the same time. So she's got a working theory that she'd rather not discuss yet. But neither Alear nor Zelestia suspects that, so why do they never question who's going around messing with these Emblems, without actually stealing them?

2. I always had the strong impression that Nel and 'Nil' ditched their family a long time ago, and were living in Lythos for most of the thousand year peace. But in one of Zelestia's supports with Madeline, she claims the twins didn't appear until Sombron 'showed signs of returning'. Which makes far less sense, since where does that place them for the last several centuries? In a Gradlon which may or may not have been underwater? Surrounded by hostile siblings, who only learned not to openly talk about murdering 'Nil' because Nel slaughtered the last group who did that? Choosing to deal with an atmosphere like that for centuries? Or were they just wandering the world minding their own business, in which case why is that period never referenced, and why bother ever showing up at Lythos? It doesn't give Nel much time to fall in love with Xeno Alear either, when it's said she felt that way for years.

The other possibility – and I've never considered it before, but the Xenologue is SO agonisingly vague with timelines that I suppose it can't be fully discounted – is that Nel and Rafal aren't actually thousand-year-old dragons born during the first war, they're only teenagers born during the second war. But that also doesn't make sense, since it would have necessitated Sombron being around for at least a couple of decades after his return, plus where did the mothers of these brand new children come from? Were they just floating around in possibly-underwater Gradlon, waiting a thousand years to be impregnated while having no ambitions of their own? Or did they get resurrected alongside him in a package deal?

...I really don't think any explanation works, aside from Nel and Rafal being long-term residents of Lythos.

Nel says she cut ties with Sombron during the last war, but you could interpret that as either running away, or openly fighting against him. Sombron, in the flashback that seems to be placed shortly before Xeno Alear kills him, says it had been 'some time' since the twins betrayed him, and that Nil died 'long ago' (yet isn't it the Bracelet of the Three Houses he's shown with, and wasn't that in Divine Dragon hands, so it could be sealed in the Somniel?). Rafal refers to his residence in Lythos as an 'age of lies'. Everything is 'for a time' and 'not long after' without giving numbers, and those phrases become increasingly vague when they're being spoken by individuals who measure their lifespans in thousands of years. We don't even know how long the Divine Dragon has been dead for – months? Years?

'Showed signs of' is another unspecific phrase. You can show signs of something that doesn't actually happen in full until many years later. You can show signs of something you've already been doing for many years in secret. I don't have the energy to compare the JP text and see if there's any differences. Sorry Zelestia, I'm going to have to ignore your single obscure comment as either a mistake by the writing team, or just you being forgetful because you're so old.

Otherwise I'd have to rewrite around 100,000 words of fanfic as not being canon compliant enough, can you imagine the pain of that.

3. In one of Rafal's bond conversations with Emblem Celica, he asks if her warp magic could be used to travel between countries. But isn't that exactly what he does, after showing his true colours in the Xenologue? How else does he transport an unconscious Alear from Elusia to Solm, seal them in the desert ruins, then race all the way back to Elusia in time for Nel to be none the wiser? His later warping has a stronger basis in the game's mechanics (abducting Nel in a way that's similar to an Entrap staff, then blinking over to the Somniel because the previous Divine Dragon must have given him the blessing). But that particular cross-country event? If he can do it regularly, it would also explain how he can rampage around Corrupting the entire world's royals without Nel realising, but hello, where does this power come from? And where does it go, once he's recruited and just has to walk places normally like a loser.

Additionally, I do enjoy when characters say things which are painfully ironic in hindsight. Zelestia saying in an early chapter how it's so fortunate Nel and 'Nil' never lost their other half, and 'Nil' is just like yeah, haha, that sure is great isn't it...

Sadly I will continue to try and deal with Fell Xenologue's problems forever, because it gave us the gift of not one but two hot murderous bisexual dragons acting completely unhinged, and to me that's worth digging through any number of plot holes for.

[sugar-phoenix]

unfinished rought unedited short story about vampires

alright so the winning vote out of the polls was "yes" so I'm deciding to post my unfinished short story draft here because I'm too impatient to wait until i finish it to post it

My new roommate is a vampire.

How do I know this? Simple.

Johnny Robert-Mulligan told me, about a week after he moved in.

“Now you seem like a respectable man, Daniel, so I'll tell you straight up: I'm a vampire.”

I nodded, thinking that he was joking or high or something.

“I will be having blood packets delivered to me each week. You need not make dinner for two. And don't invite your friends over on nights of full moons unless you want them to be sucked dry.”

We stared at each other for a moment. It was then that I realized that he was being completely serious. And then, he laughed, quite loudly, which scared the wits out of me.

“I'm just kidding, of course,” he said, chuckling.

“Oh, thank God. I thought you were actually a vampire there for a moment.”

“No I am, I am a vampire. I was joking about the full moon thing. That's a werewolf thing, not a vampire thing.”

I only stared at him in shock again.

“Oh, don't tell me you believe in werewolves? Those are completely made up.”

“Well,” I responded, “until five minutes ago I didn't think of the possibility of either vampires or werewolves being real.”

And thus began our odd friendship, of which I learned a great deal about vampires. As it turned out, vampires were a lot less untouchable than I had previously thought.

“Is it true that vampires die from a stake to the heart?” I asked one lazy Sunday afternoon, while we were watching the game. The ads were rolling, and I was eager to take this chance to ask my new roommate more about himself.

“Technically speaking, a stake to the heart could kill anything. You could also kill me by stabbing me, shooting me, running me over, throwing me off a cliff,” Johnny proceeded to count off his fingers. “Anything that would kill you would kill me.”

“Oh, I see. I guess that makes sense.”

“We're not immortal either,” he added, taking a sip out of his Coke can. Although soda did nothing for him in terms of sugar intake or energy, he told me that he had gotten quite hooked on the taste.

“You aren't?”

“No, we're just extremely long lived. I think my great grandfather lived for almost 600 years.”

I let that sink in.

“How old are you, Johnny?”

“I think I'm turning 197 this year.”

I turned to look at him.

“That would mean you've lived through both of the World Wars.”

“Oh yes, I did. I don't remember anything though, I was too young. You see, vampires only reach adulthood at around 150 years of age.” He took another sip of his soda. “You know, come to think of it, my parents might have stolen blood from the opposing sides to keep us fed. I think there was a movement or something. ‘Make The Nazis Paler’ and all that.”

“I see.”

And then the ad roll finished, and we were back to watching the game.

 I neglected to mention that Johnny was roommates with me because we were both enrolled in a local college. I was undertaking my bachelor’s in graphic design, which meant that I was more often than not buried under design projects, the likes of which could run from posters to redesigning entire corporations. Thusly, I would often have myself shut in my room during the busier weeks, specifically midterms and finals.

Johnny told me that he hadn’t decided what his major was, and that he was simply experiencing what college was like. He doubted that he’d have a use for it, to which he told me his mother disagreed, since he would at least need to take a job of some sort and make money, but what was the use if it was only going to last him so long and in about 300 years it would probably become obsolete?

I only nodded and hummed to his explanation. I didn’t quite like thinking about these things. Everything seemed so impermanent when you were a vampire, and as a relatively short-lived human, it was creepy to think about.

Thankfully, Johnny got along quite well with my friends. He didn’t have any friends of his own, which I thought was strange, but it’s possible that he drove them away with his casual talk of things that happened long ago. If you didn’t know he was a vampire you’d probably think he was a freakish nerd of some sort. But because Johnny was my roommate, and because he got along with my friends, they were apt to invite him along with me whenever they had parties.

It was at one of these house parties that Johnny met Cynthia. She was a psych student, and she often twirled her hair around her finger like as if she could will it to curl just by doing so. She always had one or two girlfriends around that she talked to, and rarely did she talk to anyone outside of them. But for whatever reason, she caught Johnny’s eye.

“I think she’s a vampire,” he said to me one day, as I was trying to work with the pressure-cooker in our kitchen.

“Yeah?”  The contraption hissed steam at me, and I prayed it wouldn’t take my eye out. “What gave you that idea?”

“I think—no, I know she’s a vampire. She’s got that quality about her.”

“What quality?”

“Vampire quality. You know, we can sense each other out.”

“I see.” I didn’t particularly believe him, but I wasn’t going to say that either. What do I know, perhaps vampires did have a sixth sense for each other, and perhaps this was what was happening, rather than my initial theory that Johnny had a big fat crush on Cynthia and was secretly hoping she was just like him. Of course, I kept all this to myself.

“Go and speak to her then,” I said.

“What? No. Women must be approached carefully, Daniel, otherwise you risk spooking them away.”

“You speak as though they’re skittish deer. I think you’re just scared of talking to her.”

“Scared? No. I’m simply being strategic.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Strategic, scared. Either way, you haven’t talked to her yet.”

“I will talk to her. Soon. Next chance I get. I plan on it.” I nodded, gingerly lifting the lid of the pressure cooker to reveal the pasta and sauce within.

divider by cafekitsune!

[waterparksdrama]

Sorry this is a long one, but I wanted to get all of my thoughts out there, and this is probably the best place where I can do it anonymously and won't get HOUNDED for it.

I'm ngl I'm a little concerned for the longevity of Waterparks going forwards. Even back when they switched from Hopeless to 300ent I was worried bc (from what we know) Hopeless have probably been the most helpful and nicest when it came to what parx did both under them and also after they left (I'm mostly talking abt how Fandom was promoted, the sold out shows, Fandom live, and the Turbulent and IMHS single cd's that were sold, like, last month).

I remember that there was a lot of mix ups/overselling (I think) of the different varients of the GH cd's, when those happened, so I can see why they left. But the fact that they were able to make GH2024 means they're still on good terms with 300ent (unlike EVR with Ent19 and DD19)

Even with FBR, that label is (from what I can tell) the ideal record lable to be signed to, for a band LIKE Waterparks. Which was why I was so shocked when they left it. I mean, I can understand if it's bc they wanted to cancel IP2 but FBR still wanted them to release it, but I can't think of any other reason why.

(I keep saying "they" as in the band, but I also feel like Awsten is making a lot of the decisions idk).

And now that they're also not under MDDN managment, I'm a little scared. Because, yes whilst it's good that parx are completely independent and they can do what they want, they're also gonna be limited in those things (mostly due to monitary reasons and connections I think).

Also this is also gonna sound a little selfish, but I'm worried that when they tour next, it'll only be in the states. I'm in the UK, which always has a decent amount of shows anyways (except last tour when they didn't actually come to my city even tho it's one of the major ones and they usually do), but I have a feeling they won't be coming back here, or performing ANYWHERE outside of the USA, for the next album cycle.

(also I meant to write this when the news of them breaking from MDDN came out, but I forgot and then apparently today a bunch of songs off Fandom have been removed from usage on instagram so that got me even more concerned).

i mean parx was never gonna last long especially at this point where they're approaching their mid 30s and even if hopeless was good to them, awsten wanted bigger things outside the pop punk bubble that literally no one else wanted to give them because they don't fit into the mainstream consciousness either whether it's for awsten's sponsor unfriendly social media presence or the fact that parx's music has become so stale either because awsten keeps vying for that mainstream #relatability or that zakk cervini does not know what to do anymore with them that he hasn't already done with other artists.

and parx was always bound to leave fbr. that's like a death sentence to sign there nowadays and even awsten didn't look all too thrilled when he was there signing the contract anyways. i don't think fbr wanted to cancel ip2 necessarily i feel like they wanted another album that wasn't just a double album extension when they already dragged out the single releases in the first place and would just release different versions of singles again is uh. not a good idea in general and once parx left even though they already released their first single via fbr, it was never going to end pretty unless they struck up some sort of agreement (and that was literally never going to happen)

and as for touring i do suspect they'll have to downsize how much they can tour (if the state of their merch and zero management is anything to go by), but they'll probably still be available for shorter events like festivals and stuff because to my understanding they got booking agents and no managers so either awsten is gonna go completely diy starting from scratch or he's gonna find someone probably more evil to manage (most of) what he can't carry - iz

[hillbillyoracle]

For the longest time I’ve been thinking these thoughts as well that I don’t think the Ace label fits me completely. It’s not completely wrong but it’s not the whole picture. Before I came to this same understanding I made the decision to not have children or get married. Now that I’m coming to terms with the fact that I actually have low energy I’m still not sure how life will look. I was starting to think that I was non commital and that my ideal relationship would just be a long term partner. I don’t think I have the energy for « society’s relationship expectations » and I don’t feel like bothering other people because I already know they don’t want to deal with me. What are some of your long term relationships tips? It’s either that or I stay single forever which is an idea that’s I’ve always considered as an option. One of the things with being Ace is that when you don’t just follow the script that’s when your the villain. Any other time our sexuality is convient for the system so it’s fine but the minute it starts disrupting their program suddenly what was once admirable is now disdained. Can we briefly mention what sexual power looks like when your this sexuality. I’m super self conscious about how I dress because I know I can’t event express my sexuality the way I want to because people might get the wrong impression. I’m not looking for anything I’m expressing myself because with the little energy I have left I use for creativity. I don’t have a problem with people doing things to signal sexual willingness my problem is the violence in our society when someone finds you hot and you don’t want to « put out » That’s not even getting into the mind games that the genders are playing with each other just the idea of it makes me not want to date. I’m tired just thinking about it. I’m really starting to imagine my life as the village witch living in the forest far from the villagers.

I also don't know that Ace/Aro really fits me but whatever I'm experiencing is at least Ace/Aro adjacent because there's a major overlap in experiences - getting frustrated with compulsory sexuality/romance, chaffing against society being organized around romantic and sexual coupling, simply not having impulses that my friends and family do. I made the decision very young that I didn't want to get married. I wanted to care for children but I didn't necessarily want to physically have any. So I knew from a pretty young age I was going a different route - in those ways I really relate to a lot of aceness.

However, I'm hearing from so many people that dating has become exhausting. And it's substantially more of a sentiment than it was say 10 years ago. Research backs this up - fewer people are dating and having sex. The younger you are, the more pronounced this is. So clearly there's also been a cultural shift in and around dating that's made it unsustainable for a lot of people as well. I'm sure that's also shaping my desire too.

So it's difficult to parse for me.

I think I have very little in the way of advice for long term relationships for a few reasons.

One, while I've been with my partner for seven years, it's been a tumultuous relationship. She was originally diagnosed with BPD and more recently was diagnosed with NPD. While I care about her a whole lot, she's not exactly emotionally available and it's taken years of painstaking effort on my part to establish norms and guide us toward a point of relative stability in our home life. Even if therapy and treatment eventually lead to her being more available, the likelihood of other aspects of a typical relationship (sexual desire, level of romantic reciprocity, etc) lining up seem low.

"Then leave!" I always hear.

No. Because on some level this works. We both are polyam/relationship anarchists who value our friendships very highly and build parts of our lives around them. We have similar preferences in how home and finances should be maintained. She has few preferences in areas I have many and vice versa. She's very good at things I suck at (bureaucracy, paying bills, speaking with officials, etc) and I'm good at things she sucks at (meal planning, ordering and organizing inventory, maintaining a social calendar, etc). While she's far from perfect, she's the most functional and helpful roommate I've ever had. I simply cannot afford to live on my own and neither could she.

So I feel like I have little to offer in the way of long term relationship advice other than don't be afraid to establish relationship norms that aren't common in other relationships. If the other person is on board, you're not harming any one. I know of no one who's been living with someone for 5+ years who has stuck 100% to the classic romantic formula for success.

My parents have been together for 30+ years and have always maintained a high degree of autonomy and alone time - even with my mom's stroke leaving her paralyzed on her right side several years ago. I have a friend who's lived separately in the same town from her long term partner of multiple years and they're both quite happy with that arrangement. I think often of the research lead I worked under who lived in a completely different city than her husband for 10+ years. They visited each other's spaces most weekends but not all.

A lot of things people swear are innately part of a relationship are really optional. The base model is respect and mutual appreciation, everything else is an upsell. Take it or leave it.

Per dressing to express - I think miscommunication is just always going to happen. People act according to their lenses and there's no way to completely circumvent that. And yeah, they're hellishly rude and can even be dangerous about that but there's no way to be totally free of it since it's so far outside of ones own control.

I have found no way to accurately communicate my sexuality/preferences through my appearance with any reliability. My classic example of this for me is that it seems like no matter how I dress, people on dating apps assume I'm a top/dom/pleasure centered. Even when I included a picture of me in self bondage and explicitly listed my preferences on one more open minded app - only seemed to get interest from bottoms/subs/pleasure centered folks. Many of whom didn't bother to ask they were so certain - just based on my look. I've just come away from those experiences pretty convinced that people see what they want to see regardless of how hard you try to communicate yourself.

So fuck em. As frustrating as it all is there's really only one path I've found - do what you want (as long as you're not hurting anyone.)

Cause like what the fuck else is there to do?

[ziskeyt]

VOTER REGISTRATION: COMPLETE Goodness, i was so worried about that. Also, i registered as a republican this time around to vote in the republican primaries to give better candidates a chance and forgot i did this, so i got the republican primary ballot and i was like ??????? what is going on. lol. anyway after going through and voting on my ballot, i'm glad i switched parties when i registered under my new name. the two party system isn't working to represent the majority of people, but it is what we have and if we wish to change it we have to participate in the democratic experiment to get changes like ranked-choice voting to exist. it is a good reminder, reading up on all the candidates for the republican party up for the various seats in this election, that there are those who are in either party who believe in continuing to be a democracy, who want to be in office to help the citizens who vote for them, and who take the job seriously. and there are those who are far less qualified to take these seats. there's a guy on my ballot who's a registered republican who's talking about environmental conservation, supreme court term limits, he's not a perfect candidate, but perfection doesn't exist anyway and he's the best out of the competition on the ballot. there are decent people who work in politics that we can put in office, or at least, get on the election ballots to give our counties, states, and entire country a chance to be better, represent the people better, and give us as a people a better chance to fight climate destruction. i vote from abroad. as a dual citizen i vote in two countries, where i live and where i was born. you have a right to vote, but also you have a responsibility to vote. if you can vote in the place that you live, why not take part? why not ensure your voice is heard? i'm sure there are pot holes in your roads you want fixed, or you don't like the turn education curricula has taken in eliminating learning phonics, or you want to ensure trans kids and adults can access the care they need and are treated as people in public -- there are so many things on every ballot that can change the area you live in for the better, that can help so many people for the better, and that can make the future a more hopeful possibility.

if you can vote, take the time to learn your candidates (i use ballotpedia as a starting point) and participate especially because there are people around you who cannot vote for various reasons, and if you value community take the time out of your day to cast your ballot to see the changes you wish to see happen. voting isn't a quick-fix solution to anything, it's not a five-minute craft. politics is a long term goal system. we vote to get people in power now who are slightly better than the last guard so in x years time we have people in power who really push the needle when we look back at attitudes today. i think, for a lot of voters, the fact that it takes a long time to see and enact change is discouraging, and i get it. it is. it would be amazing if we could fix things quickly, but unfortunately that's not the world that we live in. get yourself a pie-in-the-sky dream for the world you want to see, and start voting for people now who aren't perfect, who don't fully realize that dream, but who help us toe a little closer to that reality. afterall, how long did it take you to be who you are today? it certainly didn't happen overnight and you're just one person. when it comes to voting and the politics of an entire country, that's millions of people, of course it'll take a while.

[emily-prentits]

thoughts on the greys s19 finales? s19 kinda underwhelmed me (marina is cute but the baby thing bores me to no end which in turns makes them as a ship dull to me sacrilege i know lol but it’s the truth) and i never got super into yasuda/helm but im kinda loving the possibility of yasuda/jules? idk what’s going on there but the chemistry>>>

ohh boy. so i have a lot of thoughts on the finales LOL. it got really really long and it only aired yesterday so spoilers are under the cut for those that haven't seen!

grey's:

sooo. i hated it. as a writer, as a viewer, i fucking hated it. honestly, i should have come into the fandom earlier because this season being my first to watch live sucked ASS and was more losing than winning. narratively speaking, the vast majority of the writing choices made ZERO sense. not winston/monica (AFTER ALL THE MONMELIA BUILD UP??), not julesmika (sorry, i love them, but they make no narrative sense. unless they're trying for a mertina type relationship which im not sure i entirely like either), and not whatever bullshit was going on with catherine. i know she has played big bad boss lady in the past but honestly this season the writing for her was very... flat? one dimensional? it was almost like she could ONLY be the antagonist and she wasn't allowed to have any other role in this season. i don't think we saw her outside of the hospital at all in the whole 10 episodes. while i DO understand they had to make some necessary cuts because of the shortened length of the season... was it really worth keeping catherine fox in this season if they were going to ruin her?? because i do NOT think so. and what was UP with her firing half the hospital in one episode??? fuck that??

to be completely honest lol, i'm tired of this show and the way they hate their gays. helmika breakup, no monmelia ANYTHING -- making monica hook up with winston after zero build up?? if you want to write a bisexual character this is NOT the way to do it -- schmitt leaving next season, trying to build up the julesmika relationship when midori is leaving in the next season?? i admit they're cute, but there's no way the relationship is sustainable. and it makes me so sad.

and... oh my god don't get me started on mernick. to preface everything i say about them: i think they're cute! genuinely i do! i don't hate them at all, which makes it so much harder when i have to say that they make no sense together long term. meredith is very clearly not as in love with him as he is with her (he said he wanted to marry her, walked out, and she had. zero reaction. to any of it. if anything she kind of treats him like a child?😭) and she only really fights for him when it looks like he's going to leave. she'll only fight for her stability if there's a real threat of losing it. in a way, i suppose it's not surprising. they mirror merder but only in all the bad ways, the way that merder was starry eyed intern x dreamy neurosurgeon turns into the way that mernick is essentially idol x fan. there's no way either of those relationships could have lasted in the long run -- BECAUSE of their foundations. and it makes me so sad bc why is meredith doing the same fucking things after 20 SEASONS. she of ALL the characters deserves to have some character development after all this time.

station 19:

loved it. cried so many times. the episode ended and i walked around feeling so empty. i will admit i have only seen marina spoilers and have not watched any of the seasons until season 7, so my view might be a bit skewed. cried with the marina family (maya's development from season 1 to season 7? 🥹), cried when travis went with vic (someone finally choosing to put first the Put Everyone Else First Person??? hello tears). the flashes forward and back were so interesting, definitely kept me engaged. i was so scared tho when they kept showing the burning gear when andy was missing 😭 i was like they BETTER NOT have killed her. and then all was well <3 more or less.

overall for station 19, i think they really did the best they possibly could have with how many episodes they were given to wrap up the series if it doesn't end up getting picked up. i liked it a lot more than grey's, for sure :)

[stormyweaver]

Lots of venting below, but sometimes it's hard for me to jot it all down in my journal. Plus it's my blog so I can post whatever, fuck you.

Last night was... difficult. I think I slept 3/4 hours, which is about an hour less than I usually do. My mind just wouldn't stop racing.

I don't know why I feel so isolated in every space I inhabit. I know parts of it (my difficulty with trusting people, feeling like I'm never 'authentic' enough, trying to make my personality palatable to EVERYONE and then feeling like a husk at the end of the day) but I've noticed a pattern that's very disturbing to me.

I never speak up for myself. If something bothers me, I never say anything. Until I do. And it either comes out in a way that's civil, or I just completely blow up.

But it seems no matter WHAT way I say it, me speaking up for myself almost always ends in losing that friendship/relationship/etc. I let go of basically my biggest friend group this year because I expressed feeling left out, and was given verbal reassurance that that wouldn't happen - and then it did happen.

Ever since then (late May?) I've basically felt like I can't maintain any kind of friendship or relationship with anyone. I get triggered at even the perceived notion that someone doesn't want to be around me. I make friends at work, but then those drop off too, even when I'm giving all the effort I possibly can. I see people with friends and I get so viscerally jealous and hate myself for not being able to have that with more people.

I am so grateful for the friends I do have, the majority being on here. But there's a part of my brain that constantly tells me 'You're one bad take or one wrong joke from losing them'. That doesn't seem normal to me. I want to ask my therapist about it, but now that I'm starting this new job, and her latest slot is typically taken, it's hard to get an actual bi-weekly or even monthly appointment down.

When we did have our (short) introduction meeting, she asked me who my support system is, and I couldn't really give her a definitive answer. I don't really have anyone in my immediate area to rely on. It's literally just me, and the friends I have online.

I try talking to my dad, or my sister, or my paternal grandmother and it feels so empty and hollow bc, while my sister can at least empathize with me, the other two will just say 'Praying for you!' and send me like, 25 dollars. I don't... I don't want money? I need a support system. And I don't know how to express that. I don't know how to express to the people in my life that I'm so jaded, and anxious, and depressed, and miserable that I can't even sleep at night with how rapidly my thoughts are racing, with how negatively I think and react.

I've been trying so hard to come to terms with the fact that maybe I'm just broken. That I'll never have a 'normal' life and a 'normal' thought process. But I feel like there's a difference between not being or feeling or thinking 'normally' and feeling like I'm being punished for every time I don't adhere to what everyone else says I should be doing.

The only thing that gives me any real reprieve is journaling, writing and reading. But I've become such a solitary creature over the years. Even when I try to befriend people who I live with, or work with, or go to groups with... it's like I can't get my own head out of my own ass long enough to make a genuine connection. Or I get ghosted.

I don't know how to figure any of this out. I don't know how to re-program my brain so it stops sabotaging every little chance I get at happiness. I don't know how to express how I feel without crying and sobbing because my emotions hurt so much to even convey to my therapist.

I'm so angry and sad and insecure and afraid. And I'm so, so very tired.

[thevagabondexpress]

reasons for a character to be angsty *other than* "abusive/deadbeat parents," "was bullied/assaulted," "queer and living with homophobic parents," or "someone died"

okay. hear me out. maybe it's just me but i'm tired of seeing the very heavy, triggering backstories listed above used to create brooding darkness within a character. now, that's not to say you can't use those. i've seen a couple authors use them and handle them very well. but i feel like they've been overused and, for the majority, not handled particularly well most of the time. hence, i've created a list of alternative reasons for your fictional charater to be a 'lil angsty without that weight of trauma that could be fumbled easily if not handled carefully. feel free to use these and share this around, that's what it's there for. feel free also to provide suggestions in the comments and i'll add them to the list.

∘ time period specific generation z angst: "the planet is turning into a pressure cooker, everything is on fire, democracy is crumbling like a dry pound cake, and nobody who has any power is doing anything because they only care about making money."

∘ habitual insomniac who just can't f***ing get their sleep schedule together. they're snarky and brooding because they're so. f***ing. tired.

∘ eldest sibling angst.

∘ middle sibling angst.

∘ youngest sibling angst.

∘ existential gender/sexuality/educational/career/faith/insert here crisis

∘ crisis of desired vs. perceived identity: "I want people to see me this way but all they ever see is this."

∘ they have a goal. they're really motivated. they're trying hard and they know they're good at what they do. but for some reason either they face consistent roadblocks from other people, or other people just refuse to acknowledge it.

∘ wanting something they can't have, but not in a whiny "he's so hot and I want to go out with him but he won't look at me" sort of way. no, as in, "I want to go visit my family in [insert country] but I don't have the time or money to go and I haven't seen my cousin in years she must be walking and drawing on the walls by now."

∘ unhealthy workaholic with a deep dark secret: that research project, etc. they've been obsessing and staying up late over and pushing everyone away for . . .

∘ sympathy angst: character has a friend/relative that cannot or will not acknowledge the emotions they ought to be feeling, so this character starts feeling the emotions for them

∘ character is caring for someone who is injured/ill (they don't even have to be dying, or in critical condition) and it's taking a toll

∘ character has been in one profession for a long time. now they've quit, moved on, and are doing something else. maybe they've retired. but they miss their old job, plus they find themselves falling back into the old habits. they worked that job so long they don't know how to be anything else.

∘ generational gothic: the character has uncovered a long-buried secret. maybe about their family. maybe about their place of work. maybe about their hometown, or the house they bought. whatever it is, everyone else seems to have forgotten it, and moved on. but they know. and they must cope with the burden of this aged secret thrown over their shoulders.

∘ performative angst: character is really into one of the fine arts. or building cars. or a martial art. or history. or science. whatever. point is, they develop angst deliberately as a performative state because they think it sounds cool.

∘ something the character has always believed to be a concrete fact turns out to be just another terrible fiction.

∘ character discovers a truth about themselves they had not previously realized. now they must analyze it, and come to terms with it. ∘ career-based moral/ethical angst: I do what I have to do because it's necessary and important (or because it's what i've always known, or both). but is it really good, or right? could there be a better way?

∘ time-period specific 1960's system-directed anger, whether that's to do with the civil rights movement or the war or both.

∘ character has moved to a new place. now, they must adjust to new societal expectations and customs, and possibly new food and culture as well. they feel strange and out of place, and miss their homeland.

∘ the character recently ended a relationship (romantic or otherwise) that was no longer functioning. they're the person who ended it, because they could see that things weren't working out anymore, but they're also very aware that the "it's not working out" went both ways and is much their fault as their friend/partner's. hence, they've gone and convinced themself that they were the bad guy, even though they really weren't.

∘ character had a massive falling out with a beloved friend or relative and now the two can't get along. they can barely be in the same room and it's dragging on the both of them and everyone around them.