#a reflection and ramble

[sumiblue]

(pictured: HE <3)

I bought a little aloe plant today.

Every place we lived in when I was growing up had aloe plants, so it seemed a natural and easy choice for my first houseplant in my first flat. The plant display in the Co-Op is right next to the door, so I picked it up, chunky green arms trailing over the pot, and placed it in my basket, carrying it with me while I got my other lumpy, hefty items. Do you see what Problems May Arise from this course of action. Me too, but I did it anyway because I was simply too nervous to do the unthinkable; shattering checkout line normalcy to go, “Oh, one moment” and dashing to get it then. My timidness cost my juicy friend a couple of his limbs, but he’s home now, on my rather bare bookshelf, green and alive. I love him to bits (...of aloe in my shopping bag) and he’s only been here for 10 hours. I keep going over to his corner, introducing him to his new environment and telling him how lovely he his. So far it had been amusing to verbally greet my living room furniture every morning, but it’s a different delight to now natter on about any and everything to this living being who might be hearing me. It scratches that itch to use one’s voice for connection. I have to keep reminding myself, though, that he’s not a new interlocutor, and my search for fulfilling connections should continue.

Loneliness, like aloe plants, has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, though living on my own for the past 3 months has definitely given it a different texture. Not worse, not better, just different. It’s probably due to an amalgamation of a few things. Moving across the Atlantic. The accumulated lessons learned and experiences from 30 years of being alive. Probably not the multi-year worldwide health emergency though...Oh wait.

I imagine most of us have seen article after article about how extended self-isolation during the pandemic has shone a light on how lonely a lot of us are, if it hadn’t caused it in itself. My mum shared an article with me this week, which talks about the fact that, for the very lonely, the solution may not be finding company with other people.

Loneliness isn't just about not being around people. It's been said numerous times that the pandemic and lockdown gave many of us the chance to really examine our relationships. We were forced to be still and listen to ourselves for once, and became more aware of what we were (or weren't) getting out of the socializing we habitually engaged in. I think, in many cases, we realized that while we had company, we weren’t experiencing connection. We started to crave it deeply, and were stymied in our attempts to fill that void because oops, outside could kill you. However, going out to find connections isn’t the solution for everyone, like the article says. Maybe in your stillness you discovered that spending time alone was precisely what you needed, and you started learning how to connect with your Self. Filling your own void. Self-love is healthy! We each have to figure out what fills that gap for our individual puzzles, whether it's solitude, company, a different type of company, etc.

I wonder also if this massive awareness of our own loneliness is sometimes misconstrued with the feeling of grief. Change leads to loss, and if we’ve experienced changing perceptions of our relationships, our selves and our social fulfilment needs, we’re bound to be thrown into a turbulent twisting uncomfortable storm of emotions. And here we’re back to sitting in self reflection innit, asking ourselves, is the name for this storm loneliness? Grief? Both? I don’t think they’re entirely separate, but it may help to identify where you are so you can figure out where to go.

Personally, I do think that my puzzle piece is painted with other people, particularly with shiny deeper connections. Having been isolated for a few years, I’ve found I do need that external input from even light interaction to remember that I am not uniquely horrible but am in fact, in a human general sense, pretty okay! I feel it in the shared frustration with the pensioners at the bus stop because the big blue bastard (affectionate) is 20 minutes late again. I feel it when the cashier wags their finger at me and says “Silly little girl, you must have confused this Appleton’s Rum for apple juice. ID please and thank you.”* In these brief little moments, I get reminded that people Exist. We just Are. We are all complicated and flawed and still wonderful. Not gonna lie though, finding and making those rare closer connections would be fucking fantastic. People around whom I can feel like I’m not the Only One. Unmask with me baybee.

But as a very temporary stop-gap measure, my darling precious aloe boy suits me fine.

*An exaggeration but it fuckin’ felt like this

[charliebugz]

When Izzy first walked out I was worried that he would be made into a joke that the crew would laugh at

but then he started singing and the dancing began and I realized that he wasn’t meant to be a joke at all. This is the most open and happy we’ve ever seen Izzy and the show treated it that way. Not mocking him but instead celebrating this moment.

When we talk about queer representation it’s usually just focused on queer relationships, but what I love about this episode is it shows other sides of being queer. That moment where Izzy saw Wee John doing his makeup and had a realization that he wanted that too? That is what being queer means to me. The crew singing along and cheering for him? That is what being apart of the queer community means to me.

What i love about this show is that it shows queer joy, not in a sanitized way, but in away that is messy, beautiful, and without any mockery or shame.

[ethosiab]

I see a lot of designs out there in which tango has red tinted glasses/goggles (mine included) but I don't think enough of us acknowledge how much that would affect his vision

[erraticreflections]

[gremlingirlsmell]

"i dislike the terms tme and tma" why do you dislike terms that are useful for transfems discussing their systematic opression? do you dislike the terms cis, hetero, white, too? you need to understand that tme & tma are not created to make "new binaries" or whatever, theyre for discussing our real material opression. realize how close you are to saying that transmisogyny isnt "real" or that it "affects everyone". do you also think reverse racism exists, or that homophobia or misogyny targets cis hetero men instead of benefitting them? or do you believe in intersectionality until it's about trans women and transfems, then the intersection of misogyny and transphobia basically becomes meaningless? you "dislike" when transmisogyny is brought up, just as existing?

[buqbite]

My thoughts here mainly revolve around YSA as the mary sue/female lead type character:

She goes from being this perfect woman to. just being a woman. And my idea is that the weight gain isn't there to make her "unconventionally attractive," or whatever other dumb phrase you wanna use to avoid calling someone ugly, but to make her conventionally attractive, yet realistic.

Instead of looking like a skinny waifu character, she looks like a skinny human woman. Her hair swaying in the nonexistent wind isn't as perfect, her magic blush is missing and she has eyebags. She's still hot, just more human.

[itachanta]

Vash's glasses going glint

[bunnygirllover45]

Tip for all artists: if your art starts to feel off and you are not improving it means that your eyes have evolved artistically but your hands didn't. By that I mean that you're better at analyzing but not at drawing. Don't get discouraged if you feel like everything you draw doesn't look good, eyesight evolves faster than learning how to do things properly, so it's easier to spot errors in your art before even learning how to fix them. If you learn and improve your ability will catch up with your critical eye and you'll be at a comfortable spot with your art again. I feel like i'm saying a bunch of nonsense rn but I SWEAR this is real.

[lonelystarbuckslover13]

Do you guys ever think about how crazy it must feel to be the girl who started 123 let’s go bitch??? Like she just said something funny at a concert once and posted it online, and now she’s started a fandom tradition that millions of people participate in across the world, and even 5 years later ​we all still scream it at every show and Taylor quotes it on social media??? THAT’S a real fucking legacy to leave

[gayghostrights]

thinking about John Doe and the dark world as a metaphor for addiction/relapse.

How circumstance and trauma pushed him to do something he told himself he’d never do again, and how he has to live with the consequences and the memories, even though he’s working to not be that person anymore.

And how much shame he carries about the things he’s done, because even if he was pushed to do them, he still did them. To him, he still made that choice, and he has to bear the weight of that.

Thinking about 43, in particular, where the witch is trying to tell John that all he was is all he’ll ever be. That, despite the work he’s put into bettering himself, he’ll only be seen as his mistake in the eyes of some.

And it just feels really meaningful that Arthur’s love is what saved him, in this context. That being forgiven and loved unconditionally, even though he’s made mistakes and hurt people, is how he can cope with the memories of what he’s done. It’s how he can stop himself from slipping back into being someone he doesn’t want to be, even when it’s hard.

love isn’t what makes him better, but it’s what makes him want to work to be better. It doesn’t undo what he’s done but it allows him to live with it.

I just think it’s interesting to read this as an addiction narrative, because so often addicts are dismissed because they’re addicts. Regardless of how much we’ve healed or how far we’ve come, there are some people who will never see beyond our addiction and will force their perspective onto us. Some people hold no compassion for us because they think we’ve made the choice, and think that the harm that resulted from that “choice” makes us unredeemable.

and to see John receiving Arthur’s support and love despite what he’s done, or what he was pushed to do, really reflects how important support is to recovery. Arthur doesn’t absolve John of his mistakes, he doesn’t dismiss the harm he caused, but he doesn’t hold it against him. He knows John is more than what he’s been, he knows John is capable of change and a good person in spite of it, he knows John is capable of being better. Only John can do the work of becoming who he wants to be, but Arthur’s love and support makes the work a little more bearable.

[yonpote]

@isolatjon sent me this and it FUCKING KILLED ME

original

[1960z]

“haha odo is so beige and bland and boring despite being a literal shapeshifter” like ok yes I laugh at those jokes too and find them funny I literally have no issue with them but sometimes I also wanna talk about how that’s kind of the whole point of his character.

like odo’s abilities and way of being is so unlike any other known species in the alpha quadrant that it’s shown to be disturbing and off-putting to a lot of people — or at the very least that’s what he was led to believe. like we see this in the alternate where mora tries to convince him he’ll either be locked up in a prison or put in a zoo to gawk at if he’s perceived to have committed any sort of crime or transgression.

so despite being able to literally become anything he can think of, he chooses his default presentation to be as standard, bland and uninteresting as he possibly can. male, always in a beige uniform, very standard hair cut.

odo is so plain because he was made to be afraid of being literally anything else

[turtleblogatlast]

Leo’s love for magicians and magic shows isn’t brought up enough tbh, because it directly ties into the idea of a persona and fooling the audience’s eyes to see something that’s not actually there. This connects to his love of performance in general but also ties into why he struggled so much with his mystic powers.

Magic tricks are exactly that, tricks, a performance, masked actions hiding the truth. Meanwhile mysticism is intrinsically linked to the self and so Leo’s difficulty in even unmasking to himself is a big part of his journey that he continues to struggle with and in this essay I will-

[cheecats]

In light of how grossly disrespectful and dismissive some (not all) DC voters have been, here is something for a lovely lady who deserved better. [X]

[erraticreflections]

[ventique18]

🌸: "Hornton we should get a cake."

🐉, frowning: "Is there an occasion?" <- He doesn't like cakes.

🌸: "I been stressed lol."

He presents you a wedding cake the next day.