#and honestly that’s enough to make any artist insanely cynical

[benjinkies]

idk but like how many times does a female pop star have to fly off the handle at the hands of her fame for people to Get It or at least understand the lack of grace one would have with handling it. and i said fly off the handle but it really doesn’t take much for people to completely turn on an artist and call them ungrateful and blatantly say they only exist because of fanaticism

[hyunjining]

Hi Alicia, thanks for opening up conversation about H&L, and being open about how you’re feeling! I’ve only been involved in Larrie fandom since 2021. I teetered on the edge for a while until I watched the cosmicleeds timelines, as I hadn’t been present to see events in real time so didn’t have that historical connection.

In my limited experience, I feel like this time of year is testing. Winter girlfriends, stunting with F, and no opportunity for direct connection with L&H’s music personas through their concerts. This season is worse for many of us because world news is so disheartening, and trivialities of oblivious rich celebrities feels hard to stomach.

I live in Australia and will be going to all of Louis’s shows in a few weeks. I’m nervous about how much I will enjoy them because I’m feeling cynical about how unvalued we are as fans, especially post chickengate etc. I’ve been lucky enough to see Louis live in 2022 & 2023 and it’s always been a really positive experience, plus I often livestream which adds a lot to it. Ahead of the upcoming shows I’ve been withdrawing a bit from engagement with the fandom to try and preserve my experience. I am a natural cynic anyway, and have often wrestled with doubts about whether we’re being fully played to increase fandom engagement (à la the explicit formula apparently used by industry for KPop success which includes alluding to gay relationships). I agree with the sentiment that you need to feel good things about the artist to enjoy the art, and so much of what I perceive to be stunting is making me not feel good about H or L. I am feeling particularly disengaged from H because of his steadfast alignment to the A**offs, and their stance on I*rael, but also the fact that almost everyone in his public social circle seems so odious. I am more forgiving of L, although the stuff with F and the sharp ways he pushes Larries away really tests me. My time in fandom is significantly shorter than yours, but my emotional response is still complex and definitely making me feel down and uncomfortable. I can only imagine how magnified that would be for you.

I think many of us become part of fandom for community, as well as for entertainment and joy. Cynicism and disengagement are hard things to find community in, and not great for our general moods. I hope your love of Stray Kids, or any other artists you come across, brings you joy and hopefully community over time.

Sorry for the essay 😂 Wishing you all the best 💗

i teared up a little at the end there, you’re so sweet 🥲. this entire message is absolutely spot on for me. the harry stuff in particular is really bothering me because in addition to his connection to the azoffs, i feel like were the things that are happening in palestine happening anywhere else, he would have said something at least once… and anne reposted some “i don’t know enough to comment” nonsense a while ago that was originally posted by the founder of choose love (ironic lmfao) and it put such a bad taste in my mouth. feels like he disappeared for a while in hopes that everyone would just forget he exists.

as for louis, yeah the chicken thing was so unnecessary and honestly made him look ridiculous. i’ll forever stand by my belief that he truly does love his queer fans, especially after experiencing the gay megamix last july, but it certainly is a delicate dance between that and whatever the fuck the chicken tweet was 😭. i hope you’ll still be able to enjoy your concerts, though! freddie was literally at mine and he shouted him out but i still had a really good time AND i cried lol.

i’m definitely having a lot of fun being in my stray kids era even though kpop stans are maybe the meanest, most miserable people on the internet… other than that though, it’s nice to be a fan of something without over a decade of the most insane baggage you’ve ever heard of behind it. i’m almost glad kpop idols can’t date publicly lmao. and skz are very sweet, talented and genuine boys and i love them.

anyway, thank you so much for your message! no need to apologize, you and i are definitely on the same wavelength. i wish you all the best right back 💖💖💖

[paradiselostbythedashboardlight]

Quarantine, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Wrote 430,943 Words of Prose in a Year

As we are coming up terrifyingly fast on a full year of quarantine with no end to the pandemic yet in sight for most people, I’ve been taking some time to reflect on the last year of my existence in a state that most people now refer to as quarantine. Since March of 2020, I, like most other sane people in my country, have stopped traveling, going to stores, seeing all but a limited group of other humans, and begun having recurring nightmares about being in crowds without a piece of cloth over my nose and mouth.

Suffice to say, it has been a bit stressful.

The other thing that I have done since COVID-19 began rapidly spreading across the globe last year is write over 430,943 words of fiction. 

The number seems insane to me still. That is (approximately) one Gone With The Wind, one entire Lord of the Rings series, or the first four Harry Potter books. That is still sadly not yet War and Peace (but who knows… the pandemic isn’t over yet).

So now that I am looking back, I find myself with one question: how did this happen? Why did I do this? What does this mean about my life this year?

Since apparently I answer best by writing a lot, let’s begin at the beginning. Let me tell you a story. I’ll keep it short, I swear.

Part 1: Blast From the Past

In March of 2020, I was still in the midst of an academic semester. There was a long academic document to write and a class to teach. However, as quarantine abruptly robbed me of most of my usual commitments, I was suddenly thrust into the position of having more time on my hands than I knew what to do with. Consequently, I decided to break out the Nintendo Switch I’d gotten for Christmas and revive a childhood interest in video games.

And boy did I. I played the games I owned for all they were worth. I played them during the evenings when I had no social engagements to attend. I played them during the Zoom meetings I was already struggling to pay attention to. By the end of March, I had finished one game, and it had set the wheels turning in my brain.

Here’s a fact about me: I don’t usually tend to write or read a lot of fanfiction about things that I consider really really good. Basically, fanfiction for me has always been an impulse born from incompletion or imperfection. I see no need to add to a perfect story (although I happily consume and create fanart). But for something enjoyable and yet slightly unsatisfying? That’s fanfic territory, bud.

So by April, I had developed a sort of epic fanfiction for this video game I was playing. It was one of those magnum opus kind of ideas, a grand retelling of the story with a huge sprawling plot and Themes (™). 

At first, it was merely a thought experiment that lived only in my head, a sort of entertainment to ponder in the hours before falling asleep. What changed? Well, a friend of mine decided to also write a fanfiction on the same video game and she kindly consented to let me read it.

Suddenly, I was ravenously hungry to read and to write and to share and to consume. I wrote a hundred thousand words of this fanfic in April and into early May, sending each chapter to my friend and being spurred onward by her kind comments. 

The fic became a gargantuan endeavor full of strange little challenges I set for myself. It was a canon-divergence, requiring plotting, worldbuilding, a darker and grimer tone. For some reason, I decided to write each chapter from a different character’s perspective, making the final product into a series of essentially short story character studies which together formed a plot.

By the end of May, the story was published for the world to see. It was well-received, although not particularly popular by fandom standards. And that was the end. I had gotten out my pandemic crazies, the semester was over and now I could move on. I had made my peace with the source material, plumbing all of the little details that I wanted to examine and creating a narrative that I found satisfying.

It was over.

Part 2: Summer Lovin?

Except that it wasn’t.

Confession: as I had been posting my giant fanfiction, I had also begun to explore the fan community itself, mostly curious to see some nice art and gather a bit of demographic info about what was popular within the community. As a result, I found a fanfic recommendations page. Among the recommendations was one author who kept popping up and i finally decided to give the fic a read.

Woah. It was good. Like, really good. Like, professional quality writing and themes that seemed designed to appeal to me. I devoured everything that the creator had posted in a week and then subscribed to eagerly wait for more.

As June rolled around, I realized that I had a problem on my hands. My great big gen masterpiece was finished, but this author had gotten me hooked on something else, something with a nefarious reputation online: shipping.

The term du jour for this seems to be “brain worms” so let’s just say that reading other fanworks had given me some brain worms. Inspired this time not just by the source material of the game, but now the fan community itself, my mind began to develop another idea.

I wrote the fic, about 11k, in a single afternoon of frantic writing. When I finished it, I knew it was one of my strongest pieces. It had just come together, a combination of all the thought that I’d been brewing up and a stylistic execution that just worked with the story I wanted to tell.

I posted it on a new account. Shipping seemed vaguely shameful to me still and my mom reads the other account.

To my surprise, the fic blew up. It got so much more attention than my long fic ever had. Even more significantly, a fan artist actually drew a gorgeous comic of the pivotal scene, completely out of the blue! I was essentially thunderstruck. Honestly, it was probably the first time in my life that I’d ever received so much positive reinforcement from a piece of writing.

While I’d written short stories for undergrad workshops, they’d never been particularly good and I’d never gotten particularly great feedback on them. I’d applied and been rejected by more MFAs and literary magazines than I could count. I’d pretty much resigned myself to writing for an audience of me and me alone (which I don’t mean to sound tragic about, writing for you is great and fun!)

But receiving so much support and praise and feeling like I’d made other people happy or sad or moved? There’s nothing better.

This makes my decision to write another fic for the ship sound vaguely cynical, the action of a person driven by an addiction to praise. I mean, no lie, aren’t we all a little addicted to approval?

But my next fic was another long one, an 80k passion project modern AU that I dreamed up while spending a slow summer alone with my books and only able to leave the house for long rambling walks in the woods. The premise was essentially about characters attending a five year college reunion, something that I myself had missed due to COVID in May of the same year. The fic quickly became a way for me to process thoughts on a lot of topics in my life ranging from relationships to politics to mental health to classical literature.

This fic was also received with far more attention than I was used to and, as a result, I finally joined the notorious Twitter dot com where I found people talking about my fic unprompted, eager to follow me and like my every random thought.

I can’t say that this process was not without its ups and downs. Fandom has changed, in many ways for the better, since my last engagement with it during the 2013 Supernatural days on Tumblr. While fan friendships are often idealized or demonized, they are pretty much like any other human friendship (okay, maybe a little bit more horny on main). There is potential for amazing connection as well as pettiness. But in a year where many people suddenly had no social spaces that were safe anymore, I’m glad that I found a new line of communication with the world.  

So I kept writing fics for the ship, producing a lot of work that I am genuinely proud of and making connections with other people who enjoyed it enough to leave a comment.

To conclude this section, I was in fandom again. While I had not seriously engaged with a fan community since around 2014, I was back with a vengeance. And I had discovered an important truth about what unlocked my ability to write more than I ever had before: community support.

Not simply the kudos and the views. It was the comments. The discourse. The discussion. To add and contribute my thoughts and ideas to a greater network of thoughts and ideas that fed off of one another.

Often I had seen people complain about there not being enough fanworks for particular media or characters. Now I knew the secret. The comments and the community created the works. If I commented on other people’s fics, the more likely they were to write more. I made a resolution I have tried to keep, to comment on any story that I legitimately enjoyed reading, even if I had no particularly intelligent thing to say about it.

Part 3: A Novel Idea

By late October, I had produced a considering oeuvre for my ship of choice and was enjoying slowing my pace as I planned a few future projects.

Remember, though, how I mentioned not having engaged with fandom for the past 5 years? Well, that didn’t mean I hadn’t been writing.

For the past 4 years, I have won NaNoWriMo and completed 4 novels of over 100k each in length. These projects have been massively fun and improved my confidence with executing stories at the scope that I desire.

And so in November 2020, I settled down to write another novel. November is always a sort of terrible time write a novel if you work in academia, but this year, I had more time than usual. I set out to write a comedy fantasy novel, something mostly lighthearted and full of hijinks in order to pretend away some of the quarantine blues (which by this point were well established in my psyche).

This year in particular, I was reminded that writing a novel is… harder than fanfic. That seems like a very obvious point, but I’d written novels before. Suddenly, though, I was realizing how much a novel requires you to set up the world and the characters, while fanfic can be pretty much all payoff all the time.

While the fanfic flowed in wild creative bursts of energy, the novel required diligence of another sort. I wrote 2,000 words every day for two months. It was a grind. Sometimes, it was a slog. 

And sometimes it just wasn't good. The thing about writing your own novels is that the first draft is way more likely to be not good. You’re balancing a lot and it’s easy to let a few balls that you have in the air drop for a chapter or two, with no recourse but to go back and edit later.

I finished the novel by writing a final speedrun of 6k on new years eve, ending my 2020 with another project under my belt. No one has read it. Not even I have reread it.

I’m still glad that I wrote it. I’ll write another one next year. No one will read that one either.

Sometimes, we write for ourselves and no external validation is necessary.

Part 4: Where are they now?

January of 2021 is somehow now behind me, which is terrifying. I’m still writing. Mostly fanfic, although occasionally I go doodle around with some original ideas that are more conceptual sketches for the next novel.

As for the fanfic, I think I still have a few more good ideas left in me, but  I will probably leave it behind before the year is out. That feels a little bittersweet, a sort of temporary burst of fun and friendship that I wonder if I’ll ever experience again.

Coming to the end of this reflection, I suppose I should make a summative statement about what it all means.

In the end, it might not mean a lot. There are some small takeaways. 

It turns out that encouragement makes you write more! Who knew? Also, more free time makes you write more! Wow!!!!

The point that I think this reflection exercise has shown me, the point that I think matters more than any other, is that writing is a way to process my thoughts. Even if it is through the lens of ridiculous video game fanfic or novels about sad wizards, my writing is my way to make sense of my own mind. 

And sharing that is special. If you share it with online strangers, with your family on Christmas Eve, with your close friend who has become even closer and dearer to you since she let you read her work, or just with your mom (the one personal legally required to read your damn novel if you want to share it). To share writing is to give someone a little peek at your beliefs about the world.

And right now? When we’re still isolated and bored and scared and in desperate need of distraction? Binge some TV, play Nintendo, read a book. Take in other people’s thoughts.

But put down your own somewhere as well. It’s a conversation.

And for once, it’s a conversation that doesn’t have to take place on fucking Zoom.

[wouldadepressedpersonmakethis]

tier i

When a sorcerer kidnapped and murdered the Queen of ____________, the King went full psycho and had all of the sorcerers in the kingdom put to death b/c he deemed them to be a danger to society ... even though they had lived in harmony up until that point. 

There’s basically three different groups ATP, seventeen years later. There are those who agree w/ the King and believe that sorcerers are too powerful and dangerous and should be killed. 

Those who believe that there are good and bad sorcerers, just as there are good and bad people and that they, as a whole, do not deserve to be persecuted for the sins of others

Those who believe that sorcerers should rule and that normal people are inferior to them. Some want them to suffer as they have. 

EMILY BLUNT (taken by kate aa) new Queen of a country divided, knows she needs to unite them, somehow!!!! murdered her father for the throne, over the years, he’d been driven insane w/ grief over his dead wife, michelle never believed, even as a child, that his extreme way of dealing with the problem was the answer, since then she saw him grow more and more unreasonable and the only way she could save her people was to kill her dad! was NOT an easy thing for her to do, despite this, and the guilt weighs heavily on her, always wanted to be queen but nOT like this, was born and bred to put her country before anYTHING ELSE, being a woman, she wasn’t the first in line (even though she was the eldest), recently discovered that she is a sorceress but has told no one, unsure of her abilities! her new discovery has only made her even more determined to resolve the persecution of her people but she knows that she is on thin ice! many people already suspect her of fowl play re: her father and brother and she needs all the support she can get to make any real change, her younger brother was next in line but she didn’t have faith in him, either: he had always been irresponsible and impulsive, didn’t have it in her to kill him but instead cast a spell upon him so that he does not remember who he is and exiled him to the furthest reaches of her kingdom, everyone believes that he is dead, michelle is the first queen to ever rule w/o a husband, means to abolish the law that she needs a man by her side but she knows that most of the country would see the throne pass to her uncle vs. see her sit the throne alone, that being said, she realizes that she may need to compromise to keep her position ... she is currently hosting LEONARDO DICAPRIO, a king from her neighboring nation, with the prospect of forming an alliance w/ him

CHARLES DANCE (reserved by kate aa) uncle to mdocks, suspects that she murdered his brother and/or nephew, pretends to harbor a great love for his older brother now that he’s dead (even though he considered killing him, himself, for the throne) means to prove that mdocks killed him (whether it is true or not) plans to prove that her sisters were in on it, too and seize the throne for himself (or at least, implicate keira knightley. he is confident that he could easily rule through alexis bledel). 

KEIRA KNIGHTLEY (taken by lizzy) - princess, witty, clever, flirtatious, impulsive, loves to have fun! can def be a little self-centered, upset over the death of her father and brother but pretends that she’s fine!!!!!!! (she isn’t) engaged to toby stephens, would have hATED that idea a few years ago but now she knows that her sister needs all the support she can get and an alliance with stephens would be a good thing!!!!!! also hopes that her marriage with stephens might be enough to spare alexis having ot marry at all!!!!!! alexis is the (1) person that she consistently thinks of before herself!!! once secretly had a thing with matthias but when he asked her to run away with him, she literally laughed in his face???!? and was like haha as if i’m a princess and ur nothing???? but tbh afterwards realized how much she loved him but now she’s lost him so that’s fun!!!! pretends she doesn’t care about that, too, but that’s not true at all!!!1 

ALEXIS BLEDEL (open) - princess, beth march vibes! super sweet and kind but quiet and shy!!! has severe social anxiety!!!!!!! would rather die than talk to you!!!! only feels comfortable around her sisters, knows that the alliance with xavier sameuls is her duty but tbh marrying him (or anyone) terrifies her!!!!!!!!!!!! wishes she was braver like her sisters, doesn’t realize the strength she does has!!!! thinks she’s worthless a lot of the time, super talented!!!! with the piano and drawing and singing (altho she doesn’t like to sing for anYONE) needs a self confidence boost!! likes animals more than people, her uncle scares her

DAVID OAKES (taken by lizzy)- son and heir of one of the wealthiest families, probably a noble, def a womanizer and terrible flirt, doesn’t have a filter and doesn’t care to get one anytime soon, the bane of his father’s existence, hates his parents and his sister but would DIE for julian morris in a heart beat, can be a real asshole!!!!! will say mean things to your face, says it is because he’s just That Honest but really its only because it is easier for him to be mean than kind, alicia vikander’s social climbing father keeps trying to push her on him and honestly he would marry her in an instant!!! loves her spirit and her snark and basically everYTHING about her!!! she doesn’t love him back though and he doesn’t blame her, know she can do better, doesn’t stop him from flirting with her???? doesn’t honestly think anything will ever come of it, for sure doesn’t wanna force her 

JESSICA CHASTAIN (open) sister to david oakes and julian morris, a PIECE OF WORK!!!! Extra™ secretly a sorceress (although how she keeps anything a secret is beyond me?!??!? about as subtle as avelina beaumont tbh) thinks her brothers are idiots, recently came into contact with mads mikkelson and is his #1 supporter, has become a spy for him (although again not sure how good she is b/c she isn’t subtle??!?!!) probably a little insane??? in love with michael fassbender dESPITE the fact that he is just a normal human, secretly trying to figure out to ~give~ him abilities so that they can be together in mad’s future world, wants to murder dominique mcelligott 

JULIAN MORRIS (taken by kate aa) sweetheart!!!!!!! super caring and affectionate, a little awkward sometimes but tries his best, has feelings for hayley bennet but doesn’t know how to act around her, his family wants him to marry amanda seyfried. has always been a man of duty! so he’s trying to court her but his heart isn’t in it, brother to jessica chastain and david oakes, loves both of his siblings a lot!! definitely closer with david ... gets a little ??!? @ jessica sometimes but definitely thinks she’s harmless #facepalm 

ALICIA VIKANDER (open) sister to tom hardy, middle class, father wants to marry her off to rich man??? possibly david oakes, hates the idea of marrying him!!! hates him tbh!!!!! best friends w/ joanna vanderholm/super protective of her! something of a lady during the day but a badass sorcerer hunter at night! in pursuit of mads mikkelson, super smart and capable!!! knows her father will disown her if she doesn’t marry but honestly doesn’t care???!? can take care of herself. 

TOM HARDY (open) brother to alicia vikander, cynical/grumpy, speaks in grunts, hates the world, thinks most people aren’t good, his sister is one of the few exceptions to this rule, grew up educated/in the middle class and his father kept trying to get him to marry well/pushed him towards the two older staffords but tom honestly disliked both of them and definitely had nO intention of ever being a royal, sick to death of his father tbh and one day just picked up and leFT, looks like he will kill you but actually a cynical cinnamon roll, loyal only to himself and his sister, gun for hire, has no idea that his sister is a sorcerer hunter on the DL, knows she’s super capable but wouldn’t want her putting herself into danger, saves his money and hopes to be able to help his sister secure her freedom, doesn’t want her to ever have to marry to support herself! heart eyes @ louisa  

RACHEL MCADAMS (open) - middle class, thief, con-artist, trying to catch leonardo’s attentions (but also his money), pretending to be a wealthy noblewoman from another country, in reality she is little the daughter of prostitute and a serial killer? 

NICOLE KIDMAN (open) -  upper class, was once an extremely sought after young lady, but she ran away with josh harnett against her father’s wishes, living with him in poverty was a huge culture shock but she was so happy!!!!!!! one day though, she came home to find her husband with blood on his hands ... he had killed his own brother in the line of duty. nicole knew that his brother would never harm a fly!!! and she couldn’t believe that josh was capable of doing such a thing. left him immediately and returned home!!!! since then, her father has been trying to marry her off properly ever since but no one wants her now that she’s been married and divorced. super sad. misses josh crowe every hour of every day. doesn’t know what she did to make him leave her

XAVIER SAMUELS (open) - upper class, brother to nicole kidman and amanda seyfried, enaged to alexis bledel, loves her a lot and always has tbh, honestly sees no downside to marrying her!!??? he knows that marrying a princess would bring honor and prestige to their family and he hopes that w/ that, would come more possibilities for nicole to remarry and be happy!!!

AMANDA SEYFRIED (open) - younger sister to nicole, a little spoiled but sweet, best friends with alexis bledel, they get along b/c amanda loves to talk and alexis loves to listen, talks up her brother a lot, hopes that alexis will marry him and they will be sisters!!!! knows her dad would like her to marry julian morris, has no interest in him at all!!!! finds him to be dull and boring. was initially irritated by james mcavoy flirting with her but has recently decided that she likes him, too. or at least, she is enjoying playing hard to get. acts like she loves julian morris to make him jealous. 

MADS MIKKELSON (open) -a sorcerer who is trying to find all the other sorcerers to protect and train them and then basically enslave all ~normal~ humans while he rules the world and lets them live in the same fear and isolation as he’s lived his entire life! 

LUPITA NYUNG’O (open) - direct poor, servant, secret sorceress, was discovered by mads mikkelson, basically adopted by him, he is training her!!! the first person in her life to treat her like a human!!! loves him so much!!!!!! was initially skeptical about his plans but has come around! he’s the best person she knows and she trusts him completely! 

LEONARDO DICAPRIO (taken by lizzy) insane!!!!! the WORST!!!! became king of his small country a few years ago and has already drained it of its resources!!!! has come to propose to michelle dockery! hoping that they will unite their two countries into one and she can help his country financially and he can help her but being a man at her side/allow her to rule. he honestly has no intention of letting her take the reigns but he will let her think whatever she likes until that point. infatuated with scarlett johannson and means to make her his mistress once he’s married. 

JAMES MCAVOY (open) prince/brother to leonardo dicaprio, super flirty, has a dark sense of humor, thinks his family is The Worst, has a thing for amanda seyfried, keeps trying to flirt with her but she won’t give him the time of day ... which only encourages him even more, thinks he’s the greatest but he’s actually the worst, reckless! kind of an idiot sometimes, will probably die doing something stupid 

CHARLIE HUNNAN (open) brother of dominique, in love with winona ryder!!!! has a will they/won’t they thing going on with her, tries not to give her the wrong idea but definitely does! loves her a lot but knows that what he does is dangerous and would never want to put her in harm’s way so he never means to ask her to marry him, lawyer, morally upright, believes in justice!!!!! will always do what he thinks is right, whatever the consequences, 

DOMINIQUE MCELLIGOTT (taken by lizzy) middle class, secretly harbors sorcerers in her house w/ her bro, doesn’t believe that they are all!!! bad!!! people!!!! was supposed to marry daniel craig a few years ago but he suddenly???? just broke up with her for no reason??? definitely bitter about that … thinks she’s better off w/o him but still has a lot of feels??? bffs w/ scarlett johannson 

JOSH HARTNETT (open) ruthless, cunning, full of hatred for those with magical abilities, was once married to nicole kidman but never thought he deserved her, hates everyone but her, hates himself more. eventually she left him after josh killed his own brother b/c he developed his powers, hates that her life has sucked since he left!!! hates what he did to her!!!!!!! has become even more reckless and brutal since the divorce. don’t cross him!!!!! tbh lowkey where he stands anymore re: sorcerers but also neEDS to believe that they are evil and dangerous otherwise he won’t be able to live with himself given what he did to his brother w/o a moment’s hesitation! 

[gloieee]

Limbo

Started this post sometime early July and could not finish in classic fashion because the heaviness weighed me down TOO much for me to continue writing. Usually for me writing is catharsis, but this time it felt laborious because it meant I had to sit with my emotions even more so than during my day-to-day (which was already too much to handle). It was hard for me to even listen to these songs then because it made my entire being ache. Yet, of course, cause I loved the pain, I did and anguished in it to paralysis. Most of these thoughts no longer resonate with me, to a surprising extent, but am attempting to pay respects to the pinnacle and hopefully, the conclusion of a long year+ of distress. Here goes, Limbo. 

 8/12/2020 

_______________________________________________________________________

Good News – Mac Miller 

I spent the whole day in my head Do a little spring cleanin' I'm always too busy dreamin' Well, maybe I should wake up instead A lot of things I regret, but I just say I forget Why can't it just be easy?

I think this sums up my days better than any of my own words can. These couple of weeks have been exactly this—spending whole days in my head (doing little else sometimes gleefully, sometimes woefully) attempting some “spring cleaning,” then going on some tangent on things I should fix in my life, attempting to constructively go down memory lane, then things getting too much and wondering the forever questions, “why can’t it just be easy?” 

Regret has become a salient gateway word into my life these past two years, not always consistently, but at least with some regularity. It feels especially shocking cause it really had so little presence prior to this. I suppose, some may say that before a certain age, there are no real consequences to one’s actions, hence, no need for regret. But under that logic, I don’t think at 26, I’m that old either, so I wonder what happened at 24 that began this trajectory. It seems extremely fitting that I couldn’t finish the blog post for “Mistakes” in May 2018, because to be frank, since then, a tinge (or more) of regret has persisted in my days. There have been some lateral moves for sure, but never a vertical move past the regret. Continuing on this thread of analyzing my own past actions, it also appears fitting that I started that 2018 playlist with Unhappy by Outkast/ Big Boi because regret rings profoundly (maybe only) when you’re unhappy with your current state. You don’t see a happy woman ruminating on a thought exercise of what could’ve been. At the time, I included the song based on feeling, (as with everything on this blog), but never really discussed it. 

Might as well have fun 'cause your happiness is done When your goose is cooked

I suppose this was pretty much how I lived my life this past year. I’m trying not to say it as a bad thing, cause it isn’t necessarily, and I have a tendency to romanticize tribulations. I had a lot of fun, even though at moments I got pretty millennial REKT in the process. It’s less the fact that I had fun (and was very healthy (physically)! Which I am grateful for), but that I had little else. I didn’t feel very fulfilled or feel like I knew myself, or my values, or even what I wanted. I lived nonchalantly, maybe even a little numbed, and got wrapped up in a LOT of distractions. Admittedly, it was nice in the moment to care about such light things, to not have to deal with so much heaviness. I remember reveling in it, in my personal conversations and on this blog as well. 

Yeah Right by Joji is my past year in LA told from the perspectives of cynics (aka Me). It’s a simple, almost grossly millennial song. Despite the extremely self deprecative lyrics, I love how the melody feels like a calming, boppy afterthought. There are moments in the track where you’re just super down in the dumps, but also moments when you’re singing with a lopsided, wry, self-taunting smile on your face. 

 Yeah Right – Joji 

Imma fuck up my life    We gon party all night She don’t care if I die  Yeah I bet you won’t try  But you know I don’t mind 

I don’t think my motives were ever as extreme or bleak as “imma fuck up my life” but the general sentiment rings true. There was definitely a pervasive detachedness to my days, and a total lack of “trying”.  And a lack of minding over that fact. 

Yeah, you know I feel right Yeah, you living right now She don't ever pick sides

I unfortunately discovered Joji during the small insanity of quarantine, and of course blazed through all his interviews. I hadn’t fully realized how not picking sides in my life and going along with the flow belied a sense of numbness or ambivalence. This is so how I’ve been feeling/ felt about so many aspects of my life—career, relationships, values, lifestyle. I couldn’t choose anything because nothing pulled at me. I remember telling a friend that I’m at a point of ambivalence where if I had two research projects I would not be able to pick which one to pursue because they would feel all the same to me. I feel almost no sense of what interests me.

Yeah, you bet I go to see you when I'm feeling like a drum without a beat Yeah, you dance so good And I think that's kinda neat

I am/was truly a drum without a beat, just noticing some insignificant thing of slight interest and noting “that’s kinda neat.” Really not a reason to go after a girl/ relationship in the slightest, but I get how it’s all that could be mustered at the moment. And then you shrug and run with it. 

 Another millennial moment of wisdom from Joji about this song:  

It’s not productive but it’s not destructive. And that’s how a lot of people get stuck, in relationships and in life in general. 

This was exactly what was happening during the year. I was not productive AT ALL, but I was still passing, still technically going through the motions, going through the hoops. Life was happening. And I was stuck. 

What you know about love? What you know about life? What you know about blood? Bitch, you ain't even my type

Honestly not super sure how it relates, but to these lines. Joji explains:  

I mean, the way I see life is like, no-one’s special. You’re not born special, if you’re lucky you’re given a certain set of skills and a certain set of resources and you run with them, and then everyone dies. So as long as they know that, and they’re not thinking in a God’s plan sort of way... So just stuff like that

This was interesting as this summer as I was trying to figure out my path and my direction, and grappling with whether I wanted to try to pursue things that I thought I should/ kinda wanted for extraneous reasons/ seemed practical and logical and well desired vs. what I may be better at/ what I knew I wanted before. And there was definitely this idea of a (lost) calling, a larger cosmic reason that I had blindly chosen this much harder and guilt-inducing path. Something that may make it all make sense. I was extensively looking back on my past self and aspirations. I felt like I had forcibly given up things that made me me without gaining the practical traits I had so envied in others; I had become a boring medical student who wasn’t even super productive nor good at medicine. I was obsessed with this idea of a passion, this abstract thing that I seemed to have perhaps had the inklings of at a certain point, but seemed to have lost entirely, all after having sacrificed much to pursue it. It was refreshing to see someone who is an artiste (hohoho) saying these things, since (successful) artists seemed to be the only people who were truly special or passionate enough in what they did, in that they had risked so much stability, and had made it. 

Returning to the song, I love how all these serious questions are raised only to be followed up by a super petty “bitch you ain’t even my type.” And indeed, my many deep queries have no conclusions and I find myself returning to the minutiae of daily life.  

Back to Good News. The utter exhaustion and endless circle of rumination on past days, a desire to fix the pattern, slight hope, and inevitable resignation Mac sings of make me close my eyes to take a deep breath. His tracks from Circle capture so well the fluctuating inner thought processes of those who are struggling to dig themselves out of something beyond their control:

When it ain't that bad It could always be worse I'm running out of gas, hardly anything left Hope I make it home from work Well, so tired of being so tired Why I gotta build something beautiful just to go set it on fire?   I'm no liar, but Sometimes the truth don't sound like the truth Maybe 'cause it ain't I just love the way it sound when I say it   But I heard that the sky's still blue, yeah I heard they don't talk about me too much no more And that's a problem with a closed door   Then I'll finally discover That it ain't that bad, ain't so bad

The coexistence of heaviness and hope is what I’ve always loved about Mac. I’m obsessed with duality, contradictions, and being conflicted because I think it’s what I have so struggled with for my young adult life (Joji also mentions this is a driving force behind his songs). Also, I think inconsistencies are just something that is so humanizing about people. It’s no wonder that my favorite works of art attempt to dissect or observe dualities—The Unbearable Lightness of Being; the esoteric song by the lead singer of a small Korean indie band that I had to pay 50 cents to download and save on my desktop cause it wasn’t on youtube (it is now huzzah). A minor tangent, in the aforementioned song Jo Woong implores someone to tell him what he did wrong because he sure as hell can’t figure it out. And a line that has stayed with me for years: Aren’t people’s fronts and backs inherently different? Or is it just me that’s lacking something... It’s a play on a Korean saying, but it points out the inconsistencies in people in an aching plea for understanding and sympathy. It’s what too many plagued, conflicted individuals are hoping for. 

내가 뭘 그렇게 잘못했는지 모르겠어요 누가 내 잘못 안다면 얘기 좀 해줘요  사람이 원래 앞뒤가 맞지가 않잖아요? 아니면 나만 이렇게 모자란가요  

When I listen to Mac with a clear head, aka not in the throes of depression, I hear the hope in his voice and lyrics. It strikes me and warms my heart even more because I know that the hope has shined through despite the darkness. But when I’m on the other side of the equation, I hear how deep the sadness and pain is, and how the hope is not enough to overcome that. It’s almost worse because I know the hope exists, and yet I can’t get there. It feels like a failure. 

Everybody- Mac Miller 

Everybody's gotta live And everybody's gonna die Everybody just wanna have a good, good time I think you know the reason why   Yeah, sometimes the goin' gets so good Yeah, but then again, it get pretty rough

The fatalism of this song coupled with Mac’s slight falsetto embodies a type of pain that is ineffable. The back and forth of things being good and rough reminds me of an addled and empty-eyed shrug.

Surf – Mac Miller

And the days, they go by Until we get old There's water in the flowers, let's grow People, they lie But hey, so do I Until it gets old There's water in the flowers, let's grow   Yeah, well Sometimes I get lonely Not when I'm alone But it's more when I'm standin' in crowds That I'm feelin' the most on my own And I know that somebody knows me I know somewhere there's home I'm startin' to see that all I have to do is get up and go

Surf speaks more quietly of possibility even during dark times. The faint sense of having known at a certain point that someone knows you and gets it, and that you could feel at peace again, like in a home of sorts. The desire to grow, the slight feeling that maybe, it we let go (of societal perceptions, of greed, expectations?), something could change. But in the here and now, it’s just a sense and not a reality. A hypothetical thought that has not yet passed the threshold for action:

Gotta get goin', goin', goin' before I'm gone

A break from the melancholy for a throwback to myself, which made me chuckle as well as feel a sense of wistful nostalgia. This short and sweet track seems like the perfect modern-day ode to me. My conflicted state of being in awe of and yearning after impractical aestheticism but simultaneously being terrified of and slightly disgusted by the indulgence and recklessness of art and its values has led me to eschew it as a profession but try to implicate myself in it in other ways. I think one of the slightly problematic ways this has manifested is not pursuing art in my own life, but seeking to be a muse in other’s’ artful endeavors. I’ve definitely probably contributed to the problematic male gaze I’ve written papers on, but in all vulnerable honesty, that is how I’ve been in the past. The redeeming qualities of Kota’s muse reminded me of the past, some of the qualities that I had prided in myself. I woefully feel as though I have lost all these qualities--Doing my own thing, riding my own wave, not being affected by others’ values, particularly the more superficial ones, being grounded, reading (hah, but never self help), low-key taking care of my life, knowing what I want.  

She – KOTA the friend 

She do her own thing, she ride her own wave Only twenty people on the 'Gram that she followin' Only post work, she ain't tryna be a model chick She believe in white wine, feet up on the ottoman Low-key, got her own business and she mindin' it If she get your number, you'll be lucky if she lock it in She hella grounded, but the plane trips to BnB stay booked Told me I should read the Four Agreements, it's a great book Cracked a little smile and she threw me back the same look, yea 

Slowing it down, this song sounds like a warm afternoon sunset on a lake in New Hampshire that’s not even sad. Which is rare for me since I find sunsets heart-wrenchingly empty most days.

Hand Me Downs – Mac Miller 

Get away to a place where the lakes such a great view Leave the bank, couple hunnid thou' I made it, but I hate once I build it I break it down Might just break me down   And all I ever needed was somebody with some reason who can keep me sane Ever since I can remember I've been keeping it together but I'm feeling strange

As long as I could remember, this is what I wanted. Yet in recent months, I’ve felt so confused about what I want. I’ve been feeling strange, and things don’t seem right, with no proper conclusion:   

Get away when it ain't really safe and it don't seem right But what's new? You get used to the bullshit, the screws they go missing It's likely they might be but...

I almost wish that there was something I distinctly missed, since that would at least show that I cared about something. But to be fair, wanting the wrong things have led me down many wrong turns in the past, so maybe this blank slate is not so bad. I’m so very unsure of what I want, but I suppose I just need to keep it up and act like I do* want something. That’s been the conclusion for this past year. It’s sometimes nice and fine, sometimes so difficult, and I’m in the latter end of the spectrum now, but perhaps it’ll click eventually. In the meantime, the detached voice of Giveon soothes me that I’m not only lost soul goin back and forth on the lost young adult pendulum:  

Like I Want You – Giveon  

I guess I'll just pretend until it all makes sense   Like I want you You, ooh, ooh Even if it's true, ooh (Even if it's true)

Early-ish July 2020  

[kpopaccountidontwanttodelete]

Bellissima Morte

Characters: Jennie (Black Pink) Namjoon (BTS) Genre: Fluff, Angst(???), Thriller Warnings: Murder, Blood Words: 1104

Friday.

Today seemed a bit too gloomy to continue his weekly jog, so he went to the café a bit earlier. He saw her sitting down at her usual spot at the corner and smiled.  ‘Never late.’ He thought. 

 “Hey Joon, usual iced Americano?” Minseok, the barista asked. “Or are you feeling something a bit warmer today? It’ll be pouring soon.” “Macchiato, thanks…” He said, still looking at her. “Hyung… what’s her name?” “Her?” he pointed to the silent reader in the corner. “He name’s Jennie Kim, she’s been coming over on Fridays for about 2 to 3 months now. Pretty as hell, but doesn’t talk much.” Minseok hummed before he walked off to make the drink. 

Kim Namjoon, 26, an A&R Director for BigHit Entertainment; producing models, singers, dancers, actors even MC’s and producers. He was in charge of scouting and training the artists, preparing them for their fame. Every week he’d go out for a run and end up at a small café near the lake and every time Namjoon had noticed her and found everything about her simply beautiful. She had a small smile from time to time but then a little frown; he guessed the books had affected her a lot. Once in a while she’d look up and catch him staring at her. She’d look away and blushed a bit. It’s a bit of a cliché isn’t it? 

“Here you are. Anything else?" “Whatever she drinks, put one on me and give it to her.”  With a smile, Namjoon took his mug and headed to a table, not too far from hers. This time when they locked eyes, she held it. 

The next week

 Namjoon walked in and smiled softly, looking over to see her reading quietly at her usual spot.

After ordering, he held his mug and bit his lip, walking over to her.

“This seat taken?” He asked and smiled. And with a small giggle, she replied, “All yours,” her face relaxed a bit as she hummed “Thank you, for the drink... Guessing Minseok Oppa told you bout me?”

“Kind of. But I’d like to know more from you.” He grinned cheekily.

“Got a name, Mr. Charming? “ “Namjoon, and you are?” He asked, for the sake of being polite.

“I’m positively sure that Minseok Oppa told you my name, Namjoon.” She eyed him playfully.

“You got me.  Jennie; Promise I won’t forget that.” He chuckled.

And with a small smirk, she leaned in and hummed, “I’ll make sure you won’t.”

By the next 2 weeks, they started meeting up outside the café, going on dates. In next couple months, Namjoon finally asked her out properly and she had agreed. Namjoon was in bliss. He knows that they’ve only been seeing each other for a short amount of time, however, he knew he’d never want to lose her. She was so perfect in his eyes.

 “Hey Princess,” Namjoon walked into his kitchen to see her wearing his shirt and a pair of shorts. “I have the weekend off from work. Want to go somewhere with me?” He asked, arms wrapping around her small figure.

After turning off the stove, Jennie hopped up and wrapped her legs around his waist.

“Well since you’re begging,” She says with a cheeky smile, “I guess I could make time.”  She kissed him softly. “Are you going to the office now?”

Namjoon nodded and pecked her lips again softly, “And I’m late,” He winked and set her down. “See you tonight, Princess."

 That weekend, the couple drove up to a remote area in the mountains and settled in a small getaway cabin Namjoon owned.

 They had brought a bottle of tequila, just for fun.  

Jennie had suggested they make a small campfire outside and play a drinking game; the first to pass out loses. With a confident smirk, Namjoon took the challenge.

“Try me, Princess.”

 Time passed as the amber liquid lessened and Namjoon started to feel very nauseous and light headed, although he hadn’t had enough to drink to feel so. He looked around the forest and saw his loving girlfriend putting out the fire. The ground seemed to sway beneath his feet and he felt breathless, his knees quivered violently before he finally dropped.

Hours later, Namjoon groaned softly, stirring awake. A sudden sense of panic rose when he found that he could not move any of his limbs. He found himself tied to a chair but paid no mind; his only thought was to look for his princess.

“JENNIE? BABY WHERE ARE YOU?” He yelled and tugged against the restraints, burning his wrists.

The door opened and someone walked in while clicking her tongue. “Always so loud, no matter what we do…” Jennie came into sight and sighed softly, taking a seat in front of Namjoon and smiled.

“Hello, Namjoon.” “Princess, untie me. This isn’t funny.”

“You think I’m joking?” Jennie smirked and raised an eyebrow. She lifted her skirt a little to retrieve three four-inch platinum-coated throwing knives form its sheath and twirled them around her finger before throwing one at him. The man screamed as the small knife stuck onto his thigh.

 “Oh shut it. That wasn’t half as bad as what you made hundreds of girls go through. Starving themselves, surgery, depression.”  Jennie glared at him, reminding him of how he treated artists from his company, driving them insane – even suicidal.

She threw another small knife, hitting him in the shoulder.

“J-Jennie, please… I’m sorry…!” He cried out through the searing pain.

“You know, at first, I didn’t want to go through with this. I watched you in the coffee shop; you seemed so… perfect. Honestly, I thought I could just run away with you. But after a few months, you really do show your true colours, Oppa. I’m not surprised a lot of people wanted you dead.” Jennie drew near, pulling the knife out of his thigh before sitting down on his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck, tracing patterns on his jaw.

“You know, you weren’t that good. I faked everything.” She said with a sweet, cynical smile. “You should have worked on that…” Namjoon glared at her before flattering his eyes down in pain as she applied pressure to the blade, drawing blood. “It won’t matter now anyway. You’re as good as gone. No one will ever find you, baby.”

“Princess- please…” He choked out, tears streaming down his face. “Please, we c-can still run away… P-please baby, I-I-I l-love you!”

 “Yeah, ” She smiled softly and slid the pretty pink blade across his throat; deep crimson liquid splattering across her cheek and shirt.

 “But I don’t.”

[chocolotte]

List #02

1. If someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to?

The most difficult thing would be what to read. I love reading but my taste ranges from YA princesses and mermaids to Greek Mythology to Charles Bukowski’s novels to some real good old-fashioned horror. However I would probably have them read “Bloem en vlinder” [Flower and butterfly] which is a children’s book that I keep reading and rereading over the years because its meaning changes to me a lot and it’s beautifully illustrated, so yeah, they would get my honest thoughts on that since it means a lot to me.

I would probably have them watch The Real O’Neals and (not or!)  F.R.I.E.N.D.S. It might sound crazy but there’s a little part of me in all of those characters somehow. I watch TOO many TV shows but those are the only ones that matter. When it comes to movies, I’d have them watch Love Actually or Jurassic Park which are the only movies I like rewatching.

Then finally, I’d let them listen to Introducing Me by Nick Jonas; My Wish by Rascal Flatts and probably ever single song in my UNDERWEAR PARTY playlist.

2. Have you ever found a writer who thinks just like you? If so, who?

I think my writing comes from two different points. On one side, I have the mind of a teenage girl who’s perky and loves romance and the unique little things in a story, the details that do or don’t matter to the story line. So I would say John Green. And I love a good plot twist every now and then and all these things that make more sense/come together further on in the story, so maybe Lemony Snicket as well.

On the other hand I tend to write rather cynical and dark, with a hint of pure lust. I don’t usually post it, it’s a side of me that I’d rather keep to myself for now. Maybe that’s why I don’t go out and search any books of that genre either, but if this reminds any of you of a writer, feel free to let me know!

3. List your fandoms and one character from each that you identify with.

- One Direction (music/band): I want to say Harry. I don’t know him personally but at first he seemed a bit of a cheeky lad. [I quote him (and myself): “My worst habit is... probably being naked all the time.”] I think he found a nice way to grow up in, he seems really kind and friendly and a benefactor. That’s not completely who I am yet, but it is who I aspire to be. And when it comes to his art (so singing and songwriting) he writes things that are important to him and is just a huge fan of his own work which applies to me as well.

There’s no other fandom than One Direction that I’ve completely succumbed to because it’s time consuming and probably bad for my health. Lately I’ve taken it down a notch on fandoms but here are a few others I’ve been in/a huge fan of:

- The Selection Series by Kiera Cass (book series): I identify a lot with Marlee. Sweet, little Marlee who unfortunately fell in love with someone she wasn’t supposed to fall in love with. I think everyone’s felt that attraction to something wrong before. Myself included. I identify with a few things from a few characters like Maxon who puts on a smile to hide his scars; America who isn’t afraid to speak up and who’s a walking contradiction when it comes to feelings, she has them but she’s afraid of them and she wants to show them but then she doesn’t; Celeste who hides behind her femme fatale persona (which I don’t have except when there’s a lens on me but still).

- John Green fandom (does he have a fandom??) (writer): Everything about John Green is me. Except he’s more successful and a better writer.

- The Vamps (music/band): I don’t know if any of them apply to me, honestly. Maybe Brad’s dog.

- Twilight (movie):  Probably Rosalie because I think I would regret being frozen in time after a while, especially when it comes to doing the little miracles of life like having a child or breathing. (Also, the first thing I would do as a vampire is probably kill someone in a very dramatic manner for some twisted revenge reason?)

- Winx Club (animated TV series): Bloom because her element is fire, she’s always trying to help, feels like the new kid sometimes etc.

P.S.: There should really be a fandom for James Corden because I worship that man.

4. Do you like your name?  Is there another name you think would fit you better?

My name is Lotte which according to the webbernet means free man. It’s also a name of a fish otherwise called sea devil. Alas, I think I have the best name out there, just saying. It’s part of who I am so I can’t imagine myself with any other name but I’ve always loved the name Emma!

5. Do you think of yourself as a human being or a human doing? Do you identify yourself by the things you do?

A human being. Besides the fact that I’m pretty lazy, I don’t do anything interesting? And I’m often more worried about existing than about what I’m doing in my life.

6. Are you religious/spiritual?

I was born and raised a Catholic but I don’t really think there’s one almighty force out there. I do however like to believe in magic and karma.

7. Do you care about your ethnicity?

I care in the sense that I’m aware I’m very privileged just because of my skin colour but I will never use that against someone and I wouldn’t mind having another ethnicity. 

8. What musical artists have you most felt connected to over your lifetime?

Easily Harry Styles, Taylor Swift and R.M. Drake.

9. Are you an artist?

In the sense that I like to create new things and express myself, yes.

10. Do you have a creed?

I believe in the truth and equality, loving each other and respect.

11. Describe your ideal day.

On my ideal day, it doesn’t matter what the weather is like, or who I’m with or where I am. My ideal day would just be spent with people I love (including myself!), maybe discovering a new place or rediscovering an old one and have delicious food in it. It would be a day that doesn’t end when the night falls but when it ends, you’ll have cheeks that hurt from smiling and a content longing to get in bed with your dreams.

12. Dog person or cat person?

KITTY!

13. Inside or outdoors?

Inside. I admire the outdoors but mostly from inside, sorry.

14. Are you a musician?

I can play ‘do re mi’ on the piano, that’s about it.

15. Five most influential books over your lifetime.

1) Bloem en Vlinder 2) Pluk van de Petteflet 3) The Selection - Kiera Cass

16. If you’d grown up in a different environment, do you think you’d have turned out the same?

I hope so!

17. Would you say your tumblr is a fair representation of the “real you”?

It is a little more positive sometimes than who I am. Maybe I’ll balance that out soon with some writing, but I’m not comfortable enough for that right now.

18. What’s your patronus?

According to the Buzzfeed quiz I have a doe, which means: You had a dark side to you that people too often remember, but deep down, you’re actually a courageous, loving person. You like to wear the color black and have no problem telling it like it is.

According to the Quotev quiz I have a dragon which means:  The Dragon is one of the more unique patronuses.  Those with a Dragon patronus tend to be strong on to the inside and out and protective.

19. Which Harry Potter house would you be in? Or are you a muggle?

Hufflepuff

20. Would you rather be in Middle Earth, Narnia, Hogwarts, or somewhere else?

I’d love to be in Wonderland or back in the 70s

21. Do you love easily?

I’m afraid so.

22. List the top five things you spend the most time doing, in order.

This was very eye-opening, and not in the good way

1. Sleeping 2. Tumblr 3. Obsessing over something/Overthinking 4. Getting sad or mad about what I’m overthinking 5. Draw/Write/Taking pictures

23. How often would you want to see your family every year?

I still see them every day now, I really can’t say how much (I want) that would change?

24. Have you ever felt like you had a “mind-meld” with someone?

I firstly had read this as “mind-melt” and my thoughts immediately raced to Harry Styles wowie. But, I’m guessing you mean whether I have felt telepathic with someone, as in merging our brains, thinking the same way? Yes, I have it all the time with my sister and my friend Ben.

25. Could you live as a hermit?

I think I could pull it off. I at least have more potential than anyone else in my family haha. Although I think I might go slowly insane without social contact after a long period of time.

26. How would you describe your gender/sexuality?

Female and bisexuality

27. Do you feel like your outside appearance is a fair representation of the “real you”?

I think it is. You can easily tell when I’m feeling lazy, sleep, confident, happy by the way I dress. And my hair’s always a mess so that pretty much sums me up as well. 

28. On a scale from 1 to 10, how hard is it for someone to get under your skin?

If they know how to set me off, an 8. In general life, probably way less.

29. Three songs that you connect with right now.

- You R In Love by Taylor Swift

- My Wish by Rascal Flatts

- Meet Me In The Hallway by Harry Styles

30. Pick one of your favorite quotes.

“Faites que le rêve dévore votre vie afin que la vie ne dévore pas votre rêve.” - A. De Saint-Exupéry. [English: Make the dream devour your life so that life does not devour your dream.]

[isuckandotheressays]

PART 1 ; self-saboteur

How can you even start to talk about something like this without sounding so fucking cliché it makes your teeth hurt. Stuff is hard, like really hard, and it will be forever, and I know that. I am like, obscenely good at whining, I can whine about pretty much anything, the weather, the fact I have nothing to wear, the fact that I don’t get what I want. I'm internally spoiled, but I think everyone is really, any one that isn't is lying, what type of crazy person likes when they don’t get what they want? Unless you are ,like a masochist, which in some ways I probably am, or at least a self-saboteur.

Anyway, unimportant. More importantly, my life is currently in shambles. The love of my life won't talk to me because he's upset that I tried to kill myself. Now I'm sure from an outwards perspective that makes him sound unfeeling, a dick, but to be honest I'm the dick.  

Don’t get me wrong, I 100% wanted to die, I could not see my way out. I weighed out my options, I could hang myself from the loft bed he built for me, but I'm too tall and it wouldn’t have worked. I would slit my wrists, but then I would get heaps of blood on the 70's carpet and that would be just like, disrespectful to my housemates. So, my final thought was just to take as many of my sleeping meds as I could and just like, go to sleep. I wrote a note, in tears, obviously, I had fucking lost it.  

I individually popped out the pills and took them one by one, slowly getting more and more tired, getting less and less conscious. I kept thinking about random things, like how mad everyone is going to me if I survive this, how fucked it's going to be for Luke, how I've probably ruined his life. So I thought in my drug addled state, I should probably just like message saying I'm sorry to all my friends or whatever. Because I'm a dirt human.  

Suicide, is a really selfish thing, the most selfish thing you can do, but at that point in time, I couldn’t see my way out. I felt worthless, that the person I cared for the most in the world was never going to trust me again, that my best friends didn’t want to hang out with me because I'm so fun because I'm a useless sad lump that wines, can't even drink red wine because I become some heaps horrible bitchy cynical version of myself. That I would always disappoint my parents, because to this day, I don’t actually want to do what they want me to do and I really just want to be a starving artist and make art about how sad I am all the time.  

Anyway, I squeezed out some drama queen ass text to the people that meant the most to me, 'I'm sorry I love you' , which I meant but in hindsight as someone that wanted to die peacefully and alone in their house, is not a good move because people care about if you are dead or alive and well, got scared if they get that message out of the blue. So next minute, my dad, arrives in a cab, and I go to Emergency, and no one really takes what goes on particularly seriously and then in a bed and some doctor is making me drink some sludgy black coal shit to soak up all the medication in my stomach (side note it's been three days at this point and all that is coming out of me is like spirited away anime style sludge.  

So, I wake up and I'm going to the ward, this is like 8 at night, I did all this pill business at about Noon, and I'm sitting in the waiting room with my mum and dad who are literally at their whit's end with their nerves shot because their only child has an inability to cope with real life.

Side note, I am a productive member of society, I have job, that I mostly like and work hard at, I do a little bit of 'faffy' modeling for cash when I can, I get up I get coffee, I catch the train to school etc. Granted my mum pays my phone bill because I'm a 22 year old child that can't do real life human things. But yeah, back to the ward.

PART 2 ; repercussions

I'm sitting there waiting at the mental health ward and they literally come and give me some belongings I left there the time before. Like I'm some frequent flyer, I sort of laugh under my breath but try to stifle it because I love my parents  more than anything and I don't want to make this situation any more confusing and awful than what it is. I go to the tiny mini fridge and fish out a cheese sandwich because the stuff I took to OD makes you so fucking hungry.  

So I'm admitted, given the awkward PJ's, some hectic sedatives and put in the room with the vinyl mattress like the ones in jail I'm sure, except in the ward they give you milo and night and speak in hushed tones and take your blood pressure a lot and offer you adult colouring books.  

Then I'm in the room and I'm thinking things. The things I'm thinking are about the fact that I did not succeed in ending my life and now there are repercussions. I have to not only feel shit, I have to feel guilty because what I have done to the people who love me is so monumentally horrible and I'm a bad selfish person who is never going to be loved, etc. Then I think about if I had done it another way, if it had worked, then I fall asleep.

I'm woken up by a student nurse that looks about 15 rolling in a huge blood pressure machine. The soft voice ensues like fucking silk "so, uh, cay, do you feel safe? Do you feel like hurting yourself? Killing yourself? Feeling a bit better than yesterday?" And me, being a fucking idiot, says, "oh yeah I'm fine now, just tired you know". Because, from lots of practice, I'm a master at pretending I'm okay (I'm being sarcastic hopefully you get that and I don’t just sound like a prized IDIOT).  

Hours down the track in walk out in my gross green PJ's and look at who else in in the ward. Literally exactly what you would expect, some full grown woman with pink hair doing a puzzle of teddy bears, some 'methy' looking guy talking to himself in the room (until this point I thought this was a ward for woman only) that has a video of a waterfall on loop and an extremely greasy middle ages Asian woman being scolded for trying to sleep when she has to be awake because its day time. Nobody talks to each other, we are all sort of collectively embarrassed, no one really knows how to act, do we like smile at each other? Or do we have to prove our sadness to each other? I just keep my head down mainly until I get handed the sludgy meal that we have to eat with a spoon because u could mince yourself with a fork or knife. I recon if you really wanted you could use a spoon, I recon if you really wanted you could use anything like, it's pretty fucked up but I think about that all the time. I know pretty much all the things in a room that I could use to hurt myself.  

Like spoon? Easy, I would just either with all the force in my body, sorry for the gore, slam the not spoony part into my wrist and like , blood would Tarintino style go everywhere. I could also just like shove it down my throat and choke. I recon I could like, paper cut myself to death, that’s so morbid, oh my god, sorry.  

PART 3; insidious thing  

Fast track to now, I'm at my parent's house, with a shaved head, in the country, the love of my life won't talk to me. I'm almost certain that he's going to leave me, he's already moved out and he's basically sick of my shit. And to be honest, even though it fucking hurts, its fair enough.

Backtrack again, I worked at the pub, and everyone there just like, happened to do cocaine, so I tried cocaine, and of course, it was great but very expensive. If went from something fun to something I needed to get through a shift because I was so tired. Then I would spend all my money on it. Then the guy would show up at the bar and I would just swipe my card and take money out of the till. Like at the start it was spending my money, and then I started stealing the money.  

Now, I have a huge problem which honestly, I like being on drugs, plus being bipolar, oh yeah, but now that’s up for negotiation and could be a personality disorder or whatever. I didn’t tell anyone I was doing this, not even my partner or my friend who could have helped me. Especially, my partner. But again, dirt human remember.  

So, I was holding that secret in for ages, like was literally killing me. It was the most insidious thing ever. But I've always stuffed in and marred the truth to protect myself. When I was younger, like childhood till I was 16, I had a really hard time at making friends so I literally would just make shit up. But when I was first diagnosed and had my first break up, I worked out that, that probably wasn’t optimum to being like an alright human. So I stopped saying I was related to famous models and that I got kicked out of karate because I punched the teacher and started telling the  true story about the stress nose bleeds, of the white robes and I was related to a bunch of people that lived in Yass, as in many merinos (no offence to my family - you are all phenomenal).

PART 4; him

Forward, I hadn't told my parents this immense thing, and I was lying about what actually happened. So I told them. And, they really didn’t care. Not only what this an insane and complete surprise to me, it made me feel even worse that I have been an absolutely horrendous person to my partner.  

So now, I am petrified. I'm writing this with my newly shaved golf ball head, he's not talking to me and I'm this total wreck of self-hatred and total disarray. Because I want to be with him, I don’t want to hurt him. But I don’t know how to move forward. I don’t know how to make someone trust you again, and I sure as hell don’t think I deserve to have such a fucking angel in my life.

Like you know those classically handsome boys from teen movies, yeah think about that, but like Bowie dreamy. Big ass blue eyes, freckles, tall, absolutely killer smile. He supports my art, he's good with kids and animals, he's stupid crazy intelligent, goofy and gets my humor, that I barely get sometimes. Like I have no idea how human trash like me could have made this person fall in love with me. One time, he fucking flew overseas to see me on our anniversary because he missed me. He has written obscure punk songs about me. He also supports me immensely, which I owe my life to, on many occasions.  

To be honest, I will understand if he's over it, he could do so much better, he could like, date a  girl who is not legally insane, that would not self-harm and lie and do batshit stuff like some crazy murderer. But, I do want to get better for him. And I am trying, I've enrolled in this crazy program that the psych lady said would improve my honesty as well as make me be able to deal with real life grown up situations like an adult and not some mentally inept baby thing. I am trying. Shaving my hair was a thing for me. I needed a physical change to put stuff in motion. I'm in motion now. And I hope that he sees that, but I understand, I truly I am the worst.

Skip forward to two weeks later, we ended it, I broke it I really did. But that okay, because you have to have a red hot go at being by yourself. I am weirdly happy, elated even, I feel like ive got myself back. Its crazy that you don’t even notice how much you have lost yourself until your alone, the cracks in what seemed like a perfect relationship start to show. Not to throw shade, but I think that I embarrassed him sometimes and tried to hard to act cool. And to be honest, I recon I am pretty fucking cool. I bent myself to fit around him, even my aspirations, even my work even my internet presence. He never let me 'vlog' he thought it was lame, seems like such a teeny thing but I full want to vlog. I want to talk into the abyss that in Instagram, hear an echo or not.  

I guess its all a learning curb really, you got to lose what you think you want to get what you need. I could 'smiths' along and ask to 'please please, please, let me let me let me, get what I want this time' but right now, I'm still working out what that is. It's pretty flippin' great.

[theworstbob]

the thing journal: 4.9.2017 - 4.15.2017

scattered thoughts about the 7+ new things i took in last week. this week: japandroids, metric, pusha t, inside llewyn davis, anthony hamilton, brandy clark, kendrick lamar, kubo and the two strings, and moonlight

1) Celebration Rock, by Japandroids: THIS WEEK: EXTRA-CAPSULE-Y REVIEWS OF ALBUMS I THOUGHTLESSLY ADDED ON MY PREFERRED STREAMING SERVICE THAT I NOW FEEL OBLIGATED TO LISTEN TO. This is the sort of meat-and-potatoes-y rock music I like but don't do much more with. It doesn't feel as Midwest-y as The Hold Steady does, so I appreciate it more, but it's definitely in that Hold Steady school of music I smile politely at but struggle to connect with, and that's definitey owing more to my own special brand of cynicism than it is to any flaw in this album. It's very good, it just needs to be sorted to the Not For Me pile.

2) Fantasies, by Metric: This album was added because I wanted to listen to more releases from 2009, since, before I made a point of seeking out 2009 music, I had listened to, I dunno, three albums made that year? Because I got MAD depressed that year. And it's always fun to dive into a band's older works after being introduced to them with their most recent stuff. I listened to Pagans in Vegas and loved it, which is how this ended up on the Project 2009 list, and this is a cool album in its own right, but I'm listening to this album with the perspective of someone who knows this band's future, and it's like, okay, this is cool, but while I'm not sure how to place what they added between then and now, I am able to tell it's not here, I can kinda hear how these songs aren't as electronic-y (music term) and could have used that extra little oomph (also a music term).

3) King Push: Darkest Before Dawn, by Pusha T: This is maybe my favorite prelude to an album that still hasn't been released 1.333 years after the prelude dropped of all time. I'm not sure there's a rapper in that second-tier, that level just below a Kendrick or Killer Mike or Danny Brown, more reliable than Pusha T. Pusha T appears on a song or releases an album, and I know exactly what I'm getting, a solidly written and delivered thing that's probably about dealing drugs. He's been doing this thing for over 15 years, and he's always managed to keep it fresh, which is pretty astonishing, and he's able to make a compelling enough prelude that it still holds up on its own 1.333 years later.

4) Inside Llewyn Davis, dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen: A few weeks ago, I mentioned really digging The Bombpops' song "Fear of Missing Out" because it was a song, in some small part, about realizing the futility of pursuing a creative career, on trying to balance being a rock star with working a normal job, so of fucking course I loved The Coen Brothers' take on roughly the same concept. When would I not enjoy a sad movie about creative failures with Coen-y characters and Coen-y humor? ("That Jean... I'd sure like to fuck her." is a line I saw coming a million miles away that made me so happy when it actually happened.)

5) What I'm Feelin', by Anthony Hamilton: I enjoyed this R&B album on a bus ride home from work! I think dude's a tremendous singer, I enjoyed most of these songs, and I'm still not exactly in a place where I have anything to offer an R&B album much beyond "I liked you!"

6) 12 Stories, by Brandy Clark: Like I can connect to a country album's sadness because I've been listening to country since I was a kid, and listening to country willingly since I realized "You Lie" was a jam, but R&B is a genre I didn't engage with as a kid much farther than John Legend, so it's easy for me to tell what makes an album like this great -- sad stories about broken people, folksy references that skirt the edges of country cliche, heartbreaking details about the American lower class ("We pray to Jesus and we play the lotto/'Cuz there ain't but two ways we can change tomorrow" is a devastating chorus for a first track) -- because it's what I've spent time with. I need to work harder on understanding what makes an Anthony Hamilton album great. Like, I enjoyed that one Jazmine Sullivan album a couple years ago, I should be able to dig into a What I'm Feelin' and find all the things I can love there.

7) DAMN., by Kendrick Lamar: ...Do I need to reserve judgement until we get confirmation that the fan theory of a secret double album is nonsense? Or should I reserve judgement until I can separate this album from my anticipation? Two of Kendrick's albums are probably in my all-time Top 50, and Section.80 might be in there, as well. I don't like coming at albums from a perspective where I'm expecting them to be among my all-time favorites, but that is the standard Kendrick has set. It's really fucking good. It's a collection of amazing songs by the one musician who's probably better at his thing than anyone else alive is at their thing. It's not good kid level earth-shattering or TPAB-level ambitious, and it's insane to me that this album, by this artist, could ever feel underwhelming to me, that I've listened to this album twice and am saying, "Number two for the year so far. Tsk, tsk, I expected more, Kendrick." Maybe it's because I gave myself a day and two spins to really get to know this album. (Of course, TPAB is an album I've only listened to all the way through twice, and I have no problem hailing that as a masterpiece. That album is challenging, though, not just in its thematic content, but in its delivery, if I haven't called TPAB a David Lynch film before, I'm saying it now. Also, it's kind of weird that I feel bad about reviewing an album after one listen but have no problem proffering film/TV opinions after one watch.) It's a concise record delivered with confidence that I'm going to listen to again and again. That's all I know for sure.

8) Kubo and the Two Strings, dir. Travis Knight: got damn what a fucking gorgeous film Like, I hate that the best display device in my apartment is my laptop monitor, because my laptop is kind of garbage? And there were times where it could not handle this film, when the picture quality was not what this film demanded. I want to see this movie in an environment where I can, like, see this movie, actually see this movie in an environment where I don't have to deal with quality loss. I honestly feel like I insulted this movie by watching it on Netflix with earbuds and inconsistent picture quality, I did a disservice to the craftsmanship and love that built every single goddamned frame. There was a moment early on in the film where the character stuttered, and THEY ANIMATED THE STUTTER. THEY ANIMATED HIS FUCKING MOUTH STUTTERING. LIKE OH MY GOSH, YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO, BUT YOU DID AND I LOVE YOU AND I'M SORRY.

9) Moonlight, dir. Barry Jenkins: This movie was made for basically the same amount of money as CBS pays the dude who plays Sheldon on The Big Bang Theoy. That's so amazing. It feels weird to wave a flag for a film that won some sort of award for being a good movie, but this is such a strong fucking movie. It's such a visually astonishing movie, using its Florida setting to incredible effect (it must have been the worst to shoot in the wind, but man, those scenes with the strong wind blowing on the beach looked so cool), doing all these things with color I haven't been able to fully parse. (That scene where the kid's mom is bathed in red light, screams four words at her son, stalks into her bedroom, and closes the door and leves the kid staring at a green hallway was perfect.) This is this dude's second film. That's insane. Like again, it feels weird to stand up for a film the Academy stood up for, but everyone needs to see this film, everyone needs to see this story and see the way this dude tells it.