#as someone who grew up with a dog

[sunshines-legacy]

I can imagine it now ☁️ ✨ twinkle sounds, eveything gets wavy and distorted, fade to imagination ✨ ☁️

Post hogwarts Sebastian bringing home a gift for his family! It’s that new dog breed that everyone’s been talking about. Sunshine almost cries as they hold the little puppy. She may be a cat-person but she’s a dog person for sure. And then they have babies and the babies grow up with the puppy 🥹🥹

[boarcide]

I truly think that one of the biggest tragedies in BEAST in regards to the Akutagawa siblings is that, at the core of it, Ryuunosuke viewed himself as a beast, and showed his love in a way a beast would, while Gin was the only person who ever saw him as human and judged him accordingly. She did not see a beast acting like a beast, the way everybody else did, she saw a human acting like a beast and it’s part of what drove her away.

The ADA saw their rookie detective at his worst, and watched—and continues to watch—him grow from a beast to a human over time. Consumed by hatred and only knowing how to be cruel, and slowly learning how to become human.

Gin saw her brother at his best—the best he could be in their situation—and then watched him grow from a boy to a beast within moments. The scraps of humanity that he had, all disappearing into rage so primal it no longer made him seem human.

[beansnpeets]

Okay and in all honesty, Echo is not a psycho crazy dog like people expect from an Alaskan Husky. She's just a dog. Like any other dog. Same with the rest of the sled dogs. They're just DOGS. They aren't fucking insane and too much to handle. Some of the dogs at the kennel I work at are definitely more of a handful than others, but like they're still dogs.

[tragedia]

there's not a single city elf origin playthrough where loghain was recruited. reyna would sooner die herself than allow him to become a warden after he turned a blind eye to what happened in denerim's alienage re: tevinter slavers.

[swordmaid]

braeryn mention!!!! also 'willing to wade through the squalor' shri’iia’s like?? girl thats my home ur talking about

[nerdomancer]

I love how bloodhound puppies are just legs and skin

[thefandomlesbian]

People with large dogs seriously underestimate the prey drive of their animals. I have owned toy breeds my whole life and have been attacked so many times by "friendly" dogs who wanted to kill my dogs. I know a number of toy dog owners who have had their dogs killed right in front of them by off-leash dogs, including one woman who was holding her Chihuahua above her head and the offending dog snatched him out of her arms and ripped him to pieces while the owners were powerless to get it under control once the attack began.

It is unspeakably horribly traumatizing to try to interact with public access spaces as a toy dog owner because of off-leash dogs. Everyone thinks "My dog would never." Your dog is an animal. Yes, it would. Yes, even your dog. Just because your dog is friendly with humans and other medium to large dogs does not mean it is going to see a friend when it sees my four pound sweatervest on a leash.

Even a dog that has been desensitized to everything under the sun could still, god forbid, have a neurological event to trigger a major behavioral crisis and cause serious damage to other people. It is not worth the risk to let Fido run in a space where he is supposed to be leashed.

And having been put in this position too many times, and having been hurt and had dogs hurt too many times, I can say I will hurt a dog that goes for my leashed pups. I carry a knife. An aggressive dog will be stabbed before I lose my pet to someone else's irresponsibility.

Which isn't to say I ever WANT to have to harm someone's beloved dog—but it's a choice I'm prepared to make if I must. And there are people who will hurt your dog for fun when he's just existing, minding his own business, doing nothing wrong. You won't be able to stop those people if your dog is outside of your control.

Everyone else talked about outdoor cats, it's time for me to talk about offleash dogs

[bastet55]

[britneyshakespeare]

I wonder if Shakespeare had a dog

[oh-my-gosh-its-j0sh]

The way that I would love to write about these two in a fanwork? I would love to ramble about them whenever given the chance! 👀

*Casually inserts some vintage World War II-era romance between Muriel and Eustace in the tags*

I recently watched some Courage which inspired me to doodle young versions of Eustace and Muriel. Probably in their 20's or something.

[robinsgrl]

toxic baby daddy rafe does something to me. no soft rafe (only with his girls and only sometimes). he’s abrasive and harsh. even more when someone messes with you. yooo where my panties at

mdni 18+

It’s been three months. Three months without Rafe as your boyfriend. Three months of his only title in your life being your baby daddy. There were days where you would refuse to even call him that.

In high school, you loved the sound of his voice. You loved how the palm of his hand felt at the small of your back. You loved that being around him brought you a sense of peace.

Now, all you two do is argue. About everything and anything. Even if you do start half of them. Not now, though.

“What I do in my spare time is none of your business!” Luckily, Samara’s in the living room, her noise cancelling headphones on as she watches some YouTube show, giggling when something funny comes up. You’d usually try and pay attention to her screen time but you can’t when Rafe is in your home and bitching at you.

“So you’re whoring it up when Samara’s with me?” His words are harsh, spitting them at you.

Your eyes are wide and bewildered as you look up at him, chest rising and falling from the intense match you’re having. “Listen to yourself! Whoring it up? Are you from the fifties? Women can have sex without being called a whore nowadays!”

“So you are fucking someone? Who is he.” It’s not a question. It’s a goddamn demand and you hate the way it makes your knees feel weak.

You scoff loudly, rolling your eyes. “I’m not fucking anyone.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me, ___, Topper fucking saw you.”

“Topper’s your dick rider.” You spit back out. It comes without warning. His big hand falls on your neck, tightening around you. Your back pushes up against the wall, eyes wide and up on his as he stares down at you angrily.

His face nears yours, lips ghosting over the shell of your ear. A shudder runs through your body and you want to shut your legs to help ease the sensation between them but he forces his knee to you. “I’ll kill any man who gets near you, do you fucking hear me?” His words are low and menacing. From anyone else, it’d be scary. It’d drive you away and straight to goddamn police station. But from him? You can’t deny how good it feels.

Rafe’s always been protective of you. Since you two met, he’s hovered around you like a scary dog, growling at anyone who came your way. It grew when you got knocked up in your senior year of high school. And it grew tenfold when your baby girl was born. But it got to be suffocating. You broke it off with him and it took him two weeks to realize you were being serious.

You would never admit that you made a mistake. Not ever. Admitting that you miss him only lets him win. It gives him a point. And yes, you should be mature enough to realize this isn’t a game but he’s so damn cocky about it. The last thing you need from Rafe is a bigger ego.

“Who is he?”

“Eric. Eric Jones.” You admit easily, breath shaky and full of a need for him.

“Did he fuck you?”

You can’t answer. He repeats himself.

“Did he fuck you?”

You nod, hands falling to his arm as his hand tightens on your neck. His eyes won’t leave your face, taking you in completely. You can see it all. The anger. The jealousy. The twinge of hurt. He pulls his hand from your neck and pulls away from you. “Call your mother. Tell her to pick Samara up.”

“What?”

“Just fucking do it.” And you do. Like always, you do as told and Samara’s off with her grandma for the night.

“He can’t fuck you like I can.” You’re a drooling mess as he pounds into you from behind, the sound of skin on skin meeting fills the room. His hand is in your hair, forcing your head back. “Tell me. Tell me how good I make you feel.”

The moans and whimpers coming from you won’t stop. You try to form words as he keeps shattering your world but it won’t come out. “Fucking slut. Answer me.” His hands trail down to your neck, pushing you up slightly to sit as he keeps fucking into you. Your back arches up against him, toes curling as you feel the building ache in the bottom of your belly.

He groans loudly as he feels your walls clench down on him as you curse out loud, grinding down on him to reach that peak you want so badly.

“Fuck, baby, you’re so fucking tight. He couldn’t even fuck you right, could he? My poor girl, getting fucked by amateurs.” His fingers trail down to your freed tits, pinching at your pebbled nipples. “I don’t care what break you think we’re on, when you need a good fucking, come to me. No one can ever make you this cock drunk.”

You’re nodding frantically, “yes, yes, fuck, Rafe! Rafe! Oh, fuck!” You come undone when his fingers find their way to your clit, rubbing at your sensitive and pulsing bundle of nerves.

At this very moment, you’re grateful for the house that Rafe bought you instead of cooping up in the one bedroom apartment you wanted when you moved out of his place. You had hated the power he had for giving you such a nice place but you’re grateful now as you moan and yell his name, body convulsing as his fingers keep working against you.

“Raaaafe, fuck!” He’s pushing deep and deeper as he pushes your front side back onto the bed. The overstimulation is making you writhe beneath him, pretty whimpers leaving your swollen and reddened lips. You can tell he’s reaching his own end when his thrusts become harder and longer, momentum slowing.

One pump. Two pumps. Three. Four. And he’s groaning in your ear, his front pressed up against your back as he comes inside of you from behind, your cunt fluttering around him at the full feeling of his load.

—

You awaken hours later to the bed dipping beside you. You had fallen asleep in Rafe’s arms after he had cleaned you up and whispered soothing and sweet nothings into your ear.

“Rafe?” You sit up tiredly, rubbing at your eyes to wipe the sleep away. His back is turned to you, the most relaxed you’d seen him in a while.

You scooch closer to him, pinched eyes trying to take a look at him. A small gasp leaves you as you see his bloodied and scarred hands. “Go back to sleep, baby.” His polo is covered in dribbles of blood, some drops of it drying up on his face.

You want to ask questions. You want to clean him up. But you can’t. You’re not a very good liar and the last time the police came around asking for your help, you almost broke, but Rafe was always thinking of you, his lawyer cleaning up the mess you made with the police. He had kissed and soothed you down from your teary apologies that night for being weak.

You nod, yawning softly, “okay… just… put the shirt in the wash.” It’s his turn to nod, a soft smile on his face as he presses a kiss to the top of your head.

[teaboot]

Kinda gotta admire the tiktok instagram cottagecore tradwife hoes a little bit.

Like. THEY know that the perfect pretty obedient natural-makeup gently-coiffed rural June Cleaver, barefoot-and-pregnant in a sweet little peasant dress, baking fresh bread24-7 housewife doesn't exist.

They KNOW she doesn't exist. They know she CAN'T exist- that nobody can maintain that façade without burning out eventually-

but they also know that the political divide between men and women is deeper than ever in North America, that men as a demographic are getting increasingly angry and conservative and lonely (fuck off terfs and radfems i can sense your bioessentialism coming), and that women aren't legally beholden to them anymore.

This is one of the first generations in North America where women aren't entirely reliant on finding a husband and keeping him happy to survive, to hold a bank account or live apart from their parents, and so what men are dealing with is several hundred years of being told that REAL men have hot fuckable agreeable wives and...a present reality where nobody is lining up to apply for that position.

So what these shills have done- and they ARE shills- is that they've seen that divide, that niche that isn't being filled, that role that's so unpleasant but so desired- and they've constructed a caricature for profit.

Women aren't naturally more gentle, or parental, or submissive. Women aren't naturally, effortlessly smooth and soft and hairless and desiring of simple tasks to fill their time and a big, strong provider to protect them.

But generations of marketing and media have told us it's POSSIBLE, if not for those pesky man-hating feminist libs and their oversensitive woke culture lashing out at Normal Folks for no good reason.

Like- they're selling themselves, the characters they're playing, as an IMAGE, as a FANTASY, and they rely on people BELIEVING in that fantasy to keep the money rolling in.

The people who buy into it sincerely, the women who give up their degrees and careers and financial freedom for this "simple, peaceful life" we ALL desire in some form, away from stress and technology and horrible things on the news... only to get trapped with six children and a partner with all the power who could up and strand them at any moment... they're just collateral.

Like, "Shame it didn't work out for you, have you tried losing weight and trying harder? Maybe some extra Adult Time? He wouldn't have to chase someone younger and prettier if you'd just take care of yourself and put out more."

I on't hate this faux-humble faux-simple wannabe-amish bullshit just because I grew up rural and know it's fucking stupid, hard work and blood and shit and cow piss and placement in the rain kinda crap.

I ALSO hate it because these women are straight-up class traitors, selling off not just their own image as people, but everyone else's, just to make some paper on a grift.

You know Marie Antoinette used to wear sweet little milkmaid-style dresses and play with lambs in the field, just like the poors?

Never mind that she OWNED the land, and the field, and the people, the cute little frocks, and didn't help the sheep birth, or bury the dead premies, or slaughter for meat, or fight off wolves and dogs, ferrets and foxes and rats with a stick in the winter.

It was just fashionable to pretend.

Sweet and coquettish and Quaint.

THAT is why I hate that shit, and THAT is why I give a fuck.

[batboyblog]

Copy Right and Public Domain in 2025!

It's January 1st 2025 which means it's my favorite unsung holiday! Public Domain Day! This is the day once a year when, in the US, copyrights expire and things enter the public domain, meaning they belong to everyone! even you, Steve!

American copyright for books, movies, art work, and musical compositions (but not recordings, more on that later) runs for 95 years (way too long!) so today works published in 1929 join us in the public domain.

So whats free? so glad you asked.

Popeye the Sailor Man

Many people assume Popeye originated as a cartoon character but thats not true, he comes from a comic strip. The strip was called Thimble Theatre and Popeye was something of a late addition. Thimble Theatre was first published in 1919, so Popeye's girlfriend Olive Oyl has been in the public domain since before the big 20 year copyright freeze of 1998-2019. Popeye first appeared as a minor character 10 years into the strip's run but was so popular he soon took over and the strip would be renamed Popeye less than 5 years later. Now as always whats public is only what appears in 1929, later developments, remain copyrighted. Such as, while Popeye always had super strength its not till 1932 his superpowers were tied to eating spinach, and Olive Oyl originally had a different boyfriend named Ham Gravy, who she dumped for Popeye when he became the main character. It looks like Popeye is following tradition for famous now public domain characters and getting a quicky horror movie this year.

Tintin!

This is personally very exciting as someone who grew up with the Belgian boy detective. Like Popeye I expect a lot of people don't know that Tintin started off as a weekly comic strip. Indeed Tintin appeared as a part of a weekly youth supplement in the Catholic newspaper The Twentieth Century. Any ways, Tintin was first published in there in January 1929, and soon would start what would become the first Tintin story, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets. Now only part of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets was published in 1929, the story line wrapped up in May 1930, so only those 1929 stories and what appears in them is free and clear and Tintin was published in black and white not color. Tintin's author Hergé had no idea what he was doing and was really learning on the job so In The Land of the Soviets is generally seen as his weakest outing and the only one he never opted to redraw in later years. Even so it's nice to see the character free in the world. No word on if Tintin will star in a horror movie.

Buck Rogers (but not really)

The original futuristic space man was published, again a comic strip, in 1929 which means he should enter the public domain today, but he won't. That's because he already is public domain! Before the Copyright Act of 1976 copyright was 28 years with the option to renew for another 28 years. The copyright on the original comic strips was not renewed so ran out at the end of 28 years, 1958. So Buck Rogers has been free and clear for close to 70 years now, whatever you hear about him today.

What else?

Famously last year Mickey Mouse entered the public domain, but all the entered public domain was one (maybe two) animated short, Steamboat Willie. Well this year a dozen Mickey Mouse animated shorts enter the public domain, including the first time Mickey has his iconic white gloves, and the first time Mickey speaks (the first thing Mickey Mouse ever says, voiced by Walt Disney himself, is "Hot dogs! Hot dogs!" in case you were wondering) This will give creators much more to work with if they want to use Mickey in their works which is exciting.

Speaking of Walt Disney, The Skeleton Dance is entering public domain, you likely don't know the title but I suspect you've seen at least part of it at some point

so look for this showing up on TVs in the backgrounds of films and TV shows in the next year or so

Books

The iconic novels of World War I, Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms and Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front enter public domain. In fact All Quiet on the Western Front entered public domain last year, but only in the original German, the 1929 translation by Arthur Wesley Wheen is whats entered the public domain now. John Steinbeck's first novel, Cup of Gold, William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, and Agatha Christie's Seven Dials Mystery (always get an Agatha Christie novel on this list for the rest of our lives). Dashiell Hammett published both Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon, later made into one of the greatest films of all time, in 1929. Future children's book author E. B. White (who's go on to write Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little) and future New Yorker cartoonist and humorist James Thurber teamed up to write the delightfully titled Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do a book of spoof essays making fun of popular books on Freudian sexual theories at the time. The Roman Hat Mystery the first of the long running Ellery Queen mysteries was published, Queen would keep publishing mysteries into the 1970s (and Ellery Queen was a pen name for two people). Richard Hughes' A High Wind in Jamaica and Oliver La Farge's Laughing Boy also came out in 1929 and are in the public domain now. There's much else but those are the highlights sorry if I missed your favorite 1929 novel.

Movies

Alfred Hitchcock and Cecil B. DeMille's first movies with sound, Blackmail and Dynamite respectively, came out in 1929. Marx Brothers' first feature film The Cocoanuts joins the public domain. Other comedy land marks are Harold Lloyd's first sound film, Welcome Danger and Buster Keaton's last silent film, Spite Marriage (which Keaton also directed). John Ford's first sound film, The Black Watch, which also is 21 year old John Wayne's first appearance in a film, as an uncredited extra, he worked in the art department. Hallelujah the first studio film to have an all black cast came out that year. Also worth noting is The Hollywood Revue of 1929 a singing and dancing review, one of the earliest and the movie that popularized the song Singin’ in the Rain, maybe the first time a movie made a song a hit.

Musical compositions

musical compositions, ie the lyrics and musical notations you might see on sheet music are governed by the 1976 Copyright Act, and music written in 1929 is public domain. Music recordings are governed by a whole different law (we'll get there). Songs written in 1929 include Singin’ in the Rain by Arthur Freed & Nacio Herb Brown, Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Black and Blue by the legendary Fats Waller, What Is This Thing Called Love? by Cole Porter, Tiptoe Through the Tulips by Alfred Dubin, You Were Meant for Me by Arthur Freed & Nacio Herb Brown, and also Happy Days Are Here Again by Jack Yellen which would become FDR's campaign theme song in 1932.

Art!

a number of pieces by Salvador Dalí including:

Illumined Pleasures

The Accommodations of Desire

The Great Masturbator

are entering the public domain as is René Magritte’s The Treachery of Images.

Art is hard because while movies and books are clearly "published" and put on sale, what counts as "published" for a piece of art? the law is not totally sure.

Musical Recordings

as I promised, we got here. Till 2017 there were no federal laws governing the copyright of music recordings before the 1970s, it was governed by a confusing patchwork of state laws and it was not totally clear what was or was not free and clear even from the very earliest recordings ever. Now the term of a music recording's copyright is set at 100 years (way too long) so music recorded in 1924 is now public domain such as. Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen by Marian Anderson, Everybody Loves My Baby (But My Baby Don’t Love Nobody But Me) by Louis Armstrong, California Here I Come by Al Jolson, Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin, Shreveport Stomp by Jelly Roll Morton, Mama’s Gone, Good Bye by Ray Miller, and It Had To Be You by Marion Harris. Now many recordings a lot less famous can finally be preserved and digitized to save them for the next 100 years. Many abandoned works are literally rotting away since without the copyright holder's permission digitizing a work isn't legal.

[cerastes]

Habe you ever had a "did we even play the same game?" moment with someone?

My favorite game ever used to be Metal Gear Solid 4, it’s still up there in my top favorites, and this time at a party I met a guy that said he didn’t like MGS4 because he felt like it ruined Snake as a character and that it misrepresented him. I asked if he could elaborate and his response was that they took this Rambo dude, this super manly war hero and emasculated him into a weak old man.

I need you to understand that Solid Snake was without exaggeration fundamental in my growth as a person: I am from a latino country, grew up in what’s widely considered the wrong side of the tracks in the middle of nowhere, being macho, manly, tough was incredibly important to me, because that’s how it was in there, and Snake (plus “The Knight In Rusty Armor” by Robert Fisher) basically made me question all of what I’d grown up thinking up until then, because Snake isn’t a badass because grrr manly beef jerky I kill and swear, he is this incredibly solemn guy who hates what he can do, but is the only one that can do it, and if he doesn’t do it, then nuclear war happens, or worse. There’s a whole angle of expectation as a narrative arc in regards to Snake: Meryl expected a glorious, boisterous war hero, Otacon expected a grizzled, badass action hero, Liquid expected Himself But Better In Every Way, Ocelot expected a tool and nothing else, Naomi expected a callous and cold killer… And they were all wrong, he is, ultimately, an exhausted man that cannot stop no matter how much he wants to stop, because if he does, the world might likely go up in literal flames.

So to hear this self-proclaimed superfan of Snake say this just made me skip anger and go all the way to pity. In-universe, those in the know of Snake worship him as an actual God of War, and it’s a common thing that gets addressed in-universe: The whole point of MGS2 is that Raiden could never have won if he tried to be Snake, because you don’t want to be Snake. Snake hates being Snake. Snake isn’t manly because he beat a tank on foot one on one, Snake is admirable because he does the right thing, even if he’s breaking down molecule by molecule as he goes and he wants nothing more than to fuck off and raise dogs in the arctic, but keeps on going anyways because he can do something about it. The most important message he imparts on Raiden and Meryl is Don’t Be Me; Create A World Where Snake Doesn’t Need To Exist.

I felt pity because if you feel like MGS4 misrepresented Snake, then you really and explicitly are exactly the kind of fodder PMC nobody that feeds the proxy wars in MGS4. I think only by skipping every cutscene you can come out thinking that way. The only thing super about him was ficial.

[madness-of-void]

Some lady came in today and was rambling to one of my coworkers about a dog. I can't remember if she said it was her dog or someone else's, but she just was going on and on about this dog.

At one point, she mentioned it was a chihuahua, and I mentally go, "Ah. So a possible dog from hell. Got it." Then she mentioned that it was half cocker spaniel, and immediately I mutter to myself, "Oh...so the devil incarnate..."

And, judging by what she was going off about that dog...I was not wrong in my assumption.

[inkskinned]

no, actually, where is the whimsy?

my ex had a best friend named larry who asked me once: what do you think comes after irony?

we were at the bar where larry worked. it was a quiet night, and he'd hopped over to sit with us on the patron side. i swirled the lemon around my limoncello martini.

earnest positivity, i said, while my ex said, art self-destructs.

i stared at my ex. he stared at me.

his argument was the cinemasins argument: look how bad media is becoming! look at the loopholes and the dumb shit!

it was roughly 2011. galaxy print was still in. at the time, i had a favorite shirt that was a wolf howling at the moon. it got ripped in half in the wash and i honestly still mourn it. i dressed like effie stonem, because everyone did. and irony was the name of the thing. men liked MLP "ironically." the internet liked the kind of crass, "anti-mainstream" vibes of things like fuck romance, touch my butt and buy me pizza. we put cats in sunglasses everywhere, which was because we only liked things in irony.

and media had the same vibe in it: anti-hero white men would be "hard to love" and then storm off the scene. nobody was just earnestly trying to save the world: they were jaded, angry, unoriginal. mad you even asked them to try to help.

my ex ends up not being wrong. cinemasins becomes super popular. a lot of people start viewing media with this lens that is the cruelest, most jaded depiction. it's wrong for your character to have unexplained powers, even if the entire movie is about how strange it is she has unexplained powers - that is still considered a "loophole." characters make thoughtless, panicked choices? loophole. characters are actually kind people, despite hardship? loophole. features a woman doing literally anything without assistance? loophole. movies become hyper-aware of scrutiny, and now irony rules the media.

which means you go to a movie, and the character has to turn to the screen and say "beats me!!" or one of the side characters has to have some kind of quip like "are you seriously telling me that you think this is normal?" because nothing can happen in earnest. like a sitcom laugh track, we now anticipate the fourth-wall break: the moment that the media acknowledges it is telling a story. the media has to apologize for itself, or else someone like my ex rolls their eyes.

but here's the thing: i wasn't wrong either.

the difference might be that i am (and always have been) so soft-hearted that any crack in the light of this world will spear me into the ground. and i was the poet in the relationship. (he thought that was the same thing as being naïve and stupid). i was making things daily. i knew how all of us artists are driven by some strange desire to evolve. he notably liked to critique art, not to create it.

so yes, i've made things that are bitter and angry and even ironic. i've made long, sharp poems with all capital letters, and i've made poems about how the silence stretches out like a song. someone wrote once that we will spend our whole lives just circling the place we grew up. i think it's more that we spend our whole lives trying to remake a home. i think it's that as we age, it becomes less exciting to build the castle on the beach - we become aware of erosion, of windforce. we realize what we really want is to come home to our dog, castle or not.

and while art in the foreground is mired in white male violence and irony, and aggression, and not taking anything seriously - i don't think that's true of all art. i think more and more artists are leaning in to the things we love. the world has changed so much. they have taken so many things from us. the only thing we have left is love. at the bottom of the moving box - all we get is the faint sense that we have to appreciate what little we've got. i can't enjoy this stuff ironically anymore: what room do i have for irony? if it makes me happy, that is an amazing thing. there are so few happy places left for me. i want to be happy because of how leaves shiver beside each other like nestling birds. i want to be happy because of the color pink, and how magenta doesn't exist. i have spent so much of this life suffering, i have earned my right to a gentle ending. if nothing matters, i get to assign meaning to the nothing. i get to create meaning. i am an artist first and foremost, which means creation is my thing.

where is the whimsy? wherever i fucking put it. because if this is my last fucking chance to do any good in this world - i want to do it earnestly. i want to write things that make you happy. that make people feel heard and seen. what comes after irony has to be positivity.

it was close to my 21st birthday. in 7 years, i would end up writing a book about this relationship, which is hopefully coming out somewhere around May 2024. i come back to this bar scene in my memories a lot. i keep thinking of how pale my ex was. the look that crossed his face. how i looked back at him. how for a moment, both of us couldn't recognize the other person. like the gulf between us was a suddenly wide and cavernous thing. like we were alien to each other. he never took my opinion seriously, and he always seemed surprised whenever his manic-pixie-dream-girl ever broke free of the plot. like in the whole time we were together, i wasn't human enough.

this knowledge: where he said nothing comes after, my only instinct was what comes after is love.