#commitment and a bit of mental illness methinks

[marcsnuffy]

as the tumblr's resident snuffy expert I have to ask you what you think snuffy and lorenzo's actual legal relationship is (like did he take on the role of his guardian or is he technically more of a sponsor) and furthermore what you think their dynamic is like behind the scenes. like even if you accept the idea that snuffy is more of a father figure to lorenzo than an employer there's no way that this guy who was a homeless orphan until he was a teenager and the man who took him in *on the basis that he be athletically successful* have like. a normal unremarkable parent-child dynamic

Thanks for the question, sorry about the yapping

I'm torn on how to answer the legal relationship question. To me, it depends on how old you think Lorenzo is during the flashback. I always thought he was around 15-16, so I rarely consider an option where Snuffy isn't his legal guardian. However I could see some PIFA fuckery involved to avoid any legal trouble in the case he didn't have a legal guardian involved before becoming an adult legally.

Even then the process for getting gold teeth takes more than one day (all the visits you need to get your teeth properly checked for the procedure, the healing process takes months and more visits, etc) and he was near death so I'd like to think he was taken care/supervised of by Snuffy during that time (which is why Lorenzo's so attached to him). (the amount of care is up to interpretation bc it's hc territory anyway)

After that, when Lorenzo started playing football, *then* it's more of a sponsor/employer/advisor?/mentor? situation that occasionally bleeds into guardian-adopteé territory but never completely. I think they had something similar to how Ray Dark ended up dropping Kaiser at the BM dorms, except I think Snuffy directly had a hand in training/teaching Lorenzo before and still kept somewhat in contact during. I also like to think he got him a tutor or something, but this is more so I can sleep well at night. Snuffy IS the "what will you do when football's no longer an option" guy anyway so it's not unrealistic.

I need to add somewhere in this post that I believe/know in my heart that Snuffy picking up Lorenzo happened a bit after Mick died (months, maybe a year max) and specifically because of it. Comparing dead Mick & almost dying Lorenzo was super common when ch. 229 came out so I won't elaborate much on it, I just wanted to mention it.

Dynamics wise... There's too much going on for them to be in a normal boss and employee situation, Snuffy isn't fazed by Lorenzo's antics at all, Lorenzo goes up to Barou* to convince him to succeed Snuffy while also bringing up Snuffy's promise to Mick and also just everything about Lorenzo's reaction to Snuffy going back on his retirement, he literally told Barou he loved him & offered him a gold tooth. I don't think he says that to anyone yknow

*and by the way this interaction always stands out to me, since the timeline of events is not clear at all. all bc the fucking blue lock building is built like a prison and idk what time it is. I think Snuffy&Barou´s conversation happened at least some hours or a day after the Ubers introduction bit. During Lorenzo's backstory dump they're wearing pajamas but then Snuffy tells them it's time to train, so I assume it's the morning after that. Anyway I wonder if Snuffy just told him about it or if he directly asked him to talk to Barou. I feel like it's the former (given their reactions to Barou accepting Snuffy's deal) but the setup kinda makes it feel like the latter. whatever it was I think it's evidence for me to say that Snuffy trusts Lorenzo.

And I feel like there's nothing direct I can point to to say they're close enough to have a regular parent and child relationship. Still I feel like just by having Lorenzo be a NG11 and the fact that he enjoys football and doesn't scream cry and throw up when he loses or when he is inconvenienced (THE BAR IS ON HELL) makes me think Snuffy is mostly a positive influence on him. I like to think Snuffy does care a lot about him but he's the type of guy that shows it by meddling (kinda like Reo or younger Sae (who wasn't much of a meddler iirc. this makes sense in my mind)) and just isn't that visibly affectionate with anyone anymore.

More about the father and son thing. This is also headcanon territory I'm sorry. I don't think they, like, go out fishing as a bonding thing or anything like that. but I do think they don't go a week w/out talking bc I think Snuffy's a bit neurotic about how the people he cares about are doing because of reasons and Lorenzo loves talking people's ears off about everything and nothing. I think Lorenzo tried giving him an expensive gift with one of his first paychecks and mentioned "paying back his debt bit by bit" as a joke that wasn't really a joke and Snuffy's face twisted & he said something along the lines of Lorenzo not owing him anything and it was awkward between them for a while after that. I think its fucking WEIRD but they care abt each other and that's what matters

TL;DR: I think there had to be a point where Snuffy was his legal guardian or at least acted like it to some degree. In regards to their dynamic behind the scenes, that is not a father that is a grieving tutor-guardian-mentor-advisor-employer-professional football player and his renowned domesticated possum employee/adopteé who is soooooooo normal about worth.

[ram-de]

my usual tuesday kinda day

oh wow, look who's here. me again. venting, thinking i'm going to have some reflective introspection moment only to get back and let myself fall deeper into the hole i dig myself. exactly. i know what i'm doing. and i can't even blame my home or my family. because i'm given space and time and all the warm comfort i needed. it's all me. i could blame my habit or some kind of mental illness but i'm not diagnosed and at this point that's just me trying to pick at something to blame.

i wrote a lot about how i'm so flawed and complain about myself and my life a lot. but there's not enough guilt. maybe i felt guilty when i wrote it, but all of it gone when i slept. the morning always fresh, though a bit clueless with all the options of what kind of distraction i'm going to sink deep into.

i've tried books. i don't read books, but if it's a distraction, i can dedicate weeks switching books. i've tried manga. andi i liked mangas, all the tropes and all the pretty art of works that i mostly read pirated because... i'm not exactly working and i don't know if i could afford subscription prices. i should work and let myself face the reality of how hard it is to make money but here i am. talking big and doing nothing. what else have i tried. oh. i've tried games, too. rhythm games, genshin and later on honkai. they're fun and immersive. i've tried netflix, movies or shows in general. and since i'm a marathon kind of guy, what else is there to do than to binge watch most of the series i found interesting?

i've tried lots but not anything productively. well, i tried doing doodling and sketching random things as a hobby. couldn't commit. what else? huh... i don't remember most of it. look at that. i haven't tried much. i didn't do things to improve myself. and no matter how long of a paragraphs i could write about how i really wanted to improve. i don't know if myself would commit to it. that's how much i don't believe in what i could do. 'coz it's so easy for me to bail. to ditch. to leave. to run away. to postpone. to be still. stagnant.

i'm such a hypocrite. fuck myself, am i right. fuck it all. but i can't afford to fuck it all life like that. because... because i spent time pursuing academics... and... and... it's just... i should be more desperate to run past the finishing line. but instead it's more of a whatever-ish kind of vibes from myself. it's so. weird.

it's easy to imagine how liberating doing such an fuck it all moves in life. i can't do fuck it all for a final year project of college because else how can't i graduate?! i can't do fuck it all for post-graduation plans because how else can i get a job? i can't do fuck it all for even coming out and saying i'm gay because i don't have a job and also i don't want to like be apart of my family and be estranged for it. i can't do fuck it all for shaving my head because i'm too much of a coward to make it like a symbolic kind of acts to make a fresh things to start my life with, and for me to just think of it like leaving my burden away with the hair being shed and cut. i can't do fuck it all because maybe i don't want to fuck life itself. i have hopes. but fuck me for not holding onto that strong enough to push myself forward. to force me to walk and do stuff. fuck it all. i said. fuck it...

what even i'm saying. i had this outline in my head about how i want to start the post of vent. so basically. i watched two seasons of the white lotus and it's such a good show. tense. funny. s1 definitely funnier than s2. it's so unhinged it's good. and ahem theo james. yes. um. what? no. i mean, i love series with ensemble cast. and the way it all lead up into the chaos that is the finale? *chef kiss* methinks.

okay, what else. ok prelude done. uh... then i was going to link it with why i was watching the white lotus in the first place. yes, yes. i was thinking of a show that is similiar to nine perfect strangers. and this one shows up right there. better, tbh. so... yep. and why was i watching nine perfect strangers in the first place? well, i was looking for bobby cannavale's other works since i liked his character in the station agent, joe. i think. i wrote a post about it. thinking it's going to be my. like. last movie before i face the world and my problems that i hid under my bed. and look am i here! you know what, why was i watching that in the first place? well, because i was watching kembang api on netflix, and was downright UNDERWHELMED by it. like. really. zero chemistry whatsoever. I'M NOT HATING ON LOCAL MOVIES!! i was intrigued by this movie and the premise. time loop? yea i'm a time loop trope enthusiast. ensemble cast? (i mean it's like 4, but still they're strangers) ok yea i like that too. and yea whatever. why was i watching this movie in the first place? becasue i was tired reading books.

and why was i reading books in the first place. exactly. distraction. fuck me.

ugh. i could talk about it for hours!!!! i should talk about it, actually. but like. with real people. not a void. but i like the void too.

currently? i'm thinking of what kind of lines i'm going to write? am i leaning into the oh i'm so scared of myself and the future or, would it be more into the well i don't think i cared anymore or stuff like that. but then i ended up thinking about what am i going to write? how do i want to be perceived when someone reads this like duh this is a venting blog no one is supposed to read this.

whatever...

how can i practice self-compassion when i'm so ignorant to my own responsibility? when i basically ditched myself? when i... i let myself be in this kind of situation again and again. there's no solution to a problem that i am not willing to work to solve. am i not willing? i'd like to think i am but i don't know how. no, scratch that. i am too ignorant to be willing. i don't know anymore.

maybe it's my hungry stomach writing. whatever... ugh... i'm reminded on the monthly reflection thing and the monthly spotify playlist too. see how commited i am to it whole? ahh....

[sares19-blog1]

Mental Health Awareness Week: Everyone Needs to Know

Stephen Fry once said, "It's hard to be a friend to someone who's depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest and best things you will ever do." This is both a vast understatement and the truest thing I have ever heard - and not just for the reasons you will be expecting. Supporting someone who is depressed and suicidal is beyond hard. It's brutal and ugly. It's listening to nothing but their pain day and night, hearing them crying and screaming into a pillow. It's continually reassuring them that it's not going to get worse, continually convincing them that they don't want to die. It's making a self-referral to crisis on your birthday. It's incessantly calling mental health services that aren't listening and being pushed from pillar to post. It's telling their friends and family and then watching those friends and family falling apart. It's watching someone so desperate for help that they call Samaritans five times a day. It's knowing that whatever you're trying to do isn't making them better or happier. It's knowing that they're not actually feeling anything at all, but at the same time feeling everything. It's the arguments when you've inadvertently said the wrong thing. It's grasping onto them whilst they push away from you, sitting on them and holding their arms when they try to punch the dark thoughts out of their head. It's sitting in A&E. It's hearing them calmly and rationally telling you how they're not going to be here tomorrow, how happy everyone will be when they're not here anymore, hearing them make plans. It's lying awake at night because they've told you they're going to do it when you're asleep. It's calling the police as a last resort. It's their attempts and the aftermath. It's hiding sharp objects and medications, and things you never even considered might be dangerous before that moment. It's worrying about them when you're at work. It's making sure they are never ever alone. It's beyond hard. Before I supported someone with a serious mental illness, I'd only had a brief introduction to depression in my very early 30's. At the time it was so mild that I didn't realise it was depression; it only dawned on me on reflection, after a friend convinced me to get counselling when I told her my brain felt like a tangled ball of wool. I was getting panic attacks which made me feel like I might die, I wasn't sleeping at night and found myself crying in the supermarket. Tins of beans aren't particularly upsetting, unless of course you are hit in the face by one, so you'd have thought I'd have recognised the signs before her intervention. But that's the problem with depression; when you are in it, you can't see out of it. Depression absolutely loves to keep you in that place too. It feeds off you. It feeds off itself. It makes you feel overwhelmingly hopeless so you in turn believe everything to be hopeless. It tries to strip you of the person you are until you don't even know who that is anymore. It makes you believe you're incapable of defeating it. It's gnawing and grinding. Intrusive and invasive. Rational and irrational. It completely takes over. When you're helping someone through depression it can often seem totally futile. I have found myself on the receiving end of a sharp tongue for saying something unhelpful, I've experienced overwhelm from trying to think of new ways to bring him out of it until it feels like there are no other options. I've found myself getting exasperated, frustrated and angry - a natural human response, but one that ultimately leaves you feeling like a selfish bastard. For every positive, there's a negative response or reaction and you can sometimes feel as though you're not making one ounce of difference. Let me convince you here that you absolutely are. Supporting someone who is depressed IS beyond hard. But it's infinitely better than the alternative. I don't feel kind or noble in sticking by someone who is suicidal. I don't feel it's my 'duty.' It's someone I love. It's someone who, three years ago before his illness took over, I was talking about marriage and kids with. When you get married you declare the words "In sickness and in health." If I'm not willing to do that before we are married, what makes me more able or likely to do so when we are? They just become empty words and I don't live my life like that. Kindness and nobility don't come into it when your focus is doing everything in your power to keep someone you love - in the literal sense of the word - alive. Whilst he was feeling himself slipping away, I never lost sight of the person he is underneath the depression; kind, funny (juvenile even, but hey so am I!), infuriating when he doesn't put a bag in the bin and leaves huge puddles of water in the hallway after he's had a shower. Drives me mad with his banana skins casually draped over the arm of the sofa. Frustrates me when he's so engrossed in writing that he doesn't hear a fucking word I say! Calls me out when I'm being a dick. Enviably intelligent, unabashedly honest, defiant, strong, supportive, encouraging, passionate, creative, motivated to help others, a bit of a lovable geek. Paul. In a way I feel lucky. Don't ever think that someone who talks about committing suicide isn't serious, that they're saying it for attention or won't do it - it all depends on the person, their personality, how they deal with pain, how comfortable they are with sharing, so many variables. I'm lucky that the person I'm supporting is an over-sharer. If he wasn't a talker, if he was more private, more guarded and kept his true thoughts and feelings bottled up then I would never have known and I'd never have been able to help. I'm lucky that he tells me everything, that he is actually unable to keep his true thoughts to himself, a person so open and comfortable with himself that he makes videos of his own farts and sends them to our friends as a gift (told you he was juvenile). The kind of person who finds it hard not to express how he's feeling. The kind of person who would tell you if he wanted to kill himself. Not everyone has the luxury of that warning. For every celebrity who is bang on point, there's another who misses it completely. At the risk of this post feeling dated and irrelevant to future readers, there's something I feel I need to stress at this juncture. Piers Morgan is woefully out of touch and his recent tweet on mental health would attest to this. He claims that he's "...not convinced by this new trend of male public soul-bearing. Time for our gender to get a grip, methinks. Life's tough - man up." This is a man who has a TV show, the premise of which revolves around celebrities speaking candidly to him about their struggles. He then slithers out of that persona and shows himself to be the snake he truly is. You can't pretend to care about people on TV and then say absurd and damaging things to the contrary on social media. I'd like to tell Piers that this outpouring of male soul baring is in fact way, way, way overdue and may just save a few thousand lives. It certainly saved Paul's. If Piers can tell me something he's contributed apart from ill-informed tabloid bullshit, grammatical inaccuracies (I've certainly never seen a Soul Bear in the wild) and being a judge on a show that actively mocks people with learning disabilities, I'd love to hear it. Our experience is testament to the fact that Stephen Fry is right and Morgan is so very, very wrong. I will also agree with Stephen that supporting someone with depression is hands down the best thing I've ever done, aside from giving up smoking and listening to my mate when he begged me to watch Breaking Bad. Not only am I seeing that amazing person slowly but surely emerging back out of the darkness, watching someone else experience this first hand has allowed me to be so much more understanding and receptive to others who are going through the same. Before this I never knew what to say. I now have an array of things to contribute because I get it, I've seen it from both sides. It's made me a more patient person - a better person. It has turned me into a campaigner, a complainer, a confidante for our support group members. It's also made me reflect deeply on my own mental health, allowing me to unravel and make peace with some things that were dragging me back, to focus on my self care and actually make more time and effort to fit that practice into my life than I would ordinarily have done if left to my own devices. It sounds like a massive cliche, but this experience has brought us closer, it has deepened our understanding of each other in a way that I never thought existed. My respect and admiration for him has grown, the bravest and most resilient of people. It has shown me that even deep depression can be challenged and overcome. It can be denied the attention it craves and it can be stifled into submission. It's a fine balance which takes a lot of practice, time, concentration, self-belief and trust but once you work out how it ticks and how it governs you that's when you start to regain the power. You can talk it out, you can tell a counsellor, you can join forces with others who understand, fuck it - you can soul bare on social media, you can slowly reclaim yourself. It's something I've seen in action. Depression is hopeless, but it's also an opportunity to be hopeful. At the moment his crushing lows are coming in waves, but they are becoming less frequent and less intense. When he's deep in the depression, he can't see the way out and he can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I always tell him that's because he's not in a tunnel, he's in a maze. He will come up against walls, but there's always another way around that will get him on the right path again. He can't see the end, he doesn't have to. All he needs to do is know it's there and he can navigate his way. We can all navigate our way.