#everything is so context based

[vocaloid-song-of-the-day]

Holy shit I don't know how translators do it. How do you know which characters go together?? The difficulties of finding songs that aren't on vocalyrics T-T

[ariadne-mouse]

Just thinking about the fact that in Scavengers Reign, Azi's handprint from before the crash was still on Mia's cryotube months later when she was able to return and save her

The details in this show are so thoughtful!!!

[lynnbutlertron]

Human globox design i came up with !!!!! with my buddy @greenswing and his rayman design in the last image :DDDD they are sooo silly

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

One day I’m going to finish that essay or whatever it was in my drafts that’s about the themes of womanhood/relationships/thirtysomething stuff and TTPD but since part of this discussion has been revived on the dash but also it’s Saturday so this won’t ruffle as many feathers, I think one thing that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle in the conversation about the muses and stories in the lyrics is just why the recurring theme of the broken dreams pops up all over the album, and why they permeate the discussion of both muses, if not *all* the muses in the album.

Not to project things on Taylor, but it feels pretty clear to me* that the dreams she’s talking about specifically are about having a family, and that is the through line in the album, and why the successive blows devastated her. (*I don’t want to presume that anyone else feels this way and this is just my interpretation etc.)

The suburban gothic allegory in Fortnight depicting a miserable, lonely marriage. The ring on the ring finger in TTPD making her explode with joy because it was a shorthand for lifelong commitment. “He saw forever so he smashed it up” in My Boy. “I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free” and dying on the sacrificial altar in So Long London. Marrying her wild boy in But Daddy. “Get the matches, toss the ashes off the ledge” in Fresh Out the Slammer (as in, she burned her life down). “You shit-talked me under the table talking rings and talking cradles” in loml. “The deflation of our dreaming leaving me bereft and reeling” in How Did It End. “Promises ocean deep and never to keep” in Peter. The allusion in The Manuscript that the man in question made her think he was in it for the potential of a serious commitment only for her to feel used when he moved on. And there are probably more examples I’m not thinking of off the top of my head here.

But what I’m trying to get at delicately is that from what she’s put down in TTPD, as well as what she’s put down in previous albums (“give you my wild, give you my child,” Paper Rings, Lover, renegade, YLM, etc.) building a life and a family with this person (Joe) was not only something she wanted, but seemingly deliberately planning and working towards. So in the death throes of the relationship, her grief was not just about things like losing someone she once loved, the breakdown of this relationship that was once comforting to her, what she gave up to make their life work, etc. but about this important thing she had dreamed of and what she seemed to feel was on the horizon. What I think I’m trying to say is that it had likely shifted at some point (even just based on the album pipeline) from a hypothetical “one day we’ll have ten kids and teach them how to dream” thing you wonder about with a partner to something that felt a lot more… tangible. (Again trying to be sensitive in my word choice/not project or assume things etc.)

I don’t want to make any accusations or assumptions on main, but I think those kind of life plans feeling within reach not only makes it understandable as to why someone would stay in a relationship whose cracks were turning into fault lines, but on the flip side why giving up on something that felt like it was on their doorstep would be so wholly devastating.

But it’s also why what happened in the two successive relationships *was* so devastating in the songs on the album, and why the Matty thing specifically was so twisted. He’d reentered her life and he’d insinuated himself back into her circle and gained her confidence which in turn led her to confide things in him (the “hostile takeovers” of it all, the whole bridge of The Smallest Man with its honey pot spy mission imagery in which like a mark he sweet talked her into sharing her most vulnerable, compromising “secrets” only to then turn it around to use her and ghost her like a trained operative). And given the way the family thing appears in both presumed storylines, it’s again because Muse #2 used the info gleaned about the life with Muse #1 to sell her a con about an alternate path to what she was mourning so deeply. (And why it’s such an unconscionable act because it’s manipulation, at least going by her own words about her experience of it. It’s as cavalier as the organ donor line in The Manuscript, with the same effect.)

The shittalking about rings and cradles is both of them (if not all of them) because in all cases, they ended up raising her hopes only to not plan on following through. One because he maybe couldn’t commit, one because maybe he was never serious about it. (And the one who did it first who was both 🥴.)

If I had to guess (because I am not Taylor so I will obviously never know any of this for sure besides picking up context clues), the dream was like a carrot dangling in her mind, feeling like this is what the “agony” to quote another one of her songs was for — like, things may be hard, but life is hard, and at least they were building towards *something* she felt they both wanted. And as that dream slipped through her fingers, it created a cascading series of events that crippled her emotionally for a time. So when she mourns that life in her songs, it’s almost like it’s the same dream, just in shifting contexts. The conman selling her dream back to her is comforting at first, but hits doubly hard and leaves her broke when it disappears.

The story throughout the muses on the album isn’t “she jumps to the person who promises her these things,” it’s that it’s a whole life she’s built that crumbles under the weight of reality knocking at the door and a foundation that shifts until it disintegrates. And losing that foundation and the dreams built upon it leaves her searching for answers in the wreckage — and looking elsewhere for clarity for a time. And it’s why it’s so hard to remove one muse from the other (or again, all of them), because that central driving force is used by each of them in different ways to build her up and take her down. And why working through the pain of one situation bleeds into that of another.

It’s hard to delve into this more without crossing boundaries or whatever, but it’s just such a palpable open wound in the album, but also why working through the pain in different contexts on TTPD brings to light all these different kinds of hurt but also the emotions that go along with them.

Anyway. That other essay will write itself at some point idk.

[vaugarde]

transphobia aside, its also a huge pet peeve of mine when people are like “oh tee hee i havent actually engaged with the canon material at all aside from maybe a few clips on youtube, but ive decided the canon is stupid shit anyways and fanon is all that matters!” like not only does that just feel disrespectful and rude for no good reason, especially in the context of indie creators, but it personally annoys me as someone who always overthinks this shit and has several tabs open when im just making headcanons or whatever, let alone writing a fic. like you just dont care? what’s the point, then?

[glimblshanks]

In Room For Growth Mariner really does heavily imply that she'd finally do something to get herself kicked out of Starfleet if Brad's "Bold Boimler" antics got him killed.

[aceredshirt13]

gang i have to share this P. G. Wodehouse quote with you all because ever since I found it I can't stop thinking about it. it's from a letter he wrote when he was 78 years old to his friend Guy Bolton (many thanks to P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters)

I have been on the sick list myself, but am better now. Inflamed bladder or chill on the bladder or something, the symptoms being agony when I passed water, as the expression is. It brought back the brave old days when I used to get clap.

he really said "yeah the pain from my bladder issue reminds of the days when I used to have so much sex I repeatedly got venereal disease"

[stephofromcabin12]

Another odd question that I been wanting to figure out because I find it silly funny times!!

If my child of Dionysus, Grayson is 13 years old when he gets to camp five years before Percy; is he older or younger than Steph ??

You absolutely don’t have to answer this, and I wish I could provide years to make it easier but I try to make my OCs timeless to fit the timeless aspects of pjo 😭

Oh gods you’re asking *me* math questions?

Okay let’s see….Percy gets to camp in 2006 *supposedly*

Stephanie gets to camp in June-ish 2002. She’s 11, turning 12.

Grayson is 13 when he arrives in 2001, making him a little over a year older than Steph, depending on the month he’s born in (I think)

Edit: Wait I might be stupid. Is he two years older than her? If he’s turning 14 in 2002 and she’s turning 12. I’ve confused myself yet again lmao. Someone good at math correct me if I’m wrong.

[squeiky]

METAL SONIC X CHAOS ZERO!!!

IN ALL THE CHARTS I COULD FIND!!

Some of the charts got repetitive, so i cropped it.

NOTES: there may be someee minor inconsitences as sometimes id change mind my across one chart to another.

If you want an expliantion for ANY of my choices here, please ask! I am starving for conversation about this relationship- so please please please ask my questions- or just tell me your own ideas! Idk! Communicate! Your words and thoughts are not dumb!! They are very important to me and must be shared!!!

Also, some more of my thoughts + notes after the cut:

-----------

I think my favorite charts are the first two, since the first one was pretty thourghough and easy to get whilst also including intresting and unique questions to the relatio ship dynamic. the second one i added a bit of character interaction so its really cute, and thats practically why i like.

---

I particularly like the touch chart, as i really had to consider wthe physicality of these two, and the custom model was fun to make (look they're even holding hands haha). It was a bit tricky considering i had to figure out what touches where welcomed and what weren't based on previous canonical interactions, and my own theories/speculations.

---

Oh, to explian the "lends clothes" and "borrows/steals clothes", i always found the neat detail of Neo Metal Sonic's wardrobe possesing a kind of.. arm warmer/bell sleeve? As well as its pants(?) Being a bell bottom.

Without the belt/butt cape, it does make metal sonics limbs somehwhat resemble the sillouette of Chaos' body, so obviously- i just figured that Chaos, if he were to wear any clothing, would probably be stolen by Metal Sonic since it already seems to be fond of that particular look that Chaos naturally has.

--

Oh, and Metal and Chaos being somewhat organized is due to thier jobs and enviornment they grew up in. Eggman, being the opposite of Sonics carefree, chaotic attitude, would likely prefer more cleaner, organized or "controlled" enviornments. Thus, i feel that Metal Sonic may have picked up a few tidying or cleaning habits that were a cause of eggman simply teaching or implimenting features in his bots to prefer the "clean up" of "dirty" or "messy" areas.

For chaos, i do recall reading something (perhaps on the chao wiki) of him purifying the Altars water and keeping it relatively clean from debries and such. Furthermore, having to be sole guardian of little children chao, the altar and the master emerald, requires a lot of responsibility and- if anyone has worked with children before- it can get very messy very quickly. So its mere speculation, but i do think Chaos would have picked up many cleaning habits as well, as well as cooking/harvesting skills due to him having to take care of large batches of critters.

Surprisingly, for a creature named "Chaos", the name only truely applies to the singular instance in which he is "Final Chaos" (as thats likely what the echidnas called him during and after that time.) Turns out, Chaos is way more controlled and responsible than chaotic and carefree.

So to segway, out of the two, Metal Sonic would be way more chaotic considering its nack for stirring up trouble (CD, Sonic Heroes, Chaotix.. ect) for the heroes, as well as it not really having major responsibilites outside of its purpose to "destroy sonic" and occasionally obey whatever task eggman requires of it.

Thus, is why in the driving promps, i title it "a speeder".

---

To explain the "Cognito Egro Sum" (aka. I think therefore i am) and the "infinty symbol" for the ages, er.. Metal sonic is a robot, and Chaos is an immortal being. If your being technical with it, you can say they're both relatively young, considering Chaos chao can't age and are often stuck in the form they were hatched in- despite the fact that chao do infact change as they age-

One can consider the idea that Chaos, for all intensive purposes, looks and probably is pretty young- if we apply chao logic to him.

Though one will argue "but Chaos is ancient" which is true, but his case is similar to Shadow's as he was trapped in that Master emerald for... millions of years............. so, similarly to how shadow was stuck for 50 years yet remains a teenager both inside and out, Chaos- for whatever age he was before he got trapped, probably still thinks and acts like that, as well as Tikal. Except now they probably need a LOT of therapy.

^hence why i put chaos's sleeping habits as "sleeps poorly" and "sleeps to little". In hindsight, being trapped in a emerald for thousands of years, with your freind of who's father killed your entire* family and burned your house (altar) down and tried to steal your most precious item (master emerald) and being the girl whos stuck with your freind(?) who killed your entire bloodline and basically genocided your entire community- stuck with him for THOUSANDS OF YEARS- is.....is going to require a lot of therapy.

So y'know, bad sleeping problems. Also probably why i depict Chaos hugging a lot + being affectionate, since being deprived your community that is entirely reliant on the concept of "caring, loving, and nurturing one another" (cause.. the opposite of that means chao will basically die upon reincarnation), for thousands of years is... a good recipe for touch starvation and a need for attention.

^hence why chaos is also on the attention side of some charts.

----

^ just conintuing off of that previous statement, i did move Chaos closer towards "extrovert" in the "extrovert or introvert" prompts, as since Chaos, unlike Metal Sonic, deals closely with many chao, and often is surrounded by a crowd of them, i do believe that Chaos would have to atleast gain some energy from social interaction in order to surivive that every day, without burning out.

----

The whole "who talks more" thing is kind of funny because, technically, its metal sonic (see Sonic Heroes + Sonic Free riders) who has more lines than.. Chaos's total of zero!

Meaning that, if anything, the "he said no pickles" meme would probably mean that Metal Sonic would be at the counter whilst Chaos is sitting in the back.

Though, compared to MANY other characters, these two are practically dead-silent, and would most likely rely on non-verbal ways of affection than verbal.

---

Oh and the "ethical v. Immoral thing" where i emphasized that chaos was "neutral" was because by compsring him to "chaos chao", theres a dark side, good guy side, and then neutral. Considering Chaos's history of amazingly goodwilled to horrendously incidous, one can conclude that he practically in the middle in terms of ethics or morality.

Metal sonic is definetly on the more immoral side, though i wouldnt put it all the way, as i do have considering enviornmental aspects to its behavior (such as well.. being a badnik, and being constantly exposed to eggman's immoral behaviors). So, other than like, unnesecarily abusing animal freinds in CD, and throwing a ship probably full of people at sonic (Sonic heroes) there aren't many instances in which Metal Sonic does something completely immoral and unjust- without any context regarding eggman ordering it too, or simply it just doing its job as a badnik.

However those actions are prettt bad on its own- though compared to... killing out an entire species... drowning thousands of people in a city and attempting to kill eggman with a giant laserbeam... and to whatever hyjinks eggman gets up too...

Its actions seem.. relatively small (though not obsolete.)

So like, theres not going to be many issues regarding "metal sonics gotta be a good guy"/ "i can fix him🥺" mentalities, since its kind of hard to do that, when you have a kill count of a 100+ whilst Metal Sonic is still on the "i'm needlessly harming animals, and threw a boat"...

Then again, i like to think the leiniency allows for them to work on themselves together, rather than tear eachother down or hate eachothers guts.

---

Transgender - both for my headcannnon, but also a refrence to it literally going "i transformed myself with my own hands" and well, i cant resist a pun/play on words now can i?

Agender- chaos dont have.. genders.

However, i thought this would change when introduced to concept of feminine and masculine models of the ancients in frontiers, but looking at Chaos, he doesnt resemble either one very much (tbh, in Sonic Forces, his model actually looks more akin to the fem version, than the pointy and sharp masc ones) and looks more akin to that of the children, if anything.

Plus, being masculine or feminine isnt really and indicator of gender anyways.. so like..???

So what? Does Chaos, gender? NOPE! Chaos isn't an ancient (thats his ancestor) and is a mutated chao. Chaos are genderless, or atleast out of that particular binary.

If Tikal showed up one day and started calling Chaos a "he/him", its likely that Chaos could've just.. adopted that. Assigned pronouns by random. Amazing.

So agender, as i can't think of anything else.

---

Sexuality -idk. Look, i dont consider whomth one likes. The knowledge of my characters, or other characters sexualites comes upon me in the way preists suddenly hear the words of their gods.

I dunno, until suddenly i know. Thats just how it is.

---

Ending it here cause im hungrt and cant think of anything else to chat on.

[maulfucker]

I saw you had a post where you thought abt Dathomirian culture and I was wondering if you had any thoughts on how specifically Dathomirian queer culture manifests. I'd like to come up with things myself but I don't actually know a lot in general abt Dathomir yet, so I want other opinions. I've got two ideas tho

-Dathomirian queer ppl call each other "family" like some queer ppl did in our world

-Trans men might like earn their horns thru hunting and using animal bones and stuff as their horns? Idk like I said I don't know much

Good question! I haven't actually thought that much about queer culture in Dathomir despite having a gay nightbrother oc,,

I think the calling each other family thing probably wouldn't work very well since they already treat their clan as family and call each other brother and sister even without blood relation, but I love the idea of trans nightbrothers earning their horns! Dathomirians as a whole seem to be pretty open to body modifications, with tattoos being so natural in their culture, so hunting animals to use their bones or teeth or something to produce "prosthetic" horns sounds very fitting. It could be a whole thing for both trans and cis nightbrothers, using the extra horns as a way to show off their strength. plus it opens up the possibility of nightbrothers implanting horns in whimsical shapes such as smiley faces, stars or penises

I think as a people composed of multiple isolated communities, there's probably not a uniform queer culture across the planet. But also as people who tend to live in single-sex communities they are likely far more queer on average than what we see in the rest of the galaxy, like how cowboys were famously queer. They supposedly spend most of their lives around the same gender, so it wouldn't be unusual for that to be the gender they express attraction to more often. Though, much like how cowboys have been "reinterpreted" as a symbol of straight white masculinity, there's probably also a popular misconstruction of their culture as extremely straight, and/or extremely celibate. The "Nightsisters rule over Nightbrothers" reading of their culture is very obviously meant to show them as a reverse-sexist society, making the nightsisters a sort of "girl power" icon — they are strong independent women who can pick any man they want (implying that they do want men), which is like saying cowboys are strong fearless men who woo every damsel that crosses their path. which. sure, cowboys did have sex with women. sure, nightsisters do have sex with men. but more often than not they will be around other nightsisters, so they will more often than not have relationships with women (even if they're not really gay).

but I am not usamerican and my brain has the consistency of molten ice cream, so my knowledge of american cowboy culture is. basically just that. (the brazilian cowboy culture is quite different, especially considering there's like three distinct cowboy "sub"cultures, each with their different history, territory, and associations) So that's as far as I can take the cowboy comparison, but cowboys can be a pretty good source of inspiration I think. maybe look into that?

A quick look into medieval monasteries (another famously gender-segregated culture) says they were also pretty gay. And that the sexual persecution that is so commonplace in christianity today was not really a thing yet back then, which is also something to consider when trying to conceive the queer culture of a people who have nothing to do with our modern (overwhelmingly christian) society — do they have a reason to reject queer people and relationships, or are we just projecting our own worldviews and experiences onto a people who have none of the sociohistorical context that shaped our experiences?

I think homosexual/romantic and even polyamorous relationships would be pretty normalized, since there's not really any reason to only accept hetero relationships if they rarely ever live in mixed-sex communities. That said, there's probably still some expectation of heterosexual activity, in the form of the Selection and its implied procreation purposes. Dathomir is a very isolationist world, so to keep their population stable they need to procreate, even if it "goes against" an individual's sexuality. And this is where I think polyamorous relationships have reason to be encouraged: if a nightsister or nightbrother who already has a partner takes part in a Selection, why not bring their partner(s) into the relationship as well and increase the likelihood of producing offsprings?

As for the gender side of queerness.... well that's probably A Lot more complicated than I have time to discuss here. The gender binary seems pretty enforced in their culture from what little we see, and their sexual dimorphism probably makes trans and/or intersex people stand out A Lot more

I've mentioned this before, but I headcanon that the skin color difference is not a sex-chromosome-bound characteristic, but instead a sex-hormone-related expression of pigmentation, like in some birds such as peacocks. Both males and females are shown to have a range of skin tones, but in females it manifests as grayscale while in males it manifests as a color scale from red to yellow. So intersex people might have colors that are in-between, or that don't "match" their apparent sex, and trans people who undergo their equivalent of hrt might slowly change skin colors over time.

As for how nonbinary people work.... well as someone who is from a latin american country and speaks a romance language, I would like to imagine their "nonbinary" is a lot like ours — there is no "neutral" gender, they simply play with their presentation to be between one and the other, leaning towards whichever one might be considered more "transgressive" at the moment.

I don't think trans people would be forced out of their clans for being a different gender than everyone else, but it's possible their role in the clan might change to something more "befitting" of their new gender I also think there's probably a lot more contact between different clans than just the Selection, so it's possible for people who decide to start over as a new gender to take one of these moments of contact as an opportunity to "visit" another clan and never come back.

..... aaand it's almost 2 am so I gotta hit post

[eryanlainfa]

Wanted to draw something for this silly headcanon forever ago but since I still haven't you get this post instead.

About that DC au for Vat7k I have, where the team is the young justice league. Random fun fact : they all play DnD together, its a homebrew campaign where Varian is the DM, the campaign is called The 7 Kingdoms. And as you may have guessed, its actually just the vat7k story.

"But Varian is the DM how can he be the main character ?" Thats a good question audience I do not have! You could also ask who tf gets to play a fantasy campaign and just.. play as themself ? (Well. Probably some people cuz you can do what you want but our beloved characters wouldnt pass the opportunity to be literally anyone who isnt them.-)

Actually Varian doesnt play Varian. Hugo does. It started as a joke to bother him but the rest of the league thought it was the funniest thing ever and wanted to add to the joke. So Hugo is Varian, Aiden is Hugo, Nuru is Yong, Yong is Nuru and Varian wants to kick all of them out of his house rn.

They are all terrible caricature of each others. It actualy ends up helping them understand each others better- also free therapy I guess-

[jinxed-sinner]

Alright here's my full (possibly hot) take on redesigning Hazbin Hotel characters and making a video showcasing those redesigns while you criticize the official designs.

First and foremost, you are redesigning someone else's OCs. Hazbin Hotel is, in essence, a passion project for Viv. How she talks about it makes that incredibly clear to me. The only difference between Hazbin Hotel and, for example, the story I'm developing surrounding some of my D&D OCs is that Hazbin Hotel got picked up by a streaming service and is significantly more popular than most passsion projects get.

Personally if someone wanted to redesign my D&D OCs, I wouldn't mind it, in fact I'd probably think it was really cool that someone would want to redesign one of my OCs to be closer to their tastes in terms of what they like to draw. I would, however, be made incredibly uncomfortable if someone made a video redesigning them where they also pointed out everything they thought was wrong with the designs. I didn't design these specific D&D characters to be 1-to-1 accurate to their classes in D&D or to look professionally designed. I designed them how I wanted them to look for the story I'm telling because I don't plan to ever play them in a campaign. The main character Avlan is a paladin, and I can acknowledge that his design might not look exactly like a paladin. One of the tabaxi in the story (Ice) is a bard and the other (Spark) is a ranger, and I acknowledge that their classes might not come across well in their designs. The single tiefling I've designed for this story (Tragedy) is a cleric but might not come off as one in their design. But I specifically designed them to be easy for me to draw because I want to be able to tell this story through my art. Having someone say "oh, Avlan's armor isn't paladin enough!" or "Avlan's fur colors and patterns should be closer to a wild rabbit's because harengon shouldn't be based on domestic rabbit colors!" would fucking hurt (especially because I'm so attached to Avlan, but it would hurt just as much if similar comments were made about Ice, Spark, or Tragedy). I am so passionate about these characters and being told their designs are bad or wrong in some way would be like a stab in the heart, and it would still feel like a stab in the heart if this story ever got a massive fandom behind it. Giving Avlan more complex armor because you think it'd look cool or just want to see what it'd look like? Sure, if I could draw more complex armor I'd give him more complex armor too. Giving him more complex armor but also shitting on the armor I decide to draw him with? My motivation to draw him in his armor, potentially draw him period, would be dead for WEEKS.

Why is it suddenly okay just because someone's passion project was picked up by Amazon Prime? Why is it suddenly okay to be "fixing" someone's character designs just because the project has a much bigger budget than most artists get and is on a popular streaming service? It's not. I don't care if you're a professional character designer, or think a specific character would look better with certain traits, or just don't like the character designs.

Hazbin Hotel is still Vivienne Medrano's passion project, and redesigning her characters and making videos talking about everything you think is "wrong" with them is, honestly, disgusting. You can make videos explaining your choices in your redesigns without putting down the designs that already exist, whether you like them or not. Me thinking Lucifer looks better with his tail not restricted to his full demon form doesn't suddenly mean I don't like his official design, because I fucking love it. If you wouldn't do it to an artist whose passion project is just a webcomic here on Tumblr, don't fucking do it to an artist whose passion project got picked up for a cartoon by a big streaming service (or any company for that matter).

[bookwyrminspiration]

reading gideon the ninth:

reading harrow the ninth:

[mademoiselle-cookie]

People: worried how bad Philza will deal with Etoiles' betrayal and if he can pardon him.

Me: worried if Etoiles will have a Baghera effect with the members of the Red Team

[briar--rising]

Extensive non-graphic discussion of suicide (I'm fine, I'm not suicidal, don't worry). Also lots of maternal enmeshment talk

Therapy today was rough. I'm doing so much better in so many ways, but that doesn't mean the trauma is gone lol. I do so well in early spring, and then May and June comes and I can taste death in the air. I won't let it pull me under this year, I refuse to spiral into long-lasting psychosis and lose my progress until next February again. But it's still difficult.

My mother is. Fucked up. Obviously. But something that I realized in today's session was that her dream scenario is still the two of us committing suicide together in the end. And that's. Well. It feels bad.

A few weeks ago she brought up again how she wants to commit suicide when she gets very old/sick, or if the world goes to a very bad place. And the reason she insists on bringing this up with me is that she's very clear that it will be my responsibility to make sure she gets the assisted suicide she wants someday. Basically, asking me to kill her one day. And today was the anniversary of my uncle's suicide, and in about a month it will be the anniversary of my mom's suicide attempt when I was 11, and so it's all just...been on my mind. And we talked today in therapy about how the fact that my mom attempted suicide shortly before my birthday was especially damaging for me, and how basically being the one to find her that day but then not being allowed to see her for a while in the hospital once she woke up was deeply traumatic. And it's all just. Tangled together in my head.

I've known for years that I'll be in charge of making sure my mom gets the assisted suicide she wants, she's made that very clear to me. And I do not want that responsibility, but I just always knew/assumed it would be my job. And I was talking about that with my therapist today and she was like "I think it would be very dangerous for you to do that. You will always have a tendency towards psychosis, and there is already so much tangled up in you and your mother and annihilation and death and loss of self, and I do not think it will ever be safe for you to help her with that." And I realized she was right, but it literally hadn't occurred to me that I was allowed to not be the one to help with that? But like. I don't have to. A friend of hers can do it. My brother can do it. Someone, anyone who isn't me can help her find a doctor and get what she needs someday. I do not have to kill my mother. I do not have to kill myself.

Because I know in her dream scenario we'd do it together, and/or my doing it for her would push me to do it to myself. First of all, she's literally suggested it before. Second of all, she cannot cope with or even begin to comprehend the fact that I am separate from her and that I would dare to live without her. We were talking today about how my mom's relationship feels almost parasitic, like she's drawing on me to sustain herself, and how I was worried that by cutting her off and having increasing boundaries I was hurting her by taking away her access to her life force. And my therapist was like, "No, because those boundaries are real for you, but not for her. Consciously she sort of accepts them, but in her mind you are still completely enmeshed. What do you think would happen if you asked to move back in with her?" And I was like, "She'd be thrilled, she'd start working towards it immediately." And she was like, "Exactly. If she was developing the type of boundaries you are, she would have reservations about her adult child moving back in. But she doesn't have any of those boundaries, and still believes and feels you to be as close as you were, so you're not hurting her by having those boundaries internally, because she will never be able to share them or even truly understand that you have them." So that was helpful, if disturbing in its own way. Bc it also made me realize how deeply enmeshed we still are on her end, and how clear it is from that and from several things she's said over the years including quite recently that she wants us to kill ourselves together someday.

But I won't. I refuse. When she wants to die she can find someone else to help her manage it, and I will not be joining her. I will not let her annihilate me in life or death.

[dazais-guardian-angel]

flashback to the time Dazai's english voice actor made an armed detective agency joke about Kunikida's missing hands and accidentally prophesied the s5 finale........ Kaiji is simply too powerful