#found myself on the ground

[pandemonium108]

[petrichara]

It’s November and I’m putting down the glass and plastic. The weather is cold and I have time to take. This is not life or death. I am an adult and I am not in trouble.

It’s November and I’m managing what I can and making peace with what I can’t. I cannot control everything, I don’t need to control everything. This feeling is uncomfortable but it is not unsafe. My ideas of perfection only harm me. I do not need to fulfil a daily quota of worthiness to deserve the love I am given. When I am kinder to myself, I can be kinder to everything else.

It’s November and the dark is startling, the cold is striking, the stars are shining. There is life to be lived

[enden-k]

hi youn, it’s been about forever since i last dropped by, so i hope you’re doing well <3 (and that you remember me jshsh)

i wasn’t as active over the summer, but i’ve been eating up your oc/alnst content anyway when it crossed my dash, even if i’m still unfamiliar with a lot of it (your art is just too pretty to scroll past hehe)

in response to vika curling up like a burrito to sleep, i can’t help but wonder if he’s been introduced to weighted blankets before and, if so, if they would help him calm down? there’s probably more interesting things to ask but unfortunately this is the only thing actually forming a coherent question atm, sorry ㅠㅠ

(also i’ve been getting alnst art on my twitter tl lately, and i’m pinning the blame on you for that (affectionately ofc))

ohh hiii holly, its been a while indeed!!! i kind of fell out with a bunch of ppl/mutuals bc busy w work and a bit of a rough time a few months ago where i just rlly avoided ppl and wanted peace i guess but ofc despite everything i still remember names and ppl :D im managing ig, hope youre fine too!!

also nice u got into alnst, just in time for the coming R7 haha... (sweats nervously) i love introducing ppl to pain, we can all jsut suffer together yaaay lmaooo

anw to ur question: yes vika does indeed sleep with weighted blankets!! tho he learned abt those sometime when he hit his 20s so it wasnt always weighted blankets. wrapping himself tightly into blankets is smth he always did tho, starting in his childhood when he had a nervous breakdown and didnt know what was happening or what to do. he was shaking and trembling really bad and assumed he was just cold so he wrapped himself into his blankets as tightly as he could "to warm up" and found out that the pressure and weight helped him calm down bc it gave him the comfort he was needing (it felt akin to getting hugged tightly and grounded him back to reality, back to existence)

anw pressure/weight helps him a lot in calming down thats why he also kind of likes tight vests/straps/ropes (i know i know but im not intending to make this sound kinky, its rlly abt the pressure grounding and soothing him)

[spellshite]

the fughing- this scout has no reason to have that fuckign snatched waist. just- too grabbable, y'know???

[torchickentacos]

More charcoal art, not sure if I ever shared this one or not!

[expectiations]

You should totally talk about River’s ‘The Doctor does not and has never loved me’ speech and emotional impermanence!

I’ve thought about it before, and to me it’s always seemed like it stemmed from a very relatable ‘I’m not good enough for the Doctor’ mentality?

Finally had enough breathing space to have a bit of a chat about these two. I have already yapped about my thoughts on that speech, but the more I learn about emotional permanence (or the lack of it), the more I see it in River. It's not a widely known concept I think, especially within the fandom. It may not have been in Moffat's mind when he wrote THORS but it still makes sense. Anyways, I hope I answered your ask adequately below!

River’s "The Doctor does not and has never loved me" speech reflects a moment of raw pain and emotional impermanence. It happens during a period of profound grief following the loss of her parents and a period of separation from the Doctor. Her words aren’t grounded in reality but in her state of mind—a mix of grief, emotional impermanence, and the effects of a miscommunication fueled by their nonlinear timelines.

River’s feelings of inadequacy aren’t caused mainly by the Doctor’s actions. He is openly affectionate, both verbally and physically. Their love is steady and enduring. However, River’s emotional impermanence makes it hard for her to hold onto that sense of being loved when the Doctor isn’t physically present. When he’s around, his love feels undeniable. When he isn’t, her mind fills the gaps with self-doubt: If he’s not here, does he still love me?

This emotional impermanence is amplified by their out-of-sync relationship. The Doctor’s absences, combined with the grief of losing her parents, make it harder for River to believe she’s enough. This isn’t about the reality of their love but how her emotional state distorts her perception of it.

By the time River delivers her speech, it’s clear a massive misunderstanding has occurred. Both are grieving Amy and Rory, but their coping methods clash. River suggests going to Darillium, perhaps as a way to reconnect and process their loss together. The Doctor refuses—not because he doesn’t care, but because he fears Darillium marks the end of their time together. His attempt to protect her only drives her away.

For River, his refusal may have felt like rejection. Emotional impermanence convinces her that his pushing her away reflects how he feels about her. In reality, the Doctor’s love hasn’t wavered—his absence stems from his fear of losing her. This miscommunication leaves them both isolated in their grief.

The Doctor’s reaction to the row is evident in The Snowmen, where he retreats into isolation, believing his time with River has ended. He searches for her to make amends but never finds her, yet upon seeing her data ghost, he is convinced their time is over. River, meanwhile, is left to process their fight on her own. By the time we see her in The Husbands of River Song, it’s clear the wound hasn’t healed.

River’s strength lies in her ability to keep functioning, even while carrying deep emotional wounds. She can compartmentalize her pain, locking it away to continue living her life. But her "The Doctor does not and has never loved me" speech is a moment where those walls break down. It reveals how much the row, their separation, and her emotional impermanence have affected her. It’s not a reflection of reality, but a cry of pain from someone who feels disconnected from the person she loves most.

River’s speech isn’t about a lack of love from the Doctor—it’s about the intersection of her grief, emotional impermanence, and their miscommunication. Their love is not fleeting or weak. It’s enduring, as evidenced by their reconciliation at Darillium. The speech reflects River’s humanity: beneath her larger-than-life confidence is someone who experiences self-doubt, pain, and longing like anyone else. Their relationship, with all its complications, remains a testament to their deep love and commitment.

[pearl-kite]

Want to see some neat things about how irises grow?

Remember when I dug up and divided ALL of my irises at my parents' place a few years back? And how I ended up with 50 rhizomes, and I had bought 9 more just a bit before that?

Well, my mom wants to try to amend the soil because it's not great. Most of the irises have just been surviving, but not well enough to bloom, and everything else planted in the area struggles similarly. In order to amend the soil, though, I needed to dig them all up.

Again.

I dug up 44 rhizomes this time, which is honestly a bit better than I expected. I knew that not all of the ones I put in were going to survive, but I was still surprised by how many I just dug up today.

Anyway, the learning bit!

So irises aren't bulbs, they're rhizomes. Each year they put up leaves at one end, and over time they kind of end up migrating in that direction. If they do really well at gathering and storing energy, instead of just continuing forward, they'll fork, putting up leaves on two sides and a stalk with blooms in the center. The following year, the pattern continues, going forward from each side of that fork. If a rhizome does REALLY well, you'll end up with a bunch of forks spreading out.

The one on the left has survived, but not gone very far, and the white at the end shows that I accidentally broke some of the old rhizome off when I was digging it back up. It also happens to be a dwarf variety, so the rhizome is smaller to begin with; all my other photos are of intermediate and tall bearded irises with much larger rhizomes.

The one on the right has done well enough to grow forward for a few years, with the oldest of the rhizome at the bottom (still healthy and full of stored energy!) and the newest year's growth at the top. Looking at the rhizome itself, I'd guess that one is about 4 years (which makes sense, 'cause I think I did the splitting back in 2020).

The one on the left bloomed this year; you can see the flower stalk dried out in the center, and the new fork in the rhizome to the sides. Next year, they'll continue in those two directions, and it won't go forward from the stalk any longer.

The one on the right bloomed a few years back, and though it kept growing forward from there, it hasn't bloomed since. The other side of the fork also died off, and it's now only growing in one direction again.

Last but most certainly not least we have THIS beast. This one has bloomed the last two or three years in a row. I honestly can't tell if the guy at the bottom right is part of the same rhizome or another one I planted too close that got subsumed by this monster, because it took ten minutes to get most of the clay off and there was still more. I'll need to actually rinse it off with the hose to really see if it's all one plant or two.

But I'm 95% sure that this guy is going to bloom again next year because of those nubs down along the bottom. They were below the soil, and they're too thick to be new roots, so I'm guessing that's what future growth looks like. Honestly, this guy should probably be divided, but I also don't want to ruin the chance of it blooming next year, so I'm going to put him back in the dirt as is and maybe divide next year after blooming season.

Anyway, irises are my favorite, and I think it's intriguing how they work. I'm hoping that we can get the soil a bit more balanced and that they'll do better after replanting them, because even though I just dug up 44, we only had 4 or 5 bloom this year. They aren't thriving in the soil as-is, because for as long as they've been established we should have had more blooming than that. It was still the best year since dividing them, though.

I've brought a bunch of them over to my apartment and I'm going to try them out in containers, mostly the dwarf varieties I had. ONE of the dwarfs bloomed this year and it was gorgeous, but I'm hoping the rest will do better in new soil with some extra attention.

[bloodmoon-cerberus]

sometimes I think DID is also waking up in the headspace of a main character in a Lovecraft-esque novel and I must shout about the horrors and the madness I have seen and witnessed and been part of, but when anyone looks I'm not yelling about Elder Gods, it's just. women

[screambirdscreaming]

It's actually wild how much playing geoguessr for hours last night stabilized my brain out of spiralling.

I've been SAYING to myself things like "the world continues to exist and you have to stay grounded in it rather than spiralling about problems you can't in any way reach to push back against, and certainly doubly so if you are stuck spiralling" and also "the perspective from the place you live is so skewed from the material reality of most of the world and you have to account for that when informing your political stances" and other such things. But it hasn't really been getting through the immediacy of panic and dread.

And weirdly what did get through was spending hours clicking along a road through a place I've never been in a region I've never heard of, looking at how people build their houses and the structures along the roads where they sell various things to passersby, squinting at the signage to try to figure out which words might be place names, looking at all the unfamiliar plants, street dogs following the car.... that's the world the whole world is out there with more depth and detail than you can imagine. It's all out there.

[4lph4kidz]

[syls-chaos]

Me; deciding to major in psychology: Oh hey this is a cool new thing!

Everyone else: Good job figuring out what we already knew

[plethomacademia]

It's kind of funny to me that I made Aglaeca like 10 years ago, then got frustrated with how hard it was to RP her with other people so I made an alt that was easier to pair up. Now it's 2024 and her current iteration is Maeve and I am like ugh should I make another character that is easier to pair up with people.

[bluestjayy]

Maybe I'm just cursed 🤪

[sparklecryptid]

They fucking told you they told us and we told you you’ve ignored successive generations of people telling you there were dead children at those schools and you ignored us

[tankgotstuckinthecircusgate]

lauretta & carlo before marriage. to me

[driftsixfour]

Kinda hate when people attribute love or transgenderism as being divine or shit I don't fuck with that