#i actually am not very good at anything yet and struggle to see flaws in my work which has made it difficult to improve

[rabbitindisguise]

What if you were trying to sleep in but your mood disorder was like

*:ﾟ✧*:･ﾟNoﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

[copperbadge]

how did u psych urself up to go to therapy? my executive function has been awol for like 2 years and it's gotten to the point where it's wrecking my ability to do anything. i'm scared to waste a bunch of time and money going and getting told i'm just lazy or that the problem is just me

Happy to talk about that! But this is really two issues, so I gotta do a fly-by real first on "scared of getting told I'm just lazy". :D

It sounds to me like you're aware intellectually that laziness isn't the issue. You know this is an executive function issue and not a personal flaw, but I definitely get that it's hard to internalize that. So I'm going to drop links here to some discussion of "laziness":

How do you know you're not just lazy? (ask sent to me -- it's long, but you can skim for the laziness bits if you want.)

Lack of motivation means you are avoiding pain (second ask in response to the first)

Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price

These are essentially my proofs when I want to remind you that laziness is a label that stigmatizes an innate behavior -- inability to act is real, laziness is not. If a therapist tells you that you are lazy, and ESPECIALLY that you are the problem, you should fire that therapist. Don't even stay the rest of the session if you don't want to, just say "I see we are not compatible," and bounce. I don't think the odds are high that you'll encounter that, but on the off-chance that you do, that's a bright neon sign that they're a bad therapist.

In fact I would open with that pitch: "I'm struggling with executive function and the self-perception that I'm really just lazy. I need help with the actual executive function issues but also with how I view myself because of them." The therapist's response will tell you a lot about whether they'd be a good fit.

So with that out of the way...

I eased myself into therapy with the speed of a small child entering an extremely cold lake. It helped a lot that all of my therapy has been virtual via Zoom, so a lot of stuff that would have been a barrier, like going to the physical appointments, discomfort in a strange space, etc. were swept away.

I didn't even want to see a psychiatrist for my Adderall prescription, but I knew I needed help and medication seemed to be my best option, so with the assurances of several people that it wasn't therapy so much as mental health maintenance, I saw a psychiatrist. And he was lovely! (I just met with him yesterday to go over my next few months of scrip.) For a while that was all I did: talked every month to a kind person who asked specific and measurable questions about my mental health -- mood, sleep patterns, ability to work, hobbies -- without getting especially personal. I thought, okay, I can handle this, I can probably handle more, so I asked him for a recommendation for a therapist.

He looked at the network of independent practitioners he belonged to (Clarity Clinic Chicago, if you want an example of a good network) and found me a couple of options. I got extremely lucky to find someone I felt was appropriate for me right out of the gate, though some of that was also knowing what criteria I had: I wanted someone who explicitly stated they specialized in adult ADHD and disability, and who seemed like they were interested in addressing a whole person and not a single issue. When we met she seemed nice, wasn't pushy or judgey, was familiar with spoon theory and disability activism because she also has ADHD, and didn't blink (or ask overly invasive questions) when I said I was very uneasy about therapy because of past experience. She was comfortable with the ambiguity I brought -- I basically said "Look, I think this is something I need but I'm not entirely sure what my goals are yet, it's just I only recently found out I have ADHD and I am rethinking a lot of stuff," and she was like fine, let's rethink it together.

It still took me a long time to start talking about anything meaningful, but she handled the non-meaningful stuff as if it was serious and important, which helped. Admittedly I have really good insurance so I pay $20 a session for therapy, which also helps; it's pretty negligible in terms of health costs for me. I can afford to dawdle.

So, all that said...my path may not be an option for you, but I think it indicates the kinds of options you have. You don't have to jump into serious and heavily emotional processing first thing if you don't want to. You can shop around for therapists and you can drop any bad ones you encounter speedily, or if you find one you immediately like you can still spend time getting comfortable before dropping into the heavier stuff.

I would suggest that if you have a prescribing psych or doctor for any kind of mental health meds, ask them if they have a recommendation. If you don't have that, ask around people you know or believe have access to therapy and see what they think. If those aren't available to you or you're uncomfortable with that, I'd do a search for licensed therapist and your health insurance, or see if your workplace has an employee assistance program that can recommend you someone.

Good luck! I hope you get what you need. Lord knows I've been there.

[reggies-eyeliner]

OKAY AN EXTREMELY SELF-INDULGENT SENSELESS RAMBLE ABOUT JWCT REGARDING GRIEF AND EMOTIONS AND FOUND FAMILY AND COMPLEX CHARACTERS COMING UP AHEAD WOOP WOOP !!!

i cannot stress to you enough. how much i love the way they write processing trauma. like yeah trauma is all silly and angst and whatever but it's a real thing like genuinely and it's exhausting to see shows just dismiss it over and over again but THIS SHOW I SWEAR IT'S JUST. EVERYTHING IS DONE SO SO WELL AND I AM ETERNALLY GRATEFUL LIKE

and not to mention that the animation SERIOUSLY DOES IT JUSTICE like the expressions are SO GOOD OH MY GOSH LIKE IT'S I'M THEY'RE YEAH THE EXPRESSIONS. ARE INCREDIBLE. that looks darius got in his eyes when he KNEW the password to brooklyn's phone and kenji didn't??? so good SO GOOD and just the way their eyes all shine before they start crying is actually done so well that if you listen carefully you can feel my heart breaking

also i love how like emotional processing is also written so much. all of them aren't afraid to cry and i feel like that's just. yeah it's beautiful. they cry soft they cry loud whatever it is they're comfortable enough to do so and if they're not they at least know they won't be judged for it ARE YOU KIDDING ME I'M GOING TO BITE A TABLE?????

the characters have flaws. i love that so much. the characters are not perfect but they're still likable and it's executed so well. darius' grief is PALPABLE and kenji's anger, albeit sometimes annoying, is so understandable that you can't actually be angry or annoyed with him because the story writing makes you understand. that's incredible. yasmina struggles with anxiety and ptsd and she gets frustrated and that is !! okay !! sammy ignores her emotions and struggles with toxic positivity but we understand *why* she talks to yasmina that way (because she's worried and scared and concerned for her girlfriend, but she's also just as worried of truly addressing what she's been through) so it's so hard to get mad at her. ben is THANJ GOODNESS not mischaracterized as a cinnamon roll and is actually a complex character with complex emotions and i can't get enough of it. he's like a pain he's so annoying sometimes but it's endearing because he reminds you of that one classmate from elementary that makes you go ohhh yeah no it's him that's fine

okay paragraph was getting long but I do have more to say about kenji. the relationships in this show are executed SO WELL and I'm beyond relieved that Kenji and Daniel's relationship was written INCREDIBLY WELL

like. okay first off the asian rep YEAHGHH IT EAS GOOD !!! WOOP WOOP YRAHAHDH HONK HONK the part about kenji saying he should get his violin after daniel was like telling his sob story was SO FUNNY OH MH GOSH

and just. kenji and daniel kon. im. like his dad was never perfect. far from it and yet kenji just he loves him so much and wants to make him proud and it makes me sick because the writing helps you UNDERSTAND why

daniel keeps giving kenji ultimatums and kenji standing up to him for once just. yeah. that was done incredibly well. and then not even ten minutes after daniel started to change and gave his son something without expecting anything in return other than his presence daniel gets eaten alive in front of him.

okay now this show holy moly i was NOT expecting daniel to just. get ripped apart but um YEAH THAT HAPPENED and the grief was written so well I cannot stress this enough. I loathe in movies and shows when they skim past traumatic deaths and just act like the grief is just non existent and this show does an incredible job at showing that it is VERY MUCH STILL THERE and it makes people out there who are struggling feel a little less crazy and that's so beautiful

i've been a benrius enthusiast since day one and honestly at this point i just hope everything goes well for them moving on. brooklyn's death and Darius coping with her grief was done SO SO WELL and honestly okay as much as i love sibling-type dinostar i think rewatching scenes with the lens that he was in love with her just makes it hurt so much and it's just. yeah. it's written well.

I will say that I think the story could have gone on without Darius confessing his love to Brooklyn, and the scene where Kenji asked Darius about the voicemails could have been used solely as a chance to highlight grief. another way the scene could have gone was if kenji sifted through the voicemails and just heard Darius's voice shatter in a way he's never quite heard it or listened to darius blame himself and that could have been a moment for kenji to realize that grief isn't something people should deal with alone, that *he* shouldn't deal with grief alone

regardless i really do think the idea that Darius was in love with Brooklyn was done really well. I don't know a better way for kenji to have figured out the truth, and for that I am grateful :D!! I hope the hardcore shippers don't get too mad though 😭

also I absolutely loved the lady with the whistle. she's cool. her character design is terrifying and the way she treats the dinosaurs reminds me a of a queen that is very fond of her workers like 😭 she's cool but also i would never want her within a 100 mile radius of me

the found family in this show is actually. yeah. it makes me cry because it's just done so well because it doesn't idealize perfect relationships. there are awkward moments, there are sad moments, characters still feel broken and alone despite having people who've actively said that they'd go to the moon and back for them. it's realistic and it's written beautifully

I think Darius might actually be the character with The Writing ever. his grief and his nostalgia, his awkwardness and fascination with learning and his kindness are all things that exist together and I am so so grateful for that. he's allowed to laugh and make jokes while feeling constant, looming guilt. he is fascinated with learning while also struggling to feel like he deserves to be happy, he enjoys learning about dinosaurs while also being terrified of them on the worst days. he feels guilty and feels like a bad person. but he's loved and he's cared for. can you tell he's my favorite now because

enamored with yasmina and sammy as always. they are just the girlfriends ever and i love so much how openly they communicate with each other. sammy apologizes when she makes mistakes, yasmina doesn't hold it against her. they're always at each other's sides and their love isn't conditional. i love them SO MUCH

okay sorry im making this about darius again but this guy actually is The character ever. I don't think I've ever felt so seen in a character and i just yeah the writers are incredible because all of the characters are written to feel relatable, and if not that, to feel real. it was just a huge comfort to me to know that okay im not crazy for feeling this way because of a character, who was written and animated by dozens and dozens of creators was allowed to be written this way, i'm not messed up in the head, im just processing emotions and it's okay that I need help for that

THIS SOUNDS SO CRINGE I AM SO SORRY

but yeah i. i love this show.

[veliseraptor]

I don't know what hopepunk is and at this point I'm too afraid to ask

well anon, part of your problem here is that hopepunk is in a lot of ways a meaningless descriptor that means whatever people want it to mean.

took a bit of digging but I found the post that broke down a lot of my issues with hopepunk as a concept/subgenre, here; to quote from that:

You may notice that the philosophy is incoherent, mainly boiling down to “the things I like are hopepunk and the things I don’t like aren’t.” It builds a philosophy out of opposition to a strawman of “grimdark” that doesn’t really exist. So hopepunk means you keep fighting for what you believe in regardless of what that is, and violence isn’t the answer, except when it is. Hopepunk is about being kind and soft but also about punching the bad guy with the gun. Hopepunk is a morass of FEELING REALLY STRONGLY ABOUT THINGS!!! without a fundamental core of… anything concrete.

[...]

Hopepunk in practice is unbearably twee.  The goal is to be to inspire a feeling of hope in the reader, which means that nothing bad is allowed to really happen, characters aren’t ever allowed to mess up or be mean or have flaws, and any mistake is well-intentioned and quickly & easily resolved by talking about your feelings.

and I could just leave it at that because, like I said, pretty good summation of my perspective, but sometimes an ask hits me at the exact right time for me to go off about something that consistently irritates me but I usually keep my mouth shut about for one reason or another.

and I feel like the first thing I want to say is. look. it's not like I'm out here going "hope is for losers and all I ever want is tragic stories where everything is awful forever." but the thing about hopepunk, at least in the ways I see it described, is that, in its dedication to be "the opposite of grimdark," shies away from representing darkness at all, except maybe in the most cursory, glancing ways. there's nothing to confront, nothing to push back against. villains are easily identified and unproblematically evil. protagonists are unimpeachably nice and good, and always have perfect politics. moral complexity is to be avoided, because raising too many questions might interrupt the positive feelings the author hopes to evoke.

not only does this create, in my opinion, really dull stories about very uninteresting characters, it also blunts anything the book is trying to say. if you don't want to confront any kind of conflict or struggle in depth then you've kneecapped your ability to talk about the full range of human experience. if the only antagonist you allow is a hollow caricature, then there's only so much room your protagonists have to express strength in opposing them.

the whole framework results in a kind of tepid, anodyne storytelling that expresses meaningless platitudes that the audience is presumed to agree with, often with a side helping of didacticism and "teachable moments." it's weak storytelling.

there's a world in which "hopepunk" is referring to a kind of story that I actually really like; for instance, there's a world in which one could call Malazan: Book of the Fallen "hopepunk." I am tempted to do that, just because I think it would drive people nuts. I think hopepunk wants to be doing something like the line from The Silmarillion that opens the tale of Beren and Luthien: "Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that come down to us from the darkness of those days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures."

but out of a fear of representing anything actually ugly, or possibly making people feel kinda bad about something, or challenging the reader in any way, everything that might have been interesting gets stripped out and what's left is literature that feels like cotton candy: maybe it's sweet, but there's nothing to bite into, and nothing that lingers.

[utilitycaster]

GOD that post I just reblogged about how Succession is cracking something open on Imogen and especially the solstice lead up because it really is about how, once the words are out of her mouth and she says "well what if the Vanguard are right", there's a tension! There's a tension that wouldn't be there if she didn't have doubts, if she didn't have a pull - literally a blood tie in more ways than one - to the Vanguard, and so the choice she makes actually matters, and we as an audience can see her struggle with it and say "there is a way to decide to do what's right and stand by the people who made this possible rather than repeating the cycle (Liliana leaves her family/Imogen doesn't) and yet you still will feel a pull to that past. Maybe even a constant one and a strong one, at least for a while, and you'll wonder if you did the right thing." And all that disappears if you refuse that tension and believe it's impossible for people to make the "wrong" or "bad" choice!

And more generally it's why so much of the discussion about other flawed characters is so terrible. Who cares if Essek is a good or bad person in a vacuum, this isn't asking that, it's asking "what might make people change? What if you didn't ruin your life entirely and you can live it out, even if the consequences will always remain with you? What if other people like you believe the same thing? What if you could undo it? What if you didn't?" and both sides, those that jump to eternal condemnation of him for war crimes against pretend people, or the idea he is good because of some endless hypothetical journey of penance, miss out on that. That's why Percy is a good (in the sense of interesting and well-done fiction, not morality) character: because he's set up to answer the question "who would be so desperate as to introduce a horrible tool into the world, and what might that look like for them" and here's the thing, do you really believe that if Ripley hadn't got away that guns wouldn't have still gotten out in some way? That the secret would have died with Percy? But he's young and horribly traumatized and thinks he can control this and that also makes us think, and when he straight up asks a god if he's good or bad for doing it she says that's not the point. Redemption arcs aren't about who deserve them and that argument is moot. They're about who is offered them, and who takes that opportunity and who rejects it, and what might happen.

And to be clear I do like talking about the morality of characters - not in an abstract black and white This is Good and This is Bad, because those things are contextual, but in terms of harm to the other pretend people in the story, and intent, and efforts made, because that's fun. But god like. I have blorbos, I absolutely have blorbos, and I'll make my share of jokes about people who never did anything wrong in their life, but I think that's why I am so repulsed by the blorbo-ification that involves scooping up your special guy and sticking them in a mason jar terrarium and judging them solely on those qualities because they're part of the story. They're part of the story! They're here because (as I yelled in the tags of that post) it's really fucking hard to relate to the abstract concept of breaking the cycle, and very easy to relate to the person trying to escape. Characters are just part of the gedankenexperiments good fiction is setting up, which brings me to the other weird thing that's fueling all of this which is this excerpt of The Infinite Playground:

"Physicists, for example, contribute to a different aspect of our reality than, for another example, fiction writers. When physicists make an assumption, like the universe being a hologram, they know they can't prove it, but they can assume it and see what happens as a result. Fiction writers like to assume things and then pretend those things are real. Both connect us to through the imagination, but one must, out of the necessity of their mission, substantiate their work through their understanding and the observations of their peers; the others, the artists and planners and politicians, are not so much into substantiation as they are into becoming part of a shared belief, a community of believers, one might say."

Like the most important part about fiction is that you can prove things from the text, sure, and you should use evidence for inferences, but moral rightness isn't really a provable thing, and the point in the end isn't, well, to prove a point. It's to say I hope the poison doesn't drip through, I hope the venom in your veins is not inborn but can slowly wear off or even be purged, I hope the brokenness isn't irreparable or at least that it does not mean the building has to be abandoned and demolished, at least not for a while. And some stories exist to explore what happens when that hope is realized, and some to explore what happens when it isn't, and the characters are just the pins on which to hang it, and you're supposed to care about them in both of them.

[mogai-sunflowers]

inspired by this post (link!) i’m going to talk about aromanticism, lesbianism, autism, and being a queer girl through those lenses!

i have never been interested in romance in the typical sense. before i discovered my queer identity, i got crushes on boys often, and yet i never actually fantasized about romance. this was partly because i was and am very socially awkward and unaware due to being autistic, and partly because, well, i was a child- i didn’t really know that romance was something people desired. i thought people wanted weddings because of the aesthetic dresses and pictures.

as i started getting a bit older, i would always notice how my girl friends were always talking about the boys they had crushes on. i started internalizing this idea that i wasn’t ‘really’ a girl because i had sensory issues with makeup so i didn’t wear any, i didn’t love my femininity or try to perform it for others because i didn’t understand the social concept of gender or gender performance, and i didn’t have the romantic dreams about boys that it seemed like every other girl was having.

so for a long time, i absolutely hated being a girl. anything associated with it. i still struggle with a lot of internalized misogyny, but it’s nothing like it used to be. i could not see myself as a real girl because i just wasn’t like any other girl i had ever met! i perceived other girls as being stupid for being so into boys, for performing femininity for them, and for being interested in them at all. it was a flawed mindset, but i was 13.

ever since i found out about aromanticism and realized “hey, that’s what i am” and that came around with my discovery that i was much more into girls than i was into boys, i have allowed myself to fall in love with my femininity. i realized that my sense of girlhood, of femininity, didn’t have to come from other people- it came from me. i AM a real girl, because being a girl isn’t about liking boys or wearing makeup or being feminine, it’s just about being a girl.

now, i love being feminine. i identify as genderqueer, and part of that is because i have had a unique gender experience! i was apathetic and denied my gender for so long because of my relationship with romance and performative femininity, and it took discovering my queerness to love and embrace my gender identity, so my gender feels very queer to me!

now, i embrace being both feminine and masculine. im femme because my femininity is super personal in a queer way, i’m butch because i love masculinity and i use it to express my queer identity, and i’m feminine not because i want to perform my girlhood for others, or because i want to attract boys OR girls, but because it’s who i am and it brings me joy. it’s hard to explain, but aromantic lesbianism gave me permission to love my identity as a girl. now, i wear extravagant dresses, sensory-friendly makeup, feminine outfits, and shit because i want to feel good about myself, and that’s pretty cool!

tagging @urpurplehairedsage !

[thetavolution]

Greeting Dialogues

I did some for Minty, Laura, Ingrid, Bex, Paloma, and Tessa! I saw @vatyrie-avaris do it and now I'm copying.

Minty

Profile

Low Approval:

flatly "Oh. What do you want?"

"Isn't there someone else you could go talk to?"

annoyed "Just spit it out. I have more important things to do than waste time with you."

Neutral Approval:

"Hey, everything okay?

cheerful "What is it you need?"

"I hope everything's okay. Well, as okay as they can be under the circumstances."

High Approval:

happy, excited "Hey, you! If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask."

"I was hoping you'd come by. What can I do for you?"

"If you need anything, just say the word and I'll do what I can."

Romanced:

"Hey, sweetheart, it's so good to see you."

"Gods, I still can't believe how lucky I am. Look at you."

"Is everything alright, my love?"

Laura

Profile

Low Approval:

"Gods, what now?"

"Make it quick."

sarcastic "Oh great, it's the wondrous leader of our little troupe. I'm so glad you've decided to honor me with your presence."

Neutral Approval:

"I'm glad to see you aren't dead yet. I hope it stays that way."

"Everything good?"

"Need me again already?"

High Approval:

"Hello there, friend."

excited "Oh hello! I was just thinking about you."

"Whatever you need, I'm at your disposal."

Romanced:

"What do you need of me, my darling?"

"Hello, lover. Did that sound debonair? I really hope it did. I'm working on sweeping you up off your feet."

heartfelt, distracted by love "You are so beautiful."

Ingrid

Profile

Low Approval:

"Um... I didn't expect you to talk to me. What's on your mind?"

"Hm?"

sighs "Yes, what is it?"

Even if she is in low approval, she struggles to be mean. She just gets distant and doesn't say much.

Neutral Approval:

"Do you need me?"

"Oh, um, hello..."

"How can I help?"

She is very shy with people she doesn't know so she doesn't say much. You will barely notice a difference between neutral and low.

High Approval:

"A little birdie told me you'd want to speak with me. I mean, literally. A little birdie told me. Um... how can I help?"

"Hi! I'm so glad you came over to chat. I hope nothing's happened. Sorry. I mean that I hope nothing else has happened."

"Hello, friend, what brings you my way?"

She's just awkward forever. I'm sorry. She does get more talkative if she likes you.

Romanced:

"Hello, honey. Please, let me know what I can do for you."

"My joy! I really wanted to come talk with you, but I didn't want to bother you."

"My heart's root. I can't believe how lucky I am that you chose me."

Bex

Profile

Low Approval:

"Hey, asshole, you need my help? Screwing up that bad, huh?"

exasperated "The Gods must really hate me if they keep bringing you over here."

"Fucking what?"

It was so hard not to add "dude" to the end of "Fucking what?" for her.

Neutral Approval:

"Hey, what's up?"

"I was wondering when you'd come back around."

"Need my help again?"

High Approval:

playful "Hey, pal, lookin' for some help?"

"You're just in time! I just finished writing a new song I want to play for you. (laughs) Don't worry, I'm just messing around. Could you imagine if I was actually like that?"

"What can I do ya for, buddy?"

Romanced:

"Gods, you're amazing. You're only flaw is being attracted to someone like me."

affectionately "Hey turtle, what is it?"

"Hello, gorgeous."

I don't know why she calls her lover "turtle."

Paloma

Profile

Low Approval:

"Why are you talking to me and not one of your actual friends? Or does everyone dislike you just as much as me?"

"Does annoying me bring you joy?"

exasperated "Can I help you?"

Neutral Approval:

"Sorry, I was just taking time to meditate. What do you need?"

friendly "At your service."

"Looks like you've been surviving the horrors. For now."

High Approval:

"My dear friend, what is it you need?"

"I do enjoy chatting with you."

"Looks like you have something on your mind. Don't be afraid to tell me anything."

Romanced:

"Hello, my love."

after watching Tav, silently "Oh... sorry, I forget myself. It's so easy to do that with you."

"You make me feel like a school girl again. Is there something you wanted?"

Tessa

Profile

Low Approval:

"Look, you don't like me and I don't like you, so let's keep the talking to a minimum."

"You have a really punchable face.... Huh? Sorry, what did you want?"

gives an exasperated sigh "Yeah?"

Neutral Approval:

"How can I help?"

"Need something?"

clearly forgetting Tav's name, but being friendly "Oh hey.... you. How's it going?"

High Approval:

"Just the person I wanted to see! I'm free to chat about anything."

excited "Oh thank the gods you're here, I've been bored out of my mind."

"If you're looking for someone to talk to, I'm all ears, friend."

Romanced:

"Well hello, my love. Did you need something or did you just miss me?"

"I treasure every moment spent with you. I only wish I could make it last forever."

"Hi, honey bunny, can I help you with anything?"

[remove-the-stairs-bitch]

A tangent about myself, corporations, and absolutes, or My Experience.

I am going to speak on my own experience as a now cis white woman, previously a transgender/nb person. I might say things that you won't like, and that's fine. I know that there are people who don't like what I'll say. And that's good. Disliking certain things about people is a great opportunity for growth. It teaches nuance and depth, and there are things about even my closest friends that I don't like and yet see past. I still love them. My best friends are either far left or far right or wholly centrist, and that's okay. Because they're people. And we need to be able to see people as people, instead of just mirrors of our flawed selves.

As a disclaimer, this includes what some might consider transphobia, but I don't. Like parents keeping someone from transitioning bc of their age or someone breaking up with a new trans person. Also includes a death in the family. My own views on topics are heteronormative and based in Christianity, my parents views, my peers views, and the things I've seen and experienced, online and off. Don't discount my views for any of these, and if you do, please explain why.

I'll start with 2020, the year I joined tumblr and started doubting my identity as a woman/girl/female person. It was a rough time for everyone, and my 15 year old egocentrism did not help. At the time, I was dating a man of 16 years. I call him a man because he was wise in many ways, and in my mind he earned the title. But when I started questioning my gender, I told one of my friends about it. Consequently, she told her parents about it. And they told the man I was with about it. Because of my egocentrism, I was blind to how much it hurt him to think that his potential future wife was intent on becoming a man. I would have left him, as it's called, a trans widower. I say would have because there are nuances to this story that I'll explain later on here.

After a while of thinking that I was either a male or something between the genders, I eventually began identifying as a demigirl. The reason I thought I was a man or between the two at the time was my isolation from others, the natural desire to rebel at that age, and the fact that I was seeing so many trans men on YouTube tik tok compilations. On top of these was my stress from school, my stress from switching chores with my younger brother, and the stress of transitioning in itself. I blamed all of my problems on my gender. This did not solve anything. Because it didn't solve anything, I blamed the others around me, growing more and more abrasive towards the people I cared about until my mom pulled me aside and told me that there are people in my life who had it far worse than I did. It was not an actual of transphobia. What she did opened my eyes to the idea that I was not the center of the world, not even the center of my own. She told me that one of my best friends had been the victim of a violent crime, and while I was caught up in my own gender, I completely ignored her pain. I was a worse friend, a worse child, and a worse person, because I was focused solely on my problems and my image. That was when the facade began to break.

I began detransitioning in 2021. It was easy, free, and more freeing than trying to cram who I am into an agender box. I'm very glad that I wasn't able to find hormones at the time, or I'd be suffering the effects to this day. It was an emotional drain for the pressurized bottle I had built up in myself. And it was a struggle. There were times when I'd look in the mirror and think to myself, "I'm very masc presenting today," and then realized that's just how I normally dressed when I was younger. When I completely identified as a girl. It was hard because I saw other people transitioning. And when they finished transitioning, nothing changed. Their circumstances did not get better. Their grades sometimes dropped. Their quality of life went down. Their already strained relationships with their families broke entirely in some cases. It hurt to see.

My ideology then changed. I returned to my religion in August of 2021, and was able to find some peace. It was a great comfort to me, even when tragedy hit. My older brother left the family in pursuit of a narcissist. They were trans as well, but had multiple mental illnesses that made them arguably unfit to take care of another person, much less the polycule they had amassed. This hit my family hard, almost as though my brother had died. (I say this with the experience of losing a parent, not with the intent of coming off as saying "he was dead to us.") He left on a sour note, not telling us that he loved us anymore. I started a D&D campaign in the hopes of having some small connection to him, and it succeeded. Eventually, he was a victim of the very person he left us for, and he came back, traumatized. We have a place for him to this day, and he's at least slightly more comfortable with himself and his gender than he was when he returned to us. He doesn't lie when hardship strikes anymore, and he knows that we love him no matter his choices or his struggles.

In 2022, I got high grades and was nearly able to graduate. I had no need for other curriculum, as I had already met and exceeded the requirements for my state's high school graduates. I was undecided, so I opted to go through the summer of 2023 and see which way the wind blew. Over that summer, my father died. It was during a family trip that we had been planning for a while. It was unexpected, but wasn't as awful as I thought it would be. This may just be because of my religion, as it gives an answer for what goes on after death, and gives anecdotes of folks being brought back to life. I understood that no tears would bring him back. But I also understood that I was his legacy. And that he died proud of himself, his family, and his peers. In all likelihood, he died contentedly.

I quit my part time job and decided to try school again, if for nothing else then for the social security benefits. This proved to be a bad move. The friends I had there promoted unhealthy lifestyles, and although I loved them, I couldn't stay and let them affect me. So I left school, which wasn't something the teachers wanted me to do (I'm sorry Ms. F, I'll come back to show off my sewing projects!), but it was necessary in order to push myself to grow up. That was immediately stifled by a knee surgery (which was prescribed basically the week after my dad's death, bc I dislocated my knee right before going to the hospital to see his cadaver). It is now December, and here I am yapping about my personal life online.

I intended to speak on the near-widower that left me after I came out. We're back together. He still loved me. I just needed to grow up to see that.

There are people out there who might hate you as a trans person. But there's a solid difference between hate, ignorance, and concern. Hate is active oppression. There is oppression, and from what I've seen it's on a systemic and corporate level. But it's not on a personal level. On a personal level there's either ignorance or concern. What I experienced when I was struggling with my gender was concern. There was no ignorance in my case. The people who left me left for the same reason I left my school. It was because they saw the path I was taking and did not want to be shouted over while I was wandering. People can leave people they love because it's better to give a situation to the authorities than it is to try and fix it yourself. If my fiance hadn't left me, my mental and emotional state would have rubbed off on him and hurt him. I could have done more harm if he didn't cut me off when he did. For that, I think I'll forever be grateful. The people who stay stay because they know you need support while you'd still say they're toxic or hateful. That's what I thought of my parents until I was able to see the bigger picture. If your parents are actively beating you or shouting at you or gaslighting you, of course don't stay. But I recommend taking a second to ask about what's happening around you instead of within you. Because of today's culture, I took the notion that the answer was always inside me far too seriously. Sometimes the answer is in the people who care about you.

But this brings me to the second part of my little rant here. I came to the realization that the less people identify with solid and tangible things, the more the corporations in control of our country can manipulate us. There's pridewashing, virtue signalling, deflecting when serious issues are brought up, and we ignore it for the sake of letting these corporations remain the one stable thing in our lives. There are far more tech jobs these days than agriculture, and because of this, we could end up starving while corporations pull an Orwell on us and say there has never been a steady supply of grain. Or that there has always been a poor AQI. Or that we need the new Juicero Pro to do our taxes instead of making juice. I don't feel like America itself is the problem, but the corruption within it. I still rely on a device created with slave labor to share outlandish opinions and borderline radical ideology with you few, but I don't want it and I don't need it. I could just as easily toss this thing against a wall and be fine. (I won't bc my mom would be rather miffed if I did, but you get my point.) I could survive for a good long while without it, and probably be far happier. Same with all the trinkets and plastic I've accumulated, in my bloodstream and otherwise. I have no need nor desire for these things, and yet I keep them.

But there's a need and desire for at least a little tradition, which is expressed by many women who are sick and tired of being lumped into the modern idea of "man, woman, or nonbinary," and just want to be allowed to be tomboys again. Or just want to be allowed to be a wife. There's nothing inherently wrong with desiring a home with a working man and kids. There is something wrong with telling women what they can and can't do, according to modern feminism, and yet the women who want to be homemakers are silenced and shouted down, along with detransitioners among the lgbt. Aren't these people valid too? Isn't their plight just as understandable? But they're pushed to the margins as low statistics that really don't matter in the long run. Along with trans widows/widowers. Is it not wrong that we're ignoring the people who we harm with our movements? Isn't the point that we help the hurt? So why aren't we helping the people we're leaving behind? It's concerning is all. A society based on a single voice is no society at all.

Sorry for the rant. If anything here has resonated with you, feel free to comment about it. Same with anything that has struck a nerve. I miss being able to speak about the things I disagree on in a kind manner. I miss the good that disagreement brings.

[caluski]

And like I knowwwww it REALLY is all my fault. I really know that. I'm not trying to act like "oooo it's fate it's fate that put it's curse on me I'm just unlucky" because I know all the blame is on me. I know I fucked up so so so so many things and I fucked over other people *and* myself. And I know that I have to work very very hard to become like someone who could be loved because it's not like people who are loved and happy just "got lucky somehow" but because they simply worked hard on themselves and for their happiness. But it's just so overwhelming. I feel like I'm starting my life from scratch. I have nothing. Well ok.... I do have roof over my head and a tumblr blog. I try so hard to have love for the little joys in life but man it's so so so fucking hard to cherish them alone as well. I wish I could have someone to go to a café with. I wish I could have someone to spend new years eve with. I wish I could have someone to stroll thru a park with. I wish I could have someone to go to a bar with. Żmija is so nice and so patient towards me always but she's so far away and has a million more important things and people going on in her own life anyway. And I'm not even attractive enough to go on dating apps to meet new people. It's so exhausting it's so...... I wish I could have my family by my side at least. I wish they enjoyed spending time with me. I wish I didn't feel like an intruder no matter who I'm with, no matter where I go. With my former friends, my coworkers, classmates whatever, I actually tried so many many many fucking times to get together, to go out, to organize something, anything... I have so so many flaws and in many ways of course I am really truly horrible. But this one part of it I cannot let go, the fact that I actually tried my best and kept texting first and suggesting specific dates and plans and everything, and yet that didn't work. And I don't know why. I have no idea what is so wrong with me that I couldn't even make my best friends stay. I'm impatient and selfish and moody and needy and lazy and whiny and ugly and cowardly and loud and stubborn and nitpicky and pretty boring and I interrupt people and I like to gossip and I don't do drugs and I wallow in sadness and self pity too much and I talk without thinking and I get way too focused on myself. But I SOMEHOW did get these friends even if they were casual... despite everything. And then I lost them. I had my chances and I blew them ALL, every single one. I keep thinking about my former best friend especially, over and over again, i really tried my best, I actually tried my damn best to become a better listener and to distract her when she needed it, and yet I was still not good enough. She still kept rejecting me over and over and over again and like a fucking idiot I kept refusing to give up. And I wish I knew what I did wrong. I wish I knew what was it that made her reject me. Why was she so embarrassed of me? Why was she so ashamed to be around me in public, why did she refuse to introduce me to her other friends? Maybe it was not even any of the negative sides of me, but that she just couldnt find any positives in me, either. Maybe people could look past all the bad things about me, if I had something.... good in me. Maybe having *some* flaws is not the problem, but instead, being... a nobody is the worst flaw in itself. Maybe I'm good as a casual coworker or classmate or mutual or acquaintance or a stranger you see every three days buying tomatoes at your farmers market. But nothing more. And i do still want to work on my weaknesses, I want to become patient and kind and someone who makes others feel cared for, and safe, and listened to. But what if, even if I somehow achieve it, even if I somehow become a better person, get over my worst struggles. What if I still will be like... A zero. Not a negative, sure, but not a positive either. Just a zero. And I will be at my best... and I still will be nothing. What then. What then

[thattotalloserrain]

My Hate for April O’Neil (2012) Analysis

I want to be clear, even if I put my biases aside, there will still be things in my perspective that may not change. I wasn't a fan of April growing up. Now, as I'm older and more mature, I think I can conclude something better than "she's a b____."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Throughout the entire franchise, this is the first time we see April as a teenager. In other adaptations, April was that supportive adult (female) character. (Where men loved the write about women, without women's input.)

This is also a 'children' audience show. (I think 12+) Still a show where adults and older teens or children can still enjoy it with that barrier. In a LOT of cases, children's shows wouldn't have top-tier writing on average. Let's just put that in perspective and understand the flaws (and pros) of the writing in the show.)

Flaws:

New York is very, very empty for being a city that never sleeps.

The love triangle with Donnie, Casey, and April

Or Romance in general

I’m sure there’s more but that’s the gist of it

Pros:

Fighting was top tier (still is)

CGI is still really good at the time (Don't look at the human hair)

Splinter's and Shredder's backstories (as well as Karai’s)

Balance between 'seriousness' and 'humor'

Now let's really start talking about April.

As stated in the beginning, April is the first time we actually see her as a teenager, and not in an adult supportive role. In season one, it just doesn't feel like she had any other purpose but to be a friend. Which... also seemed to be very lacking.

"April, you don't count. We saved your life, you have to like us." Mikey (New Friend, Old Enemy)

A lot of our (my) feelings towards her is the relationship between her and Donatello which... Growing up, I even thought it seemed super toxic. There is a clear understanding that Donatello in fact has a deep crush on April. (We'll get into his character analysis later in another post.) Then as we think April feels the same way, but THEN Casey gets in the picture. Even before that, she just off-handedly rejected Donnie's affection towards her even after planting a kiss on his cheek. (This girl can't be that oblivious to know how Donnie feels. I'd like to hope.)

This must make her such a horrible person right? Leading on our favorite purple turtle, just for him to get hurt over and over again, right? Even if they both might be at fault, April was the worst one, as we thought. She’s not the brightest, even with her hot redhead-temper. (As I am)

We forget how we even met April in the first place.

The Kraang. Oh Yes. The sweet, lovely, alien species that has actually been around on Earth for years, suddenly KIDNAPS HER AND HER FATHER. She was kidnapped! Yet of course, the turtles saved her but, her father still was with the Kraang until the end of season one (Sort of back.)

I am not saying that anyone should have a free pass for being not a nice person, but this is something we completely ignored. Trauma can literally affect you in so many ways without realizing it. From an outside perspective, we don't see any struggles with a person sometimes.

So of course April's feelings toward Donnie are a bit unstable, to say the least. She just lost her father, and she now is being taken care of by her aunt. April even says to Casey when he finds out about the guys, that she hadn't had anyone to talk to about them. (Season 2, Fungus Humungous) Have you ever been in that kind of situation before? I'd like to hope not. But to know no matter what you can say, you can't because no one would understand. Then mess that is the love triangle with Casey and Donnie just doesn't help anything because they were all going through the stress of the Kraang evasion.

April really isn't the horrible person I thought she was before, sure she still has a lot of flaws but yet that's what characters need to be able to feel alive, or be able to relate to them. The only thing she does that is questionable is not keeping any boundaries when she sets them, but breaks them herself. It’s hurting everyone.

I'm not going to get too in-depth with her powers. Yet I think it's interesting to point out how it's literally a symbol of her losing herself. She tends to feel so overshadowed and has a need for her powers to become more important and less useless to the team. It just became to a point where she couldn't ask for help before she could see herself needing it. And before she could ask help from the stress with it all… The person inside her that wasn’t her ended up potentially killing Donnie. That will put a lot more mental strain onto her.

So my conclusion…

I still don’t like April, I don’t like how the writers wrote her, I don’t like how she continues to make the problem worse because she’s asking for bad behavior when she tells Donnie and Casey to stop… But holy heck as I said before, this was the first adaptation that we saw April as a teenager, so I could imagine why it felt so off at first why I thought she wasn’t the best. I can see why the writers messed up so horribly at this one because they were probably used to the 80’s April where she was merely only know as today as the most- ehem, most romantically alluring to older guys (I’m not leaving out the ladies or the non-binaries.) Not saying that it was okay, but that’s just what happened.

So yeah, I don’t like her.

What do you guys think about her? After Mutant Mayham came out, I think she is definitely the worst of the three teen-April’s.

[emilemily]

Life is really good right now, and I genuinely mean that. I’ve really taken control of my life lately which is very nice. I’m coming off of gabapentin, which I have been prescribed HEAVILY for the last year. Almost 3000mg a day off-brand for anxiety, which is not only a terrible way to prescribe it, but actually doing the opposite given my diagnosis of reoccurring moderate episodes of major depressive disorder.

So I had anxiety during a tumultuous time in my life in 2021, was prescribed gabapentin at 100mg 3x/day. Eventually that stopped working so they increased to 300mg/day last year. January of this year, I experienced a huge life change moving 3000 miles away from what was once my home. My new doctor here decided to keep me on gabapentin, but increased my dose to 900mg 3x/day.

This is where things got ROUGH. Such severe depression that I couldn’t get out of bad, some days I didn’t even brush my teeth. Constant, gnawing anxiety that I couldn’t run away from. Thoughts of hopelessness and even unaliving myself. I realized something needed to change.

I came off my antidepressant cold Turkey in February, which took multiple months to stabilize from. But yet I remained consistently numb. But not fully numb. Sort of like, sad numb? Hard to describe. I didn’t really have a lot of positive emotions anymore. But I thought that I was just really depressed.

Last week I was researching and figured out that given my mental health history, gabapentin should have never been something I was prescribed, and that doctors are prescribing it off brand Willy nilly, or on brand because they’re too scared to prescribe benzos or pain pills. It’s sort of what they throw at you when they don’t know what to do and they increase it repeatedly.

I’ve always struggled with anxiety and occasional depression. Always had a dark mind of sorts. But the last two years I really wondered if I would make it to see 30 because everything seemed so hopeless.

Lack of ambition, apathy about my entire life, just sort of waiting around for a bus to hit me.

I ran out of gabapentin on Wednesday. When my doctor last increased my dose, she forgot to update the prescription so unfortunately I won’t be able to fill it again until the 6th. But I’m not going to refill it. This is day 2 completely cold Turkey.

These withdrawals are kicking my ass, but you know what’s amazing? Suddenly I can spell again. I’ve always been a great speller and a talented writer. Suddenly those parts of me are returning. I don’t feel this thick layer of fog encompassing me. I’m having thoughts, feelings, and am starting to make moves to be alive again. Like, really alive.

I’ve been overmedicated with multiple prescriptions for entirely too long because I put so much trust into doctors who are prescribing me multiple medications with MAJOR interactions between them. Doctors that, when asked, say that there are no interactions and I’ll be fine.

If I died, would they even care? If I had offed myself all the times I wanted to, would they feel anything? No, because I am just one of many patients being prescribed this and that.

I’m suffering the withdrawal, but I am tapping into who I was before I put my trust in doctors to fix my brain. I feel that my most intense growth stopped when I did that. I’m a flawed person. Sometimes I’m a sad person. But I’ve dealt with it pretty well in my life, and I don’t need 5 different prescriptions to do it now.

Gabapentin withdrawal is going to continue for days, and my pep about all this may waver from time to time, but being able to actually fucking spell again is giving me hope that all is not lost, and that I can undo what had been done to me at the hands of medical professionals I trusted.

So that’s my speed-written train of thought for now. Not even going to edit it, so excuse any typos.

Have a lovely day.

[mayasdeluca]

I dont really know what to expect from maya as a parent. I mean she had a very awkward interaction with pru and somehow that changed her mind (yet another thing badly written in s5 imo). I mean carina did everything and I get seeing ur partner with a kid can make a big difference but to me it always seemed to me that she agreed for carina bc she knew she wanted it (which isn't necessarily a bad thing I think maya would literally do anything for her). Another huge reason why 5b is so bad is that we didnt hear any of their thoughts on parenting it was literally just about sperm and overshadowed by jack🤢. It seemed he would be more involved than maya which was infuriating and even carina was kinda pushed out of the sl (and also totally disrespected). Then obviously in season 6 she was so focused on self destruction she didn't really care about anything else I dont think she even knew what she was fighting for (I really did love her mental health arc) then the 2nd half of the season she was focused on getting carina back which was also really cute and enjoyable but throughout this storyline we haven't heard maya's side of things at all so I'm not really sure what to think. Carina was obviously given a chance to talk about it more (a little to much imo) this season and we still dont actually know WHY but atleast she spoke more than just sperm this season (baby steps, people). I really like the pitch that dani and stef were talking about that maya is going to be better as she doesn't really have any expectations and is much more relaxed about he whole thing. I can totally see her ranting to her kid about her problems like in s2😂 I mean lbr this sl is being dragged out a ridiculous amount by 7b it HAS to be done imo it's really time to move on. I am hoping to see other non baby related storylines especially for carina but I think there can be some cute moments if the writers dont screw it up which I really shouldnt count on lol (I will never trust them).

This got kinda long lol sorry but I just needed to get it off my chest. Hope u had a good day :)

I'm not sure what to expect either because of everything you said! It could really go any way which is both concerning and intriguing. I would love for them to go the route of what Danielle and Stefania were saying with Maya being the one naturally 'better' at parenting while Carina struggles because there's also been an overall theme on the show and within their relationship where Carina hasn't really shown many flaws and it's always been focused on Maya doing something wrong and then having to make it up to Carina so it would be interesting to see Carina messing up or struggling with being a parent and seeing how they navigated that together. But yes they definitely need to start moving it along and hopefully we would actually see them with a baby by the end of the season.

Hope you had a good day too! :)

[crescenthoax]

I will never love again 1: What inspired you to write the fic this way? 2: Which scene did you put on first? 3: What is your favorite plot? 4: What's your favorite line of dialogue? 5: Which part was hardest to write? 6: What is your fic special or different from all your other fics? 7: Where did the title come from? 8: Did any real person or event inspire any part of this? 9: Was there an alternate version of this fic? 10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story? 11: What do you like most about this fic? 12: What do you like least about this fic? 13: What song did you hear that made you want to write this story? Or if you haven't heard anything yet, what do you think readers should hear to keep us reading? 14: Is there anything you would like readers to learn from reading this fic? 15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

Oh jesus christ. Okay let’s see, I’ll try to be as brief as possible.

1. I guess I just wrote what I would like to read. Back in october, there weren't any Aegon fics (mostly Aemond x niece/sister), and I thought I would be happy writing for us Aegon enthusiasts since there was too much hate around.

2. The first scene I wrote was teenage Aegon meeting teenage Annika (with some Rhys foreshadowing as well), but at the last minute I decided I didn’t want them to be familiar with each other or have any preconceptions when they got married, so I went for the original prologue.

3. Annika in Rhaenyra’s court, 100%. I adore her entire internal struggle and the person she’s becoming.

4. Ughh either the “your love is a curse” “then you must be a curse breaker” bit or the “hair grows back, your dead children don’t”.

5. You know what, I have the hardest time writing happy/fluffy moments, like grief comes naturally but the entire love plot I tend to overthink it a lot because I don't want to make it cheesy, and to be honest, I don't think I'm very good at it. Lately, though, it's the entire war plot that's getting on my last nerve.

6. Definitely the fact that I've never gotten this far with any of my other works. I'm so committed to it and to the characters that I don't know what I'm going to do once it's finished.

7. I think it was that the 1975 song happiness one of my friends kept singing and it stuck with me for WEEKS, then I had an epiphany while listening to cowboy like me by taylor swift and here we are.

8. There’s a lot of me in Annika and there’s a lot of my trauma and my love and my friends and my life but no one is inspired in no one.

9. Never. A drama queen with intimacy issues and a pathetic wimpy mess full of rage were my ride or die since day one.

10. I wanted to write something real and raw, someone who unapologetically made mistakes, and my boy failure Aegon was a perfect match for it. Besides I feel like all of you just… Get it in the way I wanted you to get it. It wouldn’t work if Annika was paired with Aemond for example. It had to be them.

11. The family dynamics. I love the fact that the green brothers found not just love but a real family with the girls. They might have their differences, but at the end of the day, they're all they have.

12. That I put on a lot of detail and made it too complicated and sometimes it’s hard to keep up.

13. I don’t think is just one in particular but a bunch of sad indie songs glued together. I’m gonna make a playlist someday.

14. Oh it actually terrifies me that someone might learn something from this flawed story but I guess that’s a good point, that you’re valid and deserving of love no matter how much you believe otherwise.

15. Yeah that I am insane lol.

[catnherthoughts]

reflection on the parallels 11/8

maybe it was intentional. from god? from some higher power. what purpose would it serve. give me something to think about maybe. to see where i've been and where i am now. to look back on the past where i was grasping on this. but where am i now? its not anywhere better. i used to self harm once in a blue moon. now i do it regularly. i used to be depressed every so often but i'd figure my way out and learn to see the sunlight. i've been in a depressive episode for 6 weeks straight. i don't think that after contemplating suicide for as long as i have i should still be here. that's a topic i may brush up on later. regardless, this made me write. to see different periods of my life at my north, south, east, and west; i ask myself one thing, what have i learned? maybe that i am lovable but even that is not enough. trials are tribulations will get you to your goal at one point, but what happens when the goal is lackluster. not to say that it is but, it didn't solve anything. i thought that once i became skinny enough and had a boyfriend that all in my world would be sunshine and daisies because not only would i be pretty but i would be loved. validation of sorts. i am both now. i can confidently say i am pretty, very pretty to some. i am loved deeply. yet, neither of these things fixed me. when i had a little less years on me, i spent my depressive moments longing for this life. i thought that once i fixed my flaws everything would be ok. how do i tell her that no matter that goal you reach, you'll always be sick. it makes me lose hope. my therapist says i need to work on using better language for my emotions rather than: upset, weird, odd. i am melancholic at the fact that achieving my goals will not make me feel better. it makes me worry for the future. i would like to graduate and have a good job. we also discussed a "chain of motivation". breaking down my big goals into smaller ones and what i want from them. how do i tell her all that i really want is to be dead. i am tired of fighting a losing battle. i don't do this for myself. when i think of the suicide i have neatly waiting in a satin lined gift box in my dreams, i get deterred by external factors. my friends and family would be so utterly devastated by my death. (they see my suffering and don't do anything, mostly because they know they can't.). My mom would maybe off herself and i think it'd shatter those close to me in a way that alters their view of the world forever. i'd like to think that somene at my funeral would give a speech like: she was so happy and a joy yo every room she was in, you'd never know she was struggling. but i do try to give subtle signs. you see my wrists. you see the scars. you see the posts. you see the weight loss. you see the dulling of my character. i guess people are blind to things they don't want to see. fair. i also think about what i would be giving up. the life i wouldn't get to live. maybe i'd do something in the world to make a difference. i'd lose the opportunity to do so many great things. never get to experience a full life. none of this is moving enough to get the thought out of my head, but just moving enough to make me not do it. or maybe i'm just so depressed that i don't have the stores to carry out what i know must be done. all the energy i have left is spent on school. If people knew how much I was suffering I wonder if they'd do anything different. I tell my close friends all the time how horrible I am. nothing changes. if i was them i'd do something. then again, i am not them. no one will love and care for me the way i do others. it's not that their love is bad. they do their best. i just need more and i know i'm never gonna get it. i kind of want to go to the hospital. to see how everyone would react. would i get flowers? would people come to see me? i dont really want any of that, or am i too selfish to say that i actually do. I'm not sure how this turned into a monologue about my fantasy of suicide when it was meant to reflect the symbolism of events that occured today. maybe this does reflect it.

*unintentional page break bc i can't type more in that text block*

i got what i wanted and still. nothing. maybe i'm even worse. i felt a sort of adrenaline i feel guilty for. the past looking at me in the present. i wonder how it felt. did it want to call out to me? was it proud? can it see how poorly i am doing? would it want to make it worse. it'll pass by me soon enough and at that point, i won't have it to look back on, or i guess look at. i may cut myself once i am done writing. something to feeeeeeel. south past may be unbothered. or maybe just curious. or maybe resentful. i dont think west past thinks as deeply as i do. i don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. i feel so sad for the girl i was back then. i miss her hope. she at least had the hope that when she go to her dream state, she'd be better. she had hopes that once ehr goals were reached that she'd be better. maybe they're haunting me. all the negative juju. cannot handle it. all i can try to do right now is push through. everyday that's what i've been doing. maybe this was something to make me feel something more profound than an apathetic depression with spurts of distraction. now i can reflect. i don't think this reflection is any really good in terms of helping me get better but its getting me to write. i think its funny that i only really write when i am sad. i think thats where my art thrives. my emotions are the most creative when i'm trying to use them as a scapegoat to express emotion. maybe i am art in my core. when i kill myself i should like type out how my suicide was an art piece to get people to think. then i'd be famous. i don't really want that but i want to do something profound. i can be taught about in classes. then maybe i'd just become another students dreaded homework assignment or reading. then again i'd rather do that with my suicide than just have it be devastating. would i be able to clearly write out an explanation. maybe i'd title it "the battle lost" or something cool like that. this is cool to think about.

am i selfish? maybe. my mom lost her mom. my boyfriend lost his father. his mom and brother battle serious depression. then again everyone has things they deal with. i have deep dark secrets i can't even share here that i have to deal with daily. is it selfish if i am the only one fighting this fight. maybe its some sort of self advocation. "i don't want to do this anymore and i don't have to". all i think about is killing myself. i dont want to keep living. thats it. nothing seems worth living more. maybe i just need to be more grateful. maybe. i dont really care to put effort into anything other than my looks, space, and schoolwork at this point. oh! i also put a lot of effort into others. do they put the same effort into me. i dont think so. no one would care for me like i would for them. going back to a point i made earlier. the thought that brings me pure bliss is the thought of me taking the sharpest razor i can find and running in down my arm. like cutting open a pillow. the fluff would get everywhere and ecstacy would release. then it'd be done. i'd be done living this facade. no one really knows how i feel except my therapist and even then i don't know if she fully comprehends the scope of what i deal with. no one can hear me cry. no one. i need help. maybe i do need to go to the hospital. i'll make a big mess of myself for attention and then everyone will be mad and i'll go to the hosptial. what will it accomplish? i'm not sure. it'll be a self advoation for sure. look and see me suffering. please. help.

that's all. thanks.

[read-chill-wine]

✨️Let's Review✨️

Reviews may contain spoilers

📖book reviews📖

I dropped everything to read this and consumed it in less than a day. I have no shame. I am exhausted. I am behind on writing now.

Overall? It's kind of worth it.

Part of why I picked this up was due to a friend telling me this is omegaverse fanfiction in a published book form. I can confidently say she is not correct. This lacks some very key points to omegaverse fanfiction: heats, alpha/omega dynamics, dom/sub culture references, breeding references. It does have: knotting and mate marks, though.

This story is an interesting modern day twist on the war between vampires, or vampyres in this instance, and werewolves. It features 3 species, the vampyres, the weres, and Humans (always capitalized). There's some shady mafia-ish business deals not full dug into, a poorly explained political system, and what drives a lot of this book, the concern of birthrates (vampyres are low, weres are mid, Humans are rabbits,) and how that is a growing threat to the survival of Misery Lark and her kind.

Misery Lark is a vampyre who has spent most of her life among the Humans, yet somehow has no understanding of human traditions, aging, and other concepts. Misery is in her 20s, yet she reads as if she is this centuries old being. This is gripe number one. Misery has a human best friend, Serena, yet she doesn't grasp concepts like weddings, guessing age ranges, and human emotion. She was raised with Serena as a way of fulfilling a treaty. Once returned to her own kind, she then ran to be back with Humans. Flat out, Misery being confused by these concepts makes absolutely no sense. This book followed very modern-day concepts like technology, spyware, and sleuthing. These things were all concepts Misery grasped and was truly very good at, it made no sense plot wise to keep the concept that she wouldn't understand other human concepts.

Moving forward, Misery is informed by her father, the leader of this nest of vampyres that to protect her people, she is going to be married off to the alpha of the weres, Lowe.

Lowe is a glorious chunk of muscle and man meat. Buzz cut, bulging biceps, dominate voice, but he's secretly so soft and squishy. Lowe dreams of being involved in architectural design and actually went to Europe to study the concept. He's an artist and as he and Misery slowly fall in love each chapter had soft quotes from Lowe's perspective that we don't see in the chapters, like one where he says Misery made him want to draw again.

(Liz's actual reaction below)

This book has a slow burn feel while being very fast-paced. The airplane scene where everything finally comes to a head was so well done and visually appealing as I was reading it. It was a 10/10 smut scene without truly venturing into the realm of full sex.

From there, we run into some glorious tropes like miscommunication, touch her, I'll kill you, found family, anything to protect her, self-sacrifice, and fated mates. Again, this is a very quick read and I struggled with putting this down to do normal day to day things I needed to get done.

Is this all 5 star book for me, though? No. I do genuinely have issues with the execution of Misery's character. I had to constantly recheck to make sure I was reading a 20-something vampire story because she was written in a way that made her seem so much older. I feel the flaws there actually can hinder the reading experience quite a bit.

I feel safe giving this 3.5 to 4 stars. Had Misery not been a contradicting factor within how she was written, I'd easily put this at a 4 to 4.5 star book.

I would recommend it to friends. However, if you personally are going out to read it based on being told it's omegaverse fanfiction, I promise you will likely be disappointed.

[notebookmusical]

Ya I was talking about Emily Henry's YA. I actually read a bit of Happy Place yesterday and it seems promising. By the way, how do you feel about all of her books becoming movies? Anybody you can picture in these roles.. cuz I feel like that sometimes helps me. Which one are you most excited for? I feel like that might have been another reason I stopped reading her books cuz I wouldn't want the movie to be way different than what I thought and wanted to wait for the cast but it'll probably be a long time now.

Oh wow..I had no idea it was a popular book..I found it randomly and read it based on the title a few years ago lol. I don't want to get your expectations high with the Normal People comparison.. cuz I read them around the same time maybe. The Stepping Off Place is actually a book I think would make a great movie..and that's the first book I read where I could picture the whole movie. I even added stuff in my head about the characters that probably only make sense to me and added scenes. Ever since Taylor mentioned working on a movie, I have been thinking about this so it might be another reason why I feel so connected to it. I think it's kinda similar to John Green if I had to compare it to something.

Anyway I guess I'm the same with books or movies I love but I feel like it's easy for me to see why someone wouldn't like something..and I also have a hard time giving books 5 stars sometimes cuz I can always find small flaws even if it's something I really liked. I didn't wanna give too much away with these, since I just went into it not knowing anything, but there could be trigger warnings here just so you know. I would also love any recs you wanna give! My Monday is good. Hopefully trying to get rush tickets for Les Mis tour tomorrow!

hi friend!! hope you had a good day and hope you got les mis tour tickets 🤍 so sorry for the delayed reply!! i kept meaning to sit down and reply to you and then i kept getting pulled away in different directions! i'd love to hear your thoughts on les mis if you got to see it! i am super, super nervous about emily henry's books being adapted into movies! her books (particularly beach read + book lovers) means so much to me, and i'm worried that they'll diminish the role that grief (as well as the other heavier topics) plays in both books in favor of other things. there are also, very few adaptations where i feel like they do the original source justice (little women 2019, normal people, etc.). i really like the idea of jonathan bailey and simone ashley in book lovers, but that's heavily influenced by the fact that bridgerton season 2 had come out just before i read book lovers, and i was seeing both of them everywhere! and one of my friends sold me on zoey deutch and glen powell (they're in set it up, which is one of my favorite romcoms — highly recommend it if you haven't seen it yet) as harriet and wyn in happy place! i don't think i have a perfect cast for beach read or people we meet yet, but i was toying with the idea of kathryn newton (who is phenomenal as amy in little women pbs) as january for a while. i've been trying to be better about thinking of adaptations as a separate thing from the original source, but it's something i really struggle with, especially when the book means a lot to me! but it does look like emily henry is pretty involved with the movie, so that gives me a little more confidence in it. i'm so bad at picturing adaptations for books! i think it's easier for me with fantasy (not necessarily a cast, just like how it'd look visually etc.). i don't watch a whole lot of tv/movies (that's not entirely true; i watch a lot of hong kong tv/movies, but that's it) so casting people in books is often really hard for me. i'm so so curious about taylor's movie, and what that might look like! i'm really curious to see if the movie soundtrack will mostly be her songs or if it'll be something else. i personally have also been wanting her to write a musical (or at least, the score for one) for ages, whether it's an adaptation (like sara bareilles with waitress, ingrid michaelson with the notebook musical) or something completely new! i think the only books that i give five stars incredibly liberally are memoirs! i also do have a habit of giving a book a higher rating on goodreads than i do on my reading tracker — or on here, and also i have a tendency to adjust my ratings as i think about a book more. i'll look up the trigger warnings before i read either book; thank you! 🤍