#in a growth way and a grief way

[yashley]

It’s easier with people around you. To make you feel more like you.

[silver-dragonborn]

Imagine this: After the Driftmark Incident, Corlys takes Luke and Rhaena on a sea voyage to learn what it means to be true Velaryons of sea and salt. Laenor also tags along instead of following through with the plan to fake his death because he wants to keep a protective eye on his son and his sister's daughter, Rhaena. Cue a family sea trip where Laenor healthily processes his grief, Coryls learns to understand his son better, Luke builds a name for himself by taking up swashbuckling, and Rhaena becomes a rogue seafaring Targaryen.

[unicorntgoughts]

Allow the small shifts to add up.

[binksbrew]

[shallowseeker]

not sure if you've written meta on this but it's interesting that becky's husband was raptured, then her children, and then her. similar in pattern to dean's angel, kid, and then himself dying.

Here you go!

[acourtofquestions]

Sam leaned against her, resting his head on her shoulder. "When we die, do you think we'll be punished for the things we've done?"

She looked at the far bank of the river, where a row of ramshackle houses and docks had been built. "When we die," she said, "I don't think the gods will even know what to do with us."

Sam glanced at her, a hint of amusement shining in his eyes.

Celaena smiled at him, and the world, for one flickering heartbeat, felt right.

"For whatever it's worth, I don't think you would destroy the world from spite." His voice turned hard. "But I also think you like to suffer. You collect scars because you want proof that you are paying for whatever sins you've committed. And I know this because I've been doing the same damn thing for two hundred years. Tell me, do you think you will go to some blessed Afterworld, or do you expect a burning hell? You're hoping for hell--because how could you face them in the After-world? Better to suffer, to be damned for eternity and--"

"That's enough," she whispered. She must have sounded as miserable and small as she felt, because he turned back to the worktable.

She shut her eyes, but her heart was thundering.

She didn't know how much time passed. After a while, the mattress shifted and groaned, and a warm body pressed against hers. Not holding her, just lying beside her. She didn't open her eyes, but she breathed in the smell of him, the pine and snow, and her pain settled a bit.

"At least if you're going to hell," he said, the vibrations in his chest rumbling against her, "then we'll be there together."

"I feel bad for the dark god already." He brushed a large hand down her hair, and she almost purred. She hadn't realized just how much she missed being touched--by anyone, friend or lover.

'I miss you,' she said. 'Every day, I miss you. And I wonder what you would have made of all this. Made of me. I think - I think you would have been a wonderful king. I think they would have liked you more than me, actually. Her throat tightened. 'I never told you - how I felt. But I loved you, and I think a part of me might always love you. Maybe you were my mate, and I never knew it. Maybe I'll spend the rest of my life wondering about that. Maybe I'll see you again in the Afterworld, and then I'll know for sure. But until then ... until then I'll miss you, and I'll wish you were here.

“We do not look back, Chaol. It helps no one and nothing to look back. We can only go on.”

There she was, that queen looking out at him, a hint of the ruler she was becoming. And it knocked the breath out of him, because it made him feel so strangely young—when she now seemed so old. “What if we go on,” he said, “only to more pain and despair? What if we go on, only to find a horrible end waiting for us?”

Aelin looked northward, as if she could see all the way to Terrasen. “Then it is not the end.”

"Aelin, you deserve better than this- than me."

"Don't tell me what I do and don't deserve. Don't tell me about tomorrow, or the future, or any of it." He took her hand, her fingers were cold-shaking slightly.

What do you want me to tell you, Fireheart?

"Tell me that we'll get through tomorrow. Tell me that we'll survive the war. Tell me-" She swallowed hard.

"Tell me that even if I lead us all to ruin, we'll burn in hell together."

"We're not going to hell, Aelin. But wherever we go, we'll go together.

[brionysea]

I have been reminded that s3 is one big sigh. my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined

[lizmitches]

3 years. 1095 days. We don’t measure grief in time but maybe we should. 1577880 minutes. Where time seems to slip and crawl lingering on what ifs before speed running backwards to the worst moment of your life when the night opens the door to sorrow as you sleep. Lisa’s heart has beaten 94 million times since Becky’s stopped. And yet if you had asked her it hadn’t beat at all.

Not until Carla. A small flicker of a beat, so out of the new normal that Lisa can dismiss it as an anomaly. Then it happens again. And it becomes harder to ignore. Suddenly she starts feeling the beats. And time is beginning to become meaningful. The grief doesn’t dissipate, but the time feels easier to hold - a trickle of steadiness.

But the car. The pain. The bruising. The accusations. Set the incident clock back to zero. The grief becomes torrential. And all Carla can do is watch. Because we don’t measure grief in time, and Carla knows this too well, because she can tell you how long it’s been since Liam. And knows that time and grief are only ever soothed by support & love. But only once you accept it, Lisa just isn’t quite there yet.

[the--days]

so it's like this.

you're young and you're scared and you're trapped in the feywild (happens to the best of us) with the love of your life. You're a half-elf and she's a fullblooded elf but you don't think about it very much because you're barely surviving day to day. And you get offered a deal to get yourself home again, and you take it. And the price of your freedom is that you leave her still trapped there, alone.

And then five years pass. And you age a century in that time, and you grow, and you change, and you find her again, and you're still in love, and you meet people, and you lose people, and you love them too, and you learn, and you start wanting a future again, and caring again, taking care of yourself, taking care of other people--

and after all of that, at the end of things, you find out the man responsible for all of the misery in your short, sad life has cast a spell which gives him complete control and ownership of you- mind, body, and soul (again. this happens to the best of us). And you are given the choice to stay under his thrall, and live a thousand years-- or to age and die, like humans do, and to be free of him.

And the love of your life is there, and you're married now, and she's still a full blooded elf, and you're still a half-elf, and you think about what that means a lot more than you used to.

And still, after everything you've learned-- you choose your freedom. You choose leaving her behind.

[mcdonaldsnumberone]

when ur in a “cannibalism as a metaphor for love” competition, and ur opponent is a mahoyakkie

[septembersghost]

nothing crazier than realizing I was born the exact year supernatural released so like, this show (which i regrettably still haven't finished) has litertally spanned my entire life up until adulthood.

this is too much for me to process time is the worst and is not real i am turning to mummy dust writing this reply, goodbye farewell---lmao 😭👵🏻💀😵

you are still so very young anon, please take care of yourself and know that i'm sending you all the hopes and wishes i can for wherever life takes you ❤

(also you don't ever have to finish supernatural, in all honesty it's not worth it!)

[thevoidscreamer]

Personal musings July 2024

"re: recovering from religious trauma, poverty, and other shit

F E R A L

I was so used to scrounging for things like food, shelter, warmth, and love, and then one day, I found all of it in one place, offered freely. And I realized I had been fucking feral for so long that I had no idea how to live in a house with people, and be a person, be in love, be cared for, and care for others in a healthy way. I'm not talking about eating with utensils and using a napkin; I'm talking about I was literally mean and also severely unaware of social shit thanks to how I grew up. I had no idea how to receive affection and kindness -- like a feral cat, when you go to pet it, I would emotionally scratch and bite people at any sign of movement or weakness or gentleness. I was like 80% teeth and claws and hisses and growls, and then, on my own terms only, I was purring and slow blinking and willing to be touched. Over the years, I learned how to receive closeness, participate in gentleness, and not expect backlash after kindness. I can let my guard down, most days without effort, and I don't have to consciously soften myself. I can usually just... be with calm kindness. But I still sometimes have days where I'm just... feral. It's happening right now, and I'm doing my best to curtail it, but sometimes, it feels like I'm just watching myself be cruel and push people away for no real reason. I know it's related to my anxiety, my fear of abandonment, and the deep, entrenched, life-informed knowledge that, ultimately, it all really is too good to be true and everything will suddenly fall out from under me at any moment. My partner is being deployed. My kid is going home at the end of summer. My co-workers are leaving because their spouses are deploying, too. The anxiety is high, and I'm struggling not to just torpedo my entire life ahead of time to avoid the pain of loneliness that is not on my own terms. I find myself, minute by minute, trying to remember to resheath my claws, pacing (literally) my house, leaving every chance I get, and staying out extra long."

Some days this still crops up, but it's less now. I wish I could have been better in the past, but I was doing the best I could at the time with what I had.

New adventures are starting for me, once again, and I know that I'll only keep improving.

I have friends now. That's so wild to say. I have friends. Multiple. Actual. Practical, not theoretical. Beyond my partners, my kid, my brother, my childhood bestie.

I leave the house now. I am an active participant in life. I create. I breathe. I move. I love.

I live.

There is still a wilderness inside me. I unleash it where it should be unleashed. I will never be purely domesticated, nor should I desire it. Anyone who truly wishes to know me, to love me, will understand, appreciate, respect, honor my wildness. Not shame me for it.

[comradetork]

[bugflies00]

one of the things i love the most about dsmp is the fact that no one has the same version of it. the most obvious example is which streamer's POV you watched, but it goes way beyond that because mcrp requires a level of suspension of disbelief and also of filling in the gaps, fleshening things out, in order to make it usable for fancontent.

for example, the fact that apart from the minecraft skin there is no actual guideline for how to see the characters, hence the dsmp creaturification of fan designs we've been over a million times. but it's not just that!!

the fandom also has so many different relations to time in the dsmp. some take the canon timeline but then you run into problems like c!fundy's age — so then either he's actually a 20 year old that c!wilbur adopted and treats like a baby, or perhaps fox hybrids have a very abrupt exponential growth spurt, or perhaps l'manberg wasn't a few months but a few years!

and then this brings into question the matter of scale — how populated is the server? is it truly only the actual streamers/characters, and so when we talk about a "war" do we really just mean like 10 people fighting each other with swords? or perhaps there's a couple dozen, unnamed, background characters? and i've seen people increase the scale even more! make l'manberg a real, albeit obviously small and budding, country-city of a few hundred inhabitants, that perhaps grows into a lifesize scale fortified city during new l'manberg.

and then everything takes on such a different tone. if theres 30 people on the server, the final control room was a betrayal and destruction of friendships, november 16th was the grief and anger for a friend and the symbolic destruction of the country, and doomsday was another symbolic show of whose alliances everyone values, and the weariness of having to rebuild it. if there's a few thousand people? all of those were massacres.

how can we even be talking about the same characters when for some of us the worst they've done is blow up some houses with no cost of lives, and for others they have razed to the ground actual nations? depending on how you read it and how much you flesh it out, dsmp is either mainly about symbols and interpersonal relationships, or it can be some game of thrones shit. it's completely fucking mental. i'm so in love with it

[pop-punklouis]

they were all brothers. they are all brothers.

no one, and i mean no one, will ever be able to understand those years and growing into adults in the bubble they were the way those five will. for five years, they saw each other more than they saw their own families. they became family. they share something so special that people nor circumstances will ever break— they shared their youth. they shared a flash of time together that shaped them from boys into men. and as much as we’ve talked about how integral liam was to our childhoods and growth through this band, a piece of the other four boys’ childhoods and youth also died yesterday. a piece of their history died yesterday. a face to their personal memories died yesterday. and it’s devastating.

they found a home in each other when they were so far away from home, and i cannot even begin to imagine the grief they are feeling and will continue to feel.

walking in the wind has the perfect line like “if you’re lost, just look for me. you’ll find me in the region of the summer stars” and i know for a lifetime to come those four guys will be living that out as the years go on.

my entire chest aches for them. they deserve all the space and grace during this delicate time.

[chasing-caws]

I just had more thoughts about Mickey 18!!!

I feel like this Mickey was different in the way he was able to process grief, guilt, and self worth, and that he was able to see he was worthy of being treated as a human rather than a passive object.

Mickey we obviously know felt immense guilt for his mother’s death, even if he was told it wasn’t his fault.

I feel it’s also possible he felt partially responsible for the failure of the macaron business and that he felt in part like he failed Timo.

I think 18 was able to process this grief (pertaining to his mother’s death) and guilt (pertaining both to Timo and his mom) in a way the others hadn’t, and it both gave him peace and enraged him. It made him realize that he did have worth, that he did deserve fair treatment even if he signed up as an expendable.

I feel this is why he’s so passionate, why he’s so murderous. He’s enraged with Timo for screwing him over back on Earth, for being an asshole on Nifilheim, etc. which is why he attempted to kill him.

That realization of self worth led to an intense rage at the systemic dehumanization he faced. This is why he raged against 17 but in the same breath apologized to him, realizing he’s both metaphorically and literally angry at his past self for just who he is. 17 is fundamentally different in that moment from him.

But at the end of the movie, we see 17 growing in a new direction. He asks himself what 18 would’ve done. He tells himself he needs to stop feeling guilt, which 18 told him to stop feeling about their mother. He said he deserved to be happy, no doubt 18’s last thoughts about 17 and Nasha. And that’s just beautiful.

That difference in 18 is his ability to break down and process differently than the other Mickey’s, and that led to rapid growth in a new direction which is why he seemed so aberrational to the others.

Thanks for coming to my yap talk it probably will happen again