#it’s just. I KNOW my friends do not hate me intellectually which makes it worse when I FEEL like they do bc it’s as unfair to them as it is

[grasslandgirl]

Big hugs friend i’m sorry your brain is being cruel to you I hope you are being kind to yourself

I am trying Anon but thank you for your kindness 💖💖 big hugs to you in return mwah mwah

[specialagentartemis]

I get variations on this comment on my post about history misinformation all the time: "why does it matter?" Why does it matter that people believe falsehoods about history? Why does it matter if people spread history misinformation? Why does it matter if people on tumblr believe that those bronze dodecahedra were used for knitting, or that Persephone had a daughter named Mespyrian? It's not the kind of misinformation that actually hurts people, like anti-vaxx propaganda or climate change denial. It doesn't hurt anyone to believe something false about the past.

Which, one, thanks for letting me know on my post that you think my job doesn't matter and what I do is pointless, if it doesn't really matter if we know the truth or make up lies about history because lies don't hurt anyone. But two, there are lots of reasons that it matters.

It encourages us to distrust historians when they talk about other aspects of history. You might think it's harmless to believe that Pharaoh Hatshepsut was trans. It's less harmless when you're espousing that the Holocaust wasn't really about Jews because the Nazis "came for trans people first." You might think it's harmless to believe that the French royalty of Versailles pooped and urinated on the floor of the palace all the time, because they were asshole rich people anyway, who cares, we hate the rich here; it's rather less harmless when you decide that the USSR was the communist ideal and Good, Actually, and that reports of its genocidal oppression are actually lies.

It encourages anti-intellectualism in other areas of scholarship. Deciding based on your own gut that the experts don't know what they're talking about and are either too stupid to realize the truth, or maliciously hiding the truth, is how you get to anti-vaxxers and climate change denial. It is also how you come to discount housing-first solutions for homelessness or the idea that long-term sustained weight loss is both biologically unlikely and health-wise unnecessary for the majority of fat people - because they conflict with what you feel should be true. Believing what you want to be true about history, because you want to believe it, and discounting fact-based corrections because you don't want them to be true, can then bleed over into how you approach other sociological and scientific topics.

How we think about history informs how we think about the present. A lot of people want certain things to be true - this famous person from history was gay or trans, this sexist story was actually feminist in its origin - because we want proof that gay people, trans people, and women deserve to be respected, and this gives evidence to prove we once were and deserve to be. But let me tell you a different story: on Thanksgiving of 2016, I was at a family friend's house and listening to their drunk conservative relative rant, and he told me, confidently, that the Roman Empire fell because they instituted universal healthcare, which was proof that Obama was destroying America. Of course that's nonsense. But projecting what we think is true about the world back onto history, and then using that as recursive proof that that is how the world is... is shoddy scholarship, and gets used for topics you don't agree with just as much as the ones you do. We should not be encouraging this, because our politics should be informed by the truth and material reality, not how we wish the past proved us right.

It frequently reinforces "Good vs. Bad" dichotomies that are at best unhelpful and at worst victim-blaming. A very common thread of historical misinformation on tumblr is about the innocence or benevolence of oppressed groups, slandered by oppressors who were far worse. This very frequently has truth to it - but makes the lies hard to separate out. It often simplifies the narrative, and implies that the reason that colonialism and oppression were bad was because the victims were Good and didn't deserve it... not because colonialism and oppression are bad. You see this sometimes with radical feminist mother goddess Neolithic feminist utopia stuff, but you also see it a lot regarding Native American and African history. I have seen people earnestly argue that Aztecs did not practice human sacrifice, that that was a lie made up by the Spanish to slander them. That is not true. Human sacrifice was part of Aztec, Maya, and many Central American war/religious practices. They are significantly more complex than often presented, and came from a captive-based system of warfare that significantly reduced the number of people who got killed in war compared to European styles of war that primarily killed people on the battlefield rather than taking them captive for sacrifice... but the human sacrifice was real and did happen. This can often come off with the implications of a 'noble savage' or an 'innocent victim' that implies that the bad things the Spanish conquistadors did were bad because the victims were innocent or good. This is a very easy trap to fall into; if the victims were good, they didn't deserve it. Right? This logic is dangerous when you are presented with a person or group who did something bad... you're caught in a bind. Did they deserve their injustice or oppression because they did something bad? This kind of logic drives a lot of transphobia, homophobia, racism, and defenses of Kyle Rittenhouse today. The answer to a colonialist logic of "The Aztecs deserved to be conquered because they did human sacrifice and that's bad" is not "The Aztecs didn't do human sacrifice actually, that's just Spanish propaganda" (which is a lie) it should be "We Americans do human sacrifice all the god damn time with our forever wars in the Middle East, we just don't call it that. We use bullets and bombs rather than obsidian knives but we kill way, way more people in the name of our country. What does that make us? Maybe genocide is not okay regardless of if you think the people are weird and scary." It becomes hard to square your ethics of the Innocent Victim and Lying Perpetrator when you see real, complicated, individual-level and group-level interactions, where no group is made up of members who are all completely pure and good, and they don't deserve to be oppressed anyway.

It makes you an unwitting tool of the oppressor. The favorite, favorite allegation transphobes level at trans people, and conservatives at queer people, is that we're lying to push the Gay Agenda. We're liars or deluded fools. If you say something about queer or trans history that's easy to debunk as false, you have permanently hurt your credibility - and the cause of queer history. It makes you easy to write off as a liar or a deluded fool who needs misinformation to make your case. If you say Louisa May Alcott was trans, that's easy to counter with "there is literally no evidence of that, and lots of evidence that she was fine being a woman," and instantly tanks your credibility going forward, so when you then say James Barry was trans and push back against a novel or biopic that treats James Barry as a woman, you get "you don't know what you're talking about, didn't you say Louisa May Alcott was trans too?" TERFs love to call trans people liars - do not hand them ammunition, not even a single bullet. Make sure you can back up what you say with facts and evidence. This is true of homophobes, of racists, of sexists. Be confident of your facts, and have facts to give to the hopeful and questioning learners who you are relating this story to, or the bigots who you are telling off, because misinformation can only hurt you and your cause.

It makes the queer, female, POC, or other marginalized listeners hurt, sad, and betrayed when something they thought was a reflection of their own experiences turns out not to be real. This is a good response to a performance art piece purporting to tell a real story of gay WWI soldiers, until the author revealed it as fiction. Why would you want to set yourself up for disappointment like that? Why would you want to risk inflicting that disappointment and betrayal on anyone else?

It makes it harder to learn the actual truth.

Historical misinformation has consequences, and those consequences are best avoided - by checking your facts, citing your sources, and taking the time and effort to make sure you are actually telling the truth.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for not reconnecting with my brother?

I (21x) have a really complicated relationship with my brother (18m), not helped by the fact we both live with our mom right now. He’s had a really hard time in his life, with having anger issues, ADHD, what we both suspect is NPD, and our family being. Dysfunctional at best and neglectful/borderline emotionally abusive at worse. We both know that our family wasn’t particularly good for us, but we have pretty different approaches on how to deal with it/how we feel like it’s effected us.

This is where some of my (100% AH) behavior comes in- I was incredibly cruel to him as a young teen (12ish) and basically belittled him and pushed him away at every opportunity. We used to be intense but loving with each other and I feel like I took that and made him feel like he couldn’t love or trust me (which he’s told me himself multiple times). I know I failed him as an older sibling and I hold so much regret and shame for not nurturing him into all the good he held (and still does).

Where it gets rocky is our current relationship. I hate to say this and I’ve never said it to his face, but I feel like the roles have completely swapped. He talks over and down to me, gets incredibly upset when I won’t drop everything for him (I won’t get into it bc this would turn into a long vent but he once got legitimately mad at me for days for not giving up my bed and bedroom for him out of nowhere because he didn’t want to be in his anymore). He’s called me every cruel name under the sun, and when I fight back or our fights get ugly, he reminds me it’s all my fault he’s like this because I ruined our relationship. I’ve tried to heal from my own separate trauma and mend our family situation but whenever I talk to him it’s like I regress into a fawning doormat who never challenges the way he absolutely steps over me and puts me down (my friends have talked to me about this and have come down a lot harsher than me, so I’m borrowing their words because I can’t let go of the fact he’s not. Wrong to be this upset with me- I’m a victim of emotional abuse in my own right and I know how it feels to be wrapped in fear and hate and don’t hold it against him that he’s been hurt by me).

I’ve wanted to be a better sibling for a long time, and since about 16 I’ve made a conscious effort to shelf my pent up resentment and hurt emotions to try to always understand him and give him space to be upset, plus always taking the step to reconcile and apologize for my part to play in arguments. I refuse to call him any of the horrible names I used to (bare minimum I know, but I’ve really worked to diffuse that anger and make sure everything I say isnt an attack on him personally and only ever touches oh his current actions) and I try every diffusing move in the book with only framing my feeling as mine and not reflective of who he is and how I want to know his feelings so we can work to understand each other and move past the proboem. But he still treats me like an unstable, untrustworthy bitch who “emotionally manipulates him” by breaking down crying when he calls me names and tells me I’m stupid and he’s above my level of intellectual thought and rationale (I wish I was joking but he has directly said this, almost word for word).

I’m at a big crossroads. I want to keep trying to show him I love him and want him in my life, but it feels like he’s given up on me. If he truly has, I think I have to accept it as part of my failures and shames, but he also tells me he wishes I spent more time with him and that he wants to have a relationship with me. AITA for trying not to engage with him anymore? I want to support him but when he treats me badly if makes me regress into anger and like I’m just digging myself deeper and I’m never going to be good enough to be part of his life. I don’t know what to do with myself and how to live around him when a conversation as small as asking him to do the dishes turns into him berating me for being a nagging stupid asshole.

What are these acronyms?

[yikimiki]

I feel like requesting for some CEO erwin who traps reader?

The how, the when, iss all on you

Took me a while to think about the concept of “trapping” here — so I basically went in every possible direction known to man

⚠️ warnings: toxic/dark content!!, vague smut, erwin is very narcissistic and sadistic, CEO!Erwin x MedStudent!Reader, 20 year age gap (25 and 45), manipulation, abusive relationship (emotional, psychological, financial), mentions of pregnancy and baby trapping

—

Erwin’s victory started with a small suggestion — something so bland and unimportant that you didn’t even pay attention to it, but now you deeply wish you could take back. “Why don’t you spend some time away from school? Take less classes. You can stay with me, darling, live a little.”

It was spoken over a glass of wine, in between silly giggles and stupid jokes, lost in the warmth of the candle lights and the dinner in front of you. You and Erwin had been going strong for some time then, almost seven months together, and you had no reason to suspect ill will. So you said yes.

The change was actually very kind to your mental health and, even if you were a semester away from graduating, you decided to step back. Erwin asked you to move in with him, into his beautiful penthouse facing the bay, and you accepted. He suggested that you take the entire rest of the year of to travel with him, and you did. And, when you come back, your education has practically vanished from the forefront of your mind.

You have the intention of coming back to med school, and you tell him so thousands of time — which Erwin politely agrees with. But, at the same time, it is like he always has this great new opportunity for you that stands in the way. “Why don’t we move? You can decorate however you want, darling, I’ll just pay,” or maybe, “Don’t you think going out with your friends has been a little draining? Why don’t we stay together more often, just the two of us?”

To make things worse, Erwin works all the time. He leaves you alone in this humongous, empty, pseudo-modernist house that you can’t stand, doing things you can’t stand — all day long, every day. You clean, you get everything in order, you watch stupid TV shows and you put some pre cooked meal in the oven a little before he comes come. You hate being a housewife, you miss your freedom, your intellectual pursuits in medicine. And, most of all, you miss doing something else.

“I think I’m going back to school,” you say one night over dinner. “I already submitted my information. Just waiting for them to get back to me.”

Erwin places his knife down. And, just like that, it’s like your previous years together never existed.

“To do what, get more debt? Like I’m not paying enough?” He asks — cold, calculated. The room feels like it’s tilting a little. “Do you know how much I spend on you? How much I spent on this house, on everything you bought, and now you want me to just accept another load of cash just… out of my wallet?”

“I’m… I’m not asking you to pay for anything,” it’s all you can say.

He sneers. “Oh, you never ask. But I always do.” Erwin leans back again the chair. “Besides, it’s not like you have the money anyways. So let’s not kid ourselves here — you know I work hard, extra fucking hard, to make you happy. So what is it? Am I not making you happy?”

You blink, not recognizing the man before you anymore. “You make me happy, Erwin. But I need more than this. I miss my life, my friends…”

“Oh, so I’m not enough, is that it?” He gives you this wicked smile that has your stomach clenching. Erwin sighs, disappointed, and gets up from the table. “Let’s do it like this: I’ll leave you alone tonight so you can think about what is it that you want—“

“Wait, no that’s not…”

“—And, tomorrow, when I come back, we can talk better about it,” he finishes. “If you want to go to med school, we can figure it out.”

The night passes in a blur of tears and cries, confused thoughts coming and going in your head. All you can think is that you were raised better than this — better than to lower your expectations for someone else, better than to let someone else dictate your future. But, at the same time, you’re so hurt. Erwin has been your everything for so long now that you don’t even know what you’ll do without him. You don’t have a job, you’re away from family and friends, and you wouldn’t even know where to start he were to kick you out. He is everything you have.

So, next morning, when he shows up with a bouquet at your door, you forgive him. And you swallow your pride and tell him you can wait another year or so to get on your feet.

Erwin seems blissful, and even creates a job at his company for you to make your own money… which he pockets, to take better care of it — because “you don’t know how to invest”. He loves seeing you around every day at work, and you like it too, but you can’t help to feel a little claustrophobic at the way your life has turned into a pendulum between your house and your work. And Erwin. Erwin is always there.

You get tired of suggesting dates with him. Erwin has turned every single comment of yours into an episode of self flagellation — he isn’t good enough, you don’t love him, there’s someone else, you don’t want to be with him. And so you retreat, afraid of more conflict, and let things accumulate.

Erwin’s victory concludes one autumn night, before you even realize there was a game being played. He kisses you like the world is about to end, worships your body like a temple and, at the last minute, suggests that you change just one last thing for him: “what do you think about not taking the pill anymore?”

You hesitate this time, but accept superficially. You keep taking it until it’s over, and you realize that there isn’t a way for you to buy more of it without Erwin realizing it — it’s his card, and he doesn’t give you any extra money. He takes you to and from work. There’s no free time.

So you pray that it won’t happen. For three months after your pause your period doesn’t come, then it resumes, thin and painful, then strong. Erwin fills you up with cum every night, more often than before, because there’s a mission now, there’s a plan in his mind. And you are afraid to say anything else, afraid to sadden him or make him mad, because you feel like without him, you’re nothing. Without him, you don’t even know how you are.

“It’s positive? Why didn’t you tell me?” Erwin walks into the living room one day, test in hand. You had thrown it in the trash earlier.

You force a smile, but there are tears in your eyes. “I wanted to make a surprise,” you lie. “Are you happy?”

Erwin smiles. “The happiest I’ve ever been.”

[acknowledgetheabsurd]

The most serious thing remains to be said and it is not yet today that you will find me "in love, open, melting"; it is not yet tonight that I will write to you with "joy, brightness, glory", in spite of all the forests of "olive trees of kisses" that you want to put on my face and all the mastic trees in the world! I leave for tomorrow the care to explain clearly that you did not understand anything in my last letter, to tell you that it "often" happened to me to "think coldly" to try to make you understand my "real and lucid desires" and "what is lucid" and "what is constant and true under my changes". 

This is a difficult task to carry out at a distance and quite dangerous when one thinks of the state in which you are reduced. For, my dear love, with your strength and health, with your "fatal and vigorous air", I see with pleasure that you are also recovering your good, solid, Algerian stupidity. Oh! I understand! I understand so many things, and you are constantly emptying yourself, my poor darling! I know! You work! Your essay must exhaust a great deal of your intellectual strength! And then, the rest, isn't it, it's tiring! But don't worry, go on! The little glimmer will come back to shine in the depths of your thoughts and one day - oh miracle! - I will speak to you in half a word... and... you will understand! I am changeable! O rock! 

Since you left, you have spent your time asking me for some reason not to write to you if it would tire or annoy me or torture me or... I don't know what. When, by chance, one day, you don't receive any news, it's a debacle, doubts, dark ideas of the future, more doubts, madness! And you find my letters mean, when, having received from you, for a week, only two small ones every other day I complain at last that the mail is not working well! Since you left, you have been telling me to live as much as I can, to go out, to entertain myself, etc. Now, because I'm going to spend two miserable hours in Iberia, dragged along in spite of myself by some nice friends, and I drink a whiskey and dance a rumba you dare to write to me: "Poor me!" That's all that you found to say to encourage me to start again and as you feel that, I have to spend my energies somewhere and not completely wither. You now advise me to take up SPORT! And the SWIMMING POOL! I hate it! No! But... Do you want to make me die! Do you want to make me catch double pneumonia? The pool! In this cold! And where to find time to go to the pool! But what is the matter with you! 

I can see your face if one day I follow your advice word for word and you receive a letter in which I praise you with warmth (as far as possible!), the joys of swimming, of naked and wet bodies, of water on the skin, wet hair and glances lost on a pair of beautiful legs! Ah, well, if I didn't have other things to worry about, I'd make the effort of swallowing a few sips of chlorine, just for the result! It would be pretty! Notice that while you're feeling sorry for yourself and [complaining] about yourself, you are tasting whiskey, wandering through dances and noticing American women who want to do you good! It is perfect!!! But that's still nothing! Not only are you stupid as a sink, unfair, a pain in the ass (I hope you understand the meaning of this word, which I can't write in full) but, to make matters worse, you are naughty! - I am copying exactly one of your sentences: "You would do the worst things, and against our very love, despite a suffering that I am physically afraid of because I know it so well, I would still love you and stay close to you."

I thank you, my darling, for the general meaning of the sentence, but since I think you love me, I never doubted that it was so. It seems to me obvious that at the point we have reached, errors or blindness of a certain kind can no longer do anything more against our union than to cause excruciating suffering. I am less grateful to you for the little parenthesis "so much I know her". It seems to me that you exaggerate or distort. But all these little impressions disappear before the enormity that follows: "These are reckless words (in all respects) and before pronouncing them I thought a lot about them." How about that! The very fact of speaking of imprudence in a love like ours amazes me, but the parenthesis (again!) that allows me to believe that I could use your words to consider myself free to do things against our love, that is beyond anything else! That is beyond the worst that one can imagine! 

But no! I must not get angry! I must not! It is always the rest, your fatal and vigorous air, your trial, that are the cause of everything! You are stupid, my poor darling! And you have to wait for it to pass! That is all. Ah! I am beginning to feel lighter. As I told you, I leave the serious things for tomorrow, because tonight it is already 2 o'clock and my day has been hard. All this is exhausting and I am tired. 

Good evening, Algerian! Good evening, my love, my beautiful love beast. Good evening, my darling. Curled up in you, your legs mixed with mine (alas if it could be true!) I will fall asleep and try to dream of a pool where you would be lying, fresh and wet, against me. I love you. I love you. I would also like to hold you in my arms and watch you sleep. You see how chaste I am! Unfortunately I believe that I would wake you up slowly, but quickly! See you tomorrow, my darling.

Maria Casarès to Albert Camus, Correspondance, February 14, 1950 [#193]

[tired-demonspawn]

so i rewatched the prequels(with a friend) and they are both so much worse and so much better than i remember.

like okay phantom menace is fucking tear jerkingly boring, but on the other hand palpatines manipulation is fucking great!!!! he plays padme like a fiddle to become supreme chancellor!!!!! the entire podrace is fantastic!!!!!

but jeeeeeezus it was so boring! it dragged on horribly! it has these moments where you can see a movie there. even see a pretty good movie there! but then you have 10 minutes of jar jar fucking around in a windows xp wallpaper battlefield and you want to die a little inside

then we have attack of the clones!!!!!

amazing concepts amazing ideas but the dialogue between anakin and padme is so cringe!!!! you got the most witty funny shit with between ani and obi wan(all they banter during padmes assassination is GOLDEN) so you KNOW! you KNOW george can make good dialogue

but then ani and padme are alone and the both of them say the most cringeass fucking things!!!!! the worstest thing is that you can see what mr lucas was going for with those convos!!! YOU CAN SEE WHERE ITS GOING!!! BUT HE!!!! MAKES IT SO CRINGE!!!!!!!

the point of the "not just the men, but the women and children too" convo was to a) show anakins falling to the dark side and b) padme (righfully) seeing it as him grieving and lashing out so she comforts him because he needs someone in his corner right now who actually lets him feel it instead of the empty jedi "there is no emotion, there is peace"

the scene even starts off with something i find is a really good character moment for anakin: hes fixing a motor or something and when padme approaches with "hey you good" hes like "yknow i like fixing things, fixing things means i dont have to think about my mom being dead"

but the actual dialogue makes him seem like a fucking psycho!

which, yeah. he did, by his own admission, slaughter an entire sand people village, women and children included, but still the line could've gone a little better. the entire prequels are supposed to make him sympathetic! his fall to the dark is supposed to be a tragedy and shit.(at least i fucking think so????)

the real dialogue makes padme seem fucking blind deaf and stupid for not running away immediately, when shes not!!! stupid, i mean. she is smart and brave and all the good adjectives. but what she is most is a victim of bad writing.

lastly revenge of the sith.

i have nothing bad to say about revenge of the sith i love revenge of the sith its my favourite fucking star wars movie i love it i will continue loving it its absolutely glorious its got the best live action fights its got the best memes its got some of the most banger lines its got that one bts where hayden christensen does the flamboyant lil "oh i hate you 💅✨️" which i love i fucking love it in its entirety noone can take this away from me

but do i, intellectually, know there are things wrong with it? yes. the cringey dialogue between padme and anakin is still there(although much less!!! they have normal lines now!!!), and yknow the entire dialogue is corny period. but the previous paragraph was written with all my heart, i stand by it and nothing can change my mind.

[inkofamethyst]

September 24, 2024

My dnd-friend and I might be looking into doing Bicolline one summer in the future!!! Probably not this coming summer but perhaps the next? Kinda maybe screws with my plan to do an industry internship in summer 2026, but hey, there's always summer 2027 (unless we end up going back again)?

This will mean saving/budgeting! buying/renting camping gear! learning how to camp! getting/making garb!(!!!) figuring out food! figuring out transport! Should be fun to plan, will absolutely be the geekiest thing I've ever done. If I ever become a mom that would be S-tier mom-lore for sure (my sibling is likely to have children so at least I'll have good aunt-lore).

In preparation, I've signed up for laser-cutting and 3D printing courses at the local library. Might be able to make or embellish some really cool props. (Might be able to print Wanda's mask and mayyyybe crochet her Scarlet Witch 2023 comic outfit/top/make it a mini dress? and have that done by halloween... meaning I should start the design process now..)

One thing I've learned recently is that I love me a little tool. A little thingamabob with a handle that helps me do something a little bit easier? Can't get enough. It makes me not hate certain chores lol. Flossing, cleaning the tub, cleaning my water bottles... little tools little tools little tools :)

Okay, serious now. I am feeling better, but not quite my normal self yet. Close, though. Still stressed, but not, like depressed.

I think one of the major benefits of having an autobiographical behavior record that contains like a quarter of my life (which is kind of wild!!! senior year and college and starting grad school currently takes up a whole fourth of my life!!) is that I can pull from the anthropological tradition and form evidence-based theories to predict and explain future behaviors. Like how I know that roughly six weeks into a new environment, I am prone to go through a brief mental rough patch. And application seasons also tend to have a negative impact on my mental health over an extended period. But I think, like in anthropology, I can revise that theory a bit. Application seasons are really just an extended period over which I am preparing to move from one stage to the next but must prove that I am ready to do so. There's a lot of uncertainty, as there's no guarantee that I will succeed in moving to the next stage. So like, yes, application seasons, but also just any period where I have to prove that I am ready to advance.

Having these theories is great, but I don't know how to use them to my advantage except to brace myself. Hm.

Well, I know myself well enough my now to know that procrastination is largely driven by the fear that I will not be able to "do well enough". So when I am particularly afraid that I will not surpass my expectations on an assignment or succeed with a set of applications or something, I will put it off. So maybe recognizing procrastination as a signal of fear (rather than accepting the idea that I'm "just lazy" (outside of burnout which is also a thing sometimes)) and forcing myself to Do It Scared (even if just a little bit of it at a time) is one way I can use this knowledge to my advantage. Because, of course, procrastination only makes me feel worse.

It's been a while since I've intellectualized my feelings lol. Back to the classics, heh.

Today I'm thankful for, you guessed it, the Abzu OST.

I'm also thankful for the little bit of academic validation I got from a former mentor who is typically very cut-and-dry.

Also also thankful for the minority stem student group, they're a nice bunch to hang around.

[ofmiceandpeace]

Okay, so does anyone else have an affinity for Gene Forrester or is it just me? Like on a deep psychological level, and qualities as well…

In the tags of a reblog of a post I can't find, I mentioned this a little bit, but I don't know if I said it directly in a post. But anyway, it's actually kind of bizarre. (I'll get a little personal here so if you find that cringey then I wouldn't read this. It sounds a little venty at times, which was not the intention, but to explain the way my mind negatively works.)

On a shallow level, I'm introverted and I get good grades like him. I like my subjects; is that being an intellectual? I'm also not an athletic person—I’m not participating in a sport, and most likely wouldn't in the future. All of my friends do sports and some, partly due to that, are actually perfect citizens and human beings. Here I thought it gets meta.

There are people so much better than me, and I have always felt some twinge of jealousy or a deep rooted loathing for their superiority, and after analyzing that moral at the end of A Separate Peace, I realized that it totally applied to me. My whole thing is insecurity. My emotions often get the better of me, especially when I overthink, which is equally as often. Sometimes I (used to) feel like my head is just crowded from anxieties and such, leading to the aforementioned bad actions. I've actually pushed people away in the past due to this.

Onto a side point of overthinking, a lot of it is being introspective like Gene was in his narration, albeit some being his reflections from 15 years in the future. I analyze my own thoughts and motives like they're of another person (or so I think) and that just uses a lot of time and brain power, probably for no good reason. For example, I spend a lot of time mulling over events in the past that embarrassed me, or things that still make me angry months or years after its happening; things I just regret, like ruining friendships with people in the past because of my own insecurities. I don't know if I've come to terms with them yet. We'll see in 15 years.

But anyway, yeah, I don't know, most of the people around me have just amazing qualities which make my own faults more apparent to me. Relating this to A Separate Peace’s moral may have made my overthinking worse, actually, because now I just tell myself, whenever I suspect wrongdoing, “Am I jumping to conclusions because I hate them for some reason?” thus perpetuating the cycle… and I can never tell if it is this way or that.

So in conclusion I relate to Gene with his traits and the way he thinks and acts. Which is kind of cringey to write, but this is partially for myself just to put these thoughts out there which have been floating around in my head for a while. It's really strange, because it's almost a perfect fit. I haven't come across any protagonist that I've related this closely to. Maybe this is another reason why I love A Separate Peace so much? Am I secretly rooting for myself? No, but Gene’s character is just so real. It's not overly dramatized, just a boy with a tortured conscience over an incident that was caused by a realistic mental conflict.

Comparing this to another Knowles book, Peace Breaks Out features characters that act very dramatically with interesting motives and lines and whatnot. More of the plot is action in comparison to A Separate Peace; so the story is not as “believable.” This lack of action in the predecessor makes it seem boring to a lot of people—we can all agree on that. People say nothing happens. But even though they're objectively wrong, I'll say that that's what makes it interesting to me.

You spend so much time with these characters in their everyday lives, listening to the inside of the narrator’s head, or to his friend’s monologues that now and then reveal a key part of his philosophy, that you almost feel connected to them, that they are, in the most figurative way possible, real people. And in my case you may even identify with a character since they are so realistic that their traits coincidentally lined up with your own.

Extreme plot points aren't needed for an interesting story. This tiny fandom can advocate this, right? We're passionate about a 60s book that takes place in a boarding school during World War II which like no one else cares about. It's crazy…

Anyway sorry this was all over the place. I wrote what I was thinking and things probably don't make sense. Thanks for reading if you made it to the end!!

[slitheringghost]

I really liked your post about James + Lily's canonically volatile relationship, I've always thought that the reasons they got married (and so young) was because 1) shotgun wedding 2) James couldn't even bring himself to say "mudblood," immediately accepted werewolves, "hated the dark arts," etc, which must've meant a great deal to Lily in wartime. I have one disagreement, if you don't mind - I doubt James asked her out before SWM, because Lily looks so surprised after he does and he probably blurted it out in the heat of the moment. Doesn't make it much better in context though. I also think Lily was at least intrigued by him beforehand, I have a HC that her favorite part of being a witch is flight - it's her first piece of magic we see Snape observe in The Prince's Tale, and I'll bet she commiserated with Snape over wishing they could just fly out of Cokeworth (Harry used to dream about the same thing before Hogwarts - on Sirius's motorbike!). And I'm pretty sure Snape is the only one besides Voldemort who flies unaided so that's kinda touching to me. So James being an excellent flier must've at least drawn her attention - but I think she was immediately disgusted with herself for that. Honestly their arguments must've been even worse than Ron/Hermione, Sirius and Harry have all my sympathies for dealing with this. This is why I HC that the moment Jily started going out in 7th year, Sirius decided to finally try dating partly to get over his un(?)requited love for James (and Lily?) and partly just to avoid being around their incessant fighting lol.

(in response to this meta) Thank you for the ask, I’m glad you found the post interesting! Yeah I’ve gone back and forth on that, my original interpretation was also that it was a spur of the moment thing he just blurted out without thinking, which I still find very plausible. I’ve also seen the take that James felt “safe” for Lily during the war, it is just anything on that line of thought for Jily, Lily being in love with Sirius can explain much better lmao (after all Sirius running away from his family shows his dedication to his politics better than James’s).

Oh I looove what you said about Lily and Snape wishing they could fly out of Cokeworth and the parallel to Harry!

Funnily enough, I actually HC that Sirius and Lily were talking about Sirius charming his motorbike to fly (or having started the research for it anyway) while they were waiting in line for O.W.L.s - because if you pay attention to Harry's OWLs, we know the students were standing in line alphabetically, and per DH Sirius and Lily are next to each other alphabetically - and Lily was grudgingly super impressed. That makes “I’m surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it” an extra sick burn towards James, lol. Agree about Lily loving flight, and I think I had Lily finding James’s flight grudgingly endearing in a WIP but that was before I became considerably more anti Jily. I like the idea that Lily’s two best friends Snape and Sirius came up with alternate methods of flight to Quidditch and both can’t stand Quidditch like her lmao (Sirius only dealing with it for James’s sake).

But regarding James being against the Dark Arts (I think the text / you meant against Dark wizards rather than the theoretical type of magic but this just reminded me of this fic), I love this part in brilliant difficulty where Lily dated both Snape and Sirius before she dated James, and Lily and her two boyfriends were all super into Dark Arts (and James being against Dark Arts as a type of magic is something him and Lily conflict over) and Madame Pomfrey is yelling at them about it, a perfect representation of their intellectual connection:

“I am tired of seeing students unnecessarily hospitalized by experimentation in the Dark Arts that I cannot actually see them assisted with with lest the Ministry haul them off to Azkaban - and do not give me those looks! Professor Snape, I remember your final years of school! Professor Black, in addition to your personal activities I have ample records of your family from previous Hogwarts Healers! And your mother," she said, rounding on Harry, "Was the worst of you all!“

Yeah, I think Sirius’s unimpressed reaction to Jily is so telling, especially given he was clearly close to Lily. “James is getting frustrated” in Lily’s letter also definitely sounds like code for “we are fighting come save us”, lol.

Personally I love to think of Lily’s love for Sirius being unrequited until like late 1981 where Sirius Just starts to return them and then Lily dies. Also I find it such a fun twist on the usual “Snape unrequited pining for Lily and Sirius unrequited pining for James”. That letter gives major pathetic pining vibes from Lily tbh. I generally HC Sirius dating a lot from early on as rebellion from his family’s arranged marriage plan for him (which makes Lily’s pining even worse and more painful) but yeah I can definitely see that too.

[write-feel-live-love]

Wednesday Wellness Check In

I had therapy! It was great!

We talked about everything I wanted to talk about and I felt really good after we hung up. She's great. It's like talking to a best friend. =)

So I'm supposed to check in. I honestly feel real good today. I'm a shit mom, but that's nothing new.

....FINE we can unpack that.

SO. I've already mentioned that I'm a teacher and during my summers off, I full on dive into the "stay at home mom" pool. I hate it. I'm not meant for it, and I honestly think I'm a worse mom for it. I love my kids more than anything, but I'm just not meant for this. I feel like utter shit for saying it, but it's true. I need to have an identity outside of Mom. My kids cling to me like life support and it's exhausting. I'm awake from 6:30ish to 9:45ish every day. I get a two hour window where both kids are napping or having quiet time, I get maybe an hour to myself by the time I'm done putting them to bed and doing my walk for the day. That's over 12 hours of waking time, and such a small piece of that is for me.

I sound horrible. I hate myself even reading that.

But that's kind of the point. I hate myself. I've hated myself since I was 10 years old and I'm unpacking all of that. Writing this....blog I guess, it part of that. Writing and reflecting is supposed to help with self esteem issues.

Right before I had my kids I was finally starting to learn how to put myself first. Then kids happened. I don't know if you have kids or not, but they literally physically, emotionally, mentally, intellectually, developmentally, and all the other -allys depend on you. They're little parasites. They take and take and take. Sure you get a baby out of it, but it's fucking debilitating. My oldest is finally more independent. and my youngest isn't super far behind, but still. It's exhausting.

I hate it sometimes. To be clear, it's the neediness I hate. I love my kids. My oldest is the sweetest and strongest kid I've ever met in my life, and my youngest has a smile that will make you forget he just bit the fuck out of your arm like he was trying to consume your flesh. He's also a sweetheart when not being a feral crotch goblin.

Anyway. So what, now what?

I've already talked it over with my therapist, and it's pretty much a matter of "do what you need to do to survive, and make it until you go back to work". Which I can do. I think.

Thanks for listening, Void. I think I might actually have some inspiration for Friday's freewrite, so hopefully it might actually be writing and not just be ranting into oblivion. Thanks Anne Lammot.

Good night, Void.

[mythomaniac-freak]

I'm a mythomaniac freak

I think I am anyway. That's all I really know about myself. It hurts to not know more but these two concepts I can latch unto the most steadily, and use to explain why I exist why I do. I really don't like people- but I do! I do and I don't, its very hard. I have lots of friends, people I care about, and I know that ultimately every person on this planet and beyond is like them but a bit different. I have over 10! I just went back to count! I just can't seem to find *community* within this. I've tried, over and over again, but I ultimately can't find what I'm looking for. I am either made extremely uncomfortable and feel unsafe, or feel as though I am the one making others uncomfortable and unsafe. I like being a freak, there is fun to being part of the counter-culture which the mainstream finds disturbing: but within that I can't find my counter-culture, the freaks who I belong with. I thought I had before, I always think I do- but it always comes down to me realizing I don't feel right around these people, or feeling like they are worse off with me there. It feels like there is no place for me no matter how long I search for it, no matter how much I change, it always seems to stay the same. I don't think its loneliness, something adjacent to that. It sucks to be the freak of freaks; and I know there's many out there, I know I'm not alone in this, but that doesn't really help when I can't find the ones who fit me. Maybe I make it hard on myself, how I modify my behaviour for each person dramatically, how I snap between emotional states to best suit their context, how I desperately crave to understand them because they make me feels things that I think they feel, but I'm wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong always wrong I always misunderstand I can never understand them but my brain always thinks it does. And I know it's not true, on an intellectual level I know this isn't right, but it really does feel that even those 10+ hate something about me. With each and every one it feels like I can say the wrong thing and evoke disgust, make them question why they even speak to me. They've never indicated this but there's a coldness that I just can't escape sometimes, like I've failed them completely and would be better off disappearing. And I can try to hide this and pretend I'm working, I can seek to understand myself through trauma and the classifications of mental disorders, but I feel I am simply lost and trying so hard to find a light in the fog only to snuff each one out as I find it. For a blog no one should read I will entice you by saying I'll explain more of why I think this is the case later, but for now I want to explain the mythomaniac part; Its a bit of a joke but of all the mental disorders and problems I might have, I am most confident in this.

I decided on the term mythomania both because I love learning about ancient myth, religion, the way stories have been passed down, and because pathological lying sounds worse. But that is what I do, I do pathologically lie, to everyone around me and myself. Its frustrating, because sometimes I'll catch the words coming out of my mouth and apologize because what I just said wasn't true-other times it will take days, weeks, months, fucking years to figure it out. Its not on purpose, but there becomes a purpose once they fester long enough: once the concept becomes part of my identity I have to protect it, so new lies pop up over and over again to fill in the dots- and they're boring, I think that's why they work. They tend to be mundane, they're casual, normal, often poorly researched as I frantically google something I *should* know *should* be able to recognize means this isn't a true thing about me- but I think my issues with memory make it difficult to just snap out of it. I believe I have a series of memories that, when spoken aloud, create a narrative for my life which is mostly factual and accurate- but these memories are few and far between. Ever since moving away from the old hellhole they've remained so distant, and while I am fortunate enough that they aren't completely gone like I once worried about, they so easily blend in with anything else I might say about myself. Also throughout my life, I've been told over and over that I'm wrong and just not remembering things correctly-that I've forgotten something crucial, and despite my best attempts I am rarely able to feel satisfied in any of the four conclusions: 1. I have indeed forgotten 2. Both I and my enquirer have forgotten details together 3. I remember correctly and my enquirer has forgotten 4. My enquirer is lying Some people have lied to me in ways which make me consider it for even the most minor of discrepancies: it sounds paranoid because it is, but there is a utility in lying to someone about the most minor details, it makes them unsure of any part of their reality. And that is where I love now!

I mentioned those memories, I have no idea how true they are! They feel true, they feel true in ways others don't, but I can only rely on external evidence to validate them and that can only take me so far. And when I right now am so detached from them. Its not like I try to lie- I never do, I cannot once think of a time I intentionally lied to someone. I've considered it, I've considered going behind people's backs for purposes cruel or altruistic, but I really don't think I've ever gone through with it. Does that even matter when so much of what I do is automated? I can say over and over that I'm not trying to lie, but I don't try to say anything that I do-I will occasionally slow down and try to think through what I'm saying but so rarely does this happen that even now as I type I have paused only *twice* to consciously edit or add things: once to count roughly how many people I consider a friend, twice to add the paragraphs about being a freak of freaks and my friends hating me. But if all that I do and say and think and want is just stream of consciousness, if none of it is planned, does the lying being unplanned make it any different? I don't know how many people I've really hurt, hurt in ways they will remember and impact them forever: I am sorry, I don't know what I can do to fix it, I want to but I just don't know how. Just writing that it sounds like it means nothing, apologizing to no one because I hate myself. I do hate myself, I try to think I've gotten through it but I fucking haven't, I need to stop lying to myself but I can't get a hold on what is true and real. I don't know if I'll ever feel real, if I'll ever feel like a genuine person: that's another lie, often enough I do, but deep down I fear that this question always lingers to rise from my stomach and grab my throat, that when I reflect on everything that's ever happened to me I will always have to ask Was I lying? Was I making it up? Was this really how I felt? Did this even happen? And I don't think I'll ever know, I don't think life can be proven to you and even if it can be I don't know how to prove it.

So welcome to the beginning and end of my blog! I plan on posting more, probably mostly how I feel, I figure once I write those out these will be the endpoint. I don't want to delete any of this I think, even if I come to hate it later I want to look back and understand the times where I felt truly honest with myself. The times where, and say it with me folks, I was a mythomaniac-freak!

[sohemotional]

For the ask game: 💛 💚 💜

💛: What is a popular ship you just can’t get behind, and why?

Tbh... unpopular take but most of the popular ships in Glee don't appeal to me. I don't like P*zberry, Qu*nntana, F*berry, P*ckurt, P*ckleberry and H*vans. I won't get into all of it but one of them I just never understood is Kl/aine. Just never got it, even after five seasons I still don't get it, doesn't do anything for me at all.

💜: Which character is way hotter than everyone else seems to think?

Brittany. I noticed that Santana and Quinn basically get all the love in terms of their appearance whereas Brittany gets way more haters calling her ugly or just flat out ignoring her or just being the one who's forgotten about when people talk about attractive Glee girls. She's incredibly underrated. Her performances in the first Britney episode were so sexy and so was Run The World, to name a few examples but she gets so slept on because people prefer the other two. She usually gets the least amount of edits and fanart out of the Unholy Trinity (and maybe even most of the other girls?) sadly.

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

Oh man... be prepared for a lot of unpopular takes. I wouldn't know where to start with what fandom get wrong about Brittany. Although tbh almost all the Glee characters get mischaracterized by fandom, so she's far from the only one. Based on the headcanons/art/fics I've seen, one thing I noticed is that Brittany gets taken to extremes in their portrayal of her.

There seems to be this constant need in fandom to prove that Brittany isn't stupid at all. Whereas, imo there's nothing wrong with her being stupid. I don't see it as a bad thing. She is smart in certain ways, like emotional intelligence. She's also not very smart at all in other ways. Her being stupid doesn't mean she has no worth or that she doesn't deserve love. It doesn't mean she can't be a good character.

She often gets written as this superwoman/independent woman who somehow is the best scientist/chef/doctor to ever exist with a million talents. She's too perfect. I feel like some fans do this to overcompensate for how she was passive/not super successful in conventional ways and not intellectual in the series. It just makes her way less appealing to me when she's portrayed like that.

She also sometimes gets portrayed in the reverse where she's completely childlike/incapable and helpless in every single way - worse than she ever was in canon even - with no edge or agency either which also is not really her.

Her traits like her quirky side that make her unique get washed out and she becomes what my friends and I refer to as the "Wattpad y/n girl" or the generic girl that's totally bland instead of having her Brittany-isms.

One thing I absolutely hate personally is the obsession with portraying Britt as this super dominant controlling top, or this masculine woman who pushes Santana around. It's just not her and it's gross to warp their dynamic into that imo. I see no appeal.

Another thing I noticed that bothers me is that fics often remove Brittany's sex appeal and femininity entirely for some reason. I often feel it's because they dislike the character or they just don't care about her at all.

I noticed on this site especially Brittany also gets demonized and portrayed like if she's some evil borderline sociopath who only cares about Santana and her cat. It's so weird to me, especially when it's fans of some of the biggest bullies on the show of all people who say they can't support Brittany because she's a "bully." Yeah, Brittany has a mean catty side and she dislikes a lot of people but she's not some extreme bully and no worse than most others on the show.

I noticed that people like to switch Brittana around and try to push Brittany's personality traits on Santana/vice versa for some reason.

For example, they are desperate for Santana to be the more cheerful bubbly one who loves all the New Directions and is super creative while Brittany gets pushed in the background and portrayed as the cold one who doesn't care about any of them except Santana. Which is closer to the reverse of how it is in canon. Brittany was the softer, more creative one of the two and they want Santana to be that instead. Or they portray Brittany as this jealous insecure girl with Santana who gets all heated in her jealousy (that is so unlike Britt - that's Santana). Brittany was rarely ever insecure or jealous at all.

Or alternatively, one thing that's annoying as hell is they want Brittany to constantly act as the protector for Santana who goes after people who they think wronged her, when in reality in canon it was almost always Santana who was actively protecting Britt. Brittany rarely ever went after someone who she felt hurt Santana or attacked them. I think her standing up to Alma Lopez and Artie when they were harsh about Santana were two of the only times but she never just ran after Santana's enemies and physically or verbally attacked them.

I also get annoyed by fandom acting like Britt had no agency at all in her romances. For instance, people seriously still act like Santana practically forced her to have sex with her in S2 or they act like Santana ruined Bram and forced Britt to break up with him. Which ??? that is so off. If you really think Brittany didn't know what she was doing was cheating on Artie in S2 or that she didn't want to have sex with Santana, idk what to tell you.

Another thing about the fan reaction to Britt that's way off is how so many people still say things like "Brittana was one-sided because Santana loved her more" or they act like Brittany ruined their relationship more or Santana was more committed/loyal to Britt than vice versa. I won't even get into that here but it is so untrue in canon.

[thebreakfastgenie]

9. Could you be roommates with anyone from the swamp? Or from the main cast of Mash in general?

Era/season of the show and number of people in the tent is up to you

Honestly yes, I think I could tolerate any of them. I lived with two people who met on grindr and then one of them sued the other one over $50. I still live with one of those guys and neither one of them hates me. I can tolerate a lot of bullshit.

That being said:

Frank would be a horrible roommate. A roommate who's neurotic about cleaning is okay, they're annoying but they serve a purpose, but he's neurotic about other things and his constant prayers and patriotism would get so old. I don't want to live with a right winger.

This would also be a problem with Charles but he'd be easier to deal with because at least he's an intellectual. I don't know how well it would work because I don't know if I could handle the French horn (which I fully believe he has the right to play). I don't think he would like being roommates with me though.

For the same reason I'm not super into BJ as a character compared to the others I think he would make a great roommate. He's not the roommate I would be best friends with, but he wouldn't get in the way.

I think Trapper would be a fun roommate. I'm not sure how well he'd handle my messier tendencies though.

Hawkeye and I would be great roommates because we're both disgusting. We'd both appreciate having a third roommate to clean, though.

I don't think I would do well with Hawkeye and Trapper because I don't think Trapper could handle two of us. He's a patient guy but he has his limits. I might have better luck with Hawkeye and BJ but I think if he was cleaning up after two of us BJ might get annoyed and passive-aggressive and I hate passive-aggression so we'd have problems. Hawkeye and Charles... maybe? Hawkeye and Frank would be fun in the short term because we'd gang up on him but eventually it would stop being fun. I think the most functional would be me, Trapper, and BJ but we wouldn't be really close friends we'd just coexist well. Worst would probably be me, Frank, and Charles because everyone would hate each other. I'm too tired to go through all the twosome combinations.

If I had to pick a canon swamp to live in it would be Hawkeye, Trapper, and Frank because we'd have so much fun ganging up on Frank and I want to hang out with Hawkeye and Trapper and be gross together but it would get old after a while. Second choice would be Hawkeye, BJ, and Charles, because Charles is less offensive to live with although tbh in some ways he's worse, he's louder than Frank. Third choice would be Hawkeye, BJ, and Frank.

I'd do fine with Margaret as a roommate but she wouldn't like me because she'd demand military precision and tidiness and like early rising.

Henry would be such a disaster I wanna try it.

Potter is way too old-fashioned, so no.

I think I'd do really well with either Radar or Klinger, or both!

I probably could be roommates with Mulcahy because we'd do our own thing but I wouldn't choose a priest for a roommate on purpose.

[authenticleviackerman]

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai and how the book helped improve my life.

Despite the controversy and even banning of No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai in some parts of the world as I have come to learn, it has to be one of my favourite books. The disconnect from the world, society and people hit very close to home, and it was ultimately the book which made me realize that despite what people have told me ("You're such a smiley person though", and "You have too much energy to be depressed" etc.) is just not what makes a person depressed or not.

I think that this book is a perfect gateway into the concept of mental illness. I'd like to tell you a little story. Keep in mind I don't really consider myself a writer, I'm just an insomniac who is self taught in English and has nothing to do at 4 am.

I, like Yozo, learned to fake a smile. As a child I was always talkative and loved books. I learned to speak fairly early (at about 6 months of age) and always flipped through books for hours despite it not being typical for kids with my diagnosis (cerebral palsy).

I was always a child who was very afraid of something I couldn't even name. Slight change of voice made me cry, no matter what the context. I could meet my grandma's friend and I didn't greet them (because I didn't know you were supposed to greet them yet) and after my grandma told me, I started crying because I thought I made her mad.

This never improved, even after I had entered school. In fact, it got worse. I was not yet aware of anything until the first day in 1st grade, when my teacher greeted everyone formally but me, leading to confusion and so I accidentally greeted her in an informal way as well. This of course, has led to embarrassment.

I soon got an assistant who was supposed to help me learn. I never had an intellectual disability of any kind, although I couldn't really focus on schoolwork and wanted to play instead, so her role was to be like an" at home teacher" and someone to look after me when my parents were busy.

She had worked with disabled people in the past so my mom naturally thought nothing could go wrong, and for a short while it didn't until about 5th grade when things started getting worse, but that's a whole another chapter.

Long story short, for 10 years, she mentally abused me, putting me down whenever some of my weaknesses showed, totally ignoring the fact that I had learned how to speak English (in my case a foreign language) completely on my own.

That made me think I was now fundamentally broken, leading to severe self hate while I still put a smile on my face, because depression and anxiety in media are usually showed in the most severe cases, so I couldn't be ill. I'm just an idiot.

I started writing poetry (which I now inconsistently post on my Instagram but I am afraid to do so as I fear that if my mom's friends noticed it being too dark, they would tell my mom who could scold me for it so I haven't put anything out there in a while. Besides, they pretty much ruined the tags) which did get some small audience (I got one of my favourite musician's wife to follow me there) but my brain makes me give up on things because I feel like there was no point in it, which was a frequent theme described in no longer human and his other books.

For years and despite my mom literally asking me to stop crying all the time, not one teacher or professional suggested therapy. I was just told to "grow up already" or laughed in the face by my assistant (who caused me to develop PTSD like symptoms), so I had to beg my mom to bring me in repeatedly.

Thankfully, bringing the book up in therapy this summer got me on antidepressants, (which, again , I thought I don't need because in my brain I wasn't "sick enough") and now my mom is aware that I am fighting my own brain, so she isn't frustrated with me when I cry.

That is what I'd like to say, but unfortunately it was a bit too late and I learned to numb down my emotions because I'm afraid of being shamed. The only people who see me cry are my therapist and psychiatrist who saw through the (very believable) fake smile, and people who I truly trust.

The antidepressants definitely worked though, and I believe if Dazai lived in an age where antidepressants existed and mental health wasn't stigmatized, he would feel at least a little better.

I hope I manage to feel human one day.

[zukkacore]

what are you avatar ships? /gen

Answering this question first btw just bc the answer is easier.

Anyway wouldn’t it be funny if I zukkacore came out as a zukka hater. I’m not gonna self censor this time so this better not show up on the tag

Fav is zukka obviously. I also like Zukki quite a bit as a sucker for a good polycule. In terms of all canon relationships across the series yuekka is probably my favorite, but I do also like Sukka, they’re cute what can I say! I also like yueki (Yue/suki) quite a bit & Mailee.

This is also an embarrassing one but as a kid I liked tokka quite a bit and I still have a soft spot for nostalgia reasons but I do know why that one is like iffy, if it’s a comfort to anyone I would only really go for that one after a MAJOR timeskip (like at least a decade maybe more fjdkdkdk). As a kid I definitely related to toph’s crush on Sokka & as an adult now I tend to headcanon her as a dyke but also like to be fair I also think having a crush on Sokka does not exempt a person irl or in the fiction from being a lesbian (considering I did and I am a dyke as well) FNDNDN. If anything he is the gateway. I broadly prefer to interpret their relationship as more sibling aligned these days.

In lok I like korrasami, kyalin, and wuko. In the broader Atlaverse I also like rangshi.

There are quite a few relationships I can like enjoy given the right context or are kinda ambivalent about. Most of the canon relationships are like fine I guess (except mako.rra which blows. And I actually like Mako quite a bit I think ppl overdo the mako hate). Sometimes it’s not personal, i don’t think it’s awful I just don’t like the relationship that much bc it’s like. Oh I don’t headcanon the character as straight or whatever (I really liked ma¡ko as a kid for instance but like as an adult I’m like wow that’s the most beard4beard thing I’ve ever seen). I don’t even hate zvtara (sorry to be cringefail I decided to censor anything I felt kinda negative abt to be nice). It’s not awful like I get it and I do think it’s the by far the best derivative of the same cringe boring het enemies to lovers ship that gets popular every few years I just see them more as friends. They’re very much giving “we would make each other worse” and like. I love making each other worse but it’s not for me.

Also my self indulgent secret ship is that I think sokkla (sokka/Azula) would be cool bc they would be intellectually combative. Like they would make each other worse and I WOULD like to see it. I do generally hc Azula as a dyke tho, not that Sokka couldn’t also be…. Anyway.

This ended up being way more long winded than I intended. Ty for the question!

[notmuchtoconceal]

damn, bro.

i've been to exactly three parties in the last three months (a fairly optimal ratio, considering how few people talk at them) and at each one, a different straight guy got gay for me all by himself.

like, dude.

i'm just fuckin standin there, being friendly and receptive and open and maintaining frame, and like ... they just find themselves drawn to me and able to effortlessly pass all their tests and just feel themselves getting weaker for me the more i listen and the more they reveal their truth, for on some level -- they detect sanctity as well as sensuality and are drawn to me to confess, and like --

starting to think a main reason i could never be catholic is anonymous confessions to a church official has to be the most unerotic situation imaginable, oh my god. bro, there is just something so sexy about confession, i just can't put my finger on it.

the vulnerability. the need. the passion.

when you go into a photobooth to play pretend with your priest, while rattling off a litany of minor sins to keep up appearances, or worse -- being driven in for you have nowhere to go.

bam -- trap shut.

yeah, but anyway, i'm not even flirting with them. i'm not flirting with em, unless my openness and attraction constitutes a baseline receptivity they regard as flirting, but i don't. people are so fuckin weird about friendliness sometimes. bro, it's like they secretly hate affection more than they hate being judged, for they crave being judged -- needing to reaffirm their unworthiness, but simultaneously dreading the exposure.

some people, you try to build em up, or just interact with em with natural affection, they start to think you're their plaything and if their first instinct's to test for how much bullshit you're willing to take, don't give em any reason to be surprised for when the inevitable happens.

some people though, bro. some people really just need a sympathetic ear and someone who isn't appalled by what they got goin on inside.

case in point. back in october, an aggro, vaguely racist polish dude with blood all over his face (my favorite) kept getting way up in mine and it was the most delightful thing, the smile on his lips and in his eyes when i refused to be intimidated, chose to reveal to him his mirth.

i can't even remember how things started.

i've known this guy since high school. the dude i shared my locker with freshman year was also there. we've talked maybe once before this -- i think the year or two previous where my murderous detachment energy was through the roof and my sheer emotional unavailability turned all straight boys into wet, eager sons. oh my god. sometimes all i need to do is walk around in public as a giant callous and people will wanna rub their palms all over me. thank you, dumb jock hypno. thank you for making me lose the totally worthless intellectual considerations of brokenhearted fools who've deliberately given themselves to the shackles of an ideology for want of belonging. when joe rogan boys recognize me as their new daddy, that is an opportunity to give god's most perfect abortions some beautiful and much needed restructuring.

anyway, he brings up how long we've known each other and barely talked, and i agree. i usually show up at my friend's parties with one or both of my brothers, but i got here late and they left early, so i'm alone and we both notice the place is simp city, but also -- he's deffo down to be DL and don't wanna take the place over, but I'm not sure yet if I wanna manipulate myself into a front-facing or behind-the-scenes position in this elaborate and ultimately deterministic farce of a bunch of people who mostly know one person all in the same room with sugar and alcohol.

it's brainpower, mostly. do i have the energy to manipulate these simple animals and the simple needs which will be revealed to me, for all our intellects and souls are mutually oppressed by fear, and only by the light of truth may we mutually strive to become?

not right now, i decided.

i kinda just wanted to observe. i hadn't been out in awhile. i'd been insane. i sorta just wanted to hang out. have a drink, enjoy the atmosphere.

he then alludes to the obvious and unspoken nature of our mutual supremacy, and i've heard this from like five or six other people now, so i wonder if he's talkin about us both bein starseeds or some shit or if he's talkin about us bein whi-- oh, wait yeah. deffo that second thing, bro.

being insane, i now wonder when i stare in prolonged, barely-obvious-to-me-confusion (is it because i'm so naturally daddy, the PTSD or the dumb hypno? i have no fucking idea what signals you think i'm sending sometimes cause the nature of how you're intimidated by me scrambles my brain which is why I crave a safe, infinitely-compassionate Buddhist monk with a tight, wet, soft mouth who'll horse pet me til I'm sane again, but it's cool. I may be unsane, but I ain't undead. Life is beautiful, and scars reveal experience, the way all wounds inevitably compose a tight cunt you want my dick in) i sometimes wonder how much of my interior monologue is being telepathically transmitted to my non-recipient, how much of the dialogue is truly decipherable from my face, and how much is that other person's immediate retreat into their own experiences?

anyway, i think superior people are self-made. people who are truly superior seldom see themselves as superior, unless it's like -- a massive spike from the surrounding area. superiority comes from asserting and maintaining values derived from lived experiences, not arbitrary complexes. DNA is relevant, and we live in a time where its very nature is distorted not only by our fears of eugenics, but bad science reportage which stupidly oversimplifies the nature of genetics. he then says something to the effect of we must have an understanding even if we don't subscribe to the same ideology, and it's like...

everybody who posits an ideology to me is seldom willing to ask follow-up questions and seem to already think they already have me figured out, so that's interesting. i feel with most insecure minds, they can't handle the barrage of ambiguity, so they force themselves to adopt loser thinking because they need a stern and workable hypothesis before they not only act, but interact. it's like they don't know how to play it loose, or scout or find it uncomfortable to be in a recipient position, so every engagement becomes a plan of attack which is exhausting cause now it can always fail instead of simply reveal. i'm never sure what people think my ideology is. i've been accused of being a rugged individualist and a fascist and a degenerate and i do feel all three are an attempt to characterize my belief in personal autonomy, self-defense and my tendency to follow my own inclinations as somehow a bad thing.

this is followed-up (it could have also come before) with the confession that he has recurrent thoughts about committing violence against a certain group of people a shade or two darker. i don't immediately condemn him, because i know thoughts are thoughts. the important thing is that he's not acting on them. the important thing is that he's repulsed and horrified by these thoughts and has come to you begging to be judged. really, unless a person was born with their head screwed on wrong, it takes a significant amount of repeated abuse and neglect (or else prolonged alienation via hierarchical thinking) to drive someone to commit violence against others, for even if violence is fun -- most i feel would prefer to express it in constructive and beneficial ways.

It's after this that he shows me a picture of his black girlfriend (who I then remember I've also already met before) and it's like... yeah, man.

Sometimes being in a mixed-raced relationship is wacky. Your body is being pummeled daily with televised fear and division signals and every time you want to express your love for your woman, you have to self-consciously cross that racial boundary and reflect on all manner of mutual hidden motivations -- secret and accumulated tensions between friends and family, secret fears of never belonging or always being an outsider. The complexes you're mutually playing out, together and in isolation, for no matter how real your love may be, there might simply be things you're too ashamed to admit, even to each other. The ugly, nagging, unavoidable truth that though we're all affected by it, we're all complicit in it, too -- in countless more jagged and fragmentary ways to imagine, being the products of conlonizers and conolonized peoples living on stolen land itslf stained by numerous genocides. The true degree to which our way of life is illusory and our nation haunted.

Shit's rough, bro.

we then get take more shots, play jenga.

i cut loose and dance and eyes are on us and he's like, naw bro.

that's too much.

then i think he's leaving and talk to some other dude.

then he's still there and we're not-quite making googly-eyes.

then -- completely of his own volition -- he tells me that he's not gay and his girlfriend wouldn't like this.

yes. his girlfriend.

his girlfriend wouldn't want this to happen.

i understand. i never once used the word gay, bro.

actually, earlier he had looked me dead in the eyes and said "I'm straight" to which I immediately and unselfconsciously replied "So am I."

I absolutely meant it. The secret to flirting with straight men is just to become one. You don't even have to try. Then go after you. It's amazing. The second they realize you're as much of a man, they turn into chicks and boys, sometimes at the same time. It's like a fuckin switch, dude.

I admit it. I have extreme situational charisma.

There are people who are drawn to me, and people who are repulsed by me. Most of the time, I just feel I radiate an intensity which makes others default to trying to ignore me cause they don't wanna get too close, cause all my good moods tend to be the product of single-minded focus and everyone I attract without realizing it tends to be a moth or a vampire who is solely approaching to feed on the light of my flame.

I spent years not knowing how to initiate, only to instigate.

I get it.

Oh, my god. It's actually the same fucking thing as when I decided to become a gay man, women were immediately drawn to me. Fuckin magnets, bro. My icy indifference made them so hot, they wanted to press up against my pale marbled body and make snow angels.

Situational bisexuality is simple enough for most people to grasp. If men are in the forest or in prison, a hole's a hole. We all have needs.

People tend not to understand asexuality at all, some poor fools lacking in either minds or souls even going so far as to claim that sexual reproduction is the ultimate motivation for all life on earth.

Now that I'm starting to grasp all the ways my sexuality is truly fluid, it's clear consciously what I've always suspected and felt -- asexuality is just another mode, another configuration among many. Sometimes in my life, I just don't have any sexual desire for a few weeks or months at a time. I never consciously decide to do it, but somehow, somewhere down the chain of command, my dick just knows how to go into maintenance mode and my system shifts into a new equilibrium. It's not conscious, but in some part of my mind, I'm deciding -- no sex. Sex is not a priority. We're cutting off sex and reconstituting the flow of that energy.

Essentialized states of sexuality only make sense to me as some kind of pledge. You know. A marriage to a woman. A vow of chastity. Signing the fag contract and taking your collar like the good bitch that you are.

This is the wisdom of not needing to disclose or even discuss your sexuality until it's relevant, and it induces the paradox of public difference, where one needs to feel they will not cause offense to ask questions, and yet -- here we face the additional paradox of how much is one entitled to appear publicly visible without needing to perform? Obviously, it shouldn't be outrageous for a man to be partnered to a man. If a person is distraught by witnessing a female mind or soul in a male body which has been surgically or hormonally altered (or just dresses differently) to reflect the way that mind or soul either feels it always was or has become ... yeah, no. You can de distressed by the appearance of a burn victim or an amputee and you would know that's your problem and you're being rude.

If we believe in mutual service, and service arises out of values, do we reveal our own presumptions when we move to serve others, and what do we do with an act of service (which constitutes a gift) we don't want, can't accept, or won't appreciate? How do you keep up the courage to believe in common decency and still ask questions knowing it's difficult to tell a bad actor from a traumatized person struggling to communicate their reality? How can you gage the worth of interaction against the pain of enduring it? How can you know how far to push when so many have so many different theories of what constitutes too much?

I dunno, man.

Hopefully some expert'll come along with a nice one-size fits all solution we can all follow along and then just not have to think about it.

I just wanna work and drink and watch TV.

Get my cock sucked.

Don't wanna have to fuckin talk to people.