#just petting her just won't do

[spellscarred]

Am pregenante

[coyoteclan]

Big TW for pet loss

Hey, clangen tumblr and those who just enjoy the silly cats on this blog. I know it's been a little bit of time since my last update, but unfortunately during the past few months, I have been caring for my closest friend, Comet.

She's been my best friend for 15 whole years, and on February 9th of 2024, I'm sad to say that she has passed. I won't lie when I say that this is one of the hardest posts I've ever made, but I want to continue this blog in her honor. Normally, I have a terrible habit of just letting projects like this slip by me and gather dust; however Comet was meant to play an integral part within the blog to immortalize her, and I refuse to let something meant just for her to go to waste.

I want to thank you all first of all for being such an amazing community. I've genuinely had so much joy come of this blog, and it pains me that I let it go stagnant for as long as I have. There are 568 of you now, which is so extremely wild to me; but I hope that from now on, you can all love Comet as much as I did, even if as a memory.

I hope to return to posting content both here and on my main, @mxssacre , but for now I still need time to grieve and come to terms with the loss of someone that was so incredibly intertwined with everything I've done since I was 9 years old.

Thank you for everything Comet, my heart, my soul, my love.

More of my favorite photos of her beneath the cut.

It's hard to choose favorites out of the thousands of photos I've taken of her over the years, but I hope these do her justice to show what an amazing being she was. I hope you're hunting your toy mice in the stars, Comet.

[tearlessrain]

my cat is sick and we don't know why and I'm waiting to find out whether or not the place where I live is about to turn into a fascist dictatorship that wants me and most of my friends dead, so you'll have to forgive me for not being at my best I'm a little stressed atm

[naamahdarling]

Augh

[iftitah]

there was a buffalo that was about to die soon but we were not allowed to tell it to the owner

[linagram]

all bday illustrations! i feel like something changed in my art style but it's probably just the lineart (+ shading and lighting)

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

I don't have a lot of energy these days [because of The Horrors] so I'm looking at my day and my priorities and trying to plan how I'm going to spend what energy I have, because I do need to be able to rest and relax but there are also things that need doing and that is a careful balance for me.

I managed to [mostly] clean the kitchen last night so I've kicked it out of the priority list until next weekend. Unfortunately the living room, bathroom, bedroom, and my office all need cleaning too. I think of the priorities, my office and the bedroom are the most important to me, so I'll probably push the living room and bathroom until at least Friday.

There's also the laundry. I don't have any clean clothes and as we're moving into winter I need to be more rigid about getting that done because days where the clothes can be dried on the line will be more limited. So I definitely need to wash an outfit or two and hang them up in the next hour.

That's already a really busy day, so I'll probably cut it there. But it's definitely going to still leave me a lot of work this week. Half my cleaning, at least one more round of laundry, settling dog food for the next couple of weeks, planting the fall/winter greens, doing some set up work on my computer, work on some writing projects, cleaning out the fridge, and patching some worn clothes. My work week isn't insane atm, but it is definitely limiting. Right now I have 6+4+0+4+2+5+5= 25 non work/non-survival needs (sleep, food, shower, etc) hours available each week. I need to figure out a regukar distribution of these that means everything is getting done and I still have an hour a day to myself as often as possible. I think it's probably not realistic to give myself more than an hour a day for free time/fun, which is a bit unfortunate because I've found in the past that my floor tends to be getting 2-3hrs of free time most days because of how I deal with transition and decision-making.

25-7 [1hr per day] is 18 hrs, so I just need to decide where and how to distribute those in order to keep pace with things.

Lets say the garden needs 3hrs per week, the laundry needs 4 hours (specifically 2 sets of 2 morning/early afternoon hours), the cleaning needs an hour a day to get through a maintenance clean of the house, and 3 hours once a week to work down any deep cleaning that's built up. Which is....already three more hours than I actually have each week. So I guess I'll make a plan to work in the garden for 20-40min of 4 of my free hours each week.

It really doesn't leave me any wiggle room. Only about 4 hours a week that isn't explicitly allotted to something that needs doing, which means there will probably me a lot of weeks where I only get an hour or so at best across the whole thing for free time. I guess I've had a hard time accepting that at this point, having actual time for myself or a time-intensive project is only available if I've taken a day off work. I love my job, but it's ... not comfortable to realize that it's the only love in my life I actually have time for anymore.

I think that's probably why I end up here so much. It's this mindless little way of zoning out into my own head, dissociating away from the exhaustion, for a few minutes at a time. I keep thinking I want to use this space differently, make it more if the things I enjoy. But I think what I really want is just to actually have the time and energy to do things I love that take work. I keep crying a few times every day and I couldn't figure out why, but like

I dunno

Why **wouldn't** I cry a little every day? It's the closest I'm getting to actual emotional release or relaxation in my life. We'd probably all cry. Heck. A lot of us probably DO, capitalism being what it is.

I guess I'm starting to wonder why I'm doing what I'm doing. What is there left for me to sacrifice to this life? What is actually serving me about not just letting myself go up like a fireball and take my surroundings with me? What in the ever loving fuck am I fighting this hard for?

All I ever want, all I want now, is to be able to live. To really, actually live. How does wanting to live bring you this close to killing yourself, whether on accident or on purpose? What am I actually doing that is LIVING and what am I doing that is FACILITATION of living? It can't all be facilitation, or I'm not actually facilitating fuck all.

I'm 30 goddamn years old and I need to figure out what it looks like to actually love my life. I fundamentally refuse to zombify myself like this for everyone else around me forever.

[prismatoxic]

i do think calling for the boycott of a whole zoo without all the available information is stupid, and certainly the situation has much nuance and some people are focusing on the wrong things. the enclosure seems to be better than originally thought, for example, and thus should be less of a central pillar of the argument. but at the end of the day i really don't give a shit how good the zoo is or how good the enclosure is because the videos of the baby hippo clearly show harassment, encouraging dangerous behaviors, and stress responses from the animal.

like THAT'S my issue. i'm the guy who gets really frustrated when people reblog memes of animals in distress to my dash, because that shit always upsets me. and post after post by people in the zookeeping business have demonstrated that harassing these animals is NOT necessary for "desensitization".

if people are saying "of course a thai zoo is shit", then yes, that's racist. however critiquing the poor handling and sensationalizing of an animal in this zoo's care isn't racism, and the biggest people i've seen making points about the whole situation are very much focused on the behavior of the handler and aren't shy about critiquing western zoos who do similar awful things. i don't understand how "this animal is being mistreated on camera by a handler who seems to do these things to a lot of animals under his care" is an offensive statement.

anyway, if you're desperate for proof that the moo deng situation is okay because you like the cute hippo videos and want a clear conscience, you are prioritizing your own comfort over the realities of animal welfare, and i do not like you. i unfollowed someone a while back for repeatedly responding to concerned asks with "it's just a funny video" about a video that showed a cat displaying pained behavior in a situation where it was very likely that it was, in fact, in pain. this is not a topic i treat lightly and i will probably start blocking people over it.

like, not knowing is one thing. god knows i didn't use to recognize distress behavior in various animals the way i do now. but if you're willfully choosing to ignore distressed behavior or trying to justify it to make yourself feel better, you kinda suck! rethink your priorities.

[tjerra14]

cw pet injury, pet death

nothing more unnecessary than losing your 3 month old kitten to a tilted window (or your 14yo diabetic cat to hypoglycemia because for some reason you waited another three hours after finding her comatose, cold, and barely breathing in your garage, and merely covered her with a blanket. When she came in, our thermometer refused to give us a reading, she had a heartrate of 40, and a blood glucose of 0.7mmol/l.)

[mothbaaalls]

there should really be like. a peer support network for people who work/volunteer in animal rescue and care. because good god it's needed

[wilddogsdivorce]

even though i'm still angry at the fact my family graciously told me they're getting a dog the day before, i'm glad that the pup is here. she really helped in getting over my fear of dogs and getting bit, and when my spoons are low and i can't really do anything creative, i can at least try to play even a small tug of war with her. she's a great dog.

[kyuala]

hmm

[rmorde]

It's fucking wild to see someone defend Mei Mei and demand people to blame Gege instead for her pedophilia and grooming.

WTF?

If you love a dark character, then accept everything that they are in the story. Mei Mei is one. She is a side character that is dark despite being on the heroes' side of the fight.

I appreciate what Gege had done to her character. I like it because thru her we see how rotten the modern jujutsu society is - that the heroes' side is not exactly great especially with the likes of Gojo and Nanami being gone.

A lot of people already pointed out that Mei is used as a foil for Nanami. I agree. She is everything he is not: - Nanami left stock trading. Mei is doing insider trading. - Nanami fights for the greater good. Mei is only in it for the paycheck. - Nanami protects children. Mei exploits children. - Nanami continues to fight even if he is half-dead. Mei retreats even if she is still perfectly fine. - Nanami has morals. Mei is immoral.

But why did someone good (Nanami) die a horrible death while someone bad (Mei Mei) got rewarded (practically highlighted with her escaping to Malaysia -which was Nanami's dream retirement place)? It's to highlight how broken and bleak jujutsu society is - bad people benefit but good people suffer. It also shows how the only difference between the sorcerers (sans our "heroes") and the curse users are just rule compliance and pay checks.

Speaking of which:

What Mei Mei is doing to Ui Ui is exactly like what that Granny Seance did to her Tojified Grandson. Both women are grooming boys younger than they into perfect tools to complement their CTs. They don't see them as brother or grandson respectively. Those words are mere "titles". It's like how you would call an giant axe "Axe" and straw dolls "Dolls."

Mei is the perfect example of what a peak sorcerer is in modern jujutsu society - strong and smart but selfish, self-absorbed, exploitative, and immoral.

I like Mei for what she delivers in the story: 1) A very dark character that represents the rotten core of the jujutsu society. 2) A complex female character - she is on your side but she is definitely not an ally you'd want. However, you need all the help you can get so you are forced to accept her but deep down you want her to get some comeuppance for all she's been doing. 3) Despite her... Mei-ness, she still has a really cool character design and powers as well as really badass scenes. 4) An excellent foil to Nanami (and maybe even Gojo if I stretch it a bit). 5) A great reminder that with the exception of the sorcerers within Gojo's close circle (Tokyo Tech staff/alumni + Utahime & her students), sorcerers are absolute scumbags. Mei's principle is pretty similar to Sukuna's! They're all about: Me, Myself, and I living it up and having fun at everyone's expense.

6) She is the closest I could get to a "villainess" in JJK. The villains in JJK is male-dominated with 2 gender-neutrals (Hanami + Uraume). Geto's family has very little screen time for me to get something out of them (Lady Secretary, Nanako & Mimiko). Yeah it's shonen but still... Gege is starving me with good villainesses 😭.

So TLDR: Mei Mei is not defensible but feel free to like/love her anyway. Being a fan of villains or dark characters is not a representation of a person's morals after all. Do not blame Gege for using her as a narrative tool to remind people again ( because we have to admit that we always kinda forget): the world of JJK is unfair and it really fucking sucks being a nice person there. Not that Gege is a perfect writer at all. There are plenty of other stuff to be angry about in his work like the pacing for example or the underutilization of interesting side characters or the story being so "scattered" into various mediums.

[ostwitchsheart]

Why did my brain randomly dump story lore on me. Do you really want me to make a sad one piece ripoff

[welcometogrouchland]

Bee and puppycat lazy in space I love you so so much it's not even funny

[jemichi90]

I watch anime when I’m sad

Some of you are aware that I recently lost my beloved bird companion Yume that I’ve had by my side for 15 years. It’s been a week now, so I can at least say that.

It was not sudden, she’s been sickly for a while now so I had time to “prepare” and she spent her last weeks 24/7 with me. Since I sleep completely still like a corpse and therefore won’t accidentally crush a small animal in my sleep, I even allowed her to sleep in my bed and inside my shirt where it was warm.

But naturally seeing her grow weaker every day was hard for me, so while I was spending quality time with my poor baby, I picked up Trigun to cheer me up and watched the 1998 version (I remember watching it years ago, but had no memory of anything that actually happens in the anime), which was the best decision I’ve made in a while. It really cheered me up by being silly and hilarious - most of the time. Vash also became a comfort character for me (I hope to find him at a con so I can give him a hug! As long as that’s okay with the cosplayer of course).

I also read the entire manga, which has a more serious tone most of the time, but was also helpful because it addresses death and grief from different points of view, and through my own sorrow even the infamous couch scene was somehow comforting in a really grim way...

And while the remake feels a bit too dark and depressing for me at the moment (does a great job at highlighting those aspects from the manga though), I haven’t ignored that version either. In fact, the opening theme “Tombi” by Kvi Baba ended up becoming like a theme song for my loss and while it’s not necessarily the kind of music I’d normally listen to, it’s really speaking to my heart in this moment. Maybe that means I’ll never be able to listen to it in the future, but right now it feels right.

So yeah, now you know what’s up with me recently (if you didn’t know already) and what’s up with my sudden fandom shift. I will be a crying mess for a while, but I’ll also keep rewatching the one anime that can still make me smile over and over again.

I definitely want to thank Nightow for the story and characters that have been and continue to be such a great help for me through this time of sadness.

And I apologize for the lack of art. I’ll get back to it when I feel a bit better. It will likely be about Trigun as well, at least for a while.