#mental ramblings

[weeandfrank]

Dear Frank,

I still sometimes write you letters here even though I know you no longer have access.

There's so much rattling around in my brain. So much I've wanted to say...to someone.

Life has felt so strange for some time. I have a hard time describing what I mean. I don't feel real. This doesn't feel real. I so often feel as though I'm playing pretend at living. At life. At being an adult. All the while at various times becoming bored of this game, of the rules that I don't really follow because I find them dumb or nonsensical...I lose sight of the point of the game...of how to win...I lose my competitive edge...it seems as though the other players have become distracted or wandered off...as often happens at parties ...the game has lost it's novelty...or sometimes I'm the one that's wandered off...

I was inspired to write back here by a book I recently read--I've been reading a lot lately...a healthier [relatively speaking] check-out coping mechanism for this existential depression as I'm momentarily terming it, than other alternatives. The book, I think know you would love, is called Normal People. The main characters, Connell and Marianne, write lengthy emails to each other as a means of staying in touch through long periods of physical distance. The dynamic between them is different--they are in love and you and I are siblings...but they understand one another better than anyone...I'm not going to attempt to give a synopsis as I'm notorious for butchering them; you'll just have to trust my judgement and look it up for yourself.

This book has elicited in me...longing. Heart ache. It's re-opened this yearning to be seen and to be known and to be the main character in my own tragic romance. I long to feel passion and to have my heart ache for someone. I long to feel. I've been in this strange, liminal space of...existing. I've strangely lost my sense of how to socially maneuver, how to flirt and, at times it seems, how to even hold a basic conversation; especially if my mind is set on existing publicly in my own space. Just yesterday I was at the diner down the street from my place...I ordered my food and took my table number scanning the tables for a seat. I awkwardly made eye contact with these two guys, obviously not from here...handsome...and tucked into a table next to them. Several more times we made eye contact and I shyly smiled but my mind went blank...one of them smiled and complimented my leg warmers as they left...I looked back at the anatomy notes I'd nerdily brought in with me to study while I ate and contemplated how I'd lost my mojo. Not that I ever had any mojo...and thus soared back down that mental spiral of my deficits and how many times in my life I've shut myself off to letting people in.

I tipsily allowed emotions to wash over me this evening. Recollecting that feeling that I used to have that "no one really knows me." The realization that I've sunk back into this self-protective space washed over me. Why would I continue to share parts of me that I find significant, vulnerable, valuable to have them disregarded and not valued...each time that happened perhaps I shut myself off a little bit more from exposing these parts of me...

And then I remember that I'm likely creating a dramatized story of these occurrences in my life because I feel insignificant and lacking in...gumption for life...

A friend asked my recently how things were going. I responded:

"I'm pretty good. I'm in the thick of school which...I don't think I ever fully wrapped my mind around the intensity this would be. It's been great. Life-altering. I'm dealing with a strained thumb which is just part of it I think. I need to find alternative ways to do things that doesn't hurt my body ... Turns out I have hyper-mobility in my joints. Don't know how I've gone 36+years of my life not Knowing that but alas, now I know."

It felt true. But...came lightyears short of answering the question of "how are things?" How can I answer this when, the truth is, I don't know. I couldn't answer with "nothing feels real" or "I'm just waiting for civilization to unravel" (as that's the direction we seem to be heading)...or "they're fine, just fucking fine."

It's been a long time since I've had a lengthy conversation with someone where I felt utterly unrestrained and not self-conscious in the sense that not only is it ok to share about my experience, it's desired and appreciated. And vice versa, I was eager to hear about the other person. Or that I felt a connection with a kindred spirit.

It at least feels nice to get some thoughts out. Even if they go un-witnessed. Even all this doesn't come close to capturing what I'm feeling, experiencing, the depth of longing. But, then again, I'm just remembering that an intention I had for this 36th year of my life was to embrace the ordinary, the mundane experience. Perhaps that's what's being called for here. Sitting with the strangeness that is existence and embracing the ordinary.

[nyiibat]

⛈️☀️🌙🌸🌻🦋

[hoshizoralone]

reflection

[philsmeatylegss]

If I were Dan and Phil I would never hard launch because it’s so embarrassing that we were right. Like what do you mean you were so in love a bunch of thirteen year old’s clocked it? I would never give that satisfaction.

[goodluckdetective]

Look, this is what moral OCD is like for me:

I walk past a piece of paper. I don’t pick it up because I had a long day at work and it’s very cold outside. This then becomes my internal monologue:

I didn’t pick up that piece of paper, I should have. Don’t I care about the environment? It’s not my trash, I shouldn’t have to pick it up. But also that’s how these things happen right? We place the blame on others as our environment degrades. It was just a piece of paper, it’s not like it can do that much damage. But also how do I know: I’m not an environmental expert. Maybe stray paper scraps are killing the frogs. You’re literally killing the frogs. You should look up how many frogs die a year so you know how shitty you are-No stop it.

I care about the environment, and I recycle and I joined green activism movements but is that enough? I could be doing more. I should be doing more. I should donate my entire check to charity. But isn’t it self serving to think that my one check could help that much? Do I really think I’m that important, how self entitled and-no stop it, reset! You are obsessing and if you fall for it, you will not eat dinner. Let it go.

Okay it’s just a piece of paper. It’s okay you skipped it this once: it could have had something dangerous on it. Yeah that makes sense. But also, that means I’m putting my own safety over trying to help the environment, which is very selfish of me. I’m just one shitty person: god how could I be so self absorbed. I should have picked up the piece of paper. I’m so selfish, and shitty and-no, no, stop it! This is not helpful. It’s fine.

It’s been a long day and I’m cold, that’s not a crime- no that’s being selfish again, you’re making excuses. You’re just a lazy piece of shit who doesn’t care about others, and selfish and God the fact you’re thinking this much about one piece of paper shows how selfish you are, you care more about if you’re a good person than anything else, you’re a piece of shit, you’re a piece of shit, YOU’RE A PIECE OF SHIT.

I get home and open up Tumblr. The first post I see says “if you don’t reblog this post about the environment you’re as complicit as an oil billionaire.” I close my computer and resign myself to looking up the state frog populations until I go to bed.

I don’t eat dinner.

The amount of frogs that die a year is somewhere from 200 million to over 1 billion.

[cultofdarkwood]

thinking about how narinder only remembers the versions of his siblings that he didn't maul. there's a pretty popular (with evidence, one could argue) theory/headcanon that the bishops had their crowns mask over/aid them with their disabilities. but in the lamb's cult, they wouldn't have their crowns anymore, and they'd have to learn how to deal with their disabilities the way mortals do.

im specifically thinking of narinder seeing leshy bumping into things, heket struggling to speak, kallamar needing to learn sign language, and shamura unable to remember most things at any given time, and realizing. "I did that. That's my fault. That's what I did that to them all that time ago."

and then, on the other end, each one of the siblings seeing/realizing that the way narinder's arms and hands shake, why he has "bad pain days", the reason why he can't really do any fine tuned detailed work with his hands the way the lamb's followers can, is because they did that to him. "We did that to him. He's in pain because of us."

all of them realizing, "I hurt you and you hurt me and nothing will ever be the same. But despite everything, I still love you."

and all of them are too scared to ask, "do you still love me?"

[starry-bi-sky]

on a completely separate note; shizun luo binghe with a disciple shen yuan who fell into the abyss??? *thinks about LBH canonically stealing SQQ's corpse for 5 years* he'd hallucinate i think. like, like visual and audial hallucinations.

Keeps thinking he's seeing SQQ in the corner of his eyes, or wandering between the trees, amongst a group of disciples. Thinks he hears him calling for him, but its just the wind or another disciple.

Gets Xiu Ya reforged but patently fucking refuses to make a sword mound. Because his disciple Is Not Dead :))) There was No Body. He's Not Dead. And If You keep Insisting That He Is, He's Gonna Skewer You :). He's holding onto Xiu Ya so he can return his most favored disciple's sword when he returns. It's on his hip right next to Zheng Yang where it's supposed to be.

Also this motherfucker?? does not sleep btw. He has the image of SQQ, wide eyed and hysterical and standing at the mouth of the abyss burned into his fucking eyelids. Can't use the dreamscape to escape it either because he keeps trying to save him and either he does and it's an incredibly cruel trick to wake up to, or he doesn't and he gets his heart broken in several different pieces again.

There is no convincing this man that Shen Qingqiu is dead. Absolutely nothing at all. He is buried so deep in denial that moles would be jealous of how deep he is. He keeps making tea for two in the bamboo house only to remember that it's just him. SQQ's fans are hiding everywhere, little reminders of his presence. He goes to wake up SQQ on the mornings he sleeps in-- only to find the room empty.

[sweetbunpura]

Yuu walks into the Lounge to see Jade trying to manhandle a eel form Floyd as Azul stands nearby with a few buckets. They freeze when they see Yuu and Floyd scrambles out of Jade's hold and slithers over to Yuu to hide behind her. She gets a crash course in learning what Vil uses for his facial cream. Yuu gets Azul to give her the buckets, picks up Floyd, and says she'll be back.

Yuu returns with twice as many buckets, leaving Azul stunned and asking how she managed that.

"I just massaged him. No need for wringing him dry or anything. He had a lotta knots in his back."

Jade and Azul stare at her before Jade asks:

"...Can I be chosen next?"

Floyd ends up being very docile and out of it for the next few days.

[juniemunie]

[Abandoned by the Lightners, his heart became cracked with hatred.]

Hitting a lil' too close to home?

[your-queer-dad]

Hey you. Yes you. You have been through enough, you hear me? You. Have. Been. Through. Enough.

The world has treated you shittily, you go through enough, don't do that do yourself too. Be decent to yourself, kiddo. We've only got one of you and it's the best one we have :]

I love you, I'm proud of you, go make yourself a beverage of your choice and be a little more decent to yourself today <3

- dad x

[bluerosefox]

Drake Siblings

Have I read this prompt somewhere or was this a fever dream from my bored mind.

What if, now hear me out.

What if we bring up Dana Winters-Drake (whose confirmed to at least be alive in the DC verse but no one knows where she actually is)

What if instead of when she had a mental breakdown and getting committed to an Bludhaven clinc she wandered away before anyone noticed and by the time Tim or anyone did notice a lot of stuff started happening at once in both Gotham and Bludhaven (Steph dying, The Bludhaven crisis, etc etc)

Tim still tries to find her though but even with best resources it was like she just disappeared into the wilderness and the stress of trying to handle more and more problems get worse.

So when out of the blue, a couple of years later, he gets a call from an unknown number. On his private, only for friends and family, phone and when he answers he meet with a young girls voice on the other end.

A very young, maybe six or seven, girl who informs him about his apparently half-brother Danny Drake-Fenton. And how she loves Danny so, so, so much but knows her home is dangerous for him to be in.

Tim is stunned and before he could question her, she says Danny is Dana and Jack's baby and that her parents had adopted him years ago and put Dana's stuff that the hospital had away for him to look at when he was older but she just had to fight off their lunch from eating her brother and she knows he needs a better place to live and so she snooped around and found Dana's diary and that she had to unscramble the nonsense Dana wrote and found Tim's number with the words 'tell him about his brother Danny' hidden in it. And-

But before she could keep rambling she hears Danny screaming "JAZZY THE MILK WENT BAD AGAIN AND HISSED AT ME!"

Tim is left with silence after hearing Jazz yell to Danny to lock the fridge and step out of the kitchen as she gets the bat.

[thoughtsthatstayedwithme]

[bixels]

Now that Ghibli's new movie is coming out soon, I've been thinking about anime films and wanna talk about my favorite animated movie ever, Tokyo Godfathers.

TG is a 2003 tragicomedy by Satoshi Kon, following three unhoused people––an alcoholic, a runaway girl, an a trans woman––who find a baby in a dumpster and set off across Tokyo to reunite her with her parents.

If you like the sound of that, go watch it because the rest of this post is spoilers and I have FEELINGS about this movie.

URGHH, the fact that only two moments of true kindness, generosity, and care given to the three protagonists without any expectation of reciprocity are given by a Latin-American immigrant couple and a drag show club full of trans women. The fact that, despite her loud and dramatic personality, Hana is the glue that holds the team together and the heart of the whole movie. The fact that this movie pulls no punches at showing the violence and inhumanity committed by "civilized Japanese society" against the unhoused. The fact that Miyuki craves to be loved by her parents and ends up seeing Hana as her true mother. The fact that Miyuki starts off accidentally using transphobic language against Hana, but slowly begins calling her "Miss Hana" out of respect. The fact that, according to Kon, Hana's role in the story is as a mythological trickster god and "disturb the morality and order of society, but also play a role in revitalizing culture." The fact that Hana so desperately wants to be part of a true family, yet is willing to sacrifice her found family so they can be with their own, and is rewarded for her good deeds in the end by becoming a godmother. The fact that, throughout the movie, wind and light have been used to signify the presence of god's hand/influence (this movie's about nondenominational faith––faith in yourself, faith in others, faith in a higher power. Lots of religious are referenced, such as Buddhism/Hinduism, Christianity, and Shintoism), and in the climax of the film, as Hana jumps off a building to save a baby that isn't hers, a gust of wind and a shower of light save her from death. The fact that god saves a trans woman's life because she proved herself a mother, and that shit makes me CRY.

[dizzybizz]

"this is regrettably the best kiss of your life, you understand?"

[squicksquak]

Jason: Shit, the power went out.

Damian: Don’t worry Todd, I got this.

Damian: *stomps foot*

Jason: What the-?

Damian: *Sketchers light up*

[anqelbean]

I love Shen Yuan, but we need to talk about his constant need to solve all his problems by killing himself. Cang Qiong Mountain is under Siege by demons and he gets poisoned? What If I Killed Myself And Took Down The Enemy With Me. The protagonist is losing his mind to Xin Mo in the middle of Hua Yue City? What If I Killed Myself And Overpowered Xin Mo. The protagonist is losing his mind to Xin Mo on Maigu Ridge? What If I—