#my fourth grade teacher genuinely had it out for me

[getaway-green]

I almost started sobbing in class because my teacher asked us to write a rhyming couplet about what we learned in class and said we couldn’t leave until it was done. I fully started having a panic attack and forgot what words rhymed. Lovely to know that I still haven’t processed the trauma of my fourth grade poetry unit

[sillygoblinantics]

Can I trauma dump for a second?

Personal essay by Bri

Can I be vulnerable with you all for a brief post? You don’t have to read what’s under here if you don’t want to hear about dark thoughts and events from my childhood. So take this as a content warning going forward, especially if you are not in a good state of mind I want you to ignore this post and check out my other light hearted stuff in the meantime. 🩵

In the past month spanning the duration of September, Lily Orchard has made several posts answering self asks where she makes various and progressively worse than the last threats on many people who she labels are stalkers.

Each of these posts were said throughout the month that is a very particular awareness month: suicide prevention month. The amount of ways she’s phrased it are just heartless and reckless.

Today, being no different than the others has struck a cord to me personally.

For context:

I was transferred to a school for kids with learning disabilities when I was 9 in the middle fourth grade. At this private school I would receive proper education and resources that would help me excel but in less than four years at this school I would be the target and victim to one boy’s torment and abuse. Let’s call him Pepsi, because he wouldn’t shut up about bragging about how his mom was ceo of the company’s local branch. Pepsi had been a troubled boy who had bullied kids before I arrived and because of his parents the school couldn’t do anything outside of suspension. I being prone to teasing and not understanding tone or jokes due to being born autistic was the perfect target for Pepsi. So he would harass and pick on me: tripping me in hallways, flipping me off, calling me names and messing with something I showed interest in, standard bullying stuff. During this time I was slowly driven into high stress/anxiety and shortly following I would have depression. I would hurt myself by scratching my arms with paperclips which my mom would eventually request the school have a teacher escort me to and from the bathroom just so I wouldn’t self harm. This was between 4th, 5th and 6th grade.

It was around here that I begun having suicidal ideation… I tried asphyxia: belt, infinity scarf and even a cats-in-the-cradle toy. These attempts were always at home and would be stopped by my parents… at one point my old dog came bursting in to check on me when I was crying my eyes out and wouldn’t leave my side until she made sure I was ok.

(I’m tearing up over that specific memory as I type this out… she was a very good dog…)

Seventh grade Pepsi would do something that began my ideations and planning that would go into effect the next grade. During a school dance, I decided to invite my brother and his two friends as I didn’t know any guys or really thought someone liked me. I tried to hangout with my brother on the bleachers in the gym. While sitting on the bleachers one of my peers approached and asked if I’d slow dance with them. No boy ever did this and I thought it was genuine I was so happy until at the other side of the gym, under the basket ball hoop against the wall, surrounded by other boys (who weren’t goons) I saw Pepsi, laughing. Laughing and pointing and I still remember the feeling I had as I could feel my lil heart shatter into pieces in my chest.

I ran to the bathrooms tears running down my face. My brother and his friends saw this and were about to beat Pepsi up but the school chaperones stopped them. I wish they didn’t.

From then to eighth grade I was barely myself and would sit in class staring out the windows down the long uphill half mile long driveway that cut through a small bit of woods and opened to the busy road. I’d watch all kinds of cars pass: big cars, small cars, pickup trucks, suvs, eighteen wheelers, buses and all sorts of vehicles pass by between the tree line. I’d watch and imagine myself being hit, thinking of the day I’d enact this plan.

I was excited for eighth grade, not only would I be graduating and headed for high school but it was the year our grade would get to perform one of two Shakespeare plays! The class before us did Romeo and Juliet and our class would get to perform the Scottish play. I was excited even if I was a narrator. My mom made it clear to the school and teachers to make sure that Pepsi and I were kept apart at all times. At. All. Times.

The one time during rehearsal, when me and Pepsi were in the same room, the one moment that a teacher stepped out for just a few minutes. Pepsi took the opportunity and berated me, said every nasty thing he could at me.

I can’t remember most but what I know is something about my weight and that no one would love me and that I should die.

I felt a switch go off and suddenly I was speed walking towards the door of the gym (the stage was in the gym since the art and music classes were connected to the gym) and as I was walking I could hear my teacher calling my name but I didn’t look back. Once I got out the door I ran, I ran so fast.

I ran down the hill, the sound of my shoes hitting the pavement echoed in my ears still and the only thing in my mind were: the plan but also the hope that I was still being chased by the teacher, I kept running and running and by the third Italian cypress tree that lead to the small forested area and up the driveway of the school I skidded to a halt. I caught my breath and with a glimmer of hope for a hand to grab me I looked behind me:

…

The teacher wasn’t there… they stopped chasing me. Why did they stop chasing me? Weren’t they suppose to care?! Why aren’t they here?! I looked back at the road now crying for a different reason. I flaked out… I couldn’t go through with the plan. ‘No one would care’ I thought… so I turned around and ran back up the hill and past the school buildings and near the back where I waited and cried for the day to be over or for someone to notice me. The advisor or some type of teacher; who would take his class on nature walks behind the school on the old trails where an amphitheater was; found me. I didn’t tell my mom at pick up. I told my first therapist about it and later was sent to a hospital and then five days at a literal hell where it only instilled fear of being vulnerable and honest about my mental health stayed. I had to stay out of school for a few months until I could graduate… I missed my chance to be a narrator for the play, I fumbled my science fair… I would forget about this day until I was a junior in high school with a new counselor and my mom. I only had dreams of running down the hill of my middle school and I never knew why until my mom told me and my counselor… those dreams stopped after the revelation.

I was twelve years old when I tried to kill myself via being hit by a car.

Lily orchard, you have no fucking right to act like the bigger person because you’re trans or native or whatever bullshit you spew.

It’s been two or three years since I’ve had any suicidal thought, a year since I’ve self harmed and I refuse to relapse now.

I don’t wish any horrible thing on you, no one does, no one has or will ever wish harm or ill will on you. And the people who do have something to say about you are validated after putting up with your abuse that has been documented on so many occasions.

I don’t wish what I have gone through on my middle school bully, I wouldn’t wish the worst thing ever on him. I wouldn’t wish the worst fate even on you.

The only thing I wish you get: is help. Actually human help.

And Lily, if I see you talk smack about anyone’s mother or father like this again, there’s nothing I can do in my power to act; because you’ve already done it to yourself.

———————————

Thank you to those who aren’t Lily orchard for reading this, it’s a heavy subject for me that as I share and open up about becomes much lighter and helps me get the strength and confidence to be able to be honest with the people I care most about outside of the internet.

While I can say I’m in a better place it’s always changing but it’s gotten easier to manage and recenter myself.

Stay safe everyone (ówò)

[goodolreliablejake]

When I was in fourth grade, I had a couple of kids I sat with at lunch. We bonded over Dragon Ball Z. But there came a time when it was enough. I could not stopping about this show, to the point where it alienated these few friends. They started to avoid me. When I wasn't with them, I would wander around at recess alone, walking rounds to avoid the discomfort and alienation that came from being around others without knowing how to connect or be accepted by them.

It escalated to where the kids I considered friends were surrounding me, and they confronted me about my obsession with Dragon Ball Z. They teased me. And I was so hurt, afraid, and angry, and ashamed. I lashed out. I kicked a kid. He wasn't even the one teasing me, but in that moment he felt like he was one of the kids surrounding me, mocking me. Years later, I had class with him in high school, and I wished I could apologize, but I didn't even know if he remembered me.

I was tested, and the doctor said that he didn't want to label me with autism. He thought that giving me that label would make my life harder going forward. But instead I've always been in ambiguity. This almost-diagnosis, this shadow diagnosis. I've been in therapy for years, and I've asked about this uncertainty, and they assured me I wasn't autistic.

I later developed an intense interest in theatre. Improv in particular was so fun and so informative. It was like getting a crash course in how people operate and interact with one another. And it was a language in which I could communicate back. I was praised for my creativity, but there was always a limit.

I'd reach a point in rehearsals and things, multiple times where... A director, a teacher, whatever would get so frustrated because... Something felt false to them. They'd tell me that I was acting as though I were telling a great story but that it didn't feel real or true. I would push myself further and further to try to reach this elusive sense of authenticity.

But now I have think that this was way off base... The problem was never what I was doing. I wasn't guarded. I wasn't refusing to emotionally engage with the material or the audience. No, the problem was.. it came across as false to them, because my authentic and genuine expressions in day to day life come across as inauthentic to people. *I* feel false to neurotypical people. But it's not because I'm inauthentic, it's because I'm different.

I've never had this problem with other autistic friends. And there have been many. They were always my best friends.

[garrettwrites]

About the last post. Genuinely. I think if you've never interacted with kids for prolonged periods of time you should not speak of their cognitive development, and/or "knowledge by age". I think far too many of you either forget how YOU were as a child/pre-teen/young teen, or just had such an out there experience it shouldn't be counted.

Children know what sex is because many of us actually learn about reproduction way before puberty hits. I learned it with the "little seed" analogy in second grade when the teacher had us plant beans in yogurt cups with cotton serving as soil. I've had real sex ed since fifth grade (the best time to learn, since many kids go through puberty around that age). I loved animal documentaries as a young child and guess what - lions have sex in those (in the words of Eminem - "Of course they're gonna know what intercourse is / By the time they hit fourth grade / They've got the Discovery Channel, don't they?"). Some kids just pick up puberty books at eight at the library and read them, or look it up online. Some kids have a younger sibling or cousin be born and their parents explain to them where the baby comes from. Kids make sex jokes too, learn them from their peers or adults. In some cases they might have ended up on the wrong corners of the internet, but that's not the norm (although I do remember all of us on technology class in seventh grade secretly gathering around one of our classmate's computer to look at boobs on google images. Boys and girls alike. It was novelty for us, since up until then we had only seen our mother's or granny's).

Sure. A nine year old won't generally know exactly how intercourse goes, how pregnancy can happen. But many know the bases.

Kids also learn about death early on. I learned it in first grade, and remember being terrified. I spoke about it with my mother in metaphors - I went up to her each night asking about "the pigs going away forever", because that's how I felt comfortable talking about it without directly asking "what happens to ME when I die".

Many kids, such as myself, learn about violence first hand. By abuse. By bullying. Maybe by simply witnessing it instead of being on the receiving end.

The same people who hate children and complain about toddlers existing in a public bus are the ones spreading rethoric of "if a kid knows X they're probably being abused" like be real. Especially nowadays where most kids are in front of a screen before they can even read.

Learn the actual signs of abuse. A child isn't being molested just because they joke about dicks and vaginas. A child isn't going through domestic violence just because they repeat some joke they overheard. A child isn't living in hell just because they play pretend torture with their dolls. Lord.

[archivalofsins]

I'm about to complain about something that's been bugging me more since I started writing theories, and it's gonna be phrased harshly. People hate the art of storytelling. They hate the act of reading words on a screen with no visual stimulus.

They can say I love reading all they want but most of the time, it comes with bells and whistles attached. It always does. I've been writing since I was a kid. Since I was in the fourth grade honestly and the only time my writing has been genuinely enjoyed or appreciated by others was back then writing horror stories for school assignments having classmates pass it around and point out what part they liked and say why.

It wasn't a matter of the stories being good or more fun to write than what I write now. I always enjoy myself writing. No it wad.the fact that I had an audience that took my art for what it was. When they passed it around there weren't comments like oh this would ve so cool to seen drawn our, animated, or dramatically read aloud. It was just taking for the art form it was.

I went to an arts high school the only schools in the city I grew up in while I was a kid were technical high schools. If you wanted to go to a school and you were born in the city and didn't magically spawn into existence at high school age well fuck you- You've now got to lie about your address and go to a charter school a town over and hope they don't find out or the staff was cool about it.

All the high schools were mostly for people who lived outside of the city and wanted a place that looked good on college applications. My first choice wasn't an art school either. I put writing to the side going into high school. I actually went through the entrance exam of a technical high school with a focus on robotics because I had an interest in robotics with a focus on its medical applications. But through multiple things out of my control I ended up in an arts high-school going to three selerate high schools throughout my high school years and graduation from this one.

I majored in graphic design there a subsection of the visual arts department. That consisted of traditional arts, radio and television, and graphic design. I learned later that they had a writing program there was a journalism major but ya know that's nit art anymore so by the tine I got there guess where that was exactly where traditional art is now it was cut. The only remnant of a writing program being the radio and television major, the main focus of the major was mostly on directing and editing but it went over script writing as well.

Where'd traditional art go probably integrated into the graphic design major given how tech heavy making art is now a days. They deemed it too old-fashioned, and by the time my junior graduated, our art teacher (the only one who hadn't quitl was teaching history. The majors were pretty conjoined anyway graphic design majors did have traditional art classes as well. Not many took it seriously to some graphic design majors tradition art was very much beneath them and they didn't want to be lumped into the same department as those weird traditional artists with their comics and manga scripts. The major was underfunded and you were expected to buy your own supplies to build a portfolio and restock on them when needed.

There wasn't paint or easels or all that good stuff one year an old hot glue gun literally caught the classroom on fire and we had to do art classes from the science room for two months. While also fundraising fir repairs to the art room. You'd think students that at the bottom of the barrel would probably have more respect for overlooked art forms. But not really I wrote rough drafts of novels in high school and when speaking about without fail,

"Huh you think someone's actually going to read all that in this age comics and manga are the onky things that can sell."

This was in 2010. I honestly don't expect anyone to read all this. Because I haven't put in some large words, or pictures or made an obligatory meme like

Art school students be like

Can another person even imagine the hoops I have to jump through to keep writing engaging for an audience- Oh wait you don't have to you can literally see the evolution of it through the posts I made here. Every time I mention writing their are so many people who either draw or don't who will say things like that'd be cool to see drawn or in any other medium than the one you're doing it in. That doesn't seem like a love of storytelling to me. That doesn't seem like an appreciation of writing to me.

I've entered writing competitions the first step explain all this in threw sentences, one, if you had to describe it in three words what would they be, alright give me the elevator pitch. Make it shorter, so I know if it's worth reading, we have a lot of applicants if the description isn't engaging enough I'll just skim it write some feedback and move on, if you can't even do this much are you even a writer. To even get a book selling we writers basically have to be social media influencers or their own marketing team now a days.

The people judging writing don't even seem to enjoy reading. I make the fact that I don't like drawing in any capacity it doesn't fill me with enjoyment very clear. I would shout from the tables rooftop with the largest megaphone,

"I HATE DRAWING I DON'T WANT TO DO IT EVER IT FILLS ME WITH NO JOY I THINK DOING IT SUCKS!"

If could so tell me why someone despite me telling them this upon seeing my ocgram went,

"I know you don't like drawing but minigrams for this would be so cool."

This was someone who actually enjoys drawing by the way. Like, man, I wonder what would make that possible outside of suggesting I pick up a pen and do something you admit to knowing I don't like. You think I haven't heard this before- you think I haven't been told a billion times that my art form would be better if it just wasn't my art form. If I just phrased things a little better or coddled readers more. You think this feedback is unique this is a Tuesday for me. You wouldn't tell a visual artist they should open up word and write a summary on every piece they draw to go alongside it. Hell, most don't even put image description for the visually impaired to make it accessible when they post their art most of the time but others do it for them.

That's the difference in expectation between writers and visual artists that's the gap. If a writer wants to write they're told to draw if an artist wants to dabble in writing, though they're so cool actually and can do no wrong it's just for fun and the arts great as usual. Because writing is just appetizers that people pretend in the entree now. No one even cares to talk about the plot of anything.

It's not like writing matters, and if it goes against viewers' expectations, they're more likely to dismiss it and say it was written wrong. That's how little value it holds to the modern consumer, and I have every right to be pissed about it. Because it's fucking annoying.

[doritoplayz-xi]

Probably not the first person to say this but bullying feels like it’s been far too normalized for what it is. It’s often a plot point in a coming of age story and treated like a usual thing, or the bullying is minimized by the plot saying the bullies have something going on at home. Like okay, still doesn’t excuse the bullies actions.

Personal story time:

I’ve been bullied a lot. Don’t remember how often because eventually it just became normal. It was normal for the kids in school to whisper behind my back and not want to talk with me.

But as I’ve grown into my identity the bullying has shifted to just straight up transphobia at points. What used to be “look at how fat name is” became “oh sorry it’s” said like I’m a freak or something.

Side track, sorry: strong believer that there are no pronouns that are prematurely dehumanizing (I.e it/it’s) it’s how someone uses those pronouns.

Back on track. Sometimes the transphobic mixes with the bullying. Like my second day of school I’m in biology, in a seat I picked out before some boys came in. They sit at my table. Fine whatever we don’t have a lot of group work that needs my input.

Attendance is called. I usually raise my hand or wave cause speaking sucks ass. But the teacher was looking down and well I felt okay speaking. I say here, but at the same time one of the boys mocks my voice and does a high pitched thing. Teacher doesn’t notice.

And I don’t really want to bring it up because someone could easily say I’m overthinking or overreacting. It’s not like last year where I had a god send of an advisor and world lit teacher.

Adding on to that, last year I did speak up to my world lit teacher. Not much really happened because my evidence mostly was “boys I don’t know are laughing at me and mocking my pronouns, plus not respecting the heavy subject we’re reading”.

It’s easier when it’s a teacher I trust. And I think that’s another problem with bullying. Personal story number two: in fourth or fifth grade some, really most, of my classmates did not like me. I was the kid who talked a lot about stuff I liked and had this “weird obsession” with cats. (At the time I had three. Sue me for loving them)

I’m in some gifted and talented program, don’t recall what for. (Probably being gifted and/or talented). I semi trust the teacher for the program and speak up on how I’m kind of uncomfortable with how some girls in class treat me.

Teacher says that “they tease evreyone” and that it’s really no big deal. Now that I’m writing this I’m sure it was fourth grade but it could have been early fifth. But teasing everyone is still bad. It’s fine with friends if your friends are cool with it, but a whole class of kids? Someone (me) is going to internalize that or its feeling.

This ramble really is just me saying, if you as a teacher can’t see that a kid may be genuinely upset about the “harmless” stuff (especially on elementary where things are more likely to stick) you are kinda maybe failing at your job.

Not to say that every teacher who doesn’t notice that is failing. Elementary teachers usually teach all the subjects and are with the class all day. But if a student comes up and voices their discomfort, don’t brush it off.

Real personal, heads up mention of suicide:

In the tail end of fifth grade I was diagnosed with clinical depression because i wrote a suicide note. It wasn’t fun. The most I remember is I got a Wendy’s frosty, a small fear of hospitals and I missed out on a cookie rally.

When I came back everyone in my class was nicer. Started treating me like I had feelings. Because they felt “bad”. I’m going to go on a rant real quick but, oh you felt bad? I threatened to kill myself and now you realize your actions have consequences? You didn’t think calling this kid weird and insulting them was bad until the consequences of your actions were laid out in messy handwriting? Yes I did write the note at pick up time. Story for later. I’m really sorry it took my mom rushing home from work the minute she was notified for you to realize your words have impact. I’m so sorry your head was so far up your ass to see that shit. Sorry you forgot the fucking golden rule.

Sorry, I clearly still have strong feelings about this. Some more personal tidbits I want to get out before a big old conclusion.

Some kids asked me why I changed my name because my dead name was pretty, had never spoken to me before this. I have a hard time accepting any genuine compliment unless it’s from internet strangers, because y’all don’t know how “ugly” I am. I did lose a majority of my friend group due to a joke poorly explained which I probably blogged about. So now I’m like 2 close friends, 2 friends and one acquaintance. And it will not change. Mocked for my “crushes” in elementary because i latched on to the people who didn’t treat me like a freak. Also thought romance was non-optional.

Okay, sorry one more rant that I think fits more to online spaces. Covid totally changed the way people interact on the web right? Like before fandom was for the nerds and even the more popular shows had nerd filled fandoms. Seen several people talk about it but Covid just kinda opened up fandom to everyone, because what else would you do. Watch paint dry?

And so now fandom is more trendy and people hate on simple stuff like self or crack ships. As people far more invested in fandom space than I have said, the popular kids started to get in but they didn’t respect fandom rules. They just kinda wormed in and because their popular expected things to go their way. Idk, just thought it was fitting.

Oh and I’m not touching how bigotry overall is being normalized with shit like “womp womp” and “the world kept spinning”. Also not touching zero tolerance policy because by god is this post long.

Okay. Conclusion. Maybe.

My take? Bullying is normalized and treated like nothing despite most schools championing a zero tolerance policy. It’s often ignored or swept under the rug.

Since most of my bullying was in my early years it stuck with me that although it was wrong, no teacher would stand up for me. That’s fucked up. If kids are basically taught tell no one it won’t matter either way, something bad is bound to happen.

I’m lucky I have a great family and a therapist to talk to about this. But some kids don’t. School can be a safe space. Don’t let it be ruined.

In a perfect world no one would bully anyone and we’d all be fine with people having differences. But unfortunately life sucks. People are jerks and sometimes it’s easier to just keep your head down and say nothing.

Don’t listen to that advice though. It sucks and is probably why I’m on antidepressants.

[glitchbirds]

started watching the his dark materials tv adaptation earlier this week- something that i had meant to do back in 2019 when it began and never quite got around to. started s3 yesterday so i should get the remaining 7 episodes under my belt within the next few days genuinely it is fascinating to watch an adaptation of a series that i read only once, when i was ten years old, but which left such a profound impression on me that i have consistently cycled back to it for years and years (esp when its such a complex, sprawling fantasy world-or several worlds, really- that its adapting)

as ive mentioned Several times over the years- maybe not on this particular account though-, i was gifted an omnibus copy of all three books in one by my older brother, either for christmas or my birthday i cant remember, sometime before the 2007 movie came out (meaning i had to have been 10 at the absolute oldest when i started reading them, though maybe 11 by the time i finished?). i also very clearly remember The Controversy surrounding them among christians, mainly because of a few comments by classmates but more importantly because my (fourth grade, iirc?) teacher pulled me out of class one day to tell me the book i was reading was sinful and atheist and against god and etc (which made me cry very hard </3 even though she told me i could still read it. this was back when my dad still took me to (catholic) church on a semi-regular basis to appease my grandmother as well as sunday school (run by my older cousins) and at least a year or so before i started to develop a modicum of critical thought towards deep south church teachings. i was petrified of the idea of going to hell and scared to do anything whatsoever to jeopardize my chances) (this did not stop me from reading the book however, because i enjoyed it too much. but i also have a clear memory of reading the book every chance i got w/o paying much attention to what was happening around me and one day realizing that i was reading it while at church service and mentally freaking out that i was doing something sacrilegious and trying to force myself to stop reading. i think i spent about 10 minutes bored out of my mind before i, internally apologetic, went back to reading) luckily my parents seemed unaware or unphased by the fearmongering- i assume my mother never noticed, or this was before she started to become insane from fox news poisoning; my dad i think brought it up briefly because of a flyer he saw but wasnt overly worried about it- because i saw the movie in theaters (i liked it ok; have never seen it since, i want to now though) and also acquired the ds game (tbh i enjoyed it despite it being tie-in garbage and me being v bad at video games as a kid; i never managed to beat it though) and later the wii game (bad </3 never got far into it)

Anywayyyy. again i have never since reread any of the books or read any of the other novellas and the like philip pullman has written set in the same world, though im itching to do that now; and ofc while ive skimmed through wiki articles and the like to refresh my memory on things, my memory of most of the plot points in the books are heavily based on My Perspective As A Ten Year Old Child. i remember the first book the best, a decent amount of subtle knife, and can only recall a few specifics of amber spyglass, and its only now while revisiting the world by watching the tv show that im getting a proper, more well-rounded view of the symbolism and messaging and Authorial Intent(tm) behind the series, because of course a lot of this shit flew right over my stupid little child brain as a kid. once i got to the third book i started to understand, vaguely, why my teacher didnt want me reading this book and why there was a backlash against the movie, but a lot of things that are obvious to me now (and would have been obvious if i read the series just a few years later, really) just did not compute for a 10 y/o. which ofc does not mean that i think its a Bad thing i read them that young but all of ^ that turns watching this series into a mix of "oh i remember that" "oh i know whats coming up" "oh my god i forgot that this is from HDM, this has influenced so many creative projects over the years w/o me even realizing it" "oh they skipped over it but i know in the books there was a scene here that i loved and that has stuck with me forever" "i dont remember this from the books but it extrapolates perfectly from what i remember about these characters" "oh my god was the symbolism here really that obvious and i still didnt pick up on it" etc etc etc ANYWAYYYY. my actual review of the tv series so far: -season 1 in particular is sorely lacking in how it portrays daemons and it made me increasingly sad. daemons were without a doubt my favorite thing from these books and one of my favorite things in a work of fantasy Ever to the point where over the years i have Repeatedly decided to sit down and spend a ridiculous amount of time painstakingly plotting out what daemon i think (x) character from (x) piece of media i enjoy, would have. many of which are still committed to memory. i fucking love daemons as a concept and i wish this shit was public domain so any piece of fiction i write could utilize them forever. i get budget issues exist or w/e but whyyyy would you adapt a series where every character in a world would have a cgi animal with them at all times if you couldnt actually show those cgi animals in more than a handful of scenes per episode and only for (some) major characters and only if they had a speaking role in that scene and also occasionally just have them teleport instead of showing them walking from one room to the next and also crowd shots are fucking barren. its like watching a live action pkmn tv show where pokemon are onscreen for a combined 5-10 minutes out of 60 minute episodes. s2 is a bit better about it but it also spends significantly more time in other worlds where daemons arent visible so ig its easier to budget in more daemons in scenes that take place in lyras world. no idea about s3 yet though ofc the mulefa are coming so We'll See how they handle the cg there

-i do think the cg animal animation looks good though. like its not "i believe there is an actual snow leopard in the room" photorealism but not only is that something i do not particularly care about, i think daemons looking a little unreal is actually perfect. they are physical manifestation of human souls and are in-universe immediately distinguishable from identical animals of the same species... it works

-s2 in general is a significant improvement on s1 not just in the daemons but in the overall pacing and character exploration imo; which is surprising considering its the season cut short from covid lockdown; and also a bit sad since, again, most of what i remember is from the first book and thus many of my fondest memories of the books were things that were either skimmed over in the first season or cut out entirely </3 ALAS.

-iorek and iofurs fight didnt go as hard as it shouldve </3 they didnt even show iorek ripping iofur's jaw off... he was killed in the blurry bg behind lyra. how are you gonna let the 2007 pg-13 movie kick more ass at talking armored polar bears fighting to the death

-am i crazy or is the alethiometer just not used much in the tv series compared to the book... maybe the movie+games clouded my memory, or maybe its the fact that in the show there's rarely any elaboration as to what the symbols could mean or which symbols lyra is using for her questions/what she's interpreting. almost every scene of it being used blurs together and i wouldnt be shocked if some show-only fans think its a stupid plot device with no rhyme or reason behind the symbols, when imo i think you can at least roughly intuit many of the meanings, though obviously not to the extent that a reader could interpret full accurate sentences

-some really really strong casting for like 99% of the roles in this show, i love most of the changes theyve made from the books wrt to casting decisions, my only significant gripe is of course. why did you have to do lee scorseby like that. i loved lee a lot. i remembered him so fondly. why'd you have to give lin manuel miranda that one. just absolutely devastating to me personally (though the choice to have andrew scott as will's father was v funny to me because lin manuel miranda and moriarty from bbc sherlock hanging out together for a huge chunk of s2 has to have appealed massively to a very particular subset of tumblrina)

-again i read these books when i was 10 so the concept of "characters can be bad people but also really well written and enjoyable to spectate" hadnt really settled in my mind yet so i really have no idea if this fully applies to the book version of her but oh my godddd i love mrs coulter in this series. yes she kidnaps children and rips their souls apart from them yes she drugs her own daughter and holds her captive yes she murders people indiscriminately without remorse etc. and she rules <3

-similarly the changes theyve made to the golden monkey are Fascinating...

-i loved lyra and pan with my whole heart when i was her age and it is really :,) to now be fully an adult and see her again. waughh. i love how almost everyone she meets loves her too (i will not stand for ppl watering it down to found family fanfiction tropes. but She Is So Loved.)

-i think its cool that boreal went from being a fairly minor character in the books to one of the main antagonists for a hot minute. he was fun :)

-i dont remember having strong feelings about mary malone as a kid but i really like her here. i havent gotten to this point in the show yet but im aware they tweaked her backstory to make her a lesbian as well, which is just delightful to me

-will's relationship w/ his mother and particularly the way the book describes her mental illness from will's perspective was so, So important to me as a kid and the thing i remembered best from subtle knife, and i wish the show had dwelled on it a liiiittle more? in particular, the bit where will thinks about when he first realized something was up and his mother wasnt just playing a "game" with him and was actually terrified of a nonexistent threat, when he was seven and they were shopping for groceries, and how he realized then and there that he needed to take care of her and protect her- that stuck w/ me very strongly as a kid and i wish the show had found a way for will to talk about it with lyra, there were a couple points where i thought he was going to bring it up. maybe this season??

fun fact i started writing this post at like 10 last night. i gotta put a stop this rn

[soaringsearingphoenix]

hi i just woke up so this post is gonna be long

Dream Vocab of the Day: criven/ crivening

Real word when awake?: technically "crivvens!" is a Scottish "exclamation of surprise, sometimes used for comedic effect" which I imagine is a definition missing some detail. But i hadnt heard of it until I looked it up just now, i dont think

Obvious influence of a real word?: no

Definition in dream: to ramble, specifically to tell a long story out of its personal importance to the speaker despite it not necessarily being 'on-topic', but where others may be too polite to interrupt (for example, when a parent talks about their kids, or when an adult talks about a moment of nostalgia for their childhood.) It happens when the speaker gets a little bit too emotional about what they're saying for the event setting, or for the level of closeness with present company, especially if they are trying to mask the fact that they're getting a bit emotional by continuing to talk Children cannot criven. Crivening is based on its context in situations with etiquette that doesnt really apply to children, as its more expected of them to chat without a fully developed sense of timing cues, and to openly express how they feel when they do. It's kind of a minor faux pas you make at a gathering, like a business dinner party, by holding the floor for too long, and being very genuine about it, when the situation dictates mostly inconsequential small talk. An important feature also seems to be that the speaker doesn't necessarily realize they're doing it, so an infodump is not the same as a criven because it can occur anywhere rather than exclusively at large social gatherings, and the speaker may be self-aware that they are infodumping.

Encountered in dream?: Yes, a lady was doing it and got accused of doing so by her husband, which she instinctively protested but then changed her mind. In the dream I was intending to go to a cousin's school play, and as i walked i encountered a crowd including a teacher whose name reminded me of my fourth grade teacher's name. The lady had also known a teacher with a similar name and talked for a few minutes about how lovely a teacher the woman had been, at which point her husband said "I think this is the first time I've seen you crivening," to which she said "I am Not crivening!" later, they showed me a dark green felt fedora, and the woman explained it had been her father's - "we called it his Crivening Hat because he used to wear it on formal outings" and apparently he was pretty chatty; he sounded like a nice man, but frequently a very sincere one too

[startingtomorrowblog]

My When, Where, How, Why?

When I was in fourth grade, my teacher called my mother to discuss my progress in class. I remember feeling nervous and afraid that I had done something wrong. I was constantly moving schools and I had just transfered into this school the previous year. From what I remember, I wasn't doing the greatest in my course work. But to my suprise, my teacher boasted about my performance in class. She told my mom that I had a gift, and that I should pursue writing. In that very class is where I learned that when developing any essay, to include your when, where, how, and why. This past year has been one of the most complicated, confusing, and uncomfrotable yet. I just turned 21 last March, and while I look like an adult, am treated like one, and compose myself as one, I still don't feel like one. I'm unsure whether I should blame Covid, my generation, or if this is simply growing pains that every adult faces. What I do know for certain is, I've found myself, lost her, and found her again all within the span of a year. I've transitioned, adapted, overcame, and grieved. While on my journey to face my traumas and finally heal from them, I sought out professional mental health counseling. From there I realized that while we all admit that mental health is the most important thing to care for, I find that there isn't a space to have open and authentic conversations about the topic. I also found myself lost in a sea of influencers and media that had me comparing my journey and lifestyle to those I saw online. 22 year olds who just made their first $100k, micro & macro influencers getting paid to travel, people accomplishing milestones like buying their first home or getting married. To say I felt lost is an understatment. While there are people my age living lavishly, I'm struggling to find where my next meal is coming from. Comprimising my hunger for my cat's meals. While navigating all of this and finding myself stuck in a vast pool of depression and hopelessness, I decided that there needs to be safe space to be authentic and have these conversations that often times people are too afraid to have. There is no shame in seeking out professional mental health counseling, there is no shame in your diagnosis, there is no shame in not having all of your shit together in your twenties. Letters to my Light is my reminder and YOUR reminder to take care of yourself, love yourself deeply, and to always be honest with yourself and others. Be authentic, be genuine, and be true to you.

XOXO Poetry

[avocado-frog]

15 tags 15 mutuals

@the-stray-storyteller but pretend i did this weeks ago

Are you named after anyone? My friend Ail picked my name off a pinterest baby name board during lunch in eighth grade so I doubt it. Sometimes if someone asks I'll pick a random famous Isaac (I have a list of them that I circle through)

When was the last time you cried? I freaked myself out before I had to do a photography presentation back in January and Literally Shut Down and started crying and my teacher thought I was having a seizure

Do you have kids? God forbid.

Do you use sarcasm? Once when I was seven I got a haircut and my friend asked me if i cut my hair and I told him that No I just dyed the ends invisible and he believed me until FOURTH GRADE So yes

What's the first thing you notice about people? Depends. If someone is wearing a bright pink raincoat in July that's probably the first thing I'd notice. But typically idk just what their face looks like

Eye color? Blue

Scary movies or happy endings? I mean you can have both. I like horror movies but I've only seen one that genuinely spooked me (Hereditary scared me out of looking out of car windows) but if it doesn't have a happy ending then it just feels pointless to me

Any special talents? I have the highest Tetris score out of all of my friends does that count? My real answer is that I'm really good at identifying voice actors. I was watching the last of us the other day and I heard Kathleen's voice and immediately guessed that she played a side character in a show I've only seen once in my life like two years ago

Where were you born? Being unspecific and vague I'm going to say somewhere west united states

What are your hobbies? Writing, pretending like i'm writing, the sims 4, throwing things at my mom's boyfriend

Have you any pets? I have!! I have a dog named Minnie Mouse, a dog named Tinkerbell, a dog named Ellie, a hamster named Betelgeuse, and several cats that follow me home from school (Thumper, Leroy, and Belle) and my brother has a snake named William Snakespeare (i'll give you one guess as to who named it) (it was me)

What sports do you play/have played? Today in gym class I got off the exercise bike and twisted my ankle so I'm not exactly cut out for sports I have never played a sport on purpose in my life but I'd do hockey if I had to

How tall are you? I want to lie but I won't 5'0" *and a quarter of an inch* (If you make fun of me i'll invert your kneecaps)

Favourite subject in school? Child development my teacher let me just cut out circles for an hour for full credit, gives out free candy and water, and today I got to see a fight live action twenty feet away

Dream job? I've been wanting to do something in psychology or neuroscience since I was like eight years old

---

Tagging:

@briannaswords @ralpockenlite @alexxjsyk @litbylightning @mynroli @gracien-system @idreamofhamandcheese @bi-karibe-chick @nelliecomet @master-of-the-pigeon-religion @blind-the-winds @calloumii @late-to-the-fandom

[awinfield1589]

September 18, 2023

Enriching and Assessing Young Children’s Multimodal Storytelling

Christy Wessel-Powell, Tolga Kargin, & Karen E. Wohlwend (2016)

Big Takeaway: Because children approach so much of the world around them from an attitude of play, incorporating multimodality and imaginative elements into literacy instruction helps expand the engagement of young learners, strengthen their depth of knowledge and understanding, and provide an assessment tailored to students’ individual strengths.

Nugget: One thing that stuck out to me from Wessel-Powell et al.’s article is all the ways in which the teachers in the study incorporated imaginative elements into their literacy instruction. As a student, I had experienced small insertions of multimodality in literacy instruction, but not to the point where the students and teachers were “all in,” or fully invested. Anything I had ever done similar to this, the teacher never seemed as excited, and thus students didn’t have much excitement, either. It was fascinating to read about and envision the transformation from writer’s workshop to literacy playhouse and how I might be able to incorporate something similar into my future teaching. 

Why Children Need Play

Leong & Bodrova (2018)

Big Takeaway: Play is a cornerstone of learning and holds place in the classroom because it is a developmental opportunity for children to interact with peers creatively and intentionally while growing both socially and cognitively.

Nugget: One thing that stood out to me in particular from this article was the idea of “unproductive” play and how play at home does not always have the same benefits as play at school. I had never heard the term unproductive play before, but it makes sense in that some play ends up as arguing or becomes redundant and is not as beneficial to children as genuine, thoughtful play. 

Building Language and Literacy Through Play

Scholastic (2018)

Big Takeaway: Play in the classroom provides learners with the opportunity to develop their language and literacy skills in a natural, imaginative environment, and teachers can foster play in the classroom by providing props and opportunities for students to engage in play. 

Nugget: Something that stood out to me in this article was the importance of teachers providing students with the opportunity for dramatic play and equipping them with the tools they need to play well. I had never thought about providing adequate play materials, or props, before, but this article revealed how props are supportive of high level play. 

Readerly Exploration:

I chose to do my Readerly Exploration on the Wessel-Powell et al. article. For this readerly exploration, I FaceTimed my younger sister, Nicole, to get her perspective and insight on the idea of multimodality in literacy instruction and assessment. Although most high school seniors would likely not have extensively meaningful consideration of this topic, Nicole is currently interning at our former elementary school in a fourth grade classroom and aspires to be a reading specialist or literacy instructional coach. She and I are very different learners as well, which is important to note regarding both of our experiences with multimodality in literacy. First, I shared the article with Nicole, and she skimmed through it. I then pointed her to the first and last page to read more deeply, and then I asked what she thought of the article and if she had experienced this kind of instruction as a student, and since she has, I also asked for her perspective as a learner. The first thing she said to me after reading this article was, “This makes so much sense- why doesn’t everyone teach this way?” The concept of multimodality and allowing students to tap into their imagination and natural inclination towards play made so much sense to her. Although not to the same extent as the study, Nicole had a similar learning experience in 5th grade that she remembers quite vividly. Students were tasked with creating a project instead of taking a test- their options included a movie, a commercial, a play, and various others that tapped into different modalities and required creative thinking. She loved this experience, especially since at the time she struggled significantly with test anxiety. When she reminded me of this, my understanding broadened relating to the assessment component of this. Conventional assessments are often stressful for students, something I did not think about the first time I read the article. Changing the mode of assessment not only enhances creativity and allows students to tap into their “play” mindset and strengths, but it also eliminates some of the pressure and stress from traditional testing. My understanding of the importance of multimodality in literacy instruction goes beyond how it allows students to play into their imaginative strengths, but it can also ease assessment anxiety and allow students to demonstrate their knowledge in a way that is engaging for them. 

Multimedia Component:

While FaceTiming, Nicole and I also talked about our overarching elementary school literacy assessment experiences- it was very interesting to compare the vastly different experiences we had. She had much more experiences of multimodal storytelling than I did, and she really enjoyed it, while I did not enjoy my few experiences as much.

[trashedump]

i ran into my old fourth grade teacher while out with my parents today and it was super sweet, my dad mentioned i use a different name and pronouns now and she seemed really happy for me!! i should also mention he didn’t say outright my pronouns changed, just off-handedly used they/them and she understood without us needing to explain. later she used the wrong pronouns once accidentally but immediately corrected herself, and was overall really nice about it

i know this might not sound like much but it was weirdly reassuring for me, especially after dealing with a lot of misgendering this summer :’) it’s nice to see someone actually be aware of their mistakes without needing to be reminded, not to mention being genuinely happy to find out i’m nb?? like there’s Accepting it and there’s being actually excited for someone when they come out yknow?? anyway just thought i’d share this one positive Trans Moment i had, goodnight

[sys128]

The Happy Post

I will warn you: this entire thing is about a half-hour read, which easily some of the longest things I have typed in a while. This was calculated by taking the number of words in the document and dividing by my personal talking speed. This half-hour metric is not going to be very consistent because people do things at their own pace, so sorry to my psychology teacher (Shoutout!), who has to read this whole thing. Good luck grading.

In introduction, one of the most important things in life is to remain positive. This is mainly because of the benefits we can reap from it. The things we do and experience greatly impact on our outlook on life. Here, I have compiled multiple lists on things that are generally positive and my thoughts and experiences that connect with them. This was originally made as a project for my psychology class but I am more than willing to make it a blog post. I guess you could say I thought real positively about my project, huh? Huh? … Sorry...

Five things I am grateful for

1

Love. Love is a general concept, and multiple ways exist to describe and experience it. The first of which I will mention is family love. Family love is the main sign of a healthy relationship in the household. It has to be genuine love, though, because people in the world take it out of context and then do nasty things with it. That would be the case for any kind of love, actually. That is how we get fake friends. Speaking of friends, that is the second kind of love that I want to mention. Family and friends are perhaps the two most important things someone needs in their lives. It is different with friends, though, because one may need more friends than others. Think about introverts. Even having one single friend will positively affect your life. There was a saying I once heard that having five friends that care a lot about you is more important than having tons and tons of them that don’t care very much about you, even after you pass away. The third and fourth parts of love are the ones I tend to be most curious about, especially in the stage of life I am in right now: romantic and sexual love. I am putting those two together to explain them simultaneously because they often go hand in hand for some people. Around the adolescent years, people begin to truly explore themselves and discover who they truly are and who they want to be with in the future. I am no stranger to this experience. I had to revise my goals often to find the type of people I would rather be with. The biggest thing would have to be the target gender of people. In 2019, I was 14 and started thinking much more about this. At the time, I just went with the flow of what everyone else was doing, which affected my general attitude substantially. I began researching LGBTQ+ issues near the end of the year.

At first, I found it hard to understand why some things were the way they were, especially at 14. I had conformed to what was deemed correct in society for my whole life up to that point. For a while, I was confidently incorrect about the things I was observing, which of course made me look kind of stupid. There are records on the internet of me being quite ignorant about certain things. Of course, as the saying goes, people change. When I was 15, I started to think about my connection to this newfangled "LGBTQ+" thing and started to try out different things. This would also mark a transition point in my life. The first thing I tried was asexuality, the lack of sexual attraction. I quickly found that it didn’t work out for me because I still had some thoughts that clearly stated otherwise, so I retracted that. My first real crush took form in late January of 2021, and to my surprise, it was not a woman like I thought it would be. It was a male-aligned, non-binary person (they would later identify as a demi-boy). When I first noticed this, I thought, "There is no way I am falling for a guy right now," and I tried to obscure these thoughts. But they did not go away, no matter how hard I tried. A relationship would start between them and me the following month. That same day, I started using the "biromantic" label for myself and later "bisexual" to include the sexual side. They helped me on my way to finding the kinds of people I loved. I don’t know what I would do now if it weren't for them. Much more progress was made on the exploration front, and May 31, 2022, would mark the day when I fully came out as gay. Of course, as most first-times go, some instability was involved, and it eventually fell apart. (We eventually made amends and moved on.) A pattern you begin to see as you progress through life is that nothing lasts forever. Everything you know has an end to it at some point. Family members start to die out, friends move away and eventually die or maybe even not enjoy you anymore, and of course, relationships end. The best thing to focus on is not their absence, but the opportunity to spend as much time as you did with those people, making an impact on both sides of life and having more memories of you, good or bad. Love is a strange thing, but I cherish it with every fiber of my being and look forward to what it has in store for me when I become an adult.

2

Forgiveness. Forgiveness is a bandage for a lot of things. There have been countless times in my life when I have had to forgive somebody for something that they did wrong if it benefited both sides in the future. Why is it so important to me? Mainly, it is just because, well, it works! It sometimes takes me a while, but it works! Usually, forgiveness leads to positive outcomes, depending on what sort of situation I was in at the time the bad thing happened. In recent memory, I can recount two days when I had to use forgiveness. About a week ago, there was a basketball game at my school where my current town had to play against the town I grew up in. I found this to be the perfect opportunity to meet up with some people I used to talk to back in elementary and middle school. Before then, I was kind of in a rough spot with them. In middle school, I was greatly affected by my old classmates, to the point where I had mental troubles going into high school, which lingered on until my sophomore year of high school. There were two prominent people involved with it, but I will not give out either of their names out of respect for privacy. The situation was especially bad in 7th grade, where I used to get bullied by them to oblivion. It also made me do things that I would come to regret later on, like the deletion of old social media accounts and my self-isolation from the crowd. At that game, I recounted all of these factors that affected me and found something good in them. These factors jumpstarted my goal to become a better person. I also took note of the age we were all at when everything happened and decided that I should not worry about them anymore. I forgave them. I later logged on to an old account of mine and contacted one of the people that used to pick on me, and we had a truce. That lifted some pressure that I felt for a while, especially since I used to be opposed to the idea of returning to my old hometown. Now, I don’t mind if I ever come back to that place. There was something else that happened that was related to friends recently. There were two friend groups that existed almost separately from each other. They were in this state because of a big fight that had happened the previous year. It was one that hurt everyone in the group. There was betrayal, deceit, humiliation, and snitching. All of that happened over the course of a couple of hours. It had felt sort of like a battlefield, a war between sides. After that whole fiasco, there was over a year of separation. Both sides sat at a standstill, minding their own business.

That was until one day, a member of the other group decided to form a group with both sides of the party in it. Perhaps there was some back-and-forth behind the scenes that led them to ultimately decide to keep things the way they used to be and perhaps even recount the mistakes they made by splitting up. I was, of course, added to this group as well. I quickly realized there was no longer any pressure on either side. Everything seemed to have simmered down. My friend, who used to be on my side post-split, said that everything that happened was caused by the heat of the moment, and actually, most of that tension simmered out sooner than we all had previously thought. At least, that is how I interpreted it. There was one guy in particular from the other side with whom I used to have a bit of beef that we both apologized to each other for, and with that also came forgiveness. Those weren’t the only people I forgave that night. I also noticed that I started to feel guilt for what I said behind those people’s backs. That gave me another lesson: the art of forgiving yourself. It also ties back to some of the past mistakes I made in middle school with the hometown situation. It was also important to forgive myself for those too, but it was okay to still feel some regret. The most important thing to take away is to learn from your mistakes and use that newly learned information to make yourself a better person in the long run. Funny enough, this also ties in to the next thing I am grateful for.

3

Self-improvement. Self-improvement and self-awareness and things I cherish more than forgiveness, but not as much as love, but it gets kind of close to that spot. I make important lessons for myself based on what happens during that day. Almost every single one of those days has something for me either to review or something new to take away. These lessons usually relate to either my strengths or weaknesses, which I have found many for in each, especially in the past year. I would say that during that timeframe, I have learned more about myself than at any other time in my life. It has also gotten to the point where I find some lessons more important to me than others. One that I have learned recently comes from when I was having relationship issues with my ex-boyfriend (even though they went by they/them pronouns, they were fine with calling it a fully homoromantic relationship), and I was starting to feel really bad without having someone like them to love. This had affected me for about a couple of months, especially during the summer of 2022. However, this did not last for too much longer after the school year started, because the more I felt this, the more I started to notice how other people got over their own breakups. This led to a lesson I have been learning for the past month. It sounds counterintuitive at first, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense: if you want to look for another relationship, stop actively looking for one. Put simply, the reason it does not work as well otherwise is because of desperation. People hate desperation. If you go with the flow and just talk to people, it will eventually happen. The more people you talk to, the more likely it is that you will meet your future soulmate. But I also recognize that it is hard to start. You essentially have to give up to eventually be successful, which doesn't sound right at first. The first time I dated, it started this way too, because I was not actively looking for someone who was not a woman at the time. Things like that just happen! Having this in mind has greatly helped me overcome my feelings of loneliness. And you know what? Not only is that part of self-improvement, but an important component to using that technique is to use another thing I mentioned on the list: forgiveness! See, it all ties together in some way! Having done that, I was able to properly make amends with my ex and move on, this time with a focus more on what I have now—friends, family, and talent—than on what I don’t have.

4

Eustress. Eustress is a type of stress that falls under the umbrella term "stress." Eustress refers to positive stress, the type of thing that motivates you and even helps you build skills in the thing that you are doing. Distress, on the other hand, is stress that we all don't want to feel but do. It is that type of stress that demotivates you and causes you all sorts of problems if it happens often enough. Stress is something we all experience in some way, shape, or form, so I am also no stranger to it. Actually, believe it or not, stress is the number one thing I still need to work on at the moment. I tend to turn something that is supposed to emit excitement into distress. But when the good eustress moments happen, that is the type of thing that makes me feel good when I am learning something. I also seem to get a little anxious, and sometimes even angry, when I get stuck on something, such as my homework. This could be for any subject, but it seems to happen the most for my physics and my calculus homework. Some may think that I hate calculus, but in truth, I don’t! I think calculus is fascinating! I just hate when I get stuck on it because I want to understand. However, I am immediately jumping to the conclusion that some things are just too hard for me to do at that moment. I also get worried when I get stuck at every segment of something, because that seems to tell me that a bad grade may pop up once the test comes around because I am not understanding something fundamental over an entire unit. Again, it is not that I hate math — in fact, I love math — I just wish I could understand it. Another example of a common time where I struggle to use stress but think I could benefit from it is when I am playing video games. Like every young boy, I love to play video games. I especially find enjoyment in playing rhythm games, usually 4K, if any of you know what that means in rhythm gaming. There are some days where I just struggle to match the score that I got on a map three weeks ago and decide to call it quits for the session. Rage quitting, if you will. Like what my friend said before in regards to forgiveness, this is usually just in the heat of the moment, and I will always return to it some day, usually the next one. After this happens, I eventually find out what I could have done better in that session. Essentially, the thoughts come in, but they come in too late. It would be best to have them appear during the session. Right, so I have the fundamental goal here and the thoughts that I want to think, but I have to think of a method to actually put those thoughts into practice and use it to have a better time while I am doing my homework or playing games. I have found that eustress is something that takes a little while to implement and has to be done in steps. That way, you can find what works well for you and what does not. Ultimately, it leads to better-developed skills more quickly. Despite having a decidedly underdeveloped idea of how to experience more eustress, I am still grateful for having the ability to experience it at all. Maybe the more I practice using it and find calming techniques, I will be able to overcome the challenge of stress.

5

Intelligence. Because I strive to know lots of things, you could say I have become a bit of a nerd, especially when it comes to technology. In the past couple of years alone, I have taught myself how to use Linux, the Colemak keyboard layout, some programming (enough to collaborate with someone else to create a game in Python), and some stuff about building computers, the last of which started from my fascination with watching my dad do things with computers. Other than that, I have always had a fascination with technology as a whole, as well as math. Math is probably the reason why I was able to get into programming so easily. I think intelligence can tie into knowing what a good life looks like from one's own perspective. It is personalized for the person who has it. I'm sure my life is good, but since I'm still in my teen years, I believe I still have a long way to go before I can live a great and fulfilling life. That will depend on the choices I make when I become an adult. Another cool thing about intelligence is that it does not necessarily have to equate to someone’s general “smart-ness.” I personally believe that someone can still have some form of “intelligence” if they are just an expert in something, even if it’s the most uninteresting, simplest thing that can just be passed off as nothing by everyone else. Everyone is good at something, even if that something is not so useful.

My rankings out of these five qualities to life.

Love

Self-improvement

Intelligence

Eustress

Forgiveness

Acts of Kindness

The second part of this post is to identify two “acts of kindness” that I have done. These were not forced as per project but these just kinda happen naturally. Not to say that they are a bad thing though, assigning someone with the task of doing acts of kindness is a good thing because that gives people a chance to practice things like social skills. Looking back in my week, here are two of the things that fit in the criteria.

Over the past nine months, I have had to help with my mom a whole bunch. This week is no exception. Fun fact, as of submitting this post to Tumblr, my new sister would have been born! Welcome to the world, and Happy 0th Birthday! Anyhow, she has been hitting the age where it hurts more to do some things than before so she has been taking it easy on her bed for a while to make sure both she and the baby were safe. As a result, we had to do a bit more chores around the house. For a while, actually, I barely felt a difference! It felt the same as usual, but my little brother, since he is starting to get a little bit older himself, has definitely seen a bit of an increase in the number of chores he has been asked to do. As you can imagine, he was not very appreciative of that. If it weren’t for the help of the rest of the family, she would have felt a lot more stress too. She has relied a lot of the cooperation of the entire family, and when that happens, it relieves a lot. I can safely assume the effects were positive. She probably couldn’t do much of the chores we had to do with a baby inside of her. And another thing, because of how she is going to the hospital to get the baby out into the world, that also means I get to stay home from school! But that results in a missed holiday party in physics class. Damn it… I guess the more time I have to get other school stuff done, the better, right?

Another family thing that I have been working on this past week, or really these past few months, is improving my relations with my little brother. We have never been the nicest to each other, meaning he talks too much and I get annoyed, and then he gets annoyed. And then I intensely type, and especially play rhythm games, on my uber-cool mechanical keyboard, and then he gets upset and I get upset. I have been doing things that made him laugh a little more often. Like earlier today, I joked that I was going to put a bit of canned macaroni and beef on his head. The goal here was to make him laugh, and it worked well! One thing that strengthens a bond between two people I have found, was laughter, especially if it is with someone much younger than you are. Kids are well known to be super playful and easy to please given the right circumstances. Being playful is a good way to achieve this. As they say, laughter is the best medicine, including for relationships that are not exactly up to par with standards.

Bucket List

Everyone has goals for what they want to achieve in life. For the third part of this post, I list 10 things that I want to achieve before I die.

In my adult life, I want to explore the world more. Ever since the age of about 11, I have always wondered what it would be like to live in a different place. I have especially found lots of interesting differences in cultures and languages of the world and wonder how much difference there really is if I were to have grown up in those places rather than America. The answer depends on the country. Some are similar to the United States whereas others are about as different as fruit is to empty calories. I project that once I become more financially stable, I will save up for various trips to different states and countries. I currently have a few of these places in mind, those of which being Colorado, Canada, Denmark, and Japan.

Another thing I have been wanting to do is document more of my life. I have done so here and there in my tween-age years and some of my teenage life, but I am personally not a fan of the breaks I would take from doing them and stretch them out into oblivion. I think this will be somewhat fixed with my Tumblr blog, which has so far been proven successful because it captures the time spent on my computer and adds a writing element to it. Sure, it is a 2000s-y way to do it, but it gets the job done and I am very appreciative of it.

There has been a goal I have had in my mind in the past five years or so, but have yet to achieve that goal. That is to learn a second language and become fluent in it. During middle school and high school, I immersed myself into a whole ton of different languages, and they were fun to learn for a while, but the problem lies in the fact that I have never been able to make it stick. I get to around the intermediate level at the very best and then forget everything a few months down the line. This has happened before in my attempts of learning Spanish, Danish, and Russian. I was even considering Toki Pona one day, which is a constructed language not evolved via natural means. At the moment, I am studying Japanese, and so far, results are more promising than they are for the time I was learning Danish.

I have learned a lot from my first and currently only romantic relationship. I aim to use the lessons I have learned from those experiences to do a better job for whoever I end up being with in the future. I currently have a couple of guys in mind but I would have to talk to them more before I spill the beans on them. Not really much else to say here because half of this post so far has been about the different kinds of love, and I have wrung that dry.

As for how I want to make a living, there are two options I want to consider when I get the chance to. One of these is to grab a career in computer science, which I would also say is the more “normal” one as far as jobs go. Those types of jobs are in higher demand than ever before and the need for them continues to grow. I have had some self-taught and professionally-taught experience in programming, and have developed some things already, so I am kinda sure that I am off to a good start. The other thing I wanna consider is finding a way to make a semi-passive income. You know, something where the only work you need is to start it off and maintain it by doing a little bit, and then watch as the revenue trickles in. That is what people do with YouTube. They make videos for a living, and they can do it as often as they want, but results may vary.

Be more physically active and healthy. As it stands right now, I am NOT a very active person. I mostly just kinda sit around and do nothing on my PC. I also eat lots of junk… but it all tastes so good!! That is going to change in some way in my adult life but I have not fully developed how I will go about doing that yet. I know the kind of food that I think would be a better choice for me. I have always been kind of scrawny due to the fact that my metabolism is blazingly fast. Because of this, I think it would be a good idea to look more into protein products and eat more eggs and stuff. I could also do some exercising in some way, but I have not decided on if I wanna go to a gym or get myself some equipment at home. I hope this improves me not only physically, but mentally as well. Both areas are equally as important when someone is exercising. There are numerous articles on the positive effects of both.

I eventually want to try to participate in some voluntary community service. That idea was put forth to me when I was selected for possible recruitment of the National Honor Society last year. One of the requirements was to do a bunch of community service, which I personally find to be a strange requirement, so I did not commit to that. But I think I could benefit from doing things like that in other ways.

Mathematics is something that will be trained more after high school, for sure. If I do good enough in my high school calculus class, then some more math afterward in either a college or individual study is likely. I will probably end up using that new knowledge for more programming work. There are certain areas that I wanna study a bit more in my own time, but those are usually more of a fun thing rather than practical. Take googology for example, which plays around with the idea of inconceivably big numbers. It’s like using long words to sound more intelligent but with numbers instead, it’s great!

There are world records I want to set at some point. I also do not know what they will be but having titles like that would be cool. I do technically have one of these records though but it is for something that would only be important to one of the communities I engage with on the internet. For those of you who know, you know!

There is a concept in humanist psychology that I found quite interesting, that of the hierarchy of needs. This relates to each person’s curiosity with themselves and what they need. The more needs they have that are met, the closer to the top of the triangle they are, where they have fulfilled themselves to the fullest. I want to work towards that status. It may be the hardest of them all but I think it can be done.

Making the World a Better Place

And finally, since I am running out of steam, part 4 is going to be a bit shorter, but it is ways I can make the world a better place for people. I did have to think about this one for a while. I don’t think that I will commit to ALL of these in my life, but doing at least one or two should be enough. I don’t wanna do TOO much without focusing on myself. I believe that there should be a balance of care between others and yourself. But I digress…

I will say it again but voluntary community service. I have talked about this already but just in case I need to mention, it is pretty self-explanatory as to why this would be helpful for the world. The more help in these areas, the better off we are, even if one single person is helping out with things like this. It may not be enough sometimes, but it is something.

I think teaching people things has been a thing I have been doing here and there, but I might have already mentioned that a while ago, but that’s okay. The spreading of knowledge is a good way to increase the intelligence of others!

Use the skills I will build up to make a solution to a problem. There are lots of questions that I would like to answer at some point. Good thing that other people are interested in getting these questions answered too. Perhaps I could help out with finding solutions to those problems.

Continue being nice to other people, and improving on that little by little based on the things I learn around me. At this point, I am repeating a lot of things I have said before in this post but if I keep valuing the things I do, I will continue to improve in this area.

Put more work towards achieving the goals of both me and other people that will contribute to the world of those people. This can be with things like projects that require hard work, whether it be for academics, life, or otherwise.

Donate, which can kind of be part of the community service thing. I will have to wait until I am more financially stable to do this though because I am kinda saving money hardcore at the moment.

Express my creativity to inspire other people to make things in the same vein to whatever I have created, which in itself was inspired from people that made similar things before me. I am in the middle of the chain of a bunch of inspiration that took place before me, and will take place after me.

Wow! You have made it to the end of my post! This was kind of a pain in the ass to put on here. Because before this paragraph is a total of 5,428 words, making this the longest post I have ever put on this site. And what, just for a summative project at school that could have just been done with bullet points? Yeah, that was technically all I needed, but I spent all morning and a good chunk of last afternoon writing all of this! Comes to show how much fun I have with these things!

"You love torturing yourself, don't you?" - infinitysnapz, 2022

Until the next time I post, OoooHH!!! Scary RAi!!!!!

[thenegativitypit]

Look though - and before I start I'm going to be clear that I recognize that not every person in this thread is advocating for this - but abusers and fundamentalists shouldn't be allowed to take a genuine tool and safety measure from us. Homeschooling is not the enemy, people who try to turn their family units into little cults are.

When my brother and I were in school, I was bullied - by other children and adults alike - into complete submission. My second-grade teacher didn't teach us shit, my third-grade teacher tried to pick up the slack, but let's be real - I entered fourth grade nowhere near prepared. (Gee, I wonder if that's why I suddenly became "bad at math" that year?!) Then we had the same teacher as second grade for fifth grade! Great! Almost two whole grade levels behind my peers by the time I transferred schools in sixth grade, and believe me - it showed. I burnt myself to a crisp trying to keep up with the schoolwork that was assigned, to the point that I basically hallucinated my way through eighth and ninth grades. No one caught this. No one noticed.

Correction, my Mom noticed, but the only thing she could think of was to take me out of school, and she'd only heard Very Bad Things about that. So, she didn't.

My brother, on the other hand, didn't enjoy school but it wasn't that horrible. The kids weren't nice, but he had some friends. The teachers assigned way too much homework, but she helped him through it. But as he got older (like third/fourth grade) he started coming home more and more dehydrated. Headaches every single day from dehydration, then because he was, like, nine, he'd come home and guzzle water and then puke and then be ill the rest of the night. My Mom tried to go through the school to allow the children to have water, please, but to no avail.

And eventually this was every single school day, and my Mom - a stay-at-home mom because she was just old enough for that to still be quite common - had had enough and pulled us both out of school.

And just like transferring schools, or being put into a school can save a person's life, my Mom pulling us out of school saved at the very least mine.

She has a microbiology degree, loves history, and has read between one and seven novels a week literally for as long as I can remember, so she dove into teaching my brother. Did they struggle at times? Of course they did. Teaching is a skill, and even if you're great at it teaching is difficult. But he stopped being ill every day, and he learned science, and history, and reading, and (with great effort) math.

Me on the other hand she left to my own devices, mostly. I was brought along on museum trips, but for the most part she left me to my computer and my books. I was sixteen at this point, and I drowned myself in writing projects. You might be surprised to find out that - yeah, as long as there's a basis of knowledge to build off of and resources available, the basic premise of unschooling can actually work.* I used books and the internet and interest generated from wanting my worldbuilding to be better to teach myself about cultures, history, science, art, language, and even that math that I hated and was so desperately behind on.

Perhaps even more importantly, I was allowed to rest for the first time since I'd entered school. I was allowed to attempt to recover. I got enough sleep. I stopped hallucinating. I stopped losing time. I was allowed to have whole weeks pass without being hammered with stress and shame for nine hours a day (eleven to fourteen with homework). Maybe if she'd pulled me out a few years earlier, burnout recovery would have actually been possible. Or maybe not. That's not what happened, so there's no way to tell. What I do know is that I'm still here, walking this bitch of an Earth. I'm not resting in the cold ground, and my parents aren't left wishing there was something they could have done.

Do I want to homeschool any kids I may have? No, not really. I live in a different country now (yes, "home education" is a thing here), and my husband has attested to the school system being significantly better here. But I'll be ready to, if it's necessary. If my child is coming home ill every day and the teachers and school administrators just shrug their shoulders. If they can't keep up and there's no other recourse. If they're so afraid to go to school each day they can't fall asleep at night. If I find bloody razorblades in the bottom of their sock drawer.

So before we jump in and say "homeschooling should be illegal", please consider that maybe the problem isn't homeschooling, maybe the problem is that the system doesn't care about kids - in school or not. It's important to remember that homeschooling is a powerful tool. Yes, it's one that's frequently misused and needs greater oversight. But it's not one that should be taken out of parents' hands outright. If it had been more than twenty years back, I almost certainly wouldn't be here to write this to you. Thank you for reading.

*This is not saying that the people who go "I won't teach my kid how to read or what math is because ✨unschooling✨" are right, they've taken the concept to its absolute extreme and are misusing it entirely. But the basic idea of "provide resources to a child and be open to teaching them when they ask to be taught" has some merit and can work, depending on the personality of the child and, crucially, the willingness of the adult to participate.

Anyway enough lame gifted kid discourse we are in our 20s. Let's talk about how homeschooling in america should be fucking illegal it's insane lol

[perpetual-fool]

-

I'm trying to pivot from the "piece of shit" thoughts to "what does 'right' entail?" Following the analogy, trying to make sense of what happened and how people have responded is the barren asteroid. (And maybe they're pointing me here, responding that way, because they're responding to "how I'm trying to make them feel" which literally just isn't happening.) And I want to look elsewhere for understanding. Not sure how to respond to get there. Like "..POS", "yes and.. what should I be doing instead?"

After that, I still have nothing to work with socially. Best I have is making an analogy to setting up string instruments. You're supposed to be able to just put the strings on, tune it up, done. The lie is, if you spend enough money to get a 'good' one, it'll be perfect. But I've had a number of genuine experiences; setting the viola bridge on a rocker instead of a foot, finding guitar intonates substantially better with a capo, waxing the pegs on my lyre. How did that work? I had a problem, formed a model about what was happening, and the model worked. Had I been pursuing that from the start, the process would've been like.. a series of jr. high-esque science experiments?

(Tangent, there were a couple school assignments to make things that kids of that age would have no fucking idea how to do and it still irritates me a bit. In fourth(?) grade we were told to create a musical instrument that could play at least three notes. The fuck would nine-year-olds even do? pull some rubber bands over a tissue box? We didn't even have a music class at that point. Then in seventh (maybe eighth) we had to build a simple machine with a 2:1 advantage. I think it was like, teacher put a rock down on it, and it had to move another rock double the weight half the distance. And we weren't in any better of a position than before, we still had no ability to make anything. Anyway,)

It would be building up from basic principles. It'd be like, buy some parts from the hardware store and have one string and a tuning peg mounted on a 2x4. Then start adding to that and seeing what happens. What if it's attached to a box? (dulcimer) what if it is the box? (lyre/psaltery) What if it's attached to the box at a different angle? (harp) And that would come with all the little secondary things along the way, like how to mount tuning pegs. And I would have a sense of how everything worked together as a whole, and I'd feel very secure about it, and maybe I'd be happy with it. Although that would have to be in the context of.. something. Say, we're working towards a lyre, and we're going over all the little steps it takes to get there. Contrast will the entire educational system, in which concepts only exist in abstract and never interact with the physical world. Or with every programming tutorial I have ever seen, in which they will happily tell you a hundred different ways the program can interact with itself but never share any ways in which it can create output or accept input. (aside from print/say, obviously)

Applied socially, that would look like what? What are the basic principles of a person? Their concepts, experiences, preferences? Mainly, the world I have for it, 'functions'. Like, given certain circumstances, what effects will certain 'input' have? Say, if I cook a certain food for them, how will they feel about that? That would entail finding out how they feel about all the component flavors and textures (and combinations thereof). I'd have to isolate those variables, like if they don't like mushrooms, try making mushroom broth and see if they dislike the flavor if separate from the texture. Other things would break down similarly. Say they have an experience, I'd need to know what happened, I'd need to know what actually happened, I need to know how they're interpreting what they think happened, then how they feel in response to those interpretations. Maybe, they saw that the fridge is empty, they think that means there's no food in the house, they interpret that to mean we might not be able to eat, and they feel insecure and afraid. Something like that. And I need them to directly tell me most of that. So I'd have to be asking about all these things.

So I have been doing exactly the right thing. And the crooked answers are directly subverting exactly the right thing. And what of that world where no one will admit anything? Having heard some things second-hand, people generally are wildly misunderstanding each other all the time. Real understanding, acceptance, belonging, requires what I just described. I've heard stories, but I can't trust any are true. So a concept I heard of, "emotional cheating", which is forming an emotional connection with someone who isn't your partner. I don't think it's worth my energy to explain why I think the concept is disgusting here. But it's at least mandating that someone isn't allowed to feel a certain way, which means a core part of that person is not acceptable, which just isn't acceptance. It's like it's a bad imitation of the real thing. And it doesn't get better when it's not relationships. Bit of a tangent but I feel like sharing. It makes me think of V's music. And I was sad about it, because it was like she was just imitating the music she's heard and I couldn't make out her 'voice' in it. I thought she could be so much more than that. Now I'm not so sure. Bah, it's just "I don't want to believe that sweet little angel was actually a shitbag" again. Maybe it's a bit more. Like, really what should be most condemning is that I don't know what it was she had a problem with. The least she could have done is tell me what was wrong. But nobody does that. So it's more like: how could someone who superficially appears kind, and acts so beyond the possibility of having ulterior motives, still be fundamentally evil? (And I've concluded before that this must be a deliberate paradox created by the mind goblin to keep me trapped in his illusion.)

But that wasn't the point.

"You're a piece of shit", "Yes, and I should be asking more questions"? A bit of a strange conclusion, since asking questions is primarily what people hate so much. But that doesn't change what's right. It's some solace to know I'm not really missing out. I didn't lose a beloved friend, I slipped off the line after an incompetent manipulator failed to reel me in. I didn't fail to connect or to explain. There's not some secret code that allows everyone else to understand each other that I'm just not privy to. There isn't another way of looking at things that will make everything suddenly make sense. Everything is as fucked as it appears. That's not great, obviously, but erroneously believing I'm wrong puts me in a self-defeating cycle.

M'kay, I'm gonna see if I can scrounge up some dopamine by imagining a nice person or designing game mechanics or something.

[hajicide]

on falling in love during childhood, and never recovering

sitting underneath the californian sun, i realize that i've wanted to kiss you since we were seven and playing on the playground. i scraped my hands and knees that day, tripping on the turf and you looked so worried for me. you helped me pick the little plastic beads off of my skin while i cried for the teacher. you didn't leave even when the snot was dripping down my face and i felt so cared for, so loved, so cherished.

i wanted to kiss you again, in fourth grade. by then the class had divided the cliques into boys and girls, but we still played together. you, me, and our friend named from the constellations. we would pretend to be heroes and villains, cops and robbers. our favorite game was the elements, where i would control wind, he would control fire, and you would control water. we would play on the big kid playground, the one next to the parking lot.

i remember us in class too, a few months before my eleventh birthday. we'd both scored perfectly on the practice spelling quiz, so we didn't have to take the main one. it was just us two that passed, so we spent the twenty minutes the spelling quiz took just sitting on the floor together, reading. i don't know if you remember, but i was being bullied then. but you still looked at me like i was worth something, like i was something to be cared for, cherished, loved, and all that.

i wanted to kiss you again and again, with more and more frequency all through middle school. the day you announced that you were dating one of the older girls from the grade above us, i was destroyed. i made up a fake boyfriend on the spot just so i wouldn't have to hear you talk about her and pretend it didn't hurt. you gave her your first kiss in one of our friend's backyards at night, when the energy of a years-end party started to decline.

you broke up a month later, when she started cheating on you. i didn't tell you then, but i was glad she was a terrible person, because it meant that you were single again. free from her.

i wanted to kiss you again, when our friend invited a small group of us to stay with her and her mom in their cabin on the lake, the one in the mountains. you bought a wooden sword at this variety shop in the village. you still have it, i think, stored away in a closet somewhere. i remember we bothered our friend (the one you considered a cousin) and sat on the arms of her armchair to look at memes she showed us on her phone.

i came out to you on the trip for the first time, afraid of your reaction. i was bisexual, but you didn't really care.

i think i loved you more, then.

in high school we both moved schools. you started to attend high school in another city, an hour away, and i went to the public school by my house. i missed talking to you, seeing you, but we still met up once a month or so. i stopped falling for you -- well, i stopped noticing it at least. i got my first girlfriend the winter of freshman year and i was happy, for a while. then we broke up, got back together, then broke up again. through it all, you were oblivious to the real reason i couldn't love her in the way i should.

i got another girlfriend, then a partner, then a boyfriend, then another girlfriend, then another partner, then another girlfriend, all to distract myself from thoughts of you.

in our final year of high school, you moved back to our city and lied about what district you lived in so you could go to my school. i felt to cared for then, as a friend.

i introduced you to my friends, to my life, to the person i'd become when you were gone. i showed up all my flaws and you'd smiled in the face of them, a sweet and genuine smile. and then you told me that you thought you loved my best friend.

i supported you through it, like i had with every other girl. when you started dating, kissing, loving each other, i was there for you through it all. when she dumped you i was there, holding you hand and rubbing your back through it all. i gave you advice on what to do to win her back, how to show her all the care in the world.

i moved away the next fall, off to a big city across the country so i could get as far away from you as possible. it didn't work. we talked when we could and you crept your way back into my heart without me even realizing it. you asked me to pick sometihng up for you and even though it was a two hour commute from my place, i picked it up for you, just because you asked.

and then i came back for the holiday season. we made plans to meet before i left and we spent the whole day together. we got coffee in the morning and just talked for hours, about anything and everything we could think of. you invited me to the bowling alley to see your brother and your dad and i accepted, so we went. after, i had to pick something up at the grocery store for my dad. you asked to come with me, not wanting to leave just yet. we shopped, talked, and drove around for the better part of three hours, just basking in each other's presence. then you invited me into your house when i went to drop you off at home, and i said yes.

i stayed to meet your dog, stayed to catch up with your mom, and stayed for dinner. you got me a salad, just because you'd remembered that i was a vegetarian

it was all these little things, you remembering my favorite color, my affinity for art and reading, you recalling my love for dogs, that made me fall for you all those years ago.

i tell my friends that i loved you for ten years, from ages four to fourteen, but i never tell that how i got over you. i don't think i ever will

when we talked about my friend, the one you were in love with, you told me that you don't think you'll ever love again. you quoted something you read, about how "guys only ever really fall in love once in their lives, they'll never fall in love with another person" and i understood how you felt then.

i've only ever really fallen in love with someone once in my entire life, and i don't think i'll ever stop loving him. i don't think i'll ever stop loving you.

it's been years since then. we met in 2009, although i don't really remember it. i was visiting my cousin at kindergarten, before i moved into this prison of a small town. you were there, at the back of the line to head to recess. by the fall, i will have loved you for fourteen years.

i don't think i'll ever stop.

notes: um so this is a big word-vomity and for that i am apologetic! usually the stuff i write is so much more polished, but this just kind of sprawled out of my chest in a gas station parking lot. i typed this directly into my notes app and then when i got home, i copy-pasted it into tumblr and hit post haha...

this really is more of an open letter to someone whose attention i crave. it definitely isn't a healthy relationship, i know, but i can't just... abandon 14 years (14!) of care like that. this turned out a lot more rambly and venty than i thought it would so,,, enjoy i guess?

if you read this far, i appreciate it! i love you, and i hope the rest of your life is everything you want it to be. i hope you are loved and you love others with your whole chest. i hope you find the beauty in everything around you. i hope you found the beauty in this grotesque expression of love. i hope you find beauty in love. thank you for reading <3