#neurotic. WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY.

[girlcockholmes]

women will have never been on a date, never kissed anyone, be a 23 year old virgin, and be in grad school and all they have to say for themselves is that theyre ‘just like sherlock holmes but a girl’

[secular-jew]

The Israel-Arab Conflict isn't Complex

1. 99.7% of MENA (Middle-East & N. Africa) is controlled by one religion, which has ethnically cleansed nearly all others.

2. The conflict is not about land, it's about jihad, which is ethnic cleansing + conquest.

3. Together jihadists + leftists have created a weaponized narrative framework of lies.

4. In reality, Arabs colonized Judea and ethnically cleansed nearly the entire MENA region, where they continue to persecute minorities. They often project their faults on their victims.

5. To be clear, the last thing jihadists want is a new state or new national identity -- they have over 50 already. By their own voices, they want the submission of all others.

6. The left's unholy alliance with jihadists is based on shared values of antisemitism and authoritarianism. Both groups wish to impose their values forcefully on others. Both create webs of rhetoric and grievances to excuse any actions, even the most despicable imaginable which go against any modern values.

7. The only solution is to unravel the threads of hate everywhere we can. We must exorcise antisemitism from our own society, which was deeply embedded in it by the Romans, who created a state religion institutionalizing it.

8. Hate must be completely disassembled from Israel's territories as well, for there to be peace in the region. Globally, we must support moderates and reject extremism.

9. The West must humbly open its mind and realize it hasn't lived up to its own values. It's been deeply programmed to demonize Jews for 1700 years. This hate indoctrination extremely clouds the West's judgements about Israel. Ideas have power.

10. The West is broken when it comes to Jews. Its ideas do not work at all, its obsession is highly neurotic and toxic. Extremism and hate need to be resolved everywhere.

11. The reason Western society is cherished is due to its hard fought for moral values. We must abide by these values if we want our civilization to continue and evolve. We must not fall into depravity. We must intensely guard our virtues!

#quantumflux

[pixelxgore]

hers a billfold wip as a treat i changed his face bc i have free will

The art is to encourage you to read my silly little insanity (you should totally do it btw)

I'm dyslexic so sorry if anything is spelled grotesquely wrong lol autocorrect sometimes has no idea what i’m trying to spell

Starting with my head cannon because every thing will make more sense with it (or it wont that's entirely up to you) Imma try my best to make this enjoyable

So I head cannon both bill and ford as aspec this is important for the rest trust (I'm Aroace myself so some of my words are based of of experience ) being aroace doesn't mean you can't have a toxic one-sided relationship with a triangle

(most of this is pretty vanilla but I still wanna talk about it)

I believe it started of as a one-sided relationship on fords part (wow shocker) but it wasn't really love because he's ace it was more of infatuation (this stems from the fact he is a science boy and like ooo demon triangle thing) mistaken for love (I'm pretty sure this is common among aroace people or I just had an original experience) and maybe bill had just a little bit of the same feeling but instead of infatuation it was just pure obsession and when they had there little “tragic break up” and bill finally came to realize his obsession and it consumed him (idk i think that how abusive obsession is) and he realized he can’t live with out ford (i man he can but unhealthy obsession) and thus bills one sided relationship with ford where he just tries to get his puppet back but can’t figure out why he needs him so bad so he comes to the (subconscious) cuncultion there in love (because of course that’s the reasonable decision) and then you all know what comes after

I think bill has major will wood music vibes so I have nominated three songs of his for bill ford (cuz I'm genuinely going insane over them)

This is for fun and based off my head cannons

All of my discussions are made purely of the vibes the song gives me and how cool than animation in my head looks so take everything you know about these will wood songs and throw it out the window cuz none of that is relevant :3

i saw someone say “Will Wood songs can really be interpreted in different ways, and most of them seem like wisps of similar thought rather than a concrete narrative, so you're always a little bit right and wrong when you take a guess.” and i think you should keep that in mined

(I'm gonna embarrass myself so hard (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄) )

I'm not gonna elaborate much but just trust me ok I put it kind of in chronological order

fords one sided relationship with bill: ...well, better than the alternative

Ok so this one is the least perfect out of all of them cuz it only half what I want (obviously this song is a stretch but hear me out) It's mostly for the like the last half of the song (remember what I said about throwing out the meaning for get that i lied) this song about the struggle ls of growing up and is a heartfelt plea to be understood and accepted for who we are (which obviously ford was a wired kid) and this kinda ties into the one-sided infatuation because it also is about the romanticism of nostalgic love, and the pressure of society telling you to find someone and "settle down" as we get older (witch yk aroace can’t really do that) so he’s grasping at the fact that he is enamored with this demon he just summoned (because science) so he can come up with this narrative in his head of how he is in love and can finally fit at least one of the societal boxes (idk it sounds like something to me probly ooc but I'm having fun)

bills one sided relationship with ford: ¡Aikido!

obsession with someone and how people often use coping mechanisms such as drugs to help with their feelings of uncertainty and helplessness. (yes this is copied not fully of a site this is tumblr not an english assignment) it also explores the idea that love and obsession can often manifest in neurotic and even pathological behavior.(oooo oooo look i’m so smart like staring the apocalyps) i’m not this cool this whole thing started with the first like whit h is “I apologize for playing with your eyes But I’m obsessed with you” witch reminded me of how bill used for as a puppet and then yk fords whole world came crashing down (this one explained its self more i have to do less mental gymnastics) and he’s like im sooo sorry i can’t live with out you

there whole relationship from the deal to the end of bill: Misanthrapologist ("In case I make it,"

Outtake)

ok this one is the one that mostly made of vibes because the song is about an unhappy codependent relationship through metaphors of christianity, nihilism, outer space, and mozart (witch only really encompasses a portion of the relationship) the song stars with “I wanna meet your make Shake him by his ensanguined damask lapel Holler "Look what you've done Gave this planet a sun And made a man to wonder if he's more than the sum of his cells"” which makes me personally think of obviously the deal fore made with bill and how bill stroked his ego all the way through there partnership um you can see where i goes from here just go listen to the song

ok this one’s off topic and only for my imaginary animation but the line “So how could I stand a chance, let alone dance With the way you sweep me off these two left feet?” just like imagine this with me it’s bill (human probably cuz i don’t work with the triangle) and young ford in the minedskape thing and its bill dipping ford and when it goes down it switches to bill and fort in bills pyramid thing with ford chained up do you see the vision ok I’m done now (´°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥ω°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥｀)

[sam-keeper]

Halloween Film: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

I always loved the ending of the 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the classic sci fi film about replicant humans being grown from strange alien plant pods and taking over society. Well, I loved what was the ending, before the nervous studio tacked on a prologue and epilogue giving the film an optimistic (and contrived) conclusion. You know, where the main character runs out onto the road, desperately trying to halt oncoming traffic, to get anyone to listen as he cries, into the night, and finally directly into the camera at the audience, "They're here! You're next! YOU'RE NEXT!" For all the film's been interpreted as expressing red scare paranoia about communist infiltration (and even that's contested--others see it as a cry against McCarthyite witch hunts), the sheer manic shrieking energy of that finale lodged itself in my brain ever since I watched the film as a teenager. It was fearful, but it also was relatable, almost a kind of perverse power fantasy. Imagine, just imagine, screaming out from every theater screen and tv set: don't you see what's happening all around you? Look away from the screen if you like--they're already here!

The 1978 remake is actually a weird kind of precursor to our new phenomenon of the rebootquel: a short ways into the film, the main character of the original (literally--it's Kevin McCarthy, the original's star) slams into the car of our protagonists, ranting that blood curdling monologue. In this version, however, the pod people swiftly dispatch him off screen, and we get a creepy shot of a crowd of them standing silently, dispassionately, over his bloody broken body. That sums up the film's sense, contra the original, that it will already be too late by the time anyone notices anything wrong.

What a creepy film this is. It's astonishingly shot, full of striking images and brilliant camera work. Like, if you want reflections and shadows and distorted views of characters to feel fresh again, like they're more than hackneyed metaphor but really, viscerally unsettling, this is the film for you. There's a pervasive sense throughout that the worst has already happened, the world already gone strange when you turned your back. Instead of zombified mania and violence, there's a flatness to everything, a cool impassivity. The cast enhances this impassive flatness through contrast: it's a film full of brilliant weirdos as heroes. Scope Jeff Goldblum in this, for example, as a self absorbed neurotic owner of a mud bath house, and Veronica Cartwright as his Star Child wife. Even the relatively well adjusted main couple has their oddities: early in the film Brooke Adams as Elizabeth has a moment where she does this, fuckin, crazy thing with her eyes to make her friend Matthew laugh that's genuinely very funny and unsettling, and it immediately lends her character so much off beat humanity. These are people who have dedicated their lives to the department of health and they've got the zealotry that comes from being genuinely a bit of a weirdo for both bureaucracy and science. Indeed, Elizabeth's husband gets replaced early in the film by a pod she brings home to study out of pure curiosity about the world.

Elizabeth, soon after realizing there is something fundamentally wrong and alien about her husband, remarks to Michael that San Francisco feels suddenly strange to her, like an alien environment full of alien people. I feel this sometimes in Seattle. Oh, everywhere, but pronouncedly here, interacting with boomer or gen xer artists in my area who casually talk about the homeless like they're subhuman, with people on the street who will freely monologue about who we need to cleanse from the city, with our repulsive mayor and city council who verifiably think I and queers like me are disgusting. You get to thinking, or at least I do, that surely people don't have that much cruelty in their heart, and then you run up against the flat casual way a stranger will condemn a fellow human to oblivion, simply for the crime of being an unpleasant reminder of poverty. Every supposed red line gets crossed--local leaders pump money into already bloated police budgets, people shed their masks, politicians race to be the most xenophobic and border-paranoid, and the state department and media shovel dirt on the fire of each exploded Gazan hospital or butchered aid convoy. Am I supposed to feel secure in this tough new environment? All I hear is the panicked cry: YOU'RE IN DANGER! YOU'RE NEXT!

Donald Sutherland's character Matthew has a belief in institutions that's at once charming and completely exasperating. He's a health inspector who clearly cares deeply about doing his job and doing it well, and so is almost totally unequipped to respond when every social system transforms into a weapon to hunt and replace him. The number of times this man calls the police, often seemingly out of civic duty!! Meanwhile Leonard Nimoy plays a psychiatrist who manipulates and shepherds the cast. He's a pod person, of course, but it's totally unclear whether he was one the whole time or became one late in the film. The suggestion seems to be that it doesn't matter: his role as a professional is to smooth over social ruptures and keep the state of things running as stress free as possible, so he seamlessly adopts his role in the new dispassionate world order. I can't stop thinking, too, about a scene where Matthew and Elizabeth are caught out pretending to be pod people because they react with terrified revulsion to a homeless man who's accidentally been grotesquely fused with his pet dog. The pod people, of course, do not react to this sight, but go about their business. All that seems to have changed in pod person world is that the whole machinery of society carries on without emotion or meaning. The horror is that instead of ending, the world just keeps going.

Sarah and I discovered after watching that there's two other takes on The Body Snatchers, one in the 90s and one late in the Bush era 2000s. I guess that means we're about due for a new generational interpretation of the story. It's not quite like clockwork; maybe it's more like a seasonal bloom. Every 10-20 years, someone feels a compulsion to run to the cinemas and shout, to anyone who will listen, that they're already here, the pod people have already taken over while we were sleeping. And maybe they already have.

Check out more short reviews on my Patreon

[scientia-rex]

What is this show?

Sports Night was, in many ways, the prequel to The West Wing: Aaron Sorkin’s short-lived show about the people behind a sports show, ESPN-inspired because he had been watching a lot of ESPN at the time. The two anchors, Dan and Casey, have the kind of chemistry that made my sister (who was never into fandom even a little) say mere seconds after walking in to the room, “They’re kind of gay, aren’t they?” Dan is played by Josh Charles, who you may know from The Dead Poets Society or perhaps The Good Wife; the show originally aired in 1998-2000, so he is just a little baby here. Casey is played by Peter Krause, who you may know from that new fireman show (911?) or Six Feet Under. They are huge goobers and very bangable. Excellent grist for the shipping mill.

You have a rich cast of characters, though—there is the show’s producer Dana, who is insane like all the best Sorkin women; the executive producer Isaac, who is lovable and grumpy and full of wisdom; the neurotic nerd Jeremy; the assistant producer Natalie, a tiny pint of spitfire. There are toothsome villains like Sally Sasser, who’s gunning for Dana’s job, but the eternal enemy is The Suits, the corporate types who want the show to be profitable above all else.

Season One is great. It’s magical. In Season Two, Sorkin started doing a lot of drugs again and was also starting West Wing so the writing and characterization suffered horribly. However, there are still some moments that demand confrontation and reconciliation with the canon as a whole, and I find the whole dynamic fascinating. Sorkin can’t write women for shit because to him, all women are crazy bitches and who knows why they do what they do—but he still manages to construct appealing people out of them, until he lets it all collapse like soggy tissue paper in Season Two.

The acting is brilliant. The writing is hilarious. (Until partway into Season Two.) Josh Charles is, in my opinion, the narrative heart of it—his pain and fear and hitherto undiagnosed anxiety disorder anchor the story in a way that Casey’s will-they-won’t-they with Dana can’t, because of Sorkin’s shortcomings in writing women.

I loved the show when it initially aired, bought the DVDs when they were released even though I didn’t have money—because back then we didn’t have the option of finding videos on the Internet, so it was the only answer to years of not being able to watch it. I’ve watched it several times over the years, Season One much more than Season Two. I’ve made three vids, written a slew of stories, and the longest one is a 70,000 word epic exploring how therapy might help someone like Casey actually be happy instead of a miserable bastard (“A Form in Wax,” available on AO3).

I love this brief, flawed show. I love it even though Felicity Huffman, who played Dana, turned out to be part of that scandal a few years back where rich parents paid to get their kids into prestigious schools for “sports” that they didn’t even play. I love it even though I had to stop following Joshua Messina, who played Jeremy, on Twitter years ago because his bitter, angry, often sexist takes kept bothering me more and more. None of the people are perfect. The writing isn’t perfect. But the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

[twistedastrology]

- Cancers at their worst -

----------------------------------------------------------

i just saw an ig post (no shade to the original poster) that said a cancer's dark side was everything they are stereotyped to be (extremely emotional/sensitive, are way too kind and always think people are judging them) and as a cancer that may be about to go neurotic again rn im gonna tell you from my personal experience what a cancer's dark side is actually like.

like i said though im going off of mostly just my experience so if this doesn't resonate, my bad- i did my best 🙏😔

to understand the nature of a cancer at their worst, you have to actually understand water and its potential volatility.

remember when i talked abt cancers and rage and how i said cancers are fire-coded (cardinal) water? keep that in mind for just abt this entire post.

fire is pure energy, and so is water, water just has more space to hold said energy- where fire burns out quickly, water doesn't dry out that fast at all especially if you have an ocean specifically.

people who say cancers (or really any water sign honestly-) are crybabies and switch moods every 5 seconds do not understand what water really is and this topic makes me a little livid sometimes because those are the same people that made me not like my rising sign for a long time.

to understand a cancers rock bottom, think about what water can do.

tsunamis can kill hundreds of thousands of people if they're big enough.

hurricanes, and sometimes tornadoes, form over water when the temperature is right.

the pressure at the bottom of the ocean can crush almost anything in an instant except for what has specifically evolved to live down there.

rain can lead to insane flooding (fellow floridians remember hurricane ian 2yrs ago 😕)

we have explored less of our ocean than the space around us, can you imagine what oceans on other planets would be like? especially the planets or moons that are almost Entirely water?

water represents emotion, yes, but when we boil that down to water signs being overly emotional, it doesn't make any sense and it makes some people, at least the ones that are like me, ashamed of their water placements because our society loves to say "emotion = bad." when obviously that is not true.

But if we wanna talk about the actual dark shit, aka my jupiter in scorpio's favorite shit, u gotta strap in.

Cancers feel more rage than anything.

i talked abt this specifically in my cancers and rage post, but it's true for this as well.

to use myself as the example, whenever i feel depressed or upset for some reason (like today), it's never just that sad feeling, it is always accompanied by a distinct anger because i get pissed that i feel like shit.

but if that rage doesn't get its way, or worse, gets too much of its way, i can succumb to a state of misery or, at my worst, neurosis, where multiple god awful things happen.

im not one to stay down for long, the last and first time i went neurotic, it only lasted for a week until i snapped out of it, but it was still very damaging.

cancers at their worst will feel an urge to self-destruct that may or may not be uncontrollable depending on other placements in the chart and of course how shitty they feel.

they will find something detrimental to do and if they genuinely can't, they will instead just mentally rip themselves open and daydream about what it would be like to just completely lose control and fall into a self-destructive spiral.

that's what happened to me when i went neurotic. one wrong decision and, having no access to anything that would take a toll on my physical body, i ripped myself to pieces in my head and almost fell in love with the act.

like gerard way said, there's something very romantic about it.

cancers can get moody, yes, but at this point they'll go mostly numb and tearing at their soul is the only thing they enjoy.

and then the pain will catch up to them.

once that pain catches up to them, two things will happen.

they will begin to realize what they've been doing and how pointless it is, and they will activate a duality within themselves of the desire to hurt and the need for pain relief.

they will tear at themselves even more, knowing they shouldn't be doing what they are, but it's a vicious cycle.

this will happen, and then the potential for redemption begins to boil over.

after being in the dark, blissfully hidden depths of their own mental ocean, they will realize they can't breathe anymore, and they will either suffocate themselves or snap their eyes open and swim up until they see the light they deprived themselves of for however long.

once they've made it to the surface, they gasp to catch their breath, their tears being of the need for pain relief winning against their desire to hurt.

now the water is not a personal vice, but a cleansing presence that makes them feel understood. the water gets it. the water would never judge them for what they did.

after being in the dark embrace of the depths of the ocean for so long, the light finally hitting your eyes makes color seem so much more vibrant.

- 🌙 -

all this to say that, at their worst, cancers can succumb to self destruction like no other, but they have the drive to keep them going to even them out.

they don't just cry all day or switch moods 24/7, they fall into a vat of water that, the deeper they go, reveals more and more of their very soul.

it's the deepest level of shadow work, it's the pain no one wants to go through because it's the pain of losing your personal momentum and then having to find it again in an instant before it's gone forever.

OR i could be totally wrong idk But this is my experience!!!! ✨💞💞✨💞✨💞✨💞✨ God belsls!!!!!!!!

my bad that was real dark and poetic writing now i gotta balance it out Uhhhmmmmm Legalize nuclear bombs. 💥

[determinate-negation]

But you must not conclude from my eagerness in defending myself against the charge that neurotics are encouraged in analytic treatment to live a full life - you must not conclude from this that we influence them in favour of conventional virtue. That is at least as far from being the case. It is true that we are not reformers but merely observers; nevertheless, we cannot help observing with a critical eye and we have found it impossible to side with conventional sexual morality or to form a very high opinion of the manner in which society attempts the practical regulation of the problems of sexual life. We can present society with a blunt calculation that what is described as its morality calls for a bigger sacrifice than it is worth and that its proceedings are not based on honesty and do not display wisdom. We do not keep such criticisms from our patients ears, we accustom them to giving unprejudiced consideration to sexual matters no less than to any others; and if, having grown independent after the completion of their treatment, they decide on their own judgement in favour of some midway position between living a full life and absolute asceticism, we feel our conscience clear whatever their choice. We tell ourselves that anyone who has succeeded in educating himself to truth about himself is permanently defended against the danger of immorality, even though his standard of morality may differ in some respect from that which is customary in society. More-over, we must guard against over-estimating the importance of the part played by the question of abstinence in influencing neuroses. Only in a minority of cases can the pathogenic situation of frustration and the subsequent damming-up of libido be brought to an end by the sort of sexual intercourse that can be procured without much trouble.

Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis

[limulusamebocytelysate]

Publishing now my Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell daemon opinions:

Mr Norrell: might take a little research to narrow down for sure which exact species but. neurotic prey animal, I'm leaning towards rabbit. If you ask Norrell, he'll say that he's happy she settled as something so English and sensible, but in his secret heart of hearts he wishes she settled as something wild and romantic like a hare, but that's all very tied up with his (perceived(?)) abandonment by the Raven King and the whole "burying your heart in the winter woods" thing. When they were younger, she probably spent a lot of time as a crow. I think he also resents how weak and vulnerable a rabbit-daemon makes him look, so he pushes her away as much as possible, whereas she (being of a very anxious disposition, and also representing the part of him that still hopes for the King's return) does her level best to cling as close as possible. Thus Norrell is at eternal war with himself.

Strange: a small english hawk, suitably magician-y (I'm a Norrell fan at heart, I don't have any massive insight into Strange). They get on well, Strange isn't well adjusted but he likes who he is.

Childermass: weasel. Incredibly close, almost of one mind despite quite a long range. Childermass strikes me as someone who doesn't lie to himself and is more self-aware than most, thus there's very little emotional distance between him and his daemon and she can stray quite far from him without getting lost. The weasel is only borderline-appropriate for a servant's daemon, being small, brown, and unnoticeable but also being a predator known for ferocity, cunning, and resourcefulness. He's very pleased with her shape and she's very pleased with him, if a little critical at times.

Segundus: a jay – a member of the corvid family so magician associated, but a small and secretive forest bird. Also quite a pretty bird, not somber like a crow or a rook. Honeyfoot is a pheasant. I'm influence here by the lovely fic from dust we came (which I also must credit for getting me thinking about the topic) which I entirely agree with on the topic of Honeyfoot = brown game bird.

Drawlight: a rat, but a small enough rat that he can say his daemon's a mouse. Obviously, Drawlight hates him and dearly wishes he'd settled as something pretty and rare but nope. Rat. An intelligent and social animal, which is also a synonym for a turncoat.

Lascelles: a really smug cat. Like a Persian or something. Highly bred, snooty, nice contrast with Drawlight.

Emma Pole: a fox, perhaps. Something that handles captivity very badly. I don't think Emma actively likes herself, and she certainly doesn't like her life, but she very much believes that she deserves better, so her daemon likes her. A classic inner "don't give up!! Tear them to pieces!!" voice I think.

Arabella Strange: dog daemon. A terrier. Considered approachable and friendly, an inquisitive mind that will ferret out secrets.

Stephen Black: a difficult one, but I think his daemon is quite normal, fitting in with how much he conforms to english society. Best if there's some noble/regal flipside. A badger? Sensible and dutiful associations, very English, but also. A badger has teeth and is very much a predator, high up in current English food chains. Also in the Wind in the Willows the Badger was like the wise powerful guy living in the dangerous woods and that fits with who Stephen becomes.

Vinculus: a drab parrot, rare and exotic and special but doesn't look like it. Annoying and loud.

[herowithbadpublicity]

Who is Hal, really?

Like, we see so many different versions of him. We’re introduced to this awkward, neurotic, definitely not Mitchell, vampire in season 4. Oh cool, he has these friends he’s been with for years, that’s great!

Hal literally kept Leo chained up with the sole purpose to watch him kill people (and make money, as he mentions betting on the fight). This was actually in a prequel clip, not in the show - if you saw the clip, Hal and Leo’s relationship dynamic completely changes when we see them on screen together for the first time.

Throughout the show, Hal implores people to be his keeper, to watch him and make sure he doesn’t commit anymore sins. First Leo. In some ways, this is extremely cowardly - Hal puts the responsibility on others. If his inhibitions drop and he’s placed in just the right situation, he does awful things and can say “oh they didn’t watch me close enough”. I’m surprised Leo kept his promise - if I got free, the guy who initially kidnapped me would be getting these hands.

I really really like Hal and Annie’s dynamic. She is so opposite of him, and from the very beginning you see his discomfort. Then, when Kirby shows up, we get a scene where Hal wants to confess his sins. Part of it is because he would rather she hear it from him, but another part is something Hal does frequently - burden others with keeping him clean.

Who is Hal though? There are 3 parts of Hal. Of course there’s the awful part, that killed Cutler’s wife and who is 100% capable of becoming a genocidal dictator. Then there’s the part we see most of the time. Seemingly harmless vampire with obsessive compulsive tendencies, endearing in some way and obviously trying his best to stay out of trouble. But there’s this other part, that we only see a few times. It’s when the two overlap. There’s some glimpse of it with his prequel - he’s a “slavemaster” but he’s hesitant and ashamed, and wants to be someone else. We also know that this is the in between, as he references the cycles of bad and good Hal.

I think, living for over 500 years, Hal has had to develop a way to cope with everything he has done. There are old ones like Mr Snow who seem chill and totally fine with being menaces to society. But we SEE Hal is capable of acting without malice, of choosing to do things to keep others safe.

I propose then, that Hal, upon becoming a vampire and murdering people left and right, had at one point realized his psyche could not manage and be okay with it all. So, what better way to cope then to organize who you are. Hal is neurotic. He creates a line - bad Hal and kind Hal. It becomes black and white for him - he either goes full villain, or he is safe. He treats the bad part as another being, trying to separate his sins from who he is as a person. I suppose we can also see it as vampire Hal and Vampire Hal.

I struggle at times when trying to figure out who Hal is for real. Is this the true him, proper, neurotic, judgemental. How do these traits present in Vampire Hal. He dresses classy, he manipulates, and he harms. The judgement in this case leads to murder. Try to imagine Hal, the one awkwardly holding Eve, and when he turns Cutler. How can one man behave so contrastingly? The blood eases the anxiety and the pressure. Hal can let go, fall into habits. Without blood, he has to always be mindful.

So, other than being a story telling device; I see the Jekyll and Hyde aspect of him being a coping mechanism. He either fights the urges and the habits, vampire Hal who keeps a schedule, or, he goes full Vampire.

[libbee]

Why are Scorpio placements eccentric or unconventional?

This is in reply to a post by @astroismypassion and about Scorpio placements in general.

1. It intrigued me to know that scorpio placements strive to be unconventional and subjective in terms of academics, romance, hobbies, friends and even thoughts, ideas, opinions. They actively want to be different from the herd walk and frequently use the metric "Is everybody doing it? If yes then it is not worth doing. I will do what nobody else is doing." There is also the tendency to enjoy time by oneself alone and be very self aware of their behaviour, words, actions, emotions, thoughts, reactions. Once you identify what a scorpio looks like, you can start seeing a pattern in how MATURE scorpios think, act and live. They are all quite the same or similar.

2. Scorpio is the sign that falls on 8th house and is ruled by Mars and Ketu (vedic) or Pluto (tropical). Almost all mature scorpios have inclination towards self actualization because their feeling function is dominating. Since their method of relating to others is feeling based, they are very aware of how other people act and behave. They reflect upon themselves and find if they have the same qualities as others. It makes them yearn for originality and being unique, especially if their ego and self esteem is weak. One can say that scorpios have the predisposition towards being initiated in terms of spiritual and psychological development.

3. Since 8th house also deals with sudden, tumultuous and catastrophic events in life, scorpios are deeply affected by life events and strive to transform themselves in ways that they can control their life better, avoid pitfalls the next time catastrophe happens and fear losing control or being powerless. They cannot just take it lightly because it is about their power and power is a necessary evil in life.

4. My next theory is that all of us are acting on our active complexes. Carl Jung said about emotions that they are the involuntary reactions from active complexes. He said that emotions and feelings are not synonymous but different. Feeling, sensation, thinking, intuition are psychological functions while emotion is the fire that fuels the behaviour in the native. What it means is that a self aware person knows that their behaviour stems from a core complex and they yearn to solve that problem rather than live in neurotic state with intense guilt, shame, regret and self criticism. For example, they can identify mommy issues in themselves and others; once they identify, they try to outgrow the complex and overcome embarrassing behaviours.

There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion.

5. Scorpio can also be said to have primitive tendencies because of their preoccupation with the collective unconscious. They are always reading, judging, thinking others and doing self reflection. They are thinking of why people are the way they are, what is their shadow side, insecurities, weaknesses, psychological issues? With high self awareness comes also the awareness of karma or action/reaction. They are moved by the suffering, sickness, poverty, problems in the world and fear they might face the same fate if they do not live in high morality and ethics.

6. For most of the air/fire signs, it can be said that they are so insecure in so many ways that they do not even know how much they are lacking, but water sign's sensitivity gives them ability to read the room and actively work on their psychological development. As for the claim that scorpio placements look down upon others as being superficial, I think this happens because of their life circumstances and bitter life lessons that make them go deeper, psychoanalyze themselves and others, find deeper meaning in life and deal with intense complexes constantly.

7. As to why scorpio males and females act differently, we might have to look into places outside astrology like how society works, culture, how society treats men v/s women, what kind of behaviours are rewarded and know that behaviour is not proof of inner life. A promiscuous scorpio is not like that because they like sex so much or they like to charm others, it might be because they feel so powerless in other area of their life that promiscuity gives them power over some people & makes them feel important. The opposite of Scorpio is Taurus which is concerned with stability, rigidity and loyalty. Loyalty is about self preservation, not wanting to lose what they have invested in, emotional security and expectation that "if I stay loyal, my partner will also reciprocate too".

8. To conclude, signs and houses should be viewed together in opposites because they exist like that in consciousness and shadow. As I have matured, I begin to see that people cannot be viewed in polarities and indeed scorpio placements will display the traits of taurus even if is it an empty house because they are trying to understand themselves through people and events.

🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼

[frankiistein]

now that breadavota is back heres my long analysis of jacques and how his literally-dead-dollkin identity and monsterfucking relates to his being schizoid and stuffs

theres alot of neat stuff in the new "further reading" panel tho i like the reveal that jacques sent media alot of blank letters when he was younger bcuz he couldnt see

the "blank" letter in the website actually have invisible text tho and its in passrynian (which accdg to the wiki is just intentionally shitty french with different pronouns)

google translated:

Hello, Mr. Media. I can't read or write, so I'm devoid of this letter. You are said to be a medium, so read your feelings. It is difficult to express, so I have studied English for you. Please accept my transmission.

the pronouns makes it weird but i think its intention to be read my feelings and nor your feelings, based on the fact that jacques calls media a medium? like i think he expects media to be able to "read" his letters even if their blank bcuz medias psychic powers

idk if im right but this is what i thought of after thinking abt how its said in the story that media can "read" peoples thoughts except for jacques and that media seems neurotic thinking if he "really" knew how jacques thinks the novelty of their relationship would fade away and (supposedly) media would get sick/bored of jacques

but also. tbt to this one specific line from their first meeting in an archetype of a person from universes before

its kind of a throwaway line but in context of other parts of the comic where we see jacques getting frustrated that media cant understand his logic but that he never rly explains himself coherently (a1-3 and like a duck which not posted yet on the website especially show this) i think it has a deeper meaning

so like u kno how jacques obviously has his monsterfucking kink and how hes constantly disappointed that medias not a "real" monster to him

theres a physical part involved in his attraction no doubt abt it but considering that jacques cant even see what the "scary" monsters look like and also how in like a duck its explicitly stated part of his admiration for media is media as a non-living being is immune to living problems like petty emotions or flawed logic (things that jacques supposedly dislikes about himself? or at least that cause his social struggles)

altho the more obvious part of his paraphilia is the monsterfucking theres a wide scope of things he seems attached to and the things they all have in common is theyre the "opposite" of how the living are legally defined

- he has a thing for the dead and for inanimate objects

- he dislikes objects that become sentient

- the traits he fantasizes about media are specifically a lack of morals, a lack of emotion and ai computer logic

- and most of all his resistance for love and criticism for love as a legal concept in their society

ok so I HAVE A POINT HERE OK but first we also get this new excerpt of an essay jacques writes for the court

I wasn't quite angry, not on any meaningful level, over the prospect of people putting a sense of "value" and projecting a notion of "love" on something about myself that I had reserved neither for, from my inability to perceive it. I was angry that people had decided of their own accord that this was what I was angry about in the first place.

jacques spent his life before moving to the court having his feelings constantly assumed (implied to be for ableist reasons) and it rly makes it clearer why in present day he gets triggered so easily abt media trying to get him to explain himself, bcuz even tho jacques is aware his own sense of logic and emotion is twisted and abnormal he thinks trying to get people to understand it is frustrating and useless, because its never worked before

he thinks the living are so used to their culture being the "reality" of things and so the living can never understand him, so he both finds comfort in and sees his own self/identity in the terms of the "non-living" (whether the dead, the inanimate or the immortal) as theyre all things that

- cant feel anything at all

- cant have their feelings misunderstood by others on account of having no feelings

ALRIGHT SO BACK TO THE LETTER AND THE LINE IN AN ARCHETYPE

jacques is obviously disillusioned w/ media but the emphasis on media just "looking like a human" feels like jacques trying to dismiss the depth of his feelings on the matter

i think jacques initial "crush" on media wasnt just bcuz media was a scary hot monster but specifically that he was a medium

his first letter to media points out medias reputation as a psychic instead of media being a marginal/monster/other species and since media and jacques talked multiple times over the phone before they met irl jacques had alot of opportunities to pry for medias physical form but he never asked until they met irl in the first time

imo jacques pointing out that he believed media would be able to understand him instead of just judging him (like everyone else does) was bcuz jacques was obsessed with this fantasy that media was someone/something who could not only understand him but would be able to understand him w/o jacques needing to do anything to make himself understood

and idk if jacques knows hes the only exception to medias mindreading but if he does that must make him feel worse. like if media wasnt psychic all along it would be bad enough but if jacques is the exception it emphasizes his isolation further

like idk i do think jacques genuinely feels a sense of attachment/connection to media but that the relationship they can have irl will always have the issues that "fantasy media" doesnt. jacques initial attraction to media was completely a parasocial relationship to an enigmatic other species and now that theyre together "for real" he hates the reality that real life media is Just Some Guy who is actively trying to be even more of a Just Some Guy bcuz what he wanted from media was never a real "living" relationship but the fantasy relationship of being effortlessly understood by somebody with no "real" needs or expectations

[ptseti]

"Much of the pathology of Afrikan people today is this vain hope that somehow we will be able to escape our Afrikan heritage, that somehow the white man will become color blind and will not see us for whom and what we are, that somehow we will be looked upon as some kind of abstraction -- as just a man. Not as an Afrikan man, not as a black man, but as a man, a human being only -- without culture, without recognition, without identity.

Too many of us want to shed our Afrikanicity for this kind of bogus, abstract existence, which is no existence at all, and which is the ultimate acceptance of invisibility. We must recognize that we are an Afrikan people and we will be Afrikan people to the end of time -- and we must accept all that goes with that. We must accept the good, the bad, and all of the possibilities that go with being Afrikan. We must accept the fact that this white man is never going to accept us totally, and get used to the idea.

Hope is a wonderful thing in some senses, but it can be pathological in others. The neurotic individual uses hope in a pathological way. He lives in hope and does not know when to give it up. There's a time that hope has to be given up; when one looks at reality and recognizes reality for what it is, and one accepts certain aspects of that reality and moves on it.

The hope that this white man is going to accept you as one of his own, is one of those hopes that you must give up. The hope and dream that you're going to be holding hands with little white boys and girls; that the white man is going to feed your children before he feeds his own; that he's going to clothe you before he clothes his own; that he's going to give up his ill-gotten gains and wealth in the name of some kind of bogus brotherhood or the classless society, is a vain hope. Give it up! Turn it loose! When you turn it loose you will see a growth and development of self. It would mean that an acceptance of self." -Amos N. Wilson

I wonder where she was buried so I can dig up her bones and feed them to the dogs

[cielsosinfel]

It's been a while since I've written a Reading Log update, but that's because it's been a while since I finished a book. I've been doing so much reading and stressing over college that is' very hard to focus on reading for fun. But, I want to talk about a book I meant to write up my thoughts on months ago.

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden.

(this is REALLY LONG under the cut)

I actually won this in a GR giveaway that I entered on a whim, just because it came up when filtering to LGBTQ books lol. Was surprised to receive an ARC in the mail a week later! And dear god am I glad because it ended up being one of my favorite books I've read in ages. The book was released around a week ago and I really think it's worth checking out.

It is historical fiction, set in The Netherlands in the 1960s. I described it on BluSky as thus when I first started it: "lesbian psychological drama about siblings in post war Netherlands and some kind of toxic erotically charged mess between a hella neurotic woman and her would-be sister-in-law"BUT ITS SO MUCH MORE. Even before we get into the fact this is a novel that is really about the Holocaust. Yes, it IS an erotically charged mess between our hella neurotic PoV protagonist, Isabel, living alone in the house she'd grown up in yet does not own, and being forced to host her would-be sister-in-law Eva, who stands to own the house if she marries Isabel's playboy younger brother, who will gain possession as soon as he marries and settles down to start a family. Isabel is terrified of losing the only place she feels she can exist, to losing this one last connection to her mother, her place of safety where she is in control. Isabel is 30 years old, solitary, quiet, anxious, struggles to empathize with others or express herself; Eva is a wrecking-ball of energy, of airheaded youthful irreverence, trying so hard to ingratiate herself to Isabel, who has decided from the first meeting to hate her guts, and Eva isn't helping by pushing back against Isabel's controlling nature and boundaries over and over and over.

Of course that boundary-pushing while forced to live with one another leads to kissing leads to fucking, and Isabel, who is a 30 year old virgin terrified of the idea of kissing or having sex with a man she reluctantly allows to "court her since people /expect/ her to allow it, has an explosive sexual awakening and an awakened all-devouring hunger for this woman who represents so much of what she finds distasteful in life.

Honestly, the sex scenes in this book are some of the hottest I have read ever, at all, in traditionally-published lesbian or F/F fiction, wither literary or genre. They're incredibly visceral, straightforward and not shying away from the actual physicality of intimacy, of fucking, not dancing around naming the body and the ways these women touch and penetrate one another. It's such a breath of fresh air from writing that carefully refuses to say that a woman's fingers is going in another woman's cunt and getting her wet. The desperate possessiveness is palpable; the fact Isabel is such a repressed mess of a virgin but ends up becoming the partner who so often takes charge, pushes, claims, like she's been denied life-giving waters her whole life and now she's desperate to slake her thirst, is soooooooo wonderfully depicted. THIS is the adulthood loss of virginity I am here for.

But as I said before, this is also a book about the Holocaust, about the post-war years where Dutch Christian society was desperate to "move on" and ignore their complicity in the horrors suffered by the Jewish community of The Netherlands, of the betrayals and thefts that were never acknowledged, the lives that were never returned. To be honest, the summary of the book on the cover or GR didn't mention the Holocaust at all, I assume because it's a huge spoiler for the twist of the novel, but it is the moment of history that the entire story and the lives of these characters revolve around. And Eva! Dear fucking god, Eva is one of the most carefully, thoughtfully written characters struggling with long-term un-treated badly-coping trauma I have read in fucking years. Eva deserves everything good in the world.

I will also not spoil where the story leads to, but I did say this on Bluesky:

got to the third part of this novel and been completely sideswiped yet again in how painfully emotionally gutting harrowing this prose is exploring christian european antisemitism post-ww2 post-holocaust i really hope this novel wins the author a lot of awards for this debut novel its 3am and i cant type, i was just sitting on the floor of my bathroom unable to stop reading as soon as the format of the narrative changed and it just did not stop. i had to force myself to stop reading it. god. also i have to say Eva is one of the most well written characters exemplifying what could be CPTSD/BPD i've read in sooooooooo long. well written traumatized characters. i love her and want her to have even a smidge of happy ending by the end of this

A lot of this book is about taking what people give you on the surface, the masks they put up to keep others from looking too deeply, the masks they put up to keep from having to look into /themselves/ too deeply, and having them torn away from their face until they and all the ugly, ugly, terrified parts of themselves are laid bare and vulnerable. A lot of it is about those in positions of privilege, positions of societal power, being terrified of looking too deeply into the past and acknowledging where they and their families are complicit in the suffering of others and the destruction of lives. Isabel and Eva give each other so much, and then ruin one another so thoroughly, and then come back together over and over, and the ending is such a bittersweet one, a "are they really going to manage through all this?" end, but I loved it so much.

Anyway, TL;DR, yes I recommend this book a lot.

Also it has one of the best "coming out to your siblings" exchanges I've ever read.

Bonus for symbolic horny pear-eating metaphors haunting hella-repressed in-denial lesbians:

[haggishlyhagging]

As there is no remedy to sexual politics in marriage, Lucy [of Charlotte Brontë’s Villette] very logically doesn't marry. But it is also impossible for a Victorian novel to recommend a woman not marry. So Paul suffers a quiet sea burial. Had Brontë’s heroine "adjusted" herself to society, compromised, and gone under, we should never have heard from her. Had Brontë herself not grown up in a house of half-mad sisters with a domestic tyrant for father, no "prospects," as marital security was referred to, and with only the confines of governessing and celibacy staring at her from the future, her chief release the group fantasy of "Angria," that collective dream these strange siblings played all their lives, composing stories about a never-never land where women could rule, exercise power, govern the state, declare night and day, death and life—then we would never have heard from Charlotte either. Had that been the case, we might never have known what a resurrected soul wished to tell upon emerging from several millennia of subordination. Literary criticism of the Brontës has been a long game of masculine prejudice wherein the player either proves they can't write and are hopeless primitives, whereupon the critic sets himself up like a schoolmaster to edit their stuff and point out where they went wrong, or converts them into case histories from the wilds, occasionally prefacing his moves with a few pseudo-sympathetic remarks about the windy house on the moors, or old maidhood, following with an attack on every truth the novels contain, waged by anxious pedants who fear Charlotte might "castrate" them or Emily "unman" them with her passion. There is bitterness and anger in Villette—and rightly so. One finds a good deal of it in Richard Wright's Black Boy, too. To label it neurotic is to mistake symptom for cause in the hope of protecting oneself from what could be upsetting.

-Kate Millett, Sexual Politics

[farcille]

9 people you'd like to get to know better

tagged by @healen -- omg i am SO sorry i did not see this; I just found your tag from going through my email notifs haha. thank you though this was super fun!!

Three ships:

farcille: like ok iconic as fuck and my username so obviously i have to talk about this one first. dungeon meshi is my favorite manga ever and marcille is my favorite character and i love her relationship with falin so much ;-; i think the plot point of marcille being afraid of losing people she loves due to the difference in how she ages compared to other people is super interesting and adds a really thought-provoking and tragic aspect to their relationship. i also love the difference in their personalities that shapes their dynamic; marcille is extremely neurotic and inside of her own head and "by-the-book" and falin is very in touch with her surroundings and intuitive and accepting of disorder but they're close anyway because the things that make them different are things that they admire about each other. i looove that marcille gets jealous of other people showing falin attention and that shes insane about saving her and that she would do anything to get her back. they get married in my head after the end of the manga

jaime/brienne: i've been so into rereading asoiaf lately and this has been on my mind nonstop. the dynamic of like this super big/strong very gender nonconforming ugly woman whos internally very kind and empathetic and has one of the strongest moral compasses of anyone in the series but struggles internally with her self image and her perceived inability to "fit in" anywhere due to misogyny and general cruelty and societal prejudice over her looks and like the antihero privileged evil prettyboy who seems to have everything granted by society that brienne doesn't at the beginning of the series but goes through a dramatic character shift after losing his ability to physically fight and is not actually quite as evil as you're initially led to believe but has become disillusioned and morally dark due to contempt and judgement and expectations from people in his life is kinda unmatched like no one was doing narratives about social expectations like them. the way that both of their character arcs rely on what they learn from each other about honor and judgement and what it means to be a "true knight" is also my fave. in my head where theres a universe where asoiaf is finished they finally confess their feelings 4 each other

doctor/master: haha ok time to be cringe and post doctor who on main again. but like hear me out this ship was so iconic LIKE they are the last 2 living members of their species they're childhood friends they know each other better than anyone in the universe they've known each other for 900 years but they are doomed to be mortal enemies forever because of a fundamental difference in their respective ideologies and who they are as people. like they love each other they hate each other they have to kill each other they have to save each other its so . mwah (im doing the cheff kiss gesture rn) my only criticism of it is that there's never been a f/f iteration of it that could definitely exist it's just that the dw writers hate women so it hasn't happened in the like 60 years of this show running but it exists in my mind

First ever ship: rosemary from homestuck 😭 i think they were the first pairing that i ever looked up fanfiction for when i was but a child. i still love them btw and they're still my favorite homestuck characters their dry humor and the way they bounce off of each other in their pesterlogs is still something i adore

Last song: ignorance by paramore!!!

Currently reading: ........................asoiaf...

Currently watching: game of thrones with my buddy april. we are suffering together

Currently consuming: a latte from the nearby coffee shop i like to go to on the weekends!!

Currently craving: hmm maybe sushi, I haven't had it in a long while

not tagging anyone but thanks for reading if u got this far <3333

[jess-le-mess]

Feedist Kinktober 2024 - Day 15

(Prompt: Guardian Angel 😇)

[Content notes: fat nonbinary main character; aromantic main character; fat cis woman supporting character; body issues; feedism themes mentioned]

Guardian Angels

I really do like being a therapist. I do. And I think the work is important, especially the kind of work I do. I work with folks who are queer, who are fat, who are neurodivergent, and sometimes all three. It makes me feel like I'm doing something important, pushing back against the world that tries to destroy those of us who live in bodies like ours.

But my god is it exhausting. I'm only one person, and in my personal life I'm not even that good at being that sometimes. I fuck up constantly. I'm neurotic. I'm late for stuff. I can't keep a relationship. And, sometimes, I really just have mixed feelings about my own body and fatness in general.

I've been fat my whole life, and I've been a fat activist since I was a teenager. I got sucked into it when I noticed that my first roommate in university, a fellow Psych major named Tia, had a "You Are Enough" poster with a silhouette of a woman with a body like mine. Tia was chubby too, so I felt comfortable commenting on the poster, asking her about it, and she talked to me about fat activism, hooked me up with some names, and even invited me to a local fat issues book club.

So I got radicalized on that pretty fast. It really helped me see that a lot of the problems I had faced in high-school were not really my fault, but the fault of a shitty society that hates fat people.

I let that energy propel me through my education, and eventually into my work as a therapist. These days I present myself to other fat folks as this pillar of self-confidence, just so self-assured and in love with myself. Which, to a point, is true.

The point of guilt I feel moreso these days is that I really do like my body, and other fat bodies. Like, in a sexual way. It's not that there's any revulsion on my part of anything. I just feel like there's some conflict with my work as a therapist and as an activist and as a person who really just enjoys fat bodies and is attracted to them.

"I don't think it's that weird," Heather, my friend and fellow therapist with whom I share an office, assures me. "I'm attracted to fat girls. Like, shit, my new girlfriend and I, I think I'm, like, a feeder now? Or whatever? She's got me feeding her stuff and seeing her put on weight is driving me a little insane in a good way. So, I mean, like, do you, I think."

"I feel like it's a conflict of interests," I state, staring at the posters on Heather's office wall. Mostly just black-and-white photos of trees. Very calming. "I'm an activist, you know."

Heather shrugs. "So? Wouldn't that make more sense in a way?"

"But I feel like...I just feel like it kind of taints my activism somehow? Like I'm doing the work, but then I'm also doing the work while perving on those I'm trying to help?"

"Okay, but do you do that? Do you look at your clients and think 'Yeah, I'd date her'?"

I shake my head. "No, no, of course not. It's just..."

Heather looks me in the eye. "Cyn, respectfully, like, isn't this kinda fatphobic?"

I narrow my eyes. She smiled a little, knowing her words were having their intended impact on me. How very dare she.

"Like, you want there to be more accessible buildings and for planes to be less bullshitty for us and I love that. But what are fat folks like you or I supposed to do when they go home after marching in the streets all day? Just don our completely sexless potato sacks and non-sexually watch TV until we chastely fall asleep?"

"Well, no..."

"Yeah, I'll bet not. Anyway, I rest my case. It's okay to find fat folks hot, whatever that happens to mean to you at any given time. Like for me? After work, I'm going to help my girlfriend eat twelve or so raspberry-jam filled cupcakes. She's getting to be such a little fatty, and by god do I love it," Heather declared, with a shrug and an unabashed grin.

"I'm not saying you necessarily have to get out there and find a girl to fatten up or whatever. I'm just saying, like, you do all this work for others. Don't forget why you do it, you know? You deserve to have joy in your life; you deserve to delight in your body and the bodies of others, even if that's sexual sometimes."

"Okay, that's all ya get," Heather said, pulling a hand down in front of her face. "Therapist mode off."

Looking into my eyes she continued, "Just as your friend, I care about you, you know? You can't just go around fighting everyone else's battles all the time. Nourish yourself more, Cyn. Ok?"

I nodded.

Heather slapped her knees and began to get out of her chair. Once she was on her feet, she looked at me again and nodded. "Anyways, we'd hug if I wasn't socially awkward and afraid of touch, but just imagine it in your mind. You're a good person, but, like, guardian angels aren't real, ya know? You've got a big heart and you want to help and I get it, but you're not on this planet just for other people. It's okay to be a bit messy and still fight the good fight."

"I guess...yeah..." I respond, wondering how I would even live that out. I'm not like Heather. I don't necessarily dream of having a partner. I'm not that into romance or anything like that, but I am a sexual person I think although I've never been with another person like that.

"Okay, good talk." She clapped my shoulder as she moved toward the door of her office. "But now I gotta get to the bakery and get those cupcakes before the place closes."

I watched her leave, and then went back to my own office.

I sat there for a while in my office chair, just looking at my body and imagining someone desiring it, imagining me desiring someone else.

I'm not going to say it's effortless or that it feels totally okay, but I think about my friend's words.

Guardian angels aren't real, ya know?

It's okay to be a bit messy and still fight the good fight.

Slowly, in this moment of silence, I try to start letting myself believe that.