#personal i guess?

[pflanzidiezimmerpflanze]

Genuinely so wonderful how loving a character can help you with your own self-image as well. For example, I bought a new, long coat that reaches the back of my knees. When I wore it out the first time, I caught a glance of myself in a shop window. The coat didn't fall down straight; it bunched a bit at my hips. I was kind of sad for a split second, but then my brain supplied me with the image of Poirot and his coat and how everyone would admire his dump truck of an ass, and you won't believe how my face brightened at that.

Loving fictional characters sometimes makes you accept yourself more, and I love that :)

[its-all-papaya]

all the people criticizing lando for that “im so tired of this question” thing after sprint quali today it’s like. have you met a journalist. have you met an athlete. “go to pr training.” every time an athlete has told a journalist to go fuck themselves in nicer terms than that it has taken everything in me not to clap from the side. every single post-event interview is the exact same by and large and also it’s a triple-header and he knows they’re looking for a gotcha they can smear him in the press for. so anyway lando i am clapping from the side in spirit xoxo

[godzilla-reads]

My dog: sneezes so hard that he farts

Me: at ease, soldier

[biggaybunny]

Several years ago I came across on my dashboard a little comic that left in me such a deep and intense sense of horror that it's haunted me ever since, though that is partially because of how my brain regularly revisits bad memories against my will for the express purpose of torturing me. Anyway, the point of this preamble is to serve as a content warning for existential horror, I guess.

The comic was simple, and pretty well burned in to my memory, so let me describe it for you first; a time traveler (a young woman) pops into frame and declares their excitement to explore the future. They are immediately greeted by a small feline robot that offers them a key to "their room", and a pill that will make them feel every kind of happiness at once. The time traveler refuses the offer, saying that they don't want simple happiness, and get their thrills from the sense of adventure. The robot explains that yes, no worry, that thrill is one of the things she'll feel once she's taken that pill. The time traveler agrees to try it for "just a minute". The comic cuts to the time traveler sitting on a chair in a small, completely barren room, with an IV hooked up to her. She is drooling and her eyes completely unfocused. We zoom out to see her room is just a small box next to many, each with a similar occupant, and we see rows and rows and rows of such boxes, implying this to be the fate of humanity. The comic ends there.

Just retelling this comic makes me want to puke, so distressing it is to me. I was also distressed by the person reblogging it who in the tags talked about how they felt this was a good fate for humanity; I blocked the post (I have thankfully never seen it again, despite blocking it multiple versions of xkit ago) and unfollowed the person who put it on my dash, and have never spoken to them again.

It's hard to explain exactly why I find this scenario so terrifying. It truly does shake me to my core. It's horrifying because it is a kind of living death, I suppose. A prison that cannot be escaped from. The mind is gone, or effectively gone, while the body remains. And there feels like there would be no saving someone from such a fate. What would happen to a person who experienced such a pure bliss, if you tried to cut them off from it? Do you think they'd find a return to existence anything less than traumatizing? That their minds would even be able to start working again, after what had happened? I don't see how. That's what makes it such a horrifying fate, to me. Once encountered, the person is lost, even as their body continues to function.

I also hate it because I've found it hard to refute as a potential fate for humanity. It gets kind of philosophically thorny. Our brains are just chemical machines; what is the difference between a sensation of pleasure earned versus one that's been chemically induced? What difference does it make if it's "real"? What does "real" mean? Is the person who climbs a mountain in a videogame not entitled to a sense of accomplishment the same as a person who really climbs a mountain? What about a mountain in vr? How far do we have to abstract away from the truth -- that every experience results in the production of a chemical cocktail by one part of our body to be processed by another part of our body -- for a sensation to "mean" something? Isn't pleasure something we all pursue, in some form, anyway? Isn't the goal of every moral framework out there to find a way so all involved can live happily? Why is it okay to imperfectly pursue pleasure of some kind -- satisfaction, ecstasy, triumph, whatever -- but not okay to pursue it optimally? If neither is okay, what are we all living for?

I refuse to accept this, because there's no room for both a world where this ultimate pleasure pill exists and a world where humanity continues. You can't say "this can exist and some people wouldn't take it". It renders all pursuits of humanity pointless. The thrill of discovery? That's just chemicals. The joy of companionship? Chemicals. All things we feel are just chemicals; we are just chemicals. This thought has never scared me before, but that's perhaps because on some level, I always took it for granted that consciousness was somehow... special. Something more important, something you can't just... bypass. But I know that that's not true.

Maybe consciousness is still the answer. Maybe our consciousness is what makes us human, and needs to be protected. I feel unsure if I've explained why I'm so sure that the scenario described in that comic would obliterate consciousness; it feels self-evident to me that the individual must be destroyed in such a scenario, because they are unable to take any action including thinking, because they have been robbed of all reason to act or think, or in other words, the very ability to think.

I do not rely on instinctive reactions to guide my moral philosophy, so my revulsion alone is not a reason to condemn it. Perhaps, however, in this case my revulsion is justified, for the destruction of the mind is truly immoral thing. It does not perfectly answer why the destruction of the mind is a horrible thing, because, again, we are not special. We are an accident of atoms in a mechanical universe, or at least so I believe (unfortunately). I suppose, when you get to the heart of the issue, I'm simply asking what is the point of it all? If it doesn't have a point, doesn't that make all the struggle pointless too? Doesn't it mean we may as well strap ourselves in and have super-heroin drip-fed into our brains for our entire lives? And if so, why do I find that so terrifying? Is my terror just an accident of my evolution-designed brain, that contains in it the same desires to preserve and proliferate my kind as the slime mold?

This is the part where I'm supposed to come up with an answer. Something that irrefutably denies the idea that some kind of super-pleasure-cocktail could replace the enormity of life. But I don't know. In order to deny it, we have to decide on a meaning to our lives that categorically excludes it as a valid option. And there's no such universally agreed upon meaning to life. But maybe that's the answer, itself. We contain within ourselves the ability to decide for ourselves what it all means. We have free will; even if the universe turns out to be perfectly deterministic on the scale we're on, we won't ever know our decisions until we make them. It is this free will that the scenario I've gone on about destroys, because as I've said, there is no way for this to exist alongside other choices to live. Maybe you don't believe that. Or maybe you're one of the sorry kinds that think we should all be living in tiny boxes, our brains turned into nothing but organic chemical processing machines that take in chemicals and produce other chemicals. If that's the case, I think I hate you. But that's the best I can do to stop being haunted by a stupid comic I saw five or six years ago now. That's really all this is about.

Sorry for subjecting you all to this, it's really just for my own sake. I just needed to write my thoughts down. I've tried writing this post a couple times over the years, and always scrapped it. It just upsets me that much. I'm a neurotic little freak and I wish I wasn't being constantly tortured by my own mind. Maybe you got something out of this, maybe I disturbed you, in which case I'm sorry. Hopefully you can find a better way to cope than I did.

Maybe in the future I'll post the other thoughts that my brain uses to torture me, like the short story I read about that taught me what autocannibalism is, or the time in the 4th grade I touched a girl's thigh by accident. It's not much fun being me, most the time. Anyway, I'll stop procrastinating and post this. Sorry again.

[simplegenius042]

Tag Game

Tagged by @thewanderer-000

Tagging @adelaidedrubman @chazz-anova @socially-awkward-skeleton @lulu2992 @inthewinedarksea @strangefable @strafethesesinners @voidika @onehornedbeast @demigoddessqueens @paganminiskirt @direwombat @wrathfulrook @ladyoriza @josephslittledeputy and @shallow-gravy + plus anyone who wants to join (no pressure)

Last song: “Addict” by Silva Hound ft. Michael Kovach and Chi-Chi. Here’s the music video from Vivziepop:

Favourite Colour: Blue, Purple and/or Grey.

Last Movie: Last movie I fully watched? Five Nights At Freddy’s. Actual movie that I have (and was forced to but wasn’t paying attention to) watched this week? Cars 2.

Sweet/Spicy/Savory?: I don’t mind but I prefer sweet.

Relationship Status: Single.

Current Obsession: Far Cry 5 but also diving into Fallout LOL. Not to say I’m not still obsessed with other things these two have just taken over my mind for the most part.

For the tag, write the Last Song you listened to, your Favourite Colour, the Last Movie you watched, whether you prefer Spicy, Sweet or Savory, your Relationship Status (optional, no pressure) and Current Obsession/s.

[roxirinart]

Current favorite activity: scrolling idly through tags and commenting on people's art ❤️ idk why so few people seem to comment when it literally takes like 10 seconds to type 'omg this is so cool I love it nice!'

[lascivuscorvus]

I'm vibing with the label "butch" more and more tbh

Both as orientation and gender identity.

I'm certainly not a woman but I'm not exactly a full-on man either. It's especially apparent in my attraction/relationships with women. I'm bi but mostly attracted to women and it will always feel like the more "gay" side of me, even as a transmasc (tho my relationships with men are also gay af). Stone Butch Blues was sort of an awakening for me, because as I was reading through it I was like "Holy shit, Jess is literally me." So even though I'm neither a woman nor exclusively attracted to women, it just feels right for me.

[getupcowardd]

this is just not even fair I WANT SWEATERS TO LOOK LIKE THAT ON ME

[diazheartsbuckley]

If anyone wants to send me a prompt or something, I could do well with a distraction 🫶🏻

[tomscottsredshirt]

<3

i have so much love to give and i am so caring and genuinely kind and see so much beauty in the world. i will never be like my father.

[misty-feathers]

does "write what you know" apply to writing fic that includes some scenarios from my real actual life that feel like they are coming out of my literal favorite fic tropes but in a frustrating way not a good way

is this karma or something

[kalpasio]

absolutely wonderful amazing spectacular news, I finally found a company desperate enough to hire me for the summer!!!

absolutely wretched horrendous devistating news, I have to get on a plane for the orientation

regular normal good news tho, I'll be working on a set schedule so my ADHD ass will actually be functional, and I should be able to post reliably over the summer! also I might try to write when I'm on the plane assuming I can see through the tears so I could just write like 2 full stories in 3 days

this doesn't happen for a bit, but I'm excited and dying and am forcing you to suffer with me

[convictedsodomist]

I need to stop misgendering myself in Italian.

[warblingandwriting]

I feel like sometimes (especially Very Online people) confuse the idea that there should be a space for something, and that every space should allow something. Like people should have places to talk about whatever topics they want, but not every space is going to be the right one to discuss every topic and that's fine? You should have more than one place to discuss things in you life, and you should have spaces or people not online to do that with as well

[dewberrybramble]

What’s it like being the coolest ever though like— 👁️👁️👁️👁️

i dunno dear, i think only the actual coolest most lovely most amazing person would be able to answer that. so, what is it like being the coolest ever?

[ashton-slashton]

I think if I was able to Laura Palmer Black Lodge Scream in front of customers at least ONCE, it would fix me psychologically.