#ramblings and musings

[thesargasmicgoddess]

Adventure Reflections...✈️🌏

I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that I will be overseas again in 3 weeks. How has it been a year since last summer already?

The preparation and anticipatory anxiety for trips are always the worst for me. Nothing ever feels done or prepared, but it's gotten better with time and experience. As someone who suffered from severe agoraphobia in my 20's, I consider every adventure a huge win for me and my mental health.

And not once have I regretted an adventure.

But for now.....I'm just giving myself grace to take in what a crazy, blessed, and full 12 months it's been. But I'm taking downtime in July, finally 🙌🏻 🎉

Happy Wednesday, peeps!

[sargasmicgoddess]

I'm sorry.

I should have made more of an effort to be communicative. To tell you what was unfolding.

I'm very happy to see you thriving.

Hi~

It took me a second, but I think I may know who you are. If you are who I think you are, then thank you for this kind message, my friend. I greatly appreciate your thoughtfulness now, and apology accepted ❤️

Internet friendships are a funny thing. They are intimate and real in ways that many IRL friendships aren't. Yet internet friendships are often extremely cursory when it comes to basic things we usually take for granted in IRL friendships--like last names, phone numbers, regular forms of contact, having access to mundane knowledge--like the daily events that pop up in a friends life. You may see someone's bedroom and know their intimate thoughts, yet never know their real name. I've been fortunate enough to have actually gotten to know most of my close friends from here, but even then, there are always some mysteries that remain with some. (It's always that thin line between being invasive and curious....🤣)

And sometimes, they disappear without warning.

I've always asked the few people I've gotten close to here to please at least let me know, if they can, that they are leaving. And that they are OK. I appreciate the fact that real life is messy and unpredictable and that this may not always be possible or feasible. However, I always hope that they will at least do me the courtesy of letting me know...if not when it happens, perhaps some time in the future. And...I'm thinking this may be the latter...? If so, I'm flattered I'm still a thought. ❤️

My worst fear is not knowing that something happened to a friend and then just assuming the worst. I've thankfully not had that happen very often, but it is a thought that haunts me from time to time. (Yes, I'm one of those sentimental ones, lol)

This is a roundabout way of me saying that I understand that internet friendships often don't come with the same expectations that IRL friendships may--but it is greatly appreciated when someone makes the effort to be considerate. In this case, I was very appreciative and touched to get this message. I have to say I wasn't expecting it and it was a lovely surprise. I hope everything is well with you too. Please know that you are always welcome to say hi, should you wish to ❤️. I appreciate this gesture, and there are no hard feelings.

The close friendships I've made here hold a special place in my heart. I often wonder where these friends may be, years from now--the sentimental, connection-seeking part of me always hopes that they will still be around. I've always been a firm believer that connections that are meant to be will always remain, in some shape or form.

And if I was totally wrong about who you are, and you have no idea what I'm talking about....then...well...whoops. My bad. 🤣😬 What I said about internet friendships still hold true...and I apologize for any confusion 🤣

[scummy-writes]

I am feeling nostalgic lately because I am trying to just sorta look into reasons that I write and why I struggle with some things concerning it, and in doing so I've been doing the Terrifying task of reviewing things that gave me a lot of anxiety, such as like...m*sme days.

I wrote a Lot for that fandom, I believe. A lot to me, to where if I compared it to how much I've written this past year, it feels like it wouldn't have even been a third of the writing for m*sme. I mean, I just finally broke over posting more fanfics for vamp than m*sme recently on ao3 recently, whereas m*sme had a ton of hcs and etc that I posted too, since I used to do more requests back then.

I was a part of two zines. One, i was asked to be a part of as a guest, and I have the physical version of the zine still on my bookshelf. My writin, printed out!!! With artists and writers that I enjoyed and admired, I am inbetween shared pages with them.

Another, I spearheaded with the help of friends and managed to raise almost $800 in charity for, even the company reached out and sent a nice lil RFA booklet for it.

And I've been having bouts where I think of those years and compare to Myself. Like "man, past me wrote so much, whats Wrong with me now?", "i was able to do so much more back then...", and now I sit here and analyze it even moreso.

I was quite literally the most depressed I had ever been during that timeframe. I had some awful struggles with my family, I was learning about a lot of personal struggles as well, fandom drama had me in a choke hold it felt like, I was having to live with my grandma due to the family issues, I was alone with barely any time to see irl friends since i worked nightshifts (and my irl friends were an hour away or so), and I lived in a small town that was hateful in many ways. Etc etc...

And now its...what...smaller fandom with less drama (thank god), less pressures from toxic friend groups, family issues are not 100% but are WAY better.... lived with friends the past couple of years and currently living with a friend I met through ikes*ries fandom, and I'm looking back at those fandom days with m*sme and I'm like. Maybe I am just still recovering from all of that. Maybe this is just me slowly building up the ability to write and love it all again.

[dracopias-bloodbag]

My writing process is really just, 9 tabs open: pinterest (for setting inspo), italian fic writing guide 1, 2, and 3 (all curtesy of the lovely @foxybouquet :)), thesatanictemple.com, guide to moon phase meanings, google translate, site on witchcraft history, google doc of outtakes, and the doc with the chapter I'm actually working on

[confessionsofatvjunkie]

I really, really need us to define what "fully remote" means... I believe if you have ANY kind of location requirement, even if I'll never have to step foot in the office, then you should not be able to list it as fully remote.

It's a waste of your time as a job poster, and my energy as a seeker, to get all these listings in my search parameters and most of them I can't even apply for, because you decided to list you post at "fully remote... except,"

Signed, a very frustrated job seeker!

[12th-shavie]

So I've been playing Radiant Historia Perfect Chronology lately and I have many thoughts that plague me

Spoilers under the cut

All of this is from reaching both basic and true ending, the PC ending with the singularity, all side quests, possible history quests and no second run with clear data for the extra ending. Also I played it on friendly difficulty and it's a good thing I touch at the end of my thoughts.

I mostly want to ramble about the different characters in the game, in somewhat of an order so I'll start with my dear boy Stocke.

I really liked Stocke. He's not particularly chatty, but we get to see a lot of what's going on his mind through the story, including every decision he has to make that can lead to a bad ending and he ends up very well-rounded by the time of the ending. He clearly grows to care a lot about everyone around him, which makes his fate particularly cruel when it's only because he made all these connections that he can be the sacrifice, but it's also the reason why his sacrifice is such a heavy blow for the others. His status as a man whose soul hasn't been his for a long time unbeknownst to him heightens the value of his growth as a person and as a friend, showing how he could still grasp the opportunity to see value in the world beyond himself and his own lifespan (that was technically over since quite some time). He's willing to use the power at his disposal to try to get the best outcome for anyone he can help, even when it seemingly doesn't do much for the world at large, he's just really helpful. Stocke is also very funny to me in the many ways he deals with his time travel. Especially in the ways he casually transports a bunch of items through the timelines, and never explains how he knows information he has absolutely no way of knowing at the point in time he's in. He also doesn't seem to question the fact that there's a big part of his life missing, or at least that's what I understand the Ernst memory wipe as, and seems to just adapt to whatever the timeline has in store for him at any given time. But he's also a Sad boy™ and deserves the world for everything he's been put through. Especially having to kill Rosch that one time.

Ah, Rosch. My poor sweet bulky boy whom I really tried to use every time he was available but it seems it was never enough and even in post-ending he's not quite caught up. The mana spring dlc also shows just how big his armor truly compared to his actual body and I respect the huge suit of armor that makes his silhouette a little silly. I wasn't a big fan of his romance with Sonja at first until the alternate history in Celestia and his bigger arc, where we get to see some more of them that made me appreciate them more (and Sonja upgrading his Gauntlet has to be some of my favourite interactions between her, Rosch and Stocke).

Raynie and Marco are cute as characters Stocke is close to but I really couldn't care less about Raynie's romantic subplot, or her in general. My interest in her never rose higher than my interest in her gameplay, which is thankfully fun to me so it doesn't feel like she's wasting my time. Marco was a little better, especially with the Mimel sidequest where he shows another facette of himself in the bad ending where he goes nuts and I respect that. But ultimately, they're only involved at first because Heiss made it so, and neither their past not their relationship to Stocke or the others was delved into all that much, which is kind of a shame given how present they are during the game.

Which bring me to Heiss. Heiss' first appearance just threw me in a loop of "wow, this guy is so obviously evil but he called Stocke his best boy so now I really want the game to surprise me with a turn of events where he's not one of the Big Bad™. I really wish I could trust this guy in the slightest but that character design is screaming EVIL very loudly". He then proceeds to turn out to be the main villain. Except he still very much cares about Stocke, and always has, even when his other intentions are very nefarious. And even at the very end he still cares about his favourite nephew. And I'm a sucker for that kind of character development, so needless to say Heiss now lives rent-free in one of my mental tabs that run in the background on my thoughts. He does have one portrait where he looks down, in a content but sad way, as if reminiscing of a happier past and it really gets me every time. I did not expect to care so much about the guy, yet his character arc really did it for me. From the bitterness cranked up to eleven by the Black Chronicle's past owners and his huge soft spot for Stocke to his own actions of granting Stocke a chance at a non-royal, non-sacrifice life that he himself never got as Heinrich being the key to the only positive future there was for the world ? Gorgeous arc ! Until the true end where he just never gives up on the only thing he truly cared about, Stocke's future. The PC ending where he joins forces with Stocke, Nemesia and the others was also a satisfying moment, seeing how he's reminded of when he went on adventures with Ernst (again with that softer portrait I am very weak to), along with one of the possible histories where you get the key to his desk (which had plagued me from the moment I tried to snoop around his office much earlier in the game) and it contains an old portrait of Heinrich and Ernst, probably the only trace had kept from that part of his past, showing that despite all the scheming and lack of remorse on other fronts as the main villain, he's still an old man whose life was never completely his own, and who tries to break the cycle for the one person he cared about who was condemned to the same fate. In other words, Heiss is absolutely a magnificent bastard but also very human underneath and I am not immune to that.

On the other hand, a character I had to warm up to gradually was Eruca (I've seen her design from the DS version and I feel robbed, that little sprite had so much more personality !). She starts out kinda generic, as the princess stuck under the terrible reign of her stepmother who secretly leads her dead brother's rebel group, and I only started garnering interest when she joined the party and was armed with a gun. I had gotten a gun before but had no idea they were for her, and it was extremely refreshing to see how she fared in combat despite her lower availability. Her relationship with Stocke was also made so much better by that one moment around the end where it goes back to their first time meeting in standard history and shows exactly what she was dealing with when interacting with Stocke, knowing full that he not only was her dead brother living with a borrowed soul, but also had yet to be aware of his role in the grand scheme of things. I was afraid the whole ritual bit would get in the way of her character development but it didn't and she ended up being one of my favourite characters in both story and gameplay. Ice magic nukes are very nice.

Aht is adorable and I knew she'd be in my top three from the moment I saw her in the animated opening in which she gave me some Just a little guy™ vibe which is sufficient for me to be interested. Her voice acting was also very endearing (then again all of the voice acting worked really for me) and she was just as fun in gameplay with her trap set-ups and big combo potential. And then the story dropped all sorts of hints that she clearly was aware of something very big and plot-relevant and that really makes her go from Babsie™ to Tell me your secrets you adorable little scoundrel™ and that's absolutely my jam.

I wish I had a stronger opinion on Gafka. He's pretty neat, I like the combos he brings to the tables, the way he learns additional skills with Bergas makes sense to me and is cool, but I wish his character spoke to me more. The one thing I would say about him is that he has this trait where he has a hard time distinguishing humans and uses nicknames based on other visible parts of them, but does eventually come to recognize Stocke with his name instead of "Red One" and that's a new bit of development he got there.

I wish Viola was playable. Girl's got so much potential with a title like the Valkyrie but only gets so little story presence, but she's a highlight of every scene she's in and that's fine by me. I find her design very soft yet powerful and inspiring, as befits a character with her renown and charisma.

I can also say I really appreciate Raul, he's not the most appealing character at first, but the genuine effort he clearly puts in supporting however he can from the back lines and devising all of the larger scale tactics and stuff really elevates him as guy who's trying to make the best out of a bad situation where he can't turn his back on people who need help he can provide after not opposing Hugo more directly even though he suspected him to be up to no good.

Speaking of Hugo, he has me a little confused on what exactly his motives were, where his loyalty lied and what he was really trying to accomplish, especially regarding Noah and the possible histories surrounding him. I'm not a fan of letting him around with Noah and not facing more consequences for his actions. Noah himself is also a little weird, being both this mysterious prophet who just wants what's best for his people and this calm guy who seems to know more than he lets on but hasn't really tried to stop Hugo or find another way to reach the people without his name being exploited. I wonder how he could've affected the timeline if he didn't just vanish from the public eye after the possible history that saves his life in the alternate history.

Dias and Selvan are most definitely meant to be read as an evil power couple. You can't throw in a sidequest where it is shown they get a hotel room in the middle of the day and Selvan immediately resorting to threatening to kill a little girl the instant he sees Stocke menacing Dias, and not tell they're not in some kind of very close relationship that is never described as friendship, not even once. Also they'd seemingly betray anyone in a heartbeat except each other and I will read the subtext as I please. There is also that one line from Selvan in alternate history when Dias is dead and he says something along the lines of "But now Dias is slain, and I am broken". And that's without mentioning the possible history where they didn't set Protea up as queen but Dias directly, and an NPC says that "Dias wears the crown, but Selvan might as well sit on the throne" and I'll gladly interpret it as Selvan sitting on the throne with Dias on his lap. Moving on.

Friendly difficulty is a godsend that should be in many other games. I love being able to progress rapidly through the combat heavy parts of the story and only be forced into important fights which I can appreciate without wearing down my gameplay experience. I cannot show grateful I am to be able to enjoy the story to the fullest with no downsides in my opinion. It even gives me a reason to someday try out the DS version to experiment with combat a little more, and also see the game in all its original stylized glory (mostly Stocke's grittier self, Eruca's pixie cut, Heiss balding forehead that makes him less magnificent of a bastard and Dias looking less evil for some reason)

I also intend to finish RHPC with my clear data to see that final final ending, just to see what it brings to the table.

[anxiety-banana]

hello i would like everyone to know that sometimes you can sob your eyes out and have an existential crisis one moment and then suddenly you're booking your driver's test and applying for jobs and crocheting a blanket and maybe life isn't so bad anymore!! maybe you can feel awful and fix your life anyway!! maybe you're allowed to be a wreck and still be good enough!! i am a full on adult and have avoided getting my license for years but now i'm finally doing it because i've grown around the fear!!!! the world didn't crash and burn when i was fifteen!! i did this for myself and i'm going to be okay!!

[thesargasmicgoddess]

An idle mind is the devil's playground....

I have nothing due tomorrow (well, technically today now). No high stress meetings. No crazy commitments. No work travel, speaking engagements, or press interviews. And here I am, 3am, wide awake and going through potato chips.

You'd think that having less to do would help me sleep, but my brain is apparently confused by the sudden lull in activity and stress level....and is looking for distractions 😂

Like, wtf? My brain has forgotten how to relax. God. I'm so weird. And wired, apparently, for no reason. 😂

now...to masturbate or work....?🤔

[sargasmicgoddess]

Hi. Not cerebral, but have you ever made a random connection with someone so strong on a night out or whatever where you’ve just had to follow it up somehow, or take action there and then?

I have this devil/angel inner-voice trauma in those situations and the angel always wins so I’m always left with wondering ‘what if’. One day I’ll have the balls to just say ‘fuck it’ and see what happens. Sigh.

Ever seen the movie Before Sunrise?

That's what I always think of when I think about random connections that just work.

Most of my life, I've followed my passions. Of the mind and of the heart. Professionally and personally. "What ifs" haunt me, and I've consciously tried to live a life where I don't have to say that a lot.

Granted, it takes me to other places that have made me say, "WTF is WRONG with me?!"* And "Am I clinically, diagnosably, INSANE?!"**

Other times, I get hurt wearing my heart on my sleeve by being vulnerable with connections, but that's a willing risk I take. I'd rather feel too much than nothing at all. But at the end of the day, I'm almost always happy I took chances.

I regret nothing. It has shaped me into the person I am today.

Obviously, idk your specific situation, so use your own best judgment.

But more than ever, I've embraced unexpected connections, experiences, and moments in my 40s. I hope you can find your happy medium too!

* everything. But I'm cool with it 🤣

**debatable. I'm sure you'll find me in the DSM somewhere 😬

[realitys-ex]

I 100% agree, but the funniest aspect of this is....I am a mid 90s baby.

I have No Reason to feel that way. I barely remember the 90s (though tbf I barely remember last week).

One of my strongest memories of that era is my Dad saying, "The Millenia will change soon, you are one of the few lucky people who gets to witness this." (completely paraphrased obviously)

And yet... I still feel that when someone mentions they were born in 2001 they should be in middle school, and they are barely 7 years younger than me!

It makes no sense!

Brains are odd.

people born in 2000 should be like 12-14 now. but they’re not. that’s how fucked up our world is now

[wolgraugorimilir]

This is a letter I wrote to a friend, regarding Tepwat Manu. Stick around for rambling musings on ancient Egyptian culture, and my life

“It's a fascinating point you made that “lightness of the heart” means frivolity, rather than rightness, in our culture. I've never thought about that, nor have I ever recognized that the imagery of the weighing of the scales is something that exists, too, in Hebrew scripture.

Of course, that makes a lot of sense to me. After all, famously, there were close connections between Hebrews and Egyptians.

That you mentioned our relationship with the concept of lightness of the heart illuminates what I consider to be a very important difference between Ancient Egyptian culture and our own. Ancient Egyptians conceptualized morality (maybe better translated as “rightness”, symbolized by the feather called Ma'at), as comfortably fulfilling your role in society. Full stop.

“Rightness” meant that it was right for healers to heal, for farmers to sow, for scribes to write. Fulfilling your social role - being “right”, or perhaps, “moral” - was something that would feel effortless, and pleasurable. Living your best life was light-hearted, even perhaps in our sense of the word.

Something I have always struggled with growing up with Christianity is the pernicious idea that rightness has to hurt. That pleasure and ease are sinful. I grew up around mostly protestants.

I think there is wisdom in the belief that living within your means, and doing whatever is most natural, is “right”.

Of course, It's also a dangerous belief. For the Ancient Egyptians, it was right for a warrior to kill, and for a king to enslave.

I'm so so happy to hear you're in, and I'm so flattered that you were able to engage with my writing on such a deep and insightful level.

Henry was my brother. He died when he was a baby. I was 6. It opened my eyes to death. All at once, god became something cruel, and unjust.

That feeling is something I shared with the ancient Mesopotamians. They loved their gods, of course, like I do, but they didn't think of their gods as beings concerned with morality. The gods were as capricious and cruel as the natural forces they embodied. The oceans, The Earth, death. They were not above the people's reproach. A common refrain in Mesopotamian prayers was to curse their gods, to try and make them feel pity, and change their minds.

If a child died, his mother would say to her gods - those who wielded the tablets of destiny - who had set down in clay the proclamation that her child should die:

"Why did you do this cruel thing to me, when all I ever did was love you?"

I don't feel like we've ever come up with a very compelling answer to that question. The gods have certainly been quiet.

[confessionsofatvjunkie]

When life (Target) gives you lemons (a way bigger “mini” watermelon than you expected resulting in a surplus of fruit for one person) make lemonade (spice watermelon margaritas)

[owlbelly]

so. i understand where the sentiment "listening to an audiobook is the same thing as reading the book" is coming from - i mean, yes, the bottom line is you are taking in the same words in what is possibly a more accessible (or maybe just more enjoyable) format for you! and i'm 100% in agreement that "book snobs" who say "no you didn't really read it" if you listened to the audiobook are full of shit. ofc you should engage with stories in whatever way works for you, there is no moral or intellectual superiority to reading words off a page vs. listening to them

but it also is different? an audiobook is a performance. choices a narrator makes about line readings can drastically influence the meaning of the lines. even just different voices, accents, etc. - there are creative choices being made by the person delivering the words to you, and that affects your experience of the story in a different way than if you were making those choices in your own head. it might even change the way you visualize what's going on!

this isn't a bad thing it's just An Actual Thing & i think it's worth talking about. it rubs me the wrong way when people act like accommodations (and for many people audiobooks are an accommodation) always result in a completely identical experience, or even that they should, & if you suggest that people accessing media in different ways are having different experiences it's somehow ableist

anyway on rare occasions i really enjoy audiobooks but mostly they are much less accessible to me than words on a page (i need to be able to reread, flip back and forth, go at my own pace) & i also just really strongly prefer to encounter a text on my own before hearing someone else's performance of it, if possible! again i don't think it's "better" to read a physical book i just think it is a Distinct form of experiencing a story & acting like the two things are entirely the same is sort of doing a disservice to both

[dracopias-bloodbag]

is it really one of my self indulgent fanfics if “out of the woods” isn’t one of their songs

[ghostcat96]

Is it weird that I feel so much more comfortable 'thirsting' for characters after I've realised I'm aroace? I have no idea if there's like, a psychological reason why realising I'm not actually attracted to the characters makes me more comfortable to talk about finding them attractive

[moonjxsung]

Han Jisung constantly being reduced to some lesser version of himself for struggles with anxiety/mental health, being rampantly feminized because he’s become 1/2 of the face of a popular ship within the fandom and consequently not fairly recognized for the sheer individual GENIUS he is; finally making a personal instagram and casually posting all the song covers he wants to, getting 3 tattoos in one session just because he can. Trusting us enough to share what the tattoos are on a fancall- sharing little tidbits of his personal life when he’s ready, and keeping things sacred to him when he’s still able to. Seeing him have this autonomy over himself and embrace the creative person he is and always has been is so, so refreshing. Maybe we’ll never know him beyond a killer instagram song cover, we’ll never see his baby photos or perhaps even bear witness to his first few tattoos. But we do know he cried 3 times watching the movie “Up”. And the little glimpses we get into his personality and his artistic vision as he walks this fine line between privacy and rawness as an idol are nothing short of endearing. I don’t know what was in those contract renegotiations, but he’s never seemed more like himself.

Han Jisung my multi-faceted muse. Do whatever you want if it means you’ll always be this fulfilled