#sadness times

[void-rainbow]

sad

i've never deleted things i've put up

on ao3

just did so

wanted to very soon after posting

want to post it again later

wondered if it would delete the comments from my inbox too. it's true. they're gone

feel like anything anyone ever gives me is a sacred gift. i never get rid of them. i will hoard them. i will save any tiny scrap two second drawing. i will cherish any small note

every part of me feels like to delete is taking any comments and kudos from people and tearing them up and stomping all over them as if they are worse than dirt to me

had to ask the people who left comments how they felt

and

i dunno i ran out of antidepressant days ago due to a pharmacy mix up

dunno how much that drives my emotions

i am sad

i am crying

though i know i wanted to get rid of it before

it is the most depressing thing going through my head

ig

there are other horrible things in my head too but this is the most active thing to focus on and cry about

rather than long term traumas and pains that haunt me in my waking and sleeping hours but aren't actively having anything related to them happening right now

just want this all to be over with

want to finish my fic

cuz it's not finished

published fic that wasn't truly finished

just want to finish it and then it will be out properly

(even though it will haunt me forever that i put out fic unfinished and i can never fix first impressions)

(hoping it haunts me less than having bad version still existing)

but my brain won't work

no matter how much i try to write lately and have some kinda drive for it

only chaos notes

if that

nothing resembling real writing

brain just won't work

and no beta to help

will just

be haunted

by fic

for a while

ig

i dunno i'm sad and my brain is affected by things i can't fix

i don't even know if i like antidepressants but withdrawal is terrible no matter what

ramble in the sadness not knowing my own emotions well

i just want to be sad with other people but why am i so sad about this

coming to bother others with nothingness

can we just curl up and hug and cry and nap and be sad

maybe i don't have important reasons but i want to ask for it anyway

[someonesrealityshifting]

Small thing that breaks my heart:

When I was in third grade, I told this boy that it would be my birthday in four days, and he said, “okay, then I’ll buy you flowers.” Four days later he comes up to me and says, “my mom wouldn’t let me get flowers but I found you this violet in the grass.” That in and of itself was iconic and so so sweet, but it gets better.

A month later, I had to move, and because it was third grade, the teacher made everyone write me letters to say goodbye. His said, “I hope you have so much fun in your new house that you forget about me. I hope that you’re always happy and you never miss us. I’m sorry I never gave you flowers, but I can give you some now.” And he fucking. Drew me flowers.

No, Joey, I never forgot you. You are the reason I have standards in this life, and I’m so grateful to have known you. I hope you’re happy, wherever you are, and I hope that the rest of your days are filled with as much joy as you gave to me. I spilled water on the card about five years ago, and half of it is a a jumbled mess now, but I still have it. It’s the only card I still have.

The funny thing is this dude and I hardly ever interacted. I knew he played football because he was on the town’s kids’ team and my brother was on the middle school team, and I knew he was one of, like, three Joeys in our year. I had a crush on him but obviously never communicated that because it was fucking third grade, but somehow those three interactions imprinted on who I am as a person. I am forever changed by Joey from third grade.

[novaneondream]

it’s our turn to make you smile

[alexxuun]

Everyday, it’s a-gettin’ gayer~🎶

[damazcuz]

"I could fix him" well DON'T, I'm trying to breed a new generation of trembling pursedog freakboys and I need his cringefail loser genes.

[hinamie]

dead man walking

[lomlompurim]

Something born from a convo on twt

(Bingmei is still The Emperor and The HHP Palace Master but he spends more time with his family and house duties, and working hard into his dream of having a BIG family)

The tweet that inspired this, which I very much agree, omega Binghe supremacy

[starspilli]

morning kori. she’s lovingly watching dick burn the shit out of her pancakes

[notherpuppet]

Art School AU LOL 🦌🎨 based on true stories hahaha

[newttxt]

leashes for zosan

[stromblessed]

Mizu, femininity, and fallen sparrows

In my last post about Mizu and Akemi, I feel like I came across as overly critical of Mizu given that Mizu is a woman who - in her own words - has to live as a man in order to go down the path of revenge.

If she is ever discovered to be female by the wrong person, she will not only be unable to complete her quest, but there's a good chance that she'll be arrested or killed.

So it makes complete sense for Mizu to distance herself as much as possible from any behavior that she feels like would make someone question her sex.

I felt so indignant toward Mizu on my first couple watchthroughs for this moment. Why couldn't Mizu bribe the woman and her child's way into the city too? If Mizu is presenting as a man, couldn't she claim to be the woman's escort?

However, this moment makes things pretty clear. Mizu knows all too well the plight of women in her society. She knows it so well that she cannot risk ever finding herself back in their position again. She helps in what little way she can - without drawing attention to herself.

Mizu is not a hero and she is not one to make of herself a martyr - she will not set herself on fire to keep others warm. There's room to argue that Mizu shouldn't prioritize her quest over people's lives, but given the collateral damage Mizu can live with in almost every episode of season 1, Mizu is simply not operating under that kind of morality at this point. ("You don't know what I've done to reach you," Mizu tells Fowler.)

And while I still feel like Mizu has an obvious and established blind spot when it comes to Akemi because of their differences in station, such that Mizu's judgment of Akemi and actions in episode 5 are the result of prejudice rather than the result of Mizu's caution, I also want to establish that Mizu is just as caged as Akemi is, despite her technically having more freedom while living as a man.

Mizu can hide her mixed race identity some of the time, and she can hide her sex almost all of the time, but being able to operate outside of her society's strict rules for women does not mean she cannot see their plight.

It does not mean she doesn't hurt for them.

Back to Mizu and collateral damage, remember that sparrow?

While Mizu is breaking into Boss Hamata's manse, she gets startled by a bird and kills it on reflex. She then cradles it in her hands - much more tenderly than we've seen Mizu treat almost anything up to this point in the season:

She then puts it in its nest, with its unhatched eggs. Almost like she's trying to make the death look natural. Or like an accident.

You see where I'm going with this.

When Mizu kills Kinuyo, Mizu lingers in the moment, holding the body tenderly:

And btw a lot of stuff about this show hit me hard, but this remains the biggest gut punch of them all for me, Mizu holding that poor girl's body close, GOD

When Mizu arranges the "scene of the crime," Kinuyo's body is delicate, birdlike. And Mizu is so shaken afterward that she gets sloppy. She's horrified at this kill to the point that she can't bring herself to take another innocent life - the boy who rats her out.

MIZU'S ONE MOMENT OF SOFTNESS AND MERCY, COMING ON THE HEELS OF HER NEEDING TO KILL A GIRL TO SPARE HER THE WORST FATE THAT THIS RIGID SOCIETY HAS TO OFFER WOMEN, AND TO SPARE A BROTHEL FULL OF INNOCENT WOMEN WHO ARE THE CASTOFFS OF SOCIETY, NEARLY RESULTS IN ALL OF THEIR DEATHS

No wonder Mizu is as stoic and cold as she is.

And no wonder Mizu has no patience for Akemi whatsoever right before the terrible reveal and the fight breaks out:

Speaking of Akemi - guess who else is compared to a bird!

The plumage is more colorful, a bit flashier. But a bird is a bird.

And, uh

Yeah.

I like to think that Mizu killing the sparrow is not only foreshadowing for what she must do to Kinuyo, but is also a representation of the choice she makes on Akemi's behalf. She decides to cage the bird because she believes the bird is "better off." Better off caged than... dead.

But because Mizu doesn't know Akemi or her situation, she of course doesn't realize that the bird is fated to die if it is caged and sent back home.

Mizu is clearly not happy, or pleased, or satisfied by allowing Akemi to be dragged back to her father:

But softness and mercy haven't gotten Mizu anywhere good, recently.

There is so much tragedy layered into Mizu's character, and it includes the things she has to witness and the choices she makes - or believes she has to make - involving women, when she herself can skirt around a lot of what her society throws at women. Although, I do believe that it comes at the cost of a part of Mizu's soul.

After all, I'm gonna be haunted for the rest of this show by Mizu's very first prayer in episode 1:

"LET" her die. Because as Ringo points out, she doesn't "know how" to die.

Kind of like another bird in this show:

[inkskinned]

how odd, to watch the creative writing exercises of angry men in the comments of instagram. you noticed it first in the comments of conventionally attractive women - but then it started appearing everywhere else, too.

a young man talks about what lunch he's packing his wife. there is a little story under it, with 300 likes, fabricated from nothing. "this is pointless. if you treat her like this, she will take the lunch to her office and fuck her boss and divorce him and take all his money."

you scroll. a young woman talks about what lunch she's packing for her husband. it is always uglier when the subject of the video is a woman, you've noticed. "you sit on camera and you smile and you are cheating with the neighbor and then you're going to lie about being sexually assaulted by your husband and -"

you stop reading. it has 567 likes.

where did this even become a thing? people making up stories in their head, disgusting long-winded assumptions about intention and sexual disgrace. the evil twin of fanfiction.

like - it's just a lie. it's a lie that they are telling, baldfaced and assumptive. the undercurrent is of course misogyny, but the trouble is that they're so fucking certain. that's what makes the hairs on the back of your neck rise. there is this pervasive, inventive desire for them to be right. that they must be right. all women are cheating, lying, gold-digging bitches. no exceptions.

in the reverse, when women say i'd rather meet a bear in the woods than a strange man - men funnel in from the sides. they defend each other with a vibrance and capacity for empathy you wish applied to like, the other half of the population. a man could be saying i absolutely did kill her and these creatures in the comments would rise up with king shit. she made it happen. they love each other to the point of this sick strange self-gaslighting, a fervent and unhinged cognitive distortion. all men are good, wonderful people. all women are terrible, conniving, seditious, annoying.

and when did it become okay to just, like... say that kind of a thing? at one point, you find yourself typing out a witty and snappy retort. why are you spending so much time fantasizing about other people babe. but as you stare at the screen, some part of you pictures this man in public, saying these things to your face. his soapbox, high and mighty. his mirrored sunglasses and his empty life: tired and lonely.

what a sad and horrible loop he's locked in. he is terrible to women, so women don't talk to him, which he uses as an excuse to act more terribly. he blames this "failure" on women, rather than on his behavior. it cannot be that he is the problem (that the solution is to just put his ego down and accept women as equals) - he begins to invent a sculpture to replace the flesh frame of each person he sees.

it isn't just a woman posing on the beach. it is now a slut with a desperate need for each person to crave her body. it isn't just a woman yelping with surprise during something upsetting. it is a hysterical, unhelpful cretin who will probably make things worse instead of better. it isn't a person.

someone's very sweet wedding vows get moderate attention on instagram. in the comments, a man says good fucking luck you'll waste your life providing while behind your back she's absolutely fucking the best man. this will be so cringe in 2 months when she walks out on you.

you think - is that what you need to be true? is that what you need to happen, for the world to make sense to you?

[astrangeavenue]

drew some totally normal sadnesses

blank bg and individuals below the cut

edit: i posted some of my thoughts that went into these designs! if youd like to read you can find it in the reblogs

[tarteggs]

melinoe deserves to give pets too!!

[madsraa]

I keep forgetting to post this painting here!

[chloesimaginationthings]

What if Mike got the bad ending of the FNAF movie..