#stream-of-consciousness rant

[icedille]

@0-k-4 this is getting way too long so i'm putting it in a reblog under the cut bc it's. i'm insane sorry. also quick disclaimer this is maybe a bit of a harsh rant bc i really felt like this movie was treating me like an idiot so i'm just a little bit annoyed but i don't think anyone is dumb or wrong if they liked it or thought it was good. honestly i'm not even sure it's objectively bad rn i just. really really did not enjoy it. and most of my complaints are about stuff that i can see were intentional choices it's just that i don't respect most of these god bless. ANYWAY

my problem with the repetition is that it's on literally every level. the scenes themselves are unending and just doubling tripling every action or sequence when it really doesn't need to be every single time. and when you think it's done there's another one just restating the main point right after. and everything is just insisting on shit i already got like the few lines of dialogue are mostly spent restating things the completely unsubtle symbolism already told us same goes for the sound design the way it's shot EVERYTHING for example that one scene in the end where she reinjects the substance in herself and there's the line "please give me a better version of myself" which was. so unnecessary to me like i get what she's doing i get the point of this substance and why she's using it and we've heard that so many times already you don't have to spell it out like that!!! there's nothing more to this line than just restating the point!! i'm not fucking stupid just have some faith in having a scene speak for itself for once!!!!! and i can enjoy not so subtle things sometimes sometimes it's good and interesting to be on the nose but for me it really didn't feel like the themes or commentary or whatever were expanded at all outside of. plainly stating them once and then just repeating them for the entire runtime. it just constantly felt like the movie was hitting me over the head with the same shit over and over again asking did you get it? did you get the point about beauty standards and body dysmorphia and female self-hatred? the point mostly being that those are things that exist did you get that did you get that we're talking about that. also did you get how hot sue is bc if not here's another shot of her ass.

and i GET that the ass shots are there for a reason but i just don't think it was executed well sorry like the point about her repeating the same cycle of social pressure does not work very well considering how she doesn't have any interactions with female characters ever (i'll come back to this later). and it just undermines scenes that could have been way stronger like the part where she dreams (?) that a chicken leg pops up in her butt and the whole crew goes to look at the camera that was zoomed in on her ass to see if they find anything strange. and the sequence of all these men very seriously investigating a close-up of her body and going over it in slow-mo was very much supposed to be extremely uncomfortable and make it obvious just how much she's being treated like an object to be ogled but. the movie was already doing that for the past twenty minutes so personally it just didn't really hit like. who cares. they're looking at her ass ok bitch me too bc you the director put a camera there for five minutes straight right before this. again i don't think that's completely unintentional i could see that it's because you're also supposed to re-examine how her new perfect life was presented until then and interrogate your position as the audience or whatever (though i do always find that a little annoying considering that i. don't have any say in that like oooughg isn't it fucked up to sexualize the women on tv well sure but i'm not the one with the camera and editing software here.) but idk to me it's just. TOO insistent on that spends way too long just repeating it over and over again and it just ended up feeling condescending to me. and that's just to exemplify that phenomenon basically every little isolated point was like that for me just so repetitive and felt like i was being talked down to constantly. idk it pissed me off

also and that's more personal preference but i didn't like how. individualized? everything felt from a narrative standpoint. like the fact that elisabeth/sue doesn't have any interactions outside of the men who either desire or exploit her and even those are super underdeveloped. so everything she goes through feels very internalized and mostly coming from herself and. sure there's the catalyst of losing her job and overhearing what the guy says but that's really it once she comes back as sue she's unconditionally seen as perfect and that just goes on for the rest of the runtime there's not really any consistent pressure or pushback that could explain how you get to the point elizabeth got to. like again i know the extreme contrast is the point but i just don't think presenting something like this as "one day you're young and pretty and nobody says anything to you ever and the next you're 50 and basically everything's over just like that" is. the most interesting route. idk i believe in gradual shifts i think that kind of immense pressure makes itself known at more points in your career including the very beginning like being told she should smile once in a while is not. the worst it gets even when you're at the height of fame!! there's just not enough external factors for meeee and the way sue gets everything handed to her (+ as an example the scene where her neighbor comes over to complain abt the noise and then immediately walks back on it when he sees she's hot) felt really reminiscent of the whole belief misogynists have that being a young pretty woman is the easiest way to live life. and i guess it could be satire of that very idea but idkk it did not feel like the movie was really deconstructing that in any way since the very destructive consequences she gets at the end are really just because of her own actions and choices. and again i get that part of the point is about self-hatred and your own body image (+ i heard some pretty interesting stuff about this aspect so i could admit at least there's Something there) so it's normal if she's mostly doing shit on her own but idk it's just not a direction i enjoy a lot with smth that presents itself as social commentary like ok girl but where's the "social". i don't think it's bad necessarily to focus on personal responsability bc in the end it is true that she chose to do that but i just wish there was. more. about the context or whatever. more nuance and variety in characterization especially of the audience especially especially of her boss the crew all the industry stand-ins they're all such. cartoonish caricatures that for me it makes most of the criticism feel really weak and secondary to the rest that's essentially "elizabeth gets really old and gross bc her hotter self exploits her to stay rich and famous". like the plastic surgery angle is really mostly focused on how SHE's fucking up her body and never really adresses the entire industry behind that that has a very concrete financial motive to keep women insecure and make it so that having some kind of procedure done really early on is currently a hollywood standard (like you genuinely do not get anywhere without that rn. more or less everyone you see on screen has had smth done) and yeah women do participate in that in the sense that they're not literally coerced to do it but it's still. i just don't think focusing your criticism mostly on the individual really gets us anywhere! (and again the "she's perpetuating the same beauty standards bc she's currently profiting off of it" point falls flat for me bc of the lack of other female characters. i think that to really make a point about that kind of influences and interactions and projections of an ideal you need to compare and contrast at least a little bit.) especially if your movie is TWO HOURS AND A HALF you can afford to spend a little more time on different things!!!!

bc for me that lack of. well everything else ended up presenting the issue of getting plastic surgery or other "artificial" ways of modifying your body to fit strict beauty standards as mainly "if you do it too much you'll end up even uglier in the long run" which is not. a take i think is. good? and again i could see that they're trying to satirize this exact thing at least a little bit (i actually think the ending works pretty well in that regard like everyone freaking out and calling her a monster is on some points a really good representation of how people do turn on celebrities who've had things done once they're old and it gets more noticeable, the whole focus on "botched surgeries" etc that's a very real and common reaction. but again i didn't think it was executed very well bc it tries to do both that AND the moment where she gets through and is acclaimed with the fucking poster on her face for me the point once again got really muddied and it's just. a shame!!!!) but when the main horror of the movie IS how monstrous she gets in the end and how unnaturally old elizabeth gets throughout it, for me it's just. a little bit hard to really distinguish between satire and just perpetuating the very same thing. like in the end it's the same problem i had with x, how meaningful can your commentary on ageism in the entertainment industry/society in general and the lengths we go to to avoid looking visibly old really be when the aged features of your character are one of the main sources of your horror and are constantly presented as gross and scary and horrifying? tbh i don't think there's a fixed answer to that, like maybe that's just a personal hang-up i have here and i can accept that other people would think this works well but for me it was too much. straightforward hagsploitation to really make the "it's fucked up that old women get discarded like that" sound entirely sincere instead it mostly felt like "it's fucked up that 50 yo demi moore who's still super fit and hot got put under so much pressure that she ended up ACTUALLY old and gross". aynway. i don't know. maybe it just wasn't for me maybe it's really good and i just fundamentally disagreed with the angle it used to get at most things. i still think it was annoyingly condescending and that the pacing was terrible and ruined a lot of things tho <3

ok i'm FINALLY done. quick first impressions on the substance bc i need to rethink some stuff but: the actual horror was great loved the concept loved the designs loved the horrible horrible things and the general metaphor is good on paper. everything else about this movie is dumb as shit it did not work for me at ALL

[dereks-unrelenting-heart]

I got this from the wiki so idk how accurate to the fandom it is but- Apparently people call AJ the chaotic one in SFTH ?? Don't get me wrong, he is chaotic and I get it, but it also baffles me because like. In my mind, all four of these men are all equally agents of chaos. Every single one of them. AJ often because his confusion will take conversations and whole plotlines places no one would ever expect them to go, Sam for obvious reasons (every animal character, teacher/child jokes, etc. etc.), Luke because we need to more often acknowledge his incredibly similar brand of chaos to Sam's in that he'll make out of pocket jokes just as often, it'll just be unnoticed. Tom you might fight me on, considering he's often assigned the role of reigning everyone in, but that's only because SOMEONE has to. That doesn't change the fact that, given the opportunity, he will and has made a lot of questionable jokes and acting choices (It's usually incest, like the Caravan Brothers and multiple Shakespeare bits, but he does sexual jokes too). If anything, him doing things like that less often just makes it him that much more unpredictable because you're always surprised when he's the one to drastically change/darken the tone of a scene

[prettybbychim]

[this became much longer than i intended whoops]

u know i think it would’ve been much better if the ode of resurrection was not shown to us immediately, and wasn’t a main part of their culture. have people die throughout the archon quest, make us believe that there’s no saving them. kill off kachina at the start and convince us that she’s the first playable character in genshin thats not alive.

build up these bonds, forge these friendships, make us care.

just to take it all away

that’s war.

but there’s a tiny flame, that glimmer of hope. maybe it’s something the pyro archons have been working on, passing it down to their successors. something mavuika has been working on. yeah u heard that right she’s actually doing something wow get citlali in there to help out. get the whole goddamn tribe involved idc

there’s a scramble to find the last of the heroes. they don’t want to force it or fuck something up but they’re running out of time. the abyss is coming. it will consume the nation. they need to fucking buckle up and get down to it.

they could probably still go into the night kingdom to search for kachina, so that mualani can get her ancient name. or it can occur under entirely different circumstances. haven’t given that much thought yet. do they find her?

do they find her and can’t actually bring her back to the surface?

for the next part, we’re gonna have to shake things up because we need the captain on our team sooner rather than later. how that happens is up in the air but regardless, we put aside our differences to save natlan.

so, we help the captain find old dragon tech. maybe we enlist the help of kinich and ajaw, maybe we go into ochkanatlan, tie some of that shit in. we can take iansan along too, who is super duper strong and can carry all our fancy dragon tech or smth idk the three of them need more involvement !!! ajaw would drive me up the wall but it’s a necessary evil

in ochkanatlan, we see how the abyss can mimic lifeforms. the twin is in irminsul right? maybe it’s steals the twin’s image, but the traveler knows it’s not them because their twin would never say things like this. we learn that they abyss manifestations are (always?) twisted and mutilated.

we see the dragon. we don’t defeat it, that’s for the world quest lol but we get the image of the dragon in our minds so that when it shows up later down the line, we know what the fuck is happening lol

on our trip, we learn bits and pieces about the captain. it’s all disconnected, nothing makes sense. and since we’re nosey little fuckers, we find correspondence with the tsaritsa in his belongings.

capitano is gentle with his body. maybe a little too gentle. it catches the traveler’s eye but they don’t know what it means, they have no grounds for suspicion. it’s blown off as recovering from his duel with mavuika. (little do we know that he was hit directly in the heart and he’s worried, goddamnit)

ororon lets it slip that something feels off with the captain’s soul. (could the captain be using ororon’s sensitivities to monitor the souls housed inside him? would he eventually tell ororon what’s going on? or would that be too risky?)

ororon receives ancient name same as before, nothing really needs to change there i suppose. more suspicion is thrown on the captain because of the identity of the soul trying to possess ororon. maybe the captain didn’t share his plan in its entirety, he has a lot riding on this, he can’t afford to fuck it up, and keeps his cards close to his chest. he and mavuika can still argue in front of ororon like mom and dad lol

chuychu dies. she doesn’t get to give a long goodbye. she bleeds out in her sister’s arms. (they actually try to stop the bleeding and give her medical care) chasca goes berserk hell yeah, there’s a struggle. she manages to rein herself in, the love between sisters reigns supreme. chasca gets her ancient name

boom u got all ur heroes. they supercharge mavuika to beat back the abyss core thing. what was its name? gilgamesh? i don’t fucking know

the losses are extreme

fast forward a bit bc i’m losing steam and attention span here

we dive back into the night kingdom to track down the “brain” of the abyss corruption. the people we’ve met and lost in natlan help us out. kachina can be added to the mix. the gay lovers, chuychu and her pokémon team, boba and coconut — the whole gang’s here yooo i actually loved this part. favorite section by far

and after our trip in ochkanatlan, we know that the dragon we’re fighting is an abyssal manifestation. the voices of the previous pyro archons are their own but the words are all wrong, designed to discourage and distress us.

we defeat it using the power of friendship (i’m gonna kms)

also mavuika’s kit is completely different. i’m giving her a redesign fuck it. but that’s a post for another time.

traveler seems pretty good ngl i just wish the cons aren’t limited to fighting the dragon. i really liked what i was seeing and then they pooped all over my party (what’s the point!!!)

instead of a big parade, we gather around together at the stadium to finally try the thing all the pyro archons have been cooking. the heroes are a necessary component.

the incandescent ode of resurrection

among the many, kachina comes out of the flames. mualani sobs her heart out and vows to never let her out of her sight ever again

chuychu perhaps? 👀 pls pls she’s the only one besides cap and ororon that i give a shit about pllssssss playable chuychu when? her design is fantastic as is u dont need to touch it PLEASE—

now we can have a party!! after everything is all said and done, we can have One party instead of the five or so we’ve had since we came to natlan. (nation of war? more like nation of fiestas)

ororon, though, feels uneasy, and not because of the atmosphere. he says he’s going to find the captain, but he can’t explain why. concerned, the traveler and paimon try to follow him but are intercepted by citlali, who is for once not freaking out about ororon’s whereabouts, instead…

oh but wait. where’s mavuika gone? oh nooo

plays out relatively the same i suppose. could use some tweaking but not anything significant enough to mention right now.

except now we have somewhat of an understanding of the captain already, all the little bits and pieces we noticed, and the clues we (so rudely) discovered, it’s all starting to make sense now. we’ve also spent more time w him, the emotional attachment runs deeper, and it’s much more painful to experience.

bittersweet

mavuika is confused, especially in the days coming after. she had planned to die then. she said her goodbyes in a roundabout way. she finished the painting of her family, so they’ll never be forgotten. she saved her nation from the oppression of the abyss, resurrected so, so many. there was only one thing left to do… she was supposed to be the one to do it.

what does she do now?

what does she do with herself now, when she hadn’t planned for her own future? it was supposed to end, she was supposed to die. could she have reunited with her family? could she have seen them once again? she’s sad over what could have been, she’s confused because how did it end up like this, she’s mad because the captain stole it from her, she’s guilty because he was ultimately the better choice

what do you do when you’ve spent hundreds of years waiting for your destined day? when you’re only ambition has been this.

it’s time to learn how to live.

the end~

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

john doe would be absolutely obliterated by aita reddit. arthur otoh uses socmed exclusively for cat videos and doxxing people

[spurgie-cousin]

sooooo many people in the notes of that last reblog like "uhhhh no actually I still hate kids and it has nothing to do with any of this i just do" um. that's not normal?

i'm not saying everyone has to enjoy being around children, like indifference towards them is one thing. but if you genuinely have hateful feelings towards kids that aren't tied to something like trauma, or for the more foundational reasons the post points out, that's fucked up. having sweeping prejudice towards any segment of society is fucked up and you need to address that. replace kids with literally any category of people, women, old people, brown people, tall people, etc etc does that sound....... not fucked up to you?

i do think most of the people in the notes just don't realize their feelings *are* tied to one of the bullet points but for the few who are maybe serious, i really hope they realize it's fucking weird at best and dangerous at worst to just seethe with hatred for small people who didn't ask to be born y'know?

[ms-scarletwings]

I gotta remember to cool it with how much I’m on fandom subreddits because it gets me in some unbecoming kind of moods at times

[hidden-among-stars]

Fitting In - or The Lack Thereof (A Stream of Consciousness Essay?)

I often think about my place under the label of therianthropy and the way I often feel like I still don't quite fit in. It's odd - I can blame that feeling on a lot of things, but none of them seem to give the full story behind it.

Maybe I don't fit in because I'm an adult, and so many therian spaces are filled with kids. There's definitely some truth to that, but then I go into therian spaces with solely adults and I still feel like I don't quite fit in.

Maybe I don't fit in because I don't experience the act of shifting between a more human and a more animal state, and so much of the therian experience seems to be focussed on what it's like to shift. And there's some truth to that too, but there are plenty of therians who don't shift at all, and I still feel like I don't quite fit in with them either.

Maybe I don't fit in because I only have one theriotype. Which is ridiculous, because a lot of folks only have one theriotype... And I still don't quite fit in with them either.

Maybe I don't fit in because I'm a contherian with experiences that have stayed steady through my entire life, from practical infancy up to now 25 years later. But there are other contherians out there, and I still don't quite fit in with them either.

Or maybe it's because of my anymic identity - inherently I won't quite fit in with anyone because my species identity doesn't really match anyone else's, let alone anything that is known to exist. But it's still not quite that either, because there are lots of anymic therians experiencing what it's like to be something without name and potentially without equal, and I still feel like I don't quite fit in with them.

In reality it's probably a mixture of all of those things, but that still doesn't seem to be the answer. In all of those cases I still should fit in somewhere, and yet here I am, feeling like I don't.

The question of whether or not my identity's "origins" have anything to do with why I still feel like I don't belong has definitely crossed my mind a few times - so many folks can fit theirs into neat categories as past lives, spiritual, psychological, etc., but I'm certainly not one of them. Somehow it feels like I am all of those and also none of them at the same time.

I feel like maybe I was just born with the wrong soul in the wrong body - that's spiritual for sure. And I feel like maybe my brain is just completely and totally wired wrong - that's psychological. But there's something else. Something not quite spiritual and not quite mental.

I started to wonder if maybe I'd feel more at home with the holotheres and physical therians, but no, definitely not there either - I understand that I'm in a human body, I am under no impression that I currently physically am my theriotype in any way (and my species dysphoria won't let me forget that). So it's not really a current physical identity. I'm also under no impression that I can physically transform into my theriotype in any way, so it isn't Clinical Lycanthropy either.

There is something viscerally physical about it, though. I never really believed that I could physically transform or that this body was entirely nonhuman, but I absolutely believed that someday I would break free from my human skin and become my nonhuman self. I believed it lived just underneath my skin and that when I became an adult, it would emerge and I would be free from my human existence. Obviously that never happened, as I sit here 25 still painfully human in shape and form - and painful it is, as my body has seemed to continuously deteriorate as I grow. What started as just severe asthma and immunodeficiency transformed into multiple physical disabilities over the years.

My disabilities, my chronic illnesses, these have nothing to do with my nonhuman identity. Logically, I know that. Emotionally, it feels like my body is rebelling against its own existence, as if it is rejecting the mind and the soul that are so unfit for living within it, willing to sacrifice itself in the name of eliminating the viruses that are the spirit and brain that don't belong inside it. This is one of those experiences that I can confidently say I have never seen mirrored in the alterhuman community in any way - maybe i just haven't been in the right spaces to hear about it, or maybe it's just too heavy of a topic for most folks to talk about, or maybe I really am alone in this experience.

Circling back to my younger self's belief that my nonhuman self physically existed just underneath my human skin, I can't blame them for feeling that way. This is another experience that seems either non-existent or extremely rare in the community: my phantom appendages feel nothing like what most folks describe them as. I feel them in their full forms, but those full forms feel ghostly - they "clip" through things, I am fully aware that they aren't actually there. That in and of itself seems to be a fairly common experience... but for me it's combined with another sensation. I can feel these things - the wings, the tail, the claws, the teeth, the ears - as if they are physically trying to push through my skin. It's not pain, but it's a strange sort of pressure. I wish I could explain it better, but... just imagine. Imagine feeling as though there are other limbs or different appendages just beneath your skin, pushing to break free, constantly, all the time, every day, for as long as you can remember. It's uncomfortable, it's awkward, and it gets even more uncomfortable when the ghostly versions of the limbs "clip" through things. A signal seems to get sent from where they phase through whatever they're phasing through, all the way to the point where I feel like the physical versions are trying to push out from - that results in an even more uncomfortable tingling/pulsing sensation, both from that basal point and from wherever the "clipping" is happening. This kind of an experience is another one that I have not yet seen mirrored in the community - whether or not others experience it, I don't know, but it's a point of mental contention for me. Others explain their phantom shifts and I just cannot actually relate to it. I feel like what I experience is so fundamentally different, and it's another reason why I often feel like an outsider in the community.

As I continue to ruminate on this feeling of not belonging in a community that I should belong in, I come up with so many answers - like the way I've always known I was nonhuman but how my exact species identity, despite having many consistencies between them all, was so difficult to figure out, and how I still feel like I don't have a full grasp on exactly what it looks like. Every time I try to imagine exactly what it looks like, the image is blurry, shadowy, not quite whole - I can make out the vague shape, I can see its golden yellow eyes, but that's about it. And then I wonder if maybe this thing must be some kind of a past life identity, maybe I'm seeing it through its own eyes, not quite able to recognize itself beyond the most basic shape and the eyes, but it doesn't feel like a past life. It doesn't feel like a current or future life either, though. It just feels like the life I was supposed to be living, a life I keep running and reaching toward but always falling short.

And then I think about the way the community talks about shifting, or the lack thereof. As I said, I don't shift, I just constantly experience everything all the time. But what I mean by that seems so different from others. Other contherians exist as both human and nonhuman simultaneously - I seem to exist solely as nonhuman, only human in physical form, and via masking. When I fully allow myself to unmask, there is nothing human about me other than my body. Those who have seen it will attest. It's disturbing to witness, it's uncanny - it skips past cringe and dives straight into "would be seen in a horror movie" territory, apparently. The way I move, the way I react, the way I sound (if making any sound at all), the way I stand (or don't stand, if I'm somewhere where I can physically be on all fours), I become something seen as monstrous in the eyes of orthohumans and alterhumans alike. It isn't my species identity that is monstrous - on the contrary, my species identity poses little to no threat to humans - but I suppose it comes down to the idea of the uncanny valley. When I fully unmask, it becomes glaringly obvious that I am something inhuman in a human's body. I have seen the reactions some nonhuman identifying folks have had to me being mostly unmasked - in the case of one, seeing me fully unmasked - and it becomes clear that, even though none of us identify as human, there is something different about my identity. There is something fundamentally different about the way I experience it.

I want so badly to know that my experience isn't the only one of its kind, I want so badly to know that i have a place in this community (and that I have a place in this world, frankly), but I keep trying, and I keep coming back over and over to the realization that what I go through lies in some liminal space where I definitely don't fit in with orthohumans but I don't quite fit in with other nonhuman identifying folks either.

I'm not leaving the community, it's still the closest I have to finding others even vaguely like me, but I fear that "out of place" feeling will never go away. That I'll never actually find the place where I really belong.

[seaglassmelody]

Thinking about JKR and her aphobic tweets this morning like

I don’t expect better from Queen TERF or anything so it’s not that this is surprising but I DO expect better from other LGBTQ+ people. And we don’t get better from a lot of other LGBTQ+ people.

It is exhausting to constantly have to defend yourself as an asexual person. “How are you oppressed just because you don’t want to have sex” well you see our society operates on the fundamental assumption that everyone wants to have sex. Our systems are constructed around the concept of a household being baseline 2 people, which also adds marriage into the equation. So this is, baseline, incredibly alienating if you have no desire for either of those things.

And even for asexuals that DO have sex, being asexual (and also aromantic, though I’m mostly talking about asexuality right now) fundamentally alters your perception of the world. We literally do not experience the world in the same way as a cishet person. And this “you’re not oppressed and no one cares” attitude basically says to asexual people: Shut up. We don’t care about your perspective so just sit down and shut up.

How is that not oppressive? How is it not marginalizing to tell an entire group of people that their lived experience doesn’t matter?

And I know we have a lot bigger, more prominent issues right now. I am in no way saying that asexuals experience the same level of vitriol and marginalization as like. Trans people. And we need to stand up and defend our trans siblings whenever possible, because community is what should be important!

But damn it is HARD when no one wants to be in community with you because your issues “aren’t big enough” because “no one cares if you don’t want sex.” Because it’s not just the fact of having sex or not. It’s not just the lack of attraction. It’s how you move in the world. It’s the assumptions people make about you (you’re frigid, you’re a robot, you can’t experience emotions). It’s the way you view relationships with other people (the separation of romance, sexuality, emotional intimacy). Asexuality is an experience fundamentally different from the Assumed Normal of cissexual heterosexuality (and that’s without getting into overlapping queer identities like trans asexuals).

So stop shoving us back into the closet and telling us to shut up. We’re not made of the cishet mold and it’s about time people accepted it.

(Also call your representatives, fight back against anti-trans legislation, stand up for your trans friends, classmates, coworkers, and neighbors. Trans rights are human rights and are core to the rights of bodily autonomy!!)

[teabookgremlin]

ok so as has become the theme

teen timeline: good! fun! yippee!

adult timeline: what the fuck are we even doing anymore

[wishfishy]

When I first heard that a new Endless Ocean was going to be released, I was incredibly excited. Just absolutely over-the-moon excited. You see, Endless Ocean 2: Blue World (also called Endless Ocean 2: Adventures of the Deep) is one of my favourite games of all time. Scratch that: it is my favourite game. It was far from perfect, but I loved it dearly and happily sank hundreds if not thousands of hours into it.

EO2 is a diving game for the wii that was released in 2010, and I have never been able to find a game quite like it. The main story was a bit cheesy, but charming and engaging, with a bevy of likeable if occasionally one-note characters, and the game itself had surprising depths (diving pun fully intended). The game had 12 different diving maps in 6 locations and while the specific areas were fictitious, they were based on very real places (the South Pacific, Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, Arctic and Antarctic Oceans, as well as a freshwater river in the Amazon) and this was reflected in the species found in each area, with a few exceptions here and there.  You could explore shallow coral reefs, a sunken castle, ancient temples, abyssal depths, a kelp forest, sandy beaches, riverbanks, hidden coves with murals, and much more. You also had a small private island as a hub location, a personal reef you could decorate, and a public aquarium which you could fill with any of the non-legendary species you discovered.

Speaking of which, the game featured 340 different species of marine and freshwater fish, sharks, rays, marine mammals, penguins, shore birds, reptiles, crustaceans, cephalopods and other invertebrates. Some of these also had different models for young or different genders. You could find truly miniscule species that most other diving games overlook entirely in zoom-spots (such as gobies and nudibranchs), and you could interact with most by feeding, touching or even riding in the case of large marine life. And on top of this you could also find legendary creatures, which could be individuals of extant species with unusual colouring or size, or even extinct species, and could be exceedingly hard to find but entirely rewarding.

This is already getting to be much too long but on top of all this you could customize your diver character, buy things for your island hub, decorate and populate a private reef to propagate and release fish, create various aquarium exhibits, discover a great many side-quests, upgrade equipment, take and sell photographs, heal sick animals, search for and sell salvage, find collectable coins, train dolphin partners, take requests for guided tours, dolphin shows, salvage and photos, dodge or placate aggressive sharks, and more that I am probably forgetting. It’s been a while since I’ve played the game, as I no longer have a wii and don’t have the first clue on how to emulate games on my PC. All this is to say that this game was something special, and I have never been able to find anything remotely close to it. And seeing as how the last one was released almost 15 years ago, I had long given up hope for an Endless Ocean 3.

And then lo and behold, a trailer dropped from out of nowhere for Endless Ocean Luminous! And it was releasing in a month! Holy Shit! What!? Yes!

But alas, the more information came out about the game, the more that excitement started to wane. A focus on multiplayer? Procedural generation? Only one map? The only character being an AI that sounded like all those awful tiktok voices? To be clear, I wasn’t expecting Luminous to be the next GoTY. I wasn’t even expecting it to be an exact replica of EO2, or continue the storyline. If it had even a fraction of what I liked about the previous game I was going to be one happy camper. I assumed that the marketing was focusing on the multiplayer aspect instead of the single-player story, that hopefully the procedurally generated map was exclusive to that multiplayer. Surely the single player mode would extend past what little was shown in the trailers. Some things seemed promising, such as an advertised 500+ species, and even more prehistoric marine life. But again, alas, what I have seen since the release is the barest and palest reflection of what I enjoyed about the previous game. I could understand cutting some content, such as the dolphin training and shows, considering the controversy of cetaceans in captivity. But it seems like there is no aquarium, no central hub of any type, no characters beyond the aforementioned AI and a single faceless diver, salvage reduced to a single click, an incredibly reduced story consisting mostly of scanning fish, no ability to feed or interact with fish and fish behaviour also seems to be quite reduced. At least photography still appears to be in the game, though its unclear to what point. Are there still photo requests? The ability for some critters to swim along with or attach to your diver looks cute at least. But everything I’ve watched so far just feels so… lifeless. Empty. As if the whole game was AI generated, which I’m at least %75 sure isn’t the case.

But I’m left kind of baffled by the direction that this game was taken in. I’ve been trying to find any information about it’s development with little to no success. Why the focus on multiplayer to the exclusion of a single player story beyond the bare minimum? What lead to the choice to have a single, procedurally generated map instead of separate, smaller, but more scientifically accurate maps? Or even a single smaller but purposefully designed map? Was this game more like the previous games at any point in its conception or development or was it always intended to be such a departure?

[stripedwolf88]

Low key dreading work tomorrow guys. Remember the girl I mentioned that I said fucked me over? Well I work with her. And tomorrow is our first shift together after 1. Not seeing each other for weeks and 2. After the drama that happened.

I said I didn't want things to be awkward but I don't think I'm gonna be able to just pretend like nothing happened. I know it would be unprofessional to bring anything up at work so I won't but I don't want to put on an act. Oh well. I'm just going to try and be civil I guess.

Maybe I'll rant about what happened at a later time to truly get it out of my system. Give you guys some tea lol. It's not much but I kind of want to hear your guy's perspective on it. That'll be for another day though.

Hopefully I remain firm in my self respect but also remember to not be rude or petty.

[scream1ngskittl3z]

At the end of the day, they’ll be back

Like the herpes on the ass of humanity

[b-komachi-ruby]

Something I’ve had to grapple with lately is that I’m really lonely.

It’s hard finding friends as an adult

It’s really hard to find friends as an alter in a DID system who is usually extremely stealth about it

To begin with, I am not out very often. When I am, I mostly like to watch idol anime or read Yuri manga because somewhere in between those medias I can pretend I’m living a different life

When my brother fused into the rest of his system, I understood on a logical level that he’s still there. I still have conversations with him in a way and we talk about Mom and our crushes. (Honestly, it’s good to talk like that’s our reality sometimes)

But I miss him

When I first came to, I think the most pressing issue on my mind was that I no longer had my brother. He was my twin and something about him not being here with me felt so empty. I couldn’t imagine a life without him and then he just straight up wasn’t real.

I was at a whole loss about it tbh. I searched pretty hard for any Aqua Fictives for a while. When it turned out he was right where I thought he would be (in a system our system is friends with) I felt so relieved.

He’s still there. In a different form. In a different way. And as far as I can accept, he is still my twin brother.

I think, right? Unlike my source, I’m pretty smart. I think I got a lot figured out and I’m able to talk myself through things properly. Which is good, because being a protector is like the main thing I do.

I think that it was a good thing that I went out and looked for sourcemates during that first couple of months. Even though I didn’t really find anyone. I think I needed to feel less alone.

And even though he’s parts of other alters now, I’m glad that I got to talk to Aqua again too.

[astraydestiny]

Daily Writing Complete‼️

Homestly, not really. I wrote 505, IM GOING BACK TO 505, sorry, words on my main story… BUTTT i wrote a bunch of notes and stuff that has to equate to like 700 words??? But thats for my main story, I finished one of the CW!!!

That’ll be out to you guys tomorrow. Im pretty pround of it! Especially for 1.5k! But… I feel like its a bit rushed, and in some places it feels a bit exposition heavy? But i do like the emotion and symbolism in the story. It turnes out pretty good I think! I cant wait for you guys to see this because then you guys can actually get a grip for how I write and stuff, and not judge my writing off these stupid blurbs and stuff! Yk, if you guys like the one tomorrow, I’ll give yall a Thousand Fireflies to eat up too! Just- dont copy it alright? Its not free-use work!!! In fact- i should probably put that in my bio and stuff. But anyways… IM PROUD OF MYSELF! I feel like I was blocked on my main story, because I had a fun time writing this side project! I just that goes to show how important it is to take breaks from main projects in favor for smaller ones, just so you dont burn yourself out by accident! Because burning yourself out is… NOT GOOD! Not good to sya the least… but yah. I feel like i got multiple questions wrong on my science quiz today and istgoodness… IT WAS EZ I SWEAR TO GOODNESS. I just tripped up during it… Also guys I realized that I should really start yapping more irl because… Im look at these posts and thinking- wow. This person must have no friends if they have THIS many thoughts and no one to tell them to. AND THEN I REALIZE IM TALKING ABT MYSELF. Like sometimes I either dont speak because i dont want to interrupt someone- but the times I do speak… PEOPLE INTERRUPT ME! AND THE TIMES WHEN I FEEL LIKE I CAN ACTUALLY SPEAK- I INTERRUPT SOMEONE ELSE! Of course this doesnt happen that often, to be honest Im too busy wriitng during my lunch break to talk, but you know. PRIORITIES!!!

I LOVE PINTEREST SO MUCH. GOING CRAZY WITH IDIA SHROUD IN THE BACKGROUND 😍😍😍 i love idia sheoud i relate to him sm (not really) tbh I feel like i relate to him- but at the same time I dont??? Bec he gets prideful and arrogant sometimes and I dont get like that (HEH NOT TO FLEX OR ANYTHING 😼😼🤗🤗)

I feel like if I related to anyone, it would probably be leona. Not because hes like super fit or anything- LIKE IM THE FURTHEST AWAY FROM HIM PERSONALITY. Its just that like, him being the second and stuff, doomed to never be the first, the best, really resonates with me. Especially since Im surrounded by people who self-proclaim themselves as ‘first places’ everyday, kinda gets on my nerves… WRITING IDEA!!!!

Like im not saying having a big ego is wrong, nor am I saying that those peoples achievements are bad BECAUSE they are so amazing. i think they should be proud of that, and they dont owe humility to anyone because they worked hard for it, (AHEM AHEM VIL SCHOENHEIT MY KING). But its when they see people that are trying to reach for those ambitions and they flaunt how they could do better. THATS when I start doubting their ability. Because you could be the best in the world, but if your too busy running your mouth about how your the best, you’ll be left in the dust- and youll find that all those people who were under you before… Appeared triumphant.

IDK DAILY WORDS OF WISDOM ADDED HERE TOO. Vil Schoenheit my KINGGGGG I LOVE HIM SO MUCH I WANT TO BE LIKE HIM. When i become rlly good at writing, I want to be able to act like him!! Because he is confident in himself, doesnt owe humility to anyone (but of course still expresses it from time to time), and is respectful about it (we dont talk about book 5). I love Vil Schoenheit, such a misunderstoid character fr. OH YEAH

If your not a twisted wonderland fan, these are the characters I mentioned in this post!!!

^ Idia Shroud in the middle, next to his lil’ bro Ortho Shroud!!

^ Vil Shoenheit in the middle, to the right is Rook Hunt, and to his left is Epel Felmier (the short one!)

^ Leona Kingscholar!!

ALRIGHT GUYS!!! Now, I have math hw. SO I NEEDA BOUNCE! SEE YOU ALL TOMORROW AND STUFF!!!

Daily music rec is Sponsored by this guy !!!@unmotivatedartistry PRETTY GOOD SONG!!!

Here are some snacks for the road: 🍔🍔🌭🌯🥙🥪🥪🍕🌯🥗🥙🍔🥪🌯 (taco bell burritos proceed with caution)

BYEEEEEEEEE

-Kani

[whatilost]

F this

I'm ill. I've been thinking about it non-stop for the past six months yet I don't think it's fully sunk in. I told everyone. I'm trying to adjust. But even through the constant reminders in my mind and in my body, I don't think I get it. I must be an imposter. Something else is wrong. It's just a mild form and I'm pretending, making it worse for clout and pity and drama. I'm just lazy and comfortable not pushing myself, a hypochondriac at best.

So I'm sitting on the couch after I've failed to fall asleep and I've cried myself into some kind of temporary acceptance. I have lost things, when I think about it - I keep losing things. I lose parts of myself, my strength, my face, at least the way I wanted to show it to the world. I was just becoming who I was supposed to be, already late with it. Already something eating at me, and I felt it.

I keep forgetting the things I fight with every days, that aren't normal, but that I brush off because it's not something you can see.

Every morning I wake up not knowing how I'll be. Sometimes everything hurts the moment I open my eyes and my limbs are asleep. I lie down and hold my phone and I stop feeling my pinkies. If I stand too long I can't feel my toes. If I sit too long I discover a new body part that I can lose sensation in. My hands get so stiff when it's a tiny bit cold, so much that I can't write or do anything requiring fine motor skills. They're shaky and unsteady either way. But what I really hate is when my whole body twitches, muscles, joints, for hours, sometimes days.

I sometimes get dizzy, like I'm walking on a boat in a storm that's capsizing, I'm being dragged to one side. I walk around the shops and although it hasn't yet happened, I'm panicking about walking into something, turning over a display. I always bump into people. The anxiety of floating on a tilting cloud that can potentially throw me whichever way, because it could get worse at any point. It hasn't, yet. But it's only been seven months.

I've become accoustomed to the fact that public transport is now making me sick. I take the bus to school often, worrying it will be too warm, too many people, too many smells. Preemptively take off all my coats and scarves because I can't deal with hot temperatures. I'll start sweating, I'll feel nauseated, I'll get palpitations, chest pains, diziness, feeling like I'm going to pass out. Always have to have a water bottle with me, just in case. Always have to have a case of pills with me, just in case. Pills for motion sickness, headache, hearburn, general body ache, anxiety, for keeping alert.

Before I get off the bus I move my feet to get my circulation going. If not I'm most likely going to feel light headed. I probably will anyway. I always feel a bit like I'm going to pass out getting off the bus or the train. Sometimes I have to wait it out, holding on to whatever is near and breathe. Dizzy and sweaty. Lightheaded. I'm fine. I start moving again. In a few minutes it's gonna pass. A few minutes a few times a day. I haven't thrown up, yet.

Even as I'm writing this, I feel like I'm just fishing for pity. People have it worse, I can still walk. So my legs are tingling, pins and needles. So I can't feel some toes and stumble a bit, not noticeably, just enough for me to feel something being off. Big deal.

The diziness and fatigue is the worse. My heart racing is close second. I can't do what I want to do, I can't think like I want to, I don't see things clearly sometimes. I look into my course work and I know that I can't, because of the fog and the nausea and the pain. I'm so tired, all the time, but when I read the accounts of other MS sufferers, I'm not sure I'm tired enough, if my tiredness warrants the right to complain. I have this feeling within, like something is scratching my bones, something is very off but I can't put my finger on what it is. It's like a headache of my whole body, not enough to debilitate but just enough to not be able to focus on anything properly, like a scratchy throat of my whole body. And if I ignore it, and I do ignore it, my heart racing, the sweats, the nausea and the aches. The pains that come and go, everywhere, my limbs, icepicks in my head, shooting pains through my torso, like someone's picked a bunch of nerve threads out of my chest and tugged on them.

My stomach is never ok. Heartburn or indigestion or constipation or bloating and pains and the constant peeing. I should eat better, but I have a hard time planning for it. If I want to do something in a day, cooking is the thing I skip on.

I couldn't sleep because my heart was racing and everything hurt. Ice pick headache again. It's been a while. Sometimes I see zigzags and sometimes I see flashes of light with my eyes closed. Today I just couldn't deal with it. I just couldn't deal.

I don't know what my life will be like. I know it's not normal to take the elevator because I worry I will be a wreck in front of people if I take the stairs. I know it's fucked up to be so tired after a few hours of studying that I get a nervous breakdown. I'm never gonna be able to work full time, in anything. I'm never gonna be able to go on holidays without worrying ill spend the week feeling awful, I don't know if I'll ever dare travel to a country without finding out where the hospitals are, at the same time I can't plan ahead because what if the planned time is a bad time. I think my friends don't get it, because I don't really get it either, not to push me, how much to push me, how much to let me rest.

"Oh I'm tired too"

And I believe you are but when I say I need to rest I mean I need to rest because I will crash. When I say I'm hungry and need to eat I mean because I'm feeling like I'm about to pass out.

I keep trying to be normal, to not ruin things for people, for my boyfriend, by minimazing how dizzy and how weird and weak I feel, when we're supposed to be doing something, when we're home, when we're out on a date. I don't want to just be on the sofa and be lazy, I want to show I'm productive but I so often have to go against everything I've described, all the stupid symptoms in different constellations while forgetting words and laughing it off, while being anxious, so fucking anxious because it feels like it's a steep downward slope and I can't do anything about it, I just go on pretending that I'm at least moderately ok while I'm completely losing my shit about getting paralysed, about not having any money in the future, about really wanting to have kids but not knowing if i could ever take care of them, about being a massive burden and being so grumpy, constantly complaining of ms and of being tired but of course everyone is tired and I should just get off my ass, I should just give myself a little push and everything would work out, because it doesn for everyone and I'm not so different, I'm just a little ill, just a little bit ill.

Or, you know. A fair amount.

[a-trick-or-two-with-lepers]

Religion in Relation to Jesus Christ Superstar

(CW: Religious trauma, slight stream-of-consciousness, imposter syndrome)

It's no secret now that I love Jesus Christ Superstar. The music, the way the story is presented, the history of the musical, and the talented actors are what drew me to it and kept me interested. Hell, it even made me download TUMBLR just so I could interact with others who enjoy the show (which is lovely, you're all lovely and I'm having such a good time).

Sometimes when I'm doing my wholely unnecessary research on JCS, I find a bad review from a devout Christian, claiming it to be blasphemy of the highest degree. This doesn't particularly bother me, as I am no longer a religious person, and I can easily brush these reviews off as extremists finding things to complain about.

I've found myself researching the book the rock opera was based on. You know the one. It's a fascinating story; I don't think many people disagree with that regardless of what religion they align themselves with. However, as with most things on the internet, it's hard to find information that is unbiased (unless I choose to read the full Bible, which I'm not interested in doing at the moment). I see how passionate these people are about their faith, and how many use that as an excuse to belittle and isolate others. This is something I've always been aware of, and it's something that's affected me personally.

When I come across these kinds of things online, I start to feel a pit of anxiety growing in my chest. I respect anyone of any religion so long as they do not use it as a means to harm others (physically, mentally, psychologically - in any way). But when I am presented with a Christian explaining why everything I believe in and stand for is inherently wrong, I begin to feel as if I'm still a young girl being berated for going against the Lord. To make matters worse, I am queer, though I am well aware that any accusations that this is a shortcoming are without truth.

Part of what drew me into JCS is what I and some others believe to be queer undertones. The intense relationship between Judas and Jesus is captivating to me, and I find it healing to examine the story of Christ this way. I had been avoidant of all Christian-related media for such a long time after I decided to detach myself from the religion. Any mention of it brought back years of shame and fear that, in my opinion, do not align with the morals the Bible depicts. If that is not what I am meant to feel when presented with the power of the Christ, then why should I subject myself to it? But when I found this musical, I was so intrigued that my inhibitions became insignificant. I only notice now how unprepared I was for the feelings that arose within me when re-introduced to my experience with religion.

I think the main issue comes with Christians believing they are entitled to the words and story of the Bible. Against my better judgment, and due to my past, I feel sometimes as if I'm intruding on an aspect of human culture that was not meant for me. In reality, I recognize that all I'm really doing is enjoying a story that I relate to and that inspires me to create and live my life as I want to live it. My learned instinct is to feel repentant when any person says I am wrong, especially when it comes to my experience as a queer woman. I read the relationship between Jesus and Judas in JCS as romantic. I have seldom seen such an intense portrayal of homosexually-charged angst, even if that is not how it was meant to be read. And I relate to it. And it heals a part of me. And I may be reading way too far into this, but I'm already devoting so much of my time to this property, so I may as well get something useful out of it.

I wonder if any other fans of JCS have felt this way. Like we are not allowed to enjoy something simply because it is not a story that is meant to be heard as we are hearing it.

My mother wonders why I haven't since converted back to Christianity after watching Jesus Christ Superstar. But this is the furthest from Christianity I have ever felt. And it the most at peace with Christianty I have ever felt.