#unedited journal

[ekoilemartinwrite]

Journal January 5, 2023

I just left after volunteering my time at the data center the first time. The day center at my church, I arrived at nine and left at about 150 in the afternoon. Barbara is correct, you could not make up the stories if you try. No one would believe that. I can already tell that some people there are absolute characters. I heard about someone and took her son at this moment son who, they both need a walker in order to move unless they've had alcohol in which case they can move freely and completely.

I wore my boots, I need different boots. I want to say I need to open toed boots, but I think what I need is zero trough boots, that will let my toes appropriately spread out. I've worked all day on my feet

Once, I know what being on my feet should feel that I hello, my lower back hurts.

I got woken up this morning earlier at Ornish, Sucre. I pray for about an hour that I feel like I got told to go back to bed. I chose in and out of sleep until around eight. I had not set my alarm, which I will do now on. Ashley is actually one woke me up phone call at 8 AM.

– And I seem to have come to a reasonable meeting of the minds regarding money. She's going to continue paying the rents, and that technically will be my income from which I will time. That I think will actually handle most of my monthly expenses not counting taxes. I still need to check to see what my guy has said about my savings.

In the past week Ash and I had been fighting about it a lot. She got hired, but I congratulated for a number four, then five minutes later I started talking about tithing. I do not handle it well. She is understandably upset, considering that she justifiably feels that I lied to her which was not consciously intentional, but practically, for all practical measures is what happened. She proposed the solution of just continuing to pay rent, and from that I will try.

For my first day in the day center, I started off by wiping down tables, and then I spent most the day in the kitchen just serving coffee serving whatever meal people asked for. We had some soup we had some toast with the, with the options of peanut butter, jelly, butter, we also had oatmeal, soup, baked potato, baked sweet potato, those last two were microwaved., Several different kinds of bread. I currently find it striking that I am more easily able to list off the food and items I dealt with rather than the people I dealt with. I know that it used to be true. I feel like I stored a significant chunk of my brain into memorizing the names of people and their faces.

Really was there today, I also saw Pastor Heather. I wish them both a happy new year. Barbara, saw, and Donnie were there. I also saw Garrett's, who is in charge of social services. Donny and I talked a little bit about poetry, and the next poetry meeting. Barbara is a gem. She may have the attitude of being the class clown, but she also has a knack and skill, of interacting with people. Right now, I feel like a wet blanket. I don't feel like I have the skill of interacting with a lot of different people, or bringing moods up.

I'm not certain that any particular tricks for tips are going to help me with this group. I don't think trying to be or charismatic will help. I mean, it might but only to a certain extent. It still something worth looking into. But I think maybe learning this group of people will be more helpful. Just this learning people's names, I know I recognize faces from people of the church, not being afraid to just stay in the kitchen. They mentioned how on Tuesdays there are Mormon missionaries who come to spend time it be helpful.. They would worth it would be worthwhile to be there to observe and learn that.

I am beginning to realize what I have done. I left my job. I have not been without one, really, since I left school. And even that, searching for a job was my job. And before school, school was my job. I have yet to actually figure out what my job is right now, beyond writing, and obeying God. The second is it's a job, it's a joy. At least I keep telling myself that, sometimes it is not fun. I'm just realizing how much of who I am as a person, and how much my job dictated my time.

[quuma]

i feel like everyone and their mother has spoken about this before but james potter is 100% the biggest puppy bf i've ever witnessed in literature !! like bro has MAXIMUM puppy dog stats

he's the kind of bf to INSIST UPON carrying your textbooks/bags for you and escort you to your classes class,,, like he would literally REFUSE to not do either of them,,, he gets so worked up about it that it's actually kind of pathetic (in a cute way),,,

you wouldnt even be able to carry them for 5 mins in his presence before he's scooping them out of your arms ("james i quite obviously have two perfectly functioning hands just let me hold my books pls" and his completely serious response would be "but im your bf??? and my hands are also free rn??? it's literally my job to hold your books just stfu and let me")

continuing the escorting headcanon he always ends up having to sprint to off to try and make it to his own class in time BDAHBFDH as soon as you retreive your books and walk into the classroom you try to look back and thank him,,, but there's literally just a cartoonish cloud of smoke where he stood not even 5 seconds prior (he insists that it's a good warmup for his quiddich practice)

he's also the kinda bf to literally SHOVE himself in front of you to beat you to the door, just so he can open it, dramatically wave his hand, bow, and say something cringey like "for you, my lady/liege" (BARF THATS SO CUTE IM LITERALLY GOING TO THROW UP)

OMG ALSO HE'S JUST INSANELY OBSERVANT WHEN IT COMES TO YOU????? to the point where it would be considered creepy if it wasnt james,, yknow?? there was definitely a time where upon meeting you at the door of the potions class you just finished (yes he is flushed, out of breath and sweating,,, no, he isnt going to admit that he sprinted from his C.F.M.C class 5mins early to make sure he met you at the door in time) and he does a double take and looks genuinely concerned before saying "???? pookie??? what happened to your hair???? did you do something different?? it looks different from when i saw you this morning !! D:" queue you responding with "?? wtf? i cut off a singular strand of hair for one of the potions how the actual fuck did you notice that??"

he is so babygirl i love it

i swear im not even a james stan but i can't help but ramble abt his bbygirlness

hes such a puppy dog bf

he just has the biggest heart eyes for you bro ( -3-) follows you around like a lost puppyyyyy

you dont just have him wrapped around your finger - you have him tattooed and superglued onto you istg

[pennedbylisse]

Individual Analysis of A Quiet Place: Day One

so so grateful for the reblogs and interactions <3

SPOILERS AHEAD!!! SPOILERS AHEAD!!! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Few films (or media, for that matter) manage to captivate me or make me feel as deeply as this one did. I say this as someone who sat through the ending credits with tears streaming down my cheeks and a stinging lump in my throat threatening to undo itself into a sob.

What makes this film so special is the way it managed to achieve this even with such scarce dialogue, such little background information of the characters during the exposition.

I believe this is due to a highly skilled cast and compelling narrative. The way LUPITA NYONG'O and JOSEPH QUINN projected emotions through the screen with nothing but a quivering hand, a watering gaze, hesitance to speak when given the opportunity to, had me in awe (I literally lost all interest in my concession snacks, becoming so enthralled in their performance). But the performance skills were not limited to the starring actors, and, rather, extended into the acts of ALEX WOLFF and DJIMON HOUNSOU.

It really made me sit there in the theatre and recite in my head "This is it! This is why I love writing! It's so powerful. So beautiful. It's the only thing that makes sense to me."

I’ll make this quick! I’ve got school assignments due at midnight.

If I don’t take this brief moment to vomit my thoughts out, they’ll be gone forever.

Analysis of character:

SAM

A character crippled by a terminal illness, on Hospice services with no hope of surviving. She's come to acceptance with her fate: death. The irony, the interesting twist, though, arises when she is forced to consider the possibility that death will be quicker than she'd been counting down towards, and be delivered via a different medium than she'd steeled herself for from hearing countless of specialists.

She's only got months to live, we, the audience are reared into believing. It is alluded through her Hospice membership, heavy reliance on chronic pain management as opposed to treatment, the flashing alarms at the Hospice facility indicating the death of a fellow member likely in her condition, and her writing tone. This fact makes it the more interesting to watch this character escape from death by the hands of the "aliens" time after time after time. Perhaps she is not ready to face a death that differs from that which she's prepared herself to accept. Perhaps she's not ready to die before she gets that one last glimpse of home (the jazz bar, the pizza parlor and memories of her deceased father). Or, perhaps, most probable, Sam didn't die early on in the film because she had a purpose to fulfill - in my interpretation, she was pivotal to the survival of Eric, and catalyzed his evolution from a scared, lonesome, helpless character into one that is strong enough to venture into the unknown world with the hope of surviving.

A trait that weaved in and out, entirely through the narrative was Sam's kindness towards strangers. It is shown when she first visits the city, during the marionette show; she speaks softly at the curious child seating in front of her, tells him the cat's name, reassures his parents that the child is no nuisance. Then again, when she finds two stranded kids by the fountain, offers them food she'd bought for herself, and attempts to guide them towards evacuation. Then again, when she takes Eric under her wing, steers him away from the edge of dissolution into panic. Oh! and how could I forget the numerous times she risked her own life to save the cat!

ERIC

Found him comical, endearing, sweet and lovable.

My first impression of him was that of someone who doesn't know how to exist alone. Doesn't like to be alone. Doesn't know how to follow his own volition, because he's rather used to having orders barked to him by his superiors - it is implied his parents forced him into law school.

He's likely never had an opportunity to secede from all the orders and just exist for himself so when he's catapulted into a world where literally it's everyone for themselves, he freezes, stammers, and clings to the nearest form of refuge (the company of Sam and cat).

My impression of him being a constant people-pleaser, and dependent on extrinsic validation/orders became solidified when Sam instructs him to knock the door to her apartment down during the storm. The stakes are obvious: agonizing shredding and death. Yet, he proceeds to do as he is told. Under the rain, he speaks when instructed to, despite being at risk of...you got it, death. For someone who verbally states he "doesn't want to die," he sure places himself in situations that almost negate that believe. Perhaps it is because he doesn't have an internal sense of self (yet). Perhaps because he is selfless.

Throughout the film we see him face challenges, see him evolve into someone who faces his fears - from the scene in the drowned subway, to the lone mission for meds, to retrieving the cat from the "alien" nest. In the end he takes this big leap into the sea, which in itself could be a metaphor; willingly jumping into the unknown instead of stalling at the dock and waiting for death.

HENRI

He's a leader, a strong patriarch with authority. Don't believe me? The first scene we see him in, he's ordering his son to stop bothering the lady (Sam). The next scene, he's got his hand over Sam's mouth, ushering her to silence before allowing her to join the rest of the refugees.

He's a man with responsibility. Keep his family safe. At first his family was just his wife and son, but then, perhaps it extended to encompass all who relied on him to maintain order in the refugee site. No one truly nominated him, he just assumed the position out of his own strength of will and duty.

So, it is in this sense of duty and responsibility that he commits his first murder. It is quick, rushed, blinded by fear, when he slams one of the refugee's heads against a concrete wall to keep them from killing and dooming everyone to the same fate. He kills one to save all, and perhaps that should be heroic? But it's tainted with guilt and disbelief, this fall into immorality and the conflict can be seen play across his face (super talented actor!!).

Analysis of symbols:

WATER

salvation. cleansing. catharsis. heaven/haven. sanctuary.

Sam first encounters water at the fountain where the kids are hiding. Then, while walking towards her apartment, being followed by Eric, she dares to talk, associates it with protection, safety from the perception of the beasts. In her apartment, while it is storming, she screams, venting all of her frustrations, unfulfilled hopes, fear; the white noise of the rain and the rumble of thunder serves to dampen her commotion from being perceived by the beasts. She feels light, relieved. Eric joins in at the next rumble of thunder.

Then it is flooding the subways, and muffles their steps from the sleeping beasts. It guides their way out of the depths where the beasts sleep (could this be perceived as hell? being underground and full of monsters?). The stream ends up leading them to a church (salvation, heaven?). I think this was purposeful symbolism.

WHITE CAT

drive of survival. strength and advantage. comfort, grounding energy.

The cat is the reason Sam escapes many killing sprees throughout the film. It somehow always manages to dash away just before the creatures arrive, luring Sam out of there.

The cat is said to be an emotional support animal. It is shown being cuddled and nuzzled by Sam on many occasions of distress, and eventually by Eric, who assumes ownership of it.

MARIONETTES

Sam visibly grows emotional at the sight of the marionette boy levitating with the balloon, only for it to pop and him to collapse. Perhaps she sees it as a reflection of her life; how it turned on her so quickly, how she might have been in the peak of her success (as a poet) just before being diagnosed with a terminal illness. Perhaps it represents lost innocence, when she was just a little girl at her father's side, listening to the piano, and now it's gone, she can't retrieve it.

YELLOW JACKET

Have you ever heard of that quote that goes something like "You are mosaic of the people you've loved"? People change people. People leave traces, imprints on others. The jacket originally belonged to Sam's father, as shown in the picture at the Jazz club. Sam wears it religiously, perhaps to feel close to him now that he's gone. Before she sacrifices herself, she lends the jacket over to Eric - it could symbolize the way he'll carry her with him on his journey.

Favorite scenes: - probably the one where they are screaming through the thunder. felt very cathartic and I do believe it was the first scene in which they weren't fearful of speaking and just being human. - the leap Eric takes with the cat into the sea. to be told he is safe by the members on the ferry, the tears of relief welling in his eyes, and maybe of grief at losing Sam, too. - when Sam miraculously makes it back to the marionette theatre refuge and Reuben gives her a hug of relief, tears streaming down his face, then hands over the cat. - the opening scenes of Sam navigating the city, and the way it was implied that the city was in danger of something strange without really spanning the cameras to the threat yet. i liked that we, as the audience, first saw the treat face-to-face as the same time as our leading character, Sam. It really aids in the sympathizing. It was interesting to hear the sirens and see the flashing lights, and hear the rumble of choppers over the city whilst the camera focused on an oblivious Sam.

I said I would be quick...lol

Can you imagine what I mean when I say I'll be slow???

[a-dragons-journal]

Singlet+

I've been meaning to write this one for a while, so let's see how this goes.

~1k words; essay on the experience of one person who sits right on the funny little edge between "normal roleplay experience" and "actual plurality".

So, let's start with this: I am not plural. But. I do seem to live in a weird space juuuuust on the edge of plurality (and no, I do not mean that I'm a median or blurry system - I mean on the edge of that).

For one thing, I'm a daemian - that is, I practice daemonism; that is, I have personified and given faux autonomy (fauxtonomy, if you will) to my "internal narrator" of sorts and he now lives in my brain with me as a thoughtform, a brain companion, in the shape of an animal. Strictly speaking, that does qualify us for plurality, but we personally don't view our daemonism through that framework and consider ourselves a singlet (as hilarious as the plural grammar makes that sentence, I know). Many daemons don't consider themselves plural; this isn't particularly unusual - in muir case, Locke is a part of me before he is anything else, and while yes there are forms of plurality that look like that, for us personally it makes more sense to view him as "part of me, therefore, still one person".

For another, I had... basically plural experiences when I was younger. I don't want to talk about the details publicly, but suffice to say that for many years I had what I would now call headmates, and I suspect that if I had been exposed to plural spaces during that time period, they may well have stuck around permanently, instead of "fading out" and eventually disappearing as is what actually happened. To this day I don't know how "real" or "imaginary" they were, and I doubt I ever will - they were certainly real to me at the time, but I have also always been very good at suspension of disbelief. Trying to analyze it in any great level of detail is made basically impossible by my piss-poor episodic memory rendering the memories of that time so fuzzy that I can't rely on them for details.

For another, my experiences with OCs are often... soulbond-adjacent? Recently in particular I've had a lot of funny experiences with an OC of mine, a character in a Vampire: The Masquerade campaign I'm a part of (Viridian Caldwell, for my own future self's reference), which led me to do some research on soulbonding because of how fictive-adjacent the experience of her is.

And yet. The answer is a definite no. I get very strong impressions and echoes from her; she "gives" me facts about her and her life that simply Are and that I feel as strongly about being true and unchangeable as I do about my own noemata; she's almost a separate person living in my brain sometimes; I somehow come up with near-prophetic knowledge about her world (as confirmed by my Storyteller, who happens to be part of a system alongside a number of fictives from the world in question, including several who know Viridian personally) with zero explanation on a semi-regular basis.

And yet. The answer is no. Because while I seem to have all the effects a soulbond proper would produce on my end - she is not aware of me, not really. She is not conscious of my world and my life. When I really quiet my own brain and reach out to call out and see if someone's there, there's only silence. It's as though I have a one-way soulbond somehow - which, of course, puts me in the fun gray space between "soulbond" and "normal roleplay/writing experience".

And she's not a unique instance of this. This just happens to me with OCs, although it's been a bit more dramatic with her because of the presence of fictives from her world to converse with (and, realistically, because of the real-time roleplay aspect that a TTRPG has that a video game or the writing of a fanfiction doesn't).

It's as though my brain has the capacity for plurality, but it just... doesn't manifest fully.

And, truth be told, I kind of prefer it this way. I like being a singlet; I would kind of hate having to share headspace with other people. Especially since, if my childhood pseudo-plurality experiences are anything to go by, we would not have good separation of thoughts and memories and true privacy would be very difficult if not impossible. Plus, because of that, I would... probably never get over the doubt of Is It Real Or Not, and I don't need that stress in my life. (For this reason, while I'm 99.9% sure that if I intentionally tried to bring her over as a fictive, it would work, I will not be testing the theory just out of curiosity.)

I wonder if I didn't train myself out of the ability to be Plural Proper, to be honest. Not intentionally, but - I may have mentioned that my power of suspension of disbelief is very strong, and as a child this came with me being extremely easy to manipulate because it was very easy for me to fall into believing things that I wanted to believe. (Again, I don't really want to talk about the details, but suffice to say I had a pretty bad case of Protagonist Syndrome, as it were, for a while.) I had to learn to combat that natural tendency of my brain for my own protection (especially as someone active in witchcraft spaces) - and I wonder if it didn't come with the side effect of immunizing me to developing true plurality (at least without actively trying) by shutting down any attempt by my brain to form a true headmate in the process.

I don't know. I might never. All I know is that while I am, after careful consideration, definitely a singlet, I do seem to live right on the edge of plurality, and it comes with some weird experiences. (And I would like an explanation for why I keep spitting out nigh-prophetic knowledge of this campaign's world; if I find out Viridian is a fictotype of mine or something I'm going to flip my fucking lid.) I've started half-jokingly calling myself "singlet+", half as a joke on cis+ (ie, someone who's questioned their gender and come to the conclusion that they are indeed cis but has a better understanding of their experience of cisness for it) and half as an "unless" "unlesss...?" acknowledgement of the weird border area some of my experiences sit in. It's... not really a serious label, but also isn't entirely a joke.

So... yeah. Singlet+, I guess. Another victim of the "if you only have two words for fear in your language, one for mild test jitters and one for life-threatening terror, you're going to have a lot of trouble describing a lot of normal human experiences" problem of how our language around plurality often works.

[kishavo]

plagued by memories tonight so I’m going to spit them up and hopefully that brings me relief.

I was an EMT for about 5 years and I think these things are tattooed on my bones. trigger warning under the cut for…upsetting healthcare-related experiences? and the f-slur

I remember bringing a wheelchair-bound elderly man up to his shoebox apartment in the inner city, 12 floors up a derelict building in a tiny, shaky elevator, and being hit with the stink of smoke as soon as I opened the door - cigarette butts stubbed out on every surface, ashtrays overflowing, carpet that started out as brown matted down to black. I offered to help him into bed but he refused. he took off his vietnam veteran baseball cap and picked up a stale pack of cigarettes and told me to go

I remember the man who had been attacked by his neighbors’ dogs, two Rottweilers. his legs were mangled; huge scoops of flesh just gone. he was kind. he asked me how my day was going.

I remember the dead woman in the ER who I was told to bag up and bring down to the morgue. she looked familiar. I remember putting a tag on her thumb but I don’t remember her name. I remember making small talk with the ER tech who was helping me on the elevator ride down to the basement. that sounds like the start of a joke, doesn’t it? a girl, a man, and a dead body get in an elevator. if you think of a punchline let me know

I remember the frequent-flyer patient with a chronic mystery skin infection that caused his legs to leak so much fluid that we had to wrap them in plastic bags or else the gurney would get flooded and it would soak into his pants and spill over the edge onto the floor of the ambulance. the first time I got his call I thought we’d been sent to a haunted house. it was an old victorian in downtown, made of rotting wood and peeling paint. The knob in the front door had been ripped out so I bent down and looked through. There was no answer when I knocked so I yelled ‘hello’ through the hole until eventually someone came down the stairs and silently let us in. Our patient’s apartment was one room, it was dark, it smelled, the bed was as dirty as the floor, beer cans and cigarettes everywhere. There was a tiny, square, box TV playing static. There were spoiled diapers kicked under his desk. He lived alone and apparently had no family. I and every EMT who had ever been sent there reported the situation to social services but nothing was ever done.

there was the woman coming down from a meth binge who kept asking me if I was going to eat her brains. we dropped her off at a psych facility and a few days later I was back with another patient. I saw her again, sober now. when she saw me she averted her eyes and retreated into her room

there was another woman in the middle of a severe psychotic episode who, within 5 minutes of meeting me, looked me dead in the eye and said, “You’re a fat fucking faggot and I want you to die.” She had pissed on all her personal belongings and the back of the ambulance stank so bad of stale human urine that I had to kick the fan on and spray air freshener into my face mask. She spent most of the call insulting and trying to spit on me and my partner. My partner snapped at her but I just ate it. Later, when we were outside cleaning the gurney and waiting for the next call, a stray cat slipped out from behind a nearby dumpster and curled around my boots. he booped my knuckles and mewled when I pet him and the night was good again

I remember being in and out of psych facilities so often and feeling like a fucking imposter because I was burning out, depressed out of my mind and regularly experiencing suicidal ideation. I wondered when I would call 911 and end up there myself. I wondered if it would be my coworkers who would pick me up. the thought of it scared me enough that I never made the call, even when I should have. I started getting high instead

I remember the middle-aged woman having a panic attack. that was at my on-location job, at my city’s arena, where all the concerts and games were held. it was a slow night and too many of us responded. this woman was hyperventilating, the bass from the concert was everywhere, and a crowd of strangers was closing in on her. I got there first, so by default it became my call, which always made me nervous. I sat her down, I kneeled in front of her, she grabbed my hands reflexively and I let her grip on. I coached her breathing. I waved my coworkers back to give her space. I convinced her that everyone there just wanted to help her and that there was nothing to be embarrassed about. it worked. I was soothing, and sure, and strong. it worked.

when it was over she held my shoulder and thanked me. patients don’t usually thank us. when it was over I went to the bathroom and cried. I handled it so well because I had been talking my mom down from her panic attacks for years.

I talked about that call in group therapy the week after. I thought I was going to be proud, that it would be a positive share, but I cried again.

when people ask about what it's like being an EMT, I don’t think they want to hear any of this, they only want the cool stories. they want to hear about the lights and the sirens and to thank you for your service but please, please, don’t. There’s a quote by Anaïs Nin: “I was always ashamed to take. So I gave. It was not a virtue. It was a disguise.”

[knifedog-machina]

listen to me ramble about Food for thirty minutes (as an android who Can't Eat)

Written by Jude on July 19th, 2024.

so I've written a whole lot of essays about pretty heavy topics, fucked up things, and that has its place! however, listen to me, I contain multitudes, and I wanna talk about something incredibly silly and fun and just generally more important to my daily life -

✨ Food ✨ 

which is great, and sometimes cursed, but mostly great!

see, as an android, I don't eat food. I do take in fuel by swallowing it - which is way more normal-looking and convenient than prying open your android's chassis to get a port and slowly IV drip thirium into their system - but that doesn't mean I taste things the same way a human would!

there are basically two possible flavors when I put something in my mouth with the intent of putting it in my body - edible (thirium! that's fuel babey!) OR inedible (literally everything else)

thirium is just. that's edible! that's the fuel you need to live! I think it tastes good, and I can't describe that taste to anyone here because I don't taste things in the same way - like the flavor comparison is just not happening. if I had to compare it to anything, like in taste and texture, I'd say it's like fruit nectar? something that tastes very simple that goes down easily, and at the time of drinking it from a pack, it is a bit thicker than water - as it actually starts flowing around in the body it thins out into more of a watery, blood-like consistency.

(sidenote: oh yeah thirium is… kind of like blood? pumped through the body, cools your organs/biocomponents, provides chemical energy to convert into electrical through reactions with air, it's weird android fuel/blood/coolant. it evaporates on contact with air, through our lungs, so we have to ingest it like at least twice daily to account for vapor loss, more if injured and losing it. this is not at all DBH canon, this is lore from Detroit Machina, I have never read a DBH fic that talks about thirium physiology in the same way we do)

and when something tastes inedible, obviously you want to spit it out. that is gross, that is vile, it is absolutely not something I want anywhere near my blood thanks. which means tasting anything that's not thirium like “hey what's that like?” is always gonna give the same answer: gross!

(second sidenote: as a deviant hunter, I also have a forensics analysis relay on my tongue. this basically means that if I'm licking something with the intent of chemically analyzing it, something like spilled thirium from a target, my sense of taste rewires from “edible vs inedible” to “processing a lot of extra data that I can sift through” (e.g. when was this spilled, what model was it from) because analyzing isn't the same as drinking, I just taste it - the amount swallowed with my saliva isn't enough to do any harm, so I don't need to process the edibility of it. this is Also not the same thing as tasting food as a human, for reasons I hope are obvious?)

so I really just get two tastes! they’re not all that sophisticated! (we are ignoring the Illegal Crime Flavors For Murder)

now HERE

IN A HUMAN BODY

THERE ARE FIVE FLAVORS 🙌

this is both a blessing and a curse

like it's really fun that instead of having One taste for Edible Items, you have Four! Five even! because bitterness is kind of an inedible flavor, it's unpleasant for most people, but that doesn't stop a lot of people from eating vegetables or drinking coffee or alcohol or unflavored sparkling water, and it also doesn't stop me, so I'm counting it as five flavors for food

anyway this is a Blessing

because wow! variety!! there's new things to enjoy in different ways! you can have the same ingredients for a dish and cook it in a different way and it will taste different! this is unbelievable honestly, it's fucking great?

and there's more to food than flavors! there's textures, there's temperature, there's compounds that make your mouth feel hot or cold or activate pain receptors, there's scent and how aromatic compounds completely change a food's flavor, a lot of things go into making a food interesting to eat!

like one of the best things to me with food is Temperature! maybe because that's one of the things that I'm familiar with, regulating your temperature through ingesting something that changes it (like I said, thirium is a coolant!) - example, hot soup on a winter day. or ice cream during a heat wave! it's just nice when the food helps you feel better in ways besides filling your stomach, I think

but also - horribly - food is also cursed. For Me Specifically

because uhhh you know how androids can only drink thirium? sometimes, when I'm stressed, food is viscerally disgusting to me. like it's a sensory issue, it Tastes too much, there are textures, it sucks, everything that is great about food can also be terrible when I'm having a bad time. unfortunately, sometimes I’ll be having a bad time because I'm low on blood sugar, and the way to solve this is to get some calories in me. the calories which are in the food. which is terrible

this is The Curse - I will feel better if I eat but eating will feel absolutely revolting until I feel better. it's wretched. (usually when this happens, I go to drinking milk, juice, something liquid with calories because it tastes very plain, won't sit on my tongue that long, and will be easy to swallow.)

I can solve this! mostly by setting alarms that tell us to start making food at a certain time, so it's ready to eat before I get low blood sugar and eating becomes sensory hell. and if I'm having trouble with food, sometimes my headmates won't be having the same problem, so I can switch out and they can eat the food! this is a shining example of how Teamwork can accomplish anything

I don't really know how to wrap up what's basically me talking about food for half an hour, completely unedited, but what I'm trying to say is, holy shit food is amazing? like yeah, I fundamentally understand why Aximili was like that in Animorphs, me the fuck too Ax, as another person who went from No Flavor to Five Flavors I'd also go feral for a cinnamon bun if I first experienced sweet pastries in a shopping mall. Absolutely Correct Behavior

basically uhh Food My Beloved (My Beloathed) (My Beloved) ❤️

[csjwrites]

The Psychology of the White Shirt

I talked about what I do for living again today. I realized it's a conversation that tends to make me uncomfortable.

I'm wearing a white shirt. You know, a collared button up that hasn't been ironed because it's one of those things I always forget to mention. Collar peeking from underneath my coat and hopefully hidden by the fact that people rarely stand close enough to really notice.

I isolate myself just enough to be seen but not known.

So yes, I had to explain again what I do. I'm a small business owner, founder of my own, vastly insignificant company that employs under fifty people. I'm an employer and an ambitious idiot and I don't like this subject. I got frustrated during the conversation and complained about my shirt.

I want to be lazy for once. Not aim to look polished and constantly fail because I forgot to get my shirts ironed.

But I must try, because a person perceived as a woman that looks good is rarely taken seriously, but a person perceived as a woman who doesn't care, who doesn't play the part, doesn't play into expectations, is taken seriously even less. It's a game you cannot win, now or ever. Play into the idea of the unbeatable corporate queen or die. Fail, be undermined. Play into the idea of the unbeatable corporate queen and die anyway. It's a slower death. You won't fail, but you'll be constantly questioned.

I wear my shirts as a shield, even when they're unironed. I let them peek above the collar of my coat and be noticed in the window that separates me from the rest of the office.

I look back to the me three years ago that sat in their shoebox apartment, and wonder how that person ended up sitting long hours in this place. I don't even care about showing up to the damn office because what cannot be done remotely these days but if everyone else shows up at least three days a week, I will on all five.

I'm now a student again. I study because I know I will burn out eventually in this world, and I don't want to see that day, and because, quite frankly, I hate corporate. Leave the responsibility of paying your salary to others.

I wear to school what I wear to work.

I chose to study an industry that thrives on uniforms.

Go figure.

[silvercowb0y]

adam gave one rib for God to make eve. it feels like God keeps taking different bones from my body without me knowing- more people made of the same material as me keep walking into my life. what a blessing when for so long i felt my missing parts were deformities, but what a curse to not be able to cling to them when they finally reveal themselves.

[conningconvert]

I’ve been thinking about Jesus a lot lately, both for school and personal reasons. Mainly his nature, both fully divine and fully human, and what that means.

Now forgive me if I say anything blatantly incorrect, as I haven’t read the entire bible and haven’t been to church in several weeks. What I’m saying is mostly things I’ve been told/thought of at school in a less religious and more analytic context.

As humans, there is an inherent disconnect between us and God. Heaven and earth are two distinct spheres, with a sort of gap between them. God can cross this gap, obviously, but we cannot. Not on our own. This is where Jesus comes in. Rather than belonging to either Heaven or earth, he belongs to both simultaneously - he is fully human and fully divine at the same time. He can cross that gap, the only human who can, and going with him is the only way we can reach Heaven. This is why everyone was in hell before Jesus came. None of us, even the most righteous, could cross the gap on their own.

Humans are social animals. We connect with each other, and we need that. We assign human traits and emotions to animals and objects, otherwise we find it difficult to, well, connect. God is very much unlike us, and very much incomprehensible. I do believe it’s impossible, as we are now on earth, to truly connect with GOD. What we can and do do, however, is connect with Jesus. His humanity belongs on earth with us, we see it, we understand it, and we follow it. From there, through him, we can reach Heaven, and eternal connection with God.

The human side of Jesus, the part that belongs on earth, is what we see and connect with. He, fully human, takes our hands. He, fully God, leads us to salvation.

[b-plot-butch]

for the writing asks: 2, 10, 28, 33?

from this ask game (happy to answer more questions if anyone feels like asking 'em)

hi hi swan! thanks so much for sending an ask [pretend a shower of confetti falls over you when you press the "submit ask" button]

2. anything that you’d like to write but feel like you're unable to?

you know, i really would like to do more character studies. those fics are often the ones that stick with me the most. my only real stab at one myself is my lucienne fic (I HAVE NOT YET REPLIED TO YOUR COMMENT. because it makes me too emotional!!! but i will get there and thank you a million times for it!!!) which was SUCH a labor of love. but stories like that take even more effort and the process of writing is already so effortful :( which is why i don’t have 20 character study fics, as much as i’d like to be that kind of author.

10. top three favourite fic tropes

HURT/COMFORT. MISSING SCENE. DOMESTIC FLUFF. there are others!! these are just the first three i could pick out of the metaphorical hat

28. any writing advice that works for you and you feel like sharing?

uhhh. something i find helps sometimes is journaling by hand about my wips—not only doing drafts by hand, but just rambling about what points you’re stuck on, brainstorming stream-of-consciousness style about how you could continue xyz, articulating your goals for whatever scene you’re working on, noting what’s working well and what’s not, etc. for example, this is a transcription from my notebook of what i wrote while i was trying to figure out how to wrap up “our place in the sun” :

Okay, so how do I want to end this fic? “When Lucienne arrived back in the Dreaming, she was still smiling.” That’s not half-bad. [note: this line did not end up in the final cut] Buhbumbah, the lead-in to that…well, I know I want Calliope to ask Lucienne if she wants her to shave her head for her. So that’ll happen. Then, maybe they stand up, and they just hold each other for a moment. Calliope calls Lucienne beautiful. They kiss, and Lucienne thinks something about…how this love is hers. Okay, let’s try that! Hopping over to the laptop…

meander-y shit like that! :)

33. give your writing a compliment

ack, swan, bless you for picking this one for me <3 um. i think i generally have a solid grasp on sensory description? and…word flow? i can put words in order. yes. i also think i can usually pull off endings well! i like saving a bit of an extra oomph for the last few paragraphs; that’s something i love doing. (see: the ends of “the boy in his deathless arms” and “fly you high.”)

[mossandthoughts]

I live such a privileged life. I have parents who are willing to ignore my queerness and let me live at home. I cannot afford to move out. They love me in their own way despite God saying I am an abomination and will end up in hell.

I have a minimum wage job that keeps me busy. I have a few treasured friends. My mind has always been ill but thanks to medication I still have faint dreams of living in a small cottage somewhere and researching something of interest.

I have a rather large extended family who i care so much for even if some of them dont like who I am.

And I truly try to appreciate what I have and create beauty out of the mundane. My family started with nothing and now we breathe a little easier. Still, pennie’s are pinched. That’s the way things have always been.

I am no stranger to trauma and death within my own personal life.

Being a history lover I have studied the past and its triumphants and tragedies in every form.

Yet, death and suffering has become much more personal in my recent years. And wether it be some horror stories from war vets or School shootings on the news-With the internet nowadays I can read first hand accounts of survivors within my own agegroup. I’ve seen videos of Children huddled in a classroom trying to stifle their panicked sobs as a shooter hunts their building.

Ive seen videos of mothers crying over the cold bodies of their toddlers in Gaza. Those babies never knew a world that wasn’t against them.

Mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles some dead, some just clinging to life staring at me through my bright phone screen. I check the date and time, it was posted a couple hours ago. How long do they have to live? Will they survive the night? I feel sick and then I have to turn my phone off. It’s sickening that I can do that. It feels so wrong.

I’m reminded again just how good I have it. I’m reminded how that could have been my younger cousins. We are all human. Are they not my brothers? Sisters?

I hug my family and I tell them I love them often. I try to quell the thoughts of them in similar tragic situations. As of late I cannot help but fear that something like what I see online will happen to my loved ones in my lifetime.

[pleckthaniel]

it’s about the Thing: on toxic femininity

the privileged white lady Thing. the karen Thing. the dance moms Thing and the wholefoods housewife Thing. the Thing where your emotions are always everyone else’s problem, where anything that decenters Your feelings is the worst fucking thing in the universe, regardless of the material reality of the situation or how anyone else’s feelings factor in. total entitlement to the inner lives of the people around you. because you’re an empath. and a nurturer. and a mom. so you understand everyone and you, the perpetual victim, are never fully understood, and even if someone tries they can’t completely upend this dynamic because to do so would be to limit your access to the Thing.

this is the Thing that has so long prevented me from having emotions. partly because Mom does it, and her mom too. within the framework of the Thing, there is a hierarchy of Thing users. the alpha bitch is the one who is most frequently and openly allowed to do the Thing. betas are only permitted to be unpleasant either when the alpha isn’t present - making them a temporary alpha - or when it suits the alpha to step into her nurturer role. otherwise they have to grin and bear it, with the promise that one day they’ll have their own families on which to inflict the Thing. the Thing is your birthright. it’s the Thing that allows you to survive your own mother, this thought of becoming her to your daughters. it’s the payment for pushing all your unpleasantness down for a few decades: being able to spew it all out on your family and community for the rest of your natural lifespan.

it’s part, i think, of why so many women seem to view their eldest daughters as threats - not because they truly believe, deep down, that their daughters are going to steal their husbands or whatever but because they recognize that another adult or “adult” woman in the house is a threat to their position as the sole user of the Thing. suddenly, she is no longer the only one who can leverage victimhood and tears, and in fact might be at a disadvantage since the other user has the advantage of innocence on her side.

the other reason the Thing has prevented me from developing any meaningful level of emotional intelligence or maturity is because, as a beta bitch and a people-pleaser, i was nearly always on the receiving end of the Thing for the first two decades of my life. when young, i tried to leverage it to my own advantage, as anyone would. screaming, crying, manipulating and externalizing, without ever engaging in the kind of self-reflection, calm expression, or open conversation that could prevent those things from needing to pass. this is understandable, since i was a child. what’s disturbing is how much this behavior was mirrored and encouraged by the adults around me. when i engaged in the Thing unsuccessfully, my punishment was to be the victim of it from my mother. when i was successful, though, i was rewarded with the unquestioning obedience we’re trained to meet the Thing with.

when, in middle school, i first started to notice the Thing and how bad it felt to be targeted by it, i wanted out immediately. i did not want to ever again be the one inflicting the Thing on another person. but when you’re raised in an environment where nearly every adult woman you know is a frequent dallier in the Thing, and you are the only one who seems to see anything at all wrong with the Thing, and people are actively gaslighting you about the harm that the Thing does, you don’t magically develop emotional maturity just by deciding that you don’t want to do the Thing.

people deal with it in different ways, probably, but i dealt with it by turning off my emotions. i couldn’t risk becoming my mother and doing the Thing, but as far as i could tell from my life experience, the Thing was the only possible way to deal with emotion. the only other model i had for inner life was the Thing’s opposite: toxic masculinity, and the associated cycles of shame, internalization, self-denial.

it wasn’t like i sat down and planned it, but watching the Thing play out over and over in front of me, the only option for living with it that looked remotely appealing was in the blank faces of the checked-out fathers and husbands accompanying their alpha bitch wives. be supportive, keep all your shit to yourself, deal with it later. or don’t deal with it; if you bottle it up well enough, you don’t need to. now that seemed like a plan.

so i quit having emotions. or at least, i tried. you can’t actually do that, it’s impossible with how the human brain is wired, but i turned off all my immediate emotional reactions and all my self-awareness and it seemed good enough to adolescent me. of course, no longer cognizantly expressing your emotions does not mean they are no longer being expressed, it just means that you’ve avoiding the problem. they tend to leak out.

for most men, this leakage comes in the form of excess anger, one of the few emotional expressions that men are socially permitted to engage in even by the toxic law of the Thing. for me, it came in the form of happy tears. i started to be known as a crier whenever any good thing happened. id never been this way before but i took it as a good sign. wow, how mature and evolved i must be to be so in tune with my own joy as to cry from it!

whoops, i would realize years later. that was my brain jumping on the single opportunity available to me where shedding tears was seen as OK and normal and i could therefore rid myself of a yearslong buildup of sad chemicals in my skull. because i was still a teenage girl, i had to abide by the laws of the Thing which declared i could not be sad unless my mother had pre-condoned it by asking me about something she decided was wrong and invited me to share about my feelings on it. but because i had subscribed, unconsciously, to a different Thing, i was playing by the rules of two games at once and this was the only overlapping opportunity. or maybe it was just the only way i could consistently emotionally overwhelm myself enough to provoke an undeniable reaction. joy was rare for me at that time.

both of these Things are two sides of the same self-harming coin that tells us emotion is a bad thing. under the model of the Thing, the goal is not to experience our lives and emotions but to avoid dealing with the things that make us unhappy at all cost, because to do so would be to rock the boat, incite change and that is far more uncomfortable, the Thing tells us, than just not dealing with your shit.

i’ve started working on having feelings again, which is to say that im learning for the first time how to identify feelings in my body and in my thought patterns, and how to live through them instead of being immediately triggered into the panic that the Thing encourages. to be honest, i kind of hate it a lot of the time. when i ignored my emotions all the time, i felt more efficient. i was productive, and i was good at making friends, and my life looked right from the outside.

this is the goal of the Thing: allowing us to build a house of cards. a castle, even, if we so dream. but as soon as you take the first steps toward an actually healthy experience, the entire Thing collapses. the shivering child inside is left out in the rain, and, since our journey is just beginning, we’ve only got a brick or two with which to shelter him.

sometimes i feel like a robot who’s just woken up to find i was freed and reprogrammed without my consent. i was perfectly well-adjusted, i was happy, i want to say, but i can’t because i didn’t even really know what happiness was before, i was just not sad because i wasn’t anything and that seemed like it was as good as it was ever going to get. and it makes me bitter, ungrateful even because this change is not something that the old me wanted, at all, and it is not something she thought she needed, at all.

i do need it, i know. and i want it now, too, even if it is exhausting. i’m just really not prepared to face myself. it’s bizarre after being told for years that i was ‘mature’ and ‘self-aware’ to realize that those things were not even remotely true for most of my life. people talk a lot about how ‘mature’ is teacher-speak for an emotionally neglected child, but ive never seen anyone talk about how ‘self-aware’ is therapist-speak for the same thing. it means “you’re easy like this, so i’m not going to bother actually helping you.” fuck those teachers and fuck those therapists.

i guess the point of all this is to say that i grew up seeing two sides to every story : the male and the female. two sides of the same coin both embossed with the very same Thing, and neither ever getting the full picture. it is a cycle of emotional neglect and violence that is deeply, deeply embedded into white middle-class american culture and which those of us who live there steep in for decades without ever being fully aware. it is a cycle that for the most part, we can’t address because we fucking idolize it. or at least we tend to idolize our own side of the coin, and villainize the other. this, too, is part of the Thing. we can’t keep blaming outgroups for our own emotional toxicity.

the way forward: it’s neither male nor female. neither externalizing nor internalizing. it’s just having the courage to fucking face your shit like an adult and take responsibility for it, and fucking gender roles while you’re at it because why not.

at least, i think. i’m still at the part where i only have a couple bricks, a pile of cards, and a shivering small wet thing next to me in the rain. but i do prefer this to the house of cards. at least this way i can acknowledge the problems.

[cblife]

Raw and Unedited

30 minute timer set; write! A raw writing exercise to get me back into the game. Let me know what you think.

The following is what it looks like to write raw in 30 minutes. I haven’t been writing lately due to well, I guess you could say my motivation. I get these waves that completely wipe me out and I am unable to put words to a page. The waves have been getting shorter and I finally found someone who has been checking in on me. I don’t want to disappoint her, so here goes. 30 minutes of raw writing…

[mumblergrumbler]

Melted Man / Melting of Man

Strong and taught : old and wrought

elastic and urgent : brittle and beaten

bright and searing : dull and weary

hungry and searching : malaise or leering

a candle stick (thick?) - melted away who knows the length of a wick will stay? the air we breathe burns as chests heave.

which of the many small slights to a human’s might before a piece breaks and drops the tanks after the burn. finally, precipice reached, peaked and is forever a bit more worn than reborn? all efforts in vain, nostalgia entertains…an idea of someone who was, instead of someone who could or would, be.

A shift in life’s biggest grift. life given, albeit at varied speeds, is snatched away. a thief in the night, robbery of might.

a slow working acid bath, becoming more concentrated with every sequential breathe. let it lie…no need to give up but, yes, we all die.

…in a twelve month life, June holds a deep sigh.

[reuna]

I can't with the ‘Are you meaning to say that Hagari is lying to us?’.

YES. YES. THAT IS LITERALLY WHAT HE IS PAID TO DO. Manufacture consent for genocide and illegal occupation and war crimes by lying through his teeth.

Ten journalists who have covered the war on Gaza for two of the world’s leading news networks, CNN and the BBC, have revealed the inner workings of those outlets’ newsrooms from October 7 onward, alleging pro-Israel bias in coverage, systematic double standards and frequent violations of journalistic principles. In several cases, they accused senior newsroom figures of failing to hold Israeli officials to account and of interfering in reporting to downplay Israeli atrocities. In one instance at CNN, false Israeli propaganda was put on air despite advance warnings from staff members.

5 October 2024

[silvercowb0y]

leaning into apathy so i don’t kill myself. avoiding the only project that gives me purpose so i don’t lose it on completion. i only ever think about marriage when i think of what it’ll be like to die. i hesitate to share my thoughts online — if something happens, you know she wrote a manifesto? why am i worried about something happening if it’s in my hands? it’s all out of my hands though, isn’t it?