#within life and yourself

[starzonez]

owen -> emotionally clocking out when they watch the pink opaque. mentally putting themself on a shelf while they engage with the media as a break from engaging with the real world. nothing is right out here but in there it all makes sense. it’s an escape unattainable anywhere else.

maddy -> watching this show is as real as real to me. i can feel everything tara goes through and i can feel the pain and the love and the fear through the screen but it’s not my own. how do i make it my own? this hurts. this hurts and it’s not normal and something must be done about it. i deserve to feel this strongly in my real life.

[sincerely-sofie]

*Skitters up to you on all fours and drops this in your lap, then scrambles up the walls and onto the ceiling and immediately falls asleep*

Comic time! Lucky wakes up in the middle of the night and has a chat with Sen in this one.

[softbean]

everything she deserves 🌼

[thepersonalwords]

If you are not able to find peace within yourself, no one will be able to bring you peace.

Debasish Mridha

[blackpilljesus]

I dont care about the odds of womens liberation happening because I dont solely focus on "winning" per se. That's not to say I dont want or aim towards it but freedom isn't just about the end but the journey too. Cultivating a lifestyle as a single childfree woman is something bigger than me and something I hold onto to get me by.

One thing about conscious is that we all know we're going to die. This terrifies some; but in some cases it gives a purpose to existence. Death becomes a metric to measure the things that are worth it in life, things to dedicate life towards for fulfillment in existing. Whether the end goal actually comes to fruition or not is irrelevant because the hope and purpose carries you as you live.

To get by the hardships of life and inevitability of death: dedicate yourself to something bigger than you. Having a sense of purpose beyond yourself drives innovation & delivery. It's not just about how long you live but what you live (& are willing to die) for. This is how cults, religion, charity, activism, natalism etc affect people. It gives them a sense of purpose greater than themselves so they devote their lives to them even in extreme cases where it'd kill them. They suffer & work in the name of their cause.

Many women regret encountering feminism & seeing maIes for how evil they are but I dont. I see things more clearly & more importantly it's given me a purpose in life; something to orient how I carry myself as long as I live: To pour my energy into myself & other likeminded women, to live beyond serving a maIe, to trust myself & not let the claws of maIe supremacy sink into me, to be the subject of my life instead of the object, to know I'm ending the line of suffering and not giving maIes what they ultimately want - another soul in the chain to continue the suffering, etc. That's the direction I'm taking my life.

I'm saying all of this because with things like separatism, 4B etc if you're serious about it think about these things as something bigger than yourself let it be something that you devote yourself to that goes beyond you. In the end it isn't just about you, it's about the future children you're saving from experiencing the hurt & suffering of this world. For me, no matter what happens as long as I dont give birth before I die that's a W for me - when I die the suffering in my line ends with me. So that's how I see this as something bigger than myself, it's not just about me but my (potential) future offspring. And before anyone tells me about how there's good in this world; good isn't guaranteed but suffering is.

When you give yourself to something bigger than you you're able to commit to things for the greater good & not just doing things for the sake of it. I dont refuse to date, reproduce, wear makeup, etc to stick it to anybody; it's just freeing for me. I think the lack of seeing these things as something bigger than yourself is part of why many women struggle to commit to this or even think of the idea (there's obvs many reasons but I wont get into them to stay focused). I commonly to hear things "I'm not doing x for some fringe online movement" because they dont see a greater good, sense, or purpose to it so instead women will get in pro woman spaces demanding it caters to them & their existing habits rather than working within these spaces towards a goal greater than themselves compared to dating which is why they're willing to inconvenience & risk more in that regard.

This might sound extreme but many people whether they're aware of it or not have a purpose for themselves at some point & legacy they want to build to leave something behind or it fulfils them. For me the way I see all of this is that I want to succeed as a single childfree woman as my legacy. That's what I build towards. I occasionally ask myself that if I was to die now would my life & the things I did reflect what I believed in at the end of the day. Now obviously people have different motives & legacy aspirations which causes conflict (even with maIe supremacy it's about legacy which is why maIes live & die for it. It makes it easier for them to reproduce & steal labour from women to pass off as their own & that's something added to their legacy - something that lives beyond). Ofc not everyone gets remembered but in the grand scheme of things as I mentioned it's not about the end goal but the journey there.

The thing with fulfilment is that it is so strong if this thing wasn't there people likely wouldn't know what to do with themselves. Despite the criticisms of religion, part of why it's so powerful & popular is bc many people wouldn't know what to do without that framework shaping their lives. Something they can lean on in hard times, something that directs the way they go about their daily lives so people take it very seriously with its ups and downs as it gives them purpose & they'd be lost otherwise. Similar thing with patriarchy, if you remove the benefits it comes with; maIes wouldn't have a purpose to work towards & existence wouldn't be worth it for most of them. This is why many of them dont care about going on rampages even if it costs them their lives to uphold the system as they have nothing to live for out of maIe supremacy. A loss of those structures would be a net negative as they have to work harder for the same or less results.

For many women, romance is something that fulfils them & adds purpose to their lives (remember having purpose to something means you're willing to struggle for it). In my previous post I addressed the argument of how there'll be violence when women reject maIes en masse but even when women choose to date maIes the risk of violence is still there (which there's endless strategies on how to 'vet' and mitigate) but they still go for it because a having relationship is something bigger than themselves. These things fulfil them so much so that many women refuse to take maIes as they are & actively shut out news about their violence bc it'd make them hate them & they dont want to do that bc losing romance would be losing it all. It isn't just about them, they're looking for someone to explore, build, and create life with as it fulfils them so they'd be willing to take risks to find that. Hell even out of dating, many women will risk their lives & livelihood to advocate for maIes politically as they see the cause as greater than them.

I've provided examples to put this concept in context so for the more relevant part: as a single childfree woman where does this leave you? Find a sense of purpose & fulfilment to it. This is something that has to come from within for it to stick, a sentence I say isn't going to give you purpose bc you dont know me & I dont know you. To a degree, typical things that give people purpose & fulfilment are messages that have been instilled into them from childhood. As people grow & face challenges it's something they lean on and it works for them to get by life. Many religious people look to their creator when they're going through hard times in addition to everything else they do surrounding religion as they devote themselves to that. So having a purpose & sense of fulfilment is important bc when adversity inevitably comes up it will help you overcome it.

TLDR: We're always taking risks depending on what we find purpose & fulfilment in. These things tend to be bigger than ourselves. Find purpose and fulfilment to being a single childfree woman.

This is the final part of my series of posts about the popularity & rise of single childfree women:

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

[preseriesdean]

And I get what I've been doing lately, you know, what with the yelling and the acting like a prison guard. It's just, that's not me. You tell yourself you're not gonna be something, you know?

[abandoned-quiche]

i think what undertale fangames should really strive for is to push undertale's themes of mercy to the edge - push the PLAYER to see what their limits are on who deserves mercy.

[thepeacefulgarden]

[pebblezone]

[mtkanna]

i can't really see any possibility for sandrone other than her being a recreation of mary-ann. she's active in fontaine, has an interest in mechanics and machine development, and experimented on ruin machines from khaenri'ah--just as we know alain did. she has a vested interested in preserving meka that express sentient thought, or something close enough to it. her appearance matches young mary-ann's incredibly closely, from the shade of her hair and eyes and dress to even the way her hair is styled.

if we take each different version of mary-ann to represent a single part of a greater whole, she fits in perfectly. ann is the preserved form of their childhood, young and still learning, at the heart of her own story. 'mary-ann' is the part of herself that agreed with jakob and rene and lyris, that feared the future and dying and longed to hold onto her childhood home and her childhood friends. so sandrone could be the part of mary-ann that was active in the institute and that joined the marechaussee hunters, that researched mechanics alongside her brother, who tried, in her own way, to safeguard the future.

[lvstharmony]

​beyond grateful for the people that are surrounding me in my life, just as i am grateful for the people i’ve parted ways with, for without them, i would not be the person i am today.

[moregraceful]

I name all of my snake plants after Baltimore Orioles players because...I don't know why I do that.....anyway Adley (she/her pronouns according to my parents) and Adam Jones are making the trip with me but Chris Davis is TOO BIG FOR THE CAR and I'm so sad now. That was my emotional support snake plant through my FMLA leave. He has seen the worst of me (mental illness, forgot to water him for a month) and survived. Now he's like four feet tall and I have to leave him behind because he is so big that he takes up more than a third of my luggage space in the car 🥲 I took such good care of him that now he has to live independent of me. Goodbye Chris Davis I will think of you fondly as I encourage Adley to grow big and strong.

[mirror-to-the-past]

Xingqiu fans are dining excellently with all the references to him and lore regarding the Guhua Clan being spotlighted via Chenyu Vale's "A Wangshan Walk to Remember." The comparisons that can be made between Xingqiu and his predecessors is also very fascinating...

The Grand Master Guhua truly did live out the life of idealized dignity and transparency just as Xingqiu desires for himself. There's something very touching and heartbreaking about the fact that Guhua's life was one deemed heroic, but he was only able to have his legacy carried on by Boxuan who cast his own name aside to exhalt the name of the deceased Guhua.

And then right after briefly recounting the life and works of Master Guhua, Wen brings up Xingqiu, reemphasizing the lofty ideal/hope that he can respark the dying flame of the Guhua (no pressure) and potentially act as a parallel to the founder of the art himself. It's made all the more poignant, considering that we could easily draw the connection that Chongyun could be considered Xingqiu's potential Boxuan equivalent, a fellow young practitioner of martial arts who acts as a peer and supporter of Xingqiu's arts (although lets hope Xingqiu doesn't die preemptively like Guhua did).

I don't have snippets of the dialogue for it or screenshots, but those books in the archive room were just so lovely to see. The fact that many of the old disciples of Guhua were just nerds like Xingqiu and enamored with wuxia novels, shelving their discussions of them among all of the records they held in their library was so sweet.

Additionally, the person who invented the Rain Cutter technique that Xingqiu uses now was the one involved with the hidden Wangshan chambers that had the really forboding message about the heavens rejecting humanity and whatnot... very mysterious stuff.

Additionally, those 5 swords scattered around Chenyu Vale, the first of which you find at the outskirts of the Wangshan Chamber....while not necessarily all individuals of the Guhua Clan, it made me oddly emotional to see how the years that went by, depicted by each sword's material- from a blade to a crude sword shaped stick- and yet they all had in common a very poetic observation of their goals and the world about them that could easily flow as a singular nature/travelling-based poem. And that spirit of poetry intertwined with swordsmanship flourishing across the ages still continues on with this one dorky rich boy. It's honestly wonderful worldbuilding, that through environmental storytelling and the mere mentions of a character who was never even present for the entirety of the world quest, all of these stories and records of Guhua disciples and swordsmen before him tell me all I need to know about Xingqiu as a character, too.

[jamesheathridge]

motherhood is a deeply depressing and horrific concept and it will never not haunt me

[thereigning-lorelai]

maybe i’ll eat my words but i love the angst so far. and i feel more certain than after last week’s ep that all of this is on purpose — the distance, nancy seemingly being over ace so fast all of a sudden, bess and nick pushing nancy towards tristan. it’s too weird and out of character to not be connected to nancy’s sin.

[bylertruther]

do you ever think about how will probably wishes he was braver?

that he could tell mike the truth about himself without having to speak in code. that he could stick to his guns when he's been wronged and stand up for himself rather than tucking tail and turning the other cheek. that he could be less shy, less sensitive, less cowardly, and maybe then his loved ones wouldn't forget about him as often as they do.

maybe then they would pick him first, rather than leaving him for last. maybe then they would want to hang out with him and hear what he has to say. maybe then they would treat him like they used to, like he can still take care of himself just like they can, instead of like a fragile little thing that they pick up only when they need him. maybe then they would care about him as much as he cares about them. maybe then he wouldn't doubt that it could all come crashing down once they know who he really is, and always has been, because the rest of him would've been enough.

like, maybe he wishes he didn't freeze or run away so much. maybe he wishes he wasn't so afraid all the time, of every little thing. that he could be brave like mike, el, or his mom. i mean, el's been through so much, too. why can't he be more like her? why does he have to hide behind her? he hides behind her when the monsters come crawling back, and he hides behind her when he can't bring himself to say what he really means—even after getting on her case about it.

he spent so much time on that painting. he didn't let anyone see it—it was that special to him. why couldn't he own up to that? there's no monster in the van with him; it's just him and mike and this painting of the party, nothing inherently incriminating or romantic, and still—he can't help himself. he retreats back into the shadow, shrinks into himself, and tells lie after lie to the person that he never lies to, that he knows doesn't fucking deserve that, just because he's too scared.

of course he'd feel like a mistake sometimes. of course he'd hate who he is (if That script is to be believed), when he can't even talk to the one person that would understand without lying straight to his face, over and over again, like a fucking hypocrite. of course he'd feel so lost without the person that tells him it's okay to be this way and shows him that there is indeed strength in it. of course he'd hate who he is when he's encouraging someone to be true and speaking about their courage, all while being incapable of taking his own advice, and giving the credit for all of his love and efforts and emotions to someone else.

so many people died to bring him back, so many people died just because he didn't stay dead when maybe he should have, and for what? so that he can continue to hide rather than live his life? so that he can turn into a "worse" version of himself? so that he can live in fear? so that he can continue to ache for a past that he can never return to, while everyone else moves forward and berates him for not doing the same? time stopped in the upside down when will went missing, and he's been stuck there ever since, too. too much has happened for him to move on from. too much has changed—he's changed. he's too different now, in every way, and the older he gets the more clear it becomes.

of course he'd feel like a mistake. of course he'd hate who he is. he's the common denominator here: in his loneliness and in this war. the boy who came back to life when others didn't. the boy that got possessed and couldn't fight it. the boy that turned into a liar and a coward and must learn to live with it, even if it's at his own expense. the boy that can't let go of the past and whom the past won't let go of either, because even after everything, he's still connected to this great evil that won't let him go. they got it out of him, and yet the tether remains, because of-fucking-course it would.

just—why? why him? why can't anything ever go right with him? why is he always the outlier? i think that overwhelming amount of fear, shame, grief, guilt, exhaustion, and loneliness would wear anyone down, let alone a teenager that never asked for any of it and has experiences so unfathomably unique that the only other people that could have possibly understood are literally dead.