#you couldnt exist if you didnt experience both

[nururu]

"I hate Trisha paytas" okay kys

[catmask]

if it's not too intrusive, would you be comfortable talking about your experiences with OCD and maybe what made you seek a diagnosis?

idm it might help other people. i mean disclaimer not to use this as a diagnostic tool but if this sounds like u and u got a doc to talk to its worth bringing up

i think an important place to start and why i didnt think i had ocd is i am 1) autistic 2) a csa victim. this is pertinent because all of the things that actually lead me to get diagnosed with ocd i just kept dismissing as parts of those two other things. thinking 'surely this is all thats up there cant be anything else wrong with me' (<- thoughts of a clown)

the trouble with this is that coping skills id found for parts of both autism and csa trauma weren't working with things i later found out were related to ocd. so like, for example. frequently having intrusive thoughts about csa/sex trauma, i was told that if im experiencing a flashback the best thing i can do is try to ground myself and comfort myself. and yeah this is true, it would work if a flashback is all it was. but what it DIDNT account for is the guilt/dirty feeling id get after having them and the obsessive need to be 'clean' after.

and this trickled into hundreds of aspects of my life. 'cleaness' has always been such a vague unattainable concept unmedicated for ocd. if some things touch other things theyd become 'unclean'. if a person i felt uncomfortable around touched me or something it became 'unclean'. there were 'good' and 'bad' thoughts to have. i was constantly existing as if my presence was being monitored 24/7.

i could not fucking relax because every action i took, regardless of whether or not i was in private, i was constantly thinkin 'am i doing something wrong? am i hurting someone by doing this? am i breaking any rules?' and the 'bad thing' i was doing was like. i missed my boyfriend while he was at work. or i was going over former scenarios in which i was socially awkward in my head and wondering if i should be dead for doing that.

part of why i dismissed this as autism ofc too is yknow. being autistic i often missed social queues as a kid and was pretty brutally punished for it (physically by my parents, emotionally and socially by peers) so i was like yeah its Normal and Realsitic id have super intense fear about 'am i secretly doing something bad and dont realzie it because no one will fucking tell me until ive already done it and its too late and then i deserve all the punishment i get' but where my loved ones stepped in and were like Hey thats Not really normal. is where it waslike. other autistic people going 'brother i dont do that'

so yeah. it was like. kind of rule of elimination? the problems that wrrent getting solved by coping skills for the Other problems i Knew i had, i isolated those leftover things and my doctor was like 'this sounds like you have ocd. do you do this too' and listed out like 60 other things i didnt consider symptoms i just considered 'funny quirks' i had, like crying so hard id throw up if i couldnt get a blanket to lie perfectly flat during a picnic when i was 8 or thinking i was going to hell and my stuffed animals could feel pain so i would apologize to them iver and over while crying when they fell off the bed

you know. 'quirks'

[leolingo]

waking up and seeing dream’s rip off project just breaks my heart man what the hell qsmp barely had two weeks to shine and now he’s introducing a VERY similar project in larger scale and uglier graphics and its just “the two are allowed to co-exist?” be fucking serious for a second dude why are you doing this NOW at the height of a project spearheaded by someone that used to call you a friend? like just . logistically speaking comercially speaking when you see how obviously similar these concepts are Why would you announce it now when you know someone else is getting the spotlight for once.

its hard not to call it spite or jealousy or anything of the sort when we cant confirm the timelines of this new project’s development but it REALLY, really feels like something unkind. not only that but it feels really gross to see most aspects of quackity’s passion project warped into something worse.. like LIVE TRANSLATION? really? bc dream of course wouldnt expect people to try and learn the different languages to communicate. he probably doesnt understand how redundant and ultimately hindering it will be to rely 100% on automated translation because 1) he’s not bilingual nor does he make any effort to understand the bilingual experience 2) he has no actual interest in the learning process of foreign languages or the different linguistic communities on twitch and in content creation in general . which makes me wonder WHY he is leading this and very likely profitting off of it when there’s no real reason for him to associate himself with this kind of cultural project other than . wanting to be relevant i guess.

during squidcraft, i didnt see him attempt a single word in spanish. i saw dream use google translate or straight up speak english (fast, idiomatic english at that) to spanish speakers and otherwise not try to meet a communicative middle-ground in any way. if this is how he intends to take on “united SMP” i cant wait to see it fail.

quackity’s project is successful because he cares. its modeled after his own experience and thrives because he as a bilingual host is able to cater to both communities within it and work as a linguistic bridge when need be. which, as we have watched day after day on qsmp streams, becomes less and less necessary because the environment quackity is fostering is actually very concrete INCENTIVE FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING. people are actually interacting and having meaningful linguistic/cultural exchanges that actually LEAD TO LANGUAGE KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING. how the fuck is that supposed to happen if theres live translation? ill tell you now, it won’t.

when we study linguistics in college one of the first things we learn in regards to foreign language teaching is that translation methods rarely fuckjng work. by doing that youre limiting human interaction and actually DISTURBING the learning possibilities because youre taking away Real, varied input. dream doesnt know what he’s doing and its so upsetting to watch. dont even get me started on “language rankings” or whatever the fuck the competitive aspect is supposed to be

the project is just so flawed and the timing couldnt be worse. quackity is doing such a great job and? you just try to hijack his idea like this even though you clearly lack both the heart and the knowledge to make something like this work? to me it just appears so sour. so mean-spirited and uninspired. i dont even know man i just dont like it

[ganondoodle]

I honestly find it impressive how totk managed to fuck up so bad as a sequel. But truth be told, good gameplay aside, botw already was a whole lot of nothing as far as story and lore were concerned. I just feel like amnesiac Link going out into the world to save some voice is not a good premise, even though botw Zelda has an interesting personality. Idk, I guess botw felt like an experiment that was supposed to pay off in totk, but totk being a disappointment makes botw kind of feel like a waste of time as well

yes and no to that (in my opinion .. just gonna add that to be sure)

what hooked me in botw was less the story that was told and more what was implied, bc it seemed to imply so much, there was so much design that felt intentional- like an introduction to a world with subtle hints towards much much more that would be perfect to dive deeply into in an expansion or second part- just like you said

i personally am a sucker for big environments with enviromental storytelling more than direct dialog in your face- it might be a small detail to some but for me the choice of music, or how little and broken there was really spoke to me (in part bc i am very noise sensitive, id gladly spent hours in botws hyrule field, but id want to get out of twilight princesses hyrule field bc it would get unbearable to me after a while)

but mainly .. it was the world, botw made me feel like no other game has before, it felt so real to me, that this is a world with deep history, most of which unknown, so much mystery and things that existed with no explicit explanation (like man do i love botws dragons ...... and i will not forgive what totk did to them lore wise)-- like with the ancient shiekah especially, they were, or seemed, so drenched in lore you can only guess but yet it felt so intentional, or how calamtiy ganon was this strange being like a force of nature and the gerudo having had no king in so long it was basically forgotten it was ever a thing?? so much to speculate and think about, so much you could do with all those things; you probably didnt aim to get this kind of talk from me but when i talk i talk unfortunately, and botw is my second favorite zelda game (grinding my teeth to dust trying to ignore what totk did to its lore)

if you look at just whats told to you, botw isnt that special either (though at least coherent in itself lol) but its the world and design and mystery that got to me, that i care about so much, care that got almost utterly destroyed by totk bc it made me realize that there .. might have been no intention behind anything, it didnt mean anything actually

its a thing that hurts me so much to know, to think about, that totk cannot be separated from botw, they cheapen each other, people think its just botw+extra, when imo its more like .. botw again but worse, or them saying that botw was jsut a tech demo to the grand game that is totk (i couldnt disagree more to that wtf, totk is more of a tech demo for ultrahand tbh)

i cant even decide whats worse to me, the fact that botw isnt gonna get that deep lore dive in a second part that got me so excited like i never was before after the first trailer, that everything i cared about in it isnt gonna have a follow up ever, the knowledge that there might be no intention and no meaning behind anything in their games, that the next games might be like that too, that its inseperable from totk in the worst way, or that they only damage each other, botw functions better on its own than totk does, but together it worsens both

(i basically just said what you said in long form .. sorry- though i do feel more positively about the amnesia thing in botw, theres tragedy and emotional weight in it and helps immensely to let you and link explore the world like for the first time- plus its a drawback to an otherwise pretty overpowered piece of tech/magic- unlike some other things in a certain other game)

[poppyandzena]

Honestly, how dare they use their familiarity with therapy terms to abuse other people. Theyll say it isnt abuse, but they know it is.

To stay anonymous in fear of her going absolutely nuclear on me as well, all Ill say is I have experience and work in the same field as her. If shes going to pull out her "Im a therapist" card to act as if she knows better than all of us, then let it be known someone who works in the same field finds her behavior abhorant and I suspect she KNOWS it. Ive heard her speak, she is extremely smart, and I believe she knows exactly what she has done.

All of her texts to Noeh/Max are fishing for an "I love you" response when she clearly told Poppy no. She told you no Poppy. You know that. You just couldnt handle it.

I understand that abandonment melange can feel incredibly, incredibly painful. I have been in a similar situation as you Poppy. I know it sucks when the person you are unhealthily infatuated with doesnt love you. Your limerance for Noeh was painful as fuck, I know as much. That pain is coming from your own limerance, not Noeh. Your heart was so set on a relationship that never existed no matter how much you tried to force it. I've had issues with limerance myself, I know that it can feel like life or death and can make you want to do anything to just make the relationship fantasy you want a reality.

And you and I BOTH KNOW that STILL DOES NOT give you the right to do all of these awful things youve done. It was your job to work on yourself and step back and give Noeh the space she asked for. It was your job to reregulate yourself. It was your job to use techniques to stop catastrophizing.

So much damage has been done so far, especially to yourself by yourself at this point. Your peers have disassociated with you and you lost your job because of actions such as implying you would kill yourself if Noeh didnt love you in the way you thought you needed. Any therapist knows how manipulative that action is. You know. I know because you tried to mask it behind obfuscating therapy talk. I know you know this.

Even throughout all of this, and even though I condemn your actions, I still have sympathy for you in that it is obvious you are in an incredible amount of pain. If you want to heal you need to do the right thing and face your own limerance issues. Not being employed right now could be a blessing in disguise as it gives you time to step back and really work on yourself. I think if you take a break from this you will look back and see how many of your friends and peers who have disassociated with you were trying to help you by showing you your self destructive behaviors.

Its time to face the music. If it helps, Ive had infatuation with several unavailable people and the pain and negative behaviors only truely started to heal once I looked inward and faced a truth I was afraid of facing. That it was me. Once you do its not as painful as your brain would have you to believe.

A beautiful and insightful response. I always love when professionals put in their two cents here. You can feel the experience and knowledge simply through the prose. I've talked to mental health professionals as well and they were baffled Poppy was allowed to practice for so long. I will say Poppy was extremely lucky in her career based on the company she kept, but even that wasn't enough to prevent her behavior from causing consequences.

I've said this a few times. I wouldn't care if Poppy was a barista, or a janitor, or a marketing exec, or a rocket scientist. Those careers don't give you access to vulnerable individuals whom you are responsible for keeping alive. If you treat your child, your partner, your friends the way Poppy treats hers and you are a therapist? You are an unsafe practitioner. Full stop.

[doyouremem8erme]

being disabled was a lot like being gay or trans when i was growing up. i knew it existed. i knew their experiences contained certain elements abled and cishet peoples' didnt. but they were all kinda distant and not things i considered as something i could be or become. it felt a lot like a personal version of the "as long as its not my kid" defense except "as long as its not me." i didnt dislike the idea of me being gay, i actually loved it--the popular crowd at my school was in fact the gay friend group--and that makes sense in retrospect. it just wasnt an option that felt available to me. i hung out with the queer kids in middle school and spent so much time wondering if i was like them, but it was so foreign that i didnt even know how to conceptualize that difference from "theyre gay" to "im gay." they were like two different states and all those other queer kids out there were their own people while i was just me. and then lo and behold, skip ahead a few years later and im a queer nonbinary lesbian.

and like with queerness, i always knew disabled people were out there with different experiences, and that they too needed rights and acceptance--but even as my genetic chronic illness began presenting itself and my pain became worse and i began struggling more and more, i still suffered so much imposter syndrome. i was chronically ill, but of course i wasnt disabled! i didnt have to use a cane, i could get by without people knowing i was sick, and once again, i considered myself an outsider to that community because i couldnt imagine myself fitting in.

and its only set in recently that oh my god i am disabled and it does fuck me over just as much as the disabled influencers across social media i see vlogging their struggles. these days, most of my time at home is spent in bed. i can barely function enough to make it through school or even do my hobbies. its incredibly disheartening and discouraging and somehow, only once i see my lifelong dreams of my future put in peril by this shift in my life, i finally see myself as disabled.

i feel like i had an actual thesis to this but the brain fog has been kicking my ass lately--but really theres both just something to be said about the overlap of queer and disabled experiences and why so many queer people are disabled and vice verse because of the mindset these experiences put you into, and also the reminder that anyone can be disabled whether they appear to be or not (yes, even physically) as well as the fact that disability can happen at any age. im 17 and was diagnosed with ehlers-danlos at 16. there were signs throughout my life but over the past year and especially last months, its actually started to really really impact me more extremely negatively than before. i wrote this because i didnt have the energy to do the 6+ homework assignments i needed to do today so . idk it used up the rest of my energy and i might go to sleep very quickly after hitting post. bleh

[yveltalreal]

for both: how do you feel about family

Yveltal: It's all I know, isn't it? Ever since the beginning, it was Xerneas, Me, and Zygarde. Of course, there was a beginning before that. There were other legends before that, but I Palkia, Dialga, and Giratina... they aren't siblings. They existed long before us. Same with Arceus. Especially true for Arceus. I need to have family because if I don't have one, if someone cannot look at me and go "That's Yveltal, they're like family to me" then what am I? What am I except the hurt? I need to be the love as well, don't I? I love them both. I love them a lot, and I love the others too. Maybe it was a mistake to love them like friends and children, rather than axes and hammers. To treat them as family rather than tools. Who knows. I am nothing without them. I miss them. I miss Zygarde, even if they hurt us. Maple: i think its complicated. i love my parents. they arent the best. they sucked. they were busy. but i love them. they learned. theyre trying better. they love me. its whatever. my mom especially though. i remember talking to her. she didnt want to be him. she didnt want to be her either, so she ran. she thought that if she wasnt there maybe her love wouldnt be so strong that it hurt. thats what she told me. word for word. i get it. i love a lot too. it took her a lot longer. it took her so much longer to not be afraid. she was always afraid that if she looked at me too hard that id snap. that her hands werent made for holding a child. she didnt want me. she didnt treat me like she wanted me. i mean she wasnt cruel but she just wasnt there. it took almost losing her to realize everything. for her to be there. i love her. i love her a lot. i love them all. but i dont know. sometimes at night, i wonder if they really do care, or if its the bare minimum. i wonder how long that would have gone on, a child alone in a house filled with pokemon until the end of time if grandma didnt find us.

and my brother. i love my new brother. im glad hes never going to experiance what i did. but hes so small and scared. just like my mother. but unlike her i am built for hurting. a whole body staying alive because of the stolen life of others. hes so small. hes so fragile. when i look at him i know what my mom felt and i know she felt it worse. its fine. im not his parent. im his sibling and by arc am i going to be a good one.

and outside of them. outside of blood. where does it begin and end. aspen and jaime? im married to them. we're legally family. and i love them like that. and tori shes my sister and law now but she was kinda like family too. and estelle. family friends is just family to my family, sometimes, and shes a family friend. my grandma wants her to call her grandma as well. shes like a cousin. even if i cant remember when we knew eachother when we were little well i remember knowing her now. at least a little. tami is like my mom, even if shes an absol. same with most of my moms pokemon actually. one of the few things i can remember as a kid is them all gathering around as solar taught them how a first aid kit worked. it was so interesting watching a beeheeyem try to explain things to the others even if i couldnt understand that the bad scrape i had stopped hurting. and pickle. shes been here forever. well not forever. but shes been with me for like over 10 years. what is she? a sister? idk. shes my partner. shes my starter. and heph is also kinda like family even if ive had her for less than a year and theres dash and theres bibi and glacier and little and. storm. im rambling. i love them. theyre family too. i love them a lot.

anyways family is a choice, but sometimes youre obligated to make a certain choice, i think.

[unidentifiedfuckingthing]

re: conflict is not abuse i think the criticisms of it as a standalone thing are generally correct & knowing the authors history i dont have a lot of sympathy toward the actual...... life story. as it were. thats being presented. but like i do think that we need to synthesize that kind of viewpoint into our general understanding of dealing with the fallout of abusive situations because like, obviously if someone spent years saturated in the whole like Believe Survivors & rehabilitate abusers rhetoric, and still came out of it like incapable of gracefully accepting when theyve been shitty to people and then changing the way they interact with the situation, then clearly that part isnt working. right. like its good to focus on the reality of a situation and not give infinite grace to someone who takes advantage of other people but even if removing them from a social group was 100% effective and had no consequences ever that still doesnt like fundamentally do anything to make someone want to change. like thats the kind of thing that makes you start seeing yourself as an unjust martyr whose experience is itself victimizing and needs to be presented to the world for pity and teaching. clearly. like my problem is that i dont think anyone does anything out of completely random cruelty like people think theyre doing the right thing when they do shit. and identifying that as abuse may be truthful and important but it doesnt connect anywhere between why someone is doing something, and what they did, and why the other person thinks they shouldnt do that, and what amount of both are right. this isnt clear or concise because ive been thinking about this for like months and months and its not a straightforward train of thought anymore but its a subject of personal regret in having lost a very close friend & lifeline & all of their social group because of that inability to connect when they were being awful turning into a nuclear fallout. like i knew exactly why they were doing what they were doing and i didnt see a boundary, then, between that understanding and having to conclude that it was justified. like i couldnt say that what they did was wrong because it Wasnt wrong in their position. there were plenty of other things that couldve made sense and not hurt but i wasnt like mature enough to be able to call that out in someone else and all i knew was what HAD happened. so all i could do was just leave. which is bad! nobody was happy with that outcome! they lost their pet and their prize and we both got called rapists to the rest of our friends, who believed it, and we had to just like continue living like that. i wish there had been some way of bridging the gap between why they felt like it had to be that way and why i couldnt live with it. but in that gap is always this like impassable warning siren that criticizing actions is equivalent to dismissing the reasoning behind it and trying to break their will, no matter how softly you tread around it. which ive been on the other side of because of my own actions & my own hypervigilance to being suppressed and it IS so powerful and unavoidable. like if any part of the community response and knowledge around conflict needs to be rehashed forever i wish it was about actually making anyone understand more of the situation because it feels like weve skipped over that and everything is about what singular action is appropriate to apply to every "conflict" situation without worrying about what the contents are or that like, all parties are human beings and not automata that exist to either senselessly enact violence or be subdued, or helplessly receive violence or be protected

[cheeseandbretboy]

who knew not fixating on self harm and starving would give me a personality this is like the first time in my life i have gotten a personality and i didnt even realise it small habits build up and i have a whole cottage with little shelves full of my ideas and maybe i cant hoard absolutely all the media and knowledge possible but that cottage exists and anytime i like i can go in and choose an old bound book or framed piece of art or absolutely anything and admire it and its there it really is guys trust me maybe this is what sherlock bbc (2010) meant by a mind palace it doesnt have to be for useful things but just things i think about like how sad my mother makes me sometimes and how much i want to pet a fluffy cow and thats enough and im happy and what interesting intelligent people i have around me and the access to resources i have and leisure i finally have something beautiful and flowing and airy and unending and swirly and different to live for and i get why most people live this way because its great, youre not constantly wallowing in self pity or hatred against others but just observing the world around u and just getting some stuff done its amazing and the fact i would give it up for something that i cant even explain a reason for is baffling and idiotic i know it is because i have the chance to do even better and feel even better with it but i keep thinking about what an idiot i used to be and i love myself for that i love that i was able to experience it because i think i was destined for it with my mother and innate feelings and im glad i got it over and done with but turns out when somethings a bit wrong you cant just get done with it and it might come back and i dont want it to but i keep thinking and god i felt unstoppable and so bratty because i wasnt focused on living at all and i would tell people that i told them i didnt care about now i care when im 18 and have the rights to make myself happy with both my home and body because i couldnt possibly live while being unhappy like that but turns out it was too long for me to handle and im actually trying to live now i mean thats why i only did well in school because that would matter anything else didnt matter so i did stupid stuff i still have the journals and im still journalling and omg i realised today is the day i started cutting a few years ago and maybe thats a good day to think about the past i would go to getting sober/clean apps and websites with no intention of stopping and i just had no aura wasnt skibidi rotting in my gooncave ok im stopping,... maybe with the emergence of brainrot i really havent gotten better since then i love talking about myself in the past because everything felt present right now im looking back or forward but when im doing shit and going crazy thats when everything feels real when i would collapse on roads at midnight and lay there looking up at the few stars and calling my friend who was cutting himself every third day and attempting every month or so but i had no care for him not really and i look back and i want to kill myself for acting like that because he came back from attempting and my other friend was in tears and the whole time i had this vacant expression and was so casual i was just so out of it nothing was real why am i contradicting myself sm hold up that does nawt sound right but anyways i can listen to some music i can flip through the journals i can look at my scars and it all floods back to me and i have this unexplainable urge to do it all again but worse because im nothing without that but i realise i do have something now i just cant recognise it and what a dull topic to talk about guys ive got to get back to my room all my things are there like maos and basil plants and journals and my broken fan (i am glad to be away from that, i pray each night that it doesnt fall on me and slice me into pieces because it will someday) and my cds and dvds AND M Y H A R D D R I V E and my bed and my frying pan and see sometimes i think about how weird it is that ive had to hide stuff from everyone

[pxmegranates]

→ ❛One Way Train❜

→ Pairing ; Warden Ingo x Reader

→ Quote ; ❛❛It was perhaps that moment that caused a shift in Ingo, something telling him to seek further, to seek much more than what meets the eye, and he was determined, even if it was a one way train towards victory.❜❜

→ Genre ; Romance , hurt/comfort if you squint

→ A/N ; Phew, one hefty fic out of the way, i admit i was initially gonna make it Ingo and not Warden Ingo but, it just seemed to fit better to have it done with the latter. Hope ya'll like it!

Reality, to most people, was nothing but a mere curse, something people werent fond of, something people escaped from on the daily, be it through games or through fantasy. It was something everyone, one way or another, wanted to run away from, at least to some extent. 

Some wished to escape for the sake of finding a new world, some wanted to escape for the sake of leaving situations that werent favorable for them, be it physically, mentally, or both, and then there were some who simply chose to escape from reality as is, no exact meaning about it. Be whichever it be, it is the truth for most people, perhaps, including you.

But for Ingo, this couldnt be farther from the truth. For him, the world as he knew, the “reality” that he knew grew to be a cold spectacle for tired eyes. Everyone he knew, everyone he had met and had exchanged words with. It was all nothing but code and strings of binary. At first, it all felt like a sick twisted game, something not meant for him to find out, something that went against everything that he once knew, but he knew that it was true, especially when he put every single little thing into consideration. 

The eyes of the trainer were hollow, empty, cold, a mere vessel for who was truly playing the cards of the reality he laid in—Not to mention, days and nights seemed to pass by rather quickly the more he focused on it, lasting only a few hours, it was intriguing in some sense, but in another, it was creepy. Trying to talk to other members about these findings would bring about one of two things: Either they were completely oblivious to these happenings, or they ignored him, as if he didnt exist.

But they never ignored you.

In fact, it was as if at times, their speech was mostly triggered by your presence alone, you being in the limelight caused them to be able to speak about certain topics, but Ingo knew better than to cause a disturbance on the reality he was set in. Was it a joke from Arceus? Was it a gift? A curse? To be aware of how hollow and empty things were once he realized something wasnt right? something wasnt adding up? He wanted to know so desperately, just as much as he wanted his memories to come back.

But they were just whispers, fleeting and ephemeral in the darkness of his mind.

At one point an idea would pop into his mind, simple enough for it to be a flame of curiosity sparking into his head, he’d try and focus on the moments he had experimented before, before looking ahead from his position to where you’d be. Usually, and another thing he had taken notice of, was the fact that everytime you seemed to “leave”, Akari would stop full on her tracks before disappearing, just like that, in thin air. It was an odd spectacle, sometimes it happened right beside him, other times it happened a few steps away from him, either way, it was… creepy, to say the least.

Thats why, when he saw you come in again, he didnt waste any time on trying to get to talk to you, even if it put at risk his own existence. He already had been at a standstill between doing what he had been doing up until now, and breaking free from those orders, in the end, he had nothing to lose.

“Excuse me” He’d begin, noticing as you turned around to face him, this was his chance. “Do you, know whats happening lately?”

“What… What’s happening…?”

And for the first time in what seemed to have felt days on end, perhaps months wondering what was happening around, he heard a voice, resonating across the plane he stood in like the wind, the sun, and the rain. He looked around for a moment, just to make sure he wasnt the only one who heard it, yet, it seemed like that was the case, the only one to be graced by such a miracle, he felt… eager to hear more.

“Excuse me, I know this might be very sudden” He continued, explaining carefully what was happening before saying. “Please, I just want to know whats happening lately”

“Whats… happening lately…?” Your voice resonated yet again, in clear confusion as you tried to also make sense of the situation “Are-Are you talking to me?”

“Yes, I am speaking to you Akari… Unless that is not your name… How shall I refer to you then?”

That was the beginning of an unlikely conversation, where you tried to make amends with the world in which you were called, and Ingo tried to make amends with the world he was in. Ingo then learned that you were (y/n), a player for a game about Pokemon, and one where you had been the main player all along. Ingo wondered for long moments about it all, then, after all, he really had been living a lie all this time, had he not? A place that only exists in the palm of the hand of another, that only exists and is only alive when said another is playing it, it all felt hollow, but Ingo did his best to stay grounded, lest he wish to falter and screw this one chance up. 

He felt comfortable, though, hearing your voice, hearing you speak about all the things that conformed this world in the palm of your hand. You spoke to him about Pokemon not in Hisui, about pokemon he “used”, about chandeliers and moles, You also spoke to him about yourself, about what you did in your spare time, about what you did when you were bored, and how you managed to get through to this moment. You spoke to him about your history, and in return, he listened through the screen in a darkened room. He didnt know what you looked like, he didnt know what you were truly like, but time would bring afloat strings of love and of cherishment. It was slow, a slow burn candle that took days, weeks and perhaps even months before he started falling for someone he had met through unlikely means.

“Work was so boring… did I tell you about the problems my friends had?” You said once, standing right by Ingo in game as he listened intently, his silver eyes right over the figure of Akari. She didnt answer, she didnt look at him, but he could hear your voice nonetheless, and that was enough for him as is.

“I dont think so” Was his reply, with a warm smile. It was a rare occurrence, but lately he had been smiling more often, casually. “Do you wish to talk about it?”

“Hm…” You stopped in your tracks for a moment, focusing on his smile, his face, everything.

Feelings werent one sided, by no means were they one sided. Truth to be told, you had been pinning on Ingo for a while now, emotions washing over you as you gazed over the man with a close watch, he was… perfect. To you he was perfection, a mirage in the darkness of your room. a mirage in the sadness of your world, you’d sigh before looking away for a few moments.

“Nah, its not that interesting” You’d say, not noticing the head tilt Ingo gave you as you focused on the elements of your room.

It was quaint, simple, just enough for you as you enjoyed life on a small flat in your city, and while it wasnt much, you were proud of yourself for leaving your parents home rather early, rather quickly, spreading your wings and flying off into the horizon. If only things were easier once in flight. 

The only thing illuminating your room was your tv, playing Pokemon Arceus non stop ever since you got to know Ingo was self aware, ever since he asked you what was happening. At first you were skeptical, but you grew to accept it. After all, did it hurt to believe in fairytales just for a moment?

“(y/n)?” He’d call out to you, your head turning quickly to the tv as you held you switch in your hands. “Is everything ok?”

“Y-Yes… Just, thinking”

“Oh?”

“...Just… You’re, real, right? Everything, all of this is, really happening, right?”

Silence covered the world for a long moment, only the sound of passing cars and crickets could be heard, the sound of the wind in game, of the pokemon. Ingo would think for a long moment before nodding, with a reassuring smile.

“Yes, I am really here.”

“... I just-”

“I’ll prove it to you, just you wait”

It was perhaps that moment that caused a shift in Ingo, something telling him to seek further, to seek much more than what meets the eye, and he was determined, even if it was a one way train towards victory. Albeit this time something was different, the sensation that filled him was far too different than what he did when he first talked to you, when he first explored the reality of his situation with you, things were simply different now, because he now had something to lose. Yet, he persisted. In the few moments you turned the switch off he’d spend the time exploring the world he was set in, with a completely different lense than when he wasnt aware of his reality as a person stuck in a videogame. At least that was a way to see it, wasnt it? You made him feel alive, young, everything a person should feel, then why, oh why wouldnt he try to get what he started to ache for?

It started with little things, crossing boundaries in the landscape, exploring past points where, naturally, there’d be nothing for him to see. He’d explore past the limits, and in between those limits would he find the complexities of the world he was in, the coding, the binary that he loathed previously was now at the palm of his hand, and, with ab objective at mind, the characteristic determination of the Subway Boss would kick in his mind, and thus, he’d play god within his own realm. What once was a comfortable routine, a comfortable space, had become claustrophobic, to be locked inside the confines of the place he was in, and he wanted out. He wanted to show you how much, that he was real, lest his morale falter, he didnt want to disappoint you after all.

So he’d work, day and night, anytime you werent home or you werent awake, he’d do his best to bring his dream to fruition with the very few knowledge of the mechanics of the world, but he was a fast learner, and he knew very well how to play the cards of any situation to his favor. It wouldnt be until one fateful night he’d find the answer to it all, exploring the code while you were at work, he’d stumble upon a void he hadnt seen before, like the strange outbreaks that sometimes occurred in the plains, he’d take a step forward, wanting to explore this new continent that could be what he had been waiting all these weeks. 

Carefully and slowly would he step out, one foot, second foot, then the body and the arms, and he’d find himself in a place that was reminiscent of what he had always heard. ‘My room isnt that much’ You had told him once, ‘Just a bed, some shelves with a bit of old merch, a few posters and, uhm… furniture…’. Everything was just like how you told him, perfectly still, perfectly set, everything was just, perfect.

He’d explore around your room for a few moments, his fingers grazing over the bed, the shelves, stopping on the figures of what seemed to be him only that, much younger, and someone else, a man dressed in white with an everlasting smile. His fingers would hoover above your desk, the little trinkets you had in your room, before he’d step outside of that small world into the rest of the apartment.

You’d be dispatched early from work when it happened, though, when you realized you had left your switch on and only you knew how much you’d have to pay for the electricity bills in the upcoming weeks. Usually you allowed your switch to stay off the television when it didnt need to charge, but most of the time you left it charging, just to ensure you wouldnt lose Ingo, just to ensure you wouldnt lose him. Afraid of loss (and your electricity bill, which had been quite hefty these past months), you’d run to your apartment, backpack on your shoulder and keys in your hand once you’ve reached it. Your apartment wouldnt have changed exponentially, if anything, it’d be just the same, only that a certain scent of the wild would come around. Reaching the living room though, you’d drop your backpack and your keys, seeing a scene unfold within your small world.

“Ingo?” You’d ask, watching the man who, once facing his back to you, now turned with a surprised expression before calm washed over him. “Is, Is that you?”

A myriad of emotions would cover your body, you’d be filled with surprise, anxiety, fear, confusion, and an inexplicable sense of longing. One that had followed you for a long, long time now. Ingo on the other side would sigh, as if he had been holding his breath ever since he had gotten there, he’d sigh and focus on the moment currently happening, walking towards you with care, carefully, as if wanting to say.

“Yes, it is me, darling”

You’d break down instantly, then, you knew to recognize the shape of those eyes, the color of them that was unique to him. Falling into the floor he’d hurry to catch you, holding you into your arms with love and care, he’d hold you close and run his fingers through your hair. You were here, he was here, it was a perfect miracle in your eyes, a beautiful moment in his, and even if he couldnt go back, he didnt care, just being here by your side was enough for him.

You cried in his arms, you laughed, you sobbed and you giggled, a heavenly mixture of emotions as they all crashed down on your body as you tried to make sense of it, but he hushed you down with sweet nothings, his calloused hands wiping away your tears. You could feel him, feel his scent, feel all of him, and it was serendipitous. 

“Im here” He’d say, clashing your foreheads together softly. “Im finally here, my love.”

[nineliabilityrisk]

been thinking about my muses even though ive been way too busy to write. todays topic was michael so.

adding a cut bc these rambles are probably gonna end up ridiculously long

my michael uses (SHOULD use. stubborn headass often refused when he was little because he thought people would judge him.) mobility aids. even pre-scooping his repeated injuries from getting into fights / being needlessly reckless only exaggerated certain pre-existing conditions he had (weak / unstable joints + chronic pain making prolonged periods of unsupported standing / walking difficult)

when he was younger, before everything went to shit, he did get brought to the doctor and recommended an orthotic brace for his bad knee and a set of forearm crutches to help take the weight off his lower joints. he used the brace a lot when he was little and his crutches a little less often, but as he grew up and outgrew the sizing for both, there came a certain point where william couldnt be bothered to take him in for fittings or get them replaced (especially after an incident when someone at his school broke one of his crutches — after '83 william never really bothered intervening in any bullying related incidents involving michael and probably rationalized not getting him a new set by telling himself the boy deserved the treatment as punishment for what hed done)

so he stopped using said mobility aids for a good few years, but after he moved out and before the time sl rolled around, he did end up scraping together the money to at least get himself a new pair of crutches because his pain was only getting worse the longer he went without them. sure he didnt hold many jobs where he was made to stand for extended periods of time but after a certain point it ended up making some everyday tasks incredibly difficult for him

anyway um. obviously he could never bring his crutches with him into circus babys. imagine trying to crawl through a vent while dragging those things along i would die. he hated it at the time but he is at least somewhat grateful that he didnt end up losing them when he got scooped because there was no way he would end up being able to afford a replacement pair, especially not with how hard finding jobs was post-ennard

especially after ennard leaves, his Everything Hurts All The Time problems just get worse, and he ends up relying on the crutches far more than he ever did when he was alive — no matter how much (or how little) the remnant heals him, the nerve damage he experienced from his body quite literally rotting away isnt exactly something that just disappears overnight. his crutches help take some of the weight off his legs — he found out after breaking his femur that even his bones had beem affected by the animatronic's prolonged stay, seeming far more brittle than before. he gets pinched nerves / numbness from where the crutch rests just below his elbows sometimes if he puts too much pressure on them, and with a good chunk of his muscle mass rotted away its gotten far more difficult to support his weight on his arms whatsoever, but trying to walk unsupported would just be so much worse.

tl;dr: my michael af.ton is disabled and had been long before ennard happened. i dont bring it up much because i cant often find times where its relevant, but it is a fact about him that i almost always keep in mind.

[ this entire post was written by a disabled individual who uses the exact mobility aids spoken on in this post. mentioning the incidents where michaels access to his mobility aids was limited / removed by others OR younger michael refusing to use them does not mean i am trivializing such experiences or supporting those actions myself. a disabled persons mobility aids are an extension of their body and should be treated as such. taking away his crutches likely did lasting damage to his joints + the rest of his body. if you are someone who needs a mobility aid – no matter if you dont feel like you need it "enough," if you think it will help you and improve your quality of life that means you need it – never feel ashamed to use it or avoidant due to fear of the opinions of others. mobility aids are important medical devices and should be respected as such. ]

[anita-is-not-here-for-a-while]

We are human, what do we know about the future.

Here im writing another paragraph for you that I thought i would never do.

Life is full of mystery. Hours ago, i could still feel your skin against mine, now were miles away, Im on the sky.

We shared ourtime together today, but tonight when you recieve this message, were already in different timezone.

If i look back at myself 2 month ago before i came to bali, i was a different person. Day by day passed, i did enjoy every single day in bali whether or not it exhilarates.

Yes, i forced my self to enjoy and forget how messed up i was, trying to escape from my life, brought me there floating in the middle of nescience, loosing my direction surrounded by ignorances. Looking for something i didnt even know.

My second month of my stay was different.

June, 28th.

I met him.

I would never forget our first conversation that he was asking me 3 times if i wanted to learn how to play chess. And i replied with 3 words “i love chess”

I thought from the beginning it was clear enough how weird we could be.

I know i was impressed. By his chess.

But i didnt realize at first how my heart, mind, and body were impressed more than only by his chess.

Anita, she wasnt looking for someone to fall for. She thought love was not for her. So that it is hard for her to get attracted by a guy but it seems so easy the way you did.

I know that i had never given you compliments bcs this feeling is strange for me and i wasnt sure. Imagine getting an extreme levels of comfort from someone who you shared weird experience with before when your brain couldnt even process the logic.

For sure it doesnt mean i didnt see anything good in him.

If i have to say everything that i like about him, i promise he gotta fly so high, even higher then where i am right now.

He is more than what I have ever expected how a perfect guy could be. I thought my definition of a gentle man was too high and that kind of person doesnt exist. But now i know it wasnt true.

Days spent with you.

Slowly my lifestyle fixed, my mind relaxed, and my eyes opened. I didnt have to force to enjoy every moment anymore. I enjoyed anyway.

Youve changed my monochromatic days into pink, blue, yellow, and red. Now it is as beautiful as a kids drawing with limitless imagination. You impact my life in many good ways.

Most of my best experiences in bali was when me and him were becoming us.

I love the way he does me, i couldnt ask for more. I love the way i do him. I wouldnt get sick of it.

I felt his warm touching my cold eyes and now its melting into tears. I cant define if it is sorrow or pleasure, perhaps both but i need that.

With all of my heart i am saying thank-you for taking some parts on my life, i am glad.

im proud of you.

Promise me you will always keep being yourself.

With Love

-Random crazy girl

[fipindustries]

this is a feast! This is a veritable banquet! So often i starve for criticism but i shall famish no longer! This is the one and sole reason why i create art! Lets sink my teeth on this!

First of all, thank you very very much, this is all ive ever wanted and it makes me so happy to see someone really interacting with my work, specially in this depth and with something that is as near and dear to my heart as jennyffer. You have joined @not-terezi-pyrope in the olympus of people who have put this much work into it.

Second, lets take a look at all you say...

You don’t really go this hard ever again in the series! Both the shooting and Jennyffer’s primal scream are unique to this episode in their tonal intensity.

There was one planned episode where i was planning to do that again but i cut it out first because i was ready to finish the series and i didnt have the time or the energy to stretch it any longer and also because it felt very meanspirited, it was about visiting jennys geandpa on her dad's side. Things go really bad.

I hope that isn’t an unwelcome criticism.

Not at all! I always appreciate constructive criticism and in this case i was already aware of it. The biggest struggle through this show has been to find a good microphone and a good recording space for each episode, on top of tge fact that i am entirely ignorant about audio engineering. So audio tends to be tge thing that suffers more in this show and it would be the primary thing that i would fix if i had a budget to work with

I’m also just weirdly fascinated by Mean Girls, so I love the attention you give them here.

See there is something fascinating here on multiple levels because i also find the mean girl archetype fascinating and fun to play with, but i am doubtful of how "true to life" it is. To me the type of character was always more akin to a hollywood monster than a true to life experience. I went to a school that used to be boys only, so we would only have like two girl students for every thirty boys. So mean girl cliques just did not exist at my school, im much more intimatly familiar with the type of bullying you see on ep 3 with the rugbiers.

But also on top of that i dont know how much kids encounter that now a days, it seems that bullying has changed a lot at schools with the new generations and characters like "the jock" or "the queen bee" have mutated and become a bit outdated in the same way that the greaser style "bad boy" with a black leather jacket and a pompadour was an outdated stereotype in our childhood.

Because of this i became hesitant to keep including them and replaced them with the kind of ostracism in ep 7, more couched social justice language. I did have a funny ongoing gag planned with them where every episode they show up for whatever reason one wpuld be taken out (we get to see that in the credits of ep 4 where jenny nearly snaps the neck of one pf the girls) and a new one would have to become the new ashley until there was only one left and she would admit theyre nonbinary and decide to stop bullying jenny. Sadly it couldnt be.

I think it makes your work a lot more real that you’re willing and able to illustrate the transphobic worldview as a fact of life among many people and the background cultural default in society

Yes! thank you! I always find stories that dont do this unbearably saccarine. (Although sometimes i can totally be in the mood for that). And the fact that it is presented as this backround noise radiation is also important to me. One goal i had in jennyffer was to explore transphobia in all the different ways it manifests, from the openly cruel of ep1 to the subtly annoying of ep 7 to the cloyingly dishonest of ep 4, to the dissmisively insensitive of ep 9.

I can only imagine how many references I’m missing

oh buddy if you only knew, eps 5 and 9 areprobably the two singularly densest episodes in terms of ammount of obscure references i include. Ep 5 for transgirl culture in general (did you noticed i put bayes formula in felix' laptop?) And ep 9 for 4chan culture, which probably contain the two most impenetrable jokes in the show "i always thought you were a little onions" and "i gotta fart super bad"

On top of that a gag i have going on with peter is that he is a fan of super niche nerdy stuff like sparks or julia ecklar, and so every time we see his room i cram it with references to movies or boardgames.

you have a great sense of comedic layering. It’s also a good example of something I haven’t articulated yet, which is that your comedic style is ultra sharp and punchy.

Aw thank you so much! Im glad to know this, i dont always have the chance to get a clear view of where my strengths lie or what it is exactly that im doing because so much of it relies on intuitions of what seems funny to me, so getting a better understanding of what is it that makes me stand out is very useful. Im quick and punchy apparetnly! Well, is like mark twain said "brevity [...] is wit" ( this is a simpsons joke)

Also i like to think im good at the unstated and subtle humor, for example the fact that peter's parents are black even though peter is white (we never explore this in the series but peter is not adopted, he is just a genetic anomaly)

“Oh no! I haven’t been checking to see if I’m writing ‘Jennyffer’ with two Fs!” I was like “Did Fip do that just to catch people who aren’t paying close attention?”

The reason why jennyffer's name is written like that is purely due to search engine optimization, i wanted to give her an atypical spelling so its easier to recognize and for it to stand out as its own brand

Jennyffer gets the wind taken out of her sails over the crotch bulge in her bathing suit and how it is making other people uncomfortable, and, instead of fighting or being an asshole about it, she is defeated and retreats.

This was something very important for me in the way i write jenny, she's an asshole but shes not needlesly aggro all the time to everyone for no reason, she only attacks after being attacked. She gets disarmed by 'politeness' and 'civility'. She knows how to handle bullies but she doesnt know how to handle niceness, shes ok with people seeing her as a jerk or a brute but she doesnt want to look like the bad guy. This separates her from characters like eric cartman or dr house with whom she has so much in common otherwise.

Also, “Episode 10, Part 1,” lolol. Beware scope creep! 😂

Ah

Ha ha

Coming from you i know the dark omen that warning is. But worry not, the ammount of scope that has creeped on has been a calculated ammount. I know exactly how much bigger and how much more ambitious i wanted to make this story. Parts 1-4 have been carefully delineated and circumscribed and i would say im around three months away from finishing all of them in one fell swoop which has fallen well into the deadline i gave myself when i started this final episode.

So yeah! I have some other stuff to say but ill leave that to discord. Once more thank you so much for tjis effort you put into enjoying my little show

Notes on my Watch-Through of Jennyffer by F.I.P. Industries

This week I watched the animated webseries Jennyffer, by @fipindustries / Amanda Avila. It’s a short series about an assholeish trans girl in high school, just living life in our silly world. You can watch it on YouTube!

TL;DR: This series is funny, witty, edgy, delightfully absurdist, and full of visual richness, gags, and allusions despite the minimalist style of the drawing and animation. Jennyffer grew on me as I watched it and I definitely think it’s worth the hour or so runtime. There are nine episodes averaging about 4 minutes apiece, plus a few small bonuses.

Fip is a friend of mine so I wrote down my thoughts as I was watching, but I am posting them here (with her approval) in the hope that folks happen to get intrigued and decide to go check it out. I’ve adapted my notes a little bit to make them easier for you to read, but for the most part these are extemporaneous notes speaking directly to Fip.

Indented (“ ---> “) comments are written after I watched the entire series and went back to review my notes.

“TUMBLR PEEPS / TP” comments are additional comments I’ve written for you lovely people on this huggable hellsite. I’ll also give you my overall review and recommendations at the end.

* This post contains spoilers for Jennyffer.

Title Sequence

Very fun! :3

TUMBLR PEEPS: Not very useful for you, I know. Fip is both an illustrator and an animator, and I think this title sequence sets the tone for what she’s aiming for with the series. There’s always a moment of disorientation when stepping into the world of an artist whose style you’re unfamiliar with, but if you hang on it begins to make sense soon enough.

Ep. 1

I appreciate subtle touch of “Panoptic” High School, with the round building, etc. TP: This series is full of background references. It’s one of my favorite things about it.

Lol @ the identical 😮 faces on the pack of Mean Girls in the background.

Wasn’t expecting the confrontation to escalate that hard! 😮😂

----> You don’t really go this hard ever again in the series! Both the shooting and Jennyffer’s primal scream are unique to this episode in their tonal intensity. 

LOL @ the Mean Girls actually turning into a pack of feral monsters when their leader falls; unmasked at last!

---> This is a candidate for my favorite single joke in the series just because of how economically and absurdly it encapsulates so much about this trope.

I appreciate that Ashley admitted defeat; that’s cathartic because this (almost) never happens in real life.

TUMBLR PEEPS: When I watched this episode, it came across to me as uneven on the audiovisual production values. Things like Fip’s audio recording setup not being as good as the guest star’s, sound levels being a little imbalanced, etc. I would encourage you not to be scared off by that! Although it doesn’t completely go away over the series, it does improve a lot, and in any case it doesn’t interfere with the storytelling or worldbuilding basically at all. I wanted to lampshade this because I know some people nope out of a series if the production values aren’t AAA. Give this one a chance!

Ep. 2

I appreciate that Mom is trying her best.

---> To build on this point, I appreciate that it’s true to life for many trans kids whose parents are willing to accept them when they come out, but don’t really know “how.”

TUMBLR PEEPS: That’s my only note for the entire episode, lol. This episode is probably my least favorite in the series. Fip’s style of humor is very much old-school Simpsons in that it keeps dropping joke after joke; so you’re always smiling because even if one joke doesn’t land there’s another one coming up in a few seconds. This episode is different in that it’s basically one joke that gets hit over and over again. And since it’s a joke that doesn’t land for me, it’s kind of forgettable. (When I was preparing this post for Tumblr I was like "Why did I only write one sentence for Episode 2?" And then I went back and realized why as soon as I saw the thumbnail.) This is my most negative criticism of the entire series. In my opinion, things get significantly better from here!

Ep. 3

RIP his Gains 🤣🤣🤣

Lol, and they still win the big cup! 💪🎀

---> I appreciate the continuity on these jock girls later in the series.

You have a great sense for comedic layering of different jokes operating on different wavelengths happening close together or even at the same time. (That’s more of a sense from everything I’ve seen so far than just this specific episode, but it stood out to me when Jennyffer’s friend Peter gets his lights punched out just as a side gag.)

---> I originally wrote “when Jennyffer’s friend gets his lights punched out…” here because I couldn’t make out Peter’s name whenever you first introduced it. I am hard of hearing and the audio mixing, especially in the earlier episodes, is a little low at points. One frequent constructive criticism I have for people is to make sure that dialogue is sharp / non-mumbly on the soundtrack, otherwise people like me get lost, especially with names and proper nouns.

---> (I hope that isn’t an unwelcome criticism. A friend of mine just started a new podcast, and he had this same issue on his soundtrack. He got so upset when I gave him this feedback, because of course the reasons we do things are often not closely connected to the things we do, and I realized too late that he was doing this podcast for validation and self-empowerment, so it turned out that he wasn’t in the mood for constructive feedback at all. But that's about the only kind of substantive feedback I know how to offer. So I hope you understand my intent isn’t to shoot down your work; I’d just like to be able to hear it better. You got better with this as the series went on, but I think there’s still room for improvement.)

Ep. 4

That is some Grade A, all-natural, free-range School Counseling for sure. I have a hard time dealing with this shit in the media (including in this comic) because I’m already rubbed so raw at the dysfunction of systems (in this case the healthcare system) that are supposed to help (and which I very much want to support in principle) and I just don’t have much resiliency left to deal even with fictional accounts of it.

I think the Mean Girls are my favorite background part of this series so far. They come across as (tragically) true-to-life, and your depiction of them is just utterly unapologetic. Going so hard on that is what makes it work.

---> I’m also just weirdly fascinated by Mean Girls, so I love the attention you give them here. I guess they live in a tonal space that’s fairly close down the block to the tonalities of the types of female characters I tend to like to write. Don’t get me wrong, I still want to push Mean Girls off a cliff when they’re actually Being Mean, but in terms of the “vibe” there’s something I find compelling about it.

I think it makes your work a lot more real that you’re willing and able to illustrate the transphobic worldview as a fact of life among many people and the background cultural default in society, with all of the transphobic jokes and wrong pronouns etc. that this entails. I see a lot of queer artists choose not to do so, probably in some cases because they can’t (see my comment above about not having much resilience myself to put up with systemic dysfunction in fiction). The willingness and ability to be able to do this is the difference between art that is capable of also being subversively realistic (among its other qualities) versus art that is limited to being escapist or revisionist. It’s always empowering to be able to depict “the enemy,” in whatever guise they might take.

I’d never heard of Hannah Daigle, but since the Credits told me I need to go look up Satina, I looked it up, and wow! Going by her subscriber count, that’s a pretty big get!

3’44” This isn’t even half the true power of high school students and their superability to befoul school bathrooms. 😭😭😭

Ep. 5

For a minute there it seemed like things were going well. Too well. One thing about a series this ruthlessly cynical is that the expectation that “Nothing Good Will Happen and Nothing Good That Does Happen Can Be Kept” sets expectations for the other shoe to drop (indeed, many an other shoe).

3’15” Just the one cat ear up as she’s leaning in and talking secretively…great attention to detail! This is something I often notice with illustrators who get into animation (as opposed to artists who go directly into animation). So many details in virtually every frame! Both in support of the story and simply there for environmental embellishment. (Like the rose that hasn’t bloomed yet.) I can only imagine how many references I’m missing! TP: Seriously, I love the depth of subtle background references in this series!! I’m not calling out most of them in these notes, but they’re a constant presence in the background of the story.

She [the tutor] got there! Yep. As soon as it occurred to me to notice that the rose hadn’t bloomed yet, I knew how this one was ending. 😏

Ep. 6

* breaks computer *

MOM: "You know you don’t have to break your computer every time I come into your room, right?"

🤔🤔🤔

But seriously, that’s what I’m talking about when I say you have a great sense of comedic layering. It’s also a good example of something I haven’t articulated yet, which is that your comedic style is ultra sharp and punchy. It’s so economical, so efficient! It goes really hard with minimalist support, and, in my experience with other creators’ work, that only works for people who have a genuine gift for being funny. I think this is one of your strongest suits as a potential entertainment creator, and you could potentially develop it as a possible pathway to get noticed / get bigger.

---> This is a skill I could only dream of. I’d like to think I have a good sense of humor and can be funny not infrequently, but I need way more words to do it than you do, and my efforts are rarely as clean.

Lol, Jennyffer is the true master of the schoolyard. I appreciate the continuity from Episode 3. TP: When I was writing my notes during my watch-through, this is the comment where I realized “Oh no! I haven’t been checking to see if I’m writing ‘Jennyffer’ with two Fs!” I was like “Did Fip do that just to catch people who aren’t paying close attention?” And I figured, probably not! But I went back and made sure I got all my spellings right, and corrected a previous erroneous instance of it, and tried not to mess it up again going forward. I hate to get names wrong, especially when it’s the title of the goddamn series, lol.

That first stringer chord was great. Then I stopped noticing the next few. Then the ones after that actively grated on me. I get what you were going for (I think), but it didn’t work for me.

That confrontation with Dad went surprisingly well!! I was prepared for (and about halfway-expecting) this conversation with Peter’s dad to go in a much darker direction. <3

Interlude

0’39” That Whale is TOO CUTE omg :3333

---> Seriously, that Whale is the cutest friggin’ whale on the planet. Too wholesome for this world; too pure! <3333

Happy Birthday, Jennyffer! So sweet. I think it’s important for cynical works to have moments like these. I mean, that’s just my opinion, but it really humanizes the work, I think, which makes it easier to connect with and perceive as “real” in the sense of reflecting reality as opposed to being a purely stylized fiction.

TUMBLR PEEPS: I just want to emphasize that point. If you’re writing a work that’s heavily cynical, I would suggest that, unless you’re going for a very specific stylistic effect, a few moments of wholesomeness here and there, where you’re willing to let characters care about things and not get punished for it, is really important to adding depth to the story and humanizing the people in it.

Ep. 7

1’09” “No, that’s not how that works.” 😂 The deadpan here (and really through the whole series on this same joke) is so good. This kind of straight-man (figuratively speaking of course) reaction to an insane world is pure 😒😒😒, and 😒 is one of my favorite forms of absurdism. TP: This is in reference to a joke about how cis people sometimes misgender trans people because they just flat-out do not understand gender or queerness.

Also, can I just say, I’ve been noticing it for a few episodes, and I have no clue what it’s called, if it’s called anything, but I absolutely love Jennyffer’s ridiculously high and short ponytail. I wish we saw this hairstyle more in real life, because I always love it when I see it, but in American culture anyway it’s usually played as a joke / a sign of somebody who isn’t being serious. Then again, maybe that’s exactly the point with Jennyffer wearing it; I could see that being a decision she’d make. So maybe its mockédness and unpopularity are exactly why I get to see it here?! 🤔

2’40” lol, I am delight. TP: You’re a rotter, Mister Grinch…

That ending! 🤣 Yep. Jennyffer is chaotic neutral for sure, and a USDA Prime goofball.

---> I think this was the tipping point where I basically started liking Jennyffer as a character and identifying with her / rooting for her to succeed. It often takes time for characters to build on me, especially cynical assholes. (I have a hard time with cynicism despite having devolved into a cynic myself from my many years of woe.) And coming around on Jennyffer basically meant this was the point where I came around on the whole series. I certainly hadn’t disliked it at any point, but I originally came to watch it because you had recommended it to me and as a friend I wanted to check out your work, and not because I was actively seeking it out for its own sake. But now I think I can say I like it on its own merits.

A personal anecdote: In this episode, there is a moment where Jennyffer gets the wind taken out of her sails over the crotch bulge in her bathing suit and how it is making other people uncomfortable, and, instead of fighting or being an asshole about it, she is defeated and retreats. A very rare moment for her in the entire series, and thus a potent illustration of how humiliating it can be to be the target of bigotry. I love the creative decision that was made to play it this way. I can sort of relate to this issue in my own way. When I was a kid I never swam in public without a t-shirt on, because, for me, my attraction to fat is a sexual orientation which has been with me my whole life, even before I adolesced and understood it as a “sexual” thing. So as a kid I was always super sensitive to being perceived as fat. And I had a big ol’ round belly my whole life, not even because I was actually overweight as a kid (I mostly wasn't) but because I’m just shaped that way. I am convex at all weights. And I was very embarrassed about it! So, in my childhood memory, public pools were always a minefield of me trying to have fun versus trying not to be humiliated. Also, I couldn’t swim until I was like 12 or something, so that was embarrassing too, and I tried to fake it by splashing around in the 4’ zone.

Ep. 8

1’43” Glam!! Even cynical dystopic trans girls aren’t immune from the siren song of the shutter and flashbulb! That jacket is sweet, too! I love that look.

This is the second time you had a chance to completely change the tonality of the series into something way darker because of a scary father figure, and this time I genuinely didn’t know what would happen. But I’m glad it turned out this way, not only because it’s totally one of the many different reactions that are true-to-life among real-world parents but which don’t get highlighted as often as the more awful scenarios, but also because I just really struggle with grimdark stuff and I kinda just want everyone in this series to turn out okay. <3

Also: John Jingleheimer, eh? (Jennyffer Jingleheimer, lolol!) So, if Peter’s dad is named Jacob Schmitz, then I totally see what you’ve done. I’m pretty sure their family name is Schmitz (right??), but I don’t remember what episode(s) I got that from. I went back and watched Ep. 6 but his name is not mentioned. I personally appreciate all the J names in Jennyffer’s family. 😏

Stingers at the end of episodes really suit this series’ style! I found myself explicitly missing them in the beginning of the series. I’m glad they found their way to you.

7’06” The happiest we’ve ever seen her, 😂! 💖 (Give or take the birthday episode.) I just wrote that same moment in Galaxy Federal a few nights ago. (Cherry’s parents get her a spazer after she sneaks out one time and is gone all night.)

I appreciate the clearer-to-read credits at the end as the series has gone on. I had decided in the early episodes that I wasn’t going to criticize the original cursive because I kind of hate it that we live in a world where we can’t have nice / bespoke / Weird things because people always want something easier / more convenient / more accessible (I’m still upset they killed the big clock a block away from my apartment, whose chimes had been a charming part of living here; I’m sure it was because of “noise” complaints). So, since they weren't a content accessibility issue the way, say, the sound levels were at the start of the series, I was actually rooting for your cursive credits to never give up! Let the people struggle to read them! Long live the glory of the impenetrable! It would be very much in Jennyffer’s spirit for her credits to be totally unreadable if she were to make an animated series herself. Oh well! With legible credits I win and lose at the same time.

Ep. 9

Love the comment at 6’57” (from somebody who had written that your series is doing work to advance trans acceptance in society). I think there’s some truth to that, too. A lot of people can only come around on issues of acceptance by being introduced to it through the humor of this sort. More medicinal / academic / intellectual approaches don’t work on them at all.

April Fool’s

Caramelldansen!! A Desert Bus classic. I watch this every year! They’re both doing it right. Lol, Jennyffer is the best; it’s like Fate has put her in this skit so she has to do the dance, and she hates it, but she also secretly loves it.

I love seeing them in color.

Also, “Episode 10, Part 1,” lolol. Beware scope creep! 😂

Final Thoughts

Like I said in the TL;DR, this series is funny, witty, edgy, delightfully absurdist, and visually rich. It packs a lot into a small space.

Fip is freakishly smart, has a lot of insight and perspective to offer as an artist, executes on her concepts well, and has a distinctive style all her own. This, together with her artistic talents, makes her art very approachable, very easy to enjoy once you settle into it. On a more personal note, Fip has been the most supportive person I know here on Tumblr. I am inexpressibly grateful for the work she has done to try and boost my own art, and it is an honor to have the chance to offer something like that to her in return. She works hard to get her work noticed without being spammy about it, and deserves more attention than she gets, so I hope at least one (and preferably more than one!) person reads my notes here and checks out her work. It’s very important for small artists to support each other, and moreover it’s an honor to support a friend.

Go check out Jennyffer! I went into it with an open mind and no expectations, and I enjoyed the ride, and came away liking the series. You can also see more of Fip’s art on her alt account, @unbeknownsttomen.

[sixstepsaway]

insert that "I LIIIVE" gif of the rat thing emerging from flames here because i am awake and i have thoughts

(eta: guys im sorry i've never seen mulan i didnt know that gif was of mushu or from mulan IM SORRY I DIDNT KNOW HE WAS A [asks google] DRAGON AND I COULDNT FIND THE GIF TO ACTUALLY INSERT IT I DIDNT KNOOOOOOW IM SORRY)

so i was thinking about how we were all discussing yesterday how Ed seems to, like, get new fixations that give him a brief bit of joy until they tip him too far into instability and being unreliable and Izzy has to deal with them?

and I was thinking about the fact the majority of us seem to read Ed as having ADHD, and he definitely seems to be depressed, and I was thinking about my own experiences with ADHD and I just... I think if 1x09 hadn't gone down the way it did, Stede and Ed wouldn't have lasted anyway, right now?

and, i quickly clarify, i'm not saying in this that Ed doesn't love Stede or vice versa, and I'm not saying I don't want to see them together in the end (I do), I'm just saying I don't think they were (or are) at a place where that would actually happen, and for once I'm talking about something different than the rose-tinted glasses

the thing about how Ed is presented is that he's bored. He's had enough of a boring life where everything is the same every day.

The way he describes piracy in the past, when he's reminiscing with Jack or telling Stede about the life he doesn't want to go back to, it sounds like it used to be fulfilling for him. He used to enjoy it! He loves a good maim, he cut off toes 'for a laugh' (implying it was fun), he and Jack talk excitedly and animatedly about serving under Hornigold, despite it being terrible.

The way my ADHD has presented over the years is this: I have a hyperfixation. It's usually a TV show or video game, but I'm into it. I'm obsessed. I can't think of anything else, and anyone who tries to talk to me about anything else finds themselves very disappointed because all I want to think about or do is related to that thing I'm fixated on. After a few days of this, it simmers down to something more manageable (where I am right now with OFMD), and although I'm capable of talking about other things at length, and I'm happy to do other things, I'm still getting a shit ton of serotonin and dopamine from the thing, either by rewatching, replaying, writing fic, reading fic, watching fanvideos, or whatever else.

And then, after anything from a week or two to up to around a year or so, depending on how much Newness I'm able to keep injecting into that fixation (a 5-episode Netflix series no one else watches will last a couple of weeks, an ongoing show that me and my bestie are both into might last a year+), that fixation fades away and I'm left with... nothing, because I can't even look at the thing now. I've wrung it dry. It has no serotonin or dopamine left to give.

That is when my depression cuts in. I don't see myself as depressed because those feelings only come up when I'm either suffering from PMDD or my fixations are gone and I have nothing to obsess over.

I see a lot of that in Edward. The cycle of needing something to give him newness and excitement and dopamine, the sudden high when you find the thing that makes your brain go brr (Stede and the Revenge, Jack showing up) and the horrible crash once it loses its shine (his depression in 1x03 and 1x04 that is barely noticeable in 1x05-1x09).

I'm not saying Edward doesn't also have depression, to be clear, I'm sure he does, but I am saying that ADHD hyperfixations are an excellent (sarcasm? potentially) way of masking depression to the point you all but forget you have it until suddenly you're crashing again and the world doesn't seem worth existing in because nothing is giving you joy the way your fixation does.

Ed has no joy and no fun in 1x03, it's why he latches on to the idea of Stede, who seems so fascinating. In 1x04 he lunges wildly from rescuing Stede to discussing suicide to playing dress-up to mourning the idea of dying to being a lighthouse and committing the next chunk of his life to hanging out with Stede. ADHD-ers also hyperfixate on people, and if we let it be that way and not supplement it with other things and interests and treat that person as a full person, not just a fixation, and distance ourselves from that hyperfixation, it can be really toxic for everyone involved.

The way Ed talks about Stede in 1x09 ascribes the full responsibility for his no longer being depressed and being happy and having fun to Stede, rather than the fact he was surrounded by people who treated him like an equal and loved him, and the fact he was doing something new and different. He says 'you' as the reason the last few weeks have been so good, and as wonderful and romantic as that is (and, again, it is), when you read that through the lens of ADHD and depression you can just... see the crash coming?

You can also see it in 1x10. I stand by my meta that Ed is masking as Stede when he takes Stede's place as Captain, draped in fine things, eating marmalade and talking about feelings with the crew, but if you look at that from an ADHD-er with their hyperfixation ripped away context, it's very similar to how it feels to me to be fixated on, say, an online video game, to the point of playing it 12hrs a day, and then the internet gets so slow you can't, and so you're scrabbling for crumbs like reading about other people's games and looking up discussions of how to play better. You can't get the full 'hit' of the fixation, and you're desperately trying to still get something from it, because you've been getting all of your dopamine and serotonin from it up till now and suddenly some outside factor has ripped it from your grip. Ed draping himself in Stede's things and eating his marmalade and living in his ship and trying to be him reminds me of that.

The nice thing about all of this, is that when they're reunited the fixation will, hopefully, have faded down to something more manageable, and that means they can come together on a more even-keel, with Ed seeing Stede less as a dopamine dispenser and more as a person that makes him happy in a more well-rounded way. More than that, hopefully Ed can find fulfillment and what he needs before he reunites with Stede, so Stede can just be a brick in the wall of his mental health, rather than the entire structure. He was making good strides towards that when he was being pseudo-Stede, because he was filling his life with people and hobbies outside of Stede himself, and that was good!

Until the kraken thing, of course, but I'm sure we can get back there eventually!

anyway this brought to you by the person who decided to watch OFMD with her mother who has <1hr free every day and so had to eke it out over about two weeks while trying very hard not to sob in between episodes because of how much i wanted to binge the whole thing in one good and how awful i felt to be kept away from it by a hell of my own making

(my mom loves OFMD too. i watched 1x01 alone, then half of 1x02, then decided it was so good i wanted to share it with her, and she actually enjoyed 1x01 more than i did, she was in absolute hysterics over stede's antics, whereas i just found them very amusing. it made the show even better to watch, so i have no regrets, but boy was that fortnight hard for my brain)

[thekingofwinterblog]

It’s all for his sake - Endeavor and the Sunk Cost Fallacy

My hero academia 301 is a pretty interesting chapter, but for me, the most notable piece of it was how Endeavour reacted to the realization that Touya couldnt surpass All Might.

upon realizing that his son might not be able to do it because of inborn physical limitations, he immediatly stopped his training, which frankly was the responsible and adult thing to do. 

This stint of real parenthood did not last long however.

After taking the matter to a doctor, he is flat out told that not only cant Touya achive what endeavor wants, but it is a direct result of his incredibly selfish and irresponsible attempt to play god, by trying to breed the “perfect” hero into being.

It is how you react when you lose however, that shows who you really are, and endeavor illustrates that very, very well.

Upon being told in no uncertain terms that his attempts at Breeding an heir failed magnificently, producing a child that was not capable of resisting his own immense power, but also admonished by his doctor for even attempting it, and adviced not to try again, Endeavor instead doubled down, while focusing on the child he screwed over from the start with his attempt at genetic manipulation.

It was all for him you see. Endeavor doesnt use those words, but that is how he spins it here. it was all for Touya, all for his sake. if i stop now, then Touya was all for nothing, a mistake, im doing this for my son.

if im doing this for my son, then im not responsible for any of this.

his wife however, calls him out on it, as she understands Touya much, much more than endeavor does. or rather, she sees him fully as a human being, instead of as a thing, a weapon, a failed attempt at an heir.

Unlike Endeavor, Rei is able to see the way this all is affecting her son. She is able to see, and understand that Touya has fully accepted what Endeavor wanted him to be. a stronger, and better version of himself. however, unlike Endeavor, she only cares about him as a person.

Endeavour by comparison isnt completely uncaring about Touya. like most abusive parents, he does possess love for his offspring, but it is forever tainted by the fact that however much he might care, or not care about Touya, any familial love he has for his son is tainted by the fact that to Endeavor, he is a failed experiment, a failed heir, not his child. 

He is the golden child that Endeavor was building up as his true and only heir, who he breed, trained, and molded to for that single purpose, and now that he’s reached a point where he cant continue that legacy.

so, its time to abandon him, and start over new, despite literarily having just learned how stupid this plan was, and that it can, in fact, go completely wrong, with a quirk that will fuck over the person he brings into the world.

Of course, Endeavor doesnt use those words to frame it. there is no way to pretend to be a hero, if you phrase it like that after all. Intead, this is the words he uses.

this is a very important series of panels for a great number of reasons, some that can be debated, argued, and we will probably never know the full truth to the questions because this is a series published in 2020′s shonen jump, and there are things that probably wasnt gonna fly with Hori’s editors, if it was the case.

but lets start with what can not be debated. Endeavor’s words here.

“If we want him to give it up, then we have no choice... Touya... Cant surpass him.”

These are very telling words, and however you believe The third and fourth children of the Todoroki family was concieved, there is not denying the meaning of what he’s saying here.

The only way that my son will stop being an idiot and fall into line, is if we have another baby. that is the only Right way to move forward. it is morally right, because if we dont do this, then he’s going to destroy himself.

there are two ways to interpret this scene.

The charitable way is to read it as the fact that he used Rei’s oldest son’s mental state as a justification of guilting his wife to have a third child, to give this attempt at a superpowered breeding project another shot, despite the fact that they now know that this can lead to a child who is essentially born crippled from his own powers, and despite the fact that Rei obviously understands the effect of them continuing this insanity will have on their oldest son.

the uncharitable way to look at it, is that he used this as justification for flat out raping her, and forcing a third, and then later a fourth child on her.

I personally believe the last one, given a number of factors shown in this chapter(the way this page is framed, the fact Rei obviously didnt want a third child, given she predicted exactly how touya would react, the way her eyes would latet turn when she looks at who is presumably touya which really brings to mind how she would later react to her youngest son’s face after her mental breakdown, etc.), but i’ll frankly admitt that withouth a direct quote from Hori, its impossible to know for sure one way or another. 

either way however, this is a very good example of Endeavor both being influenced by, and using Sunk Cost Fallacy to justify bringing another potentially crippled child into the world for his own, selfish goals.

sunk cost Fallacy, is a mental reaction to when you invest more time and resources into a project, that you becomes so emotionally invested into said project that you will continue to invest into it, even if it reaches a point that it becomes clear that the resources you put into it, far, far outweighs the potential gains you can achieve.

because if you give up after having invested years, and years of effort to breed, raise, and train a kid, and then all that effort was absolutely wasted. hence he choose to keep going, despite having learned what a terrible idea this is.

He doesnt care about the fact that his next child might be even more crippled than his firstborn, he doesnt care about his son’s actual wellbeing. he cares about the fact that if he doesnt continue this insanity, then not only will he not achieve his dreams, but everything he did to get to this point was for absolutely nothing.

and endeavor cannot accept that. and so long as he can justify breeding more children into the world, and there being any chance they might inherit both quirks perfectly, he doesnt care about anything else.

and the moment he realised that this kid wasnt gonna cut it either, he did it again. it is not a coincidence, that the age gap between Endeavor’s second, third, and fourth children were all 3-4 years apart. because thats the age where you can usually tell when a quirk will manifest or not, as established earlier in the series.

While she isnt brought up directly by Endeavor as a justification, it is very telling that Endeavor decided on having a third child, only after his second child was old enough that he could tell that that there was no chance she could take the place as his heir instead.

So, he had his third child, and as time passed and it became obvious that he wasn’t gonna be able to fulfill Endeavor’s goals either, he dumped him, and instead breed a fourth child into existence.

and finally, he struck gold. he did it. he produced Shoto.

everything was finally worth it, and now, everything would be absolutely fine. the cost fallacy had reached its end, and it was now all full sails ahead.

except of course it wasnt.

His oldest son, now in middle school, had been raised from birth to believe he would surpass his father, only to be thrown away, and getting to see his father try to replace him, not once, but twice.

frankly, this scene is probably my favorite in the chapter, because it goes to show Endeavor’s mindset. Natsuo made a point that their father completely ignored his older children. and he did... from Natsuo’s perspective. however, having a more thourough picture of things, we can clearly see that this wasnt the case with Touya.

Endeavor genuinly cared for Touya, enough that once he got that child he tried to breed into existence 4 times, he genuinly wanted him to just abandon trying to be a hero. he genuinly thinks of himself as a good dad here, wanting his son to abandon the mission he set out for him before he was born. of course, with context, this heartwarming scene is incredibly sad and insidious, because we understand why Endeavor got so attached to his oldest child. because he WAS the golden child. he was the child Endeavor genuinly cared about, and invested in, and trained personally with great warmth and enthusiasm.

And not only did he abandon him as a failed project the moment he realized he wasnt gonna live up to his ridiculous standards, but he literarily created 2 more kids to try and replace him, just as his oldest son was old enough to understand what exactly his dad was doing. over the course of this chapter, we get to see Touya’s start as a 5-8 year old, his deteriorating mental state over the years, until he finally seemed to reach the breaking point with Shoto’s birth sometime in his middle school years 12-15. 

Endeavor is in this scene, just not capable of understanding why Touya so desperately wants to become a hero, when obviously he isnt physically able to do so. he isnt able to understand that he is 100% to blame for the fact that his son is having a full emotional breakdown after literaly being replaced by his siblings. 

In other words, Endeavor genuinly think’s he’s a good person. a person who has made a few mistakes along the way sure, but a person who was always justified in the end, and now that he’s having to face the fact that as dabi would later say “The past never dies” and has to face the aftermath of his inane attempt to play god for the pettiest of reasons, things simply arent going to work out.

He isnt going to have a happy family, who can now put the awful early years behind them, he put way too much effort, caused too much suffering and sacrificed too many years of his life for this not to work out as he wants.

after all, if he walks away from this project now, and lets Shoto have a normal childhood, and decide for himself, with no pressure from him, wheter or not to become a hero, then the sunk cost fallacy will have reached a negative end. it will all have been for nothing.

and we know he did eventually double down on this mentality, literarily beating into Shoto that he WAS going to become a hero, and there was not but’s or no’s about it.

there was no way that Endeavor was EVER going to let things be for nothing. His treatment of his older children could not be for nothing. His treatment of his wife could not be for nothing. His treatment of Shoto, and the way he beat him black and blue to train him, could not be for nothing.

Because if it all was for nothing, if everything he feels guilty about was for absolutely nothing, then he was in fact, a bad, bad person, who had no justification for anything he ever did.

[floridensis]

the naturalist at Favorite Park was talking about the park’s wetland - i didnt know before tonight that it was an INTENSE restoration project, and that like twenty years ago that entire part was all invasive australian pine and they had to kill them all and then pretty much build the whole thing. she talked about how in record rains, the water would come all the way up past the sand strip (a remnant of the plot’s past popularity with ATVs) and under the pavilion we were standing in. ive never seen it get nearly so high, ive never seen the sand strip go under. she also talked about the record breaking heat and dryness from recent summers, and how recently you were able to see the lake bottom, mud cracked like you might expect a desert to look. but she said that everything seems to rebound fine when the rains come back.

“but theres one thing that i have yet to see come back,” she said, and i wiggled a bit forward on the bench in anticipation - “and i really want to see it again, because it is listed as endangered,” and im now literally on the edge of my seat because i KNOW shes going to talk about the nodding clubmoss - “it’s called nodding clubmoss, and it looks kind of like a norwegian pine tree. i haven’t seen it since”

and i got a bit overcome with excitement and have no idea what kind of full body gesture i made, but it was dark out so it didnt really matter. i was like “oh!!!! yeah i havent seen them for a long time either and i would look every time, but i saw them again! i was here on a native plant society trip, and my friend was hoping to see them. i took him to where that big dense population used to be, but we still couldnt find any. i was sitting in the dirt, telling him i was really worried that they had all died off and were all gone. i know this is like the only place they still exist in the county, so i thought they might be GONE gone. and the he said, ‘you mean like this?’ and pointed to one tiny clubmoss!!” she was glad to hear it and i told her where we found it, and then used what i said as a jumping off point for a bit of a speech, because she wanted to talk about my fear for the existence of the clubmoss. she has been doing restoration work in various natural areas in the county for about 20 years, and in that time she has seen so many things that seemed to be on the brink, or gone, but then when the circumstances are right, they will come right back. sometimes on their own, sometimes with help, often with a bit of both. and whenever she hears people talking about inevitable doom, she just wants to share with them all the wonderful little comebacks shes seen, just in her very small scope, and how many little comebacks there must be all over the world considering her experience is certainly not exceptional. i followed up with mentioning how amazed i was that the wetland - currently the last known home in the county for both the clubmoss and sundews - was initially covered in australian pines, which are known to grow in huge stands choking out the MASSIVE majority of other plants below. if youve ever been in one of those, its incredibly barren. other plants do manage, but for the most part the ground is just covered in swaths of pseudo-pine duff. that they survived the australian pine invasion, all the upheaval that went into converting it from the australian pine stand to the wetland it is now, and then in the case of the clubmosses, having dried out to the point that i do believe like every living individual at the time did die off like two years ago.... its amazing. she said she has no idea what the populations of either were like during the australian pine days even though she was there working on it. so i dont think she saw any. she supposes they were just waiting for the right conditions. the sundews (and until recently the clubmosses) have such a big healthy population it’s hard to imagine the population was ever not doing well. it’s not like either species is one that expands its range easily, especially with no other local populations. this got a little more long winded and meandering than i intended but thats what i do. anyway i just think the resiliency is awesome