#LAY ABOUT WORLD

[inkskinned]

i keep thinking about how rfk said that autistic people "will never write a poem." i keep thinking about that, about if humanity is calculated on the back of old verse. how far we measure personhood is in baseball and stanza breaks.

i keep thinking - i have over 7k poems on here alone. language can be a special interest, after all. did you know the word autism comes almost direct from the greek word autos, meaning "self"? self-ism.

maybe he is right - i haven't really played baseball. i was a ballet dancer instead. and besides - my sister once accidentally hit me in the face with an aluminum bat. i'm not sure if the injury gives me half points. am i only a person in the dugout? hand in a mitt? swinging?

does softball count? does cricket? am i a person if i throw the ball to my dog. am i a person as long as the ball is in the air, or do i stop being a person as it rolls into the bushes. i took my girlfriend to fenway recently; was i a person in the sun, with my hands up, with the game laid out at my feet in a diamond. i felt like a person, but that was back in the summer, and i often feel my most person-like then.

am i more of a person because of the sheer number of things i've written? does quality matter, or is it quantity? i used to write entire books every summer in high school - i wasn't doing well. i felt the least like-a-person back then. but then - does any person feel human in high school?

in the library, ink on my skin, i feel personhood shutter at the edges of myself. actually, writing feels blissfully like not being myself. it feels birdlike; escaping into creation so my body dissolves and i survive only by muscle memory. i am not there, i am writing.

but who can deny the falconlike focus of warsan shire, the tenderness of mary oliver, the sheer skill of amanda gorman. those are poets. they are certainly human. you could line them up with the way their words have influenced us and measure their literary shadows like wings.

perhaps it was very assumptive of me to want to be a poet rather than "a [ label ] poet." i wanted the work to fill itself in, rather than be stained by what i am. i do not write in despite of my neurodivergence, i am just neurodivergent and writing.

does the poem have to be in english or can i send it through my palms into the coat of my dog. does the poem have to make sense. does the poem have to love you back.

if i break a glass, will the poem appear naturally? or is the act of breaking the glass human-enough. the shards of my life glittering out beneath me - do i have to write the poem, or is it self-evident in the pile of glass splinters? i cannot grasp this world the way other people can. regardless, i endeavor to touch - even the mess - very gently.

i broke my toenail against my coffee table recently. i released a bug outdoors. i made coffee. i walked my dog.

i didn't write a poem about any of these things.

something else, then. existing without humanity.

[flabotanum]

The epilogue story to this era of stories in Exandria being a love letter to Matt, as the architect of Exandria, from Brennan and Liam is so perfect.

Especially since Matt is always saying that this world is a gift from him to his friends, and yet he still consistently shies away from taking much credit for how incredible it is.

Like I’m so happy for him to have played Garen as this archetypal old dwarven smith because that’s what he loves playing and he did an incredible job, but it’s also so fitting for him to have been unknowingly the mortal form of the Exandrian god of creation, even more so with the understanding that the humble mortal life he led as Garen served as the keystone for the divine gate.

Also, Liam as Erro sacrificing himself to save Garen and then coming back later to collect him as his brother with the understanding that Exandria would be left in good hands after all their hard work… just beautiful, both in-game and with all the out-of-game context and poetry.

[napping-sapphic]

dying of need to kiss another girl SO bad disease rn

[chimerafeathers]

i know we love to rag on Siffrin for feeling so miserably guilty and manipulative for the crime of [checks notes] “doing nice things for their friends so that they’ll be happy and care about him even if it’s not perfectly sincere on his end”

but like. in context i don’t think that thought process is anywhere near as nonsensical as it always sounds written out like that

i’m sure i’m just stating the obvious here but it’s not really about the “crime” of making people happy. it’s about what he’s not doing, which is anything that would allow their friends to have any real knowledge or agency over the situation they’re all in.

it’s about never acting according to his real feelings in the moment and letting them see the messier version of him that exists now, never allowing their relationships to evolve or develop meaningfully beyond the “safest” iteration, the thing that is Known and produces the Correct Results, because anything else has the possibility of leading to negative emotions towards Siffrin.

Siffrin knows he’s not really doing all this for their benefit, not entirely, because the “right” thing to do would give them the full context to choose how they feel and what to do about it. they’re happy, but in a way they don’t get to keep. they’re happy, but in a way that keeps Siffrin safe from anything more complex and real. they’re happy, but only because some Siffrin in the past said the right things once, and this new, bitter, lonely, desperate version wouldn’t know how to get the “correct result” without a script to follow. they’re happy, and it was real once, it meant something once, but not anymore.

they cared about that Siffrin, yes, but would they still care about this one, if they knew? if Siffrin ever allowed them to know? (he won’t, he can’t, he refuses.)

and there’s something that could have been said in favor of Siffrin allowing himself this “selfishness” if it made him happy anyway, if it could be a genuine source of comfort in a difficult situation—but it doesn’t! not really! because that guilt is there, because that fear is there, because of how flimsy it all inevitably feels.

so they’re not doing it for their family’s benefit, because that happiness is predicated on lies and ignorance. he’s barely doing it for his own benefit, because they’re torturing themself by revealing things they no longer want to reveal, concealing things they no longer want to conceal, acting out of fear of rejection rather than genuine desire for connection. who benefits from this hollow “kindness,” really?

that’s why the last loop had to be the ugliest one. Siffrin had to see that the worst could happen and there could still be love and connection on the other side. that even when the party sees the worst of him, when they have the agency he’s been knowingly denying them, they will still choose to love him.

[bikananjarrus]

on the topic of how infuriating it is to read 300 pages of percy calling himself stupid, of other characters calling him stupid, of even the creatures/animals implying that he's stupid, a scene that really bugged me was when hecate checked in on percy while he was on the train, and it was such an effort for him to remind himself that he can’t lie, and he can’t tell her the truth, ie: he has to trick her and talk his way out of this situation.

(this is certainly not the most egregious example of percy's apparent stupidity in this book, but it allows me to talk about one of the ways in which percy IS, in fact, very smart!)

throughout the books, one of percy’s strongest traits is how clever he is! he is extremely good at manipulation (and he’s a bit ruthless in his manipulation too). he's an excellent swordsman and he's almost better at talking through a situation in such a way that he can exploit his enemies weaknesses.

example: at age 12, still very new to the mythological world, he manipulated procrustes into climbing into one of his own enchanted beds, used his own magical bonds to keep him there, and then cut off his head (while saying “i think i'll start with the top." he's so iconic for that). procrustes unwittingly handed 12-year-old percy everything he needed to turn the trick around on crusty. percy observed how he tricked grover and annabeth to getting close to the beds, listened for the magic word (ergo) he used to bind them there, and in the very short amount of time they spent around him, percy was able to get a feel for crusty's personality/ego well enough to know exactly what to say to trick him into getting into one of the beds so he could kill him.

there are SO many more examples of percy using tricks and manipulations to defeat his enemies. but all this to say: percy is clever and smart and thinks quick on his feet and he’s damn manipulative (the trickery is such a hermes trait, too, which makes for SUCH a nice foil to luke in the og series).

so for him to be breaking such a sweat trying to make sure he doesn’t spill the beans to hecate just rubs me the wrong way.

which! this could have been used to say something about percy’s newfound anxiety post-hoo. this could have been used to say something about his trauma from all those events and how maybe, right now, he’s not quite himself and so he’s not as quick on the draw as before. but rick absolutely did not put that much thought into it. It’s not about any of that, it’s just another moment played for laughs about how dumb and stupid percy is, and how he suddenly can’t handle himself in front of a god, even though he’s been getting in their faces since the day he learned he was a demigod.

[diffident-drifter]

Not my high ass getting a warframe ad while listening to music and getting scared shitless after a moment of silence I'm blasted by Lotus in 8d audio telling me "Wake up, Tenno" with a base drop

[bluestation]

i found you in the future

[dumbfucksystem]

do you guys think anyone remembers to put flowers on airplane’s grave…

[warmfuzzyanimal]

herd on the hill

[starhvney]

hey guys!! just a little update: my uploads may be slow and kinda inconsistent for a bit because i made the lovely decision to get a new full time job on top of being a full time student!! (i had to, unfortunately) i’m doing good, but while i get adjusted to this new packed schedule of mine i have to put this blog on the back burner, because unfortunately steady finances and education comes first over my passions and hobbies :,(

i can at least say that at the moment i’m working on or planning out:

☆ requests (my current top priority!!)

☆ some requested c.ai bots

☆ the next part of subj3 called “blank spaces”, which will span from the rest of the reader’s high school career to the end of college

☆ a longgg mcd x reader fic called “kismet” (that will have laurance as the love interest)!

☆ maybe some more sims?? i love love making them but i will see if i have the time sighh

but anyways! thought i’d let y’all know what i’m up to and why i haven’t sent out any more requests </3 i hope you’re all well and staying warm & safe! love you all!!

[yuechihua]

(spoilers for Harumasa's agent story!)

So, I think that Harumasa ultimately has a slight streak of pragmatism and utilitarianism, mainly in regards to himself. There is a calculation in his actions when it comes to how he wants others to perceive him as someone lazy (so they won't worry over him when his illness is genuinely serious). In his agent story quest, he doesn't hesitate to act in a self-sacrificial manner (despite the fact he wants to live no matter what!) if the overall result is more beneficial to other people than any negative consequence to himself.

He lets his spinal fluid get taken in place of the kids Kirishima is experimenting on because he reasons outwardly that he's used to the strain of the procedure, and it'll have more negative impacts on them and their life expectancy. He doesn't hesitate to inject what he thinks is a deadlier strain of the drug that his mentor made into himself, just so Kirishima couldn't get his hands on it and ruin more people's lives.

I think the way Harumasa uses himself and his own body can be attributed to his upbringing (he suffered similar experiments on his own person and that probably lend to a utilitarian mindset and disconnect with his own personhood), and personal mindset (his pragmatism towards his own perceived expendability, and his desire to protect other people).

At the same time, however, Harumasa never applies this philosophy to anyone else. When he interacts with Seth, he actually appreciates-- even admires-- that Seth has such a pure belief in protecting other people, and not sacrificing anyone to achieve a goal. Harumasa most likely feels similarly to Seth, but his own exception will always be himself.

[zukkaoru]

thinks about the akutagawa siblings. throws up and dies

[not-that-debonair]

It’s been said I know but sometimes I get so angry that so much is socially tied to gender like why does it matter what someone’s gender is why do you change all your assumptions about someone based on their gender why do things have to be masculine coded or feminine coded why can’t we all just live

[thecoppersoulbox]

Thinking about Maria from Death for a Dollar again. Thinking about how shy she was when Bill first met her versus how confident she is in present day. Yes it’s because those two characters weren’t meant to be the same person at that point but still. The implications.

Faking your death and going into hiding is a very bold move, so some of that growth must have happened during her relationship with Bill in the lead up to that plan. But maybe afterwards, when she realised just how much they got away with, that’s when her confidence gained the biggest boost. It’s like she said: she didn’t expect it to last as long as it did. She fully expected to have been caught by now. But they haven’t been caught, and they get to continue loving each other and they also now have a beautiful son, and maybe not everything’s perfect but compared to what could’ve happened they’re doing pretty damn good. And well, if you managed to pull a stunt like that and thrive afterwards, you’d have every right to feel confident and proud, wouldn’t you?

[dgaftilwedie]

roh jaewon has got the kind of beauty that makes angels cry... like he is so fucking ethereal, it's otherworldly. how is he real. how is he that gorgeous. does he even know?????? does he even KNOW????

[kacievvbbbb]

The fact that Viktor was right there! They were right beside each other and Five didn’t even look at him. Viktor who was his closest sibling and probably his best friend for all he knew the concept of it. Viktor who made him those disgusting marshmallow sandwiches for months hoping he’d come back to eat them. Voice who was all Viktor had when they were kids didn’t even look at him. The world was ending they were about to die and Five didn’t share a moment with a single member of the family he crossed timelines to save. STEVEN! WHAT WAS THE RECIPE!