everyeternity - Tumblr blog

[everyeternity]

things people have done to help me during a psychoses episode

i was on the buss and i hallucinated bugs crawling all over my hands, so my friend pulled my hoodie sleeves over them with permission and held my hands through the sleeves to "keep them off". they used the logic you would in a real bug situation.

i went nonverbal in a bad one in class, so my friend wrote me a note to give to the nurse since the teacher wouldn't let her go with me.

i often am very paranoid about the delusion that meat is actually rotten, so my dad will sometimes eat a bit of it before me

instead of telling me my delusions arent real, they help me through it using logic like it was real. they dont tell me that nothings going to hurt me in my sleep, they stay with me to keep me safe. then when it passes i can realize its not real

[everyeternity]

one of the hardest things for me was realizing that sometimes I don't actually love that person, I love a version of them I created in my head that I needed them to be. it's extremely freeing to realize that they can't, don't want to, and never will be the person I needed who loves me in way that doesn't hurt me. but at first, it was deeply hurtful.

I couldn't be the person that I needed to be I order to motivate them to be better to me. I contorted for years into any shape they asked, but it never worked. it was never enough. I was never enough.

and I sat with that for years.

I talked recently about reading Alison Bechdel and how that one book had become so formative for me in the matter of a week. this is why:

if they were never capable of or desired to be the person, the parent or sibling or friend or partner or anyone else, that I needed... it's not my fault.

suddenly all the stars of the universe inside my brain aligned and. it really meant that everything I went through wasn't. my. fault.

that, of course, brings in a whole new existential crisis. but y'know, I haven't figured that one out yet.

[everyeternity]

[everyeternity]

Am I getting a good grade in tumblr mutual?

[everyeternity]

Heyo! I'm Eris, and this is my chaotic little blog. Trying to organize it so here's a little intro/tag guide.

i'm a loudly deaf disabled trans butch lesbian, and as a general rule i like talking about those things with people that ask in good faith. i'm also a musician, (amateur) photographer, artist, writer, woodworker, and general "try anything once to see if i like it" enjoyer.

I really like philosophical writing as a medium, im not the most well versed on all things but my happy little hole of existentialist optimism has been really helpful for me and i try to convey that in my writing!

on that topic, my current series/project is #communities in concrete, a feature on what communities are and can look like, but also on how the loss of the third space and the loss of community are independent phenomena with a connection only in theory, and how to solve the latter when the former feels hopeless.

Other tags of note are #its 3am somewhere which is my main shitposting tag, #the blarg for reblogs and non-oc, and #everythingeternity which is all oc.

[everyeternity]

look mom, i'm famous!

[everyeternity]

okay, my beloved partner and accomplice @mysterymessmachine tagged me in this one so let's jump in to my first fkn tag game!

Last song I Listened to

uhhhhh i listen to too much shit but lately ive been listening to a LOT of Hozier, and my same song that i will loop til my ears bleed is Weird Part Of The Night by Louis Cole

Currently watching

Many many things, but currently im trapped in the A;TLA rewatch/live-action combo, its very fun. also trying to work through a backlog of movies w my partner-in-crime (who i have never met before in my life, officer)

Spicy/sweet/savory

I have a sweet tooth that my dentist says needs removed, but savory is a close second. Spicy is good in a savory way, if that makes any sense? like im not a fan of habanero, but i will go to town on a good savory dish with, like, black pepper as a main flavor

Current Obsessions

uhhhh, trying to read honestly. I had to return all my library books bc they got overdue and i didnt read them fast enough, but we recently went out to get some new copies of books that disappeared after i loaned them out many years ago, i got some new stuff, some old stuff, and some gifts to read for sure.

But also i started playing DmC: Devil May Cry (yes the newer edgy one where they threw canon out the window and got yelled at abt it) and oops i might actually like combo-buster action games, catch me working through the main DMC series after this

Relationship Status

incredibly gay and in love with my partner, the reason ive been going to bed at 4 am and laughing a little too hard to drive safely (its okay they drive more now)

Fav color

Safety fuckin orange, mainly, though i really love that whole spectrum of bright-ass oranges, yellows, and pinks (not the icky yellow greens tho)

contrary to that though, a lot of my wardrobe is grays and blues, im trying to wear more deep and cool colors bc of my typing but also see above. you can take safety orange from my shriveled dead hands.

thanks for reading y'all! and since i know my partner will be reading this, you're hot as fuck, the best, and broadly the best thing to happen in my life end of; not sorry for being gay as hell on main.

oNTO THE TAGS! i don't know a whole lot of ppl ngl, so im just gonna tag some of y'all, no pressure! @themidgardlibrary @joylesscelebration @assistedbytherats

[everyeternity]

same post, but pikemen is accented and pronounced like pokémon... pikémen

My liege they’re doing some Yaoi shit to our pikemen

[everyeternity]

i've tried to convey this concept a few times on this blog, but it's hard to get across without examples; so let me introduce you to some people i know.

disclaimer; details are omitted, fudged, or otherwise changed for the privacy of the individuals mentioned, with the exception of some businesses.

i knew a library associate from the us south who was hellbent for leather on creating the queerest little bookclub in their red state's history, and it took a couple tries but they finally got enough regular attendees to keep it going on a regular schedule.

i don't care how far i have to drive, and i actually have gotten my car towed the extra fifteen minutes to go to my auto repair shop of choice; not because they have all the equipment, but because they're the first to admit they don't. the main mechanic not only remembered our car ("the little blue one that got backed into?") when we called about an issue he recommended us go elsewhere for, but also gave my partner and i a list of shops to call and coached us on exactly what to ask for.

and just two days ago, i had the incredible pleasure of exploring a new to me local bookstore, filled with indie authors, small publishers, local crafter's wares, and even a fully stocked bookshelf of independently published zines! when i asked about a small local publisher that was featured heavily in their complementary bookmarks, the lady at the register lit up and let me know she owned it and beamed at an offer for local help or submissions.

nothing can substitute for time, authentic connection, and being there in a way that tells people they're safe with you. capitalism has robbed us of third places, this is true; but it also has convinced us that communities require money to build. the deceptively simple reality is that they don't, and they never have. in fact? communities require nothing but giving a damn, finding some people, and putting time into finding more.

many are comforted or dismayed with the idea that they're daisies in concrete, struggling to bloom when the world around them is paved and stifling; but so are the rest of us, and we can bloom together, should we choose to.

[everyeternity]

Something that literally changed my life was working with a friend on a coding thing. He was helping me create an auto rig script and was trying to explain something to me but his words were just turning into static in my brain. I was tired and confused and there was so many new concepts happening.

I could feel myself working toward a crying meltdown and was getting preemptively ashamed of what was about to happen when he said, “Hey, are you someone who benefits from breaks?”

It broke me.

Did I benefit from breaks? I didn’t know. I’d never taken them.

When a problem frustrated or upset me I just gritted my teeth and plowed through the emotional distress because eventually if you batter and flail at something long enough you figure it out. So what if you get bruised on the way.

I viscerally remembered in that moment being forced to sit at the table late into the night with my dad screaming at me, trying to understand math. I remembered taking that with me into adulthood and having breakdowns every week trying to understand coding. I could have taken a break? Would it help? I didn’t know! I’d never taken one!

“Yes,” I told him. We paused our call. I ate lunch. I focused on other stuff for half an hour. I came back in a significantly better state of mind, and the thing he’d been trying to explain had been gently cooking in the back of my head and seemed easier to understand.

Now when I find myself gritting my teeth at problems I can hear his gentle voice asking if I benefit from breaks. Yes, dear god, yes why did I never get taught breaks? Why was the only way I knew to keep suffering until something worked?

I was relating to this same friend recently my roadtrip to the redwoods with my wife. “We stopped every hour or so to get out and stretch our legs and switch drivers. It was really nice. When I was a kid we’d just drive twelve hours straight and not stop for anything, just gas. We’d eat in the car and power through.”

He gave a wry smile, immediately connecting the mindset of my parents on a road trip to what they’d instilled in me about brute forcing through discomfort. “Do you benefit from breaks?” he echoed, drawing my attention to it, making me smile with the same sad acknowledgement.

Take breaks. You’re allowed. You don’t have to slam into problems over and over and over, let yourself rest. It will get easier. Take. Breaks.

[everyeternity]

reblog only if you’ve received less than 1000 boops! we can all get each other to “max”

[everyeternity]

The thing with the Mari Lwyd, though, is that it's being... I don't know, 'appropriated' is the wrong word, but certainly turned into something it isn't.

Thing is, this is a folk tradition in the Welsh language, and that's the most important aspect of it. I feel partly responsible for this, because I accidentally became a bit of an expert on the topic of the Mari Lwyd in a post that escaped Tumblr containment, and I clearly didn't stress it strongly enough there (in my defence, I wrote that post for ten likes and some attention); but this is a Welsh language tradition, conducted in Welsh, using Welsh language poetic forms that are older than the entire English language, and also a very specific sung melody (with a very specific first verse; that's Cân y Fari). It is not actually a 'rap battle'. It's not a recited poem. It is not any old rhyme scheme however you want.

It is not in English.

Given the extensive and frankly ongoing attempts by England to wipe out Welsh, and its attendant cultural traditions, the Mari is being revived across Wales as an act of linguistic-cultural defiance. She's a symbol of Welsh language culture, specifically; an icon to remind that we are a distinct people, with our own culture and traditions, and in spite of everyone and everything, we're still here. Separating her from that by removing the Welsh is, to put it mildly, wildly disrespectful.

...but it IS what I'm increasingly seeing, both online and in real world Mari Lwyd festivals. She's gained enormous pop-culture popularity in recent years, which is fantastic; but she's also been reduced from the tradition to just an aesthetic now.

So many people are talking/drawing about her as though she's a cryptid or a mythological figure, rather than the folk practice of shoving a skull on a stick and pretending to be a naughty horse for cheese and drunken larks. And I get it! It's an intriguing visual! Some of the artwork is great! But this is not what she is. She's not a Krampus equivalent for your Dark Christmas aesthetic.

I see people writing their own version of the pwnco (though never called the pwnco; almost always called some variant on 'Mari Lwyd rap battle'), and as fun as these are, they are never even written in the meter and poetic rules of Cân y Fari, much less in Welsh, and they never conclude with the promise to behave before letting the Mari into the house. The pwnco is the central part to the tradition; this is the Welsh language part, the bit that's important and matters.

Mari Lwyd festivals are increasingly just English wassail festivals with a Mari or two present. The Swansea one last weekend didn't even include a Mari trying to break into a building (insert Shrek meme); there was no pwnco at all. Even in the Chepstow ones, they didn't do actual Cân y Fari; just a couple of recited verses. Instead, the Maris are just an aesthetic, a way to make it look a bit more Welsh, without having to commit to the unfashionable inconvenience of actually including Welsh.

And I don't really know what the answers are to these. I can tell you what I'd like - I'd like art to include the Welsh somewhere, maybe incorporating the first line of Cân y Fari like this one did, to keep it connected to the actual Welsh tradition (or other Welsh, if other phrases are preferred). I'd like people who want to write their version of the pwnco to respect the actual tradition of it by using Cân y Fari's meter and rhyme scheme, finishing with the promise to behave, and actually calling it the pwnco rather than a rap battle (and preferably in Welsh, though I do understand that's not always possible lol). I'd like to see the festivals actually observe the tradition, and include a link on the booking website to an audio clip of Cân y Fari and the words to the first verse, so attendees who want to can learn it ahead of time. I don't know how feasible any of that is, of course! But that's what I'd like to see.

I don't know. This is rambly. But it's something I've been thinking about - and increasingly nettled by - for a while. There's was something so affirming and wonderful at first about seeing the Mari's climb into international recognition, but it's very much turned to dismay by now, because she's important to my endangered culture and yet that's the part that everyone apparently wants to drop for being too awkward and ruining the aesthetic. It's very frustrating.

[everyeternity]

cities in media are. really strange. specifically the romanticized cities we're so familiar with, the highrises, luxury apartments, bright lights! big city! it's a potent spectacle that captures the eye and attention, the kind of spectacle that makes people desire fame and status, so they can maybe sort of have a chance to live in a city like that one day.

but cities are so much more! they are the bright lights, sure, but they're also the graffiti artist so beloved by the community that they get a city-sponsored mural in the arts district, and the one reputable mechanic (that's local!) wedged in between three of the scammiest used car lots you've ever seen.

the bright lights are overrated, and capitalism has poured concrete over the rest, but the daisies never left. you are not the only daisy blooming in the concrete, friend.

the cities are the people, and we can all bloom here too.

[everyeternity]

in the latest cyber-news: the internet archive has lost their case against 4 major publishing houses (verge article). they’re going to appeal, but this is still a bad outcome. the fate of the internet is currently hanging in the balance because 4 multibillionare publishing groups missed out on like $15 of combined revenue during the pandemic because of the archive’s online library service. it’s so fucking stupid.

for those who don’t know what the internet archive is, it’s a virtual library full of media. books, magazines, recordings, visuals, flash games, websites - a lot of these things either don’t exist anymore or cannot be found & bought. heard of the wayback machine? that’s part of the internet archive. it is the most important website to exist, and i don’t say that lightly. if the internet archive goes down, the cultural loss will be immeasurable.

so how can you help?

boycott the publishing companies involved in this. they’re absolute ghouls, frankly, and don’t deserve a penny. the companies involved are harpercollins (imprints), wiley (imprints), penguin random house llc (imprints), and hachette book group (imprints). make sure the websites are set to your location as it may differ worldwide.

learn to torrent. download a torrent client (i recommend transmission), a vpn (i recommend protonvpn - sign up and choose the area that’s closest to your continent/country), and hit up /r/piracy on reddit for websites. with torrenting, you can get (almost) any media you want for free in high quality, with add-ons such as subtitles, and with no risks of loss. i would also recommend getting into the habit of watching stuff online for free. the less you can pay to a giant corporation, the better.

get into the habit of downloading and archiving materials. find a TB external hard drive, ideally the higher the better. it’ll probably cost around $60 for 1TB and continue to go up, but they’re so so useful. if you can’t afford a drive, look for any GB harddrives or memory sticks you have lying around and just fill them up. videos, pdfs, magazines, songs, movies, games - anything you can rip and download and fit on there, do it, because nothing is permanent.

donate to the internet archive. this is the most important option on the list. the IA relies entirely on funding, and it’s going to need more to fight this case. whatever you can donate, do it. i promise it’s helpful.

and finally…

[everyeternity]

genuinely this hurt in the best way. this theme of dying on a public stage isn't new by any means, but its never been so accessible, because no onus or requirement is attached, you're not dying in L.A. this time, you're dying on the train, in the park, in a library aisle, or most tragic of all; at home, alone, promised friendship in a screen that can access the world, but where does that audience end and that friendship begin?

don't mind my rambling, this just really floored me. Hits in some kind of way, except multiple some "kind of way"s. the communities we need may not exist, but there's a very real silver lining buried in this for me, the idea planted of being able to build that community myself/ourselves, because if i'm dying on this stage i'm sure someone else is dying on theirs too.

Who saw?

[everyeternity]

As a transfemme unfortunately burdened with the profane knowledge of The Men, poker was exceeding rare (until college, but i came out last year of high school).

The porn thing is unfortunately more common than you'd think, but the social chess of it was fuckin weird. 1 person inevitably would try to watch porn alone at like 2/100 volume on their phone, but it sounds kind of distinct, so it would get recognized despite the low volume; and if they were the only one that did it (or wanted to) they would get clowned on for the rest of the sleepover and then it would be forgotten. however, sometimes them "getting away with it" functioned as license for other people to do it?? and it just became a "pay no attention to the porn behind the curtain" situation.

if you can't already tell, i hated these sleepovers and promptly switched extracurriculars to something where i could socialize with literally anyone other than men (it ended up being marching band which was a whole other can of worms)

seems like i'm the tome keeper round these parts so here goes:

what do sleepovers look like to you? pillow fights? genders? board games? what evokes the quintessential 'slumber party'?

[everyeternity]

at the end of the day it’s not that you hate your job - actually, you like working, you like routine, you like feeling like an adult - it’s that any time you fuck anything up, you feel like you’re fucking dying.

because you could be actually fucking dying. because if one day you wake up and you misunderstood something - you could lose your job, and nobody is hiring, and nobody is paying, and nobody takes people like you, and that job you want hasn’t gotten back to you. and what exactly are you going to do without insurance? good luck with those meds. you should have thought of that before being a person.

so it’s not just that you forgot to CC someone on an email, it’s that if you don’t have this job, you can’t afford rent. it’s not that you misread a comment, it’s that if you get fired, you will be in massive amounts of unpayable debt. it’s not that you are bad at your job, but here are the stakes as they have been decided for you: be perfect or fucking die. like, literally, die. that is how much safety net you have: none.

it’s not burnout, technically. but you literally just had two typos in your work, and you’re already picturing the ending. you want to throw up & curl up & make it all go away. it is two typos. if he decides he is mad at you, you lose literally everything.

your mom says that you seem stressed. the thing is that you have never known a job that isn’t stressful. welcome to capitalism. there is no other road, only this one. what the fuck is a career. you come here, and we hold your life against the barrel of a gun, and somewhere someone is spinning the chamber and pulling. eventually the bullet will come.

you live in a mugging. your boss owns three cars and has four kids. you worry about having enough to feed your dog. good luck. beg for forgiveness. CC the right people next time and be grateful, kid. somebody has it worse than you. someone, probably, has it worse than you. so what if you can’t sleep or eat or focus. your work chat sound literally makes you panic. you had to change the sounds of computer notifications so you’d stop having such an upset stomach.

welcome to the real world! the rat race! the dog eat dog circus!

your doctor studies the results and frowns at you. “it’s bad for your heart,” she says. “try to reduce your levels of stress.”