#actual conversations with people i feel like i am disconnected from reality

[nuppu-nuppu]

Ignore if you don’t want to read about me being stupid once again

[icewindandboringhorror]

I know multiple of these are likely important to people, but I'm asking in terms of like - which of these do you tend to focus on the MOST, enjoy the most, that is most essential for you to actually care about the media, etc.?

(For example: someone finding "Relatability" most important would likely not enjoy a show much if they have trouble empathizing with the characters/relating to it, even if it were good otherwise. Or, someone might be able to overlook bad acting and ugly costumes, as long as the Character Dynamics are fun to them, because they value that more than Aesthetics- while for others, bad costumes would be a dealbreaker.)

Also feel free to reblog and explain your answer or more information in the tags- I've always been curious about people's relationships to media, how they conceptualize it/what they get out of it, how some people value some parts more than others, how that informs their overall taste and genres they may be more inclined towards, etc. :0c

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids,

Here is a hug for the ones who don't have friends.

I've seen posts like this before and I noticed that people often jump to the following scenarios:

An lgbt+ person who only has cishet friends, a neurodivergent person who only has neurotypical friends, and similar situations

Someone who only has long-distance/online friends

Someone who has friends but is closeted and therefore can't share a big part of their life with them

Various other situations in which someone has friends but still feels lonely

All these situations can be incredibly alienating and it's important to talk about that. Feeling lonely when you are not alone, that's a really painful feeling. If you relate to that, you also get a hug!

But it's wrong to assume that everyone has friends and that the only possible explanation for feeling like you don't have any is that you feel disconnected from them for some reason. By jumping to these scenarios we jump right over the people who literally do not have friends.

"Oh, I am sure you have friends! You just can't see how much they love you" sounds like positivity - but it's simply not true for everyone.

Some people feel like friendship just naturally happens. But the reality is that it actually requires a lot of things: You need to have regular contact with other people in some way (the first barrier for people who live isolated lives for any reason - think about people who rarely leave their home due to illness or disability, people who take care of a bedbound family member, people who work long hours from home...), you need to be able to reach out and connect to these people (another big barrier - think about nonverbal people, people who struggle with basic social skills due to neurodivergence or disability, people with very low self-esteem, people who made traumatic experiences and are fearful of new people, people with social anxiety, people who don't speak the language of the country they live in...) and then you also need to know how to keep the conversation/connection alive for long enough to turn a friendly contact into a friendship. Lastly, you need the pure luck of meeting people who are interested in friendship with you!

Another mean thing about friendship is that it can be much easier to "just naturally" make friends if you already have some. Someone who has friends may meet the friends of their friends and also become close to them, they may go to places with their friends they wouldn't go to on their own and meet new people there etc. Someone who doesn't have friends can't rely on those opportunities.

Plus, friendship is a skill that can get rusty! Think about people who spent months or even years in a hospital, prison, rehab facility etc. - when they get out, they may feel like they forgot how to make friends outside of that setting.

Long story short: Having no friends is a lived reality for many people right now. If you are one of them, I see you and I never want to invalidate your reality by assuming that you just feel lonely despite having friends.

With all my love,

Your Tumblr Dad

[utilitycaster]

I feel like every time there’s an episode that highlights the ways in which Laudna’s character is hollow, we get the opposite moment from Ashton.

Like, Laudna has explicit reason to be pro-god, she was resurrected by one, her rant disregards a large chunk of what’s happened in-game and tries to make a point that fully eludes her.

On the other hand, Ashton’s anti-god/ pro-faith rant makes sense for the character. It’s also wonderful ironic, with the meta-knowledge of the Luxon being a sliver of divinity.

And then there’s the other moment, where Laudna has a conversation with Imogen in which they circle the same topics as always and end undecided about what they want for themselves.

Whereas Ashton has a conversation with FCG that highlights how far both have come as characters and how much their relationship has changed and exactly what each of them is fighting for.

I don’t know. Over and over again, I look at Laudna and Ashton and see two high-concept, aesthetic characters, and one found a way to be rooted in the world, and the other just… didn’t.

How many new NPCs does Ashton’s backstory bring to the game? A dozen? More? And Laudna has… Pate? She just feels so ungrounded and disconnected from the reality of the world.

Yeah...for what it's worth: I don't mind that Laudna doesn't have a pro-god stance. While I do think it's fair to say the gods have in fact done something for her, she spent very little time with Pike and it might not be on her mind. It's just...why would Laudna feel strongly about this at all. Why is she talking. Like, part of what was interesting about her in Hearthdell is that it's easy to see an argument for her fully siding with the villagers (after all, she also had an external force come into town and start fucking things up, was also overthrown by a mostly external group and returned to those who originally led it) but her attitude was "why are we dealing with this stupid bullshit when there's far greater things to worry about." Which was fascinating! And then she was betrayed by a member of the Vanguard! And then she comes back and she's furious and angry and upset...and then it just vanishes and she starts taking the opposite position for no apparent reason, and like, I know this is improv but she kept talking after like 2 or 3 glaringly obvious buttons on the conversation.

It would make perfect sense for Laudna to have the same position as Ashton, is the thing. "People have done harm in the name of the gods (Hearthdell) and I don't know if they've ever listened to me or intervened in my suffering, but Ludinus is doing incalculable harm on a much grander scale right, and we need to be against that, and I am open to the gods making their position more clear to me." Literally that's it.

As for the two...honestly I think the fact that Laudna...isn't high concept is the problem. Like, you can build a character on an aesthetic as a starting point. That's fine! But Ashton is not just punk in looks, but also punk in attitude. Taliesin asked the question "what would punk look like in Exandria" from a philosophical standpoint, worked with Matt to create a chaotic barbarian class, thought pretty extensively through the backstory that led them to the point where we see them at the start, has played a consistent throughline, and so when Ashton takes a stand it feels earned. With Laudna...the things that finally started to build during the Issylra arc (actually expressing unhappiness and anger, being upset with people on both sides of this argument) just vanished, and again, it increasingly seems true that almost all the work done was to support the aesthetic without then going back and weaving it into the story.

I will also add: I don't think having a ton of NPCs is important or a good metric - in fact there was a really good D&D court in which someone had a ton of NPCs in their backstory that their DM had asked them to tone down. I can think of plenty of characters who don't have a ton of NPCs in their backstory, either created by them or by Matt, who are great. Like, actually, part of the issue is again that Laudna is supposed to have this incredibly lonely, empty backstory, and we don't actually feel it. It's been so much tell and very little show.

[thequeenofthewinter]

Thus far I have avoided commenting anything directly about the whole sexyman debacle because everything that has needed to be said has been said already. However, I still feel compelled to jump onto my little Tumblr platform with a mic and shout into the void as I have been writing an Ulfric fic, and I am a fan of the man, the myth, Tesblr's favorite man to hate.

Why? Why add any more to the discourse and kick the metaphorical beehive to potentially expose myself to whatever crazy is lurking out there? I am also asking myself that same question, but at the same time I feel it needs repeating that I, you, and every blog on this website are actual human beings. I have made the most lovely friends over the course of my fanfiction writing experience, and I have been so blessed by them! This is genuinely one of my favorite things about the whole creative process. They have encouraged me to write and grow this silly little fic that I am writing as a hobby and have rightfully not judged me for any of it...even if they don't like Ulfric! (Shocking!)

I think we have forgotten something very important (actually probably several important things), but one of the biggest ones is how to have a conversation and speak productively to one another. It is deeply concerning (and rightly so) to see things which say that people should be shot for liking a video game character and/or all the other things circulating. Just because you like something fictional, does not mean you endorse it in real life. I don't pretend to be a moral paragon. I have my own flaws, and so do the characters, but that doesn't mean we can't play with them. And we should all have the right to. Video games and writing are supposed to be fun! Are we all so disconnected from reality that we can't see that?

Listen, I don't pretend to have everything right (and I don't), but my philosophy is: live and let live. Let people have their fun, their blorbos, their theories, and their headcanons. And if you don't like it, well, don't read it.

[barbarastreisandof]

I've voted for the Democratic candidate in every local and national election for 17 years, either because I genuinely believed in them at the time (Obama) or because they seemed like the lesser evil (Hillary, Biden). I will not vote for Biden in 2024.

I am far from the only person who has hit their limit watching the US openly back genocide, so I wanted to make a post for others who are going to refuse to give the Democrats their vote and are going to have to deal with shitlibs yapping in their ear about Trump and 'fascism' or whatever catchphrase caught their tongue waiting for the mobile above their bed to start up again.

"I don't like Biden either but if we don't support him we're going to have Mein Cheeto Fuhrer back in the White House"

I don't care about your stress and anxiety around Trump, you're not who I'm in solidarity with. I'm in solidarity with Palestine, I'm in solidarity with every Latino trying to live here and instead being thrown in a concentration camp for the crime of being Latino, I'm in solidarity with inmates, with the homeless, with the dispossessed and liberation movements the world over. And no one included there is doing better under Biden than Trump - he is continuing down an identical path and escalating violence and repression and suffocation of all those groups and people.

I don't care about hyper online white queers scared of their own shadow who think Agent Orange is the worst thing to ever happen and will usher in fascism. If you feel safer under Biden than Trump, you're either delusional, disconnected, or part of a demographic of people for whom the political system still shows some marginal interest in entertaining. In any case, I don't care about the opinions and anxieties of people who's political awakening and world began in 2015 and who have done nothing since to humble themselves and recognize that all the fascist shit you're afraid Trump 2 will do has already been what people living under the thumb of US empire have faced for decades.

You don't have to entertain liberals. Liberals are liberals either because they have decent principles but are so beholden to propaganda they have no actual understanding of how to embody or actualize those principles, or they're Aaron Sorkin watching dweebs with no real principles who will sell anybody out for their own comfort and sense of social superiority and goodness, a people who would rather see every Palestinian vaporized out of existence and then spend the next 20 years talking about how sad that was and how really it was Republicans fault if you think about it, then actually put any skin in the game and stand with people using force to resist genocide.

Anyone that wants to browbeat or guilt or condescend to you about the importance of voting in national elections is at best a well meaning desperate rube responding out of fear and ignorance to being confronted with a material reality Parks And Rec never prepared them for, or they're a bad faith actor with a fundamentally reactionary conversative worldview who's playing team sports with politics and coopts the language of oppression and justice to cajole people into supporting the left wing of the oligarchic imperial plane that is the US political system.

Fuck all these people and fuck lesser evil shit. We need to stop wasting time on people who are not interested in doing the right thing and start putting that energy into fighting alongside and standing with all those across the world who are engaging in genuine struggle for liberation. And that is not now, nor ever, going to happen on the national level of the US electoral system.

[bosquedemel]

sorry i'm feeling a bit of existential crisis but sometimes i seriously question what i'm doing here on this site. not just because of the amount of time i spend here and have spent here over the past 13 years and how that's impacted my life (being online in general), but also because i'm not really a fandom person and i feel, also because of my age, so disconnected with people here

i find it hard to leave tumblr and ofc right now i'm unemployed and in a depressive rut and all that, but the amount of TIME i've spent here and prior to tumblr elsewhere on the internet.... makes me sick think.

as someone who has always used the internet as a safety, comfort thing - because i was a friendless only child and still am - i know for a fact that it has affected my life so negatively ever since i was like 10 in 2003 and was already spending all my time on the computer.

but with regards to fandom, what i hate is that now there's just Too Much Noise surrounding art and fiction and how people engage with them. and you can escape this ofc, i could leave tumblr or at least blacklist all of my media interests on here or just follow aesthetic photo blogs or something like that. blogs that are more like journals. i could do that.

but regardless of that, i sometimes think how different my experience of a story or media would be if i wasn't privy to dozens of strangers' opinions online and constant talk about it in different ways (meta, shipping, discourse, stanning, hating etc.). actually i don't have to wonder because i can tell the difference and i feel it with regards to non-fandom media and more popular fandom media

but imagine if it was 1992 (or whatever) and you just watched a movie or listened to an album and it was just you, your thoughts, your opinions. and also the opinions of your friends or acquaintances. just regular conversations about the media, its elements, what you liked and didn't like, like reasonable things, like a review. no discourse, no incredibly hot takes, no shipping, no knowing anything about the artists or the production, just taking the thing as it is and looking at it from a completely personal pov. No Internet Stuff (and like i said this is absolutely possible today because it's actually how 99% of the world's population interacts with media)

but because i'm too online (see above) i can't escape others' opinions. and on one hand, it's cool to share something with people and discuss it a lot but on the other, i really wonder how this conditions people's reactions to things and it's no wonder things are exacerbated to extremely-online takes. when in reality - and reality is still blessedly like this - is more like "hey guys how's it going". and if this online stuff impacts the audience, imagine the other side, how it impacts the artists and creators and therefore their creations. just my thoughts

[bahja-blix]

Scammer Alert

​On November 15 2023 of 7:18 PM I got a costumer who purchased a Loona Keychain I had lost connection with so I had decided to sell her giving another person in the world an opportunity to have the Loona item. Since the holidays were slow I've shipped aka purchased a shipping label a few days later on the 18th considering its winter and I have no car to drive to the post office and also included my job hours within the day plus my parents health conditions. On November 18th 2023 I had messaged the person kindly about their order updating them on everything and explained to them their order will come regardless as a business promise even telling them I will be including evidence after I had gotten home via Mum since I again, can't drive to and from. Later on within the same day on the 18th at nearly 6PM the person wanted to cancel their order out of nowhere which confused me on why however I didn't think much of it and proceeded to refund them which to they replied "Thanks!!". Since Black Friday was in season I've decided to lower my prices on all items listed I've disconnected with or want to give an opportunity for others to have, so I did !! And after I've done that the Exact same person ordered from me again with the Exact same username attached. Personally I was skeptical on even letting them purchase from me because of what happened last time but I Thought they had changed their mind not knowing at all that the reason the came back was because I've lowered my prices... but I accepted anyway when I shouldn't have which was my fault. I am new so I'm learning still. Everything goes well with the order even though I had a bad gut feeling. On November 23th 2023 I got to actually provide pictures of their order and took pictures of the post office and they were happy. I thought me and the customer were on good terms as of November 27th 2023... we weren't :((( because on December 2nd of 2023 at 5:19 PM the same person who ordered, turned around to cancel, only to miraculously buy from me again, wanted a full refund Directly after the package was delivered....... 🤯🤯🤯 I was personally hurt and shocked by this being as I was very nice and kind to this person who I thought had a change of heart for the item however, that wasn't the case. So I went to one of my really good friends to get a second opinion on the matter and got some advice to guide me. 

The Second Opinion

Here's how the conversation with one of my good friends went for more evidence

Turns out I was right. I was dealing with someone who was selfish and wanted free stuff

and Yes!! This person is really fucking trying to get that refund Lmao. I legit have a feeling that the item will either be something completely different or nothing at all. 

Why did I share this info to my audience? 

Simply to spread awareness ^w^

People who try to scam others for free stuff try to Intimidate, harass, or try to make you afraid of them when in reality most of the time they have NO POWER especially if you have evidence right by your side. Don't be afraid of people like this. People get scammed all the time because this is the internet were talking about however, the best thing to do is

​Stay calm, don't let the scammer get under your skin

Report the scammer with all evidence present at your finger tips

Need advice from someone you trust? Do what I did to get a second opinion on the matter

I hope this helps !! If you would like to support me then you may share this post anywhere anytime

[feligis69]

Mapleshade

The way people try to push the idea that Mapleshade has some kind of mental disorder is insane. Like yes! Let's diagnose this crazy bitch with a serious and complex disorder just because she's experiencing two things that can also be caused by literally anything else! I am saying this as a mentally disabled person with clinically diagnosed disorders. I'm saying this as someone who has to suffer from psychosis. You don't know what you're talking about, so please shut up.

Psychosis is not just hallucinations and hearing things; the same thing can be said for schizophrenia; it's a lot more complex, and I think it's ignorant as all hell to continually push the false narrative that she's mentally ill and that it's "not her fault" or "she shouldn't be held accountable" because of a disorder. Psychosis stems from being disconnected from reality and could also occur due to schizophrenia. Psychosis is defined by behavior that shows the patient is losing touch with reality. These behaviors can be widely varied. Some common ones are not responding to stimuli (no matter how hard you try to engage them in conversation or try to get them to respond, they simply don’t do anything), delusional thinking, hallucinations (auditory being the most common), and social isolation.

Psychosis is a breakdown of that ability, where the real and the unreal start to meld together, and it shows up as delusions, hallucinations, or disordered thinking. Delusions are strongly held and abnormal, often bizarre thoughts that you cannot convince a person out of and won't consider alternative explanations. Hallucinations are things that you sense in the world around you that aren't really there, like sounds, objects, smells, tastes, and sensations. People with schizophrenia may often experience delusions where they think things are moving (not like cars or animals). Things look more sinister. Thoughts becoming loud, feeling as if someone is out to get them, having thoughts that did not originate from them.

While yes, Mapleshade did experience two of these things, you need to understand that these are not exclusive to mental disorders. My caretaker, who has a somewhat healthy mind and no records of disorders, experienced hallucinations of hearing things after Grandpa died. The whole nine yards. These disorders are a lot more complex than people think they are, and I especially think it's childish to call people ableists when they tell you Mapleshade doesn't have psychosis or schizophrenia. What's more ableist is to try and speak about an illness you know nothing more about, watering it down to simple symptoms that can be caused by literally anything.

You're making it seem as if these disorders aren't as serious as they actually are. And it needs to stop. Her hallucinations were caused by grief and stress, as confirmed by the specific author of that book. Yes, grief can cause hallucinations, as I've had them myself. Also, another point I would like to make is that if she really was schizophrenic or had psychosis (this can sometimes exist on its own), then why hasn't it been displayed throughout the series during the few times we've ever seen her? These disorders don't magically go away, and despite how forgetful Erin's are, I don't think they'd just easily forget something like that when she plays a massive role in the two main books.

[aheadofgold]

My Search for Meaning

Searching for meaning feels redundant. I never thought about it until I needed to do it. I lived and moved through life and I didn’t have a lot to question. I’ve had plenty of discomfort, and I've grown from it and allowed it to shape my perspective. I’ve even allowed it to shape my compassion. And over the past year things have changed.  

I’m at least half way through my life. I’m not where I want to be because I had no plan to be anywhere. I thought things fell into place or opportunities approached me or I would meet someone who would change my direction. And those things didn’t happen. So now I search for meaning.  

But everyone searches for meaning. It has been written about by billions of people since the invention of writing. And here I am, in the same dark night of the soul, with only myself to make sense out of it. Their words all make sense, and in certain ways can be comforting, but this is not their life. This is my life. It comes down to actually participating in my experience, making choices for myself, prioritizing my own path, and shedding habits and ruts and expectations. 

At times I've thought myself a sort of regular, ordinary person. I’ve thought that I have an average perspective and that my opinions align with most other people’s. I’ve thought that the same things make sense to most of us and that we generally find the same things reasonable. Now, more than ever, I question that. 

I’ve always been a lover of the wonder and beauty and complexity of life around me. I grew up running around cornfields as they grew higher and higher through the summer. I wandered through streams and woods and climbed trees and sat by fires. I spent cold winter days getting lost in snow, and then lost in my own thoughts in the silence of the frozen world. That is no longer my world, and I realize that for the majority of people I encounter it has never been their world. This is a disappointing disconnect for me to accept. 

It bothers me that our bird populations are declining rapidly. It bothers me that our soils are poisoned by pesticides and fertilizers and motor oils. And it bothers me even more that it doesn’t bother anyone else. It bothers me that people don’t see these things, much less want to talk about them. It bothers me that to most people, humans are the only lives that exist in the world.  

Everything is always in the context of the human experience.  And it makes sense. I’m here writing about my own human experience. We all live in our own minds with our own preferences and worries and things to do. But it’s sad how there is no room for other life. When we speak of war, it is only in reference to how war kills people.  No mention of the flowers and land.  No mention of the rabbits and butterflies.  No mention of the rivers.  No mention of anything but humans.  As if it would be possible to live in a world of only humans. As if we could ever find happiness in a world of just humans.  As if destroying all life around us, polluting the air, water and soil, so long as humans can live, would be ok.  As if that would even be possible.  As if humans can live independently.  As if our food does not come from the land, as if our breath does not come from the sky, as if our blood sweat and tears are not made from the rains and oceans.  As if inspiration and beauty do not come from forests and mountains.  From birdsong and the breeze through trees. 

I feel like no one understands this.  No one sees that all life is interwoven and linked and interdependent. Humans focus on our one piece, as is that one piece stands a chance at survival without the other pieces. This disappoints and distresses me. 

I think maybe the core of wanting to blog is to exist in reality.  As the deep version of myself.  To at least put things out there.  Maybe I don’t try to have these conversations with people in my life.  Maybe my relationships and connections are shallow or short.  Maybe people don’t enjoy talking about deep things or real things.  Maybe I don’t have the right context to have these conversations.  I know that there is more to life than being a monk in a wildflower meadow.  I love being that monk.  That witch.  I love it.  And, I also want to live in the world.  I want to talk to people and do things and go places.  And maybe for now it’s just through the electricity of the internet. 

Or maybe this is quite selfish.  For me to dump and upload and empty and vacate and expose and cut and chop and throw up and out.  Maybe it’s just self-aggrandizing and desiring recognition for my existence.  Maybe that’s it.  It’s possibly that simple.  But I'm bored and tired of just fading away.   

I possibly have a lot of life left in me.  This mid-life crisis can lead me in many different directions.  There were many things that I did not choose in the first half.  Where I was born, who was my family, who were my peers, how I looked, whom I was attracted to, the tools I had to handle life.  But in one way or another, I am choosing almost everything in this next half.  My jobs, my downtime, my hobbies, my friends, my evenings, my disposable income, the media I consume, the places I go. 

Whatever change is happening to me, for me, around me, within me, cannot be managed by force.  I can’t surround it with rules and schedules and punishments and rewards. I have tried that, and I keep trying to try that again because it hasn’t gotten me where I'm trying to go, and so far I haven’t developed a different way.  But I have a new idea: I’m going to love myself into evolution.  These things that I see as obstacles and inconveniences and stressors, I'm going to look for the opportunities they provide. 

There are invasive species all over my land. The Autumn Olive, Multiflora Rose, Oriental Bittersweet, Burning Bush, Garlic Mustard.  For the most part they stress me out. But the other day I saw that they give me the opportunity to get outside and be on the land.  My relationship to my spirituality has become stale and obligatory, but this Samhain I saw that my rituals are opportunities to be under the moonlight and that the moonlight is an opportunity for me to practice my rituals.  I have opportunities to breathe, to rest, to reflect, to write.  I can stop running from my life and start living in it.  The obstacles become my path.  There is nothing for me to avoid, because this is the life that I have and that I'm living.  It’s all I have.  I want to live it.  I don’t want to keep running from it, like it’s misdirected or needs to be corrected.  All of my joys, all of my hesitations, all of my fear and petty annoyances.  These are what I have.   

I’m recognizing a shift for me. The repercussions of that are many when I give myself time to think about them. I need to clear space for this. I need space to expand and contract freely. It means I'm drinking less, which means I’m seeing my friends less. It means noticing when I'm just going through the motions of watching videos or scrolling or playing games and then finding something else, anything else, to do. Maybe that’s boredom. But I need to have open, free space for something new to land and grow. I need to be ok not knowing what I'm doing, and not knowing where I'm going, and being uncomfortable. Maybe for a while. It means to stop people pleasing, and start prioritizing my own life. In some ways it feels like going all the way back to the person I was, wandering through cornfields and jumping streams.  

There was no doubt that I loved who I was back then. That I enjoyed my own company and that I was content to do whatever came up. I didn’t need to have a plan because I was secure in my own position. I was my own stability. It didn’t matter what happened around me, I was sure inside. 

What would it feel like again? If I allowed people to have their opinions without trying to share my perspective on top of it? If I didn’t care whether people liked what I thought or wrote or whether anything I did was helpful to other people? What if I just planted wildflower meadows and watched the life they attract, and built birdboxes and watched them live and breed and fly away, and sat outside in the breeze or the snow or the sunshine and just allowed myself to be happy with what I already have and what I already do? 

I would breathe easier.  I would smile more.  I might even be a nicer person. 

I can’t save the world. I can’t make people care about rabbits and soil health. But I care. And I can live in that, and enjoy that, and support that. I don’t need anyone’s permission for that. And all it would really take is a little shift, a little time, a little space and freedom for these things to take root in my life and transform me. I don’t know if a seed knows what kind of plant it will become. But it reaches down for its water and reaches up for its light, and it becomes whatever it is. I don’t know what I'm going to become. I’m just going to reach for the things that I need. 

[transphilza]

hey cia, do you think cwilbur's story will follow eight by sleeping at last? i always thought it ended in a positive note, the person being able to open themselves up to others and finally healing. as of now i feel like we're in the middle-ish part of the song? when they start to recognize they wanna be seen, be vulnerable and let their guard down, be understood, but don't know how to get there. idk what'd you think?

oh nonnie you are…. poking the bear with this question /pos. i was actually just thinking about this song the other day, i was gonna post about how “you were wrong, you were wrong, you were wrong, my healing needed more than time.” is now ringing more true than ever. i see a lot of similarities with his potential story outcomes and how Eight goes!

that line i mentioned stuck out in particular because i think reality is really starting to sink in, for him, and he’s realizing things won’t be as straightforward (“you were wrong”) as he anticipated. the reality of not being forgiven, no matter how hard he tries.

also, this is part ^ is just so him about cfundy this past stream, isn’t it? hell, the eret stream too. seeing the worst and most broken parts of himself reflected in others…

i agree we’re about halfway through the song, now, hesitantly jittering in the void between getting close and then pulling away from others. i think in order for the vulnerability the song talks about to be fully realized there must be a shift from the cagey, avoidant honesty he’s been practicing as a means to pitch himself best and be as passive to others’ perceptions of him as possible, to true openness. this openness requiring him first being open with Himself, which he’s struggled with, but the line, “because i was sad.” last stream is a HUGE leap forward in this regard. so… the rhythm is not faltering and we are making leaps and bounds, even if we aren’t quite sure in what direction yet

my favorite line in this song has always been “here i am, pry me open — what do you want to know?” …like, baring himself.. not taking himself apart and showing off the pieces to people in a (distinctly self-flagellating) attempt to explain himself in some shattered disconnected way, but rather letting someone else see him in his entirety for who he really is. at THEIR mercy… which is difficult and would not necessarily be the healthiest option depending on who he grants that power over him. no surprise here that i imagine this part of the song will require a really intense conversation with someone who is truly Willing to Understand him to make happen…… c!tommy, anyone?

also random thing i’m just noticing but um actually the line “i’m all in” is making me go kind of insane cause. you know. all of the blackjack shit (hitting on 16 -> bust). dear god

so. okay. here’s the thing about the end of Eight, and the turn to vulnerability, and what that means if we wanna project that onto c!wilbur’s character outcomes. i think Eight itself can be a self-contained ballad of cwilbur and his entire history, OR we can follow the line of reasoning that wilbur himself has used when explaining that the smithereens ending was an ending in of itself, and an ending that will stand alone and tall as an Ending no matter how differently revivebur’s story ends up. so, like, in that regard, Eight is about both the l’manberg storyline AND the revival storyline simultaneously and then you have two parallel interpretations which is. AN ENTIRE THING I COULD GET INTO. for example, being at someone else’s mercy can be about being at the Physical mercy of another (a la giving the sword to phil.) ORRR of course mental and emotional mercy. which is what we hope for This time around.

the imagery of handing someone a shovel and a map after the “bury my innocence line” can be like. of course, giving someone the instructions to unearth those tender parts of yourself. ….or, if we look at the pogtopia storyline, it can be instructions to bury it themselves. Sorry i’m insane

but okay i bring this up bc like. look at these last few bits.

it’s really bittersweet? really… violent and intense? i mean, fucking, shaking the ground, showing up on the front lines, blood and sweat, feeling Shattered — battlefields and explosions, anyone? there’s huge dual meaning in this, huge opportunity for interpretation about either a tragic ending (smithereens) or a hopeful one (the one we are currently looking forward to). and also, Eight ends really fucking abruptly. like, mid-crescendo, the song just Stops, which is very fitting for Nov. 16 but trying to interpret that for a positive ending is admittedly difficult. i could stretch and say something about him not having peaked yet as he thought he had, perhaps an open-ended kind of happy ending, if we wanna get real literal

but, hell. i think this just tells us that it’ll take something violent and intense for wilbur to ever be that open with someone. very reminiscent of what i said about things getting worse before they get better, yeah? i anticipate a similar intensity, to answer your question in the most deranged way possible. i expect the vulnerability to come but i don’t expect it to come easily or even in good circumstances. the last line, “invincible like i’ve never been,” is kind of fucking insane to me, although also it just reminds me of ever-indestructible ctubbo, but. yeah. yeah, i do think/hope he will get there. to the point where he allows himself to be broken and fucked up and accepts those parts of himself and of his past and finds strength in them. right now he finds weakness in them, is ashamed of them, and i don’t anticipate a full fucking self-esteem turnaround at all, because there’s just too much to unpack in so little time

but the vulnerability, yes! the putting himself on the line, yes! the intensity and the way everything feels like it will break apart all over again before it gets close to being mended, yes! yes yes yes! i think once the story is over, Eight will be. Beautiful.

[plungelo]

week IV

indestructibility is a concept i brought up in a conversation the other night and it's something i've only thought to myself but never put into writing. i'm writing about it now to figure out what it actually is, beyond just a word. this is very tangential and veers to and from the point.

my first way of verbalizing indestructibility was to call it "emotional indestructibility" because i knew it had to do with the way i react to things that emotionally affect me. just on the words alone, i think emotional indestructibility sounds like a really bad thing. the words make it sound like its about cutting yourself off from the emotions you have, and that, if indestructibility is your goal, being impervious and stoic to everything around you is a good thing. i think stoicism is definitely a viable way to move through life, but given the love i have for my material being and the emotions and sensations its able to experience, i really don't like the idea of not reacting to things.

months ago i said to myself that, upon moving to the city, i would need to be indestructible in order to [[someone across the street from me is watching the first transformers movie, now i really want to rewatch that]] stay sane after a summer and spring of committed emotional vulnerability and a general philosophy of allowing anything into my mind and running with it. the city presents so much more opportunity for thought and so many things and people are apart of your attention all of time, therefore if i were to be as emotionally/mentally vulnerable all the time, all of the urban stimuli might overwhelm/excite me way too much. so i wanted to be 'indestructible' in order to stop bullshit from affecting me. but by looking back on the last few months, it's clear that the way i pursued indestructibility was just by tuning out the reality around me by blasting music through my headphones or passing the hours by watching bullshit youtube videos––things i rarely felt compelled to do before i moved back to the city. repeatedly tuning out has kind of disconnected me with what's materially happening around me, and i think it's personally a bad method of indestructibility––and a somewhat wasteful method of living in general.

{tangent on tuning out:

it should be said, though, that tuning out can be really great, and necessary in the city. how could anyone be expected to be subjected to a 30 minute train ride with no headphones? it can be an opportunity to explore music, to learn more about your craft, maybe to interact with people online in some way. listening to music, learning, and interacting with people are all incredibly positive things that we should be trying to do. they make us feel fulfilled. but like anything that releases feel-good chemicals into our bodies, these activities can be over-done.

it's in the moments when city life forces me to tune out that i learn a lot about an artist or listen to an album. but then after i get off the train, and into my room, and at my desk. and on my computer, i can basically do it for as long as i want. by constantly giving myself rewards like another episode of King of the Hill or another Broey Deschanel video essay or some time scrolling through Instagram, i feel like i'm reducing the act of being entertained, learning, or socializing to something that can be done with just my fingers on a keyboard and my eyes on a screen. it's far more effective to be engaging with those things through material experience.

this reduction makes me far too used to these concepts and reward systems. therefore, in real life, i am starting to feel numb to a lot of experiences. or, conversely, i can feel easily overwhelmed and lost in certain mundane circumstances. my emotional vulnerability has felt so low over the past few months. its declining presence tracks with my general disposition, i think. i do not want to be this kind of indestructible.}

the kind of indestructibility i had in mind when conceiving of it for myself was not one of emotional detachment or numbness. it was one that allowed me to be vulnerable to everything that threw itself my way. i had to receive every thing as intensely as possible in order to see the truth of it. by being able to see more in every thing i could have a better understanding of the distinction between some thing that should actually emotionally affect (from extremely negatively to extremely positively) me and some thing that is out of my control and thus not worth investing energy into.

for example: projection. everyone talks about projection nowadays and for good reason. i do believe that everything we do and the way we perceive what's around us is always extension of ourselves, for better or for worse. part of what i saw as indestructibility upon moving to the city was making sure that i kept my mind clever/secure enough to be able to distinguish between things people project onto me versus things that should actually be important to my thinking process and incorporated into the ongoing and never-ending development of my sense of self.

when someone projects something onto me*, they are an exterior force that is completely out of my control making a judgement on my character. therefore, what they say to me should not be allowed to influence my own perception of my character. but what i've realized is that it's really fuckin hard to find where the line between projection and accurate identification is.

plus, such a massive part of coming to an understanding of my sense of self over the last year and half has been accepting that other people play a huge role in who i am. we are all collages of those who raise us, those who befriend us, those who betray us, and even the people passing through. so when a judgement or identification (negative or positive) is made on who i am by another person––especially one i care about––i immediately believe it and accept it as a part of myself.

projection is just one example of being affected by something exterior.

i know that i play the main role in understanding and expressing my sense of self. but regardless of that, i am a product of what existence has impressed upon me for the many days i've been in it. when i wanted to be indestructible at the start of my time here, i didn't want to put up walls and not experience anything. i think i just wanted a better filter for what should be allowed to play a part in who i am. filtration is maybe a better concept than indestructibility. yeah.

is filtering also bad? is my automatic acceptance of everything around me as a part of myself problematic to my sense of self? should i really rewatch the transformers movie? these are all questions left to answer, but at least i've worked through a word and can move forward.

*i hope i'm not making it sound like a bunch of people are judging me to my face all the time. the people around me really are generally awesome.

[extraterrestrialdiary]

Another vent...

I feel like my autism/dyspraxia just isn't taken seriously as disabilities. Even though people know. I'm so scared my friends support the "fun" "silly" parts but if they had to deal with the full reality they'd hate me. Haha I get really obsessed with things and talk about them all the time (even that can be upsetting, yes I get not want to hear about them if they have no interest in them so I don't talk but. Thats so much of how I communicate. So already I feel so disconnected if can't tell someone about my special interests) but what about how I am very bad in basic social interactions and I do things very slowly and everything else. I can't do normal conversation I just can't and I feel so disconnected from everyone and it makes me so mad. I have maybe 2 close friends who I feel like I can actually talk to in a meaningful way. Who I act like myself with. I just.... I can't escape the feeling I'm not taken seriously and I struggle with all these things and nobody would actually believe these are struggles. Or I'd get told to just get better at things. When already I try so hard to hide them but they're still so obvious. I hate it

[straightfromthetorturedpoetsdept]

so i've been thinking about something.

the human body does not fucking care what sickness the brain is dealing with, and that has got to be so fucking scary when you're recovering from an ed.

a few years ago i learned that if your body experiences a starvation event, your body will change the way it stores fat to avoid that in future. and they think this might be what causes genetic fatness.

anyway, i was thinking about how a lot of people with ed genuinely can experience starvation events and how, once they recover, it can be so easy to slip into it again because you suddenly start gaining weight and it can happen kind of fast. and now your old methods aren't as effective because your body has changed, y'know? it's harder to lose weight once you've been in recovery

you talk a lot about how eds stem from control issues and even though i don't have one myself, i can definitely imagine how that would make you feel out of control.

your body's just trying to keep you alive but your ed brain doesn't understand that.

it really makes you think about how ed recovery isn't 'oh, just start eating properly again' because your body might be ready for that but your brain isn't. recovery feels like you're losing control and your body's fighting against you. there's so little care or understanding of what ed recovery really is and that's pretty frustrating.

Huge trigger warning for the content but yes to all of this anon.

I just don't understand the disconnect between EDs and other forms of mental illness. If you wouldn't tell your suicidal friend to just love themselves through the bad thoughts, why would you say that to someone with an ED?

It misunderstands what an ED does, how it functions, and why it occurs at such a fundamental level but there's such a huge stigma over women with EDs being vain/self-centered that no meaningful public conversation can be had about this topic without people making other people's EDs about themselves.

It happened with Taylor Swift, but it happens all the time in my and everyone who is in recovery's daily lives too. People tell you they want you to be honest about your mental health until you express how you "feel fat" sometimes when you look in the mirror and now people think you've confessed to thinking they're the ugliest thing you've ever seen in your entire life? It's really wild because if I was to say something about my autism and how before my diagnosis, I "felt broken" or even "felt evil inside" y'all would understand I'm talking about my own personal experience with being undiagnosed and not making a blanket statement about how I think everyone is evil inside?

I've seen a lot of tiktoks demonizing women who say "I don't feel like this about any other body but my own" and I am struggling to see how that's a bad thing- you feel? Like, it's so prevalent on tiktok to demonize your thinner friends for feeling bad about their bodies and it's like are you even listening to yourself? Like, honest to god, I think these people just forget that EDs are MENTAL ILLNESSES and that it truly doesn't fucking matter what you want to think or even feel. You can't will away mental illness.

Do you know how scary it can be to be suicidal, for example? I've been at war with myself because I don't want to die but my brain does, and it's just so offensive that people think they know how to help you better than what you're asking for as help? I think that's really what irritates me about the discourse around EDs.

It's this air of "we know better for people with EDs what's good for them" and like the advice is just repackaged toxic positivity bullshit that just invalidates the biological reality of MENTAL ILLNESS. Like, idk, i just wish people understood it's a fucking mental illness and literally ANYONE can have it.

Like, y'all want people with EDs to speak up and then get offended when we say something you take the wrong way because of your own personal trauma and not because of anything we actually said to offend you.

How else are we supposed to speak about these issues? How else are we supposed to communicate that we fucking know it's an issue with OUR thoughts about OUR bodies because we're only having these thoughts about OUR bodies and nobody else's? How else are we supposed to communicate how communicating on how fat we look triggers our EDs (in the case of the anti-hero bathroom scene and the people who are like why couldnt she not use the word fat and it's like... because she was literally called fat in 2017 when she recovered from her ED... she was talking about how the word fat triggers her ED... as evident by the tone of the video. let me not i'm getting ranty again).

Anyways, I say all of this to say- it's exactly like this, anon. You know your thoughts are the issue, just like I LOGICALLY know that not everyone hates me and wishes me dead but that doesn't stop my MENTAL ILLNESS from telling me to kill myself anyways.

It's just tiring at times when I have to constantly remind people that they don't know me, my ED, or my history and what they think is "helpful" advice is just harmful bullshit that doesn't do anything but make people feel guilty for having "impure" thoughts. that's really what this shit comes down to- you hate your body and that's wrong. if you love yourself, you'll be cured. and i just don't know how else to really explain to people that shit is fucking problematic lmfao.

[nightchevalier]

The Music Series: Let Light Be Light by Lizzy McAlpine

The soundtrack of the “Love or Whatever It May Be” series of my life. 

The song that helped me navigate through dating life and accepting good things for what they are, learning that you are able to accept love despite having to struggle through feeling unworthy of things. This song really helped me accept, be grateful and cherish things for what they truly are. I used to think I was incapable of getting love that I want or deserve. I thought that for as long as the person gave the slightest bit of attention, I would just hold on to it or chase it till they run out of it. When in reality, good things are copious. They are not rare, they are everywhere for as long as you observe close enough. 

“I think that he’s good for me, this boy that I found,” 

Through this series of my life, I would associate this song to a boy that would make me feel loved in some type of way. The individuals that classify would be the boy that stays up to call me, listening to my aspirations because I adored his alma meter or the boy who calls me with a different introduction, pretending to be a MCD drive thru or what not, because he knows I am a sucker for humor or the boy who I took strolling around Jakarta, making me feel like I’m in high school again or the boy who simply shared the same music taste as me and would always question how I am handling everything all at once. 

“ I know he wants me and that makes me happy, So why do I feel so weird?” 

All I’m trying to say here is that, they were able to give me something good and they were good to me. I felt cared for and loved but the thing is, what I have grown to realize is that I was only in love with these offerings that they were able to give and not of the person. 

“ But when I'm with him my shit gets ignored, Is that why I feel so weird?

Let’s face it, the biggest reason why these men stick around is because I am considered as a “good listener”. It was the one compliment that all these men had in common towards me. Always talking about themselves and would spend hours just talking but what they failed to do is to listen. When I don’t want to listen or when I decide to speak out, sometimes they just fade out and leave. It’s crazy how I was ghosted for confessing my feelings, just because this person was just super emotionally unavailable to process that people have feelings. 

“ I don't like getting attached, It makes me feel like I've done something bad 'cause I'm not dependent and I know that. So why am I scared I'm reliving That part of my past?” 

The only person I ever genuinely liked through this series was the biggest jerk and the most emotionally unavailable human being I have ever met. He was a pro player. If I could explain what he’s like, he is the epitome of not having cell service in a deserted island. Super disconnected from everything and all that he can think of is himself and how to keep an image. Being the most hopeless romantic person I am, with the drive of a child when not able to get something they want, I chased for him. I got attached playing his games and I was dependent on the idea that I could change him. I could make him love me somehow and that to me was insane. I felt like my old self was creeping in. The obsession. Going ballistic over the his repeated detachment behaviors. It was insane. 

“ Is this what it supposed to feel like?” 

At the end of it all, I realized that through this experience, I was able to learn so much. I learnt how to set boundaries. I learnt how to love myself and also even navigated through only allowing people that I actually liked to be having conversations with me. To be able to be in full control of my entity was the thing I have been searching for all this time. Not someone to validate my feelings but for me to actually love myself. Though I have so much love aspirations that is yet to come true but I have decided to give that to the universe and take my time. 

In the mean time, I will just let light be light :) 

[transinclusionary]

Nothing racist about my statement, I just know delusional people like yourself tend to hang out with either A- delusional people or B- people who take advantage of said delusions. The fact you saw race there is your own fault and shows how you truly see POC's, including yourself, that's just sad. Again your partner isn't real and no your anime pillow doesn't count.

I love how you manipulate a conversation to both make yourself not racist and me racist. It's really impressive mental gymnastics to say, no you, to someone saying you were being racist. But here let me explain.

You assuming that I hang out with people who spike drugs is incredibly disrespectful. The fact that you don't even know that there is a fentanyl problem going around in the US implies that you cared more about insulting me than the people who have died to spiked drugs. I smoke CBD I buy from the store, not that it's any of your business. You barely have any awareness of reality and who I am. You're so hurt by the things I've said you're pulling out some of the most hurtful things you know how to say. While th implication that I hang out with actual murderers (which is what people who spike drugs are often), it shows a disturbing disconnect between your perception of me and who I am. You accuse people of being delusional, but you're the one who doesn't seem to understand who I am. Is it so hard to believe that someone well adjusted, the well spoken, and hates terfs isn't someone who spikes drugs with fentanyl? It's racist. Just because you didn't call me a slur doesn't mean the implications aren't there. So kindly don't gaslight me. Stigma behind weed is intrinsically connected to racism. But yea, what this account screams is I'm barely connected to reality.

Even if someone is delusional does that mean they should be brought up in online arguments to be insulted?? It's really sad to see videos of people who have a very small grasp of the world around them. I wouldn't want to use that as an insult because it means that being delusional is a bad thing when people literally cannot control their brains. It's not kind language. Same with psychopath, sociopath, etc. Mental health is no matter to be insulting someone over. What if I did have delusions? Have you ever heard someone who delusions talk, it's clear how afraid they are of a world that they can't understand. If you want to insult me, keep mental health out of it

Anyways, my partner is asleep right now holding me while I type this. We have an entire Sunday together so don't be mad if I don't respond to your attempts to hurt my feelings.