#also fuck you i love Scherezade

[boingolungs]

Study week is coming and I generally like to type a whole summary at the end of the semester when one ends. Holy Fuck I've been at home most of this semester. Like the amount of times I've actually went to my Uni is either at the single digits or barely past the double digits. So yeah. I wonder if it wasnt for the pandemic how often would I actually be at school. I asked my sister and she just said that I probably would've been there a whole lot. So yeah Fuck. Anyway as an art major looking back I made more shit I like I did this semester compared to last. Which I would probably upload images of but no. I keep my Uni art away from my big tiddy Tumblr Twitter art. Which I haven't done in a while but I'll get back on the horse. Soooo...... A painting I did do that I really liked is this weird nun painting and honestly...

Imma make a big tiddy spooky nun! If the good ol book is telling the truth I'm probably going to hell but considering how I like cute guys and scary chicks I'm probably going to hell either way so that's groovy.

So now I only have two semesters of uni left. It would be one but the art higher ups like to fuck over students so a class that is required that I haven't taken yet is only on during the fall semester. So I'm just gonna be getting as much credits I need this semester and finish up the last class next semester. And then I'll probably get a job for some experience.

Who knows maybe the winds push me a different way and I'll be married to a rich older woman (still like milfs) and live a comfortable life or a cute dude whose is a hard worker. I didn't say dilf cause I don't like dilfs. Hell who knows maybe I'll be a vtuber or get back into IT. (I hated IT)

But let's get a bit existential since like only two mutuals will read this also hey love you and appreciate you homie! Are you ok I hope you are. Anyway the existential dread I wanna hop onto for awhile. Not what happens when I die but more so do you ever wonder what happens to where you live in the next 10 years? Now I'm not talking about family I'm talking about landscape and environmental shit because holly balls to the walls when the city you live in is extremely reliant on a lake that is drying up and you live in a desert. Boy howdy are you fucked! Because the lake I live next to or too is gonna be gone in the next 10 years. Which bring some to this. Where would I go? Who would I be by that time? Will I still be the guy I am? Or maybe something new?

And you know what the answer to all those questions are. Who fuckin knows.

Right now however you know what I'm thinking about?

THIS FUCKING BITCH WHO IVE BEEN TRYING TO SUMMON GOD DAMMNIT FIRST THEY DIDNT GIVE RAIKO, THEY DIDNT GIVE ME VAN GOGH, THEY DIDNT GIVE ME, RAIKOU AGAIN, AND THEY DIDNT GIVE ME A COSMIC HORROR GIRL, AND THEY WONT GIVE ME THIS SNAKE BITCH GOD FUCKING DAMNIT JUST GIVE ME THE SNAKE BITCH HAVE PITTY ON ME IVE BEEN GETTING SERVANTS I DONT FUCKING WANT LIKE COME THE FUCK ON JUST GIVE ME THE SNAKE BITCH IM NOT SINKING MONEY INTO FGO SHES THE ONLY SERVANT I WANT FOR A GOOD WHILE COME THE FUCK ON I BLAME MY WEIRD FUCKING LUCK FOR NOT GETTING HER I SWEAR TO GOD AN I GOT COCK TEASED BY SUMMONG A GOLDEN CARD SABER WHO WASNT FUCKING IBUKI DOUJI AKA SNAKE BITCH INSTEAD I GOT SOME SABER FACE I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT JUST GIVE ME THE SNAKE BITCH

Also it turns out I haven't been eating Philadelphia sandwiches I've just been eating fajita burgers with cheese

[loweredexpectations365]

Rituals

So, I guess I’ve been living under a rock, but I just learned that spring cleaning (outside of like cleaning just your house or garage or whatever) is a whole concept. There’s that whole spring rebirth and renewal my yoga teachers talk about, and apparently it’s like a known thing to everyone that “spring is a great time to regroup and re-prioritize and re-invent” and stuff. I was not aware of this previously, but I think it’s good for me to keep in mind, since right now, the only choice I have is to reset, and make impactful changes in my life. If I don’t, well, there is no if I don’t. I have to.

My life for the past...forever, has been a perpetual fight with myself. I was raised in a strict environment, so I’m really bad with rules. Like, I just don’t like following them. I was always forced to follow rules and so the moment I realized I actually have free-will (very late in life, like everything else), I started exercising it, probably too much. But I also have a desperate and compulsive need to please people, so I really want to be able to respect rules, laws, disciplines, routines, all of those things. So instead, I just pretend I believe in and respect rules, and say yes to whatever people tell me, and then do whatever the hell I want. It’s the easiest way to be myself in a world I don’t naturally fit into.

An example of this is my total and complete inability to comply with the rules of time. I am never, ever on time for anything (except very necessary things that would absolutely destroy my life if I missed - but even then it’s a close call). I think time is like some kind of abstract thing I can just stretch and extend whenever I want. I don’t manage my time like normal people do. I wake up whenever, I do stuff, and I NEVER get to any social event on time ever. As you can imagine, I have a lot of friends that love this quality about me. The thing is, my people pleasing side is what gets me there, to show up. And people keep me around because I really know how to show up. I commit to the moment and I am present and I listen and I engage and I follow the rules of pleasing people. But without that, my rebellious side would probably have me skip whatever I want and show up here and there, probably just when alcohol is involved.

I’m a notoriously immature creature. I’ve never let go of my youth, like at all (I’m also very bad at letting go, so I’ve been told). In some ways my immaturity is one of my favorite features about myself, but it also has a lot of drawbacks. The positives are that I’m a lot of fun to be around, I laugh freely, make stupid jokes, I’m relatively down to earth, I’m not easily intimidated by other humans and because of that, I’m not very threatening or competitive (that’s not to say I don’t get intimidated, cause I definitely do - but I think I’m too oblivious to be a normal, socially acceptable level of intimidated most of the time). The drawbacks are that I’m loud, emotional, undisciplined, disorganized, fidgety, and severely lack focus, discipline and direction. Okay so there are more cons than pros, whatever, I don’t want to talk about it. Literally this is me (except I never autonomously wake up at 7am ever in my life):

I guess what I’m getting at here is that by nature, I have a lot of bad habits. It took me a really, really long time to accept that I have to change those bad habits. Like right now. And that I’m responsible for making that change. People say acceptance is the first step to recovery, but I’m not sure about that. I think accepting a situation isn’t enough, it’s accepting the need to change RIGHT NOW that’s necessary. Accepting the responsibility for your actions and your future. I’ve known about my bad habits for a really long time. I just have procrastinated on changing them. I’ve always thought, “eventually, I’ll get better.” Like it’s not really my responsibility to make difficult changes, I can just wait for life to make it easy for me. But eventually is never, and all that bullshit about the time is now is unfortunately true, I’m finding out. Anyway, I need to like, “spring clean” (I hate everything) those habits out. And, as they all say, the best thing about hitting rock bottom is that there’s nowhere to go but up. I firmly believe that last week I hit rock bottom. Now I have to work on going up. And growing up. Yuck.

Speaking of growing up, the quote below was written by the fucking singer from My Chemical Romance. Who knew he could be so deep? I used to listen to MCR back in 2006, when I was at my peak immaturity level, so it’s ironic that I’m coming back to this when I’m trying grow up. But I get it. Like, I really get it.

I think I died inside last week. I don’t know how or why I’m still here, but I am, and that’s what matters. So, I have to, like a goddamn phoenix, rise from my ashes.

Anyone who knows me knows I’ve never believed in or loved myself. It’s not something I know to do. I pretty much spend the majority of my time hating myself and everyone around me, and believing in close to nothing. The only thing I’ve managed to force myself into believing is that my self hatred results in self deprecating humor, and my natural warmth is comforting, and if I can make enough people laugh and happy and comfortable, I can sustain my existence just a little longer. I can get the love and belief from others to fuel myself for a moment, and it works. Until that moment is gone and I am alone and miserable and lost and confused. I haven’t learned yet to use my own belief and love for myself to keep me going. But the way I’ve been living is unsustainable, and if I don’t learn to love and believe in myself, I’ll just keep struggling forever. I hate that, because I literally don’t even like typing that I have to learn those things. I’m like leaning away from the computer as I type. This notion hits a deep, insecure part of me that is scared I’m not good enough to ever be loved, even by ME. Isn’t that crazy?!

My mom always says, “Scherezad’s the type of kid that has to fall on her face to learn a lesson, you can’t tell her, she won’t listen. She has to learn on her own.” That couldn’t be more true. And it remains true now that I am a stupid adult (who the hell allowed me to turn 30?!). I absolutely fell on my face last week. I am still face down. But I’m wiggling my fingers and toes and trying to muster the strength to peel myself back up. I am trying to use the energy from the spring rebirth vibes and the love from my people to create new rituals, positive changes, and new perspectives.

It’s really fucking difficult, let me tell you. I do not want to do this. I want to take the easy road, numb the pain and deny my problems. I want to stick to my bad habits, and pretend they don’t exist like I have been. I don’t want to rip and break and build new muscles. I don’t want to reflect and look within and heal and get better, because it’s HARD. It requires change, and oh my god do I hate change.

But my face is literally smashed onto the ground. I’m up against it. And if I want to get up (most days I don’t), I have to do what’s hard, even though I don’t want to do anything at all. What I finally figured out is that even if I’m not strong enough to do everything myself, I have support, and people to help me get strong because for some unknown reason, they care a lot about me. And because of that, I have to really like, give it my all. Then, if I fail, at least I know I did everything I could. Cause up until now, if I’m being completely honest, I haven’t truly tried to be better. I’ve tried to take the easy right and escape. And that sucks.

I’m spring cleaning. Starting over. Growing up. Creating new and healthy rituals to replace those old bad habits. Whatever you want to call it. I am doing it, super late in life (did I mention I’m 30 in this post yet?), thank you very much, but I’m doing it because I owe it to the people that put their life on hold to be there for me. And also, I guess, because I fucking CAN.

[viperslang]

this, too, will last

cn : clinical depression

what remains invisible to most people outside the spectrum - depression makes you doubt any emotional closeness as the inception of a bruise. how do you tell someone you adore that they are also focal to your trajectories of avoidance? especially when you began by experiencing them as nothing but sheer rocket flares of joy. people like me - we are always scared, tottering on the hinges of this fear that you will hurt us if you come close enough. because those whom we allowed this closeness very often did and in such unspeakable, tortuous ways that we still are rattled to our very ribs. the only way i know i love something is when i contemplate all the ways i can leave it, slowly. shutting myself up right at the mouth of a confession. it is a form of learned helplessness and it constructs itself as a milieu of negative taxis. it is a permanent circling of the hedgehog's dilemma with or without your own individual's volition. in order for happiness to exist, one must accept another fully, without being continually suspended in some sunless indecision and yet the moment one tenders into the instinctive appetite and accepts the other is the beginning of this retaliatory wavering, of tabling methods to a punctilious rejection. i keep thinking of nicole brossard - "i can't get close to any you". it is hard to tell if i can't or i don't want to - it is always unclear whether it is a matter for inability or invisibility. depression is anger with its tongue cut out so what i know to do best is fold within myself and stay silent for as long as it takes to forget all beginnings. sitting on the floor right now and looking at this array of childhood-to-adolescence photographs, i am trying to locate that specific moment in time where the mind dichotomized, was knuckled under a reddened sheet of water in the bathtub. i walk clothed in doubts. all the time. people come with suggestions & instructions. people don't know how deep the the tear has trailed. on so many days, i have prayed with whatever i can endure of faith (which in itself is very little, tbh) to be something/anything other than this. this exhaustion that runs from fold to fold, from rim to root - it is means for lengthy eclipses. so long i have thought of pizarnik writing - irse, y no volver. & then i grieve for what i lose knowingly, with all that i can still muster to hold without harming in myself. am angry not because i don't understand but simply because i don't have a choice not to. char says - je suis né comme le rocher, avec mes blessures. (i was born like the rock, with my wounds.) this fucking rock & all its wounds. the rock that doesn't relent. am always making up for some perceived lack. am no one's anything even when am always present because if am not then i fear i will be forgotten because am that minute to my own modes of being. clinical depression makes me go from ember to arson in o to 30 & there is nothing that can slip itself in between to discipline the fire. & who is left with all the burning, body traced in the smell of charred tires, gasoline leaking from under floorboards & a throatful of smoke? - me, of course. always me.   & sitting amidst the flames i still wonder about how do i extend the "possibility of life" between myself and another. any other.

(scherezade siobhan)

[jinxedncharmed]

Have i ranted lately about how much I fucking love “City of brass?” I fucking love this book. I don’t know how many times I’ve reread it. I’m slowly annotating it. I have “kingdom of copper"s release date on my calendar. Why isn’t everyone talking about this book? It’s incredible and pushes all my book buttons. I can’t even express the reasons I love it in full depth. I can’t like adequately convey why I love it and how much I love it. I mean, broadly speaking, one reason I do is the setting. Unique, you don’t see a lot of western fiction setting its stories in 1800 Afghanistan, with characters both nonwhite and Muslim. I haven’t read many fantasy stories about a realm inspired by Islamic and Arabic folklore and myth. "Aladdin,” of course, Scherezade, and I’ve read some Conrad and Kipling, and HR Haggard, and probably a random short story or two, but not a lot. And of course given our political climate, why risk featuring anyone Muslim at all? So it’s great to read a fantasy featuring PoC and an amazing pantheon of mythic creatures and stories that I’m not familiar with. Second reason to love it is the incredible story. So much political intrigue! There are so many mysteries remaining at the end of the book, driving me nuts! What is the truth behind Dara’s ring, is it just his enslaving charm or is it a counter to the seal? Is Nahri actually Menizheh’s daughter, or Menizheh in disguise, or not related at all? We dont even know if she’s a shafit or a daeva. Was anything the king said to Nahri and Dara in their first meeting true? Was Menizheh his lover? Was she really a friend? Or is he just playing the game, making the soothing remarks expected by constituents who wait to hear what a politician says about a dead rival? How’d she fake her death? Or did she? Is Ali the king’s true son? Did Zaynab try to murder Nahri that first night, not just get her drunk? What’s Nasreen’s real story? Is Jamshid secretly a Nahid? Are all Daevas now descended from the Nahids, as part of a rebellion plan? This isn’t even like a tenth of the questions I have. Very engaging and entertaining story. Related to that, the writing is, in the technical sense, near flawless. The narrative technique of alternating point of view characters per chapter is nothing new, but it is utilized to great effect, allowing chakraboty to control the pacing of the book, and boy does she, keeping readers on a roller coaster of cliff-hangers and gasp-inducing betrayals. Textbook tricks of conflict-driven storytelling, such as misunderstandings, just-missed-each-others, deliberate sabotage, multiple players with unique motivations, and plain dumb luck, are employed perfectly, keeping the story realistic and playing fair with your reader, keeping them guessing with misdirection that would be the envy of any master magician. The catty politics are deliciously indulgent, better than anything on daytime soaps. The players are all so clever, and sometimes they’re devious and sometimes they’re shameless, and it is fun! The way it is written is phenomenal, the way that writing tools are used is perfect. Like, when you’re teaching writing, use “City of brass” to illustrate what those tools are, how to use them successfully, and how to tweak but not break them. Now well I will say this, that I thought some of the dialogue, particularly regarding the syntax and vocabulary of the speakers, is sometimes anachronistic. There is also a lot of information that is tough for a reader to absorb, such as unfamiliar/made-up terminology, unfamiliar character names, and a complex and unfamiliar setting. I caught and better understood a lot more of the various plot points and political thorns in my second read-thru, thereby further enriching my experience of the story. So all that world building exposition can be overwhelming and move a bit too fast in some places. Another huge reason to love this book is its morality. For me, this is a book where it’s hard to label your hero and villain. Who’s in the wrong, and who’s in the right? Was it wrong for the Nahids to murder shafit? Their covenant to Suleiman was to leave humans alone, and they were terrified to let the djinn breed with them, so does that justify killing shafit? Is Dara right when he says in his time the shafit were treated like animals, as subhuman? Does that justify his prejudice, if that was all he was ever taught? Sins of the parents passing to children and all that; bigotry learned from parents’ example? Are the Qahtanis morally justified in overthrowing the Nahids in order to protect the shafit? Or is that last disqualifier a dealbreaker, and they overthrew the Nahids for their personal benefit, not for the shafit? Does it matter whether they give the former or the latter as their reason? If they aren’t morally justified in their coup, is Dara ethically right to start a rebellion? After all, Qathani killed his family well not personally. Was Dara right to take his revenge on his human masters, after he was enslaved and heavily abused? Why or why not? I love that I can’t parse out in a logical, moral process with empirical evidence, which party has a legit grievance and which’s being a drama queen. I really applaud chakraboty for pulling off this immensely difficult technique in creating a true morally ambiguous story. She does it better than Rowling, as in HP good and evil were the usual cliched stereotypes and people were easily sorted into the correct side, good or evil. The gray morality is a massive plus for the book. And finally, the characters. I have strong feelings for these characters, and that's what writers want, for readers to react in some way any way to their character. I like Nahri, she’s clever and jaded and trying to survive political machinations, and I want to know who wants her and why, who her family is, why she was abandoned. I want her to come out the winner in this trilogy, whatever that means. And I ship Nahri/Dara, it is the OTP, as is Muntadhir/Jamshid, Jamshid on top, shut up its my headcanon. I hate Ali, and it’s fun but also a little shameful to do so. He is the oldest 18-year-old ever. Hes a sanctimonious prick, a holier than thou cultist. But boy does he have a rough time, everything goes wrong for him despite his nauseating piety and seriousness, and at first it’s funny to see him get suckered but then the stakes go up and you sympathize with him. I’m interested in his emotional development, what the psychological arc is going to be for him. I mean he needs to get fucking laid so bad. Also he’s like half crocodile now so we’ll see where that goes. And of course Dara. I fucking love Dara so fucking much. He’s just so extra all the time. Raising those shedu, breaking that glass table with his bare fist, calling the king a sandfly to his face, tipping over his teacup and pouting, the way he killed the rukh, the way he reacts to nightmares. Dry and witty, and more clever than you think, and cunning. Unbelievably fucked in the head. Fragile, outrageously delicate, like two triggers away from a complete and murderous breakdown. A serious PTSD sufferer with mental trauma from an actually horrible life, even before his 14 centuries of slavery. That boy has suffered, and it’s made him hard and focused and isolated, even while his high intelligence keeps him spewing shrewd insults and nailing his power moves, and his emotional self remains a soft gooey ball buried deep inside. Honorable, racist, judgmental, a man who follows his moral code with integrity, arrogant, powerful, a hero, a war criminal, a legend, a demon, a scourge, a victim, a pawn, a master of his own destiny, clever, rude, obstinate, dead?, genuinely kind, noble, grieving, dignified, mysterious, gentlemanly, depressed, and dangerously fucked up. Oh I love it, ahhh, the angst tastes so good, i'm creasing my eyes in pleasure lol and the hurt/comfort aspect, ooooooh it just hits every nerve ending in a perfect ping. It won’t be a happy ending for him, a tragic hero like that always dies, ask Shakespeare, but I really wish he would make it, not just live but have a fucking happy ending, he gets the girl, he gets the throne, he gets a therapist and a bottle of Cymbalta and a recommendation to smoke one joint twice a day. Please he deserves a happy ending, what with all his suffering. The way Sirius and Remus both deserved happy-ever-afters. The way Gen does too, in the “Queen’s Thief” series, and which he also probably won’t get. But oh man I want Dara to be happy, whatever that means. Anyway, this book rocks, dying for the next one, everyone should read this book, it is fucking fun.