#and now i'm feeling hopeless

[balkanradfem]

Dear gyns, I'm here to share some despair.

If you've followed me for a while, you'll know that a few months ago, I've injured my neck, and had very limited movement from then on - I can't walk for longer than 15 minutes, I can't run, can't lift anything heavy, can't sit for a long time, I can't even sleep with a pillow, I have to lie down on a flat surface. I injured my neck by falling off a tree, and then carrying heavy loads of chestnuts, or at least that's where the pain began.

I've had a CT and it showed very minimal results, and I had to wait for 2 months to get seen by a specialist - and this exam was today. The woman asked me a lot of questions, some of them personal, about my family, employment, living situation - and checked if I could move my neck in all directions, which I could. It was continuous activity that would trigger my pain.

And then she decided that the pain was from psychological cause and told me to go a psychiatrist. I was stunned and barely managed to hold back tears.

She wrote her own opinion which included 'unmarried', like it was a symptom of psychological illness, and told me to ask psychiatric help. I rebelled and tried to explain, that I already do experience psychosomatic pain, but this is different, it's caused by movement, I can feel it while walking. Then she said she would, just in case, let me take a MRI, but she's confident it wouldn't show a thing, and then I should go and seek psychiatric help.

I'm now worried to death that the MRI would show nothing, and I would be left in this pain all to myself. I don't know what is wrong, I don't know why my neck hurts this bad, but it's a world away from other psychosomatic pain I experience (which is, pain in all my muscles and back, pain in my joints, and it goes away when my psychological state is good! On good days I can be fine! Neck pain does not correlate with my psychological state, but with movements, impact to my body. I am not fine on a good day.).

If I could get appropriate psychiatric help, I would, and if it would resolve the injury pain, I'd do it in a heartbeat, but there's nobody in this country who would diagnose me with ptsd or other disorders I have, they're not believed to be true disorders for women yet. I'm scared and don't know how to proceed. I'll get the MRI, but if it shows nothing, and my pain is still there, do I just live like this? Without being able to take a walk, or lift a bag of flour? Without running, or roaming the forests, without being able to carry water to the garden?

I am falling depressed, this is more than I can deal with.

[lazylittledragon]

do any other artists feel like. yeah you're a 'good artist' because you draw things that look nice, but like. TECHNICALLY? you're really not great

i really hate that i can recognise that yes, my art is good, but is it VARIED? is it dynamic?? is my anatomy good? is it full of texture and colour theory? do i know how to do This? can i do That? no, not really. and that's quite painful actually

[queenlucythevaliant]

Northern Lights

.

I heard a voice that cried, “Balder the Beautiful is dead, is dead!” 

.

Who knows what to call the lonely exhilaration of gazing out into a bright Northern sky? Who can name it? 

Jill could.

It was the same feeling that came to her at the teetering edge of a cliff at the end of the world. The same feeling as when she said her goodbyes to Puddleglum and Scrubb before they freed the prince. It was the same feeling that engulfed her now, sitting in the professor’s library with a volume of poetry before her. 

.

The wild northern wastes were well named: utterly wild, perfectly desolate, and terribly Northern. 

It was lonely there and often cold, but the sky was an endless whorl of gales and gray clouds. The stones were indigo under the pale winter sunlight, and at sunset they glowed a soft gold, as though lit from within. The gorges and moors lay before her, and Jill loved them for their vastness and their distance. Little grew in that country, but that which did was full of vigor. The grass was short and coarse. Every tree was victorious. 

On a still, deep breathing winter night, Jill lay on her back beneath a covering sky. It seemed beautiful to her, rich and strong and glorious. Her eyes drank in the breadth of it until her tears began to blind her. Yet even then, she still couldn’t look away.

She felt bigger here in the wastes, like the landscape. Stronger, wider. The further she walked, the more she felt herself stretch out. One of these days, maybe, she would catch hold of herself at the edge and tug, and Jill Pole would open up clear as the Northern sky. 

.

And through the misty air passed the mournful cry of sunward sailing cranes.

.

The thing that surprised Jill most about the battle with the serpent was this: there wasn’t any yelling. Always, it seemed, whenever she read stories about people fighting with swords, the combatants would let loose some guttural yell before their blows fell. They would scream and writhe in pain as they died. They would shout instructions to their fellows, “Look out!” or “Hit him there!” But the whole affair with the serpent passed with very little noise. 

The poison-green coil constricted around the prince; he raised his arms and got clear, struck the serpent hard, and then Scrubb and Puddleglum dispatched the creature with heavy, hacking blows. The monster died writhing, but not screaming. And then it was over. 

The thing that surprised Jill most about the moments before battle was, of course, the noise. She could hear her own heartbeat in her ears. She couldn’t stop listening to her own breathing. Every footstep rang out like a gong, and any words exchanged rang with a kind of finality that made them sound louder than anything. 

“You are of high courage,” Rilian told her when it was over. 

Yet the thing in Jill’s chest just then didn’t feel like courage. It was a deep breath, a plunge, and a release. It was loud and quiet all at once, till she was standing, blinking in the night air as snowballs whizzed round her, and maybe that was something like courage after all. 

.

And now, there was a stirring in her chest as she reread the words on the page. Sing no more / O ye bards of the North / Of Vikings and of Jarls! / Of the days of the Eld / preserve the freedom only / nor the deeds of blood! 

She thought of grief. Of freedom. 

The lonely ache in her belly grew stronger. She felt herself uplifted into the huge regions of sky that were just beyond those cliffs, weightless as the breath beneath her buoyed her up, further, further…

.

When she saw Caspian up close, Jill thought that he looked like the sort of person who was meant to live in a castle. A silly thought, perhaps, since she knew he was a king– only she wasn’t thinking of Cair Paravel. No, Jill was picturing the ruins of an old British castle she’d visited once on holiday. She still remembered how the stonework had loomed over her, all towering arches and crumbling walls. That was where Caspian seemed to belong. He had an air of ancient tragedy about him. 

When Rilian disappeared, all things had wept but one. The serpent coiled beneath the earth and flicked its forked tongue, spewing poison. 

Now, the king half rose to bless his son. He whispered a few words as he caressed Rilian’s cheek, words meant only for those beloved ears. Jill saw Caspian’s lips move and wondered what a man like that could possibly say, when time ran so short. 

.

They laid him in his ship, with horse and harness, as on a funeral pyre. Odin placed a ring upon his finger, and whispered in his ear.

.

Jill furtively took Myths of the Northmen and held it up to the professor with a question in her eyes. She was still shy around him and Miss Plummer, though she wished she wasn’t. 

“Would you like to take that with you?”

“...Please.”

.

It takes a certain kind of person to be exhilarated by the heights. You’ve got to love vastness more than you fear falling. 

.

They walked to the train station with an autumn wind blowing hard, and though Jill couldn’t fathom why, she turned and saw Lucy grinning, fierce and joyful– grinning and reaching a hand out towards her friend.

Jill reached back and grabbed it. “What will you do, once we’re back in Narnia?” she asked. 

The wind blew harder. The feeling of anticipation grew and grew, until it felt so big that she couldn’t dream of containing it. And there was Lucy, holding Jill’s hand and laughing like it was easy.

.

Preserve the freedom only, not the deeds of blood!

.

The second time Jill went to Narnia, she found herself not at its edge, but at its end. 

The thing about the Norse apocalypse is: it feels believable. It doesn’t reach beyond earth’s horizon to pull down hope beyond hope. It’s only the kind of courage that hopeless humans have: you are going to die, so you might as well die bravely. 

They found the last king of Narnia bound to a tree. His eyes were faintly red from crying, and his wrists and ankles red from the coarseness of his fetters. 

In the Norse myths, Loki broke free of his fetters at the end of the world. He escaped to the helm of a ship made from the fingernails of the dead.

The last king of Narnia fell forward onto the ground when Eustace cut his bonds. Jill crouched down beside him and watched as he rubbed feeling back into his legs. He wasn’t so much older than her, she thought. Jill was sixteen years old; the last king of Narnia could not be older than twenty-two. 

In the myths, the gods were ancient, hewn from the bodies of giants old as the earth. 

Jill put out a hand and helped the last king of Narnia to his feet. Not for the last time, she shivered. Something deep inside her (deeper than her chest, than her heart, than the marrow of her bones, deep as her soul, deeper) was singing an elegy and she didn’t know why, or how, or where it had come from. The king clutching her hand, who could have been her older brother, would have no heir.

Yet when he asked, “Will you come with me?” Jill could only smile. 

“Of course,” she said. “It’s you we’ve come to help.”

.

And the voice forever cried, "Balder the Beautiful is dead, is dead!"

.

“This really is Narnia at last,” murmured Jill. The springtime wood had little in common with the wintry lands she had traveled the last time she was here– but it awakened the same feelings of Northernness in her chest. 

Their party may as well have been the only people in the world, for how isolated their little wooden path seemed. Yet it wasn’t lonely, really, cocooned in all that green with the wind in the leaves and the primroses nodding and blue of the sky peeking through above. 

Jewel told stories about what ordinary life was like when there was peace here. As he spoke, Jill could almost hear the trees' voices speaking out of the living past, whispering, stay, stay. She was caught up to a great height, looking down across a rich, lovely plain full of woods and waters and cornfields, which spread away and away till it got thin and misty from distance. 

“Oh Jewel–” Jill said with a dreamy sigh, “wouldn’t it be lovely if Narnia just went on and on– like what you say it has been?”

She needn’t be a queen, as Susan and Lucy had been, but Jill would’ve liked to stay. She would've liked it all to stay, if it could. She might have been a woodmaid in a place like this: with the turn of the seasons, the swaying trees, swords into plowshares. Oh, if only she could stay!

Ahead, the last king of Narnia was softly singing a marching song. Jill tilted her head back and let warm shafts of sun caress her face. 

.

I saw the pallid corpse of the dead sun borne through the Northern sky.

.

“So,” said the last king of Narnia, “Narnia is no more.”

He tried to send them back. Jill shook her head. It was very loud and very quiet. “No, no, no, we won’t. I don’t care what you say. We’re going to stick by you whatever happens, aren’t we Eustace?”

They couldn’t go back anyway. Neither would they flee, not south across the mountains nor North into the great wide wastes. No, they would stay. They slept in a holly grove on the edge of ruin, waiting for the bonfires to light.

Jill slept fitfully, but in between she dreamed. She was high up in the air, buffeted by clouds and pierced by shafts of silver sunlight. 

.

They all died, in the myths. Jill knew that. It seemed beautiful and brave when she read it in her book, tucked away safe in the Professor’s library. It was terrifying now– and yet it was beautiful and brave still.

The dogs came bounding up, every one of them, running up to the king and his men with their tails wagging. One of them leapt at Jill and licked her face, tongue roughly lapping up the sweat and tears that had dried on her cheeks. 

“Show us how to help, show us how, how, how!” the dogs were barking, almost ebullient in their enthusiasm. Jill bit back a sob. How lovely, she thought. How terribly beautiful. How dreadfully brave. 

.

So perish the old Gods!

.

The white rock gleamed like a moon in the darkness when Jill finally reached it. She ran back to it alone, her hands shaking, while her friends stayed forward with their gleaming swords and Jewel’s indigo horn.

The while rock gleamed like the moon. Jill’s first shot flew wide and landed in the soft grass. But she had another arrow on her string the next instant. It was speed that mattered, not aim. Speed, and turning aside when she cried, so as not to drip tears on her bowstring.

The white rock gleamed. In the myths, a wolf devoured the moon. Peter’s wolf, slain many thousand years ago in this world, opened his jaw wide and darkness fell over everything.

Her next arrow found its mark. After that, she lost track. She pulled, and she prayed that her hands kept still another minute. 

The unique thing–maybe the appealing thing–about the Norse myths, was that they told men to serve gods who were admittedly fighting with their backs to the wall and would certainly be defeated in the end. Jill let loose another arrow, felt the white rock at her back, and she knew that the clawing fear–beauty–bravery deep in her gut was the same feeling that she felt on the heights. The same feeling, but a different face. You’ve got to love vastness more than you fear falling. 

.

“I feel in my bones,” said Poggin, “that we shall all, one by one, pass through that dark door before morning. I can think of a hundred deaths that I would rather have died.”

“It is indeed a grim door,” said Tirian. “It is more like a mouth.” 

“Oh, can’t we do anything to stop it,” said Jill. Better to be dashed to the ground than it was to be devoured. 

“Nay, fair friend,” said Jewel. “It may be for us the door to Aslan’s country and we sup at his table tonight.”

A hand tangled itself in her hair and started to pull. Jill braced herself hard, for a moment, until her strength gave out. She was standing on the edge of a high, Northern cliff. She took another step, and fell.

.

Perhaps when the moment comes, our bite will prove better than our howls. If not, we shall have to confess that two millennia of Christianity have not yet brought us to the level of the Stoics and Vikings. For the worst (according to the flesh) that a Christian need face is to die in Christ and rise in Christ; some were content to die, and not to rise, with Father Odin.

.

The world inside the stable was beautiful. It made Jill’s chest ache in all the loveliest ways. 

.

Build it again, O ye bards, fairer than before!

[moregraceful]

bro do the las vegas raiders' coaches have pride gear on...

[random-human-being2311]

just finished Planet Of Fire part 2 and although I'm not as hopelessly sad at being close running out of turlough and 5 episodes as I was with 2, jamie and zoe it's started to hit me how I actually adore these characters and don't want to say goodbye to them. I'm not ready.

I mean, I saw Resurrection Of The Daleks earlier this afternoon and now I'm just spending the whole time watching peri in this serial going "pathetic. hopeless. tegan would never. #notmycompanion" because tegan is absolutely iconic and she's been there since goddamn Logopolis in season 18 and it's just plain weird not having her around anymore. Sorry peri but you haven't immediately caught my attention like tegan did

agghhh classic who really hitting you with the anticipation of having to say goodbye because you know what's coming next. With nuwho you don't know what's coming which is good for some other reasons but omfg the anticipation of knowing exactly when and how a companion departs from fandom osmosis and just watching you edge closer and closer and love the character more and more omfg it's PAIN and I'd never have it any other way.

Like when I was watching season 19 and the amazing shit like adric spend the whole dance just getting food in Black Orchid. And I was just like "omg just like me fr iconic i love it". And then it hit me that he's going to be blown up in a few episodes. He's going to fucking die.

[purecommemasolitude]

you guys ever listen to vse kar vem

[satari-raine]

Well, I woke up very emotional this morning.

Thank you to those who shared that post, genuinely, it means a lot to me. And an extra thank you to those that donated, I'm honestly flabbergasted. While giving just to do it is definitely appreciated, please message me and let me know if you would like anything in return. I want to thank you for your generosity.

Otherwise, yeah. Just hoping you all are having a good day today.

[moe-broey]

I've never been a "born in the wrong generation" type of guy because for So Many reasons I would be dead. Full stop like I would have died during childbirth I would have died of appendicitis age 8 and that's not even factoring in my queerness and neurodivergency and ultimately my mental health (carefully maintained thanks to support/modern advances in medicine and treatment). On Top Of That my hobbies include The Video Game and many such things that are of modern invention (adjacently: including The Device I'm typing this out on right now which has become my main avenue of communication to the outside world)

But I'm just saying that. It WOULD be nice. To exist in a world where fluorescent lighting doesn't exist and everything is possibly 99% less overstimulating all of the time forever.

[nobodysgf]

i hate the politics in this country, ihate how apathetic and ignorant and stupid people are here

[hel7l7]

-

[august--and-everything-after]

I'd like to crowd source some information if possible.

[love-too]

The sexual tension between me and turning into an academical failureee mhhh

[pollen]

hii it's been awhile since i've given any updates about what's going on with me but!!! i think we're moving back to oregon at some point. and i'm gonna make grad school happen. i'm so yhappy

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

Alistair: So I'm not going with you, I see. Any particular reason? Tabris: I'm not going to risk you getting hurt, Alistair. Alistair: And you think I want you going in there and sacrificing yourself? You think I want you to die!? But there's no use arguing with you, is there? We don't have time... and you are a stubborn, stubborn woman. Tabris: You would do something foolish. Alistair: Maybe… I guess we'll never know now, will we? I guess this is the last chance we'll get… before this is finished, one way or another. Be careful in there. Tabris: I love you, Alistair. Alistair:

Guess who made the ultimate sacrifice...?

Me. It was me.

I made the ultimate sacrifice.

The achievement wasn't worth it.

[chirpsythismorning]

☎️🎲 🤼‍♂️ ✈️🚪 ➡️ 🫀🎮⌛️

Don't Dream It's Over by Crowded House

previous ⏪︎ now playing back to playlist

[chaseprice]

,