#don't tell straight ppl tho bc they do not understand the concept that ppl don't necessarily need a solid everlasting label

[inkskinned]

you're grabbing lunch with a nice man and he gives you that strange grimace-smile that's popular right now; an almost sardonic "twist" of his mouth while he looks literally down on you. it looks like he practiced the move as he leans back, arms folded. he just finished reciting the details of NFTs to you and explaining Oppenheimer even though he only watched a youtube about it and hasn't actually seen it. you are at the bottom of your wine glass.

you ask the man across from you if he has siblings, desperately looking for a topic. literally anything else.

he says i don't like small talk. and then he smiles again, watching you.

a few years ago, you probably would have said you're above celebrity gossip, but honestly, you've been kind of enjoying the dumb shit of it these days. with the rest of the earth burning, there's something familiar and banal about dragging ariana grande through the mud. you think about jeanette mccurdy, who has often times gently warned the world she's not as nice as she appears. you liked i'm glad my mom died but it made you cry a lot.

he doesn't like small talk, figure out something to say.

you want to talk about responsibility, and how ariana grande is only like 6 days older than you are - which means she just turned 30 and still dresses and acts like a 13 year old, but like sexy. there's something in there about the whole thing - about insecurity, and never growing up, and being sexualized from a young age.

people have been saying that gay people are groomers. like, that's something that's come back into the public. you have even said yourself that it's just ... easier to date men sometimes. you would identify as whatever the opposite of "heteroflexible" is, but here you are again, across from a man. you like every woman, and 3 people on tv. and not this guy. but you're trying. your mother is worried about you. she thinks it's not okay you're single. and honestly this guy was better before you met, back when you were just texting.

wait, shit. are you doing the same thing as ariana grande? are you looking for male validation in order to appease some internalized promise of heteronormativity? do you conform to the idea that your happiness must result in heterosexuality? do you believe that you can resolve your internal loneliness by being accepted into the patriarchy? is there a reason dating men is easier? why are you so scared of fucking it up with women? why don't you reach out to more of them? you have a good sense of humor and a big ol' brain, you could have done a better job at online dating.

also. jesus christ. why can't you just get a drink with somebody without your internal feminism meter pinging. although - in your favor (and judgement aside) in the case of your ariana grande deposition: you have been in enough therapy you probably wouldn't date anyone who had just broken up with their wife of many years (and who has a young child). you'd be like - maybe take some personal time before you begin this journey. like, grande has been on broadway, you'd think she would have heard of the plot of hamlet.

he leans forward and taps two fingers to the table. "i'm not, like an andrew tate guy," he's saying, "but i do think partnership is about two people knowing their place. i like order."

you knew it was going to be hard. being non-straight in any particular way is like, always hard. these days you kind of like answering the question what's your sexuality? with a shrug and a smile - it's fine - is your most common response. like they asked you how your life is going and not to reveal your identity. you like not being straight. you like kissing girls. some days you know you're into men, and sometimes you're sitting across from a man, and you're thinking about the power of compulsory heterosexuality. are you into men, or are you just into the safety that comes from being seen with them? after all, everyone knows you're failing in life unless you have a husband. it almost feels like a gradebook - people see "straight married" as being "all A's", and anything else even vaguely noncompliant as being ... like you dropped out of the school system. you cannot just ignore years of that kind of conditioning, of course you like attention from men.

"so let's talk boundaries." he orders more wine for you, gesturing with one hand like he's rousing an orchestra. sir, this is a fucking chain restaurant. "I am not gonna date someone who still has male friends. also, i don't care about your little friends, i care about me. whatever stupid girls night things - those are lower priority. if i want you there, you're there."

he wasn't like this over text, right? you wouldn't have been even in the building if he was like this. you squint at him. in another version of yourself, you'd be running. you'd just get up and go. that's what happens on the internet - people get annoyed, and they just leave. you are locked in place, almost frozen. you need to go to the bathroom and text someone to call you so you have an excuse, like it's rude to just-leave. like he already kind of owns you. rudeness implies a power paradigm, though. see, even your social anxiety allows the patriarchy to get to you.

you take a sip of the new glass of wine. maybe this will be a funny story. maybe you can write about it on your blog. maybe you can meet ariana grande and ask her if she just maybe needs to take some time to sit and think about her happiness and how she measures her own success.

is this settling down? is this all that's left in your dating pool? just accepting that someone will eventually love you, and you have to stop being picky about who "makes" you a wife?

you look down to your hand, clutching the knife.

[ixiot-ghostrebel]

Yk Back At The Random Ghost Rebel Stuff

A straight up ramble but does anyone feels this retching feeling in their hearts whenever they think about the High Cloud Quintet and its lore and go like "Dang, if only we COULD change what had happened bc this crap is dark and sad as hell" because that's what I feel like right now

And lemme tell you: It's not a good feeling bc I don't even want to think about how they're all just old and tired grannies and grandpas. The only person that has proper solace in the High Cloud Quintet is flipping Baiheng bro—poor Yingxing got turned into Blade bc yk—he's the beloved of that one relic set story.

Dan Flipping Feng becomes Dan Heng and even as Dan Heng he doesn't get a single drop of solace bc now the former-artisan-now-maniac dude is chasing him all across the universe bc of the sins of the past and it's just so heartbreaking bc Dan Heng isn't Dan Feng and Blade is only the shadow of Yingxing (this concept with Yingxing and Blade heavily reminds me of Makoto and Ei—Ei was the shadow of Makato and the shadow of the light is all that remains ykyk)

And then there's Jingliu who just straight up asks her student to kill her if she ever becomes mara-struck and in the end she still lives somehow and then she decides to go full-traumatizer with Blade back when he was the Unnamed that wandered the place—as if he needed MORE trauma and honestly her weak grasp over the mara which in turn makes her insane is so upsetting bc in the end she ends up having beef with a 14 year-old lieutenant who's trying to do his job and protect the Luofu (though, I have to admit it: as much as I want to protect my child Yanqing, his methods were kind of flawed—) even if he doesn't know who Jingliu is.

And ofc we got the last man standing Jing Yuan who just sees ghosts in everyone around him. Istg I feel like bc he sees ghosts, he can't move on from the past, and when he can't move on from the past, it's honestly a red flag bc it might mean that his present relationships with everyone are (sometimes) only just one-sided or something. Like, take the relationship between Yanqing and he: Yanqing trusts the General with his life bc he raised him as a baby. But the fact that he calls Jing Yuan "General" and not some sort of parental title says that Jing Yuan is being unnecessarily secretive due to his fear of vulnerability. I mean—literally in 1.2 Story Quest, Jing Yuan quite literally just left Yanqing on the island alone after he got beat up by two men that have beef with one another, practically leaving him in the dark with no explanation. And even before that, Yanqing was still left in the dark. Jing Yuan doesn't open up easily bc of the crap he's been through, which is understandable, but his lack of explanation backing up his highly meticulous moves—that's not really healthy. In the end, it just leaves a gap of mistrust, be it intentional or not, between Jing Yuan and Yanqing. In some cases, and this one (imo atleast) is one of them, if you don't explain your actions, it pretty much just leaves the person that's been left in the dark with their waves of emotions, which might cost said-relationship between the two people in the long run.

It also seems like (based off what we know of, at least) at least half of Jing Yuan's choices are also connected to sentimental reasons and seeing ghosts in people. I think he sees a ghost in Yanqing (idk who tho—ppl say it's Yingxing bc of his obsession over the sword), he sees one in Yukong (definitely Baiheng), he sees one in Dan Heng (obvious reasons, very evident throughout the game) and possible Bailu (because she's technically being hailed as the next Imbibitor Lunae after Dan Feng's sin), and it could possibly go on. This old grandpa really is comparing the present with his past and that's honestly a little heartbreaking, bc there is a chance that that might mean that Jing Yuan found more happiness (serotonin work hardcore fr) in his past than he does in his present. He should at least be happy enough of the present to not be this sentimental of the past, but he's really suffering of the incidents like bro—

The High Cloud Quintet is like The Five Yakshas from Genshin Impact but with more lore (that we know of) and more angst twists (that we know of) to it fr. It's so heartbreaking and angsty, I both love it, hate it, and cry about it.

Like bro, look at these two groups. It's always a group of five sobbing.

They're all fine as hell too like CMON

[cinna-bunnie]

long personal (?) rant bc im stoned and I Wanna Talk About It because i never get to talk about it !! 😤

i feel better now that i talked about it :3

i wish people who grew up with, or at least encountered, ghosts were a lot more common. i feel like u get so many more interesting questions once you've moved past a simple "do ghosts exist?"

they were a v regular thing from when i was in 4th grade up till i moved out at 18, and even then i still come across stuff sometimes here and there a decade later. i also had a friend who was a medium and my prev landlord was a witch and the world is so interesting!!

like just w ghosts it's crazy to think about how there's this barely perceivable reality that overlays ours but in some places/circumstances u interact with it and it w you, but there's layers 2 it bc ghosts r everywhere all the time but u wouldn't notice it. u just do Sometimes.

and my mom would do readings for ppl and do a questions n answers sorta thing where she'd let something/someone control her arm 2 write the responses n they'd b p specific and were 100% accurate. and my medium friend just straight up could See them and we actually met bc my guardian spirit jumped out at her and Needed 2 tell me something, and we stepped aside n actually had a long personal chat akdjfkak it was a good life changing one tho i was lowkey suicidal n needed to hear it. (i got better after btw and a gal's loving life (❁´◡`❁) i was just in a really rough place 16-18 (⁠´⁠-⁠﹏⁠-⁠`⁠；⁠))

but like! on top of ghosts, there really is a whole guardian spirit system i know nothing about besides the fact that it exists.

and then there's psychics of various kinds that interact w The Universe™ in their own ways. i haven't tried to do the automatic writing thing since i was a teen but i do have my own divination system i made up w a normal deck of cards, I used a pendulum too but my cards r just comfier n faster paced :3 and then there's qi and i remember doing an exercise that's supposed 2 introduce u 2 manipulating it and i remember my hands felt weird n warm afterwards and when i ran them over my arms it felt like static from a balloon n made my hairs react to it 0:

and my witch friend could do distant healing n reiki, but she could do a bunch of other stuff too n had her whole belief system/framework she was working with. she was a rly sweet old gal (⁠✿ ‚‚⌒‿⌒‚‚) very private about her practices though she was kinda ostracized for it growing up so she doesn't actually Talk about it much. i asked her 2 teach me a few times 😹 the distant healing session was fun n she told me when she found me in the astral plane i was like o hey!! and gestured 2 her like i was inviting her into a party and let her right in.

she got a rly interesting visual of me i have written down in detail somewhere from when we talked about it after, and it's just crazy to think about the different ways people interact with *gestures vaguely* like?? we connected in a way i wouldn't have imagined was a thing.

as a space nerd i love thinking about how the universe is So Big and the concept of alternate universes, but then i remember that just being Here on Earth is so interesting!! what is going on w these subtle realities, how r we interacting w them, how do u get to go deeper here. I've been slowly chipping away at it since my years at home trying 2 understand but sm of it has been through observation and interaction and reading, Mostly reading as an adult since i don't get to observe directly as often.

by now i have a p good framework 2 work with for making sense of everything i know so far, but i feel like a huge hole in my research is doing and learning stuff on the witch side of things. Like daoism was a lot easier to dive into and is the closest to how i understand things but i wanna know more about being a witch and being a psychic and i want to be more interactive.

I am forever just wanting 2 learn (⁠〒⁠﹏⁠〒⁠) this has been something of a lifelong journey i pick up at different times in my life. like u can't go from experiencing a childhood like that and be satisfied with leaving it at that, I have so many questions!! my overarching goal has been getting far enough to be able 2 actually Ask a question and figure out how 2 get more info frm the source ykwim.

and then another thing is how under specific circumstances i unintentionally conjure (or attract?) malevolent spirits and it happens like once every five years (⁠￣⁠ヘ⁠￣⁠;⁠) i kind of understand what initiates that so i know how to avoid it, but what about the opposite? how do i conjure or attract something benevolent? why is this a thing that i do at all?? what r The Mechanisms behind this.

the tinkerer in me is going mad at knowing all of this is Right There but i don't know how to do much with it 😹 YET anyways 😼 a gal's been busy!! just kinda waiting for life 2 settle down a bit and i think when I've moved into my next place I'll have the capacity/time for it. i wanna learn about witch stuff but it's so hard lol. conversations I've had w them in passing have been crazy but if u try 2 look online without knowing What To Look For there's sm new age garbage ajdjdjak. i don't want some superficial bs i want The Framework babes i wanna go A-Z w it and fully rotate it in my mind and reconcile it w my current understanding. i want to make things less abstract!!