#i dunno. i don't wanna lose all my shit or lose my place to ramble

[marshmellowtea]

idly thinking here but honestly i think if this blog went down then i'd just be done with tumblr forever. like.....that's it. this is the blog i've had for as long as i've had a tumblr account, i'm not built like the people who can start again and remake over and over again. it'd be a sign that i just need to be done with this website for good i think.

[nazuna-tunnel-vision]

I saw your tags and I wanna say RitsuMao (I think that's the ship?) is the perfect ship for hanahaki in the way which you described.

Also, interestingly enough, I have written a hanahaki fic from the person who is on the receiving end of the crush, in a frustrated "why can't I return the feeling???" And not wanting to lose the friendship way.

So anyway I think that's a great angle to pursue and it's very big brain of you.

YESS thank you for the validation, this AU has been eating at my brains for a year but i'm just not very good at writing actual stories rather than just analysis so. it stayed in my brain.

yeah it is ritsumao and oh boy ritsumao with the flower actually removed would be a riot. they're childhood friends and so much of their identities are rooted in the relationship, so losing the relationship would destabilise the both of them so much.

to Make Things Worse ☺️✌️ in my AU, i made the surgery remove memories related to the person altogether rather than just feelings (although tbh it's also bc i never quite understood how you can "remove feelings" without fundamentally making the memory stop making sense. aren't memories a key way in which people make sense of the world and remember things?)

and this makes the story veer into exploring how one's memories and relationships with others kind of. makes you who you are. which a lot of hanahaki stories don't really explore.

that means ritsu just Forgets about mao and loses years worth of accumulated memories and self-narratives about how he became who he was. how did he manage rei's broken promise, who did he cling to? apart from chasing after rei, who made him want to 'enter the sunlight'? post-surgery ritsu would be a very different and a very confused person.

and considering how so much of their relationship was Just The Two Of Them (thanks ritsu), mao would have no one who shares so many of his memories. they'll probably find random trinkets all over their houses that either only mao or neither of them remembers the significance of. some matching keychains they got from an event. a pen with one of those plastic jewels that's the colour of mao's eyes, which ritsu used to like a lot but now just throws it away bc it's out of ink. maybe some random thing of mao's that ritsu stole when he was 6 because of some convoluted reasoning and jealousy, and which he never returned. and when they rediscover it mao is like "wtf i've been trying to find it for YEARS, why do you have this," and ritsu can only reply with "i dunno."

mao also can no longer use ritsu for the. to give himself self-esteem in his role as someone ritsu needs, or whatever codependent shit they have going on. he'll just have that pretty important aspect of the maintenance of his identity and self-image ripped from him because the flower is arophobic.

i just think ritsumao with the hanahaki surgery would just be rly tragic bc rtmo are the kind of friends who would want more than anything and who would do everything they can to ensure the other stays in their lives. or rather, they've been with each other for so long that they also don't actually need to bend over backwards to maintain their relationship. even when something does happen, i think they generally understand each other and value the other enough to resolve things sooner rather than later.

i think the both of them would choose not to have the hanahaki development in the first place if it meant that they could continue as they have always been. ritsu would never want to guilt trip mao with hanahaki (!! era at least, and not to make mao actually feel like shit for longer than a few hours at most). and mao would want to give ritsu what he wants as is usual but be unable to. so they're both absolutely miserable! falls face flat on ground.

anyway i can't believe i rambled this much but. after writing all that out i read that fic you wrote and. slams fist on wall and cries, you get it!!!!!! i don't know a thing about these two but oughhhhh. !!!!!!

(for anyone else who has somehow read to this point and who also has brainworms for Best Friend with Hanahaki, read it here before i spoil it below with my quoting)

the way Hak's first reaction is to do everything he can to solve things and his fear of losing 12 years of friendship. 12 years of memories. Their entire lives together. That was the price of getting it removed. while Soowon goes “But what if you find someone you have feelings for?” Soowon asked, “it’s not really fair for you to be bound to me this way.” and “Love” was too heavy a word to impose upon his friend

ohhhh my god. oh my god. It frustrated Hak, every time Soowon coughed up another flower and he couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t make it stop. Why couldn’t he make it stop?

it's the mutual love and care for the other!!!! screaming.

and the way Soowon just slowly fades away and Hak's heart breaks watching it happen. The way Hak finally says "I love you" and the way Soowon says "I know" and yet it doesn't do a thing because the flower is stupid and only cares about romantic love.

euggg this dynamic of hanahaki is really so interesting and real. i'm so glad you brought up your fic bc i have been trying for so long to find a hanahaki story like this. i get that the hanahaki haver's POV of keeping the illness and their feelings is dramatic and heartwrenching and all, but at the end of the day it's more or less just a more dramatised version of their already existing pining. the perspective of the one being loved, and of two friends trying and failing to save their relationship, is so unexplored in comparison. like these stories would require some very healthy, open communication, and yet somehow that is still not enough and that otherwise perfect relationship gets destroyed

[quintes-sin-tial]

I'm gonna share something that I probably don't need to share with random people on the internet, but I guess that because you are mostly random people on the internet this makes venting easier and I need to vent 🤷‍♀️

Also, just in case, I talk about sex in this post, so if that's not for you, then here's a little warning! Don't wanna make anyone uncomfortable!

So I have some fun shit called Vulvodynia and Vaginismus which basically means my hooha is fucked, but not in the fun way. Vulvodynia makes the nerves around my vulva very irritated and makes any touch feel like pins and needles. Vaginismus is muscle spasms that prevent penetration. Vaginismus can be caused by several different things and I learned the other day that a large part of mine is from my pelvis being completely out of whack, so my muscles are compensating in a bunch of weird places. But I know I have other major reasons for having it as well that I will not put on the internet.

Anyway, yeah so I finally made myself go to the doctor again because I would like to hopefully make the pain go away so I can have a normal sex life. My new doctor is amazing and I've got a good plan for recovery, which I procrastinated doing for so long because I just wanted to pretend it wasn't a thing.

But there were a few things I wanted to just vent about because I've had it kind of bottled up for a while and just writing it out and putting it out somewhere seems like it'll help me chill out a bit.

First, I've been so pissed off at our sex education system. I had no fucking idea that these things existed or that there could be something wrong with me that would make sex painful as fuck. I was in a shit relationship with a shit guy who just thought it was "normal", so then I thought it was normal. And therefore, was very upset that I hated sex so much and was so confused because I could not understand why women enjoyed it if it was supposed to feel like that. I wish that stuff like that was taught and that I knew about potential issues people can have down there. That would have saved me so much sadness. But we're just taught abstinence instead and that's just supposed to fix everything 🙃

Another thing that sucks for me is I don't know what normal sex is like. And people around me just assume I do, so when friends who don't know about my conditions talk about sex, I can't relate. I'll just pretend to relate because it's easier than going into detail about my issues. It's so hard for me hearing people talk about their experiences when my body refuses to allow me to have those experiences. And that is by no means anyone's fault, I just get so frustrated with my body and it sucks. Even with some posts on here, I'll be reading something that I enjoy and the second it starts talking about sex, I lose interest because I can't relate even though I want to...if that makes sense. I feel like I'm rambling now sorry!

Anyway, I'm writing this mostly to vent, but also if there is anyone that can relate to me I hope that maybe that gives you comfort. I have one friend that I can go to to talk about this stuff sometimes and that helps me a ton. So I dunno if any of you deal with what I deal with, or maybe have something similar. But I'm here for you if you need a friend. And if there's none of you out there in this community that has what I have and you read this all the way through, thank you. I don't expect messages from anyone because I'm mostly just ranting just to rant into the void. But thanks for reading ❤