#it’s what’s carrying me forward

[theamazingian]

I completed the towers on Normal and felt So Good, then I started the Master King’s Trial and felt So Bad

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I want it back / I drag its dead weight forward.

[independent-fics]

Okay I had “The 12 Step Job” playing in the background today and looked up right during that first fight scene and how come I never noticed that there’s way more ot3 moments in this episode??? Like there’s the bomb scene and Parker’s hug in the end but these too??

First Eliot grabbing Hardison to hold him back from the fight.

Then I’m sorry they’re nearly holding hands and Eliot’s got his arm around him to move him along??? Real cozy for a guy who just dumped soda in your truck sir (but he shot a gun real well so maybe that did it for him 😂)(until Hardison revealed that he was not aiming there and moment ruined but still).

[sysig]

Portal 2 replay review: Hrmnnngggngmngm 💕💖💝💞✨❤️💗

[oooocleo]

oop remembered to post this on tumblr too fdkjgdf... 2 many sites to crosspost too weeps

i have ONE slot left for these hanged man tarot standees atm!

link here!

[cent-scratchnsniff]

here together

[uncanny-tranny]

I often see this impulse from other trans men* that involves hypervigilance of being one of the "good men" who set ourselves apart from the men who hurt others, and I wonder if this ultra-policing actually prevents us from being "bad"

I wonder if agonizing about doing everything "right" is only contributing to poor mental health of trans men* because you are seeing a distorted, monstrous version of yourself, somebody with whom you have to kill off. It forces you into this space of having to be perfect, to beat yourself up over any perceived infraction.

And I just don't think it's an effective measure to ensure we are "one of the good ones." Constantly treating yourself as the beast, treating yourself like a leper who has no place in the civilized world? How does that ensure that you both treat others well but also ensure that you aren't fucking miserable every single moment you're not alone?

[honestlyvan]

(Crossposted to Dreamwidth)

The thing that makes me the most "run around in circles" crazy about Initiation is that Alan wrote the Casey of the Dark Place into the story to help him, and then made it so that Casey knows even less about what is going on than Alan does.

Alan never gives Casey the opportunity to get past step fucking one to help him, explains nothing to him, and Casey ends up with no idea what he's even doing here, no idea what his assigned purpose is, no idea what his narrative goals are. He's an actor given no script, no stage direction, to the point that Casey doesn't even know they're in a story, and it makes him sink deeper into depression with every passing loop with no knowledge to ground him.

And it's impossible to tell if this is because Alan didn't realise that he had the perfect opportunity to write Casey like the Diver, a living repository of Alan's accumulating knowledge about the Dark Place, a seeing-eye dog to guide him through the dark -- or if Alan did try that, and it somehow went so horribly wrong that now he and Casey can't both survive in the same narrative line without trying to kill each other -- or if Alan did try that, and it went horribly right, and now the Dark Presence can't let Casey live because Alan's bespoke perfect little detective is too good at finding out useful things.

And instead, in the story we currently have, Alan made up a guy for a specific purpose of helping him, but because Alan is the protagonist, because it's his story, his fault, his duty and his job to get himself out of it, he doesn't even let Casey fulfil his narrative purpose. What the hell else is Casey supposed to do, Alan, other than the thing you literally made him for? He's the detective -- he's supposed to solve things.

[evviejo]

on days like this, i wish i could get compensation for having to show up at work

[ghosting-fox]

you all know that audio from bladerunner? "you look lonely i can fix that"?? my brain wouldn't let me rest until i haven't drawn that with Sun n Moon

but jokes aside, really self-indulgent comic bc both Security Breach and Ruin came out when i was at a low point mentally and helped me greatly just be able to move forward and get through each day (and i won't even be getting into how much these 2 fictional robot jesters have helped me refind my passion for drawing)

i really hope that more people can relate to this :))

[kaurwreck]

you remind me of a time i wish i could go back to; a time in which i would obsessively read and keep reading about anything that interested me slightly. i would stumble into entirely new ways of thinking with all the delicacy of a bull in a china shop, and learn to engage with it on its own terms. the ability got lost somewhere in the haze that was school and uni and people and work and now i’ve… lost the ability to think on my own. it comes maybe twice a month, in random bursts, and i fucking hate that i don’t have access to it continuously anymore. i hate that now when i’m bored i can’t think up stories in my head and chew on ideas in my free time. i see you and i’m so happy and so envious; i wish for my thirst for life back. i’m so tired. i’m saying this to you because, of all people, might be able to see it clearly. i respect the fact that you managed to retain it to adulthood or beyond is so much. you don’t know how much that means to me, as a young adult.

If it helps, I don't read nearly as much as I did as a kiddo. Like, not even remotely close. Quite frankly, I've only recently gotten back into reading lit, after years of only reading comics and manga, and not nearly at the volume I did before.

But! There are all sorts of opportunities to engage with stories and ideas and reconnect the synapses that spit where they used to spark. Once, in the throes of a heavy and prolonged period of uncertainty, I was gripped by the color of spray paint on the sidewalk on the way to pick up an espresso while sleep deprived. I consciously chose to stop and appreciate it.

Which is to say, I also get exhausted and burnt out and go through periods where I wonder if I've lost some fundamental part of myself. But then I rest or I change my routine or I receive an affirmation I didn't realize I desperately needed, and my verve returns, as it does. I think having pediatric onset bipolar disorder has advantaged me in this regard because even when I feel like nothing, I know that the intensity will return, and that it will continue to ebb and flow like the tides. I used to dread the ebb, but the ebb has its own value, too; in the ebb is where I nurture roots.

But to my earlier point, there are lots of stories and ideas buried in all sorts of moments. We can imbue meaning in the things we do as an observed ritual until it becomes habit until it becomes sincere. And for the periods in which we can't, it's worth remembering that the winter solstice is the longest evening of the year, but the sun will come back because it always has. In the meantime, you can stoke a hearth and sip on coaxed together warmth while tucking into your memory this grief so that you will recognize what you've been missing when it returns, so that feeling excited is remarkable enough to cut the present ennui. In time, you'll start to feel substance in the contours of the grief, too, because to be exhausted and numb and tired means that you exist enough to be anything at all.

And, if you're too untethered from yourself for even that, find something mundane and look for a glimmer of anything worth observing. If you can't find anything, choose to give some facet of what you see meaning anyway.

(It's not that the sidewalk was purple. It's that I chose to see that it was that particular, beautiful shade of purple rather than remain adrift into my own ether and, in doing so, tethered my intangible enormity in something tangible enough for me to stoke while I weathered the season.)

If you practice enough, this becomes muscle memory. Same with thinking on your own. I don't think reading is ever enough on its own anyway; sometimes, we mirror ideas and mistake them for our own. Or we encounter ideas but don't allow ourselves to be changed by them.

It's why it's important to engage intentionally, and it doesn't have to be with text. It can be with movies, art, those around us, our environment, our own understanding of the world, the condensation on a window. Mindfulness helps, but so does adopting the mindset of a toddler and asking why? Constantly. Again, it may begin as a rote exercise, but the more you do it, the more it becomes muscle memory. If you think you know something, consciously stop and ask why? Where did you learn that? What assumptions does your conclusion rely on? Could there be another explanation? Pretend you're someone else for a moment, a favorite character or historical figure or loved one. What would they think given the same facts? Also important is saying, like a toddler, because I said so! as the only reason you need. Try things for the sake of having not tried them before. There's a reason why Lao Tzu advises being like a newborn baby, soft boned with a strong grip.

There's very little I do, read, watch, or consume that I don't think about applying elsewhere, too. This is sometimes exhausting. But it's also where I get my well of passion. Because there's always an opportunity for meaning, my life bursts with it.

This doesn't mean I don't still have rough weeks or months or years. I have bipolar, adhd, cptsd, and social phobia; I have frequent insomnia and sleep paralysis, etc. etc. But I look forward to what I might learn next, and there's purpose and intention to how I experience even my lows. The life I'm currently living is so unlike where I came from, in part because I decided I wanted meaning and purpose. Before I knew what that was supposed to look like, I picked a direction and strove for it, feeling out what I couldn't see. I still do, when necessary. It will always be necessary.

So, while I don't know if what works for me will work for you, I can promise that something will excite you again, eventually. Adulthood isn't a linear decline or a separation from yourself. It's variable and dynamic, and you have agency in what you do with that. There isn't any objective meaning or purpose to be assigned, so you get to choose it for yourself, and it can be as variable and dynamic as you need it to be. So, if you don't want to grow into someone who can't think on your own, you don't have to. If you don't like your current state of mind, you don't need to settle in it.

tl;dr: It's not what I've retained, it's that I've ebbed and flowed and changed, and given myself the space to clumsily stumble towards what I want and what I value, even if I'm not always sure what those are. I'm letting go of the construct that I have to be anything, and I emphatically choose not to be lots of things. It's a process, and it's nonlinear. But nothing is, and there's grace in the inevitably of ebb.

[applecoreart]

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[rosykims]

finished rogue trader. so mad about it i had to take a nap and then start a whole new playthru again to cope <3

[gomacave]

these are all corpses to me

[glitterkaiju]

I'm making peach pancakes for breakfast and Joyce Manor is blasting and I have a sweet market at a museum next Sunday and we're going to buy Ultraman toys later and I just. I'm very happy to be alive and enjoying this day. No one ever knows how many good days they actually have left so I've been trying to be conscious about naming my joy lately.

[salsflore]

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