#it's basically a brain dump

[leiawritesstories]

dancing on eggshells

"And now for something completely different..."

i just...really needed to get this out. feel free to ignore. probably going to delete later.

1212 words

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it’s not supposed to be like this 

it’s not supposed to be so hard

I love being here. I love the unburdened way I can be myself here, the independence and freedom that comes from being at college 1300 miles away from home. I love being unencumbered by the rules and restrictions and rigidities of home, the expectations that crash and collide and contradict and counteract each other.

Go out with your friends, you don’t see them nearly enough. But you have to be home by eleven and you have to tell us every single little detail or we won’t allow you to be out. 

You’re working too much, you don’t need to be taking so many hours, it’s not like you have rent to pay. But why are you only working four shifts this week, don’t you know you have to save up for going to study abroad? 

Eat food. Eat regular meals. But just so you know, your clothes don’t fit like they used to, and since you’re so close to twenty, you really need to be thinking about what you eat. 

Get off your computer, we never even see you anymore. But why are you plaguing me with questions, don’t you have things to do before you move back to school? 

Always “back to school,” never “back to college.” Always “staying at school,” never “moving onto campus.” Always “it’s called school,” always the overhanging “why do you insist on being so far away?” 

it’s because i fucking need to

I love being far away from home. I love having the freedom to live the way I want to live. 

To just live, really. 

I’m so tired of being the middle ground. I’m so tired of being pulled in all directions as the fight rages around me, of all the voices insisting they’re in the right, of all the clamor and noise and demands and complaints and venting and ranting and raging and raving and the call, always the call, to listen and listen and listen and tell them they’re right, to sooth the jagged edges, to bridge the depthless chasm. 

I mediate anyway. 

How else will they learn? How else will they ever get through to each other? 

How else will the constant cloud of bitterness that hovers over the place ever dissipate? 

I don’t want it to fall in a thunderstorm, but that’s what I’m afraid has to happen. There’s too much buildup in the clouds, too much threatened and withheld rain, too much electricity charging the air for it to end in anything other than destruction, 

With any luck, all I can do is limit the damages. 

I’m torn between the warring powers who claim they’re doing the right thing for the right reasons and are willing to go to any lengths not to listen to the counterargument. I love my parents. I love my sister. I love them with everything I am. 

it’s because I love them that I silence my pain and step into the storm once again

They do not need to know how much it hurts to see them constantly at war.

They need someone to listen to the arguments and the reasonings and the raging emotions and the mess of “i’m-right-because-they’re-wrong” and layers upon layers of defensive lashings-out and they need someone to tell them to shut up and listen every once in a while. I know the concept is a foreign one, but it’s necessary. Absolutely necessary. I can’t bear seeing the whole house deflated because we’re all dancing on eggshells around our hair-trigger matriarch, tiptoeing across ice around our silently steaming sister, slinking through shadows around the armed-and-ready explosion that we all know is inevitable. 

So I lock away what I yearn to say. I lock away the part of me that wants to scream and cry and rage and break things. And I reach out a mediator’s hand to both parties, draw them apart for a moment of reprieve, give them a space and a chance to let loose the torrent of what they want to say. 

I listen. 

Every time, I listen. 

I listen to the hopes and fears and dreams and terrors of having another child preparing to go off to college, all the ways she’s similar and different and unlike any of the rest of us because out of all the children my parents bore, she’s always been the most stubborn. I listen to the rambling tale of how they’re only trying to posit ideas and encourage options that they either didn’t have or didn’t know about but don’t want their kids to miss “but she just sits there mute and won’t even acknowledge us.” 

I listen to the eagerness and nerves and wonder and anticipation and apprehension and terror of being a senior in high school, all the things everyone’s suddenly piling onto her because she’s getting ready to apply for college and then get acceptances and then choose a college and then go to said college and the sheer volume of it all never stops increasing. I listen to the meandering story of how she’s trying to process everything all at once while knowing what kind of program she wants to enter and “it’s like they won’t even acknowledge that I’m responding because I don’t speak in their terms.” 

I listen to the people I love fighting about the stupidest fucking shit and I long--oh, how I long--to scream that they’re all so buried in their own desperate desire to communicate that they’ve built their own walls even thicker. 

I offer whatever bits of comfort I have within me. I weave together what I know they want to hear and what I want to say and what the other side wants them to hear and I try and try and try and try some more to slide even the smallest sliver of accord into the disjointed mess of an argument that’s been going on for so damn long they hardly even know why they’re arguing anymore. 

Nobody ever said it would be easy. 

And it isn’t. 

But even if it’s the only thing I ever do, even if I spend the rest of my days trapped within the endless war that everyone’s too stubborn to end in truce or stalemate, if I manage to slide even the smallest hint of shared accord across enemy lines, then my work will not have been in vain. 

It’s not supposed to be like this. 

Families aren’t supposed to rip the house apart when two or three can’t see eye to eye, we’re supposed to talk and listen and work through trials and errors and new experiences and stress together. We’re supposed to be able to at least pretend we love and care about each other even when we’re not pleased with something someone else has done. 

I shouldn’t have to be the only thing standing between my sister and my parents and utter destruction. I shouldn’t have to feel so torn when I hear that the college discussion isn’t going like they want it to go. 

But I do. I just do.

So I tie on my slippers and dance on the eggshells, hoping and hoping and hoping that what I do won’t be done in vain. 

[o0o0thorn0o0o]

Anyway, I got addicted to my own palette again, oops. Exclusively IchiHime addition this time.

Quality’s a little iffy on the first one because I drew it so tiny, eheh ^^

[joshbruh10x]

Another shitpost of poorly drawn comic dumps of the Fazcule because I can't find anything better to do with my agonizing life tonight here we go!!!!!

[teh-ches-noddle]

Fish

[dxkjf]

Little joey sketch cause im currently finishing up the redesigns for her buddy and terry ❤️ my silly welcome home guys i love them so dearly

[helgiafterdark]

my werewolf husbands <3

[chickpea0]

Going to be real for a sec, just thinking outloud because I know this is a safe place and I need to get thoughts out. Veeerry long! Not a vent just a brain dump. do not bother reading this unless youre really reallyyy into biographies lol this is literally 1,915 words

I'm stuck inbetween minds at the moment. I keep asking myself if regression, or dreaming, isn't really for me. I found agere and petre when I was very young, about 14; it piqued my interest because I'm a very curious person, interested in different lifestyles and ways to explore the self but I also think that because I was just coming out of childhood even though I thought my childhood had ended years before. I was just growing out of being a tween and at that stage in life, it's really startling going from childhood to seemingly adulthood overnight and it's quite natural and common for people to want to cling onto things when everything is being shaken up like that.

Intamacy with people, vulnerability and emotional closeness is always somethign I've struggled with and felt like it was just out of reach so the idea of allowing myself to be back at a stage where I was raw, authentic and less closed up was really really appealing. Plus, the idea of people understanding that and guiding me and just being around me would mean they *really* like me and they're not just there because they have to be, even though I've never had a caregiver though I have had like 2 online friendships where I could be baby around them which felt quite good but I never quite felt satisfied. probably because it was online and neither laster over 3 months. I'm practically always masking and the idea of being weird (I mean this without negative connotation) and expressive really sounded amazing. I have also always always always wanted to be apart of a community but I just never have. No clubs or hobbies that made me feel welcome growing up, no proper friend groups that made made me feel at home, I think I've been in a lot of fandom/online community spaces just because I wanted to feel apart of something though because I was never able to contribute it just felt like a one-way mirror.

So!! I find a lovely community like this! With a focus on mental health, togetherness, working through things and taking time to appriciate things, it's great! I love you guys! I can even make moodboards and little posts and I have a cg blog and a slightly bigger blog where I help boost creators on here. I have mutuals!!!!! People follow me!!! We talk on tags and comments!!! I feel like I have insider knowledge and experience because I've had a lot of oppertuinty to reflect on life and mental health and even on regression itself. But thing is I do not regress often at all. When I do it's for split seconds. When I'm really sleepy, when I'm allowing myself to be vulnerable, if I'm having a weird spacey day. I'm not sure if it's more dissociation or a sudden wave of emotion or what. I think I'm just generally an immature person some times. I haven't grown up yet, I'm only an adolescent. It's not something I want to force because forcing things like this, especially if it is dissociation, can be pretty bad for your brain. Age dreaming is a different thing though.

For me I'm between a rock and a hardplace. I do not feel like I regress organically enough to be on here nearly as much as I am. I'm so tense that I feel like I can't relax or open up enough to enjoy even age dreaming. Brainfog, sure! But it's not regression. I also do not want to edge too far and go into maladaptive nostalgia terratory. I feel, lately, like I kind of need to say goodbye and thank you to my childhood but it's over now and that doesn't have to be a bad thing. I think there's such a focus- everywhere online not just here- on "how good" the old days were. People making heart wrenching nostalgia edits with slowed minecraft music and ambient noise just to rake in veiws and to pull at your own heartstrings. It's natural to seek solace and yearn for something that was so familiar and safe especially at a time where not only is daily life changing for the individual but also for society at large. But rose tinted glasses are not accurate and can be dangerous. Nostalgia should be something that makes you feel light and refreshed. When you hear a song that you haven't heard in years and go 'oh! I remeber! I remember what my brain was like back then' and smile and move on. Maybe taking inspiration from it.

But.

I feel like my nervous system is so fried that making any progess is really draining and proper healthy coping mechanisms never seem to stick. I also feel very isolated, having no irl friends at the moment and not having any purpose like education, work, volonteering, passions, whatever. These are all things I have experienced for well over a decade which is... obviously a very large chunk of my life so far. So I really do need something to fill my life with, a familer space with familiar ideals and stuff. You guys are great. You have such refreshing takes and it just feels so calm and kind here. At the end of the day despite feeling a bit repetative at this point for me, I do enjoy looking at life through this lense. This place has not changed much at all since I started my blog in 2021. It's honestly one of the most consistant things in my day to day life! God. even the streets are changing but it's nice to know I can log on here if I need some reliability.

And thing is, I don't know if it's related to my ASD or my trauma or lack of experience in the world or none of those but I just feel a few steps behind my peers. They are all acting on their life plans or getting out and being social or enjoying new relationships. And I'm perfectly fine taking things at my own pace and growing in my own way but I just don't fit in really. I genuinely feel like I'll hit my stride in my mid twenties or older. Not because I'll have more qualifications or be high up in a career, I just feel like that is when I'll really start knowing and feeling like myself. That's the age when people generally start to figure things out. Basically, I like it here because I feel like I'm in a more similar life state. my focus is on getting through the day and making my own steps. I'm fine as long as I'm growing even if I'm burnt out lmao. Healing for over a decade drains you and I feel like my mental capacity is so small at the moment because of it. Like. I can't pick up a book or a new hobby or a job whatever because ALL of my bodily, mental, spiritual, emotional energies are going into mending and stuff. I feel like a 29 year old preschooler lol. 5 o'clock shadow and a sippy cup. haha. I like it here because it's like easy mode. it's like a holiday for your brain.

I'm honestly not sure what the point I started off with was. I have sooo many thoughts swirling in my head. At the end of the day I feel so burnt out and like I said, with such a small bandwidth that I feel like even regressing or dreaming or even just thinking about it is too much. Like. I used to cope and regulate by imagining scenarios in my head, like fanfics in my brain when I needed a little comfort but now I just can't! I can't imagine myself with a dream job or in a fantasy world or kissing someone cute, I just don't have it in me. It's not like I'm super low or anything, I'm actually generally pretty stable at the moment. I think what I want right now is to not feel alone. I don't want a relationship per se, not sure if it'd be fair to start something with someone but having a nice social circle would be a big relief. I can't remember ever really... having that. I guess I'm esoteric, with a full plate. I had a nice group of friends in college for about 2 years but thats dead now, we got on each others nerves at the end. But it was nice while it lasted. Imaging having a caregiver or being one is one of the only ways I can barely scratch that itch of wanting to rely on someone. Like. It's so deep at the moment, wanting comfort and all that, that "normal" soloutions to that just don't hit hard enough. Like I could imagine having a really nice friend group but irl I would need to be in a healthy friendship for quite a while before it started fulfilling that need, so imagining someone coddling me like I am a child, like I am something to be cherished, not just valued but cherished, that hits harder. thats nicer to think about. also also also co regulation + company is something i really desire.

I feel like I am so entwined with this community, more than anything else these days. It's sort of got a grip on me. and i dont know how i feel about that. none of you guys know me. i have mutuals, nice mutuals and people who are in my notes but none of you actually know me. i think maybe this place is more of a fantasy than a reality for me. and that tells me i need to distance myself but what else do i have?

I've tried taking a break before, you might remember, it only ended up being a few months but it was nice to come back.

right thats basically it. I assume if you've made it this far, seeing as I'm not even writing to anyone I'm just emptying my brain, I assume you're a very curious person. Someone who likes to feel involved. Like meeee. If anyone has any advice or sage wisdom or anything you want to say at all, please go ahead. This post is basically a bunch of thoughts with little resolve. This isn't really something I want to bring up with my therapist because onneee, I'm embarrassed, twwwooo she has most likely no idea of what age regression this, in this context. like. the age regression they talk about in regard to mental and psychological contexts, its pretty different to all this. anyway. i have other things in therapy to talk about lol maybe one day ill bring up that i feel like a small child in certain situations but let her lead that conversation. ah so.

yeah like. yeah. hi. if this resonates, im glad you found that. yeah. yeahhh i dont know. i have a lot of stuff going on. nothing in my life is straight forward. hence the... want to simplify things. I'm really tired now, wow!

to conclude, I'm a baby not necessarily a regessor. I'm running on fumes. i have a weird relationship with agere and im very hot and cold about it. goo goo ga ga but also i want to be respected and seen as a capable adult. i need a hobby. i need to rest but blehhhhh.

Here's a puppy as a treat for reading it all

[constellarcreator]

should i let go of my shame and start talking about my Psychonauts timeskip au here

[httpiastri]

[squigglyoctosquigglez]

assinging each cpds member a milgram song (except Undercover. no one is Es here. except maybe Lucy. yeah Lucy is Es now she gives the verdicts for each of their murders-)

for those who don't know, milgram is a fictional music project that involves a prison that hold 10 prisoners, each had been the sole cause of someones death (not just murder) and the only real clues to their "sin" is through songs !! there's also es they're the prison warden

i got this idea at like 10 pm today in my timezone, i say random ass shit here too please dont judge im tired

chris - Throw Down (uhh reading the lyrics chris is the kind to like really care but hes just done with everyone), Triage (he does not want to be deemed INNOCENT [he's still getting voted innocent])

dennis - After Pain ("“I’m sorry” won’t reach anyone (I hope it will someday) " dennis seems like the kind of kid to be bullied in school), Magic (dennis is at heart, childish. and also probably had shit parents. nothing wrong with the first one, everything wrong with the second one), The Purge March (eh hes probably not in a cult but like still he follows orders a bit too much to order idk how to explain it he remembers everything exactly except his own lines so like)

robert - half (kazui literally starts preforming an opera in the mv for this, anyways uhhh denise), It's Not My Fault (its literally in the name), Cat ("Love (plus) Destiny = Crap, smash it, shatter it, bye-bye / That sticky-sweet sequence: Dinner + Camouflage + You-Know-What / Loving Affection (minus) Love, it’s tacky, this two-way deceit / Victim and Perpetrator, let’s keep it simple" continuing half "Phew, oh wow I’m drunk, Hey, so what if I said I liked-liked you, what would you do?" this song is so painfully robert its insane idk why also kazui (prisoner singing the song) eats a fucking dove in the mv btw do with that info what you want idk)

sandra - MeMe (i have no actual reason for this just take my word for this one), It's Not My Fault (datte datte warekurai mon-), I Love You / Daisuki (see max's description) (im sorry there's still like 1 trial left, idk there's only like 20 songs)

max - This is how to be in love with you (title speaks for itself, max is a very loving person! sometimes too loving… like mahiru (prisoner singing the song) i think they would get along actually), I Love You / Daisuki (this song goes too hard to have that title, anyways Mon-mon-monstrously in love in love / Mon-mon-monstrous, cuz I love you so much / Mon-mon-monstrously in love in love / A monstrous dilemma!!!) (someone protect him)

johnathan - Weakness (idfk "ahHaHA, Please notice me. ahHaHA, Someone please notice me."), All-Knowing And All-Agony (probaby was neglected as a child or something idk now he indirectly relys on robert please dont listen to me im jsut spouting random shit atp im tired its 11 pmg now)

vanessa - Umbilical (i actually have no good reason for this), Tear Drop (i dont think she wants to be voted innocent for her murder [news flash, shes still getting voted innocent]), Double (or not innocent! idk man shes not mikoto (prisoner singing the song) but i gotta give his songs to someone and she kinda fits)

annie - HARROW (annie and trevor are similar in goals, to take down sin and make them pay for what they've done. however they do it in two different ways. idk those two different ways probably direct death threats (trevor) and an indirect slow death (annie). i have no fucking clue what im talking about actually), Deep Cover ("Don’t you dare stop now I want a reason for judgment execution, I want it" idk what kotoko (prisoner singing the song) ment by this but uhh do what you want with that)

trevor - Bring It On (see HARROW), Backdraft (LISTEN TO THE SONG ITS A FUCKING BANGER- anyways i have no reason for this than this connects with bring it on Burn, burn! An ever-victorious FIRE, burn so high till it becomes ash / Burn, burn! Deliciously scorched, till your mouth waters / Flames closing in, can’t douse this FIRE)

[fushiglow]

my suguru playlist is enormous and i feel like that says far more about me than it does about my love for the character. nothing good either lol

[skhardwarevers1]

Chris doesn’t have like a concept of gender or anything. Like she doesn’t know what a gender is. She heard the name Christopher (and then later Gale and something that was probably misheard as Sordid) and just said she’d call herself that. I think she would get confused if you explained gender to her even in its most basic form

[antlerdeer]

so if you're ever crying just play psychonauts because that shit will have you so stressed you forget why you're even crying

[ace-beef]

well today I learned that there actually is a Jaws fandom, even if it is very small

[imnotabot121]

???: I'M FUCKING DONE WITH YOU AND THE NONE STOP EXPERIMENTS DIE Throws EGG

Sos?: player #00 YOU BETRAYING DISOBIDIENT LITTLE SHI-

ASHSKKKKRRRRRRRRRRRRAAA- BEEEEEEEEEEP... . .

.

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???:..... w- what.... happened...? Wait who am I?

[regal-bones]

i have so so many lovely lovely followers here - every now and then i scroll through old posts and look through tags people leave and just,,,,, you guys are so so so sweet. I'm so lucky to have such a nice little community and gosh !! I'm so excited to show you all what I've been working on!

But just :') thank u for following me. I'm sorry I've been lacking in content right now - there's so much going on in my head at the minute its hard to get art out consistently - but knowing that I get to share what I do make with u guys makes me very happy :)