#neverending ramblings

[what-on-earth-is-love]

[fox-guardian]

there's gonna be soooo many colin playlists with soooo much lemon demon on them

[just-slightly-chayotic]

sometimes i just think about this photo and like... what am i supposed to do with my life

[chubs-deuce]

I AM BEING PERCEIVED.

[all-seeing-ifer]

also for what it's worth xander talking willow down from destroying herself and the world at the end of season 6 in the same place buffy talked angel down from killing himself in season 3 remains one of the most sickening (complimenatry) parallels in the show to me

[wonderful-bellies]

unfortunately I'm playing starbound again

[roguelioness]

Some days, my dog saves my life.

No, really.

I can't get out of bed? Well too bad, she needs to pee, and she can't let herself out so might as well get out of bed.

Well I'm out of bed, might as well brush my teeth.

Might as well make myself some coffee while I wait for her. Oh man, she's taking a while. Oh well, might as well make myself a sandwich.

I have to give her her food, might as well eat with her.

I have food in me, might as well take my meds.

She wants scritches, I'll sit on the couch instead of climbing back into bed. Might as well find something to watch.

Oh damn, she needs to go again. Oh well, might as well have some lunch.

Might as well. Might as well. Might as well.

She doesn't know how much she helps me. She's the best.

[dufrau]

I dont think a song has to be Your Favorite Song to work against vecna. I think any music at all probably has a disruptive sort of quality that begins to weaken the trance, like that moment in that dream about having skipped a class all semester and not knowing where the classroom is to take the final but you remember suddenly that you graduated high school a long time ago and none of this is real?

I think music at all begins to have that effect, or maybe any music that you recognize. If it reminds you of anything real, it doesn't fit with the trance and it reminds you that real life is happening outside of it.

But i think probably the more connection you have to a song, the more connected it makes you feel to somebody or some place or just to life, the more effective it is. Songs that evoke your connections and the love you feel for people and remind you of the love people feel for you.

Running Up That Hill is an interesting one because its NOT really connected to anybody but Max until AFTER it saves her. It's connected to her and her complex feelings about Billy, which is what Vecna is preying on. In a way that song sort of helped Vecna get IN, probably. But it's also a song Max loves. It's HERS. She listens to it on her headphones in her own little world.

And I love the Running Up That Hill scene very much, the internal and the external. And I find in particular the softness of those boys willing Max back to earth and catching her and holding her when she falls to be really the very heart of the show. And once that happens, I think the song now DOES connect her to them and to everybody who she loves and who loves her.

But WHILE it's happening. WHILE she is fighting to get back to them, its still just HER song. And she has been wallowing in this song in her grief and guilt and some halfhearted young desire to die, but when it comes down to it, it reminds her of her own power. Its not about the boys at all. It reminds Max who SHE is. And she IS person who loves and is loved, but more importantly, in that moment, she is a person who fights and survives. (Which is of course such a Nancy feeling, too, right? That's off topic but God, the connection between them is so important to me.)

I dont really know what this post is about. Something about how even our depression playlists connect us to something. Maybe there is strength in wallowing sometimes. I dont know! I do know that I will never forgive the Duffer's if they showed us Max fighting that hard to stay alive and then they end up killing her.

[athousandbyeol]

taking a few minutes to rest: i have a thought. i wonder if forcebook will ever star in a melodrama. kind of like p'aof's last twilight, which is romantic and angsty. like destined lovers or arranged marriages. a single father with a child and an office worker. a photographer and a finance worker. soulmate aus coming to life or love at first sight things. add a touch of forcebook's usual comedic charm and romantic banter; i wonder if we can ever see this version of forcebook someday. i think they'll do exceptionally well

[ofravensflight]

Well, first visit to the new psych went well. I think. Not treating the ADHD yet, apparently my depression and anxiety were a lot worse than I believed they were and jumping straight to treating ADHD without stabilizing that first can make it much worse instead so back to antidepressants but hey first steps and all that.

I do feel kind of bad though. She was talking about finding a therapist to talk more with and do more behavioral work alongside the medication and was like "we'll give you a list of referrals and you can contact them and try them out to see who you feel safe with." And I just kind of dropped in there that I didn't even really feel safe with her after our hour session. Not in a didn't like her felt unsafe in particular kind of way, she was great and I think it's going to go better than my previous one but like, someone who part of their job is to be someone patients feel safe around and I'm just in there like "Yeah actually I don't feel fully safe around anyone and haven't for a decade or more."

I definitely feel safest with my fiancée, but even she isn't a full trust actor in my mind. Like yeah there is not a single person on this planet including being completely alone by myself that I feel completely safe with and that is apparently a much larger problem than I was aware it would be...oops.

[jamestaylorswift]

I have complicated thoughts about atw10. I go back and forth on it - sometimes I hate it, sometimes I love it. but I think I always end up at those extremes because I can’t help but compare them.

first you have the og atw. perfect, no notes, whether or not you agree it’s her magnum opus it does deserve every bit of hype it gets because it’s a great fucking song. (the magnum opus conversation is intertwined with the lore about the song - that taylor wrote it all in a vent sesh with her band; that it wasn’t a single but became a fan favorite because it’s a great fucking song; that there’s A Scarf™️; that taylor recognized all this history and played it up; that by rerecording her music taylor gets the opportunity to carefully prune, as one would a bonsai tree, narratives and how her eras are remembered and how this is the one she’s cemented in history; that now the focus on a song’s lore has intentionally and unintentionally become integral to its endurance and popularity….) the original song has extreme dynamic peaks and valleys despite its nearly unwavering four chord progression. it has lines about autumn leaves and repeat phone calls so insightful that you marvel at how anyone could have been so talented as to string those precise words together. but its emotional punch is twofold: the details are just clear enough to make you recall one of your own experiences and just hazy enough to prevent the writer’s experience replacing yours. the whole thesis is about remembering all too well, forever. you can’t get rid of it. because you remember it. you remember it all. the song is a tour de force and taylor’s skillful manipulation of emotional/musical tension in this song is something that will be appreciated and studied for years to come.

then on the other hand you have atw10, which not only sounds and reads differently but could even be considered antithetical, or at least a foil, to the original song. the zeniths and nadirs are less pronounced and she expands the story with new verses largely interpreted to be about a toxic relationship with an age gap. the musical arrangement is more modern and features an expanded palette of instruments: tension and release comes from subtle harmonic differences, staccato background vocals, or a wild violin. the new verses - were they really part of the original song? or do they clearly betray the perspective of someone who’s 10 years older? the short film - it hammers home this exact expanded story and was admittedly written as a retrospective, with the insight that being 10 years removed from a toxic relationship provides. the ultimate effect is that atw10 is not about remembering it all because you can’t get rid of it. it’s about taylor remembering it all, even though she can finally get rid of it. the “it” is clearly her own experience (though this is not to say the atw10 story is not a relatable story or that it’s not a valuable story to tell or hear.) “I was there, I was there….” the memories and the pain all trail away with time. but, these memories are very clearly not yours, the listener’s. atw10 may be an expansion of the original all too well story, but this expansion does not simply intensify the same emotions from the original song—it explores a rather different emotional profile. musically and lyrically, and whether intentional or not, atw10 argues that the pain of remembering is dulled and even remedied with time.

and thus the ways that atw10 excels and fails are quite different than the ways the og atw does. whether one is “good” or “bad” depends what we value in a song, and more generally, why we enjoy the songs that we do and the extent to which we value an artist’s interpretation of their own experiences. have we been in toxic relationships and can relate to the specific story of atw10? are there traumas we can’t heal no matter how hard we try? are we moved by brash drums and isolated guitars or playful violins atop chords that chug on and on? does taylor swift’s word supplement or supplant our own connections with her songs?

I know that I personally would find atw10 less confusing if I stopped comparing it to its shorter relative. but the various lengths and mediums in which the all too well story is told make it seem destined that we’ll all be comparing the versions until the end of time. and yet just as there are shades of red for every possible intense emotion - burning, cherry, so scarlet, maroon - so are there reasons to love all too well. just as it will endure in the popular zeitgeist as one of taylor’s best, most famous, most impactful, most beloved songs, so too must all too well live on in every listener because of (and only because of) each and every one of us loving it for unique reasons.

[what-on-earth-is-love]

noé and laios have the same type of autism and should kiss about it perhaps

[bitegore]

BARLEY IN MY FUCKING JUICE??????

[misteria247]

I just love it when I have to call off work due to health issues that refuse to not haunt me lmao. Side note I did get to help put up our Christmas tree with my family yesterday so there's a positive.

[ruanbaijie]

slightly belated but hello the opla soundtrack is so beautiful???

[basu-shokikita]

i dont need to make an oc to lovemail my fave cuz i already project onto skwisgaar and toki simultaneously my love and obsession for them both fjdjfj