yall, okay, everytime i try to read notes from underground, i feel strangely targeted, like how’s this man from centuries ago writing so well about me, but the men i’m close to do not understand shit about me???
Check out how we train our mola to come to the surface of the Open Sea exhibit to chow down on some delicious food!
Fun fact: Inside a mola's tiny mouth are two pairs of hard teeth plates shaped with a slightly curved ridge, resembling a bird's beak. Here’s the twist: The mola doesn’t chew its food! 😳
Instead, it sucks the food in and out (especially in the case of jellies) until it’s reduced to gelatinous chunks. Here at the Aquarium, we make a special gelatin-formula that allows our mola to munch on food just the way it would in the wild.
it wasn't always obvious (well. except for the times that it was), but you internalized it young. you had to eat what you didn't like, other people are going hungry, and you should be grateful. you had to suck it up and walk on the twisted ankle, it wasn't broken, you were just being a baby. you were never actually suffering, people obviously had it worse than you did.
you had a roof over your head - imagine! with the way you behaved, with how you talked back to your parents? you're lucky they didn't kick you out on your ass. they had friends who had to deal with that. hell, you have friends who had to deal with that. and how dare you imply your father isn't there for you - just because he doesn't ever actually talk to you and just because he's completely emotionally checked out of your life doesn't mean you're not fucking lucky. think about your cousins, who don't even get to speak to their dad. so what if yours has a mean streak; is aggressive and rude. at least you have a father to be rude to you.
you really think you're hurting? you were raised in a home! you had access to clean water! you never so much as came close to experiencing a real problem. sure, okay. you have this "mental illness" thing, but teenagers are always depressed, right. it's a phase, you'll move on with your life.
what do you mean you feel burnt out at work. what do you mean you mean you never "formed healthy coping mechanisms?" we raised you better than that. you were supposed to just shoulder through things. to hold yourself to high expectations. "burning out" is for people with real jobs and real stress. burnout is for people who have sick kids and people who have high-paying jobs and people who are actually experiencing something difficult. recently you almost cried because you couldn't find your fucking car keys. you just have lost your sense of gratitude, and honestly, we're kind of hurt. we tell you we love you, isn't that enough? if you want us to stick around, you need to be better about proving it. you need to shut up about how your mental health is ruined.
it could be worse! what if you were actually experiencing executive dysfunction. if you were really actually sick, would you even be able to look at things on the internet about it? you just spend too much time on webMD. you just like to freak yourself out and feel like you belong to something. you just like playing the victim. this is always how you have been - you've always been so fucking dramatic. you have no idea how good you have it - you're too fucking sensitive.
you were like, maybe too good of a kid. unwilling to make a real fuss. and the whole time - the little points, the little validations - they went unnoticed. it isn't that you were looking for love, specifically - more like you'd just wanted any one person to actually listen. that was all you'd really need. you just needed to be witnessed. it wasn't that you couldn't withstand the burden, but you did want to know that anyone was watching. these days, you are so accustomed to the idea of comparison - you don't even think you belong in your own communities. someone always fits better than you do. you're always the outlier. they made these places safe, and then you go in, and you are just not... quite the same way that would actually-fit.
you watch the little white ocean of your numbness lap at your ankles. the tide has been coming in for a while, you need to do something about it. what you want to do is take a nap. what you want to do is develop some kind of time machine - it's not like you want your life to stop, not completely, but it would really nice if you could just get everything to freeze, just for a little while, just until you're finished resting. but at least you're not the worst you've been. at least you have anything. you're so fucking lucky. do you have any concept of the amount of global suffering?
a little ant dies at the side of your kitchen sink. you look at its strange chitinous body and think - if you could just somehow convince yourself it is enough, it will finally be enough and you can be happy. no changes will have to be made. you just need to remember what you could lose. what is still precious to you.
you can't stop staring at the ant. you could be an ant instead of a person, that is how lucky you are. it's just - you didn't know the name of the ant, did you. it's just - ants spend their whole life working, and never complain. never pull the car over to weep.
it's just - when it died, it curled up into a tight little ball.
something kind of uncomfortable: you do that when you sleep.
You know what is fun? Baby Ghost Jason. You know what could be even more fun? Ghosts are Dragons.
Jason? Aware of none of this.
He was on comms, y’know listening and rolling his eyes at Dickwing, who used his real name, really Dick, he mocks. It’s just a stakeout, nothing new there, honestly boring when he could be blowing something up instead. It should have just been a stakeout.
Yet there’s something suddenly there, something behind him. Something that causes his hair to stand on end and his comms to spark into static like some sort of horror movie. Something, something with clawed hands with corpse-pale skin tipped in black, stained or dead or something else, tilting his head up and up and up as he’s frozen.
“A child, out here? Alone?” a voice crackles, hisses, hums, and purrs, somehow all at once, unnatural in its tone. He can’t move, he needs to move, he has to move, but it’s like the space around him has gone cold and dead, like he’s stuck in the Pits once more as claws hold his head and his vision blurs. “Sleep, child. Rest- we’ll be home soon.”
"isn't it kinda funny that helio chose you, and you were the one to bring the daytime back? that doesn't feel special at all to you?" holy shit that's heartbreaking. like obviously the applebees aren't great people, they have a lot of harmful beliefs and a lot of misplaced fear and false righteousness but. it's gotta be heartbreaking. to watch your child, chosen cleric of helio, perform the miracle of bringing the sun back from eternal night, and still choose a dead mysterious goddess of darkness over you. I felt that "that doesn't feel special at all to you?" in my bones.
I’m still so mentally ill over the whole Luffy refusing to eat unless it’s Sanji’s food thing. Like. We KNOW how fucking feral over food Luffy is. He loves food and loves eating so much that he steals it off other people’s plates and out of their hands and is so impatient when it comes to meals that he’ll literally try and sneak into the kitchen to mooch before it’s ready. Or he’ll try to break into the refrigerator. I know Sanji mentioned putting a lock on it at some point bc Luffy literally wiped it clean. He will not hesitate to eat other people’s portions or literally an entire meal meant for a whole ship of people! He’s unbelievably selfish when it comes to food and that’s just SUCH a central part of his character that it’s become almost endearing. Even in Totto Land Luffy didn’t think for a second before devouring everything in sight, including an entire fucking HOUSE, regardless of the consequences or the people it might affect. Homie did not care!! He’s food driven first and foremost!!!
Until Sanji leaves him. Until he decides that eating—something that he loves and brings him comfort—isn’t WORTH it unless it’s Sanji’s food he’s eating. It’s been shown that Luffy has zero self restraint when it comes to food so the fact that he was SURROUNDED by food on all sides on a food themed island and utterly refused to partake in any of that? Even though he hates being hungry and will always make eating a priority over pretty much anything else?? The amount of willpower it must have taken for him to sit there and purposefully let himself starve, for SANJI. Even when food was offered to him conveniently (in the form of syrup rain) he stubbornly rejected that. Because it wasn’t Sanji’s food. Because it wasn’t Sanji who made it, who always puts so much thought and care into the food he makes, who always indulges Luffy and prepares extra because he knows how much Luffy eats and how much he loves to eat. Luffy literally took one of the most defining traits he has and tossed it out the window. For Sanji. I’m going to fucking blow up