#that could be a tumblr sub perk tho

[bleaksqueak]

(okay, I don't want this website to stay broken and struggle under big daddy apple's boots, so I thought i'd see if they had any goodies for decorating my blog that I liked... and oh my god the moon badge is neat and the little bone guy is so cute. I guess i'll finally retire the funny checkmarks because they ruin THE VIBE of moonbones)

[herlittlebunnyboy]

So I thought about your post, the one who asks your followers to tell you about the book/movie/poem that changed our lives. And the thing with life changing art in my life is that it’s often not that great. Like I can talk your ear off about postmodernist Polish paintings and the queer film theory but the fact of the matter is that the media that often resonates the most with me is considered sub par. And I actually don’t mind it, but I do find it interesting.

First a disclaimer: there will be spoilers for the book, but it did come out in 1999 so I feel that’s fair. Second I will only write about it, not the poem or the movie because unfortunately I’m incapable of being concise. The book that absolutely changed my life is a cliche classic, piece de resistance of 2010 tumblr - “The perks of being wallflower”. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with it, but if not it’s an epistolary novel in which the main character (who gives himself a pseudonym Charlie) writes to the mysterious person who is just described as someone who “is kind” and “does the right thing”. There is A LOT of amazing quotes and heartbreaking and inspiring parts of the book (it did help that my group of friends very much identified with the characters and got up to similar shenanigans), but the thing that changed my life is this. Throughout the book we figure out there is something wrong with Charlie, we don’t know what but we can sense that something happened that he doesn’t wanna tell this mystery person, something horrible. Eventually we find out it was CSA. Charlie loves the person who hurt him, fights with himself to reconcile the image of the person as a good, hurt individual and as an abuser. When I read this book I was 16teen and wouldn’t admit to myself how bad the things that happened to me were, because the people who did them weren’t some kind of monsters, hiding in dark alleys or under my bed. They were asking about school while eating dinner with me and letting me pick music while we drove. I thought they could either be good or bad and I didn’t think I could survive giving up on them. It made me realize that people can be good and bad and complicated and sometimes we need to hold all of this at the same time. My favorite quote from the book tho is this: “We accept the love we think we deserve”. I’ve been repeating this to myself for the last 12 years.

This! This is the honesty and openness that this world desperately needs. And I don't know why but when you said followers in the beginning I laughed, that's such a foreign feeling/concept to me, I'd much rather consider all the cool people on here as friends.

Now to dive into this I love the sentiment of "the thing with life changing art in my life is that it's often not that great", it really doesn't have to be, I feel like if you are solely judging your change and progress off of the high notes you are missing at least half of the notes. Lol as for not being concise, we have talked to each other enough to know we both lack conciseness, but that's okay. As for the book, I have heard of it before but never read it or experienced the other forms of it, so I will definitely add this to my reading list. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who constantly equates people and places from books to people and things in my real life.

I won't go too far into your past or story as we have talked off the center stage, but like always, I appreciate you opening up to me ❤️‍🩹. The duality of man is a concept that each and every person has to come to terms with eventually and can be a shocking idea or thought to wrestle with, especially with the ones we hold close and love. It's not hard to imagine a stranger with a complicated goodness and badness but to realize that parents, kids, or siblings can and do have this inner turmoil and struggle with the good and bad inside them can be eye opening.

As always, thank you for sharing insights into your life and thoughts with me, I really appreciate you.