#me vs my inability to use colours other than blue

[jiangwanyin]

EVERY EPISODE OF HEAVEN OFFICIAL’S BLESSING [1/?]

#tgcf #tgcfedit #tian guan ci fu #heaven official's blessing #mxtxnet #xie lian #ling wen #* #*tgcf #*tgcfe #me vs my inability to use colours other than blue

[ashensparrow]

Drow in Baldurs Gate 3 and what it means for Drizzt Do’urden

this topic excites me. I have both put a great amount of effort into  over thinking this and  the potential of  6th edition DnD (whenever that will come out)  as well as with my own headcanons.  will be putting it under cut so I don’t clog the dashboard.

I will start this off by saying I didn’t start reading the legend of Drizzt books until my mid 20s a few years ago. and I am still currently on the Neverwinter saga. though I am aware of some plot heavy stuff for the most recent books, partly for my own inability to sensor what I read online and partly because my BF has them all and reads them has religiously as I do but he has a decade on me in terms of reading. Drizzt also wasn't my first introduction to Drow. I knew nothing about the race until my first ever dnd game when I was 20. another player played a lawful evil Drow in predominantly lawful good party. and he roleplayed it so well no one knew until he pretty much told us. I loved his character, and the backstory he came up with and it inspired me to research drow as a race as a whole, eventually getting into the LoD books and now I play a Drow in every game I can. this cannot be understated if these first two paragraphs didn’t give you a hint. I love Drow. I love every aspect of their race, it fascinates me to no end. the Introduction of the Seldarine Drow in Baldurs Gate 3  has me foaming at the mouth with excitement. not only because it brings more depth to a race that has in a wide sense been relegated to being the ‘evil elves’  but it also brings a whole new way of reading the Drizzt books for me.  going by the game, Drizzt very well could have been one of, if not, the first ever,  Seldarine Drow, the first in a new subrace within a subrace of elves. we can pretty much confirm this by his eye colour. in BG3 all Seldarine Drow have either white, pale blue, black or purple eyes. Lolth-sworn Drow only have red  eyes. now if we put aside the potential godly influence for a moment, that is a clear, genetic difference, however minor. what other differences could there be? maybe height? Drizzt describes as small in the books. only about 5′5, but that is pretty tall for a Male Drow elf. who are smaller than females,  and the smallest of all the elf races.  could there be anything else? maybe an ability to adjust to light easier? when Drizzt was born and his sisters held a candle close to his eyes, he apparently didn't even flinch. there is also the obvious mental differences. starting with Zaknafein, who for the sake of this post was the one who had the ‘Seldarine’ gene. his life didn't sit well with him. he was still Lolth-sworn by his eye colour.  but he had something in him that even after close to five centuries made him feel different than the rest of his race, not enough to change his path but it was something. in fact when he thought Drizzt had killed a child he was pretty heart broken believing he would be just like the rest of them. Drizzt takes it further. he is disgusted by his Underdark world. he doesn’t understand  the way of his people, that in some respects, reminds me of myself as an Autistic person, he’s neurological divergent to the rest of his race. at least in the first few books.(Drizzt being Autistic was a nice  little headcanon for me)  previously this struck me as a nature vs nurture argument. very few people are born evil. I  would say  that even in a fantasy setting, and a whole race born evil even with godly influence just feels off to me. but if you grow up in an environment where that is the norm and that's what is taught the vast majority of people simply will accept it and go along with it. its far easier, especially for a male in an environment where the wrong questions can get you killed. for Drizzt to be the first of a new subrace of his people. is a big deal. evolution - adapting  to new environments is a thing, even in a world full of magic. with more Drow to he surface;  thanks to Drizzts influence and Bregan D'aerthe and the Followers of Eilistraee, after a few generations maybe Drow will start to be born able to adapt to light better, will be taller. etc.  now of course there is the simpler argument. its all done for Wizards change up, the expand the ‘evil’ races and to be more inclusive, and in 6E there will be some massive differences to the races we can play and I’m on board with that. but I love speculating and I am going to be rereading the Dark elf trilogy very soon. this probably doesn’t mean anything to anyone else. just the ramblings of a person who is hyper fixated on a fantasy race of people. I'm also probably completely off the mark. but what if I am right...

#Drow #Dark Elves #Lolth-sword drow #Seldarine drow #Forgotten Realms #wizards of the coast #the legend of drizzt #Legend of Drizzt #Drizzt Do'Urden #baldurs gate 3 #bg3 spoilers #BG3 #baldurs gate 3 spoilers #ramblings of a mad woman #mentions of autism #r.a. salvatore

[purplesurveys]

721

Have you ever disliked someone just because a friend disliked them? Yessssss. That’s my job as a best friend hahahaha half kidding. No but seriously though, I have. I mean I’d still be objective and tell my friend if their enemy is making sense in some aspects, but at the end of the day I’ll give them the extra support by disliking that person anyway. Which would you rather own: A camera or a video camera. Why? Video camera, because I’ve always wanted to start vlogging and my phone’s camera is already quite decent, so I’m not really needing a camera right now. Have you ever won a lot of money in a slot machine? How much? Nah, I’ve never even played in a casino. I’ve been in one but I was only 18 then, so I couldn’t really do anything except to walk through the casino and stare at all the machines and booths that I couldn’t play at haha. Do you watch sports on TV even though you aren't a sporty person yourself? I will sometimes watch a tennis or MMA match if I catch them on, but that’s about it. I wouldn’t know who to root for either, or know who’s the better player; I just watch for the action. Do you eat / drink at your computer? Yes but I try to avoid it more these days because I hate greasing up my trackpad or leaving bits of food on my keyboard. If I really have to eat at my laptop I’ll put on a show or a video to watch so that I don’t have to actually be using my laptop.

How much do you overeat at special occasions? (Birthdays, Christmas, etc) I don’t think I have the capacity to overeat haha. My room for food is small so when I get full I simply stop eating, or I no longer get up to get a second serving. Generally I try to get a piece of every meal though, no matter how little; I always want to have a taste of everything so that I don’t miss out. The music you listen to: Is it mostly sung by female or male vocalists? I think it’s an equal amount but when it comes to frequency I think I’ve been listening to female vocalists more often – Beyoncé, Paramore, The Japanese House, Banks, etc. My playlists generally have both female and male artists though cause I also listen to Hozier, alt-J, Coldplay, Rhye, Joji, and other male dudes. Do you think it's important to enjoy your job or do you just work for money? As much as possible people should always aim to end up somewhere where they love what they do for a living, but given that I’m quite materialistic but mostly grew up in a household with a mom who was very frugal and often reiterated the joys of a simple life (aka a life I hated lmao), I think I’d have no problem having a job that pays handsomely but wasn’t necessarily viewed as fun. I wanna be able to spoil and reward myself after all the work I do. Do you require glasses / contacts to see properly? If so, which do you use? Yeah, I have glasses. Tell me an embarrassing thing that happened to you recently: I shared a serious-toned Facebook post earlier tonight and Gabie’s dad gave it a like. I’ve mostly forgotten he was my Facebook friend and so I started feeling embarrassed because normally I would shitpost and share stupid memes and if he liked my post, it must mean he sees everything I share jkfhjkfhjkf. When you hear your voice back on a recording, do you think it sounds awful? No. I don’t usually cringe when I hear it; I think it sounds okay. When was the last time you got the hiccups? Aaaaaaaaages ago. I can’t even tell you when. If you had to, which record would you go into Guinness World Records for? I saw a video on Facebook of this woman getting into Guinness for finishing the most jars of mayonnaise in a certain amount of time (I wanna say 5 minutes?) and I was so thrilled to see such a record cause I can honestly see myself breaking it HAHAHAHAHA mayonnaise is <3 The last sweet thing you ate: What was it? A chocolate chip cookie, except we don’t have chocolate chips so my dad had to improvise and chopped up Flat Tops instead. If you had to change your name, what would you change it to? I’d toy with my second name and probably go with Belle or Bella. Do you have a middle name? Do you find it embarrassing? Yeah I think all Filipinos come with a legal second name. I don’t find mine embarrassing it all; it’s a source of great pride since I have a lot of relatives etched in Philippine history with that name. I don’t ever want to lose it and I’ll probably continue to keep it even after I’m married. What would you choose to be famous for? It’d be nice to be known for a blog. If I had the time, resources, and tbh the connections it would be amazing to write about anything under the sun for an audience. What is your current occupation? Do you enjoy it? I don’t have any at the moment, but I’m about to start looking for one. Do / Did you enjoy school? Why (not)? There are some parts I enjoy/ed (the friends I made for high school, the overwhelming independence I gained in college) and some parts I hate/d (some classes I was forced to take in high school, my inability to adjust during my first year of college). I don’t regret either periods though, and I can never say I completely hated them. If you have a webcam, are you ever paranoid people can see you? Yes hahaha. I never got around to buying a webcam protector either. Do you find it difficult to sleep at night? Any reason(s) why? Only when there’s something unresolved, like a deadline that’s bugging me or if Gab and I have been arguing. Otherwise I’m knocked out in like 10 minutes. If you had to go on a game show, which would you choose? Family Feud or Jeopardy. What about if you had to go on a reality show? Which would you choose then? QUEER EYE. Talk about wholesome. Tell me about your favourite TV show: Blue meth, New Mexico, lots of chemistry, objectively one of the greatest pieces of television ever. Have you ever wished you were born the opposite gender? Why? I probably wished this a few times when I was a pre-teen and liking girly things was still seen as lame. How the hell did we not question mindsets like that before, damn. If you had dental braces, which colour would you make them? I did have braces and I always picked a different color for every trip to the dentist, so it’s very possible I had tried out the entire rainbow. Does any part of your body hurt right now? Where and why? My back hurts rn, understandably, because my posture is shitty. Why were you last irritated? Slow internet. What time did you get up this morning? I think that was already 11 in the morning. The last city you were in: Where was it and do you like it there? Other than my own it was in Pasig. It’s okay but I definitely prefer other cities. It’s a little too crowded and congested for me and also too expensive to stay at, eugh. If I had the choice I’d rather hang in Makati or QC. Do you like the countryside? They’re nice spots for a short vacation, but I wouldn’t want to live there. I’ve grown used to the hustle and bustle of cities. If you see someone yawn, do you often yawn as well? Sure. Recommend me a good movie: Good Will Hunting, Requiem for a Dream (but sad), Roman Holiday, Gone with the Wind, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Do you think you'd make a good model? Would you ever want to be one? I don’t work out or do anything to maintain a certain figure so I don’t have the the ideal body for modeling; if anything the only factor I have going for me is the fact that I’m quite skinny. I did want to be a model when I was a teenager though; that was around the time VS Angels were extremely popular, so I’m not surprised I used to want to be like them. How often do you change your hairstyle? What does it look like now? I only change it up once a year. Right now I have a bit of a bob with bangs. Truth or Dare? Truth. I never have a problem saying the truth lmao. Do you have a favourite day of the week? Which is it? This semester it was Tuesday, because it had my lightest schedule. Nowadays every week is just a blur to me and I stopped having a favorite day.

#survey #surveys

[orionsangel86]

13x01 - Episode Review - Part 2

"Nougat Winchester” and narrative mirrors in 13x01

It has taken me forever to finish this part of my review to the extent that we have already had another episode before I finished it! But rather than curse my inability to focus I’m gonna press on and complete this before I start my 13x02 review.

Ah Jack, Jack our little nougat Jack. The way the fandom has embraced you is very touching. The internet screams of “PROTECT HIM” certainly show that Alexander Calvert has done an exceptional job of “pulling a Misha” and making us fall in love with him by the end of his first scene. I was not expecting that one bit. 

I’ll be honest and say that over the hiatus I haven’t paid too much attention to him. I did read some of the meta and speculation that @tinkdw and others put out there, but it was never really something I focused my thoughts on. I figured he would be another character that would test the team free will dynamic and would be a good avenue for the writers to comment on the concepts of nature vs nurture. I remember reading some speculation once the episode titles first came out about “The Scorpion and the Frog” and anyone who knows that story knows very well that the title itself foreshadows Jack going darkside – to his own potential destruction. (The scorpion, in carrying out its own “nature” and stinging the frog that carried it – not only doomed the frog, but doomed itself as well.)

Jack has officially won me over though. He was a charming innocent and funny character, and I think his interactions with Clark brought a lot of light to an otherwise terribly angsty and painfully heart breaking episode. (#bringbackClark2k17)

But what really blew me away was how both Jack AND Clark were such OBVIOUS mirrors for Dean and Cas and to a lesser extent to Sam. It amused me to no end. Therefore this review will focus on those mirrors, and what they mean. 

Long post under the cut

Jack is a narrative mirror of Team Free Will

This is the important thing to remember. He is all of them, and will have aspects of all them characterised into his personality as we continue to get to know the character in the coming episodes. 

I am sure that there are already thousands of words of meta on this topic (since I’m over a week late to the game) but I’m gonna throw my hat in the ring anyway.

The most obvious mirror we get from Jack is for Castiel. I have said already that Castiel was all over every single scene of 13x01. That Dabb didn’t want the audience forgetting him for a second. (thank you Dabb you wonderful man). I have already seen the many gifsets floating around comparing all of Jack’s “Cas” moments to the original famous Cas moments in the show - and we know that this carries over into episode 2 as well. 

Firstly, we can see immediately in the way Jack is dressed that he is coded as a Cas mirror:

Look at the tan jacket, the pale blue shirt, visually he is already a mini Cas. Remember they could have dressed him in ANYTHING. They chose a tan Jacket and pale blues. They chose these colours because this show has a visual library and certain things always mean certain things. Put someone in a tan coat or jacket and they are a Cas mirror. This is how these things work. 

(the bulls horns hand symbol does however have Lucifer connotations which ties him to his biological father whether he likes it or not - but more on that when I go on about signs and symbols).

Probably the most “Cas” like moment in this episode was this one:

(x)

Poor baby is just as literal as his dad:

(x)

But there are many more. The constant confused expression for starts:

(I’m still waiting for the moment he actually does the head tilt as we all know it’s coming)

The scene with the candy was delightful - and gave him the fandom pet name of “Nougat Winchester” which I have stolen from Lizzy as my new tag for him because its so fitting.

(and we like you sweetheart)

(on that note - I did find it interesting that Jack isn’t able to answer the Sheriff when she asks him for a last name. Surely he knows his mother’s name was Kline? Why didn’t he give her that? We were all calling him “Jack Kline” over hiatus, but now it doesn’t seem like its the case - personally I think this is because he will indeed get “adopted” as a Winchester and will use the surname at some point in future - probably in front of Lucifer causing a hell of a lot of anger. God knows the show has pointed out enough times over the past season that Castiel is a Winchester - leading to mainstream media giving him the last name:

Why yes I did add my destiel adjacent quiz results to meta about Jack. I have no regrets. :P

Anyway, as I was saying Jack is a huge Cas mirror, and his adorably gluttonous love of candy was a call back to:

Perhaps we can once again talk about angels and addiction and how this may affect Jack? Because they really don’t have the self control that human’s do (even though Cas was affected by famine at this particular moment).

So why is Jack a mirror for Cas? Well this is probably the first clue:

I screamed the first time I watched this moment. I think we all expected it to remain subtextual. We all know that this season will explore the role of fatherhood and how it affects each character, but this was so much more than we were expecting. Jack is a Cas mirror because he has majorly imprinted on Cas from the womb. He is first and foremost a Cas mirror because Cas is on his mind from the moment of his birth, and this reveal confirms it. Every question of “Father?” that he says so ominously in the first part of the episode is directed at Castiel. It is Castiel he was looking for, not Lucifer. 

I did say that Castiel was in every second of this episode, forcing the audience to continuously remember him and his importance - and this moment made me jump for joy. 

The way the episode continuously plays with the audiences expectations is really interesting. They want us to assume the worst of Jack, but each time he surprises us by delighting us with some adorable Cas like thing. Jack says “I’m hungry” and we are supposed to feel uneasy about that because just 2 seasons ago we had another very hungry powerful child who fulfilled her hunger by eating human souls. We are supposed to worry about Clark in that moment, and to follow the Sheriff down the darkened halls and flickering lights terrified of what Jack has done - but he is sitting there cross legged on the floor with Clarke surrounded by candy wrappers and proclaiming how much he likes nougat. Its a lovely moment and it forces the audience to change their minds completely. 

When Jack reveals that he thinks Cas is his father, our reaction is much the same as Sam’s, but we fall for him just like Sam does, and it sets the season up nicely because for once the audience is NOT supposed to be on Dean’s side here. (I’ll talk about this more in my review of episode 2 where it is more relevant but basically, we are supposed to feel sorry for Dean because we know that he isn’t seeing things clearly. We are supposed to root for Jack and be on Sam’s side in all this, and to see Dean as a character shrouded in a deep grief and anger)

I love that they made it textual that Cas is the father. (major flashbacks to 11x06 right now though)

“Jenny, he is not ready to be a father!”

I’ll continue jumping for joy over this as the season goes forward, but for now I want to talk about how Jack is also a mirror for Dean. Because he is and it again, wasn’t subtle. 

(x)

A young boy on a quest to find his father, to have to accept the death of his mother right at the start, and who is forced to grow up far quicker than he should? Yeah that sounds about right. 

Whilst Dean and Jack seem at odds with each other from the start, they are both set up as mirrors in their joint grief for Castiel. That heart wrenching moment at the end of the episode where Dean is wrapping Castiel’s body for the pyre comes only moments after we get to see Jack’s own grief for his mother so touchingly portrayed as a grip to her covered foot. Both Dean and Jack are only shown touching the feet of those they lost, there is probably some deep symbolic meaning to that linked to Christ and washing the feet of his disciples or something but I’ll leave that meta to someone far more versed in bible lore than me. 

We know that in episode 2 the Dean parallels get much stronger, with Dean being the second Winchester (after Cas) that he imprints upon. I’ll talk about this in my episode 2 review, and instead leave this here. Jack is Dean for his grief, and his ties to humanity, and how he has been robbed of his childhood. I am interested to see how they go about keeping Jack innocent. He is in the body of a man, but his mind is still so childlike. I hope that he becomes a symbol for Dean’s own innocence in a theme started in 12x11. 

Finally, the one touched on the least in episode 1 but probably the most significant to Jack’s own arc going forward - Jack as a mirror for Sam.

What so far is probably the least obvious in terms of mirror’s is actually the most obvious in terms of story lines. There is a reason Sam so desperately wants to believe in Jack, believe that he is good and can do good things. Because Sam has been in this situation himself. 

Sam’s entire early series arc was about fighting the darkness inside himself, fighting against his own dark powers that came from a place of evil, and resisting Lucifer’s pull. Sam’s been there. So of course Sam is rooting for the kid. Sam and Jack have the biggest connection in terms of their connection to Lucifer. Sam immediately tries to see things through Jack’s point of view. Yes, he’s not as tied down with grief and anger as Dean is - Sam hasn’t just lost the love of his life (though the deancas parallels to SamJess are very strong throughout 12x23 and 13x01 as well).

Sam still has hope, because he see’s himself in Jack. He knows he managed to resist that dark power, and he has faith that Jack can to. I expect the Sam/Jack mirrors to come through far more strongly in episode 3 when we see them interacting together without Dean there to cause conflict, so it will be interesting if we get to delve more into Sam’s past and trauma this season, as it’s about time the show focused on his issues around Lucifer.

Clark as the exposition for Cas’s return... among other things

I could talk for hours about Jack and everything he stands for, but right now I just need to add this about Clark, because boy did he pull focus. In an episode so heavy with grief and full of reminders of Castiel as well as establishing Jack into the audiences mind, Clark comes out of no where and almost steals the show (almost). 

When we are introduced to Clark only 5 minutes into the episode, he is mucking around with the menu changing every item into something ‘butt’ related. I could meta on this but tbh its so very on the nose that I don’t think it’s needed. You all know exactly what Burgers and Butts are making us think of. Its juvenile but its hilarious (my personal favourite is the salty butt combo - a bit of salt is a good thing especially in destiel fandom!).

So skipping past those obvious jokes, what interests me most about Clark is this:

“He’s fired me like seven times... and I keep coming back.”

Look at this face! Dark hair, Blue eyes, extremely charming? Hello Cas mirror!

also:

4x22 - Killed by Raphael

5x22 - Killed by Lucifer

7x01 - Killed by returning the souls (Dean thought he was dead before he healed himself)

7x02 - Killed by Leviathan

8x02 - Left for dead in Purgatory

9x03 - Killed by April

12x23 - Killed by Lucifer

At this point in the show, Dean has watched Cas “die” seven times. I don’t think the above was an accident. 

The fact that Clark then says “Around here, I’m untouchable” is kind of hilarious. Since Clark later gets stabbed with an angel blade - AND SURVIVES.

However for the rest of the episode, Clark is so much more of a Dean mirror, to Jack’s Cas mirror. Clark shows Jack his humanity. He makes Jack happy enough for his powers to make the lights flicker (honestly if this doesn’t make the whole grace orgasm blowing out the lights head canon real I don’t know what does). He feeds him candy, jokes around with him, and is generally such a playful and charming character that we can’t quite help but associate him with Dean.

I love how Clark’s mum the Sheriff tells the police officer that “There’s no such thing as weird, everyone is normal in their own way” because isn’t that just a massive shout out to anyone who is slightly ‘different’? All of us who identify with this show about the ‘weird’ things because we are a little bit weird ourselves? Whose to say what is normal and whats not? 

What I love about this line is that it backs up my claim that the show is trying to prepare the audience in a way for things they may not expect... especially the part of the audience that watches for macho men, guns and death - the Republicans, the dudebros, the right wingers, the assholes who think that to fit in in this world you have to fit into some idealistic little box. Well, believe me this show has a few surprises in line for those people. I can’t wait for it to all come to a head.

Team Free Will 

Ultimately, what 13x01 has shown us is that Jack is a combination of ALL of team free will. He is his own person of course, but he shares elements and traits with all of them. I think it’s so fitting that so soon after Dean’s memorable speech to Cas in 12x19:

“You, Me, and Sam, We’re just better together. So now that you’re back, lets go Team Free Will”

In which Dean brought this term back for the first time in canon since it was used in 5x13, do we now have a character who is the embodiment of all three of them. For me, it seems that this was intentional and that Dean’s words really were the truth - that once Cas comes back, all three of them will be able to save Jack from himself, along with any other nastiness that comes their way. It is my absolute belief that the moral of season 13 will be that Dean, Sam and Cas need each other, and need to work together in order to defeat whatever evil comes their way. Jack is proof of that. How he mirrors all three of them, and is at this point in time, internally divided:

He has Cas’s innocence, naivety and endearing curious nature, as well as his angelic power.

He has Dean’s humanity, his desire to be good, and a need to reach out to people and bond with them.

He has Sam’s inner darkness, linked to his emotions and leading him to question his own monstrous nature. His struggle between his own inner good and evil. 

When these three sides of him conflict, it will cause problems. Just like how conflict between Dean, Sam and Cas is usually the primary cause of disaster in the supernatural universe. Jack’s fate, and his ability to control himself and his opposing sides, is intrinsically tied to Team Free Will themselves coming together and actually working as a team once again. 

And I bloody well can’t wait to watch this story play out. 

#supernatural #spn meta #jack the nephilim #nougat winchester #episode review #13x01 #season 13 #spn spoilers #dean winchester #castiel #sam winchester #destiel #mirrors and parallels

[hallaig]

Tag Game

I was tagged by @hedera-helixwriteseruri thank you! (re your response to my ask, oh my god, yes)  ❤️ Last one! I need to come up with some questions for you all.

1. Do you have houseplants in your home? If so, how many and what kind?

I do! I have four succulents and a tiny cactus and a beautiful purple-leafed creeping plant that just bloomed yesterday and totally surprised me (can you tell I have no idea how to care for plants?) The creeping one starts with an a... hmm. I’ll check when I get home.

2. Is there a book you can read over and over again and never get tired of it? If so, what is it and why?

Was it @valisi-clark that said On Writing by Stephen King? If so, seconded. God I love that book, and have in fact read it over and over. I highly recommend it to other writers (and I think I like his memoire voice better than his fiction voice? maybe?) I mean, I break the adverb rule like a champ, but maybe I’m getting better.  Once upon a time I also read The Fellowship of the Ring three times. 

3. Favourite tv show when you were a kid?

Scooby Doo.

4. You can time travel, but you can only go back to either the 80s, the 90s or the early 00s. When you go, you will still be the same age you are now. Which one do you choose to explore or will you not bother with any of them? Why?

Woah, nice question. I’ve never considered any of these time periods. I’ll admit none of these sound very appealing to me, but I think I pick the 90s or 80s. The 90s because it would be amazing to see the climate I grew up in, as an adult with the ability to be objective (I’m 26, so I was born in the 90s). Or the 80s because I studied history and just can’t help but want to see a time I wasn’t there for. It also would help me understand my parents (....maybe.....) and the generation before me better, and the gap between us is quite wide at times. (Do I get to come back to this time? Or am I dumped there to grow old?? If I don’t get to come back I’m staying in this hell lol)

5. What are your deal breakers for a friendship with someone?

Unrelenting negativity and the inability to really ask how I’m doing. Although, if the friendship isn’t give-and-take, it was probably never a friendship to begin with. Also the reluctance to grow is grating. People are constantly learning and changing and moving forward (hopefully for the good), please don’t tell me you are who you are and you aren't gonna change. 

But then again, I’m basically only “real life” friends with my sister (who is flipping amazing), so I’ve not got a whole lot of recent experience with it.

6. Favourite kind of weather?

Blazingly toasty and sunny so I can stretch out in the sun and rest. Or crispy late September days, blue sky, bright leaves, the whole shebang.

7. Skirts or jeans?

Jeans.

8. What colour are your sheets?

I sleep in a mess of individual blankets on top of a comforter (like I sleep on top of it...?? nesting...) and refuse to use sheets because they always end up on the floor, but they’re lemonade/summer/pink colors. Very bright.

9. Have you ever been (even mildly) obsessed with a celebrity? If yes, who was/is it?

I... I mean I’ve found celebrities attractive and obviously lived through the Backstreet Boys vs. NSYNC craze of my childhood, but never cared enough to look up life facts about a celebrity. Although I will admit to having had a brief stint with Supernatural, okay? I tend to obsess over characters more. Though Ack probably thinks I’m obsessed with OnoD and Kamiya.

10. Name one thing you want to see happen during your lifetime.

Oh god. One? There are a lot, but I’m so fucking done with transphobia and homophobia. *side-eyes my whole damn country*

11. How many of your neighbors do you know by name?

Too many. I can’t wait to move :)

#tag game #last one :) #thank you for the tag #i hope you're doing well! #i thought your response to negative comments #was so so elegant and well worded

[andburning]

On Finding Purpose in Sadness

Someone once told me, that depression feels like wanting to go home, but already being home. I find living with depression and anxiety a very difficult thing to explain to people - but that description is now invariably how I describe it. We often view depression in terms of metaphors of colour: feeling blue, the blues, the Black Dog. We use other metaphors too, rainy day feeling, under the weather, down in the dumps. My depression has rarely felt blue, or like a rainy day - it has always felt like shades of grey - like the world is becoming desaturated, drained slowly of colour and life.  Depression tends to be thought of primarily in terms of feeling sad, and while that is part of it - there is such an enormous depth to the condition that I feel it does a disservice to the people living with it to begin and end with sadness. I will try to illustrate this as best as I can.

The Black Dog vs The Black Hole

To me, depression has never felt entirely like a black dog - a constant silent hunter, stalking my movements or lying hushed in the corner of the room at all times, ever watchful. That metaphor feels apt a lot of the time, but not always. More often it feels like a vast and everlasting emptiness that is slowly growing inside me, like a black hole, massive and dense, threatening at any point to consume the entirety of my being.  This emptiness, this massive black hole is always there, hovering within my stomach, and keeps me rooted in place.  For years and years I would chastise myself for being lazy, or unmotivated, or apathetic. Not one to pathologise my flaws, I just made my peace with these negative aspects of myself and just assumed that they were immutable, given my inability or unwillingness to change them.  The more I learned about my depression however, the more I spoke to people who had experienced the same feelings, the more I began to realise that my laziness, and lack of motivation, was symptomatic of severe depression.  This is why the black hole feels like such an apt metaphor for me. Once I began to examine why I didn’t want to do things, or why I put things off - and on examination it was often a matter of not wanting to fail. If I didn’t start something, if I didn’t begin a task, it was impossible to do badly at it. This applied to anything - social gatherings, work, drawing, showering, cleaning the house and so on. The list is endless.  There is an awful paradox that on the worst days, often the ability to do things which would improve your mood is hamstrung by your inability to start those tasks. Last year, at my very worst, I was subsisting on junk food and instant ramen. I knew that this was untenable - I knew it was making my mood worse. But to start cooking real food, I would have to clean the kitchen which had transformed into a mountain of dirty dishes and other unpleasant things. This was a task that I could not possibly tackle - tired from working, exhausted by a lack of decent food, too sad or ashamed to ask for help. So I continued to subsist on ramen and junk food. The cycle continues. A downward spiral into total darkness - the closer I fell towards the centre of the black hole, the more impossible escape seemed.  

The black hole is currently smaller than it has been for years - positive life choices and escaping a torturous and unhappy living situation has allowed me to keep it somewhat contained. But it is always there  - gnawing away at my mind, at my being. Sometimes I feel myself start to be swept towards the centre, and am able to cling to something that will keep me safe on one of the outer spiralling arms of that bleak galaxy.  I sometimes, even now, spend an entire day wrapped up in bedsheets doing nothing of importance - maybe watching something mind-numbing on the television, while knowing simultaneously that I would feel better if I got up, had a shower, got dressed and made myself lunch. But those days are fewer now, and I find it easier to overcome the feeling now - easier to resist the pull. What I am trying to illustrate for you now is that it is often not at all easy to make the sort of decisions, or rather to action them, that would lead to an alleviation of symptoms, however temporary. From the outside looking in it must be deeply frustrating, and I know the urge is to shout from the outside, yell and scream and do all you can to explain what the correct course of action is - I must explain that we hear you, but sometimes it is just so hard.  Stepping outside and getting fresh air, exercising, cooking a healthy and nutritious meal - all things which can help - but the black hole you see? The black hole had me pinned to the centre and no matter how much I claw at the sheets and try to pull myself away from the bed - it is just too strong.  You must understand. You must realise I am trying. 

“Sadness”

The physical aspect of not being able to get out of bed, of being sat on the bathroom floor while the shower runs softly in the background, trying desperately to suck up the courage to get dressed and go to work - to plaster on a smile for eight hours and pretend everything is ok, all that would be harmful enough. The most debilitating aspect for me however, the thing that has been with me for as long as I can remember, is the deep and unrelenting sadness.  Sadness is not one-dimensional. Sadness is not static. Sadness is deep, and intimate, multi-faceted, it is layered, and labyrinthine - sadness grows like a mighty empire, incorporating new and distant territories. If you asked me on a bad day, how I was feeling, and if I answered honestly, I would most likely tell you that I was sad. You might reasonably then ask me what I was sad about - and I would either tell you, depending on my mood, that I wasn’t sad about anything, or more likely, I would simply say ‘I don’t know’. More likely is that I would not answer honestly at all. I would simply say I’m tired, or I’m exhausted, which, while not inaccurate, is not the whole truth. Lying by omission I suppose.  It is true though, that I do not understand what exactly I am sad about most days. We often conceive of sadness as a reaction to something specific - a result of a loss or an event. Sadness for me is a reaction to the concept of loss itself. A gentle, silent sadness for the concept of entropy. 

There comes a point in your life, earlier for some, later for others - when you begin to lose things you had taken for granted up until that point. People are the worst things to lose of course. One moment they are there - the next they aren’t. The inevitability of losing people is a deep well from which I pull buckets of sadness each night as I lie awake staring oddly at the ceiling, or closing my eyes and pressing my face deep into the pillow, curling up and feeling the warmth of the sheets envelop me.  Everything fades in the end. Even mountains fade away after millennia of erosion - prey to the forces of the universe exactly as we are. 

There is a Japanese term: mono no aware (物の哀れ) which translates literally as ‘the pathos of things’ - it describes a gentle, wistful sadness for and awareness of the impermanence of all things.  It means to be aware simultaneously of the sadness that nothing lasts forever, but also to find beauty in that . The Cherry Blossom is a perfect illustration of this aesthetic - the flowers blooming beautifully for a week, then falling to the ground. This gentle sadness, this awareness of the fragility of existence, the yearning for a future, has been the background radiation of my life since as long as I can remember.  It’s always been there - in the way the light strikes my hometown on an inconsequential Tuesday afternoon, making it seem like it belongs in an old photograph in an old photo album. It’s there too in the hard and heavy rain that eventually falls, bringing to a close weeks of hot summer days.  

Depression for me mostly feels like that. The ‘bad days’ do often feel much worse - a longing for simplicity, a cry for order, but more than anything, a yearning for stillness. There are days that feel unbearably bleak - when I want to scratch the eyes of the world and wrap my self in a cocoon and never emerge (sometimes I imagine that I will emerge, moth-like, and vanish into the dead of night, never to be seen again). But most days - most days I am drinking from that same cup of gentle, lilting sadness. Sadness for me is so passive, a soft melancholia, a resigned daydream. It is always there. I think this is the thing that is so difficult to grasp, and it makes it so hard for me to openly express: “I am never not sad” when expressed to loved ones, partners, family and friends, feels sometimes like an accusation. “Even with me?” is a phrase I have heard from countless boyfriends and friends alike. “Yes. Even with you. It is not your fault though. Even when I appear happy, I am never not sad.”

Finding Meaning in Sadness

I often hear about how the meaning of life, or the goal of one’s life - is happiness. Personal, individual happiness. Whatever that entails. If that is the case - if the end goal of life is to be happy, day to day, generally or absolutely happy, then I must be a miserable failure at life. 

I don’t believe that it can be, really, a person’s ultimate goal. I’ve chased happiness in one form or another for all my life - focusing on either education or relationships or work or creativity in hope that there will be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There has always felt like an endpoint somewhere over the next hill.  It is nebulous, and ever changing - the only constant is that it is distant, and unreachable, but simultaneously desirable. This thing, whatever it is, always feels like a goal, success, or happiness, but it is an illusion, a mirage, a phantom. It is unattainable.  It prevents me from existing in the present, and yet the present is the only thing. The present is all that exists and all we have agency over. As I sit here writing this - the rain is falling outside my widow and I can see it falling on the leaves of the bushes in my garden. I know that I am warm inside, drinking coffee and listening to music, and I know that it is cold and wet outside. I know that I am much happier that I am inside watching the rain than I would be were I outside feeling the rain on my skin and hair, looking inside into the warmth. Is this happiness? I have such sympathy for the bushes. 

I can’t find meaning in attaining happiness, because if I tried to look for it, I would never find it, and I couldn’t bear that. I must instead find meaning in my own sadness. Not treating it as a goal, but as an immutable fact. I am me and I am sad. It has become the primary way I experience the world, through a veil of wishing for more, and of never feeling fully a part of it. But I must find beauty in this. I must. I have spoken to doctors, counsellors, therapists. I have taken the medications, I have performed the meditations. Depression is an illness, yes, and should be treated as such, but I have come to experience it as so much a part of my being that it is impossible to imagine myself without it. I do not aim to glorify depression. It is an ugly illness that backs me into a corner, and has caused untold problems for me. I have lost jobs and friends and lovers because of the way it encourages me to act.  But I must persist.  I understand that happiness for me is not something I can ever look forward to. The dog is always there at my heel. But I have made my peace with the dog. I have accepted him as part of my life. It can walk with me now.  We can look at the rain together.