hari need to know your thoughts on the succession finale once you finish it 🙏

i’ve genuinely been in a state of shock since i finished the ep so i’m probably going to ramble terribly bc my brain will explode otherwise.... thoughts under the cut!!! and massive spoiler warning obviously 💪

OKAAYYY in no particular order:

greg getting whacked was beautiful i wish he'd been stomped into a pulp honestly sorry for not being able to separate the art from the artist but nicholas braun is a weasel and i hope he gets hit by a car

that being said tom and greg's interactions this ep were top tier i'm not a tomgreg enthusiast like That but i think every scene of theirs was hilarious as it was twisted

tom this whole episode... phenomenal. matthew is just a cut above in terms of acting he embodied tom's hunger and desperation and patheticisms so perfectly i really felt more and more unsettled by him every appearance

i do wish we had more stewy screentime but i also wish that for every single episode arian moayed is so freaking talented and charismatic and amazing and he ate up every second he was on screen

speaking of stewy. "you kiss guys on molly" <- BITCH.....? i actually don't know if i've mentioned this on tumblr but i'm a kenstewinator for life and frankly this was confirmation that they explored each other's bodies at college idgaf what anyone has to say about it

ohhhh my god the fucking "meal fit for a king" scene. i can't even find the words for it. seeing them all so happy and having so much fun with each other in that moment was just so heartbreaking bc i KNEW it wasn't going to last 😭 like my mum and i literally checked how much time was left in the episode after that scene and looked at each other like Wellll something terrible is going to happen isn't it.

kendall My beautiful baby boy kendall IM SORRY I WASNT YOUR MOTHERRRRRRRR . i could honestly write an essay about kendall in this episode alone i have never seen such a tragic crumbling of the self maybe ever. him sitting at logan's desk thinking he's finally won... his reaction to shiv betraying their deal... him attacking roman like i was seriously breathless my god that entire sequence was fucking crazy

and to be quite honest if i was kendall in that situation well i would have killed myself in that damn board room and changed the trajectory of all those old hags lives forever . like "i'm a cog built for one machine" And now he has nothing no father no siblings no wife no kids no company my fucking goddddddd 🤦‍♀️

i started chanting "please please please dont kill yourself" out loud in the final scene and i'm dead serious the kendall water motif HAUNTS ME and i was so freaking scared . but that final frame is honestly equally awful like kendall alone with colin in the background him basically becoming logan with none of the power this is seriously the worst possible ending for him.....

shiv doomed to repeat the pattern of being under a man's thumb is genuinely so deeply demented jesse armstrong sleep with one eye open. and i hate it so much because it makes so much SENSE like yeah she's lady macbeth she's caroline she's the wife she's the mother and she will never be anything else okay OKAYY.

like that scene w her and tom in the car where he waits for her to hold his hand was so fucking spine chilling also the ambiguity of us not knowing whether tom knows that shiv was the deciding vote in his favour is crazy <- i do think it makes sense that he would know but just shiv having that as a bargaining chip so they can sting each other over and over again like its all about the cycles i fear

roman being so resigned to it all by the end was sick like ok that comment about kendall's kids was evil but i still felt for him howeverr i do think out of the trio he will be objectively the most okay in the future... like he's free from it all in a way shiv obviously isn't and kendall literally can't be

honestly i'm struggling to articulate anything more i'm still so overwhelmed by how it came to a close.. never have i watched a show that left me so heartbroken and hollow but also absolutely satisfied narratively like succession is going down in the history books FR 😭

also they're def going to sweep the emmys and it will be so deserved i seriously think they need to invent a new rule to allow for a tie because i cannot imagine how they're going to decide between kieran and jeremy for best lead... <- i do lean a little towards jeremy bc i'm a biased kendall girl but kieran's performance esp in the first half of this season was just jawdropping so who knows

this got really long i'm so sorry but i feel like a crazed woman what a fucking show what a fucking ending i will never be the same after this SUCCESSION YOU WILL ALWAYS BE SO FAMOUS !!!!!!!!!!!!

I realised I never answered your last ask, nonny, and I'm sorry. It got kinda lost in the shuffle of tumblr and life, and if it's not relevant for you anymore, then feel free to ignore.

Yeah, nope, you're right, that's a long stretch, with the fire and all. It might be hard to find any examples, and even with the questions that the quiz gives, there's a lot of nuance,

Yeah, there are. That's why sorting is an art, not a science. Too many variables ;)

for example I rarely care about whether to be right or kind, I care about being calm and safe,

Quite sensible, if you ask me. But also, does that make being calm and safe morally the right choice?

which kind of removes being right from choices, with how much prooving that you're right would cost you in energy and in social status. Would I try to prove to someone upper in work or social status that hunting for pleasure is bad and they're a monster? No, but neither would I do the same with someone at the same level. They'd be a monster only to me, and not that they would care I think.

That's certainly a practical approach, which is fine by me. Although calling them a monster shows that you feel about it strongly. If you did not have safety and energy concerns, would you have that discussion with them?

But in the family it's free and safe, or at least it should be.

It should be, though it's often not.

Idk, instead of trying to argue that I might be a snake I guess I'm walking over to the maybe I'm actually a badger who lived outside of who they thought was normal and human and only recently started to unburn and feel human like.

I'm grateful you got there, nonny *hugs*

I'm not sure but I've started to work in a big group and I've got a nice intern for a second week and if the day is good, I'm happy and I feel like there's nothing else I need and I don't have any other ambitions,

That sounds very badger indeed. Hope it's still going good!

which I know was always there but I had to grew shit on top of it bcs you just can't live like this.

Why not? It's a perfectly good ambition to find a group you can work with, a group to belong. Sounds to me like there is someone telling you it's not enough, someone that's not yourself. Any idea who taught you this one, nonny?

But. But. Im not sure. The quiz is picking up on something badgery for these 2 weeks but maybe I'm just happy about having a little connection island not built on anxiety and fear. Maybe I'm just feeling human and that I don't need to emotionally serve anyone or be anxious about my every word.

Ah man, sounds like you got a little breather from survival mode, nonny *hugs*. How's it going with the group, any new thoughts on this front?

Yeah, I'm in awe watching ravening war and seeing how healthy the cast is, and how much trust they have in eatch other to not hurt them. My ass could never.

I loved Ravening War, beginning to end. So many awesome people, so much awesome DnD!

So, for the final question, where would it be able to say this is an unburning loyalist and where is it just human stuff, saying hey you can relax a bit now?

That's the question, isn't it? It's part of why I'm not really comfortable sorting people anymore. Shc is great, but it has its limits. It's so difficult to say what's sorting and what's survival, for example, or mental illness, or neurodivergence, or just situational, etc. I am not qualified to do that, and especially not when people are hurting.

I hope it went well with your group and with your intern, nonny!

in this post, i would like to present my thesis on why the song metaphor by the crane wives belongs to goro akechi.

"i've gotten good at leaning on metaphors": goro's speech as the detective prince is very flowery, exaggerated, and calculated, in order to please the crowds of people with their eyes trained on him at all times. public appearances, television shows, and interviews are all very important for his image, and as such he's forced to adapt his speech and choose his wording carefully to appease those watching. robbie daymond especially does a very good job of vocally pushing the line of politeness into a tone that sounds just a bit too sugary to be genuine, but not something u would notice unless u were listening closely.

"i've gotten good at living on someone else's page": much like the first line, this one can also refer to goro's public image. because he's put an immense amount of work into his life as the detective prince, he aims to please. or at least, he needs to act as though he does. in order to keep up appearances, he needs to be able to get a read of those around him and keep himself on the same wavelength as them. this also applies to shido—not only does goro need to please his fans, but shido as well, in order to stay one step ahead of him. goro is purposefully putting himself on eggshells every day of his life, and in order to keep that up as well as keep himself safe, this is what he has to practice.

"i cut my teeth on secondhand sentiments": goro is often forced to follow a script, or at least an embellished, public-friendly version of his own thoughts. the things that he says when acting as the detective prince are rarely ever his own thoughts as they would be presented in normal conversation. goro has to hide his true opinion of the phantom thieves behind crowd pleasing buzzwords, keep up appearances by catering his opinions, and even quotes philosophers and other literature ("to paraphrase hegel"). the things that he says as detective prince goro akechi are rarely ever entirely his own, and he's gotten very good at tailoring his speech.

"you can't trust a single thing i say": this one, i think, is fairly self-explanatory. the "you" doesn't just apply to the phantom thieves, but to those goro works with as well. what is it he says to sae; "to trick your enemies, you must first trick your allies"? he uses deception to get what he wants, but his primary motivation for it is to move his plan forward, and to protect himself. obviously, if he were honest with shido, he would've been killed on the spot. goro's proficiency with lies isn't just a tool he uses, but a defense mechanism as well. bc of his fear of and difficulty grasping the concept of opening up to someone, through that skill, he is able to keep himself closed off and in control (that is, until he meets akira).

"i keep my closet free of skeletons": this one strikes me as irony, personally. goro's closet is so full of skeletons that it's practically bursting at the seams. but as the detective prince, something like that just isn't allowed. he needs to play the part, otherwise he pays the price. as himself, as goro akechi, he's got so many skeletons in his closet that he probably can't open the door anymore. but as the detective prince, he has to uphold an air of perfection that seems unattainable to others. goro as the detective prince is the epitome of the culture behind the idolization of celebrities, and the way others place and expect them on pedestals of something near godhood, far above the rest of the world.

"cause i'm much better at digging graves": well, goro akechi is certainly no stranger to the art of killing someone without a trace. we have no idea how many shutdowns or breakdowns he induced over the course of his professional relationship with shido. but i also think this lyric in tandem with the one right before it could relate to goro's tendencies towards repression; the idea that he cannot and should not have any "demons" or "skeletons"—such as past traumas, meaningful relationships, or feelings that he's jammed down and shut the closet doors on, if u will—bc since vengeance is his only objective, then digging graves is his primary task, or the only thing he's good for, in his mind. the word skeletons doesn't have to represent mistakes specifically, but could also refer to how goro views his own heart and how he deals with his emotions. something like, he feels he shouldn't deal with all that turbulence, bc he's far better at warping it into anger—something that he's used to dealing with, and can easily rationalize. the more complicated emotions, not so much.

"but i always dig up bones in your sympathy": this is where i start connecting things to goro and akira specifically. another definition of sympathy entails two people who share an understanding of each other. doesn't that sound like goro and akira to u? so, if u take these lyrics to be from goro to akira, it feels to me like this one could represent his regrets/desire to leave his situation. according to rank seven of his confidant in royal, we know that goro is practically screaming for help before the events of sae's palace. unfortunately, as the player, we are not able to save him. but i think this lyric could represent his desire to connect with akira despite his better judgement—"dig up bones," as in; i'll still arrive at the decision to bury them in the first place, but bc we have an understanding, i'll show u as well as i can that i do not want to be doing this. and that's exactly how rank seven with goro plays out, through the metaphor of a billiards game.

"i can't trust a single thing you say": this could refer to the fact that both goro and akira are withholding truths from each other throughout their relationship, and since they are of equal standing, the same deception that applies to goro would apply to akira as well, albiet in a far different way. however, i can also see it as an unwillingness on goro's part; he feels as though he cannot trust akira not bc akira is truly lying to him, but bc there's no other way for him to rationalize the fact that akira cares for him and wants to spend time with him. as goro akechi, not the detective prince. goro can't trust the kindness akira extends to him not only bc he's used to conditional love (shido, foster parents, etc.), but also bc he doesn't feel as though he deserves it. goro does not have a very high image of himself, as we see later on, and it's easy to see throughout his confidant that he cannot quite understand why someone would want to spend time with him, and not the perfectly crafted version of him that he presents to everyone else.

"don't look too hard, cause you won't like the scars he left in me": the "he" here refers to shido. shido is the sole reason for all of goro's trauma and hardships. he has scarred goro more than anyone else in his life. and goro's sharing of these traumas is very limited: he opens up seemingly out of nowhere, before immediately retreating under the guise of things like "oh, that isn't like me," or "oh, am i bothering u?" such as the scenes that take place in leblanc and the bathhouse. goro cannot fathom the fact that someone (akira) would wish to get to know him, as he is, so he assumes that a normal interaction between friends is somehow too much transparency, and keeps himself at a distance. he mistakes his feelings for akira as hatred, right? obviously, that's entirely the wrong word to describe them. but if goro himself believes that he hates akira, he would likely believe akira to hate him as well; as evidenced by the fact that the dialogue options which give u the most points are the ones where u mention ur "rivalry"—bc again, goro cannot rationalize his emotions as anything other than negative; anger, hatred, etc. it's far easier for goro to blurt out the words "i hate u" rather than "i love u," or "i care for u," isn't it? and this is how he keeps himself at enough of a distance, although simultaneously feels himself drawing closer. emotional closeness is not something goro is well versed in, and bc goro has built his image on being talented and skilled, he refuses to reveal his shortcomings.

"i've gotten good at making up metaphors": the words here are only slightly different than the ones at the beginning, which i think works for goro's further descent into his deal with shido, and subsequent difficulty. instead of "leaning" on metaphors, he's completely making them up. it's more drastic, which could represent a sort of desperation. almost as if he's losing his touch—which we do see after the events of sae's palace, during the tv interview where he monologues internally about his backstory, and we start to really see how damaged he is. goro is frazzled and distraught, enough for it to visibly show, something he prided himself on being able to avoid.

"i've gotten good at stretching the truth out of shape": again, the same situation as before. similar to the beginning, with slightly harsher wording. the lies that goro is immersing himself in are getting more intense, and almost impossible to separate from. his "murder" of akira is a turning point, in a way; akira is the first and only character we see goro kill in what he believes to be outside of the metaverse. he's not only stretching the truth out of shape, but he himself is bent out of shape as well—this stuck out to me on my ng+ run; his sprites in the scene just after akira is reported to be dead from him to shido are very unsettling and absent, as if he's almost completely zoning out. it's a very jarring scene to watch, and i think at least part of that has to be due to the severity of his actions.

"and all these words are sweet and meaningless": this feels to me, if we're going by the timeline i've been suggesting throughout all this, like it's directed at shido. now that akira is dead and the phantom thieves are no longer a threat to goro's plan for revenge, he can focus his energy back on his original objective. goro lays it on incredibly thick in his scenes with shido, so much so that it sometime surprises me that he didn't realize shido was onto him. again with the more intense wording here, which fits with the events i'm corresponding it with.

"you can't trust a single thing i say": now this wording is exactly the same as the first time, but given the progression of everything i've talked about, i take this as a sort of last word to both shido and akira. goro intends to follow through with his vengeance no matter the cost, and this could read as a final nail in that coffin. the song repeats this lyric four times, as well. if i wanted to keep it up all the way up to the engine room scene, and go completely off the rails in the process, i could say that the first iteration of this line is an affirmation to both shido and akira that his revenge takes precedence, therefore it would be stupid to trust him. the second is an affirmation to himself that he is in fact doing the right thing, and everything will pay off in the end, that this is just the way things are supposed to be, as always. the third is a kind of plea, born from confusion, after he's defeated by the theives and they offer to bring him with them to take down shido, an offer he cannot fathom the reason for extending. a sort of "why would u trust me" in the form of "u shouldn't trust me." and the fourth would refer directly to goro speaking to his cognitive self; as he decieves the deciever, making it seem as though he is running back to shido only to close the bulkhead door and resign himself to his "noble" sacrifice.

i hope at least some of this makes any semblance of sense. put this song on ur goro playlists, goroboys.

Hey, I'm doing good too. Just normal amounts of stressful stuff right now. Just moved to a country I've never been to before but can't complain, things are not as hard as the last time I did this so. Thanks for asking! Yeah, I saw you posting about some pretty scary health issues before, I'm glad you came out of that alive and hope you're healthier now!

The nerve some people have! Haha I know I would be pissed if people were questioning my intelligence like that especially after a couple of drinks in haha. Though I do like taunting people when I play group games, I'll be like "don't need to try that hard guys, you're gonna lose anyway" just to mess with them or just call people sore losers if they accuse me of cheating haha (they're probably right on the accusations tho). People get real mad sometimes it's kinda funny. 😂

Omg literally laughed out loud reading this! Hahaha, how did you manage to fall over a road sign then end up in a ditch? lol omg hope you didn't get hurt too bad 😂 I was trying to downplay my drunken escapades but since you shared yours I should tell you my worst one:

I was at this summer street party at night and got drunk on something made out of tropical herbs and cachaça (which is about 48% alcohol), drank 3 and a half bottles of that like it was apple juice, made friends with a bunch of strangers in a bathroom queue (who tried to talk to me weeks later but I had no idea who they were), had to be held by my best friend while I peed (mostly missing the toilet), fell in the middle of the street and scraped my knee, threatened this boy who was helping me walk and told him not to try anything funny or I would beat him up, then dragged my friends to the beach and left them shortly after to go make out with my ex, came back with lipstick all over my mouth and chin and when my friends asked what I was doing I said I was just talking to my ex and they were like NO YOU WERE NOT, hahaha then I kissed all my girl friends on a dare and we danced under the full moon, then I told my best friend I had to puke so she took me to the ocean but I changed my mind and happened to step on a dead turtle on the way back and started crying bc of it, but last month my best friend told me it was a rock I had stepped on (I believed it was a dead turtle for 7 years!). Had the worst hangover of my life the next day. ✌️✨

Ah I'm happy you liked it! I've never listened to Six musical before but it sounds fun! I can see why you like it haha made me want to dance around my apartment 💃. And hey if liking musicals is your thing then it's great, I'm sure Hozier will understand if he's not your top artist of the year. 😋 Here's my "damie" Pinterest board if you or anyone else wants to check it out, totally recommend making one if you're a visual person like me!

https://pin.it/UcHVlkq

Oh I could talk about Dani and Jamie forever I think. I love the beast in the jungle speech too and it's so painful to watch, VP delivered that beautifully, but I have to admit I'm always a crying mess from episode 1 when older Jamie starts reciting that song about being sad while waiting for her lover to return, this show is fucking cruel I hate it and love it at the same time hahaha. Omg your mom 😂 but I mean it's truly an honor to be compared to someone like Dani, no? She's really great even if she needs a little help haha (don't we all).

Aaah you're amazing! Thank you so much, I'll read this pirate AU soon!

I used to draw a lot, really loved doing it when I was a kid as I said before, and all throughout adulthood too but I haven't done that in almost a year now bc I've got a bit of a case of burnout I guess, it just takes a lot of effort to do it when it shouldn't be like that at all. I used to do fanart too, for other fandoms. Even made one for Dani x Jamie but ended up not liking how it turned out haha. I've got a lot of respect for writers and fanfic writers also! Yall can make words make sense in really interesting and beautiful ways, build worlds so enthralling I can see them vividly in my head. Writing is such an incredibly fascinating skill to have! And I guess the most important thing is that we enjoy doing these things right? Even if we think we're not particularly good at it.

Anyway, have a lovely weekend! 👋✨

Good I'm glad you're doing great but sorry you're dealing with stressful stuff!! Hope living in a new country goes well for you I'm so jealous that you've lived in different countries I'd love to live somewhere else even if just for s few years!! Awwh thank you so much I definitely came out of it alive and am feeling so much better now thank you I mean I do some pretty ditzy things so when people say it to me it's pretty deserved sometimes, I'm secretly smart and people just don't expect it so I never mind too much haha I might have to start saying the things that you do and just taunting them over it I mean, I usually do win even when they make me answer different questions so I will definitely have to start saying things like that to them Haha I love that you're just like "yeah they're probably right in their accusations" I agree seeing how mad some people get over games and stuff is funny (it's me I'm people I hate loosing games depending on what it is and I am very competitive) So it was very dark and all we had for light was my roommates flashlight on her phone but while we were walking home a friend of ours that lived else where kept texting her to make sure we were still safe (my phone as dead at this point) so while she was texting him her flashlight was facing down and someone had moved this road sign to the footpath and it was on that sits on the floor so while I couldn't see it I walked into it and fell over it but while I feel I grabbed hold of it and flipped with it and fell in a ditch with it on top of me... I was fine and was just laid laughing while my friend looked down at me and in the most northern accent ever just said "get up you dickhead." and helped me off of the floor and then asked if I was okay... and I was so it was all good!! Haha 😂 I love this drunken story that sounds like one hell of a night and is a roller coaster from start to finish!! I'm sorry you thought you had stood on a dead turtle for 7 years though, someone really should've told you that it was just a rock!! But that sounds like my kind of night!! I love nights like that... stories that will last a life time... the only down side is the hangover... luckily I have only ever had one hang over in my life and it wasn't the morning after the road sign fiasco... I felt surprisingly good the morning after that haha 😂 It's such a good musical it's about Henry VIII wives and I just love everything to do with his wives and that musical is so much fun and actually gives a little insight to the lives the six Tudor queens had away from Henry and with him because at school we're mainly just taught about him which sucks!! I loved the Hozier song and am definitely gonna have to listen to more of his stuff!! I love musicals so much I mainly listen to musical soundtracks at the minute- usually, Legally Blonde and Six on repeat haha 😂 Ooo thank you I will definitely check out this Pinterest board thanks for sending it to me!! I could talk about them forever too... since watching Bly Manor my niece has been asking me so many questions about it and I am more than happy to talk to her about it haha!! The beast in the jungle speech just breaks my heart every time I relate to it so much and VP just delivers it so beautifully!! Oh yeah now I know at the beginning that it's older Jamie I am just a wreck the whole show is just so beautiful and heart breaking at the same time I LOVE IT!! Even though it makes me sob- I keep putting myself through it!! I mean, yeah I was happy that she said it Dani is great but it was the way she said it... my mum can be something else sometimes... she said she thought Dani was like me the first time she does the accent when she says "I've fallen quite in love with London" because I just randomly do accents a lot too but it was the way she was like "She needs help... but I like her she reminds me of you" I was just like... "Should I go get help?" I still don't know the answer to my question about if I need help or not but I mean I probably do need it You're welcome I really hope you like it!! It's a

great fic I love it!! Yeah I get that if stuff starts taking too much effort and burns you out you're not gonna wanna keep doing it so it's understandable that you stopped!! I think fan art is great and I really would love to be able to do it myself but I just don't have the skill it takes!! Awwh it's a shame you didn't like the Dani x Jamie one you did I would've loved to have seen it!! Honestly there are so many talented writers out there and when I read their fics I am just in awe of the worlds they have built and the stories they have created we are so blessed in this fandom to have so many amazing writers and so many amazing fics out there Oh yeah definitely its important to enjoy what you do!! I know I love writing and love writing fics for Dani and Jamie so I think I'll be doing it for a while even if I'm not great at it haha Awwh thank you very much I hope you have a great weekend too!! ☺️

Welcome to my mind

For the last three years, my mind has been... Well, shit. Not that it hadn't been on a steady decline for years prior.

Recently, someone named her Denise. My other me. "Because that's what she is..when something is the opposite of something it's de-. She's not nice, she's De-Nice..."

Denise.

The name give to the me that's not me but spends more time pretending to be me than I do.

*Character Bio*

When I'm not Denise, I'm Ginny and she was the most wonderful person. I miss her dearly.

I had a great childhood. Very few psychological events, in my opinion. We never had much money, but my mom made sure I never knew it. My father worked hard at both his job and destroying his marriage; which is probably one of the marks on my childhood. More to come on that, I'm sure.

I didn't have trouble in school, per se. Bullied only a handful of times in all my school years. My mom is a designer, so I wore things you couldn't find on stores throughout my whole school life. I was *always* ahead of the trend and some kids couldn't handle it. We're talking 1991-2003. So, jumpers, corsets, mesh dusters, pants with fur on the bottom, dressing like anime characters... I was the first of everyone around me to be dressing that way. And I loved it!

But I had my revenge, as my hecklers could be seen wearing the same things they made fun of me for, after it became trendy. I guess you didn't have to be dead to be caught wearing that after all...

I struggled in math and excelled in art and writing. I had mostly good teachers, I think only one hated me.

I met all my best friends there. Can't say I've made all that many more in the years since. But, in my defense I'm surrounded by people who are nothing like me. You see, I grew up in Florida. All my vital youthful years were spent there. And now I live near Portland, Oregon. God, why? I even lost one of my dearest friends to the city. She completely changed from a fun, artistic girl who liked to draw, read, and cook...to...one of them. She's now a guilt vegan ( let's you know how disgusting you are for eating meat ) and is obsessed with shows that need to be cancelled. I had known this girl since first grade, she said she would follow the first friend who loved out of state. That was me, so she came out here too. Our friendship immediately began deteriorating as she would not allow me in my own room during the day, because she was talking to some loser friend of hers online. This person left her in a Walgreen's 20 miles from her home, on the wrong side of town, when we were all barely old enough to drive, because she was taking too long looking at eyeliner. But, she sounds like a solid individual to begin emulating. Are you serious? I watched my fully replacement take effect. 20 years of friendship completely gone in a matter of months. Have you ever watched someone stop carrying about you? Think about it. No, don't think about it. It's awful. She even physically ended our friendship. The first I had ever experienced. It was wrenching. But, I'm too far ahead now. I need to tell you how I got to Oregon.

Somewhere around me being 16, my dad stopped coming home. His mother had recently died and he knew some pretty shitty people willing to help him take the pain away. How does a poor, dyslexic, hoodlum, with a history of abuse cure the blues? Crack, of course. My mom did all she knew how to do, but she was pretty done with it all. They got divorced and some rich old lady "saved" him and whisked him off to Maryland where he would suffer many years of depression for what he had done to his family.

Now, it was just my mother and me. I immediately got a job and gave her my entire paycheck to help keep us in our lovely house. But as fate would have it, the city claimed eminent domain on our house with plans to build a water treatment facility. So, they lowballed us on what our house was worth and gave us 6 months to move. Now, here's some important side information: my mom is an army brat who grew up with mountains her whole life, until moving to Florida for my dad, which was apparently one of the last places she ever wanted to be. And my chummy from another tummy, was born in Oregon and had recently left me to go to OSU. This girl is my sister by all counts but blood. So, with a few other helping factors the logical answer was to start anew. How completely different my life would have been if I stayed. Can't say it would be better, just 100% different from what it is now.

But, in 2005 we moved to Oregon on the promise that we would do all the things we wanted to do and be living in Seattle in a few years.

None of that worked out. I can still remember the first night we spent in our apartment. I hated it. I let everyone know too. I think I cried for a week. I just wanted to go home. My Sisi was too far away to see her more often than the weekends and slowly her grades began to falter. This led to her dropping out and moving back to Florida just five months after I moved out here for her. I fell apart. I had only my mom and I love her, but sometimes you need your friends... You know? We did what we could and took jobs we hated and tried to get used to our new surroundings. I'm apparently a spoiled brat so I'm sure I made things painful for my mom who was finally back in her element and here I was stomping around telling everyone how much I hated it. Hate it. Present tense. I know the whole world is a cess pool of hipster, millennial idiots who all think that they know how to run the world, but the concentration of their free-for-all holier-than-thou ways is as dense here as the trees. It's exhausting listening to people who haven't showered in a week tell you how special they are because they have this heightened awareness that they learned from some Joe Blow and happens to not be fact at all. I have had a 24 year old Hispanic girl tell me that only white people can be racist, everyone else is prejudice. I told her that that in itself was a racist statement. And she said "no it's not. My teacher told me, and she has a PhD." I don't think I need to explain the definition of racism, but I do think Manson could have thrived in this town.

Fast forward quite a few years and we are both still in Oregon working jobs we hate not getting any of the things done we said we would. Are we lazy? Are we depressed? I'm sure it's both.

But, a small miracle comes my way, as I'm getting dressed to go down to the office to sign the next years lease I get a call from a woman who used to work with me. She asks if we are still looking for a new place to live and I tell her yes! We end up renting her townhouse from her because she's getting married. She proves to be a terrible landlord, probably because she's not all that good at being a person. She's really great at other things, but not that. Somme people are like that. But, I also haven't learned how to speak Oregonian in the 14 years I have been here.

A few more years and we end up buying the house and I have changed jobs for my health and things are looking up. I lose some of the weight I had acquired in my sorrows. I even find a guy that I can tolerate. Mostly bc he's 4000 miles away in another country. But, I struggle to find my way in our incredibly mismatched relationship. And he's so smart. So, successful... Here it comes... "what's he doing with a loser like me?"

My friends.... They all have something to show for their lives: degrees, children (Im not interested in these things,) husbands, jobs they don't hate....

I have a mortgage and a ridiculously high HOA, two payed off cars, 50 extra pounds on my ass, a job I'm not particularly built for, and a guy whom I love differently than he loves me.

I'm killing it.... Or myself. One way or the other. "I still haven't figured that shit out yet " -Eddie Murphy

I think this a pretty good place to stop for now. You should have a good amount of reference points for the following posts which will entirely be me, describing my chronic severe depression hoping that someone somewhere might read it and know they are not alone. I feel such a sense of validation when I read something from someone who feels the same as I do. This blog isn't for attention or critiquing, as most will likely be written when things like grammar and story structure aren't focused on. It's purely to get the chaos out so, I can organize it.

I don't know who you are but if you're reading this far, please stay tuned if you want to say "Wow, that's exactly how I feel."

Do good.