pisces/virgo placements... it's about time you took care of yourself, too, ok?

you burn yourselves out allowing yourself to be pulled by so many people in all different directions. you exhaust all your resources and empty your cup - no, your entire well - to help those around you, even people you don't know. it's such a beautiful thing, and i know you genuinely love helping others, supporting people, seeing them thrive. it's such a beautiful trait! but you constantly end up neglecting yourself, right? you don't realize that you have permission to set aside time to care for you, to cater to your needs for once. you often feel like no one puts a drop in your cup, the favor is never returned - it's exhausting; you might think if you just keep giving your all it will come back; i understand. you will find the people that give the same energy back to you one day, but regardless of whether you've found those people yet, you need to learn to step aside and fill your own cup!

setting boundaries and saying no is the most important thing you will learn to do in this lifetime. it will not be easy for you, sometimes it will feel painful. but you cannot help the world if you're constantly drained and tired! you deserve to take care of yourself in the same way you do for others. be gentle to your kind soul, nourish yourself; do the things you love to do. learn to worry about others less, as hard as it is, and focus on yourself more.

hey i only read the post about once but i did get the general idea of it and i just wanted to drop by a little thing since you mentioned you wanted others opinions. i think you have the right to be upset by this especially since they're your friends and having those who you care about make an insensitive joke like that while also trying to defend it, really hurts

i've gone through this myself personally and it can get really upsetting in the moment when you're trying to defend your beliefs against those you care about, and even more if it's against more than one person

it can really feel isolating but its important to know that you have a reason to feel this way and all your beliefs are valid even if those you care about don't agree. your own thoughts and opinions matter, they are valid and they are important

its hard to verbalize your thoughts like that especially because you feel a sense of panic and discomfort trying to defend yourself as fast and as hard as possible. and when the conversation changes, it's easy to ignore it and then move on because it's already done. but this isn't a good way to handle it because you're ignoring your own feelings (which are important) and the core issue

in my case i took a deep breath, expressed how the situation made me feel and the discomfort that came from my opinions being disregarded immediately, and then said i was going away for a break in order to calm down and sort my thoughts out

my friends understood this and apologized for the way they treated me, then promised to try and listen next time, which they followed through with. (one of my friends asked me to explain a qpr a few months after instead of disregarding me)

healthy friendships hinge on proper communication and understanding, friends will listen to you when you communicate and then put into action how they can make it better. they value the way you feel and will stop whenever they do something that makes you uncomfortable, as long as you communicate it and give them the chance

if they waste that chance, then that's a whole nother thing to think about and reflect on, but hopefully they will take the chance and try to aid it (i also find it important to say that if your values and their values dont align, then its not a good fit. i'm happy to elaborate more on this if asked)

now about the actual argument, it was insensitive to joke about being gay for a week because it made being gay as less of an actual sexuality and more of a joke. they argued that a person can change their sexuality and that doesn't really have to do with the fact that they made the joke and they're straight. not to mention the fact that they used being gay in order to make you do something as if it was some kind of punishment. like oh no, i'll be gay for a week if you do this, how horrible and embarrassing. yk? that is pretty homophobic

anyways i'm really sorry if this was long and hard to read, this is usually how i am with stuff like this but those are my thoughts on the whole situation and you're free to take or to not take what i said. do let me know if anything i said made you uncomfortable or if it was too presumptuous, im always open to others pointing those things out and i would be grateful to know about that kind of stuff

you can choose whether or not to post this. i wish you the best of luck with your friends and hopefully you can end up with a situation that makes you happy. respect yourself and have a good day <3

ty <3

also dw I didn’t mind this being too long, I’m very thankful for the effort you put into writing this!

(Under this part also goes more into a rant! Woo!)

honestly I do agree with a lot of the points you made, and I did say in my original post that there are definitely things I could have done better.

the thing (unrelated to your post btw) that bothers me the most about this whole incident though, was the fact that I didn’t know why I was upset. i know that my opinions are valid, and I know that in the end of the day, we’re all just kids. my friends were raised differently, in less accepting households, unlike me. i believe one (or maybe both?) of them were raised with some sort or religion, and with strict parents, and I wasn’t. i was always taught that you can love whoever and identify however you want and that’s ok.

i know that they’re just oblivious and don’t understand as well as I do, so I didn’t feel like my opinions were invalidated during the argument.

but I just don’t get why I was so upset. I’m thinking maybe it’s because I didn’t win the argument? i often have trouble admitting I’m wrong, and I guess I might have been upset that I couldn’t get them to understand?

but at the same time, I was able to step back and acknowledge the fact that I mentioned earlier—they’re not intentionally trying to invalidate or upset me, they’re just uneducated and repeating back what they’re heard and what they’re learned during their lives and I don’t want to hold that against them.

honestly what I think bothered me so much was the fact that these are my friends. well, these are people that im not close with but are still kinda friends? and it’s not even that fact alone that bothers me. it’s the idea of friendship, friendships I’ve had, all the fucking arguments and misunderstandings and all the times my other “friends” have accidentally or purposely tried to make me feel worthless just so that they can be better, more correct, whatever the fuck. for the past 2 years I haven’t been able to make a friendship that could last, let alone one that was good for me. the best friends I’ve had, I got close with and then slowly and painfully fell out of touch with, or we just stopped talking.

then again, we have one prominent friendship I only officially stopped being friends with this year. he used my kindness against me and I felt like his fucking servant. and I couldn’t leave this friendship because I was his only “female” friend (he had joked rather insensitively about me being genderfluid, and everyone still calls me a she anyways because I look really feminine), and I was the only person he could talk to. and fuck, guess what, he’s got a shit ton of issues too. and then, I confronted him about this (in the message I sent, I was honestly such a fucking asshole. i said things that were probably a bit much, and ran with the assumption that he treated me like shit on purpose.

he responded, and was nice about it. he apologized and said that he had realized how it might seem like he was using me, and he didn’t mean to, and that he didn’t know how to change himself. at the end of the message, he said: “just know that, and I mean this, from the bottom of my heart- you are the best friend anyone could ask for. i just normally hang out with people that are dumb and stupid, I just want to be on good terms”

and that fucking broke me. I knew I should have listened to that voice in my head that knew he wouldn’t purposely do anything he did with malicious intent.

and after the incident we were a lot closer, but the next year (this year) we just stopped hanging out. we share one class, and right now he sits behind me and makes fun of me (again, not even in a malicious way. just completely empty and meaningless remarks that I just think are annoying.)

and I have so many more friendships that aren’t working, that feel one sided, unless they want something from me. and I think the argument reminded me that,, they’re all the same. i don’t have good friends. and it seems for every good friend and genuine friend I thought I had, there’s 3 more unhealthy friends I get too attached to.

That’s another problem, I get way too attached to people way too easily. i get too attached, but then can’t trust anyone, even my closest friends. because I’ve gotten myself in the mindset that everyone is going to abandon or mistreat me in the end.

but then I still tell people secrets?? and they keep them?? but i still don’t trust them.. huh. wtf.

ok. we got off topic there. holy shit that was a long rant. anyways, in short: I think the argument just reminded me that my friends are shitty. all my friends are shitty. it then got me thinking about all my other shitty friends, and that made me feel more shitty!

anyways, my way of calming down after this was kinda weird. step 1: cling to pillow and cry for no reason

step 2: friend (in the server argument happened in, he wasnt paying attention and didn’t even know what it’s about) is sitting alone in a vc, as always. i join and just sit there muted as he talks about whatever video game he’s playing. i did this because I wanted to feel like I wasn’t alone for a bit, and I think his voice is really soothing :)

step 3: try to think of happy things, but fail because I try to think of good friendships but every friendship I’ve had had so many problems that I’m now actively thinking about.

step 4: try to focus on friends voice instead for a little while and see if I can try to sleep

step 5: leave vc, stop checking tumblr every minute, turn off device, and lay back down.

step 6: try to think about happy things again, remember fictional characters exist (and laugh at past me for forgetting)

step 7: fall asleep

anyways for y’all who have read this whole thing, here are some nice images :)

dreams don’t end at “30″

so i just had a little breakthrough and maybe this wont sound like anything to anyone else but i just have to share it

so i’ve talked about this before. about how my friend and i were both planning these personal development like goals for this year that covid got in the way of. and he said something, about how this is his last year in his 20s and he wanted to get some goals accomplished before 30 

and i thought about that and realized something.

i have been feeling similarly about a few goals that i’ve been hanging onto for years and years. like i’m going to be honest with you, some people might remember this if you’ve been around here for a long time but probably not. anyway when i was in high school i really wanted to make music, sing, learn an instrument. and i did make some covers that i posted on myspace (showing my age here lol) and youtube but then i kind of gave up on it when

 1) became 18 and realized my dream to go to NYC and pursue music when i was 18 wasn’t happening because of a million reasons (it was very much a pipe dream, right? i mean you can’t have that dream and not prepare for it and i didnt. also i was too scared at the time to even move out to my own place if i had the funds to do so because my parents wouldnt have really approved and i was still so under their thumb) 

2) broke up with my musician boyfriend. which needed to happen. but he was the only person super passionate about that kind of goal at the time around me (till he ran lol)  and he actually is still doing music now so good for him but basically 

because of those 2 reasons i just let go of that dream all together as something i thought i wanted to do but was “unrealistic”.

but the thing about turning 30 and feelings like you needed to achieve all these personal/dreamy/goals in your 20s. what is that bullshit? why? 

what changes when you cross over to 30? i’ll tell you one thing. media pushes movies, books, films, everything about people chasing their dreams in their 20s and “settling” down in their 30s. where’s my inspiring movie about the 32 year old mom who finally wrote a song and performed it live after being terrified her whole life of doing so?

 think about it though

in your 30s you. *might* have a better paying job than you did in your 20s. which means, if you can manage to find time or a way for it, you *might* be able to save a little more money or afford to do something like, buy that guitar and guitar lessons in order to learn to play and write a song and live out your dream in some way, even if its just learning to play so you can play at an open mic. and maybe you’ll like that and you’ll somehow connect with likeminded people and form a band. idk. your dreams dont have to end in your 20s. 

you dont have to fall into the trap of your 20s are for your dreams that are so big you feel like the chance of achieving them is getting struck by lightening

and then your 30s are for fancy adult goals like buying a house, and going on a $10k vacation and those things are probably just as hard as the goals you had in your 20s but the world wont make you see it that way. its seen as “selfish” to prioritize and budget for your artistic goals - but not a house. no that’s responsible and what you “should” do. but its ok to prioritize something that’s going to give your soul fulfillment too! we need to believe that! because it’s true. we are not here just to work our jobs and live mundane colorless lives once we aren’t considered “young” anymore (but 30s are still young. not what i’m saying)

 you’re always going to be chasing something big and if you let the world control what that thing is you’re always going to be on some rat race. 

it’s fine if you achieve your goals in a different order than the world says you were supposed to. i got married young and had a child young, that was how my life played out and i’m happy with that because, yes, finding love and becoming a mother very much were goals of mine.

yes i dropped out of college because i couldn’t afford it and i couldnt find a major that felt worth being in debt for. and also, because hey guess what? contrary to what a lot of people will try to lead you to believe, college is not for everyone. and college does not = success. college drop out does not = failure. it’s just an option of something you could do with your life. AND if you didn’t go to your college in your 20s it doesnt mean you can’t in your 30s. or 50s. hell my husband, who did go to college saw elderly (think, 80s!) people going to his college as students! college isn’t just for 18 year olds fresh out of high school. 

My 27th birthday is in 2 weeks and no, i have not yet to worked up the courage to write an original song from words to music, or have the courage to get on a stage and sing anything, or talk to a stranger, or publish any of my writing or art, goals i’ve had whirling around in my brain since I was 18, but, it’s going to happen. maybe this year. maybe when i’m 35, but it’s going to happen. a number is not going to be the thing holding me back.

that whole mentality of “my youth is slipping away i need to achieve all these dreams before midnight the day of my 30th birthday” is so stupid and flawed and we all deserve to see ourselves, and our individual potential as more than that. 

last part of this rant - one of the reason i even became so passionate about reignighting some of my dusty, old goals, that it turned out, i still cared about, is because i had a moment where i was like

ok i am a mom. i am someones mom. how will my daughter see me, as a person, not just her mom? 

kevin and i always talk about how between the two of us we’ve both had a lot of quintessential young adult experiences that we look forward to sharing with her. like, quitting jobs, getting in car accidents, that one time i unknowingly participated in an illegal bonfire and ran from the cops then lied straight to their faces and somehow got away with it (literally my ONE act of teen rebellion), changing college majors like 3 years in (kevin), failed classes, tried cigarettes, etc like i’m ready, and hope that one day she will feel comfortable talking to us about things because we’ve been through things and have a lot of input and two different perspectives to offer

but further than that, i realized that i want her to know that her mom is a person too. i want her to know that mom is also passionate about writing, and music, and somehow tackled some of her goals in regards to that so that SHE can feel that SHE, too can do those things. and i know that, that is in part how it works 

because,

my dad IS an artist. my dad IS a musician. yall. my dad is SO talented.  my dad is brilliant. besides his artistic abilities which include, drawing literal realistic as fuck portraits, sculpting, painting, playing guitar, bass, piano, mandolin, he also knows music composition, etc etc etc beyond all of that, he also taught himself fucking PLUMBING and ELECTRICIAN SHIT to fix things in our house growing up. like he bought a book. and taught himself. my dad. i grew up thinking that was normal but i realized not everyones dad can just tear down the bathroom and rebuild it from scratch down to the plumbing without being a licensed professional.

but anyway the point is - as talented as my dad is, he doesnt really pursue his artistic dreams much. and its sad. i’m glad that i’ve seen some of the work he did when he was younger. i’m glad that if i bring it up, he’ll show me something he can do. but he doesnt pursue it anymore really. my dad works an exhausting physical labor job but even he, as a 50something year old has fallen into that trap of like, i dont have time to draw, but he will scroll his phone and read articles for hours and i’m not shaming him. i’m just saying we all have this problem in the modern era of technology and social media and what not (hell i am writing a post on tumblr instead of my book right now).

but if timing was different and my dad grew up in a different time, where lets say something distracted him from doing the little bit of art and music that he did when i was a kid that i was able to witness, if i hadnt seen that. i wouldnt know that.. in a way.. that’s in me. i mean, he’s my dad. if my dad could pick up a craft and work at it to be good at it, why can’t i? there are so many musicians and (kind unrelated but not rly - i think being “self made” is an art) business owners in my family. there’s either some common thread in our genetics ORRRRRRRRRR just growing up around people working at and succeeding at those kinds of goals shows you that it CAN be done so you’re more likely to believe in your abilities

and i want that for my daughter. because even as an almost 3 year old i can see that she has a gift for music, and reading. and even if i’m wrong about that and she grows up wanting to do some other thing as a job or hobby, i want her to know, by seeing her mom do it, that she can achieve anything she puts her heart to. you don’t have to box yourself in because of your age or your sex or the fact that you’re a parent. 

and your dream doesnt have to become your career. it can be a hobby and still be fulfilling. like yes, 18 year old me dreamed about some life in nyc singing in clubs or bars or whatever and being ~famous (lol) and that did not happen, but i can still get out there and play open mic downtown and get that love of music, and desire to face my fear of performing out of my system. maybe i’ll love it. maybe i’ll hate it. but i’ll have done it. and that’s the ultimate goal. 

sorry i went off but i had to get that out of my system and i’m very passionate about 

thoughts on the finale

overall, s3 was quite good. but the finale makes it all feel pointless. and not just s3, but s2 and s1 as well. and i know the line about “the universe acknowledges you” was because of what was to come and was supposed to be some sort of comfort to the audience, but it wasn’t. at least not for me. legion never stuck the landing for their finales so this doesn’t surprise me. but i’m gonna rant anyways.

several things i didn’t like.

1) no acknowledgement whatsoever of the hallers who gave david a loving life. they retconned the hallers’ existence this whole season to push the idea that david never received love in his childhood and didn’t grow up looked after. despite the fact that we’ve seen throughout s1 how dearly important david’s childhood was and how important mama and papa haller were to him and how much he loved them and vice versa. i mean really, no acknowledgement of amy haller at all? the woman he cared about most besides syd? his sister? who was so important to him, we got a multiverse episode about how key amy was to david’s lives? not even an acknowledgement towards lenny when she killed herself inside amy’s body? and even worse, we’ll never know precisely why the xaviers gave david to the hallers in the first place. i found this retcon extremely insulting to david’s character, but to adopted families/foster families.

2) farouk’s redemption. how utterly insulting to the audience’s intelligence to redeem farouk with no recognition for his insidious actions and unrelenting vile choices. he possessed a baby, terrorized it for fun, abused a child, he sexually molested david every time david was frozen with fear to further suppress him, he raped lenny, a lesbian, whenever he felt like it, he stole people’s bodies because he felt like it, he killed endless amounts of people. and then they have this same farouk ask his younger self if he was really that hateful and petty as if the audience is supposed to forget that just a year prior to that conversation, that this same farouk brutally murdered an innocent amy haller to get at david and, as lenny said, raped her whenever he wanted. the same person who continued to plant the ideas in david’s head that he’s god and doesn’t have to regard the lives of other people. the same person that kidnapped syd and manipulated her into turning against david before he even betrayed her. like, for real? just retcon all of that to pretend like farouk had a change of heart and always loved david and wants world peace? all it takes is to share beer with your old enemy despite the fresh blood on your hands? wow. how embarrassingly bad is that on the writers’ behalf.

3) syd. not only did syd have a mere handful of lines in this episode, but yet again, it’s as if the writers changed their minds about syd’s feelings/characterization. she’s got to be one of the most jerked around characters on this show. she used to be consistent up until the latter half of s2 when the writers decided to make syd ooc for the sake of plot (you know, the david is evil crap). syd just episodes prior expressed that she felt it was worth it to have been with david and that she wouldn’t change it. she didn’t regret their love, she regretted their downfall. in her final moments, she’s back to bitter snark, borderline defeating the whole empathy episode. i loved the bit about saving baby david, but loathed the “i am” in response to david saying she’ll be extraordinary without him around. it retcons the entire value of syd’s history, her life choices, her self perception. syd, who ALWAYS believed she was extraordinary, given by her famous quote “who teaches us to be normal when we’re one of a kind”, suddenly will be a “better” person w/o having known david? when it was through him she found summerland, found mutant allies, found freedom, found a second childhood. and then what is the purpose of saying her new life will be distinctly amazing if we don’t even get to see it? not even an epilogue paragraph of what syd became in her new life? it felt like such an impersonal send off for her. she’s the female lead but yet again she ends up on the reduced end of things.

4) no consequences. the entire theme of s3 was, time traveling can change the past, but it can’t change who we are. there were no consequences in sight for any of these people. all those awful things david did, murdering and orphaning people, causing his best friend/sister’s suicide, drugging those hundreds of women, none of it mattered when legion pretended like it was supposed to. we didn’t really see david grow. we didn’t truly see him redeem his self. we didn’t see him express any true regret or remorse for all he did on the way there. right up until he end he remained in his entitled tantrum state. all it did was justify everything he did. because the past got rewritten. david got his second life and the people he sacrificed to do it don’t matter. and really? “sorry” was all he could say to the woman he raped and hurt the most? big yikes. legion’s faux commentary on make entitlement and sexism went absolutely nowhere. it’s absolutely bull crap. further proof that rape should’ve never been part of this show, let alone trying to do commentary on rape culture.

5) disjointed elements. switch turning out to be a time god felt so last minute and so lazy. she suffers and endured all this abuse from david because she was meant to “grow up” into her celestial clock form. sure it’s better than just her dying, but it feels as if her screentine was dedicated for a disappointing surprise. given how much screentime switch took up, i expected better. this is my main problem with shows adding more characters to the main plot. it causes the original characters to be neglected which results in less screentime for the originals (syd and the loudermilk twins) or being killed/written off (lenny, ptonomy, the birds) and usually the pay off isn’t good.

6) the severe lack of follow up. we will never know what oliver’s 1 + 1 plan was. we will never know what ultimately became of the birds. what became of ptonomy, who they turned into a flash drive and gave all of 3 lines to for the whole season, we’ll never know what the 3 years from now event change ptonomy calculated turned out to be, or what became of summerland or division 3. we’ll never know why they showed 616!legion in the desert. we will never get a true apology from syd to david and vice versa. we will never get an actual explanation for why farouk was allowed to roam around freely and unchecked despite him being the root cause for david’s demise.

7) the impersonal approach to mental illness. what’s the deal? legion had such a sensitive despite clinical approach to mental illness in s1. they handed the diagnoses with such care and the themes involved with it. in s2 it’s all but abandoned, and in s3 the theme returns, but with no personal touch whatsoever. ah gabrielle has the sickness, it runs in the women in the family, okay mental illness is hereditary for david, understandable. how come this is something david never reconciles his self with? how come they never give david’s true diagnosis? we know he has dissociative identity disorder, but david doesn’t. david is expressly in denial about being mentally ill, even saying he’s not “crazy” to his mother. yet he has a system of alters he works with. they all say “i am legion” which we know is what his collective of alters are called, but that’s it. one of the things david wanted to change was his mental illness. is he ever going to learn he can’t change that because he was sick all along because of his mother? his mental illness is such a huge aspect to her character yet in s3 it just feels like a post it note stuck to his chest. no one regards it with sensitivity. no one accepts responsibility in exacerbating his condition. nothing. legion used to be about mental illness. then they shed it for social commentary which held no weight, and destroyed the characterizations for an outcome that was ultimately inconsequential.

overall, this just proves to me that legion needed more than 3 seasons. easily 4-5 seasons would’ve worked better for this. legion doesn’t even leave things up for interpretation, it just leaves most of what they set up unanswered. i felt since s2 that it had been too soon to develop the story they were developing and i was right. choosing a 3 seasons arc where 2.8 out of the 3 seasons the male lead is a sympathetic and genuinely good character to make him evil and narcissistic and apathetic? makes no sense. or when the female lead used to be this complex morally grey character and at her last hour becomes isolated once more and is quoting things straight out of 2014 tumblr? i mean really? wtf.

the other characters didn’t get to do enough across these seasons. they were cannon fodder for david’s story/development (or lack thereof) more than anything else. once they were less proximal to david, they were less relevant to the writers too.

syd and david’s relationship didn’t last nearly long enough before they were thrust into ghastly new territories. and the same goes for everyone else’s dynamic on the show. far too much offscreen development occurred. farouk having a change of heart? you truly couldn’t pinpoint any point where farouk ever felt sorry for david or cared about anyone else but his self. he’s been nothing but condescending, sadistic, manipulative, and countless other atrocities. d3 and the summerlanders being comfortable with farouk with no mind control at play at all? get real. kerry and syd’s friendship was nice tidbit but we didn’t see it develop at all. it would’ve been important to see these female mutants develop a relationship. it’s the most frustrating thing aboutall of this. clearly more time was needed.

we needed more time for these things to feel truly earned. but noah was way in over his head because of how busy he became by the time s2 swung around and decided to cut the show short. i don’t buy for one minute that 3 seasons was the plan all along. everything about legion’s story progression beyond s1 screams improvisation and a messy one at that. there wasn’t enough time for these characters to breathe, too much characterization and story had been retconned to get the ending over with, and legion choosing to end where it began, except all the characters we loved are gone, all the things that made the show most important to us are gone, feels more depressing than i thought it would.

it’s going to be difficult rewatching the show especially from its flawless premier season, knowing none of it happens at all. it’s literally unfathomable to think that 3 years later this is where we’d be. i’m so disappointed.

probably meaningless rant lol

my sister has been having a really hard time recently. a local survivors/abuse callout group with 15k followers recently outed a serial abuser (like 40+ women) and it even ended up on the news. she doesn't know the guy but she's posted about the men she's had troubles with in the past on there. but the page suddenly shut down and even deactivated and no one knew what was going on, and this recent guy seemed scary enough to maybe do something to them, so she was worried.

turns out it was internal and a woman that got involved in the organization was an abuser herself. not sexually but in a power and manipulation kind of way. so to save themselves the creator just shut it down. it's been a tumultuous time for online activism, which she says she's had a lot of fun doing, but i don't know if what she experiences should be considered "fun"

she fell headfirst into sexual activism and positivity and Instagram psychology where everything is a "trauma response." she's gone through a lot of trials and tribulations in her life (she's 10 years older than me so completely different world) and the experiences she shared were in fact traumatic.

but it's made me think about how i deal with things from my past, and... I've definitely had traumatic experiences and both my past relationships were toxic as hell. i have an inate aversion to sex on top of my asexuality because of how they treated me. I'm sex positive and I'm theory like sex but initiating makes me scared. you can argue that i was lucky that they didnt push harder, or that i was strong in not giving into their tactics, but it still harmed me. and ive had to deal with it and realize these things still effected me and have talked to my bf about it at length (not exactly many details, but the kinds of things they did or SAID and how it effected me)

but i think im just at a point where i, at the very least CURRENTLY, dont feel burdened by my past. and maybe that's just because im so separated from it, having been quarantined for almost a year now and focusing on school and my home life. i think it helps that my bf is so supportive and is nothing like my exes, while my sister's even-longer bf is having trouble being there for her, which im mad about.

she described something that's been happening a lot lately and it was textbook dissociation. unlike me, who was in a near-constant state of it for a couple months, hers comes and goes, which i almost feel might be worse. it's like a switch turns on and off in her head, usually in response to something she reads, thinks, or does. and i do empathize with her there as i am also one to dissociate as a stress response (not recently, but i did go through a long period like i said) so i was able to give her some good explanations as to what was happening and advice on how to get out of it.

but she also is asking me advice about how to deal with PEOPLE. girl you're the adult here, whomst has had many many jobs and actually likes (or liked, rather, considering the pandemic) traveling and going out to have fun and socialize. i literally had to tell her "i dont really talk to people" when she asked for my input on something. and i just feel so disconnected to that problem and that mindset of WANTING to reach out, wanting to engage in things. and i don't know why.

I'm literally a communications major and i do LIKE to talk to people. i love talking to people and communicating... in real life. the more i think about it the more i realize how much i fucking hate trying to communicate over text. and i don't mean with friends, but it seems like whenever i try to comment on something, or respond to someone, or say just anything, there's someone that takes it out of context, or just doesn't have fucking reading comprehension or something despite me if anything over explaining my point. i hate social media (which is why that WON'T be my degree concentration, I'd rather die) despite me consuming it so often. but i just feel like there's no critical thinking. people need to say what they think the second they think it.

and this might make me sound like a boomer or something but boomers are the worst at this. it might make me soundhippie dippie that I'd rather talk to someone in real life than on Twitter or some shit.

this is where it stopped me from typing lol. as if anyone is reading this. anyway i guess I'm just... weirdly numb right now. and not in a no-feelings depressed kind of way, but in an... unburdened way. like i empathize and I'm not rolling my eyes out being apathetic towards any heartbreak happening that i read. but when i reflect on some things from my past that i feel like i probably havent healed from... i dont feel... anything?

is that my brain protecting itself? do i have enough on my mind already that my brain is making me not dwell on the past? is that a thing? i just feel... nothing when i think about bad past stuff, right now, to the point where i stupidly wonder why people "let" their past effect them. as if my past hasn't ever effected me or changed who i am ultimately.

I'm also weirdly disconnected from my past self. i don't have a lot of memories of my past that i can recall without something to remind me. i don't know how i acted, i don't know how i said things. then i see videos or pictures and I'm... still me. i act the same, talk the same, think the same. my hair is different but I've had the same face my whole life. is this a coping mechanism? I've always been like this

i don't know where i was really going with this. i guess I'm just dealing with a lot, including my sister's emotional issues, which she's never leaned on me before with until now. she called me 3 times in one day... we talked for 2 hours today. i replied to her innocuous message on ig and she called me cuz she saw that i was active on my phone.

I'm fine with it now but I'm worried I'll get to the point where I'll not open her (unrelated) messages or avoid putting stuff in my ig stories in order for get to not know I'm online/not busy. I'm not near that point yet but I've had to do that in regards to other people in the past and it's such a sucky feeling. I've never had to do it to family and i hope i don't feel that way. i hope she feels better from therapy for both our sakes

i don't think I'm gonna read this over so sorry for any spelling mistakes as I'm on my phone and autocorrect be playin

I had to take the time to come fangirl in your inbox because I am truly in love with your writing. I read your latest update for the 'more than a ghost au' and you managed to make me commit to the story despite my not shipping Lightstar. It's a true testament to how talented you are. My jaw dropped at the quality of this verse. I think your insight into the inner workings of Jonathan's twisted mind is extraordinary and

your portrayal is nothing short of brilliant. You make him human and it’s all that I could ask for when he is the most misunderstood character in this fandom. I especially look forward to every update of your abo verse and your hooker au since Jalec is my otp. These stories make me genuinely happy and there are no words that could possibly express how grateful my Jalec heart is for having such a wonderful writer pen my favorite pairing. From a fan

First of all, thank you so much for this lovely message. Your words really cheered me up & I loved hearing that you enjoy my portrayal(s). There’s a lot of controversy about Sebastian and it’s always nice to meet someone else who appreciates him, despite his obvious shortcomings & villainy!!Tbh, I will never understand why people watch shows like SH & then non-stop point out ‘bad’ things and complain about the bad guys. If you want drama-free & entirely harmless then maybe you should watch something like Dora the Explorer instead of hating on people who enjoy a good drama-driven story. Drama requires villains or at least people fucking up, otherwise there would be no conflict and conflict (& its resolve) is usually what makes a story thrilling or interesting. I’m sure most of us want drama-free lives, but who wants to WATCH that, really? BUT I AM SORRY FOR RANTING… so I will continue to rant under the cut.

I agree with you that Sebastian is misunderstood, even if most people in this fandom immediately start fuming when someone says that. Because they think misunderstood = poor mistreated little cupcake. That is not what he is. He is a killer, he is cruel & merciless and he knows no remorse for the things he does and the lives he takes. I am not excusing those actions.He is, however, deeply disturbed and a victim of tremendous abuse. He was drugged literally before he was born, with something that altered his very being & gave him no chance to grow up a ‘normal’ boy. His mother abandoned him because the only other choice she saw was to kill him. As far as he knos, she never even considered trying to save him. His father never loved him, called him a monster that nobody could ever love & literally whipped him (& probably other things, lbr). He isolated him from any healthy human contact & effectively stole his entire childhood. This is severe emotional and physical abuse and I wish people would stop disregarding that and instead only focus on the fact that Sebastian kissed his sister.

Valentine turned him into not a soldier but an (almost literally) soulless weapon. He made him the possibly loneliest person alive. I once saw a post in the Seb tag where someone said something along the lines of ‘I can tolerate Valentine but Sebastian is just pure evil and needs to die‘ & it pissed me off so much, because it blatantly disregards the fact that it was Valentine who made Sebastian the way he is. We’ll never know for sure, I guess, if Jon/athan Christopher hadn’t turned out to be a sociopath too (you don’t need demon blood for that), like Maia’s brother Daniel for example, but he certainly wouldn’t have been the monster that we see in the books. I really like drawing the connection to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in Seb’s case. The monster - as the Doctor himself calls it - is presented as a vile nightmare that haunts Frankenstein and destroys his life - but really all his negative & frightening features are a result of Frankenstein’s treatment, neglect & horror. He created the monster AFTER bringing a dead person back to life. We don’t know how much of Seb’s cruelty comes from his demon blood& how much is Valentine’s influence, but I like to remind people that warlocks are half demon too, and nobody would go around saying Mag/nus is at least 50% evil.

A key thing about Seb for me is that he doesn’t understand himself. He is literally misunderstood in that way. He’s never had a chance to figure out who he is or what he wants without someone’s influence in his ear (Valentine or Lilith). He grew up with a distorted understanding of right/good & wrong/evil, so how is he supposed to agree with the ‘good guys’ when they say that it is not okay to kill someone who poses a threat to you & your plan (which is, essentially your entire life’s purpose??)? Or that desiring your sister in a way that this society finds wrong is despicable? (We literally can’t even agree here on tumblr how ‘bad’ inc/est is!!) He never experienced love, never received, felt or understood it, so he tries to bind people to him to fight his loneliness any other way possible. He is a drowning man who can’t ever escape the water but desperately struggles to stay afloat, because there is literally no alternative.

When his hate & jealousy for Jace (who is not even Valentine’s real son but somehow ends up getting everything that’s supposed to be Seb’s - his father, the illusion of a childhood, time to develop, Clary, even Jocelyn for a while, a parabatai, LOVE) threatens to destroy him, he turns them into the opposite and starts obsessing. He binds Jace to himself, tries to consume him, perhaps to somehow make Jace’s life his own. He will never get love anyway (he doesn’t UNDERSTAND IT, it’s like wanting something you don’t even know) so he’s content to have Clary & Jace with him, even if he has to keep them by force.

Now, none of this means I excuse what he does or did. I just like to think about what makes him tick & try to understand him. I love complex villains. My favorite villain is probably Hann/ibal Lec/ter (more in NBCs Hann/ibal than in the books/movies), who absolutely deserves to sit in prison for all eternity, but still is one of the most fascinating characters ever created, imo. His world view, his morals, his motivations to kill and his excuses for it need to be looked at outside any moral judgement if we want to understand human nature better, I think. You can love a character for their complexity and still judge their actions - and I think that is what most people in this fandom don’t accept. Liking Sebastian does not mean I cheer for his murders and ra/pe attempt.

AS FOR THE MORE THAN A GHOST AU, it’s one of my absolute favorites, atm, because it actually goes against my firm belief that death was the best option for Seb at the end of COHF. He’s not prepared to survive & nobody else is either. He is forced to face the consequences of his actions but suddenly lacks the conviction that they were necessary, good or even acceptable. For the first time he recognizes himself as the villain. Not as a monster- which is something wrong & unlovable - but as someONE who did horrible things & has to take responsibility for them. He is willing to do that, even if he feels like a different person & it’s actually Alec in that verse who kind of allows him to adopt that thought of Sebastian being a different person from Jonathan. That gives Jonathan hope, but at the same time it is his ultimate kryptonite. Whenever he is disappointed in his own inability to be ‘Not-Sebastian’, he regresses to telling himself he can never be anyone other than Seb. Jonathan is an idea without an anchor in reality & on his bad days Jon is convinced Alec is just telling himself & Jon a lie everyday to not feel guilty about loving his brother’s murderer.

I also headcanon that Jon doesn’t immediately become a nice person in the beginning of the verse. He ‘learned’ how to be ‘good’ so he could be able to impersonate Sebas/tian Verl/ac, but he never really internalized it. He is still impatient, more easily angered, looks to violent solutions faster than to peaceful ones. He is used to calculating damage against gain & will choose the most effective way, not matter the cost. Since he has feelings now that he didn’t have with the demon blood (presumably) and also a conscience he wouldn’t wage a war for the hell of it or to get what he wants, or sacrifice innocent people.. but he has yet to LEARN who the innocent people are. If there was a young werewolf struggling on their first full moon, threatening to hurt people, Jon would choose to kill them, whereas Clary & Co would try to help them. He still has to unlearn the rac/ism against Downworlders Valentine nurtured in him. He still has to learn how to take and deal with rejection in a way that doesn’t completely destroy him. There are just so many aspects to this scenario & that’s why I love it so much!!

I AM SO SORRY about how long this turned out, and you didn’t even ask for ANY OF THIS *hides, ashamed*

Thank you again for your message & your kind words. I currently also really love the hooker AU and the a/b/o AU, so I’ll hopefully get to continuing those soon c:I have a drabble planned for the hooker AU in which I’ll write about the first time Jace took money for se/x, if you’re interested in that.Unrelated, Andy & I also talked about a short drabble based on ‘The Other Side’ by Ruelle, so if you enjoy having your heart broken, you have that to look forward to.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.:*

dude. ok. this is exactly what I mean.

back when the trailer for bohemian rhapsody first came out, I was super excited and just made a random post on social media saying “someone come watch this with me it looks so good.” I didnt rlly get any response but it was fine bc I just wanted to express my excitement.

then the movie comes out, and one of my rlly good guy friends works at the theatre so he can bring friends in for free. I literally listen to this guy rant all the time and we’re rlly close, so im like, he probably wouldn't mind doing me a favor and bringing me in since this movie just means a lot to me, right? but he ends up not having any time and finally I just felt so bad about bothering him so much about it that I stopped asking.

so then one weekend he ends up going to see the movie with a bunch of guy friends (some of which are my friends too). and I was out of town and I was like...wow. I mean ik he didnt purposely go just bc I wasn't there and that was prolly his free weekend and I happened to not be home but whatever. I wasn't rlly sad about him not bringing me, I was sad about not getting to see the movie. also, that group never did get to see the movie bc the theatre was filled up so they ended up watching something else.

anyway, one of the guys in that group is my best friends boyfriend. I basically set them up, since this guy (who's also my friend) had a crush on her and came up to me and I literally stayed up all night for 2+ weeks during the summer and spent so many hours just giving advice. I literally TOLD him the things to say and text to her. I gave him the idea for getting her a blanket for her birthday, forcing me to come up with another idea for my own gift for her. he used MY reasoning for the gift to explain why he got it, and she treats this blanket like its her favorite object. I was the one who ordered the present online for him, because he asked me to, because he didnt want his mom to question it. Even though it meant my mom asked me why I was spending so much money on her gifts. even though I had to go through the effort and I had to wrap the present and bring it to school. 

so after they went to watch the movie (but ended up watching something else), my friend is all “I want to watch bohemian rhapsody!!” which is so FUNNY bc every time I mentioned it before she’d roll her eyes and act annoyed and she NEVER listened to queen or expressed a modicum of interest before then, never sang along to bohemian rhapsody with the rest of us. but ok.

a few months later, bohemian rhapsody is out of theatres. the guys did end up seeing it, and they’re all obsessed with queen now, even though before half of them didnt know anything about them. its fine bc this is true of like half the teenage population who now professes to be huge fans of queen. I mean like, its fine, queen deserves it. and now there's people to discuss queen with so yay I guess. I never did get to see it in theatres which was sad, but I knew I could just find it online although it wouldn't be the same experience.

so then there’s another of my really good friends, a beautiful, talented, nice, perfect friend whom everyone likes. one of our guy friends who went to see the movie had a giant crush on her. I was the first person he told and he said not to tell anyone else so I didnt, but then he ended up telling a billion people and the situation got out of hand and uncomfortable for the girl, and I sat there giving him endless advice. (I also gave him advice during the times the three of us--sometimes 4, when the movie theatre friend was there--were face timing about the blanket guy trying to date my best friend.) I’ve had so many late night chats with this guy, talking to him, listening to his rants, spent so many hours trying to convince him to go to prom and ask this perfect friend to prom. I helped him with his promposal, came up with the majority of the logistics for his promposal, and stayed up with him while he made it. he’s sent me personal thoughts he hasn't shared with anyone else. I also comforted him when he lost someone recently and he said “thanks for being a really good friend and always being there for me” and after that has proceeded to treat me worse than he treats this perfect girl and my best friend. like, he’s always there to comfort my best friend, he always responds to her messages and addresses her in group chats. same with the perfect friend, he wants to go to her dance recital and stuff and is trying to persuade others to go too. I mean, I can understand it, bc not only are they both really pretty and accomplished, thus deserving of appreciation and kindness and friendship, he actually has reason to like them bc ofc he had a crush on this perfect friend and my best friend is HIS best friend’s girlfriend. but still, he’s been one of the few people to say that im a good friend so I thought he actually appreciated having me there as a friend and I kinda expected him to treat me as well as he treats them?? but guess not. and this perfect friend, I love her, and she's so nice to me, and were closer than I am with a lot of other people in our friend group. we have classes together and we can rant about stuff and I dont have to act like everythings fine around her (although Ive never expressed my actual sadness and depression to her bc her life is just so perfect, so she doesn’t actually know anything beyond the surface, but what I mean is that we can actually talk about deeper issues about the world and stuff). I love her but she is SO concerned with image and reputation. she never speaks up against people. in classes ive had to go up and talk to the teacher to ask questions for my friend. she’ll never say anything. and it sucks bc when we’re with others, she’ll put them before me. like suddenly they’ll all tease or laugh at me, im sure out of a good place, but it still sucks. she’ll team up with the guys, trying to gain their approval (they all love her anyway, so its really unnecessary). the other day our group chat decided to play evil apples, and the first round she won and I was second before the 2 guys, and in the second round one of the guys won and she was 2nd and I was 3rd but the prom friend (the one who had a crush on her) lost. then the next day in a class we were in a group playing cards against humanity, and when it was my turn to judge, I chose a card that was appropriate rather than an inappropriate one bc the appropriate one just made more sense and she whispers to the guy next to her, “see this is why we can’t play with them.” in a different round, the question card was “I get by with a little help from ______” and I said “is there a beatles related card” bc I wanted to make a reference, and the girl on the other side of perfect friend whispered what I said to her, giggling. it made me annoyed bc they were talking behind my back, and I would've been fine if it was the girl and the guy on each side of her, bc even though we’re all kind of friends they never really seemed to like me that much and always have seen me as just this weird, socially awkward, annoying person, but it made me so MAD that my FRIEND was taking part in this, and not saying anything, and just looking down on me when in private she’ll act like im her favorite person in the whole world. but whatever, I digress.

back to the point, perfect friend a few months after bohemian rhapsody left theaters she watched it somewhere and loved it, and she said it in our group chat, and everyone was like yay and loving her texts and had a discussion about how good it was.

yesterday I finally, finally watched it after months of waiting. so today I text the group chat that I watched it, and spam a little about what I liked and I didnt, which I realize is annoying bc I spam all the time and I cant really help it. but I expected since everyone in the chat is now queen fans, even those that weren’t before the movie, we could just obsess together over how good it was. 

but the only one who replied at first was my best friend (bless her). she loved a few messages (namely, 3: the first was that I watched it, the second was that the casting for brian may was amazing, and the third was that the live aid scene was so good). I was kinda confused bc I didnt think she even knew what I was talking about, especially since I didnt think shed even seen the movie? but maybe she did. or maybe she was just appreciating the comments, and anyway, regardless, I was grateful for her responding. and she said like “ooo where did you see it” and I said I found it online and she said “oh lol.” and she dislikes my ending text of “sorry for the spam I just really enjoyed it.” so I was grateful. but no one else really said anything.

until perfect friend sends an unrelated pic and says something. then she loved my text that I finally saw bohemian rhapsody, basically as an afterthought, but didnt say anything else on it. prom friend right away responds to perfect friend, ignoring all my texts, even tho I thought he was such a big fan of queen now after seeing the movie but whatever. he also then sends a video of blanket friend to the same group chat, addressing best friend, saying her name and what they’re doing.

so, nice to know im not liked lol.

I know this is a long winded story (I mean it doesn't matter cuz im just writing this to myself not anyone else) but im just so frustrated. I wish there was someone out there who would just CARE and appreciate my friendship and treat me like a friend. I KNOW I DONT DESERVE IT. and everything I say is with that unspoken warrant. like I KNOW. im just trying to say that at the same time im so tired of giving so much to my different relationships only to have it be reciprocated by like 5%. the closest connection I have is with is best friend, but she still looks down on me and has even told me everything she hates about me, two years ago when she was trying to get me to join color guard. color guard is like her obsession now, and she says she didnt know what it was before, even though back at the end of 8th grade I literally ASKED HER, “do you want to join color guard in hs.” but I guess she didn’t hear me and just disregarded it like she has SO MANY OTHER THINGS she doesn't deem important until she or her boyfriend or someone “discovers” it and then suddenly its her original idea or something. and ever since that episode when she basically ranted about everything she dislikes about me, just bc I didnt want to join color guard, nothing has been the same. I know ive wronged her so many times and I feel bad. I dont deserve her trust (I betrayed it so many times, like when I didnt tell her I was helping her (now) boyfriend) and I understand that, but now we dont share anything real. I dont trust ANYONE and all my real feelings and secrets I keep to myself. she doesn't need me for anything anymore now that she has a boyfriend, so its fine. but she still actually cares about me, and I care about her, and at least she will show her friendship and support for me. 

its just, I try so hard to connect. to act like im happy and have emotions when inside im depressed and empty. I try to show enthusiasm for everything they do when honestly I have so many of my own problems to worry about that I honestly just dont have the energy to care. I try to offer myself to comfort them and I prioritize other peoples feelings over my own obligations, feelings, problems, sleep, health, and time. I know it sounds like im a bad person just “faking” it and resenting these things that I should be happy to do. I guess I am, but its just that my mental health is so bad right now that its impossible for me to actually bring myself to care about stuff and others and myself or anything at all so thats why. When I get an opportunity to help people (like with the promposal and the girlfriend) it actually invigorates me bc I feel so needed. I willingly spend time on that bc it actually feels like im accomplishing something. It feels like people actually want me there. it feels like by doing this people will appreciate me. but that’s where im wrong. I got him his girlfriend and now he never talks to me or responds to my texts. I KNOW hes there, bc he’ll love all of her texts in the group chat, even the ones just saying the same things I already said, but he doesn't react to any of mine. I got him his prom date, yet in the hallways he doesn't say hi to me but he’ll gladly say hi to perfect friend or best friend. yesterday in lunch people got their yearbooks. perfect friend realized the cover had a feature. prom friend is there. best friend runs over yelling about how the cover is so bad because it’s predominantly black while the past 2 were predominantly white. to point out a good aspect, I repeat the feature perfect friend said. prom friend repeats what I said, but not in a high pitched voice or anything that hints at sarcasm or teasing. so I turn to him and im like “....I just said that.” he goes “I know. I was mocking you.” perfect friend and best friend say nothing to defend me. I just... I dont get it. a few days ago you said I was a good friend and now you proceed to make fun of me. somehow something about me makes it ok for him and others to make fun of me and look down on me, when he doesn't tease best friend or perfect friend. he treats me like trash but since the other two are perfect, since he likes perfect friend and since best friend is dating his friend, they have an automatic pass to be treated like queens, to be admired by him. best friend and perfect friend dont think they need to defend me when ive been nothing but loyal. it makes me annoyed because ive spent years defending best friend anytime someone says something. I was the outspoken one who'd yell at the guys when they teased. yet all anyone ever saw me as was the annoying, dramatic one. when I was just trying to be a friend the way I knew how. I thought being loyal was how to be a good friend, bc thats all I ever wanted. my brother made fun of me and put me down, at home, and in front of his friends, which were the most embarrassing time of all. so I thought my friends would appreciate me being loyal, yet all its ever seemed in all these years is that they’re embarrassed of me when I jump at those who tease. but I guess its because im so socially awkward. I overreact when things dont call for such big scenes. I talk too much. I try too hard. I just hate how I always take the fall. I never get credit where its due, just because I try to stay humble yet everyone still thinks im arrogant. I keep quiet, bc if I ever said what im saying now, it would just prove it. “see? you DO think highly of yourself.” they dont know that I would do anything to remove myself from this earth if I could because I have so much self loathing in me. 

the other day in math we were working in groups. one group came up with something and said it and the rest of the class was like “ohhh” but one group didnt hear and were like “what?” best friend goes “no dont tell them! make them figure it out themselves.” so I say to a classmate about to tell them, “no no no dont!” but in my voice thats 50x louder than my friend’s. someone else goes “what? no! thats so mean!” I was so embarrassed. I wouldn't have said anything if it wasn't my friends idea. I couldn’t care less whether that group knew or not, but since my friend said it I wanted to be supportive so I said something to have a bit of fun. yet I was the mean one, the one everyone looked at weird, the dramatic, annoying one, yet AGAIN. 

and it just made me think. I have taken the fall for others so many times and they have never spoken up. when its the other way around, when someone gets blamed for something that was my own fault, I always speak up and make sure to take the fall. I make it clear until people understand. and yet my friends never do the same for me. so why do I even bother?

I just need to stop trying so hard to be a friend, to be likable, because I know ill never know how. its just not in me to understand how to be a normal fucking person. to know how to interact with others. to not be socially awkward. to respond the right way. to not have a loud voice or talk too much or overshare. to read social cues and understand when people dont like me and to not force myself on them.

if I ever reach adulthood, maybe I can just sequester myself away from all humans, so none of them will ever have to deal with me again. so I dont fucking ruin society anymore. so I dont have to humiliate myself time and time again. so everyones lives can be so much better.

its embarrassing, im embarrassing, and im so tired of it.