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The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes reviews I've seen fixate on the story's discussion of whether humans are inherently good or inherently evil as if one side or the other is the correct answer. Meanwhile the story itself is showing that individual choice in every action--choosing to act out of either love or self-interest--is what truly matters in shaping society. A free and stable society requires that people be taught to make selfless choices rather than act out of fear. Instead of oppressing people into fearful order, citizens need to have the freedom to choose the good, and be educated with the values that teach them what good is.

hi! your blog is one of my favourites and i absolutely adore reading your thoughts. my grandfather recently passed away and it feels like i lost myself with him. how do i continue living after this? there is this constant weight on my chest and it feels like an emptiness has made a home inside of me. how do i go on when it feels like the world crashed on my shoulders?

hello, love! this is so very sweet and kind of you, and i hope you're treating yourself gently and kindly right now - there aren't words for a loss like this. that heaviness is difficult, and hard, and painful. it's okay if things don't feel okay, right now, or even soon - i think that's something that a lot of the people i know that have gone through similar grief feel: like they should be able to get back to a relative 'normal' in a [insert far too short period of time].

but it's okay if it hurts. that's where i'd like to start. you're allowed to feel that emptiness, that world-crashed feeling that goes beyond words, beyond time. don't feel like you have to rush this to feel some sort of better. things get easier with time, i promise you this, but sometimes painful feelings are important to feel, too. cry, scream, feel your emotions. they're a part of you. grieve.

it's perhaps a little silly, but when i think about death i always think about a couple of space songs: mainly drops of jupiter by train and saturn by sleeping at last. there are perhaps others that speak to the emotions better, but these two have always hit something a little deeper for me, and are popular for a wide-reaching reason.

and while personally i don't know much about grief like this, i do know a lot about love; and i think they're a lot of the same thing.

the people we love are a part of us, and this is why it takes from us so deeply when we lose them, because it does feel like we've lost a part of ourselves in the wake of it. but it's because they were so central to our experiences of living - our lives, that the separation introduces a hollowness - a place where they used to be. a home that now goes unlived in.

an emptiness, like you said.

but just because they're not here physically, doesn't mean he's not still there, in your heart, in your life, your memory. you can hold him close in smaller ways, as well: steal a sweater, or cologne/scent for something a little more physical and long lasting for remembering. hold onto the memories you cherish, the things that made you laugh, the ease of slow mornings and gentle nights. write them all down, slide a few photographs in there, go through it and add more when you miss him. keep them all close, keep them in your heart.

you're not alone, in this. he's still there, with you, it's just - in the little things.

he's with you in the way you see and go about your daily life, in doing what he liked to do, in the ways he interacted with the world that you shared with him. the memories you recall fondly when the night is late or the moment is right and something calls it into you like a melody, an old bell, laughter you'd recognize anywhere.

but i think, perhaps most importantly above all others - talk about him. with your family, your friends, his friends, strangers; stories are how we keep the people we love alive. the connections they've made, the legacies and experiences they've left behind, and so, so many stories.

how lucky, we are - to love so much it takes a piece of us when they go. grief is the other side of the coin, but it does not mean our love goes away. it lives in you. it lives in everyone who knew him, in the smallest pieces of our lives.

the people we love never really leave us, like this: they're in how we cook and the way we fold our newspapers, our laundry, in the radio stations we tune in to and the way we decorate our walls, our photo albums. they're in the way we store our mail, organize our closets, the scribbled notes in the indexes of our books. the meals we love and the drinks we mix, the way we spend time with one another. they've been passed down for generations, for longer than history - and we are all the luckier for it.

think about what you shared with him, and do it intentionally. bring him into your life, like this, again. whether it's crosswords or poetry or sports or anything else. if one doesn't help, try another. something might click.

i hope things feel a little easier for you, as they tend to do only with time. i hope you find joy in your grief, even if it is small and hard to grasp at first. know that your hurt stems from so much love that there isn't a place to put it properly, and that it is something so meaningful and hurting poets and storytellers have been struggling to put it into words and sounds that feel like the fit right for eons, and that it is also just simply yours. sometimes things don't have to make sense. sometimes they just are - unable to be put into words or neat little sentiments, as unfair and tragic as they come.

but i promise it will not feel like this forever. your love is real. and perhaps, on where to begin on from here - i think it's less on finding where to begin and just beginning. and you've already started. you've taken the most important and crucial step: the first one. wherever you go, after that, from here? you'll figure it out. you always have, and you always do. it'll come, as things always do. love leads us, as does light - and you're never alone in your hurt. in your grief, your missing something dear to you. i think if you talk about it with others, you'll find they have ways of helping you cope as well - and they have so much love of their own to spare, too.

as an aside, here is the song (northern star by dom fera) i was listening to when i wrote this, for no other reason more than it makes me think of connections, and love, and how we hold onto the people we love and how they change us, wonderfully and intrinsically. it's a little more joyous than the others i've mentioned, and plays like a story, and it made me think of what is at the core of this, love and stories and i am here with you, and maybe it'll bring you some joy, if you'd like it. wishing you all my love and ease 💛

How do you feel about the increase in really weird NSFW ads on here (advertising panels that look like sexual encounters, and AI art apps that pride themselves on porn) but will take down NSFW posts from their users, even if it isn't technically sexual.

i hate all social media and it's consistent prioritising the advertisers over the users and the internet simply was a better place before capitalism sunk its hooks into it

Need more stories abt middle aged and old people finding love & patnerships. Tbh. Like obvs there is so much more to life and it's not important in the grand scheme of things and like most days I am thinking of bigger and better things but also I love romance and if I am not properly kissed at least once in my life like. What.

hey remember when everyone thought axolotls were weird and ugly?

me neither. that's my baby boy(?) right there

crack theory: what if the abyss twin isn't a descender because they're an ascender?

funny thing is I don't really have any interest in hoarding knowledge or resources for myself in any way, I'm just bad at publishing stuff because I feel like that'd require a bit more stringent quality control than what I might expect of something made largely for my own use.

sometimes I think maybe I should set up something like a google drive or a git or something to just throw my personal- and work-in-progress stuff for people who are interested, but I dunno what limits for space or bandwidth or anything are like.

like I'm sure some people would possibly find the ColorSet unpacker python script useful?? It kinda sucks through and I want to make a better version of it and maybe one that could work as a standalone executable instead? and possibly a packer counterpart to the unpacker?? But also I keep thinking like "would this even be useful to anyone lmao??"

in theory you could probably make some kind of art program plugin that does all of this for you - even the bit with loading actual colorset information into layered colorset pairs, but I mean that's a lot of effort and I still largely use a 20+ year old version of Paint Shop Pro myself so...

phoebe bridgers was the realest when she said, you know i'd stand on the corner, embarrassed with a picket sign, if it meant i would see you when i die

god the way i'm not exactly a mathematician or a scientist but i'll always be obsessed with how certain scientists explain the way they see love in the world or when mathematicians see the poetry behind the numbers

so ai is being used almost exclusively to create "art" and i still have to calculate and file my own taxes every year?

bleak

the concept of loving someone to the point of creation will always be my favorite thing. loving someone so much that you dont have anywhere to put it all. it flows through every part of you, always raging and intense and utterly overwhelming but with absolutely nowhere to go. you find yourself bursting at the seams and eventually, all at once, it pours out of every crack and crevice and it turns into something. it turns into the strum of a guitar and a gentle voice. it turns into the scratch of charcoal on paper and the stroke of a brush on canvas. it turns into the chisel of marble or into careful hands molding clay. it turns into writing, words selected so meticulously. whatever medium you might choose, you use all of that love and try desperately to accurately portray how it makes you feel. so you write your poems and you sing your songs and you paint your paintings. what you have in the end is a stunning assortment of art that encapsulates all of that love. if you decide to share it, it allows other people see your lover just as you do. this person that you feel so intensely about, forever captured in the most exquisitely beautiful light. how wonderful it is to love and be loved like that.

i dont get how some people especially neurodivergent people can look at people with personality disorders and be utterly ableist and sanist against them when 9/10 you have more in common with a pwASPD or NPD than you do a neurotypical just based on the fact that mental illness is literally buy one get twelve free in some cases

unironically now that i am into season 17 of greys anatomy like ppl are just haters like shonda is doing things

i'm curious to know how long do you guys have your original series? i love the passion and dedication you all put into this story. can't wait for more of it!

Hiya, Anonstar, thank ya so much for your compliment! Means a whole world to us!!! Ahhh, so we have Antineon Hieraeon since January 22, 2022! Although we didn't really have a strong clear idea of where we wanted the series and universe to be like until October 20, we revamped the series and created the first four characters of Antineon Hieraeon: Micah Xenowake, Adoniram Bloodburn, Sweetsilence, and Steelstorm. Warlock Moonglade, Bluebreak, Angelparadox, and Devileye a week later. Antigods and the Metaeide and Saints were the first three lore pieces we thought of.

I think about this text, like, a lot. I can't believe it's been almost a year now since we wrote this and soon, we'll be reaching to the second anniversary of this series. We did try to bring our series ( the " beta version " as we were still fixing and finalizing our lores and characters ) with the Starwake System in late October to early November before we went on hiatus and returned to the rpc in early April 2023 with a more fleshed out storyline and universe. It's been an amazing journey and we're most grateful for those who're still here with us and the Starwake System and ANHA. ♡