#trying to draw more abstract work since i just dont do it enough | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bettsfic · 3 years

Note

hi betts! i got very interested in your posts esp the implied author. i wanna ask a question (if you dont mind!). so about the implied author, i always feel like that my writings though beautiful always lack mentioned maturity and read very... YA-ish? its not something im trying to achieve. i want to make it more mature and 'classical'. do you have a tips for this? im not aware enough of what to improve on to achieve that, basically. thank you in advance!

this is a great question! unfortunately, though, i don't have a handy dandy term like "implied author" to thoroughly encapsulate my possibly abstract answer.

first, while i understand your goals, i think beautiful prose, and the focus thereof, is still a very important pursuit. there's also nothing wrong with being YA-ish; the implied author comes from a book called the rhetoric of fiction, and the title implies that it's a study of fiction in interaction with an audience. so different readers get different things out of what they read (i wrote about this more in my june newsletter). possibly your perspective is something someone else hasn't seen before, and you've offered them something new without even knowing.

that said, i absolutely understand the drive to have a wider perspective, and write things that you find more complicated and challenging. however, the only way i can answer this is with metaphors couched in narrative, of how i learned about how to approach my writing differently, and which presumably, maybe widened a reader's sense of my implied author (but since i can't be a reader of my own work, there's no way to tell for sure).

so, i once took a creative nonfiction seminar during which i read a whole bunch of memoirs, and the final project was either a research paper or a personal essay. obviously i chose the personal essay. i decided to write about my ex-boyfriend, with whom i'd broken up five years earlier, and i was still very fucked up about it even though we'd been broken up far longer than we were together.

looking back on that essay, it reads like a sales pitch, ten pages of me just pleading with the reader to see my side of the situation, to see how i was the victim, sympathize with me and not him. he's the evil one. hate him with me. please please please.

it was not a good look.

there was a lot of unprocessed grief in that essay, a lot of anger. it was clear i had no wider perspective of the situation other than wallowing in my own narrow feelings about it. i was telling the reader what to think about me, about him, about the situation, rather than conveying the situation as it truly was and allowing them to draw their own conclusions.

in nonfiction, that's terrifying, because it potentially paints me in a negative light. a reader may see my actions and think poorly of me. and honestly, looking back, they should. i was as toxic to my ex as he was to me. i was not good to him at all.

but see, that's an example of me telling you what to think. in the essay, i am pretty much saying outright, "he is evil. hate him." i want to force the reader to be on my side. but after a mental breakdown and a lot of trauma therapy, i was able to step out of the situation and my feelings thereof, and see it from a much wider perspective, and instead of putting my actual emotions on the page, i'm able to illustrate honestly the emotions i felt at the time. i am no longer in the story. i'm outside of it.

here are the events as they actually happened: one night, he didn't come home. i texted him. i tried to call him. i waited a couple more hours and called him again. he came home as i was looking up numbers to nearby hospitals, around four a.m. he wouldn't tell me where he'd been. the next day i found a bunch of hickeys on his neck. i was hurt, and angry, and i pushed him. i told him to get out of my house. he still denied it, and kept denying it for hours longer, until finally admitting he'd been dating someone else for months. i couldn't find it in myself to blame him. to me, it was my fault for not being good enough for him, for not fitting into the shape of someone he could love.

there was more to the story than that; he was financially dependent on me, he was no longer attracted to me and felt trapped in our relationship, my father had just died and i couldn't even begin to grieve over the loss of someone whose life mine revolved around.

but an essay -- or a short story, a novel, a poem -- can't ever render reality exactly as it is. we as writers are always just curators of experiences, images, sentences. there's a lot of fear in that, of leaving out details, of being misunderstood. but that's the inherent risk of art.

the lesson i brought back to fiction is this:

it's not my job as a writer to place judgment on my characters, but to simply convey the story as it happens. my characters may have biases, misperceptions, judgments, and opinions, but they are not mine. widening the implied author, so to speak, is a process of removing yourself from your prose.

obviously you will make characters who are like you in some ways, and so they may share traits with you. they may be identical to you in every way. but they are not you, and cannot be you. possibly the implied author is the absence of ego. or maybe it's an embrace of the self and the world as things that can't be fully known.

i think about films that have a wide implied author versus a narrow one (in my opinion; see above point about fiction as rhetoric). to me, pacific rim has a very wide implied author. even though all the characters in the movie take the events therein very seriously, i know that the mind creating this story knows it's kind of ridiculous, even though it's not a comedy. they know this wild, over-the-top conceit is a vehicle for the more complicated and nuanced experience of intimacy and trust.

a narrow implied author would be zack snyder's justice league. that film leaves me with no evidence that the mind behind it is capable of truly understanding experiences beyond their own, or using their medium to render a nuanced portrayal of being. that doesn't mean snyder isn't, in reality, capable of those things, or that the movie isn't enjoyable on an aesthetic level, but that i found no evidence in the text of, well, themes. it's just...characters doing things. i see no exploration in it, no question that the narrative addresses.

which leads me to my second point, which is that i think the widest implied authors are the ones who are vulnerable enough not to have an answer or conclusion, to simply discover and explore larger questions.

so, what questions do you have? what things do you not know? what are you most afraid to convey or admit?

in some ways, my answer to your question is that you don't have to worry about it, because the implied author is the experience of the reader, which you can't control. however, i think all of us, myself included, can work toward a greater perspective of ourselves and our world, to understand things to a more complex degree. and beautifully, writing helps us do that, at the risk of exposing the things we don't know, the questions we can't answer, our true colors which may be darker and uglier than we'd like to admit.

#writing advice #implied author

39 notes · View notes

mmmmalo · 5 years

Text

This is a (meandering, non-exhaustive) overview of Homestuck’s use of

by which I do not mean examples of psychological realism in a character’s words and deeds, but rather the various means by which characters’ psyches are expressed outside of themselves. I wish to elaborate on how thoughts, feelings, and desires may find expression in the environment, in the medium of the story itself, and in the form of other characters.

That’s perhaps a little vague, so here’s a ready example of what I mean: brainghost!Dirk. He talks with Jake, but since he is a construct of Jake’s mind, Jake is essentially talking to himself. Brainghost!Dirk is an alienated medium for voicing Jake’s own thoughts, irretrievably distorted through its intermingling with what Jake thinks/wishes Dirk would say (not unlike a puppet). I am claiming that this mode of characterization is not a unique to Jake; the blurring of inner and outer voices is omnipresent throughout the story.

Or, rephrased: what I hope to show is that a great deal of Homestuck is haunted with brain-ghosts, of one kind or other.

An early example of this kind of storytelling in science fiction would be the film Forbidden Planet (1956). The film contains a pair of conflicts which eventually reveal themselves to be one: the scientist Morbius wants some space explorers to get off his planet, and an immense monster (pictured above) appears during the night to attack the explorers. Morbius, it turns out, has been experimenting with a machine capable of turning thought into reality. So when Morbius sleeps, his dream of driving off the trespassers materializes in the form of beast that forcefully enacts the wish.

The beast is declared a “monster from the id”, the “id” being a concept borrowed from Freudian psychology, indicating the part of the mind responsible for the unfiltered generation of impulses, of urges. In the film, this passing mention of psychoanalysis precedes the revelation of Morbius’s link to the beast.

Homestuck hints towards its own mixing of thought and reality with a device similar to Morbius’s dream machine: Sburb.

A snapshot of Dave’s Sburb client (1519) shows that the final subprograms launched during the games installation make reference to terminology associated with Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. The terms suggest that Sburb interacts with the ideas in the kids’ subconscious minds (archetypes) and brings symbolic representations of these ideas into conscious reality (manifests the ideas). The game alters the means by which reality is constructed. As with Forbidden Planet, a major result of this is id monsters.

When John slips on a staircase, he flips out (left, 560). And when he nearly launches himself into the abyss with the Pogo Hammer, he has to take a nap before he has calmed down enough to continue (center, 637). Immediately following both moments of vertigo, massive ogres appear. The eventual fight with the ogres begins after John looks over the edge of the platform above his house, into the abyss (right, 662).

All of this suggests that Sburb is reacting to John’s emotional state (fear) to produce in-game content. The game functions as a waking dream.

It should also be noted that Sburb provokes the reactions it elicits. Karkat once mentioned a nagging feeling that the game was mocking him by giving him a planet covered in the candy red blood he had spent a lifetime attempting to hide (2301). Karkat’s paranoia seems to be correct here, and moreover applicable to the cast in general -- John’s house was likely placed atop an immense spire /in order to/ bring John’s dread of falling into sharp relief. The suspicion can be substantiated with a few related motifs.

The story provides two likely origins for John’s fear of heights: his own fall from the slime pogo as a child (2626) and the death of Nanna, which John believed resulted from her falling from a ladder and being crushed by a book (52). What’s more, Sburb’s invocation of the Fall of Man (Adam and Eve being cast from the Garden of Eden) via biting into an apple hints that there is an allegorical significance to John’s more literal fear of heights.

We can apply these patterns to other characters in an attempt to learn more about them. LOLAR being covered in ocean suggests that Rose is afraid of water, with the likely cause of Rose finding Jaspers dead and washed up on a riverbank (presumed drowned). Dave speaks openly about how his sword fights with Bro left him anxious of metal sounds (7749), meaning the grinding gears of LOHAC were a personalized hell for Dave. Jade’s first imp manifests in response to the sight of a yellow aurora (2998), inviting the reader to investigate why that image invokes a fear response.

But we won’t get to into all of that, not for now at least. Let’s take a step back.

For my reading of the imps as manifestations I’ve been leaning heavily on a piece of film theory devoted to the effects of sequential images. The sequence above constitutes two observations. One, that by this arrangement the viewer will infer the old man sees and reacts to the middle figure. Two, that the viewer’s impression of the old man will change based on the content of the central image, even if his expression is the same. Is he smiling at Nepeta or warm embrace Marvus’s armpit? The answer may influence your interpretation of the little smile.

The neat thing about montage is that the interrupting frame need not bear any obvious relation to what precedes or follows in order to be subject to a causal reading. Moments that occur sequentially can be read as triggering one another, even if what follows any particular moment appears to be a break rather than a continuation.

Example: There’s a moment where Aranea walks into Jake’s dream, and brainghost!Dirk immediately starts razzing Jake about his attraction to the alien girl and threatening to give him a boner. The scene is interrupted by Jack committing a series of gratuitous murders. We then cut back to Jake, and bg!Dirk is now teasing him about his dirty thoughts.

DIRK: You have got to be kidding. Did you seriously just think something THAT dirty? DIRK: You must be doing this on purpose to spite me now. I mean, just wow dude. That was x-rated as fuck.

JAKE: (No no stop. See youre talking about it and now i cant help it!) JAKE: (You are psyching me into having dirty thoughts get fucking lost you interloping brain douche!!!)

DIRK: Don't worry, I'm gone. It's like a goddamn peep show in here and I feel like a sleazy piece of shit watching this from a dark corner of your mind. DIRK: You have a graphic imagination, English. I'm kind of impressed.

JAKE: (Shut up theyre just thoughts its not even like im trying to have them THEY DONT MEAN ANYTHING!)

The ostensible joke is that bg!Dirk is exaggerating or outright fabricating his account of Jake’s thoughts in order to hassle him. But by way of montage, one can infer that we /have/ seen Jake’s dirty thoughts, in the form of Jack’s display of overwhelming bloodlust. Violence is superimposed over the sexually explicit.

Whether the scene literally takes place in Jake’s mind is secondary (though such a reading would explain why Jake’s brain ghost is even aware of Jack) -- the use of montage allows Jack’s actions to function as a /metaphor/ for Jake’s thought.

Another example of Jack functioning as a murderous/libidinous avatar would be the death of Mom and Dad. At their little tea party, Dad spills some wine on Mom’s clothes and declares that she must disrobe immediately (so that Dad might launder the garment). Mom calls the aromas wafting from his pipe sensuous. The two clasp hands and declare that all they need is eachother. Then they die! The joke is that while Bec Noir is ostensibly an interruption to date night, he also functions as its culmination, with murder acting as substitute for the sex act.

The link between violence and sexuality is perhaps a hard sell, but I hope to convince you that the reading holds merit. Let me emphasize that the very act of Mom and Dad holding hands was itself sexually loaded.

I owe to HS liveblogger elfstuck the insight that John’s linear 3 card sylladex is a reflection of his short attention span. Consider how John’s role as a game character means he is thrown all around his room, back and forth, as the player figures out what to make of the situation. If you ignore the fourth wall, you’re left with an extremely distracted person, who attention flows easily from one object to another. Accepting the object-in, object-out nature of John’s sylladex and the resulting shenanigans as a metaphor for this, it would follow that the sylladex in general can offer an abstract representation of thought.

In passing, I can mention how the enormity of Jake’s sylladex (it cannot even fit on the page, and contains an object that exceed most players’ size limits) would imply that despite evidence to the contrary, the boy likely has a big brain (and perhaps its being offscreen suggests Jakes own unawareness of much of his own thought). Dirk’s comment about avoiding items that are difficult to shoehorn into his mnemonic schema (4535) could be read as a difficulty maintaining information that doesn’t fit into his personal mental models. The sylladex becomes a metaphor for the mind that requires interpretation.

Under this mode of thought, the moments when Jade’s pictionary modus fails to correctly interpret her drawing become akin to a mental slip-of-the-tongue. For the Tanglebuddies to be misread as enmeshed hands implies an association, in Jade’s mind, of horny Squiddles and clasped hands. John affirms the association much later by miming Tanglebuddies as he attempts to grapple with the question of whether Jade and Davesprite are sexually compatible (5294):

JOHN: how do things even work if you marry a sprite?

JADE: what do you mean

JOHN: i mean... JOHN: ok, he has a ghost butt, for one thing.

JADE: uh JADE: so

JOHN: a GHOST BUTT, jade!

JADE: SO WHAT IF HE HAS A GHOST BUTT!!!!!

JOHN: i'm just saying...

JADE: WHATEVER YOURE JUST SAYING, JUST STOP SAYING IT! JADE: and whatever youre trying to gesture with your hands there, stop doing that too!

It should also be noted that before launching into her “daring dream”, waxing poetic on the miraculous union of the human and the animal with her hands clasped in wonder, Jade successfully captchalogued the Tanglebuddies (796). And more to the point, Jade’s pose in reproduced during discussions of cherub (5961) and leprechaun (6007) reproduction. Hand-holding becomes representative of an (oft-sexualized) union, underlining the euphemistic nature of Mom and Dad’s post-contact demise.

The next example of using montage to communicate thought requires a little more buildup.

There’s a gag in Rose’s introduction where the reader tells Rose to play with her writing journals, and scoots the journals under the bed and retorts that she would only do that if no one were watching (220). At first glance, the moment scans as a minor meta joke in a story filled with meta jokes -- but the trick is that Rose does not /know/ herself to be a video game character, her every movement controlled and observed. Rather, she /believes/ this to be true -- the joke about being watched establishes that Rose is paranoid, as will become apparent in the hostility she assigns to Mom’s every action.

The command prompt and narration are themselves brain ghosts of a sort: the voice deployed in them is always linked to the present point-of-view character. The insults that precede character introductions ( “Zoosmell Pooplord”, etc) become marks of anxiety, an intrusive proclamation of what the kids at times think of themselves (and/or what they think others think of them). “Nice time management skills, sweetheart!” becomes a bit of self-deprecation Rose as she procrastinates, which Rose experiences as having been voiced by some objective observer who judges her deficiencies.

A blurred line divides characters from the voice at the back of their head, belonging to the (presumed) omniscient, omnipotent author-god. This is why avatar!Hussie is dressed as Calliope when he is killed by Lord English. Both Calliope and Hussie are a voice in Caliborn’s head, and thus both present apparent obstacles to an unmediated self.

The left panel (3219) foreshadows the right (3358). Gamzee is not being declared the objectively most important character in Homestuck. Rather, Gamzee is declaring himself /to have been declared/ the most important character in the story. The line establishes that Gamzee believes himself to be in a story (with an author!) and that this author has declared him paramount. Furthermore, “fondly regarding creation” is an modus operandi of Problem Sleuth’s Godhead Pickle Inspector. Applying that turn of phrase to Gamzee’s actions further establishes that Gamzee believes himself to /be/ the god-author declaring his own importance. So it should come as no surprise that 137 pages later, Gamzee outright proclaims himself to be the god(s) he worships.

Going back to montage, it becomes interesting that this snapshot of Gamzee’s megalomania is inter-cut with the creation of Jadesprite -- the moment that dead!dream!Jade merges with Bec, forming a unity with a deity not unlike the unity Gamzee claims with his mirthful messiahs. The interweaving would suggest that Jade and/or Jadesprite experienced analogous thoughts of megalomania upon the moment of ascension.

This would be a good point to mention that not only imps and ogres, but trolls also function as manifestations for the people they impose upon. Karkat is not only an interruption here, but also a continuation. He points out that Jade’s self-loathing, that she cannot safely distance herself from the qualities of Jadesprite she finds distasteful. This is precisely why Karkat ends the conversation by telling Jade to turn off the fourth wall (which divides the self!), as well as the reason he imagines Jade making out with herself: Karkat is on every front presenting the prospect of union with oneself.

The notion of trolls as manifestations first emerges clearly when Rose and Dave receive their packages from John. As they finish reading John’s letter, each is suddenly contacted by a troll and greeted with the command “Answer.” Critically, by word alone it is ambiguous as to whether the command refers to answering the troll or the letter. And as it turns out, these answer occur simultaneously: Rose and Dave’s responses to the letters are embedded in the subsequent conversations.

Rose receives a letter poking fun at her pretensions, claiming that her attempts to hide her affections for people are futile. In response we get Kanaya, who imperiously proclaims her disdain for Rose, only to suddenly change tact and explicitly seek Rose’s friendship, an entreaty which the oft paranoid Rose accepts. Dave receives a letter imploring him to let go of his insecurities and express himself. In response we get Tavros, the very picture of insecurity, who is fixated on the idea of making Dave shit himself (as part of an ‘emotional constipation’ motif that follows Dave). And Dave complies, in a sense, by way of the quasi-ironic gay treatise that compels Tavros to block him. Each conversation addresses the issues laid out in John’s letter.

Examples can be found throughout the comic. Equius remarking that he talks to Gamzee every day (2220) establishes that Gamzee is regularly haunted by the thoughts of domination that Equius voices -- both in the literal and metaphorical sense. Erisolsprite referring to Dirk as a rock 2oliid piiece of a22 and then calling himself 2ociiopathiic for even thinking something so callous (5516) expresses a conflict already present in Jake’s own mind, echoing the frustration with his own dirty thoughts expressed by the argument with brainghost!Dirk. Feferi’s pronounced enthusiasm for the imminent apocalypse should cause you to question Kanaya’s seemingly neutral resignation towards the end of the world, since Feferi manifests for Kanaya (2328). And so on.

The person being trolled is always being confronted with thoughts or feelings or memories already present within themself. Alien contact always doubles as a brain ghost haunting.

Another example, with some buildup: Karkat invokes the phrase “PERFORATE MY BONE BULGE WITH A CULLING FORK” to express his contempt for Vriska, and on subsequent pages we see Feferi pointing her culling fork at a cuttlefish (2181), as if to suggest that the creature symbolizes the bone bulge. Fast forward to Kanaya, who has just gotten through a conversation with Vriska and finds herself haunted by Eridan, who keeps going on about his romantic desperations and insisting (correctly) that Kanaya’s crush on Vriska is itself romantic. That his notification erupts from an image of cuttlefish held at Kanaya’s waist adds to the air of yearning, as though her own bulge is rumbling. The scene is capped off with a double entendre: “its hard and nobody understands” is playfully poignant jab at an inability to understand one’s own desires (among other things).

And Homestuck devotes a lot of attention to desire.

It’s long been acknowledged by the fandom at large that Kanaya’s attraction to Light players functions as a joke on the proverbial moth-to-the-flame. As reconciliation with the fire destroys the moth, there’s a morbid tinge to the attraction, as though it doubles as a death wish. And the wish is granted -- when Kanaya dies in Homestuck, she dies to light, either from Eridan’s wand or the laser blasts unleashed by HIC. Even the death of Kanaya’s lusus pertains to light -- the matriorb ripped from her innards is shaped like a miniature sun, as if to establish some loose link between the notion of motherhood and the incandescence Kanaya eventually achieves.

This can be generalized into a principle wherein lusii (and the circumstances of their deaths!) can functions as analogies for the desire of the wards.

Vriska, for example, desires execution. When offering Terezi a flimsy apology for crippling Tavros and proxy-murdering Aradia, Vriska offers to slam her head against her desk in penitence. This moment should be read against Vriska’s addiction to breaking 8 balls, and leaving the broken shards lying around as though she’s inviting the “bad luck” of stepping on them. It /is/ an invitation. Vriska seeks love via violent retribution against herself. This is why in the right panel, Vriska’s blood-spattered head is juxtaposed with a broken 8 ball: the blood came from Spidermom’s execution (which characterizes Vriska’s desire), and motif of 8R8K H34DS connects the moment to Vriska’s idea of apology.

Like Kanaya, Vriska (to a degree) seems to structure her love life along these lines. In the words of @azdoine:

like ppl are actually out here writing Vriska as the top as if her entire Act 5 character arc isn’t about bratting out until Terezi has no choice but to punish her

“oh noo, I, the thief of light, stole all of your luck, and made the coin land on the scratched side! now you have to kill me! but I’m probably going to get away with everything, because you don’t have the guts to stab me with that sword of yours!!!!!!!! if only there was somebody, like you, who could prove me wrong!”

EXTREMELY SUBTLE THERE, VRISKA

Vriska’s approach to wooing Tavros also revolves around baiting execution:

The scene: Tavros leads a horde of imps and ogres into a mystery cave, the top of which is adorned with kissing lizards and an alchemical symbol. Tavros is putting a puzzle of a frog together, but Vriska has already pieced together the puzzle: making a frog universe is, in part, a cipher for personal reproduction. The Ultimate Alchemy is making a baby! And as Vriska says, “real gamers cut to the chase. They power through all the nonsense and go for the gold.” So she brings Tavros to LOMAT and makes the moves on him.

Tavros is equated to a treasure chest by the repeated use of framing and Vriska is GOING FOR THE GOLD, like a WINNER. Tavros later reaches into the same chest for his lance before heading off to attempt to kill Vriska -- affirming that the treasure Vriska seeks here is Tavros’s “lance”.

This setup was suggested by the conversation accompanying the kissing salamanders: Vriska gives Tavros a map with a big red X, saying he should take his legion of imps through the gate and go defeat his denizen. The gate actually leads to Vriska, but she isn’t lying. She is positioning herself to be Tavros’s final boss. The imps are manifestations of Tavros’s pent up rage (much of which was generated by Vriska’s harassment), and Vriska wants Tavros to take that anger out on her. Hence the later panel which uses Vriska’s boots to place a big red X directly over her groin, making explicit the implicit goal of Tavros’s trip to the windmill X-gate.

This pursuit of love through violent comeuppance may have something to do with Vriska’s bitter disappointment that ghost!Aradia did not seem to hate her.

An intermission/introduction of sorts, as we bridge from one discussion of desire to another: did you know that Michael Bay’s Armageddon (1998) structures itself in part around Freud’s Oedipus complex? I say this in total sincerity.

The plot: a meteor the size of Texas bears down upon the Earth, threatening armageddon. Luckily, a crew of rough-and-tumble oil drillers are ready to fly into space and split that mother in two. Oh HELL yeah.

Except, wait, the movie’s actually about family drama: Bruce Willis finds Ben Affleck sleeping with his daughter Liv Tyler; Willis proceeds to chase Affleck around the oil rig with a shotgun, bang bang bang. Not Allowed. The Protective-Father-Hates-Your-Boyfriend dynamic is presented as an Oedipal triad of sorts: although Tyler is not literally Affleck’s mother, she performs the mom-function of “forbidden object of desire” -- and Willis opening fire is equivalent to the castration said to await trespassers onto maternal soil.

The above reading is buttressed by jokes: Armageddon appears to function within an implicit dream machine, such that the characters’ thoughts and fears can become manifest in their environment. So when it comes to pass that whenever Affleck climbs into a hole (heehee), a pipe breaks (hoohoo), and suddenly everything goes boom, I read that as Affleck reliving the consequences of boning Tyler, packaged in such a way that the Freudian fear of castration is more explicit. (The relevance of Oedipus to the proceedings adds some humor to Steve Buscemi declaring the entire disastrous situation a “Greek tragedy”)

At any rate, after some shenanigans, Willis comes to accept Affleck’s claim to his daughter and confers the deed, as it were. Willis gives the young couple his blessing and they get married. Hooray!

Except, wait, the movie’s actually about the perpetuation of the oil industry: the dream machine was declared at the beginning of the movie when a petty street-side argument triggered the first barrage of meteors. The meteor the size of Texas (aka Dotty) is triggered by conflicts that haunt the central cast -- namely Willis, who enters the film hitting golf balls at a Green Peace boat. On a metaphorical level, Dotty is a golf ball the size of Texas, striking directly at the Earth instead its self-declared representatives. There’s a certain irony here: the film lampshades that the men who are destroying the world have been tasked with saving it.

The family drama folds into the environmentalist angle: Liv Tyler is a symbol of the earth (which gets drilled). This is the joke when Affleck is bouncing animal crackers around on her belly like she’s host to the Savannah: she kind of is! It’s no coincidence that Willis confers ownership of the oil rig at the same moment that he offers his daughter’s hand in marriage: the motifs are being discussed simultaneously.

But enough of all of that: back to Homestuck.

Armageddon’s simultaneous casting of Liv Tyler into the roles of earth and mother offers a glimpse at the interpretive possibilities made available by Hussie’s statement that Homestuck is in a way a synonym for Earthbound (an RPG in which “homesickness” is a status ailment which can be cured by calling your mom). Stuckness or boundness can be deployed to communicate a sense of longing for “home”.

A good chunk of Homestuck is built upon feelings of nostalgia, taken to mean a sort of intense separation anxiety with the past. John speaks about this when he watches Con Air with Jade – John wants the movie to feel like it did when he watched it with his Dad long ago, but the feeling from when he was a kid is gone. This upsets him. Moreover, John’s freakout starts at the moment Cyrus puts a gun to the bunny’s head (5286): Con Air itself is partly about Nic Cage trying to return to the life he lost when he went to jail, and ‘putting the bunny back in the box’ is a metaphor for the attempt. Cyrus, in threatening the bunny, is highlighting his role as a force preventing things from going back to how they were. Thus, if we are to believe that John is responding to the movie thematically, Cyrus confronts John with his own inability to go back to a happier past – his inability to go home -- and this recognition is met with anger.

In making the leap to the psychoanalytic motifs, it helps to recall the part where baby!Dirk responds to being born by cracking open his ectotube and crawling back inside. Dirk, who aspires towards his “ultimate self”, illustrates here that he envisions his ascension as a return to the ‘essence’ of Dirk from which he (and all other iterations of himself) arose, as represented by the ectoslime. Baby!Dirk gestures at unity with his ectoslime/essence by crawling back into the place from which he was born, which I’m basically claiming is a “return to the womb” on a symbolic level, or at least that this is a useful parallel to draw. (A related motif to think about: Dirk decapitates himself by sticking his head inside a box, which as per Con Air symbolizes the place you wish to return to)

[Hella Jeff sez: “i took (my pants) off because i was banging your mom for a minute there..... AND NOW YOU ARE BANGING HER”]

Castration becomes unavoidable as you try to relate all of this to Dave, whose occasional references to banging hot moms are part of an ongoing reference to the Oedipus Complex. Critically, the complex is not /just/ about wanting to bone your mom, but also fear that your dad will chop your junk off if you do. The breaking of Dave’s sword on the rooftop is a realization of this fear (yes, we’re doing the “swords are phallic” thing). But Dave has no mom that he knows of, so what gives?

The answer is in the way Bro inexplicably breaks the record emblem on Dave’s t-shirt, as though he has introduced a fissure into Dave’s very identity. Life with Bro has made it very difficult for Dave to be honest with himself, which is to say, Dave pictures Bro’s abuse as having divided him from an ideal “true self”, which can feel emotions without all the anxious ironic detachment. I mentioned before that seeking unity with that from which you came is a “return to the womb”. This is the sense in which the Oedipal mom attraction becomes relevant: the return to the past is sexualized. The ‘home’ Dave wishes to return to is /himself/, and in this sense Dave is his own hot mom (which is related to how often Dave compliments his own looks, as well as the above gif suggesting Dave’s boner – he is literally/metaphorically “attracted” to himself).

(Incidentally: this model of desire, in which a broken subject attempt to become whole again by seeking out its lost half, is basically the concept of the soulmate, as laid out by Plato. Cherub reproduction turns the metaphysical pursuit of one’s lost half into a plot-level objective)

John’s entry item (apple) was linked to fear embodied in a childhood trauma (the Fall), and the same can be said of Dave. Hatching from the shell that contained your primordial goop (Dirk) is analogous to being violently separated from yourself (Dave), which is why Dave’s entry item (an egg) hatching coincided with Bro slicing the meteor in half: the abuse that divided Dave from himself, his “castration” by Bro, is simultaneously the “birth” that separated Dave from his “mother” (which is also Dave).

The general idea is that birth = self-alienation = castration, insofar as all are depicted as modes of being separated from oneself.

The broad motif of ‘being separated from oneself’ can be very useful for identifying brain ghosts in unexpected places. Take for example, Roxy’s fenestrated planes: when they are introduced the narrative is quick to tell us that if someone were caught half in/out of one of the windows when the power cuts out, they would be sliced in half. By the rule of Chekhov’s gun, this introduction should mean we should eventually see someone get gorily bisected by the window, but alas we never do.

Instead, when Gcat warped the panel away, trapping Roxy between the windows, we were shown the image of a bisected horse puppet in Dirk’s apartment, This signals that Chekhov’s gun has indeed gone off. But rather than splitting a body, it split a soul: Meenah’s introduction follows the sequence because Roxy has generated a shadow of herself, a doppelganger. This is not without precedent: an earlier portion of this post was devoted to exploring the fourth wall as a mode of self-alienation. Roxy’s panel mishap can be considered part of that pattern.

If Meenah functions as an extension of Roxy, all of her actions can be read as bearing some relations to Roxy’s own latent thoughts and desires. Prior to the epilogues, for example, Meenah imploring John not to give her the ring seemed to be yet another Fuck You to the late Chekov: the issue never comes up again. But a psychic link between Meenah and Roxy would suggest that John broke his promise to Meenah by giving the ring to Roxy, and that whatever motivations compelled Meenah to make her request in the first place would also apply to Roxy.

Decapitation is yet another mode of self-alienation, and thus can be construed as a mode of birth. Hence the image of Lil Sebastian hatching from his shell of taxidermied man meat. That’s a motif unto itself, but what I wish to call attention to is the match-cut from John’s broke body to Jake’s broken tower. The juxtaposition collapses the images into metaphor, such that Jake’s loose dome in the woods becomes a decapitated head -- an appropriate addition to the pumpkin patch it rests in, given all the Headless Horseman jokes. We can look to Dirk for for another example of a headless horse-man of the house echoing the head: for a guy who idealizes decapitation to such a degree, it is striking that Sburb aims to provoke him by reattaching his beheaded apartment to its underlying units.

Houses act as metaphors for heads, then “Homestuck” could also interpreted as “head trapped” -- like the title emphasizes confinement within one’s own mind. Such a reading offers up Failure to Launch and Arrested Development (posters on John and Jane’s walls) as alternate synonyms for Homestuck, as each satirizes (or outright mocks) potential failure states in the process of inter-personal and mental development (ie “growing up”). Like Earthbound, both lean on a sense of homesickness in characterizing despondency, as though characters are haunted by the needs that defined their childhood -- or else find themselves needing that childhood itself.

But collapsing nostalgia into infantile regression is far from the only way to approach the house/heads equation. One might read the transformation and growth of houses with Sburb as metaphors for expanding the mind. One might infer that the choreography of events within houses can map out thoughts like dancing bees. One might take the metaphor as a foothold for interpreting the significance of the Sburb logo being at once a house and a window. \I have my own thoughts about Homestuck’s brain-ghost haunted house-minds, but for now, I only hope that this document has raised some interesting questions -- and ideally, that the interpretive approaches I’ve described might be useful in seeking answers.

#homestuck #homestuck meta #this is basically the contents of the stream #movies #john #rose #dave #jade #jake #dirk #roxy #gamzee #vriska #4th wall #psychoanalysis #house as head #plato

307 notes · View notes

thedappleddragon · 3 years

Text

today was just kinda weird. my dreams were abstract and faded quickly because my cat woke me up. I was gonna have breakfast, but I noticed my dad cooking on the grill outside so I waited till that was done. I sat on the trampoline and talked with him about college stuff and ate the food he made, and about 3 hawks kept circling around the neighborhood and landing on the tallest tree in our backyard. after looking up patterns and listening to calls on youtube, they might have been red shouldered hawks? I couldn't see any markings or colorations other than stripes on the tail since they were so high up. they’ve been living on our street for years, and at one point set up a nest at the end of the street. I liked watching them fly around and call at each other. I think it was a mating pair and another male trying to pick a fight lmao. after finishing lunch, my dad asked me to rake some leaves off the grass so it would have a chance to grow back. I don't every really like raking up wet leaves that have been there a while because I feel bad disturbing all the worms and slugs and bugs that thrive there. I do like the muddy smell It kicks up tho because it reminds me of the renaissance fair and general good vibes. I picked up a slug and let ir crawl around on my fingers and just watched until I realized the salt from sweat on my fingers might be hurting it and drying it out so I put him down somewhere safe. I also picked up this FAT ASS WORM :O IT WAS SO BIG. I also let that crawl on my fingers for a bit and it made me think of my mom telling me that she loved how I was never afraid of playing in the dirt or picking up worms at the bus stop and showing other kids. I like worms! at one point while I was picking through leaves I thought I saw a tiny snail but it was just an acorn cap :( I dont get to see nearly enough snails. I'm glad I got to see a frog in my yard one time tho. i wanna know where people live where they get to see lizards and frogs and snails everywhere without even trying. y know what, if it’s not oo much work I think I'll get an emotional support snail for college. I almost texted my friend and future roommate just now to ask her but thought better of it. after fucking around in the backyard for a bit I washed the mud off my shoes and ankles and got in bed intending to fill out more college forms but procrastinated and played a little bit of animal crossing, intending to catch a dung beetle as it’s the last day of the month and they disappear in march, but the snow was already gone. bud move into my village tho. I did eventually fill out all the forms. I was on youtube and I got inspired to DRAW so I drew a thicc anthro cow. oops. BUT HEY the sketches turned out cute and I had fun :) I might clean up a couple and color them digitally tomorrow who knows. I wanted to crochet but the right sized hook wasn't cooperating nd then my wrist started hurting so I gave up. I tried watching anime but I got fed up with Crunchyroll ads immediately and then got frustrated at having nothing to do. so I got stuck doing nothing and then stuck on tiktok. I got sleepy so I went under all my sheets but then I got overstimulated from being too hot so I turned on my fan but now I’m hot and annoyed and mad that my hair is dirty :( whatever I'll just go to the kitchen for a minute to reset and try again

#thanks for coming to my ted talk #February 2021 daily #2021 daily #ohhhh this Is the last time I get to use the February 2021 daily tag. next ll have to move onto march #AND I GET TO TURN OVER MY BABY ANIMAL CALENDAR OORAY

0 notes

thedapperrabbit · 4 years

Text

She-Ra Rewatch: season 3 and onwards through season 4, and boatloads of Introspection time!

So Ive been rewatching She-Ra with my partner, because sharing Entrapdak is caring. I could probably squee on about that for a century or more (because eeee, sharing things i love with people i love AND THEY EVEN PAY ATTENTION TO THE THINGS AND REMEMBER THEM!)...but ill spare you, kind internet strangers who for some reason find my thoughts mildly interesting enough to be reading this. This is going to be a lot. Like, a LOT. A lot especially from a stranger that youve probably only seen a notification from due to me sticking a heart on your content or for reblogging something lovely youve made in pictures or words. I dont think anything is going to be violently trigger-y because im not always great at judging that stuff and also ive yet to feel quite comfy enough to be fully open-posting specifics about my own past trauma, other than a vague allusion to self-harm and distant-ish unspecified abuse aaaand the usual childhood garbage truck of assholes....but i suppose you could possibly draw some darker potential conclusions from the content im focused on. Also, my ADHD makes it incredibly hard to keep to a straight and non-branching narrative so...ramble-y bits and expressions of brain frustration ahoy. Either way...you are forewarned, just in case. Sorry in advance, this is going to be a small booklet by the time Im done explaining, and thinking, and then attempting to stick words to abstract feels which sometimes im great at, and then others i fucking suck at...but at least this is all written and not me trying to say this to any of your faces! Thats....a mercy all of its own. Haa... Anyway, while rewatching with my partner, I realized just how much more painful parts of it are to sit through now...they were the first time, and each time since, but NOW having spent a while mulling over the series as a whole a bunch, and reading a lot of other peoples writings on here and finding myself largely in agreement with most Entrapdak fan’s assessment of things, I just....feel like all the air is ripped out of me during some moments, watching with keener insight. And despite thinking i had myself reasonably well figured out by my age, its all also made me further consider a few things about myself as well. Particularly my notable internalized fury response to chunks of it which have been consistent through all my viewings of SPOP. With Hordak at least, its way easier to understand my reactions. For me at least. Maybe not so much for the people around me. And, shittier due to intensity and subject matter, but still easier in the long run because...the broken bits in me that he resonates with are fresher and sharper and still more recent, like within the last ten years, and thus more towards the front shelves in my head, compared to things that resonate with Entrapta, which are all old, lifelong dull aches at this point. I feel like nothing i can point to is fully sufficient to fully express my feels involving Hordak. But, maybe the best representative moment is with the crying i do every damn time I see his face looking up at Prime just after he glimmer and catra were beamed up...because ive seen that face in the mirror. I HAVE MADE THAT FACE. That same. Goddamn. Face. I may not have gotten a jab to the back of the neck directly from the person I made it at...but they often seemed to silently goad me to harm myself in an attempt to jolt my brain out of getting stuck in re-looping through what theyd just done/said to me. Likewise, much of his interactions with Entrapta are very...very weirdly familiar in feeling, but in a good way. Watching the stuff with Hordak hurts because fuck me if it isnt frequently like watching myself back in 2008ish to 2013, which was the duration of the worst parts of that particular circle of hell i parked my ass in. So...that makes sense. Hes so well written in those moments, it occasionally gave me PTSD flashbacks (still does a little, but now im prepared and braced for it and can shrug it back off....thanks, lifetime of therapy and years of studying abnormal psychology! Still totally not an expert, just very passionate...just, as a disclaimer). Entrapta though...Entrapta is a different story. Mostly, I see Entrapta and in her free expressions of delight and joy and her bouncy enthusiasm I am reminded of a younger, less discouraged me in some ways, and in others, a “me” I could have been, but...well, extremely early-onset anxiety and depression made me insanely self-conscious super-super early on...not that i was great at hiding or...i guess the term people seem comfy with is “masking”? Which was a huge problem, or so it was in the 80s when far less was understood of such things. Id do so for a bit and then would forget to, in a way (because id forget long enough to go and trust again reflexively) and would get badly bullied and would squish everything down until id feel a crumb of safety again, and then almost instantly ADHD would pop that mask right the rest of the way off aaand it would start all over again. Ad nauseam until my teen years, where the depression sort of “fixed” that, and made it much easier to destroy my desire to share much of myself freely at all, save for with one or two people, and to a less deep extent a broader circle of nerd friends. Course, then i hit 30 and ran out of the majority of fucks I used to give. Or I became so damaged and salted with anger that parts of me dont grow any fucks anymore? Either way, plowshares to swords, WHEEEE!) And, maybe thats where this time while watching, I started to really think back to all that, and to how i see Entrapta treated by the other princesses, or really just in general except by Hordak...and why it burns my biscuits so badly. Every time I see someone roll their eyes at Entrapta’s beautiful unbridled enthusiasm or try to make it seem distasteful or at least weird and unwanted and uncomfortable for them but then dont even bother to try coming to terms with why they feel that way... or how they seem to feel free to grab and manhandle her without her consent, or the way they try to lessen her contributions because shes non-normative? Like its the fucking least she can do to make up for being weird in their space (...okay, that might just be the anger kicking in..but i dont feel like its an entirely innacurate assessment, is it?) All of that...seeing it inflicted upon someone, It feels like someones punched me right in the damn sternum, but because its a hurt that im so desensitized to, it seems to have a much different effect than the sharp, violent crushing pain that i feel when I relate to Hordak a little too well for comfort. Again, i could go on, but its nothing more eloquent people on here havent already spoken volumes on. And my first gut reaction is always “I dont understand! why is that their reaction to her?! it doesnt seem logical at all, i dont seem to be able to parse it correctly, how is this acceptable? I HOPE SHE IMMOLATES YOU ALL.”. Which...I suppose isnt entirely usual for me (the silent wishing that people be immolated, I mean...i blame my past years of working in retail. And devouring too much Warhammer 40k contentl). (oh gods...and this is going to be the most clusterfucky part cause i can feel my meds kicking in and thats gonna be hard to keep coherence on but i gotta get this all out of my head or ill forget it or get too scared of you fucking BRILLIANT insightful smart people on here and then ill continue to live scared and regretful that i never said..anything, and just sat here like “noticeme, entrapdak sempais!” Ehhn...which is to say, if this is a garbage dump from here down, dont worry, when i wake up ill fix it...but hopefully itll at least make a tiny bit of sense ) But I realized something...something I hadnt ever rememberd much about due to the shitty neuronormative (apology if thats wrong term) behaviors continuing over years and years but in less and less directly aggressive ways as i grew older and was more prone to losing my shit in , (and likely because I got excessively lucky and managed through...uhhh...agonizing determination? Sheer stubbornness? Alleviatory rebalancing of universal karma? fuck if i know --to curate a surprisingly supportive circle of other castoffs and misanthropes.) That was exactly how people used to treat me. OKAY THISLL BE EDITED LATER to add in the rest of what i was gonna say...im...too full of Ambien sleep meds and damn write it anymore...and im aing trouble separating realigty and dream...an i k apawing at the kybord...not safe Lov yous for reading this far. Il fix it later, swears.

#should i tag this?#im not sure if i like it #berres #psyhcology of pop culture chraracters #psychology of the writer/author

0 notes

synthetic-blanket-hairs · 6 years

Note

((those asks are all so good omg)) cosmos, galaxies, reflection, 11-11, earth, soothe. I know it's a lot but im curious my friend my pal :U

THANKS FOR THE ASK but we got a hekkin’ long post ahead my dudes o3o

cosmos: what’s one thing you wish you could say to someone you are no longer friends with?

This is hard because I haven’t explicitly ended any friendships, I just lose touch with people…but there’s one person who was my best friend all through elementary school and we went in very different directions with our lives. I would like to thank her for being there for me when we were still friends, and apologize for some of the insensitive remarks I made back in 9th grade (which contributed greatly to some of our fights)

galaxies: what are three things you want to do before you die?

I want to set foot on every continent

pilot a zeppelin, maybe own one >:)

live someplace really different for a year. maybe Nepal.

reflection: have you ever changed something you liked about yourself to satisfy someone else?

I haven’t necessarily abandoned parts of my personality/character that I admire in order to satisfy other people, but I do tend to pick up the interests of the people I admire (for example, I wanted to be friends with this girl Miranda in 4th grade and she loved the Disney pixies franchise so I pretended I was really invested in it too just so we’d have something to talk about. Or, more recently, Sadnessboi! tried to suggest bands that would get me into country music…and it worked….even though I’ve had a lifelong disdain for country music………) And I also try to make personality traits I already have even stronger, if I think it’ll make the person like me more. I guess I just adjust the levels of personality I’m exhibiting like those bass/treble meters on your car stereo just to suit the crowd I’m in.

11-11: what’s something you want, but feel like you will never have?

I lowkey want to be filthy rich. But…I think that’s something that will happen if I manage my money correctly. Since I can control how my money flows, for the most part, I’m not too worried about it. So I’ll pick something else.

Realistically, I dont know if I’ll have a happy marriage? I guess I’m afraid I’ll end up marrying someone I don’t love as much as I should just because they like me enough. I don’t say this to garner any pity points but, to my knowledge, I’ve never had a crush on someone/loved someone who reciprocated my feelings and level of investment. It doesn’t give me self-worth issues like it used to, and I have actually come to embrace the idea of remaining unmarried for the rest of my life, but my family (who used to never care either way about this stuff) is now pressuring me to get married at some point and spewing all this stuff about how it’s “not Biblical” for a young woman to stay alone (um???? to which I reply???? 1 Corinthians chapter 7???? Singleness is a valid calling and it’s a blessing for people who are supposed to be that way!!!!!??!?!) so anyways, yeah, I’m afraid I’ll miss out on having a fulfilling romantic relationship in life. But what else is new?

earth: where do you feel most at home?

This answer is kind of abstract, but it’s with myself. I like myself (maybe a little too much) and I think I’m excellent company. When I’m stressed or upset, my first move is to be away from people and just kind of let the emotions run their course until I feel okay again. I think a lot about what’s bothering me and try to figure out how to fix it, if possible. And even when I’m not upset, I really enjoy activities that involve drawing upon inner strength/creativity (like painting, writing, even exercise to a certain extent) so I feel at home wherever I can catch a moment alone to breathe.

soothe:what’s one thing that always makes you feel better when you’re upset?

I already sort of addressed this in the above question, but I have an addition to make. Prayer is the best thing for me when I’m upset, because it forces me to focus on something besides myself/my own misery at the moment. I tend to throw a lot of pity parties so when I take a step back and humble myself before God, it helps me get a grip. I’ve also felt His presence strongest in my life when I’m at the end of my rope, weeping, in prayer. I don’t have to have it put together when I face God because He knows I can’t put it all together. That’s comforting to me, especially since I tend to hold myself to unrealistic standards when it comes to overall life success.

Thanks again for the ask, it’s nice bein’ real with anyone who actually bothers to read these things

Question list is here

#asks #littleaipom #late night asks

1 note · View note

katejowseyy · 4 years

Text

Presentation Feedback

I think balancing out/refining the elements of your visual presentation will help consolidate you final images. At the moment there are elements that are sticking out a bit.

Balancing the saturation of your design to be consistent across your images too will help us identify what colour it is and where the design sits in each image.

A title and subtitle will help with the communication of the intent of your work.

You may need to get very specific and creative with the silhouettes you bring into your design. Even adding food silhouette shapes that suggest they may be eating.

The combination of sketchy lines and more transparent photos create an enticing playful atmosphere. I think the cohesive colour pallete and the photos of the actual graffiti and art in the alleyway works really well in communicating your design. You could think about adding in more of those soft white borders and thinking about showing the glass material as you did in the elevation.

I really like your concept and color scheme, especially how the color stands out from the walls. If you were to add more you could try design a rubbish bin/s which blends in with the design since people could eat in your space. Or a night time view with light aspects that could make the seating designs look like they are glowing.

A clear theme that relates to the design and makes it interesting. Adding sketchy marks and bright colours contrasted with muted colours might make the theme more cohesive and easy to read. Would be nice to have a video to see movement through the space. Also possibly some context to the theme of food like inspirational images possibly?

Your color pallet is very fun, which works nicely with the shapes you've used to communicate your mihimihi aspect. It would defiantly be a very social space to be in. Have you thought about using different textures and materials in the space to further enhance the ideas you are trying to communicate, as well as using the ground and walls to help do this.

Love the water colour + illustrative effect shown clearly through your entire set. Maybe some more food symbols could help? Do you use a bunch of your desired shapes piled on top of each other to create a burger in the middle larger space of opera house lane perhaps? I love the fun positiveness of your design, I think maybe just literally 1 singular element showing a more obvious representation of food forms could help direct it more clearly as to its underlying meaning.

I think your perspective shot is very effective showing context of how people would use the space. I like how the design stands out from the buildings and the washed out border in place. I do think having all the drawings have the same style would be good for the final project.

My Response: Majority liked the washed out look of the edges, sketched out lines for the sorounding buildings and the effect of my passage standing out against the washed out background and colours. things i needed to improve on was ways to to show the purpose of the space clearer, incorperating more food-like aspects to help understand/ communicate my purpose behind the space. Needing to be more specific/ consistant accross my images- all passages to be the same colour, having a more refined idea of aspects in my images and showing materials. As well as possible idea that i found interesting of adding in light and to show what this would do to the space at night. I also thought adding in things such as a rubbish bin was an interesting sugestion to help demonstarte the use of the space. I liked the idea of food shapes piled on top of eachother as well but my interpretation of my mihimihi was to be more abstract and I feel that I dont have enough time to add this in and the flow wouldnt be cohesive/ contrast with one another.

0 notes

unproduciblesmackdown · 7 years

Text

sometimes the wild thing with depression is looking back and trying to figure out when it started and never really being able to draw a line for anything like "this was the earliest age it All Began(tm)," probably because there's not generally such an On-Off Switch type process to it. i know usually circa ten yrs old or later in the teens is usually what people point to but sometimes more of a period of exacerbation rather than origin, and who can say it's not also having the emotional and psychological capabilities and capacities that young children don't that bring a greater sense of perspective and awareness, idk anyways so i'm not sure if i was ever not-depressed or anything....i know i was always uncomfortable outside what was familiar and "shy" and i know that as soon as i was around other kids in a way more socially organized than running around together, namely preschool at 4 yrs old, i was aware of not feeling like i fit in and noticing i couldnt make friends like other people could. ive been good at bs-ing school from the start and happen to pick up things very quickly so even though i probably had the same habits as kids with the worst grades and had no particular ambitions re: academia (beyond avoiding parental wrath and later maintaining the identity that kinda protected me a bit in school) since i got really good grades and was quiet and pretty much just read in a corner when left to myself from kindergarten through middle school, i was probably considered a usually ideal student. i remember a couple of people who i felt i was genuinely friends with, a kid named michael who i think went to a different school after a couple of grades, and a kid named jacqueline in 2nd grade who was like me so quiet in retrospect i'm not sure if she knew much english but we played legos together and stuff but then we got in trouble for not paying attention during not even a lesson but i had to move seats b/c arbitrary Making An Example and since we were both so quiet we just didnt interact much anymore to avoid further attention. i made other friends technically but generally it took a long time to be comfortable with them and we were never close and in the meantime i dont think i ever much liked school. i remember one random sunday evening just getting upset about not wanting to go back the next day just because it was boring and meantime at home of course it sucked but i didnt quite realize it til i was older and it helped of course being young enough to be able to go outside for hours and be perfectly entertained playing in the dirt and trees and stuff. i read a lot at home too i remember having pretty skeptical thoughts about Life from earlyish on but, besides spending a crap ton of time just in my own head (reading, playing in dirt) i think i had ideas that life and the world was pretty amazing. like earlier on of course it was like "is magic real??" but then later its just stuff like reading in books about how kids had good friends and families and got to pursue their interests and do things and work out drama and have nice endings with a lot of hope for the future. for all i could tell the only thing keeping that from being my life was that i wasnt old enough, or probably i hoped that it was just a matter of time. it was less like i was extrapolating from my own limited observations of the worse aspects of life that life must be great and more like i was already noticing that my world was lacking and just hoping that it would grow out of it; not to mention being given the hint that stuff like abuse was my own fault and shortcomings i started getting more aware of being fed up with things / that they weren't inherently going to change around like late elementary school / middle school but it would take another year or two to really get the extent of it, and in the meantime by 14 or 15 at the latest i was consciously suicidal so like, moving fast there. i probably by that point had already caught on to the fact that my world had just been kind of shitty and that it wasnt going to change or seem better after a certain amount of time like i'd thought it would. and then add also having a better understanding of the rest of the world just by being older and getting more experience and realizing that its a lot more chaotic than initially taught to you and that being depressed and having developed few interests and zero ambitions and having antagonistic parents and very few friends doesnt do much to give you as much a cushion from that chaos as it could tangent: honestly i like programs that teach instructors how to recognize things that look like Behavior Issues as maybe more being signs of external issues. i wasnt the best at paying attention and i was often quiet in school whether in class or not and it mightve been a problem if i didnt get good grades but since i did i could just be in the background. i don't particularly resent this or anything because i know how teaching is and i myself didnt really understand i had serious problems at home until much later, but in retrospect i think i always had signs. i remember one particular incident when i was about 8 really shouldve been a bit of a warning sign. i know nobody can really do anything even if they know things are bad but considering i had to learn what abuse looked like by myself and i didnt feel supported by any adult and even when i knew what was going on when i was much older i still just didnt tell anyone in any position of authority because i had learned i had to protect myself by keeping personal things totally confidential and that if i exhibited any signs of struggling i would be blamed and chastised for it. wouldve been nice to at least be informed what was going on at an earlier time and maybe given some sense of confidence or at least a sense it wasn't completely my fault. turns out what gave me any ounce of confidence at all was being like 19 and being so blamed and maligned that it backfired and i started feeling like if i was as awful as i was made out to be then surely i didnt need to feel ashamed and responsible for everything that was being done to me. if i already deserved to be dead then what more could i bring on myself by daring to be so terrible as to feel i shouldnt be treated like i was! checkmate atheists anyhow, i feel like my Good Concepts About The World kind of evolved from "later on everyone has adventures" to "later on everyone goes to middle school / high school and makes friends and bonds with their family and follows their dreams" to something just more vaguely escapist with abstracted ideas about simply feeling comfortable and nice, with maybe general imagery, usually like summer sunsets or just some nice stars or something. i thought about it once and it made a lot of sense, thinking about stuff in terms of the concept of feeling ok and good things existing in the world and being able to sense it despite it also being at a distance or otherwise removed like dont get me wrong just because i wanna be dead i dont have some kind of notion that everyone else's experience of life is the same as mine i.e. that life and/or the world is inherently shit, i know its no more objectively bad than it is objectively good. i still like to think about the good side of all of it. i think its a total mistake to have the idea that if someone is suicidal or even just depressed that it necessarily has anything to do with what they think of the philosophy of the concept of Life, its more personal and immediate than that. honestly i hate all the advice about how you need to write a poem for your suicidal friend to teach them the magic of life or do some otherwise melodramatic bad y.a. novel shit that'll give them a New Perspective on the wonders of life literally overnight. not only is it always disgustingly patronizing and often counterproductively Tough Love-esque but also totally like unrelated to the root of the problem of "what if i'm worried about a friend making a suicide attempt." if you're personally wanting to do something i s2g literally just provide a distraction. talk about random shit or play online scrabble or go over and make midnight snacks, not like set a flower on fire while dropping a porcelain teapot on the floor and lecturing them about how this Doesnt Solve Any Problems or is a permanent solution to a temporary problem like no. just be a distraction jfc and dont insult anyone by generalizing their experience and guessing at what's probably an extremely complex and personal matter and turning it into empty clichés anyways: this was the longest way to get to the idea that isnt it wild when, like how you can Hear a sound in your head and despite recreating it decently its different from actually hearing it externally, you can sometimes remember what it was like to feel nice about the concept of life? i cant really summon earlier things but sometimes i can remember flashes of having those later sad-person-in-their-own-head moments of thinking of distant abstract concepts like seeing the sky as a medium for connection to the infinite experiences of humanity, and i can get like the equivalent of a visual image of a recreated feeling from back when i still had a few lingering overly-optimistic notions that things would be good soon. don't get me wrong, again im still aware of the good things in life and i still have good experiences and still feel good feelings. but i dont harbor expectations that the course of life must and will average itself out or lean towards improvement for any reason, like knowing that good things happening to you out of the blue is the same as how terrible things can happen for exactly the same reason—namely no reason at all. so i just dont have the same feelings i used to about my own personal life, and i dont feel the things i used to when i hoped it still could be Only A Matter Of Time. so its wild when for some reason i mentally stumble on the memory of having those feelings and theyre still recent enough that i get a moment of recreating the feeling like i do when i can picture something in my head, and its totally different and dissonant than what's currently true for me. it wasn't a more accurate perspective to think that life being bad meant it had to improve, but its obviously a nicer feeling. and it sounds like overused to the point of meaningless comparison but its like getting your head above water for a second in terms of the momentary contrast of sensation tldr its wild when you depressioning 24/7 and dead inside and have an instant of remembering What It Was Like To Feel Things

#long post ///////

6 notes · View notes

phantomlim · 7 years

Note

Err can I ask 1-50 for the cute asks?

Of course!!!! I love a lot of these questions. Thank you for asking!.

1. Do you have any recurring dreams? What are they?

Not that I know of or that I remember.

2. What is your favourite kind of fruit?

Strawberries or oranges

3. Sweet or savoury?

I need both. If I eat something savoury, I have to have something sweet to balance it out and vice versa.

4. What is your smallest/pettiest fear?

Compared to everything else I’m afraid of, spiders seems pretty petty, but spiders give me the worst anxiety, so its not really small at all.

5. What is your least favourite vegetable?

Out of everything I’ve had, probably celery.

6. What is your favourite art movement?

Man I can do history eras but art eras never stick with me.... Probably impressionism. I love how the colours blend together, yet everything is still very abstract and colourful.

7. Do you drink milk?

Yes, it’s good.

8. What was the last line of the last book you read?

“The three extra days were for leap years.” One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

9. Do you like bitter food?

No, not really.

10. What is the most significant event in your life so far?

I don’t really think anything in my life has been significant. Probably finding out that I would finally be going to Europe.

11. What is one thing (a book, movie, etc) that has greatly affected you?

Honestly, Rammstein has affected me in more ways than one. They’ve helped me through suicidal thoughts and depression and they’ve helped me discover my identity, and so much more.

12. What is your favourite breed of dog or cat?

Husky - Shepard mix. They look like wolves.

13. List your top 5 favourite turtle names.

Does this mean like. Names for turtles or names of turtles? I’m going with the former.

Frank, Henry, Tim, Turtwig, Torterra

14. What job would you have if you could have it without going through all of the school or experience that is required?

Probably an environmentalist, or any field that requires me going out into the wild and preserving parks and what not.

You would’ve thought I would say historian, but I really do want to learn all everything to become a historian.

15. Are there any names that you dislike so much that you would dislike the person with the name? What are those names?

No, I don’t like to reduce a person to something that they’re not because of their name. However, I really don’t like the name Brittaney or any of those variations I guess. Every Brittaney I’ve ever met has been a huge jerk. But if I met someone name Brittaney, I wouldn’t keep it against them.

16. What is your favourite letter?

17. Are there any instruments you wish you played?

I’d love to play bass.

18. List your best friends.

This is a callout post. Sid, Madi, Ellen/Chase, Jake, Ollie, Liz, Tia, Taylor, Victoria, Brooke, Mihail, Ariel, Lu, Elisa, Samya. There’s probably more but I’m a terrible person and I can’t remember.

19. Would you rather be a skeleton or a ghost?

That’s tough actually. Maybe a skeleton. But in Skyrim, skeletons are weaker than a rabbit, so probably a ghost.

20. Do you prefer fish or lizards/snakes? (as pets)

LIZARDS

21. Art or music?

I love both of these! I can only enjoy music and I’m not able to create it though, so I’ll probably say art for the sake that it’s something I can actually make.

This question is kinda redundant considering music is a form of art.

22. What is your favourite type of flower?

All of them. It really depends. I really like zephyranthes because the name is RAD.

I’ll say forget-me-nots because they’re very beautiful and colourful flowers despite their size. The name is also extremely striking to me.

23. Soup or salad?

Salad.

24. Are you good at keeping plants alive?

Yes and no. When I have plants I’m very passionate about them and I want them to last forever. But at some point, I’ll forget to water them and everything goes downhill from there.

25. Do animals tend to like you?

Dogs, yes, because I have a dog myself. Cats, sometimes.

26. What is the worst book you’ve ever read?

Twilight probably.

27. Do you collect anything?

Photos of paul landers on my phone. Plants

28. How many pillows do you sleep with?

One.

29. What is the latest you’ve ever woken up?

1 pm. I hate waking up late.

30. How many pictures are on your walls?

None. Unless drawings count.

31. What age did you stop keeping stuffed animals on your bed?

I’m almost 18 and I still have a stuffed animal on my bed, are you kidding me?

I’ve had a lot of mental anguish in my life and that stuffed animal has helped me sleep so many times it deserves to stay there.

32. What is your favourite candy?

Um. I don’t really eat candy that often. Probably skittles? They’re not TOO sweet so they dont give me migraines.

33. What is your favourite baked good?

Y’know those brownies that are fused with chocolate chip cookies? Yeah those. I also love those frosted cookies.

34. Do you have a camera? If so, what kind?

Nope.

35. Do you wear jewelry?

I have a necklace with a dragonfly pendant on it that I haven’t taken off ever since I got it when I was 15 honestly.

Sometimes I wear my class ring from my high school, but I’m too scared that I’ll lose it.

36. Sunrise or sunset?

Sunrise. There’s something magical about the world lighting up at sunrise that sunsets don’t really have.

37. Do you like to listen to music with headphones or without headphones?

Depends. If I want to be left alone, then with headphones. If I’m just somewhere hanging out, then without headphones.

38. What was your favourite show as a child?

Heck if I can remember. Spongebob probably. It still is my favourite but whatever. I stopped watching tv when I was like 7.

39. Describe your favourite spot in your house?

My windowsill. On it are 3 plants, one is a succulent, one is a type of flower which i can’t remember the name to, and the other is a small container of assorted flowers that my mom got me after we had to put our dog down. There’s a little toy Blastoise on there that I’ve had for a long time, and a dragon statue that’s used for incense.

40. Do you like to be warm or cold?

Both. Cold is nice because I like bundling up. I hate the cold because my hands get dry and bleed a lot. The warm is nice because you can wear light clothes and be comfortable. It doesn’t make me bleed. I don’t like sweating though. The minute I start sweating I feel obligated to shower.

41. The best joke you have?

Myself.

42. Whats the weirdest thing that you’ve seen happen in a public place?

I can’t remember.

43. CD or digital?

Both. CD’s feel really genuine. My copy of Sehnsucht is older than I am, so I have a lot of sentimental value for it. I don’t mean to brag, but it also has the rare track “Stripped” on it. But because of todays age, digital is probably my preferred choice because I can take my music with me where ever I want.

44. Who do you miss right now?

I really miss my dog, Roosevelt. It’s almost been a month since he died, but it still hurts a lot. I’ve been seeing a lot of yorkies and it makes me miss him more. I wish he was still here.

45. If you could combine two places in the world, which two places would you choose?

Um. I’m not sure actually, I’ll get back to you on that.

46. Describe the worst substitute teacher you’ve ever had.

OK so in biology junior year of high school, our biology teacher had to quit because of really bad family problems, totally okay not his fault at all. HOWEVER, we had a substitute for the rest of the year, and we couldn’t do ANYTHING. We were forced to work on worksheets and nothing but that when we go to a school where COLLABORATION and PROJECTS is how we learn. It was awful.

47. Do you believe horoscopes?

I try not to. I’m paranoid, so I often look at them and worry about the truth behind them.

48. Are you spiritual?

This question can mean several things. Am I religious? No. Do I believe in the power of my own spirit and soul that can allow me to do certain things? Yes.

The reason I’m not religious is for that reason alone. I don’t believe there is a deity that is stronger than I am. I don’t think there should be a deity who tells me what I should and should not do. I’m strong enough to make decisions on my own and without the help of anyone. If I do something, its because of my own will.

49. Describe your pets.

I only have one now, but I want to describe Roosevelt too.

Roosevelt was a really small boy. He was very thin and nimble, especially as he got older. He had HUGE ears that were bigger than his head. We called them his Satellite ears. When he would get a hair cut, he would kind of look like a rat, so I called him Rat Boy.

Phin is a really sweet boy. He’s a big-ish dog, but not BIG big. He’s goofy and he really likes to play. When he’s really playful, his eyes get wide. When he was younger, his tongue had black spots, but they don’t now. His fur is really oily and greasy which is kinda gross, but my face gets really oily so I can relate. He’s really anxious, but he’s such a sweet boy

50. Are you good at getting over mistakes?

No. I’m paranoid, so of course I can’t. It stays in my mind until someone tells me that it’s okay and until things get fixed.

1 note · View note

ildivine · 3 years

Text

between watching a lot of youtubers, losing a lot of sleep, and playing a lot of the off-peak games, i feel my creativity blossoming in the abstract way that i strive for.

i at least have come to understand how my creativity is dulled, and what i need to get it going again. its difficult, getting older, and becoming more jaded, and depression in the back of my mind is a noisy buzzing that can only be quelled with alcohol or weed. ive been learning how to deal without the prior, but, mm.

i dreamt about gavin and i think about a lot of people in ways that i don’t get to often talk about. its not like i talk to my therapist about this kind of thing. i havent mentioned the system to any since the last one i trusted treated it like DID, and thats fine for systems that need it, but we don’t work that way, and we never have.

alternatively i do think about myself ... and my past lives, often. i feel my limbs more often and it blends with the dysphoria; its strange to think i get so envious of just being spiritually Aware. ingesting mushrooms is the most helpful thing to me, and i know i mute my own sixth sense with doubt.

ive isolated myself from others quite a bit, as ive been mean again. im learning to appreciate the time i spend with dean and connor, even if it is every day. i miss connor every time i wake up without zem next to me, especially after weekends when i really get used to it.

our one year is coming up in july and ze thought aloud to me about marriage and we gently brushed over it. ze said something along the lines of “well, i wanted to wait for a better opportunity...” which, understandable.

one day ill be able to afford nice things like real rings and wedding ceremonies, but the last week of cleaning up my room, and throwing a lot of things out, made me realize what focusing on survival really means. i told myself that in 2021 i would focus on letting go, and its still hard. letting go of friends, and loved ones, and things, old stuff, its all the same, i have such an emotional attachment that it gets tangled in my head and my emotions. connors told me constantly to buy necessities and i brushed em off ... so im glad a friend helped us make up for it.

its embarrassing and its frustrating to rely on my money for things that others dont see as necessary. alcohol quells my twitching but i do have an addiction to it cuz i simply like to drink til i cant anymore, n im still learning that boundary. weed, i cant really explain what it does for me, cuz it is unusual. simple things like helping my appetite and sleep, two major things i struggle with a lot, as well as giving me inspiration to get up in the mornings, or do anything at all. right now it is medical in new mexico and i have a PTSD diagnosis, and when i smoke, it quiets the voices in my head screaming at me about wanting to die. i dont know how common this is, but its one of the things i struggle with financially. to survive. even with all of my antidepressants and anxiety medications, mental illness still lingers, and i think the more i delve into new media as well as reflect on past lives and old memories, my brain is in a very strange place. but ive come to appreciate that it is strange, i am strange, and i have mental illness, and i probably wont ever be able to silence it. i can take out my desire to cut my own skin open by watching dissection videos, and then im also learning and absorbing new information along the way.

when im not absolutely drunk on a tank of heavy alcohol, i can focus. i appreciate that i lost the years of 2018-2020 mostly due to how much i was drinking, on top of a medication that was already terrible for my memory. but the other day i went through my mood charts over those years, where i wrote down how i was, and although i drank daily and felt guilty about it, my mood was generally stable.

unfortunately its very expensive and unhealthy, and the inevitable withdrawals make me worse off than i started with. my therapist considers me drinking as playing with fire, but ive learned how to consume responsibly; dean and i can stop after a six pack and itll put us to sleep, but ill always want another beer, even in the back of my mind. That slight buzz from the mimosa that Connor drank and melted into was likely most of the reason ze could actually start dozing off, and we were half craving another for fun and relaxation, but i thought “i probably wont be able to sleep tonight without another drink”.

and i was right, and i acknowledge that its a problem. so ive tried to find that sensation from other things like hops tea and carbonated water (ew, its still not good, honestly dsjfsdj) or kombuchas, because it triggers the same response in my brain without.. melting my organs. did u kno ur liver is FUCKING HUGE n its also the only organ that can heal itself?? the cells reconstruct differently than scar tissue usually binds together n i just think thats Neat.meme

jokes aside, i think its also why my liver is Fine despite the fact ive drank since i was 13 years old, minus the year of rehab sobriety. That was also my Only year of sobriety. Digging into my alcoholism ive done a lot of questioning as to why i rely on it, and i think it is a lot to do with being addicted to being drunk, and i think its also a lot to do with ‘wow, i can finally turn my brain off! the thing thats yelling at me all the time, feeling scared and sad,” but drinking is also essentially a boost of stress hormones, so when the endorphins wear off, u get sad or anxious all over again. ive come to learn that i only withdrawal or get hangovers if i drink more than, i guess the recommended amount by doctors. 3 glasses of wine will now do me in, dean can power thru anything regardless of what hes drinking, but it does affect the health in ways i cant ignore.

i enjoy drugs, i think is the bottom line. i look up how to get a hold of psychedelic mushrooms cuz u can just get em in the mail if ur in a country where its decriminalized (hint: we’re not) n immediately the results are between getting help for addiction or how magic mushrooms help depression in low doses.

i really have a theme here. im still mad that my parents induced my reliance on all these substances and i know i would be a lot better off if i didnt drink til i was 21 or never smoked cigarettes, and i accept im always gonna crave these things regardless, but i only feel creative when i drink or smoke, and thats another problem with addicts because u fry ur neurons hard enough it all dies down. ive appreciated watching videos and playing games when i am in the comatose, apathetic stage of depression like i have been in recently, where i cant force myself to do anything and even fronting someone else to do it takes energy that quickly dies down.

my energy has died quickly since i went vegan, as my nails have chipped since, so im experimenting with my diet. my taste pallet cant handle dairy anymore, and connor was only here to try it, and i think we all discovered we just... dont wanna do that. but eating fish again helped my energy and brought a glow back to my skin. too much, however, still gives me the greasy meat sweats, so... a lil bit of everything seems to be whats right.

i still crash a lot, but i think thats just a side effect of being 28 in this generation and feeling 68 instead.

anyway, now that my room is FINALLY clean and looking nice, i want to try to do art again. i miss art. i miss thinking in images, i miss my imagination, i miss roleplaying and writing and drawing and arting. conny wanted to paint too but was absolutely too tired on sunday lol n i respect that so maybe tonight we can get something together.

but its been nice to feel something in my brain stirring again that isnt just the gross black buzz of mental illness constantly telling me to die. i get used to it, i guess. i forget its not supposed to happen because i have survived it for so long. im on the max dose of antidepressants and medicine i can take and i still feel really bad sometimes, but i didnt realize it until other people brought it up. stress definitely kicks me into my big bipolar mood swings, but i havent shaken off the depression in months. im not sure what to do so im trying to expand my horizons.

#>>.txt #drugs text #i GUESS #i dont rly consider them drugs but i understand they can b used recreationally...#and often are #but i think of it like taking advantage of benzos #theres no real need for neurotypicals i guess

1 note · View note