The Phantom Of The Opera And The Hunchback Of Notre Dame? Opposite Ends Of Same Spectrum 

"I know chatgpt is bad but you just don't really have any choice" you literally do. Don't use it. Have some moral backbone.

Your takes on RSD are dogshit and you’re contributing to the stigma against people who actually experience it, do better

my "take" that it's a trauma reaction and you can learn to deal with it properly in relationships? what's wrong with saying that? I literally can't figure out how this statement could make someone upset...

I feel a lot of people have moral systems that are completely detached from centering avoiding real harm to real people and are mostly based on completely arbitrary obsessions with symbolic and abstract "wrongs" and gut feelings, and then they join progressive politics and make an absolute fucking mess out of everything with their weird little moralist obsessions that actually don't help improve anybody's life or serve any purpose besides making a few people feel morally superior. This is why for example anti-kink politics went from having a pretense of being about protecting vulnerable women from abusive men to just being very blatantly "if you have ever done kink at all you're ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew".

there’s a big difference between “i’m sad because a character i was emotionally invested in was killed off” and “this character’s death served no purpose, was used for shock value, and is the product of bad writing and i’m upset about that”

ill be real the "poly people are uglyyy" thing just feels like cope? like theyre in a polycule. they have directly proven that multiple people find them hot enough to want to be in a relationship, often sexual, with. you have what? one single Monogamous Jessica, and you're terrified she'll leave you as soon as she sees a rooster with bigger tail feathers?

The thing I was thinking the most while watching Conclave was actually a classmate I had in uni who is a nun. She talked about the role of women on the church and how there should be a woman pope. And like, years ago she was given a scholarship to study philosophy in Rome, except she couldn't. Because the nuns had to perform all the domestic labor for the priests and the workload was too big, add to that stuff like how no one could leave the dinner table before the archbishop and he liked to talk so sometimes he would make everyone stay until late at night and ofc the nuns had to clean up after that, or when the priests wanted to give the nuns an easy day they would decide they would have a picnic, but the nuns still had to prepare their picnic. My friend just couldn't find the time to study, so she dropped her scholarship and came back to Mexico.

And Conclave does such a good job of making this work visible, even when if only Sister Agnes speaks, there is always shots of nuns working. For everything the priests do, it's always shown how the nuns make it possible. Benítez standing out early on for being the one person to thank them. The film ending on a seemingly unrelated shot of nuns walking.

It's a very poignant statement given how reproductive labor is often invisibilized.

Musings About Being Addicted To Sadness

TW: depression, addiction, suicide

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Addiction runs in my family. Alcohol is the big one but drugs and food are as well. I managed to dodge the alcoholism because I could never get the taste for it. Unfortunately, I find myself addicted to sadness. To misery. I crave it. I intentionally do things to make myself sad or wallow in my feelings when sad things happen. I shop for misery on the internet and I savor it in my mind until I'm nothing but a heap on my bed silently weeping into the night until I just fall asleep.

I feel a relief from sadness akin to the feeling of a painkiller finally kicking in. It's just a wash of peace. I feel at home in it. And that scares me. Part of me is screaming to do something. Dance. Sing. Talk. Run around. Do something -- Anything -- to make it stop so I don't barrel toward something dangerous. But god, I am addicted.

It pulls me in and holds onto me and feels like a warm blanket. The way it blocks me from joy and from life feels like protection. It feels like it's encouraging me to just sleep. Rest. All I ever need is rest. Even if my eyes are tired and dry from crying every few hours. Even if my belly aches from hunger from refusing food. Even if my heart burns from the lack of water. Even if I'm dying. I don't care. Why would I? Dying is the the ultimate form of peace, right? The long silence. The sleep that doesn't end. How could that not be enticing? When you're dead, there's no need for hunger. No need for water. No need for tears. You just rest. You don't have to face yourself or the morbid world ever again. Why wouldn't I want it?

Eventually I always feel better. I look back on the way I wallowed and I feel silly for it. I've felt real, true pain before but I didn't feel it just now so why did it consume me just the same? Then it rears its ugly head again, "You're so stupid for feeling sad over nothing. You have nothing to be sad about and you're throwing a pity party. You're pathetic. The only reason you should feel sad is because you're a whiny insignificant girl who constantly cries wolf on her own brain."

It tries to suck me back in. Usually it succeeds. Sometimes it doesn't. On those good days where it doesn't, I realize it's too late. I've already wasted the day away. I've already cursed myself with a nausea that food can't fix. I've exhausted myself to the point where I'll never sleep that night. I've alienated a loved one who only wanted to help. And all I can do is apologize and hope I haven't finally pushed them to the point of not caring anymore. I can't blame them for not caring. You can only care so much about someone who isn't helping themselves.

I try so hard to improve. I go to the therapist. I take the meds. I read the self help books. I do the worksheets. I meditate or exercise when I have the energy but the progress is so slow that that blanket will slide back over me to tell me to rest. It's too much energy. I'll never get better. And I either have to let it comfort me in its own twisted, life-draining way, or I have to use the last of my energy to shove it off. I wish I could burn the blanket. I wish I could rip it to shreds. I wish I could throw it in the dirt and bury it.

But I can't. I need it.

And I hate it so very much that I do.