I'm Content 🌸

So, finally, I spent all day yesterday gaming and staying off Tiktok. Today, I'm consistent with that. Posting to the roleplays, reading, and look! I'm blogging!! Yesterday, I was playing an old game called Faery: Legends of Avalon. -There really is a gap in the market for a game that is as pretty and sparkly as a Barbie game for a 6 year old but with the grit, realism, romance and intrigue of Baldur's Gate 3 or Dragon Age. That's what I wanna play- but besides BG3, that kind of game doesn't really exist. Though I'll admit some CRPGs get really close.

To be honest, looking around the Steam store for soemthing to scratch the itch, had me instead rolling my eyes. Looking for a fairy game and finding mostly porn games is WILD. Thanks S.J.Maas for stoking the flames of the horny fairy market haha. -Oh, speaking of ACOTAR. Man, I really wish I could get into the hype. I absolutely HATED the first book, Feyre is the biggest idiot, so much of an idiot that the book had me vein-popping angry the entire time screaming at what a stupid main character it had. I couldn't relate to her or even care about her because she is the DUMBEST MC I've ever read.

But? I love it. A really mainstream fairy world, its fantasy, there's magic, it's EXACTLY what I'm looking for. So, despite hating book 1 so much that I gave it a 1 star review on Goodreads and DNF'd it- I still went on to watch a play-by play, full book breakdown and summary for the entire series. So I know everything as if I had read the books, but I haven't actually read them. And I hated MC till about book 3, then she's finally a bit more compitent. I want to like these books. I want to like them how everyone else likes them. I want to be excited for the next book, I want to get into it. The merch is even so pretty! I wanna like it!! But I just....don't. So I plan to sit on the edge like a great pretender, buy merch when I like it enough and I will likely be watching summary play-by-plays of the newest book....I'm even debating getting a collectors set of gorgeous sprayed-edge copies of the series...ultimate fake fan.

L is gone this week. You may recall that's my nesting parter, and without her the house is empty. I, in the meantime, decided to change things around in my head as far as how I feel about being alone. It used to be, that I had a cozy list of things I loved getting to do by myself, yoga, reading, gaming, meditation, long walks by the stream, writing my novel, but for some reason, out of nowhere, that changed. Suddenly, for most of this year, I've been pressed about being alone. I'm instantly sad, and want company, even if it means hopping on a discord call, anything but being alone. -Well, I spent a lot of time this year pointing that out, repeating exactly that, over and over, how I "Used to" like being alone, and now I don't. Well, I decided to just change that. Now, I'm glad of the alone time again.

The first day alone, I was a bit down, I couldn't do anything but scroll Tiktok. I almost even forgot to take the last of my antibiotics (thankfully those are done). Yesterday though, I said absolutely not, and set my phone down on purpose, played that game, watched Tinkerbell and the lost treaure (thats the autumn-themed tinkerbell movie). I had a brief moment of wishing one of my other partners would come over, but then was a bit surprised to feel a sense of resistance to the idea. I realized I wanted to spend my night a certain way, and I wouldn't be able to if I had company. So I watched a deep-dive lore video on Tinkerbell from the original Peter Pan book, through the disney fairies chapter books to the movies, and started into the lore of the romance novel that recently came out- and then I got sleepy, turned on Velaris ambience (that's the city of starlight from ACOTAR)- read some of A Dark and Secret Magic and eventually fell asleep. A satisfying night of magic and wimsy. A romantic evening just for me and magic.

Today's plan is similar, more gaming, more reading, more fairy lore. I squeezed in some role-play posting. I might even get the chance to revivie my old wolf website for a small group of friends. It needs a new button though...Eh, I could probably make one easy enough, but maybe not today. I've been itching to write my novel. Really, I want to re-write the entire thing, but first thing is first- FINISH THE NOVEL- then I can edit to my heart's content. Dunno I'f I'll do that today either. Maybe. Maybe not. I really wanna catch up on reading, A Dark and Secret Magic has it's chapters spaced out by how many days before halloween it is- and it's fun to be "one day before halloween" the same day the chapter says it is. -Admittedly, I have hopes to not be alone tonight, but you know I'm kinda liking the solitude too. It'll be okay either way.

All that Matters is the Flow 🌸

I've been thinking about a lot of things. Astrally, a lot has been going on in space and from that, it means a lot of astrological pieces are at play, affecting us witches and psychics here on earth. My fellow light workers are experiencing a lot of "Ascention Symptoms" things like headaches and various other things that are believed to be caused by solar flares and energy fluctuations. then there's me- with an armpit cyst. -Look at me suuuper ascended-symptomed.-That was sarcasm, I'm actually annoyed with it. Feeling like Moreaux from Resident Evil 9.

Anyway, I've been in a doom scrolling loop again...ugh. And I've seen stuff, hot takes, hoarder cleanups, really hateful Christians doing mean things. All three of these types of videos got methinking really hard. See, the hot take got me considering what it means to be a good person. A chronic online take is that agreement, agreeing with a passionate person's stance on a subject suddenly makes you a better person- but that's not really true is it? The hoarder cleanups triggered both a disgust and judgement and a total "I just don't get it" and also a sense of being glad there are people out there willing to help those who fall into that kind of situation. And the hateful Christian being mean just has me thinking in general about the concept of goodness, and being frustrated that no amount of rage will make someone like that change their view. Any hurt they cause, somehow becomes proof that they are right to cause it.

So from that, I was thinking that I should learn to let go of my rage at bad Christians, and release judgement of people with severe hoarding syndrome, and when it comes to a hot take, not agreeing doesn't actually make me a bad person. In fact, if I listen to everyone else telling me how to be a good person, then I'll never actually ever been good enough. Fitting one person's standard, doesn't mean you'll fit the next. Whether or not you listen to someone else, you'll still fall short. Kind of like saying "you can be the prettiest shade of blue, but that means nothing to someone who prefers red." So in the end, all you can do is be yourself and hold yourself to a personal and ever evolving standard of goodness.

So I walked to the brooke behind my place and sat with the water for a bit. And it told me something, it said "The jagges rocks in a river are part of it's beauty. Over time, the rocks may be worn down by the water, but the water is careless and indifferent to the rocks. The point isn't the rocks, what matters is the flow."- This is not to say that one should never endeavor to improve. It's not really the point to become a totally smooth, flawless river, a person with no flaws. It's also not okay to just say "I'm hateful and judgemental" and accept that as the standard and not ever try to do better- that's not it either. The point is, that while I will wear down my jagged edges over time, I am a whole river, complete with rocks, as long as I can still flow around them and try my best to do good, than I'm perfect as I am. Like a river, I change a little every day, parts of me erode or shift, but I'm still a river, and I'm okay.

So here I am, devotee of Aphrodite, Morrigan, Cernunnos and Hecate. Healing from a lanced cyst in my armpit, thinking about solar flares, goodness, and philosophy, and rying off and on at the beauty of our world- where beauty can be found and trying to understand what it all means. Is the solar flare causing the sudden shadow work? Is the cyst an ascention symptom? I'm honestly not sure. But the point is the flow, right? So I suppose, I will continue to heal, continue to attempt to rise above things like rage and judgement- while understanding that I can be lie that sometimes and still be a good person. I can have my own thoughts and feelings, and not be bad for them. I am a flowing river.

By the way, the hot take was that when patients are shitty to healthcare workers, the healthcare workers being annoyed, fed-up or rude is unacceptable. I disagree. While it can look on the surface that an honest person is in pain, so being in pain gives then grace to be shitty, and then the healthcare worker, being in a position of power over the patient, should wisely and graciously use that power to help at all costs- Ugh, believe me, I wish it could be like that, but every human, on either side of that equation can be shitty or not shitty regardless. Someone in severe pain might act like an asshole, but another person in severe pain might not. Some people go to the ER with real and legitimate needs, and another might be trying to exploit a system. The healthcare worker who is being mistreated by a patient can't be expected to always be immune to that, they'll get their feelings hurt, they'll lash out too, they are overworked and tired and sometimes getting physically assaulted. And I'm not sorry that my sympathy will not always fall with the patient. I'm not going to take a side agaisnt healthcare workers being shitty to patients or with patients being shitty to healthcare workers. Hoenstly, neither side should be being shitty.

It's like saying that when a child (the patients) acts out, then the adult (the healthcare worker) should always be the bigger person. In a perfect world, maybe, but the world isn't perfect. We are all just humans trying to get by. It's incredibly hard to be so superior that you don't get angry and hurt at being treated like garbage all day by entitled patients, or by contrast, be treated like garbage by overworked healthcare workers. And I'm not a bad person for standing in the middle and saying neither healthcare workers, nor patients deserve to be treated badly. Everyone should be afforded grace. But at the end of the day, some people just suck. And people being terrible often brings out the terrible parts of those they attack. Think of it like this, if you are cornered in an alleyway by a person who wants to hurt you, the way you act isn't always going to be the best representation of your character. -I think every exact situation is unique, and you can't just make a blanket statement of "healthcare workers are always wrong for lashing out at patients."-There's any number of rules you could make where you try to say "This statment is always true" and there's always nuance, there is always a situation where that statement is false, no matter how hard you try to make it true.

Or the death penalty. I do think that some people really do deserve it. And some believe it's wrong, that no one should be killed no matter their crime. I don't agree. Some people do things so horrible, they absolutely forfeit their life for it. I do understand the take that if good people do something terrible, like kill a bad person, then they must be bad too- but I disagree. Terrible things done for the right reasons become good things. A threat that caused harm and will continue to cause harm being deleted from the world will never be a bad thing. And people will condemn me as a bad person for that...but here's the thing. I'm not a bad person, there's so much more to me than my sense of justice condone the deaths of horrible, terrible, evil criminals who are proven to be exactly that. And I also accept that the stance is flawed. Not believing in the death pentaly or believing in it both come with things to critisize. And sure, maybe being a "better" person will involve unpacking that. Maybe that's a stone that will one day wear down. But today, I'm a more interesting river because I have jagged stones.

Humans are complex, multi-faced, complicated and contradictory creatures. Each worthy of love, compassion, understanding and care. Even the worst of us. And I do think some people can be redeemed- while others can't. And as long as we live in a world where people are allowed to be evil, those evils need consequence. And the definition of evil should be something all humans can agree on- things that aren't arbitrary or secular. ---Anyway, I've rambled enough, I'll just talk in circles for another 5 paragraphs. Heh- did you know that over-explaining is a trauma response? Oh yes, it definitely is for me. Better stop now haha.

Heal Me 🌸

First of all, the spell worked! L is not going to get fired. Thank goodness. I was prepared to say, if the spell failed, it would mean there is a brighter path ahead that was intended. Like a scripted cut scene in a video game. Some things are meant to happen, even if we can't understand why. However, we humans are great at being inconsistent, so even if I believe that, that doesn't mean I can't use my magic to try and stay the path, you know? Maybe it's complicated, but it makes sense to me.

And while I talk of magic and energy, sometimes energy blockages in the body can create some physical issues. We learn this in somatic healing, reiki healing, and different types of energetic healing. Trauma and tension can be stored in the body, and sometimes a matter of the body can be healed with the right treatment of the mind. Imagine an old person who fell and got hurt, if they've given up, they're more likely to pass away, than someone with a strong desire to heal- though of course there are exceptions to this. But we have a lot of examples of how a person who wants to pull through has a better chance of doing exactly that, than someone who dosen't want to. Now, I'm not saying one goes without the other, you can't pray tuberculosis away overnight, you can't meditate away a broken leg. It's a mix of both, to be complete, we humans must use both the 3D physical world, and the energetic world to heal ourselves.

I say all that because I said I've got lumps and bumps. Nothing viral, nothing contageous, but still, unhappy evidence of something wrong, something healing. For practical treatment, one can keep a wound clean and dry, or clean and protected, wash it, care for it, monitor it, prevent infection. Take steps to say...not bite a hole in my lip or throw away a razor before it goes dull. But energetically, as a Reiki Master, I can look for any blocked energy flows, encourage faster healing, imbue crystals with healing, do a spell for healing, meditate to see what I might be holding onto that is manifesting as these issues. -Eh, at least I feel like I am doing something more than being depressed and angry over bumps that make me want to lock myself in a closet and hide until they're gone.

I'm trying hard to love my body as I heal from whatever is going on. Today, that love comes as self care, washing my body, putting on healing salves, and watching Twilight (or in this case Eclipse) for the first time on this rainy, chilly autumn day.

Void of Course Moon 🌸

I always seem to reset my doom scrolling counter back to 0 when I jump on this blog, because on the days I'm not blogging, and not with a partner, I'm doomscrolling. Then I catch myself, and jump on here the next day. I gotta break this habit!

Still, here I am. To recap, Monday hit me with a post-coital menstrual cramp so horribly intense that I almsot passed out. We are talking excruciating amounts of pain, tunnel vision, dizziness, weakness, nausea, the worst cramps of my life literally just as bad as labor pains, sweating, inability to stand because the pain was so completely debilitaing. It eventually passed, but I was drained and weak the rest of the day.

You'd think such an event would deturr me from sexual activity for the foreseeable future- but you'd be wrong. I was able to do it again on Wednesday without any issue. Then got my period the next day. I have to conclude that it either have a cyst, or that a cyst must have outright burst on Monday, but have no way to know without getting it checked. Will I be getting it checked? No. Despite it being the worst pain of my life, I don't have high hopes for any treatment options that I'm not already doing. Maybe I'll just conclude that we just went too deep too close to my period and pissed off my uterus. If going to the doctor was cheap and easy, I might go- but it isn't, so I'll hope for the best. I won't leave it alone forever though, I'm planning to get it looked at when it's more convienient- and it's never convienient, but there are better opportunities than simply out of the blue like this.

My partners were all worried, but have been supportive. Then poor L has their own trouble. I'm not going to put it all over a public blog, but remain nebulous with them simply having "trouble" at work. Trouble so big that their job is on the line. I did what I had to and resorted to witchraft to save their job. I had to try, and we find out today if it worked. I am putting all my energy into a desired outcome. Eveything is going to be okay. I'd liek to write about my thoughts in regards to if the spell fails, but I don't want to put any energy into that. So, we'l wait to see the outcome before I explore my thoughts on that. For now, I will focus on these thoughts instead,their job is saved, life goes on, all is well. There is nothing to fear. Everything is okay. The spell has worked and they will bring good news home today. I am relieved. I can see it now, how they come home with a smile and say that it all worked out, the relief we will both feel. -Manifesting it!!🧿

I did have a magical experience yesterday with Mother Willow, a willow tree just outside the woods near my apartment and my favorite tree. I talk to her often and ask advice and such. When I went to tell her about what was happening with L, suddenly I heard an angry man screaming in a rage at someone in the parking lot. -See, the woods run in a line separating a commercial building from the apartments. The yelling was coming from that commercial lot. He was so angry, I wanted to be anywhere else. I was afraid. But the willow told me not to move, that her branches would keep me invisible. And they did. The man yelled and shouted until he got into a truck and sped away. All I had to do was stand in her branches and be as still as she was. -In the end, she did give me tips on the kind of spell to do- but I will choose to be mysterious about the exact spell used for now.

Also for now, I will spend the day trying not to doom scroll, drinking tea, sitting with a heating pad and reading. Will report next time how it all worked out!

Post Trigger Thoughts 🌸

Last week wasn't so great as far as my mental health goes. It started with feeling misunderstood. That was a simple communication error. But due to past trauma, it spiraled out into a huge monster. The first stop, was this blog, where I wrote the ultimate vaguepost in the form of an essay about human understanding.

The next stop was spending the next day being ultra critical of myself. I embodied the thought process of everyone who'd ever disliked, misunderstood or been critical of me, and tried to apply their thinking to myself to put myself down. Tell myself my anxiety is invalid, my concerns hurt others, I'm not allowed to voice, think or be anything that might hurt someone else, even by accident. And if I am any of those things, I have to learn to do them "right" so that no would could possible disapprove. While at the same time, desperately fighting those thoughts because I know better.

There's something to be said about self-awareness and integrity. A nod to the hateful and diapproving voices that say everything I do is wrong and that I need to "do better". Yes. I do always endeavor to be a good person, and be the best version of myself. But I am also allowed space to be imperfect. As long as being allowed the grace to be imperfect isn't an excuse to be terrible, I'm still allowed to be loved.

I know I talked about leaving earth, ie. using meditation to escape reality to just make the critical voices stop. Instead, I went out with D and I had a good time. I put distance between myself andthe trigger an spent a few days in reality, reading, spending time with people who love me, playing DnD and literally touching grass. Music is also a great help. That's when I realized my relapse back to scrolling and being on my phone all the time had reached a critical point. I was feeling shitty. Not just from the trigger point that started this, but in general. I'd been letting myself play on my phone for so long that I was back in a mental health hole, and it was time to stop.

While last week, I was stuck on the side of the attacker- the one who doesn't get me and thinks poorly of my every move, I'm back this week on my own side. Knowing that I have the capacity to "do better" while also understanding that trying to shrink and make myself palletable to those who will never accept me is a useless thing. "Don't make yourself easy to swallow, let them choke"- is an aggressive sentiment. But it means, it's okay for them to misunderstand. If I say my anxiety is something I do my best to manage, but it may hurt your feelings and for that I'm sorry but I still deserve care- that can be true without anyone concluding that I just enjoy using anxiety as an excuse to cause harm. I know that's not the case, and I can't be held accountable for an evil state of mind I don't actually have.

So we start this week drinking pumpkin spice coffee, thinking about doing some creative writing, rewatching Twilight, reading a book about magic and mystery. Oh- and celebrating my use of spellwork. I made a protection charm for the door, an agressive protection charm at that, to hopefully get whatever asshole keeps opening and closing our door,to stop doing so- along with a constantly locked front door. I have a meeting, but I'm hoping to stay off the doom scroll and love myself well today.

Hurt and Tired 🌸

How do I start talking about what's on my mind, without giving the brain goblins fuel to light me on fire? I've been on the internet long enough to know that no matter what you stand for, someone will always say you're wrong. When it comes to debate and argument, I'm terrible at it. I don't have a good defense. I just have the people in my corner who love me, and a long list of people who don't.

With the way my mind works, I can go in loops. I can attack my own thoughts, feelings, and arugments from every opposing angle until I feel like it's not worth speaking. Unless I'm in a place where it has been proven safe to speak. Yesterday, it wasn't safe. Trust was compromised, and I spent the entire day spiralling. And still I hear the negative ghosts of internet people past having nothing nice, kind or understanding to say about any of that.

I'm very good at imagining an evil version of a person who hurt me and imagining how terrible they are, every effort to fix a problem with the imaginary version of them, becomes a losing battle, because they have no empathy, understanding, remorse or kindness to offer me. Sometimes, the imaginary version is just a very evil ghost that isn't anything like the real person- and just talking to the real person makes that very clear, very fast. But other times, that evil imaginary version isn't too far off from the real thing. And that makes breaching conversation far too scary.

I can see it in myself, I'm triggered. A recent experience has me spiralling through every other situation where I've ever been hurt. Beating myself with the hurtful words of the imaginary version of a person who hurt me with real words yesterday. At this moment, I do not trust that their real version is any less mean. So, I need a break.

When I was a lonely teen, with few friends, dealing with isolation on the ranch, I learned meditation and visualization. I used it to visit my very own fantasy world, full of a cast of colorful characters, and magical places. There's never any war, harm or fear. Nothing bad ever happens. It's just a fun place to go be. And with my imagination being capable of hyperfantasia, I can imagine as if I'm really there. I can feel the sun, the wind, the grass, taste the sweet fruit or the shock of cold ocean water. I can hear the voices of the people there. And sometimes? I don't feel like the world is imaginary at all. Maybe it's real, out there, somewhere...but I still know that when I open my eyes, whatever happened there, will remain there, and there alone.

I am one with a tendency to dwell, to sit and dwell and dwell and dwell. I'm a grudge holder too, and I can already hear the goblins ripping me apart for it. "That's unhealthy" or even to go meditate and leave for a while "that's maladaptive." I've known so many just hell-bent on seeing me in the worst possible light. There's no winning, everything I do or think is wrong, things beyond my control are unacceptable and I should control them. No forgiveness, no understanding, no compassion. Just fault, blame and every move being wrong, even if I try to do it all right.

A video I saw this morning said that overexplaining is begging for someone to care and understand. It encouraged the viewer to stop begging. So today? I don't want to explain any more. They can be wrong about me, and maybe I can be wrong about them too, but feeling this hurt makes me feel like I'm not. If I was wrong, I'm sure I'd be sorry, but they wouldn't be- would they? Nope. I'm going to Elysium, to talk to my friends, to try and distract myself from these fucking cold hearted, reactive, mean, discompassionate turnips.

Understanding 🌸

A few years ago, I imagined what the people of another planet might be like. I imagined it was a fully psychic race of aliens, who could read each others feelings and thought processes as clearly as seeing the noses on their faces. Imagine that everyone could just see each other and immediately understand, empathize and care. Imagine also that human feelings such as ego, pride, defensiveness just don't exist. They're aliens, not humans, so imagine they don't have human emptional shortcomings.

Some humans might see that as a total invasion of privacy. Thoughts are private for humans, but these are aliens. They don't see it that way, and if it came naturally to every alien on the planet, they wouldn't be mad at it, because it would be as normal as needing to breathe. They wouldn't have a reason to protest it, because it would be a given among the species.

A step further is wishing I could be in that world. If we didn't have feelings like animosity, an ego to protect, malicious or negative reasoning, and all our thoughts were pure and immediately understood from our own perspective, even agaisnt the thoughts of others, it would help ease so much hurt.

Imagine there was a disagreement in this world, maybe a council is deciding the best way to build a bridge, and the aliens have differeing opinions. Each alien could express what they thought, and everyone would readily and absolutely understand what everyone else thought without anyone feeling attacked, put down, afraid of rejection, angry. A real meeting of minds where a conclusion could be reached without anyone coming away feeling hurt.

People are a lot messier, there is a filter. Everything they say comes from their own lived experience and perception of the world. And that message, regardless of intention, floats through the air and lands in the ears of another, only after having passed through the fliter of the reciever's mind. -Let's say Regina George says "Omg I love your skirt!" She said it through the filter of "I really mean that skirt is the uglist thing I've ever seen"- the person then can hear the compliment through the filter of "This person is being genuine" and feel good, or "This person isn't being genuine"- and feel offense. -In this case, we know Regina isn't being genuine, but what if she was telling the truth? In this case, whether or not she intended to come off as fake, the actual recieving of her compliment as fake or not doesn't belong to her. It belongs to the reciever.

Regina can't control if someone hears her insult as she meant it, or takes it for a genuine compliment. Now, sometimes, there's no questioning it. Sometimes, an insult is an insult and cant be misunderstood. But I'm not talking about when it's clear. Today's blog post is about when it's not clear, and there's a misunderstanding that cannot be resolved. I want to write about the furstration of how words can't fix everything. You can explain every detail of your life's history, describe your disposition, explain sitations you've been a part of, your personality, your feelings on a topic, and lay every aspect bare in full earnest, and some will still not see the best of you. It goes along with saying you could be the prettiest shade of blue, but that means nothing to someone who prefers red.

A painful fact of life is that some people won't get you. Some people will see explaining as excusing. Some will see reasoning as lack of accountability. Some will see concern as attack. --There's something to be said about person healing, inner work, shadow work. How much personal work does it take before a person can be heard for what they said, and what they really meant, without that filter? Can you hear a critiscm or a concern without getting upset? I know I can't, not without support, and depending on the context. My life experience has taught me to interpet the world around me through a filter, looking for needles in the words. Finding reasons to be afraid and then being absolutely correct about what I inferred.

As someone who's been alive for this long, I've seen this come up over and over. It's true that not every new man is your ex. Not all people are the same. Not every hand is secretly ready to hit you. But pattern recognition is a human trait, even higher in neurodivergent people like me. Getting angry that every hand with blue fingernails has hurt someone and that someone treating you with weariness for having blue nails is unfair in both directions. The person who's been repeatedly stabbed by someone with blue nails shouldn't assume you'll stab them- that's against your character and hurtful that they would think that. But by contrast, it's hurtful to say their life experience doesn't apply and they have no right to their feelings because you would never do that. -Empathy is vital. The wounded person should understand the nuance of, maybe this set of blue fingernailed hands finally doesn't mean harm, while the person with blue fingernails should understand "Oh, I see this pattern has affected you before. It's not unreasonable to be wary, but I'm not here to hurt."

Then we get into responsibility. It's not the blue nailed person's job to emotionally regulate the person who thinks all blue nailed hands will stab them. The person with the fear can't help but be afraid, but it would go against intinct to blatantly put themselves out there as if the lived experience never happened. They can be cautious, while creating room that this might be an exception.

Imagine if both sides stay defensive. "Oh, you have blue nails, You're going to hurt me." and the reply being "How dare you, you should know I'd never do that." and the it goes like this: "But everyone I've ever known with blue nails has stabbed me. I can't help it. I'm worried you're going to stab me. Everyone with blue nails said they wouldn't, then they did. I can't believe you." And that being answred with "Well you should just know better, use your brain and stop being scared. I'm not going to do that and I'm hurt you'd think I would." And the reply being "Well, maybe I'm not being fully logical, but if I didn't act scared, that would be just as illogial based on what I've been through. Now you're upset, which only leads me to think you really will stab me. I'm going to run away now."- Nobody can win, both sees the other side as wrong. No one tried to understand the other. But what if there was understanding?

"Hey, if it looks like you have blue nails- People with blue nails have always stabbed me in the past. I trust you and want to explore the idea of staying friends, but I'm wary because I've never met a blue-nailed person who didn't want to stab me. Therefore, because I trust you, I'm expressing this concern and was hoping you could help me relax." Being answered with, "Oh my gosh, I'm sorry you've had such a bad experience. I hear you and validate your experience. I don't have any intentions to stab you.So I'm going to reassure you that I'm not about stabbing people, and you have nothing to worry about." and the final reply being, "Awesome, thanks for reassuring me. I'm choosing to trust that you will not stab me, even though others have said the same thing and lied." Equally, an answer like, "I appreciate you, but I've been hurt by people who have blue nails too much. I appreciate your reassurance, but I'm not yet ready to trust that you won't stab me. I'd like to keep my distance until trust is established or else decide not to continue this relationship."- The rejection in the second answer doesn't have to be hurtful either. The person with blue nails doesn't have to walk away thinking the other is terrible and wrong for not trusting blue nails, they cant be hurt without invalidating the other. They could just understand that the person has been hurt by others and doesnt yet have the healing or knowledge available yet to overcome that history. Feeling hurt by someone's fear, doesn't have to mean punishing them for that fear.

My example is ridiculous, but I'm getting at the underlying route to pain, a negative pattern creating a potentially unjustified fear, and how both people have a responsibility to the situation to empathize and make it right. If either side isn't ready to do that, one side will collapse under fear or the other will collapse under defensiveness. Unfortunately this is just human life. Plenty of relationships, friendships, companionships die under mistunderstanding. Too much emotion makes it hard to hear each other, not enough emotion does the same thing. We must take solace that we can't always be understood, we can't always understand others. Or, infuriatingly, you might go to extremes to understand others and feel like they don't do the same for you. Some people aren't meant to be in your close circle, and that's okay. Understanding is hard to find, but finding it is pretty precious. Some people just get you, others just don't. As much as that hurts, it's okay too.

I'm not perfect. I have anxiety that makes me afraid of everything all the time. I have empathy that makes me understand the side of a person who is actively hurting me. Sometimes, I expect others to be the same way, see my point of view with the best intentions, when I'm acting in earnest, with no intention to harm, sometimes there's harm anyway. Sometimes people make up malicious reasoning behind what I do, sometimes people condemn my anxiety and fear as irrational and innapropriate, making me fold in on myself. There's always a line between truly being irrational, or carefully navigating a known pattern to see if it will repeat. There's nothing much else to say. I wish we lived in a world where everyone cared, everyone loved, nobody feared, everyone understood, and nothing bad ever happened to anyone. I wish no one had ever or would ever hurt me, and I wish I could never hurt anyone either. That's all. Sigh.

I Love EDM! 🌸

Over the weekend, I saw Ninajirachi in concert with D. I didn't really know who she was, but I loved her music so much that I ordered a CD after the concert and can't wait for it to get here. I have been streaming the music nonstop on Youtube though. Ipod Touch is my favorite song I think, but I like Delete as well. Her early internet, y2k, anime aesthetic really scratches a nostaligic itch I've had- that same itch that inspired the creation of this blog.

I've been posting on and scrolling tiktok, that dopamine addiction really is something isn't it? If I don't touch that app, I find I can read- finish books, update the blog, role play, and go about life in a productive way so easily. But once I start the doom scroll, it's like a sticky sludge, and I find myself going back to it tapping the notifications every few minutes when a new like or comment comes in. The tiny rush each one brings feels good. It's only after the fact, like now, I can see it for the consuming beast that it is and stay away. -I go back after these busy weekends because it's like granting myself an easy brain-dead reprevie from a busy event- and EDM concerts are extremely overstimulating, that's for sure! I deserve a little downtime.

So what else is going on? I've been the DM for Curse of Strahd, a DnD adventure, and I've been playing that with L and T. They are in the last big dungeon before the players get to face Strahd and attempt to free Barovia once and for all. In addition to that, my role play musings continue over on Horizon. Azriel's beloved mentor and adoptive father, Wilderfrost, has passed away. Now, Azriel must deal with the grief, his growing feelings for a girl named Odile, and keep his promise to let Wilder go and continue to heal and help where he can. This starts with assisting the birth of new pups just days after his father's death. Oh, it's so good!!!

Besdies that, I finished reading The Spellshop! I really liked it, aside from the unecessary tension thrown in at the end. I think if you're going to write a cozy novel, soemthing that's supposed to be a relaxing read, there's no reason to up the stakes and throw in something that would make the reader angry or sad or scared. I think a low stakes story is fine. If a person wants a high stakes story, they can read one that's meant to be that. If they pick up a book for a chill read where nothing too incredibly awful happens, then that's what the book should deliver. Ultimately, The Spellshop was a cozy read, but that little tension at the end really didn't need to be there. Still, it was just the right dose of sparkly, cottage fantasy goodness I've always wanted.

Started Falling Like Leaves and am almost done with it, I've really been trying to stay on time with these books. I may still fall behind. I wanted to read one book a week and now we're on week 4 and I'm only on book 2, I'm 2 weeks behind! Eep! But that's okay, proud of myself for moving through these books as I am anyway. Two weeks to get through a book is better than 6 months or more haha.

And omg. So, I said when I started this site that I used to be the admin for a Strawberry Panic! Role Play. Strawberry Panic! Was a Yuri anime back in the 2000s, and the roleplay I created for it became an internet refuge that I ran for about 6 years. It was a wonderful place. There is a link to it on the home page. Happily, there was a response to a thread I had been using to just talk to myself about ideas if the site were alive today, from one of the alumni members! A happy sight, even if it does not mean the site will come back to life. We can't bring back what it was, only look at it and love it for what it was. I think that's beautiful, a little bittersweet, but lovely.

Now though, it's off to clean my house. The litter boxes smell, the floor is covered in pet hair, laundry needs done, the cat threw up on my office chair, so I have to wash that, the dishes need done, and the trash will have to go out. Ugh, it's really a mess in here. So wish me luck as show myself some love and clean everything- you bet I'll be listening to Ninajirachi's "I Love my Computer" album the whole time!

Let's Catch Up 🌸

What do I cover since last entry? I suppose it makes sense to follow up emotionally and recap since then. Well, there was NDK! The stress seemed to vanish when I arrived at con, and I had an amazing time with D. I cosplayed as Marin from My Dress-Up Darling on Friday, then Black Lobelia (same anime) on Saturday, then Celty from Durarara on Sunday. I went to the rave and got to watch D spin poi like a badass while wearing a kitsune mask. As if I couldn't be any more feral for him.

On Saturday, I fell down in the dealer's room, the shoes for Black Lobelia were not safe for any human to walk in, and I ended the day with blisters. But hey- I looked awesome and an S-Tier Marin cosplayer asked for my instagram while I was dressed as her. -Another amazing moment was the night of the rave, I was able to get a picture with a Sylus and Rafayel cosplayer (from Love and Deepspace). The Sylus (my fav character) asked if he could touch me for the picture. I almost died fangirling so hard. I was shaking! I got my picture and ran away, kicking my feet and squealing when I got back to my chair. I could not stop cheezing! Defintiely one of the best moments all con!- Though I am leaving out even better moments spent alone with D.

There were unlucky shinanegans with L too. Originally, they were going to come up Saturday night, but they ended up dropping off kiddo to me and D Friday night and surprising me with T! Saturday after they got back, they found they had a flat tire, and was so sad and defeated by the stress that they almost gave up on coming at all. Luckily, everything worked out, tires got replaced and L made it on Saturday after all, T was a real MVP for helping out during all the car troubles. But L made it! They had a great time. And then Sunday, T joined us too! Overall it was a great con for everybody!

I spent questionable amounts of money in the dealer's room and the artist alley. I bought a sword! Yamato from Devil May Cry 5! This sword is special because not only does it belong to husbando Vergil, it's also the form my OC, Yamiko, takes throughout my magnum opus fanfic. It's a very special sword to me, and it's beautiful. My old Yamato, DMC3 ver. is falling apart anyway. It's lovely to have the updated one. Oh, and I bought some amazing sfw wall scrolls from the 18+ side of the dealer's room. The artist was pretty cute. It was exciting to talk to somone so cute and friendly.

My period hit the day after we got back. And we hit up a book store where I made the amazing finds of both Saiyuki part 2, the second half of the first season, as well as the entire Super Sonico series! Definitely watching that when I can. But first, back to reading. I wanted to finish The Spellshop within the first week of September and that didn't happen. I gotta catch up! But I spent all of Monday and Tuesday in recovery mode. Tuesday was hard because contractors came to replace the sliding glass door- I had no choice in the matter, and was all but having a total melt- down over the people in my house and my stuff all moved. I hated every minute of it. But ulitmately, everything was fine. I read My Dress-Up Darling Vol. 9 and A Centaur's Life Vol. 1 while they worked.

A Centaur's Life is a weird manga, but I like the world building of how a world with nonhuman bodies would function, history,politics, civil rights, even practical things like how a shirt works if you have wings, or what kind furniture is there to accomodate a centaur's body? That stuff is cool to me.

Yesterday was a lazy day, I can't even blame it on recovery, I was just not with it. But today, we snap out of it. Back on track. Yoga, drinking water, reading, blogging, working. All that. And then I get to see D again this weekend, as well as get my hair done at my favorite Salon! The week is flying by, and I'm okay with that. I have a lot of happy September days to look forward to. Now if only the weather would cool off...

Fall Begins 🌸

Okay, so technically it's not fall yet. The equinox isn't until the end of the month, and Summer's heat still clings on here in the mile high city. But it's autumn in my heart. I spent all of yesterday putting up all my Autumn decor, I bought a new hanging lamp for a reading nook, and I totally redid my TBR list for fall. I'll be updating the bookshelf page to reflect my autumn reads. -So far, I've started The Spellshop, and I'm loving it! It's like magical Stardew Valley.

I did get a book called Fairydale, but I had to take it back. I didn't rad the content warnings in the front cover before I brough it home, and it turns out the content of the book is stuff I can't tolerate like graphic depictions of gore, toruture, blood play, period play and vicious on page descriptions of violent rape. Nope. Nope. Nope. I ran as far and fast away from 800 pages of shock-horror and smut before I even started and instead found a list of more pleasant "safe", low-spice, low stakes reads for a cozy autumn.

I am getting ready for an anime convention! I'll be cosplaying Marin from My Dress-up Darling and Black Lobelia, a character that Marin cosplays in the manga/anime. While I dig out all the stuff for those two costumes, I also need to dig out stuff for Aoba from Dramatical Murder (as L will be cosplaying him.) On top of that, I need stuff for the rave- I have a cetain outfit/look planned for that. And then there's the logistics of everything. Oof, trips, even to do fun things are so stressful!

Cosplay, anime, merch, panels, photos- to see and be seen, to spend time with D who got us the room, it's going to be amazing! But I have to admit, since it's me, the excitement is married up against a hefty bit of tension and anxiety. It's going to be an amazing weekend, a con to remember. I've just got to push through the weird anxious hang-ups that never make sense, and just be in the moment. T will even get to come for a day. I'm excited, so many memories and good times are ahead!- Even if some part of me wants to stay home with a book.

If I need something to dread, why not have it be the installation of the new sliding glass door next week? I love the upgrades to the property this new company has been doing since they took over management last year, but I have the invasive nature of them. Strange men in my house, on my blacony, invading my santuary during all daylight hours. I want to be alone, I do not want to be percieved....But if I roleplay that I'm some rich person who hired the contractors to replace the hard-to-open glass door. It takes me out of the perspective of the victim who is having this situation forced on them, to the perspective of someone in control. "This was my idea, I hired these people to repair that terrible door. It's about time someone got around to fixing it!" So if I reframe it as "I'm having the door replaced" instead of "I'm being invaded again."-It changes the dread of it.

As a last note, I'm already finding myself reflecting on the year. We have entered the alst rush of -embers and -obers where the year winds down. It's been a wonderful year, so much love. Summer days spent reading books, sweet smelling spring air, a mild winter that was- dare I say, comfortable. So much time eating sweet things, loving myself and my space, and being loved by my partners in turn. Despite my annoyance with the apartment and fees and one break down over the vet, it's been a really good year. And I look forward to the rest of it.

Summerween 🌸

Yesterday's task of no doomscrolling was sucessful! I finished TWO books, listened to a CD- A CD!! (Turns out my old blu-ray player can play CDs)- so I listened to my old Brittany Spears CD and listened while coloring a page in an adult coloring book my partner got me years ago. Each page is a mandele made of nature themes. The first one I finished was a page of feathers. Maybe I'll color more today.

To list everything from yesterday, I posted on Horizon, updated this blog, meditated, did self-guided Yoga for 40 minutes, listened to music while coloring, and moved all the wolf figurines to the headboard, and filled the placw where I have the mini SNES up with my old toys from the 90s and 2000s, read the end of two different books I had been reading- and updated the bookshelf page here- then finished the night watching Camp Rock with L.

Today, I'll admit I scrolled to kill time waiting for the bus. But I won't touch it again. I think scrolling for less than 10 minutes doesn't count as "Doom Scrolling"- I think I'll define that as spending hours doing that and nothing else, not a few spare minutes. So I'm not resetting the "Days without doomscrolling" counter on the home page.

When it comes to the book shelf page, I was thinking of adding a "Legacy Reads" list that keeps track of everything I've read. Because at the start of the year, I might empty the "DNF" and "Finished" shelves to make room for new books. But I don't want them totally lost from my site alltogether. So I'll have to consider how I want to build that in, and a full-expanded TBR might be necessary too. Even as I moved The Never List and Stars Above to the "Finished" shelf, and moved the "Currently Reading" books up. There are more books finished, waiting, and in progress than what the page actually shows. -But I do appreciate how the site is now. It helps me keep track and motivates me to get through them.

Already not listed is the sequel to The Never List, but ah well. For the rest of today, I was thinking I'll get into the Summerween Spirit with maybe an episode or two of goosebumps, maybe Ripley's Believe it or Not and maybe even starting up the SNES and playing a game I've never played like Castlevania IV or Earthbound? I'm intersted in Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy III as well. (Yes I know, technically the American FF-III is actually FF-IV.)

First thing's first, breakfast and another cup of coffee. I also need to decide if I want to enjouy breakfast with Goosebumps on the TV, or if I want to read! It's so satisfying to make progress on my books after such a long hiatus. I gotta keep going! Maybe that's my answer, but it's easier to watch something and eat, because then my hands aren't busy holding a book. Either way, we'll do both!!

Motivations 🌸

Gah, what to write about first? Let's do recent events, followed by ebay, followed by not scrolling and then my plans for the day. Hopefully I can use this to not get too off track while writing today.

Recent events. I spent all day yesterday crying and scrolling, scrolling and crying. I had stuff to do, but couldn't do any of it because I just kept crying and was lacking all motivation. I had chores to do and I did do them, but only after procrastinating all day, and deciding not to do more frivolous things.

Continuing recent events, I got to see D Monday and Tuesday and got to see and play DnD with T last night. It's really lovely. after spending all day in the dumps, it was great to go to Barovia. I even spent some time yesterday evening watching H2O:Just add Water. That show had all us mermaid loving teens ina chokehold in the 2000s. It's all free to watch on youtube too!

Coming up in th near future too, I've got an anime convention to attend, followed by a concert 2 weeks after that. Life is about to get pretty lively for a time. And that's good, it's good to feel alive and get out and do things, even if anxiety begs that the safe repetition of staying home is more comfortable.

EBAY- Okay, so during this whole shift to "analog" which is supposed to mean a disconnect from tech alltogether, thus the word "analog"- it seems to encompass a return to older media. Blogs like this, forums, and physical media too, such as CDs, mp3 players, Blu-Rays, records, physical games. Yeah~ Good old stuff. So? I jumped in and ordered a y2k boombox from ebay and some old cds from back then. Like Pure Moods, Backstreet Boys, and Alanis Morissette. I can't wait. And as a bonus, I ordered Mystic the unicorn beanie baby! I wanted her so bad as a kid, now she's mine. I can't wait.

NO SCROLLING ALLOWED- Okay, so after another bad relapse into tiktok scrolling, I'm being super intentional today and made a pencil-and-paper to-do list. This list is all activities that don't involve my phone. Meditation, testing to see if I can play a CD in my old blue-ray player, coloring in a adult coloring book L bought me ages ago, reading- maybe I can finally finish Stars Above, and do a little yoga. I love yoga so much, I always feel so good after a session. I don't want to be as flakey with it as I am...

I suppose the above paragraph is also my plans for today. But there's something else I wanna write about today. So I'm part of Horizon, the wolf role-playing-game. My character, Azriel, is a wolf suffering from trauma, psychosis, nightmares and amnesia. He's been in the game for 3 in-game months, during a long and harsh winter. Winter being a triggering time for him due to part of the trauma he cannot currently remember.

Slowly, I've been revealing his backstory, bit by bit. Azriel has only barely begun to catch on to what might truly be wrong with him. But I got to write his first nightmare post today. It's going to be such a sad thread. It's possible that his beloved mentor, Wilderfrost, will die in this thread. But not before Azriel already has this awful nightmare. The nightmare being more memory than fantasy. Awful. Sad. But I love that Wilderfrost, already with failing health, might still give one last bit of healing or wisdom to Azriel during a very vulnerable moment before Wilder has to leave him. Whether that comes because he leaves or dies remains to be seen. But this will be very sad.

I don't really like sad characters, I don't want characters that are so tied up in their mind and broken like this. But Azriel was my first RP charcater, and his sotry was never resolved in any other rp prior to this. So in this imagining, I'm trying to stay true to his original concept enough, while still updating him to fit in with my current modality. He is hurt and traumatized and messed up, but I have every hope this rp will be how he finally gets his happy ending. Even if his story so far is more than bittersweet. I'll update his story through my blog here as significant things happen.- Considered making a separate thing just for Azriel stuff but nah, I'll just add it here when necessary. But still, the story is juicy.

Why Nuance is Lost Online 🌸

There has been a lot of talk lately about the death of nuance on the internet. I think it's safe to say that online spaces are full of bad takes, all-or-nothing thinking, polarizing views, and arguments where everything has to be either good or bad, right or wrong, this or that.

Sometimes even incredibly ordinary choices become moral indicators. Where you shop, what you eat, what media you enjoy, or what products you buy can suddenly be treated as proof that you are either a good person or a bad person. Yet in everyday offline life, things usually seem more complicated than that. People disagree with their friends. They make compromises. They participate in systems they don't completely approve of. They can care deeply about something while still behaving inconsistently with those values. So why does nuance seem so much harder to find online?

First, let's define nuance. Merriam-Webster defines nuance as a subtle "distinction or variation," as well as an awareness of delicate differences in meaning, feeling, or value. Another way I think about nuance is through the idea that two seemingly contradictory things can sometimes be true at the same time.

For example, someone might deeply love animals. They might adore their cat, cry when they hear about poaching, donate to a wildlife rescue, and still eat meat in their everyday life. Does that contradiction exist? Absolutely. But human beings are full of contradictions. Having inconsistent values does not necessarily mean that the care itself is fake.

Online, however, contradictions like this are often treated as unacceptable. The argument becomes: either you love animals or you don't. If you love animals, you can't eat meat. If you eat meat, then you must not really care about animals. You can see the same pattern everywhere. "If you eat at Chick-fil-A, you're homophobic." "If you like Harry Potter, you're transphobic." If you shop at a particular company involved in a controversy, you must support whatever harmful thing that company has done.

And if you don't already know why your choice supposedly makes you a bad person, then you're sometimes accused of being "willfully ignorant" instead. There is no innocent explanation. There is no circumstance. There is no difference between participating in something and endorsing every belief, practice, or person connected to it.

Of course, our choices can have consequences. Spending money somewhere does financially support that business, whether we agree with every action that business takes or not. But that still isn't the same thing as saying a purchase reveals someone's entire moral character. Participating in an imperfect system is not automatic proof that someone personally endorses everything connected to that system.

So why does the internet have such a tendency to flatten complicated situations into simple moral rules? I think one reason is that online spaces reward certainty. "If you shop here, you're a bad person" is short, emotionally powerful, and easy to repeat. By contrast, saying "There are ethical concerns surrounding this company, but individual people have different financial, geographic, medical, and social circumstances that affect where they can shop" is much less exciting. The second statement may be closer to reality, but the first fits much better into a viral post.

Social media also encourages people to sort themselves into communities. Humans naturally pick up the habits of the people around us. We copy slang, jokes, mannerisms, opinions, and social rules. We learn what earns approval from our group and what gets punished. That happens offline too, but online we have far more control over who surrounds us. We can block people, unfollow them, leave communities, ban users, mute keywords, and gradually build a social environment where most of the people we interact with think similarly to us.

Then something interesting happens. "Most people I know believe this" can slowly become "everyone knows this." Eventually, "everyone knows this" becomes "only a bad person would disagree."

The people who spend the most time posting online also have an outsized influence on what internet culture looks like. Someone who checks social media for twenty minutes during lunch technically counts as an internet user just as much as someone who spends ten hours a day participating in online communities, but those two people have very different levels of influence over the culture.

This is where mental health can become part of the conversation, although I don't think it explains the whole phenomenon. Certain psychological symptoms can make someone more vulnerable to rigid, all-or-nothing thinking. Stress, trauma, anxiety, emotional dysregulation, and other mental health struggles can all affect the way a person interprets conflict. That doesn't mean someone experiencing those things is incapable of nuance. It simply means some people may already be more vulnerable to this particular pattern of thinking.

The more important question, to me, is what happens when a person who is already vulnerable to black-and-white thinking enters a community that rewards it. If a simplified moral belief earns praise, belonging, likes, reposts, and a sense of certainty, while questioning that belief brings hostility or ostracism, that way of thinking can become stronger.

And once it becomes part of the culture of a community, people who were not originally prone to thinking that way can begin absorbing it too. Mental health, then, may be one ingredient in some cases, but it isn't the cause of the internet's lack of nuance. The environment itself can reinforce that way of thinking in almost anyone.

Age also matters. People can begin using many social media platforms at thirteen, meaning online communities contain people who are still developing their identities, values, judgment, and understanding of the world. Teenagers are perfectly capable of understanding nuance, but they are also often encountering complicated political, ethical, and social issues for the first time. A simple moral rule can feel much easier to understand than a problem involving economics, disability, geography, history, and competing needs.

Take the statement: "If you didn't research a company for unethical behavior before shopping there, you're part of the problem." That sounds simple until reality enters the conversation. What if someone lives in a food desert? What if Walmart is the only grocery store they can reach? What if they don't own a car? What if they are disabled? What if they work two jobs? What if they cannot afford the more ethical alternative? What if someone tells them they should simply grow their own food, without realizing that land, time, physical ability, and gardening supplies are themselves privileges?

The moral question hasn't disappeared. The company may still deserve criticism. But once you introduce actual human circumstances, the issue becomes much more complicated than "good people shop here and bad people shop there."

Unfortunately, complication doesn't always perform well online. Strong feelings do. Outrage does. Certainty does. Moral grandstanding does. Social media can create a self-feeding loop where extreme statements receive attention, attention makes those statements appear popular, popularity makes them feel socially correct, and social pressure encourages other people to repeat them.

None of this means every issue is endlessly complicated or that there is no such thing as a clearly harmful action. Sometimes people genuinely do support harmful beliefs. Sometimes someone's behavior really does deserve criticism. Nuance shouldn't become an excuse for refusing to make moral judgments at all.

But nuance asks us to distinguish between criticizing an action, criticizing a system, and deciding that one action tells us everything we need to know about a human being. It also asks us to admit that people are inconsistent. Someone can care about the environment and sometimes use disposable plastic. Someone can oppose exploitative labor and still own a smartphone. Someone can care about workers while shopping at a corporation with terrible labor practices because that is the store they can afford.

Those contradictions are uncomfortable, but they are also part of being human. Very few of us live in perfect alignment with every belief we hold. And because we're talking about nuance, there are obviously exceptions to everything I've said here. Offline people can be every bit as rigid and judgmental as people online. Online communities can also be extraordinarily empathetic, thoughtful, and willing to have complicated conversations.

I don't think there is a clean divide between "reasonable people offline" and "unreasonable people online." I think the difference is that many online environments reward a particular style of communication: certainty over curiosity, simplicity over complexity, group loyalty over disagreement, and outrage over patience.

Spend enough time inside an environment like that, and those habits can start to feel normal. Maybe nuance isn't actually dead on the internet. Maybe it's simply harder to hear because certainty is louder.

Happy Monday 🌸

I had a great weekend. I got to see T briefly, celtebrated a 9 year anniversary with L, went thrifting, found so many good treasures, and then got to see Spamalot- a musical that tells the story of Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail. I went to the musical with a friend I've known since High School. When did I get so tall? I towered over their family like a really fashinable godzilla- and I'm not even tall!

Now, I'm long overdue to see D, it's been hard to find room in a busy schedule, but we found it, and I'm really looking forward to seeing him!!

In other news, some online friends are talking about this game, Fields of Mistra. Seems cool- dunno if I have the patience to play it. Besides, I'm playing Baldur's Gate 3 and I'd rather try to finish that.

So, when my alarm goes off every day, my phone wallpaper shows a list of affirmations, and when I look at it to turn off the alarm, the first one my eyes land on is my affirmation for the day. Todays is "I am wealthy." Maybe not in money, but I am rich in other ways. I have the money to pay all my bills and live comfortably. I have partners who love me, plenty of food and my house is full of trinkets and books. I am wealthy if we define wealth as an abundance of things that make life feel enriching and full. And that's something I can hold onto today.

Intentional Thursday 🌸

Yesterday was wild, first, a stomping teen who was stressed about starting school. Then the new necklace they got the day before, broke before they could even put it on. That sucked. And when we got to the bus, they remembered they had forgotten their bus pass, so I had to print back to the house and back to the bus stop to grab it for them. That activated my asthma. And then to top it off, when they finally got too, I got a text that yesterday was the first day for a certain grade. Not their first day, so I had to go get them from school- and of course, I was dressed in hoochie momma shorts and a tight tank top. I was not dressed for a middle school. But I still went and got them. A Lorelai Gilmore moment for sure...

The rest of the day was spent scrolling. Apparently the morning was too much, I wasn't able to find motivation to update my blog or do anything but that. But the night ended with a lovely double feature movie night where kiddo and I watched the Sailor Moon R and Sailor Moon Super S movies. I cried both times lol. But that was really fun.

The night was hard though. I found myself refreshing discord over and over again. Wanting someone to talk to. And sure it's one thing to say hi in the general chat board, but I wanted someone to talk to me- to care about me. I was lonely. L was away with T last night, and I don't have any problem with that. I'm just lonely anyway, and that's also okay. Spending time with me isn's that bad. So I ended up imagining that I went to a night time carnival in tokyo, took a taxi home to a lovely house with a garden and went to bed. When I laid down in my imagination, I was ready to sleep irl.

My cat Muge decided to wake me up at 4am and again at 5am trying to cause havoc. Then I had some nightmare about a killer playing some awful torture game with two captive women, but I woke up before anything graphic or awful happened.

I did wanna write about one other thing. While I was scrolling yesterday, I saw a prompt that said "You wake up in the summer of 2001, what do you do?"- Gods. If I woke up in the summer of 2001, I would be 10, about to turn 11. Assuming I rememebr my life until then as a dream, and kept all my knowledge. Gods... I wouldn't let Niko, my husky, kill Peaches, my best friend's bird. We would have been in florida at the time. I'd do so much differently. That would have been before I met the abuser too. It would change my entire life. What a thought experiment...

Now the rest of my day opens up. I need to clean the litter boxes, I'd like to do yoga. I'm super hungry so it's time to eat too. I suppose that's the end of it for today!

Magic of Childhood 🌸

I'm starting to realize I'm spending a lot of my 30s healing my inner child. I'm looking at old media, toys, games and ideas from when I was little. It's got me wanting to explore old fantasy worlds like Fantasia, Pony Land, Pixie Hollow, Eternia, Slumberland. Part of that means watching old cartoons on Youtube, but something else is pulling me.

It reminds me of this memory from childhood where I was feeling very inspired and wandering around the house looking for soemthing to scratch the itch. I settled on putting together an old My Little Pony puzzle- though it wasn't old at the time. I remember my mom asked what I was doing, while I was wandering. I said I was looking for something pretty and magical, before sitting down with the puzzle. I have that same itch now, and a puzzle isn't what I'm looking for. Nor was it what I was wanting back then either.

I think I wanted someting immersive. A type of game that doesn't exist even today. A slice of life fantasy game with no stakes or low stakes adventures, fashion, friendships, fun- but still engaging, and not necessarily meant for 6 year old children. I did find a creator on youtube who got a kickstarter going to try and make exactly this- a mermaid rpg to fill this niche. But it'll be years before that becomes playable. For now, I'm left with youtube playthroughs of childhood "girls" games- which suck honestly. The next best thing is a book or a wild hallucintation!

Hear me out, I don't mean drugs. When I was a teen, I used to spend hours in my rom "meditating"- and I don't mean sitting there breathing deeply or "clearing my mind." I would sit there and visualize. I'd imagine my own fantasy kingdom full of a whole cast of characters and magical locations. With how strong my imagination is, I can activate all 5 senses to experience this place, all in my head. As I've gotten older, it's harder to focus my attention on this fantasy for long stretches of time, but that's the closest I can get to full immersion in a sparkly, safe, magical place.

Back in reality, I've had an itch to go thrifting for old toys. But with mom sending me 5 whole boxes of stuff, 3 of them being toys, and who knows about the other 2, I just need to be patient. I have an SNES in the bedroom and the shelf it's on is currently decorated with wolf statues. But it occured to me, I could make the SNES look more intentional by decorating the shelf with vintage toys. And, to tie back into the above, buying old toys for myself I always wanted but never got to own is healing for that inner child of mine, who is getting a lot of attention lately!

Back to Reality 🌸

I had an amazing time this last weekend. My birthday was on Friday and I turned 37. 37! It's only now hitting me that my 20s are long over, and I'm only just now really startingto feel like an adult. Seems like my body caught up too and I've got the hips to prove it! But I don't look old either. Just grown. And that's nice.

The birthday itself was wonderful, a trip to a vintage store to participate in their Build-A-Blythe doll set up. It was so much fun, I got to pick out the doll base, her dress, her socks and shoes, hair clips, a custom set of eyes chips- I chose green to match my own eyes, and the owner gifted me a set of custome eyes chips he had made. They are black with blue glitter. I got a few other freebies but the doll is beautiful and I'm so happy to have a little mini-me.

We stopped at a coffee shop where I had the best armaretto black cherry latte, and we headed home...where I proceeded to fight for my life the whole way home. I'm very prone to vertigo and motion sickness and was FIGHTING to not get sick. Unfortunately, my teen who came with us down to get the doll was not so lucky and got sick in the car just 6 minutes from the house.

Unpleasant as that was, we all took tie to decrompress for a bit (and clean up) before L took me back out to get my free birthday gift from Sephora and pick up a bag of coffee from my favorite local roaster. We went to 5 Below for a few more goodies and came home where T was waiting for us with the perfect little cake from my favorite bakery!

The night ended with pizza and a session of DnD- the party has finally entered the final act, just one more major quest line and it's time to fight Strahd himself! I'm really enjoying the direction of the campaign so far and how all the characters are developing.- Oh, and lets not forget the lovely borthday wishes I got from D and M too. Ahh I felt so loved!

The next day was also good, T stayed the night and L left for work, leaving us with some quality birthday time to enjoy. He stayed until the afternoon monsoon hit before running off. I was left whistful and enjoyed the storm. Took a nap. It was lovely.

Yesterday was just a l laying around and scrolling, bringing me to today, where I worked, posted on the rp, cleaned some, refreshed the Aphrodite altar in my bedroom, made the bed, dusted, turned on the air purifier. Oh! L installed the water filter on the sink so we have nice drinking water!- Anyway, I just want to vacuum the floor and I'll be happy there. Over all, I'm in the mood to watch a ghibli movie and cuddle up. I feel very loved and thankful for every good thing in my life. I am so lucky, so loved, and so happy. -Though I miss both D and T I can't wait to see them again.

Sleepy Monday 🌸

Tired today, ready for another mug of coffee. The house is quiet, kiddo is asleep on the couch. After blogging, I might journal and sip. Today has already been mildly eventful.

I woke up mistakenly thinking T has said something about picking me up today. But I had plans to go buy school supplies today. An expensive, but necessary errand. So I got ready, then kiddo and I took off to the store, list in hand. Picked up a few groceries today too.

Got back and work had some stuff for me, so I finished that up pretty quickly. Now to relax. I'm all caught up on Horizon posts, closed one. Two more are in progress. Blog will be up to date after this. I'm way behind on journalling, I've taken several days off- back to scrolling. Eep...

I got my birthday off- I might take Thursday off too, especially if I spend Wednesday with T but that might not work with his schedule, we'll see. I'd love to see D too. How to fit everyone into one birthday? I think I also want cake...a cute little one. I'd like one from the cute bakery next to Hmart, but I don't think I'll say anything...I dunno, we're already going to drive an hour away for the doll. I won't have the energy to go all the way over near Hmart in one day. -Ah well.. Grocery stores always have cute little single serve cakes. All I need is a chocolate one, better if it has cherries or red berries on it!

In other news, I'm just 9 points away from securing my Sec+ for another 3 years! I jsut gotta get my boss to give me that work experience letter. It'll give me all 9 remaining points and then I'm all set!

Been really into watching haunted doll content on tiktok lately, spirit communication, paranormal. I love that stuff, and I'm sure if I were dedicated enough, I could have a whole channel all about that too, but I'm niche-less. I do whatever, whenever so my vids never get much traction- meh. That's fine. I have colored pencils to fill the time now! But uh....maybe a nap first..

Rebuilding the Bookshelf 🌸

Finally! With moon time starting I can finally get on with it, "it" being life and fun activities. Work ended early today so I'm free to zhuzh up the site. I think today, motivated by a new group of friends on a bookish discord, I'll update my bookshelf page. I need to shift titles around and add more shelves anyway. Someone brough up a guest book, so I might add one!

I'll be posting on the rp too, I fell behind taking yesterday off due to a case of the sads, but we're back baby! I'll likely code, post, then run away and play Baldur's Gate.

This is my first time in a while that I feel like I've had a weekend with zero boyfriend plans. D Had friends visiting from out of state, no Idea what T is up to and L and I will be going school supply shopping for the kiddo tomorrow. Other than that, it's a bright open weekend. I love filling those with self care and hobbies! I'm gonna get to it now!

Tears in my coffee 🌸

I woke up at 5am, an hour and a half too early with tears in my eyes. Had some kind of dream about dancing to Butterfly Kisses by Bob Carlisle. It's me and my dad's song and we danced to it at my wedding, the memory just replayed in the dream, and just like in reality, it made me cry- like it always does. Pulled me out of my dreams and into reality with wet eyes and an inability to fall back asleep.

So I just got up, had my coffee, scrolled Tiktok and that actually got me giggling, then crying, then giggling again. I swear that app is not good for us. I texted D too, I knew he'd be up, and that helped a lot. Made me smile. Fairly sure that T is off today, and I'd like to see him, but alas. I know my restlessess is a passing mood. I can feel it. It's like...not grounded in reality. It's a feeling not a thought? I'm not sure how to explain it.

My adventures with Azriel the wolf over on Horizon are going well, but in one thread, Azriel had a psychotic episode upon seeing a girl he doesn't know looks like his murdered sister. And in another thread, he'd just been stuck inside a cave during a blizzard with a bunch of wolves he doesn't know. He's got some unremembered trauma with being chased out of his family pack because of what he did to Nicomae. -Ah, let me start over.

Azriel has psychosis. And when he was a pup, he was attacked by a rogue wolf. His father dispatched the wolf, but not before the damage had already been done, either created by, else meerely triggered by this assailant. Later, on a snowy, foggy day, he had believed he was being attacked again and, terrified, fought for his life. Only when he came to his senses, there was no assailant, and his dear sister, Nicomae, lay bloody and lifeless in the snow.

Azriel's father chased him out of the pack after that. There was no leniency, no excuses. It hadn't been his fault, but he carried that guilt, remorse and deep unyeilding sorrow with every step. He ran until his body gave out. And when he awoke, he'd forgotten it all. He could no longer rmember his family, his parents, his exile or his crime. But he's been plagued with visions, night terrors, and madness ever since.

Nicomae was a white wolf with blue eyes. On the beach, he met an injured she-wolf about as old as his sister had been when he killed her. The girl has white fur and blue eyes an a bloody gash on her paw. The sight of the injury triggered a psychotic episode, gory flashbacks he doesn't understand and a deep heartbreak he can't make sense of.

Horizon operates in liquid time, so simultaniously, while writiting this thread, he's in another thread with his mentor Wilderfrost. I tend to arrange the timeline later on, decide when the events of each thread occured relative to each other after teh fact, but might change to one thread at a time just to keep his timeline making sense. Anyway, there's a site event where the valley has been hit with a massive blizzard.

Wilderfrost was taking him to meet this pack where he was excited to possibly learn more about religion. He's heard of a god named Raven that he's been trying to understand, maybe see if it will cure his mental issues. That's when the bad weather hit. They duck into the cave where the pack is holed up and Azriel immediately feels like he shouldn't be there. His subconcious incorrectly reminding him he was kicked out of a pack and doesnt belong near one- when he is completely welcome in this location.

Poor boy is so tied in knots over everything, he's had no time to process what happened with him upon meeting Odile (the wounded girl), before finding himself in a new social situation. --I think somehow, my own off-mood has mixed with Azriel's grief and now I'm in a funk....or maybe I'm just hungry. And it would help if I put on some happier music.

Tuesday Ease 🌸

Every day starts with coffee, my journal, and a TO Do list. Tuesdays are usually the days when my work week really kicks off, starting with an 8am meeting and followed by any related tasks. On top of that, I've been gathering Continuing Education credits for my Security+ certification. So thsoe count as work tasks. Then, there's normally some housework related tasks to accomplish.

Yesterday was a lot of work and administrative work for personal stuff. Important adulting work that has to be done...parking passes, HSA stuff, work, housework. Blah- like I said, Admin stuff. Today was less that, more- here's an early meeing, here's some tasks, lock in some CE credits, get groceries, do dishes and laundry.And?

I am happy to report that I finished all of that! Work is done early today, I finished a Cisco course that earned me 6 credits, I turned in the stuff I need for another 7 credits, and sent a reminder for another thing that'll get me 9 credits. All that being done and I'll be able to get all my remaining credits turned in and have my Sec+ ready to go for another 3 years! Woo! We're on track to renew by October!

With that done, I also got groceries ordered and put away, wrote up some RP posts for Horizon, I get to update my blog. I might make some tea and do some journaling next. -Actually, time for some archaic laundry, drying clothes in the sun like the olden days haha- off I go~

Monday stress... 🌸

Gods above and below, where do I begin? Since my last blog post, I've had an amazing time with D as we celebrated our anniversary. A magical four days of music, games, rock climbing, passion and we topped it all off with a fancy meal. It was a dream and I miss him already.

Yesterday was spent catching up on Baldur's Gate 3. I was able to redo everything I did with the druid character I made before and finished Act 1 with a much higher Astarion approval! I also found a whole part of the map I had originally missed on the last playthrough so I did that. And now I'm back in the Underdark, ready to start exploring. -Gotta accept that I won't get to play as frequently as I hoped, but I'm relieved that I'm at least where I wanted to be last weekend. Better off even for having found the rest of the map!

Also yesterday, the ball jointed doll, Xana, arrived! I wasn't expecting her until the 17th! So I immediately dressed her up and set her in the dioramma with the guys. Can't wait till I have time to dress her up again in one of the other outfits I got for her, but that's gotta wait.-And, as an extra treat, I got to play some DnD with T and L last night after they got back from shopping for my birthday!! I was so happy!

If you saw the home page, you'll know today was wild. I meant to log into work today, complete a few work tasks, do some misc. administrative work, finish off with fun such as this blog and my rp posts, then step back into the real work and do some housework...well, fate had plans to complicate that.

Someday, I need to get a diagnosis for an anxiety disorder and a way to manage it, because when I tried to renew our parking passes- so we are allowed to park in our own apartment lot-there was a limit to one pass per person, when previously I had passes for both cars on my account. Customer service said I just needed to follow a few steps and I could renew. Instead, it led to me deleting L's pass by mistake and being completely barred from adding a second pass. This put their car in immediate danger of being towed. So, in full panic, shaking, crying, flipping out as if an axe murder had his weapon in my guts already-told L what happened. And? They simply bought their own parking pass. Problem solved.

It took time to come down from the panic spiral. -That's the thing about disorders. I know when my nervous system is overreacting but I can't stop how intense it feels. This wasn't as bad as the one I had over the Vetco experience, at least this time I wasn't hysterically screaming and hyperventalating....You don't understand. when the panic flares my body thinks it's very literally in severe, immenent danger and there's no reasoning myself down from that until the "threat" passes... it's exhausting.

Anyway, with the car passes secured, I finished my other admin work and started playing with the blog. Only to be further frustrated and upset going round and round with making just a simple toggle button for viewing affilites. Once I got that working, I needed a break- so I'm blogging. I still need to add the hearts toggle to all the other pages. And I had the idea for setting up a notification ping to show when there's a new blog post. Bust first, I have RP posts to write, a meeting to attend and a house to clean. Maybe later this week...

Trust, Control, and Immersive Roleplay 🌸

Forum-based roleplay is something I find extremely fun, and while I'm a veteran of this genre of game, I wanted to talk about how this rp I recently joined, Horizon, does some things differently. While I had some anxiety about several of its new-to-me rules, I was able to shrug off the discomfort in favor of having a fantastic time, and yet I have also watched a few players become so upset by them that they condemned the site and left permanently.

After carefully reading their grievances, I began to wonder whether the real conflict was the rules and the community, but more relistically about control. Horizon asks players to surrender a degree of control over their characters and stories in exchange for uncertainty, immersion, and organic collaborative storytelling. For some players, that trade is exciting. For others, it may be way too uncomfortable to actually enjoy.

First, let me explain what Horizon is and how it differs from the forum roleplaying games some players may be accustomed to. Horizon is a semi-realistic wolf roleplaying game set in the wilderness of the nineteenth-century North American West. Players create original wolf characters from a variety of approved subspecies. Those characters can explore the land, meet one another, play, hunt, form bonds, have pups, join packs, learn skills, and much more.

The setting allows a limited degree of unreality. Wolves may act as healers, for example, using herbs rather than magic to care for wounds. They are also permitted to have human-like thoughts, emotions, and opinions about the world around them. These allowances help create a rich roleplaying experience without abandoning the game’s semi-realistic foundation.

Horizon also includes systems I had never encountered in forum-based roleplay before. Characters can earn Skill Points, or SP, by completing threads and accomplishing certain things during play. Those points can contribute to statistics such as Strength, Knowledge, and Experience. I find this a genuinely fun addition because it gives long-term play a sense of progression- the site even has an aging system for characters!

Horizon also handles character acceptance differently from the forums I am used to. Traditionally, a player joins a forum, writes a complete character profile, and waits for staff approval before beginning to play. On Horizon, new players instead complete a simple form and provide a writing sample. Individual characters do not require staff approval nor do they need be fully fleshed out before entering the game.

I will admit that I was not accustomed to beginning play without first fully developing and formally submitting a character. Still, that was not the rule that made me most nervous...

The rules that initially concerned me were the restrictions against out-of-character plotting, the possibility of character discrimination, mistreatment, abuse, or even death without the player’s prior permission, and the use of dice to determine certain outcomes rather than leaving every result entirely to narrative choice- though the last is more lenient.

No out-of-character plotting means that players cannot arrange the outcome of a storyline in advance. They must enter the game, respond to what happens, and allow the story to develop organically. I am still not entirely sure how far this restriction extends. A player may presumably have hopes or private aspirations for a character, but they cannot coordinate every stage of that character’s arc with other writers beforehand.

This creates a style of play in which each moment feels immediate and improvised. It resembles the theatrical principle of “yes, and...” Players accept what has already happened and build upon it rather than steering the story toward a predetermined destination. That can be wonderfully immersive. It can also be unsettling.

Players cannot guarantee that a relationship will develop as expected, that a personal goal will be accomplished, or that another character will respond in the hoped-for way. Anyone who enters Horizon must be willing to pursue a story without knowing exactly what story they will ultimately receive.

The possibility of character death raises the stakes further. I initially hated the idea that another player might be able to approach my character and kill them without first obtaining my permission. However, both this rule and the restriction against plotting support the “realistic” portion of semi-realistic wolf roleplay. In life, we cannot plan every meeting, conflict, or consequence. We can take precautions and make choices, but we cannot completely control what happens around us.

In that sense, Horizon reminds me of tabletop roleplaying games such as Dungeons and Dragons. Players make choices, but they do not determine every outcome. Success and failure depend partly upon improvisation, chance, and the actions of other participants. Sometimes you simply have to hope that you do not fall to zero hit points-or that, if you do, you succeed on your death saves.

Dice can play a similar role on Horizon. They may determine, for example, whether a hunt succeeds. This removes some narrative control from the player, but it also prevents success from becoming automatic. The character must live with the result, and the player must decide how to turn that result into a story- which adds a fantastic element to how the game is experienced.

This led me to ask an important question: what prevents someone from joining Horizon and deliberately making the experience miserable for everyone else? If players cannot plan ahead, if another character can threaten, harm or even kill yours as they please, and you get no say, and if chance can ruin an attempted goal, what keeps the experience from becoming unfair or even downright hostile?

The inital answer I recieved was advice to simply take a break from the game if it got that bad- which wasn't the answer I wanted. It sounded like Horizon as saying they were allowed to harm and destroy your character in every way and you'd just have to be okay with that. That a completely hostile game experience was totally fine and a miserable story complete with unwanted abuse and murder that that crossed the line from not only an unwanted story, but extrended into player heartbreak and was expected, fine, and a normal part of play. Which would understandably cause intense anger from players who absolutely do not agree with that. But before fully making that conclusion, I dug a bit deeper and found that wasn't the case at all, the real answer is...well, trust.

In a tabletop game, one might call this “trusting the table.” On Horizon, players must trust the community. Each participant agrees to conduct themselves according to the rules and to approach the game with the shared goal of creating an engaging story. The purpose is not to sabotage someone else’s enjoyment. No one wants to lose a beloved character, and players must trust one another to understand that actions carrying serious consequences should serve the story rather than personal malice.If a character chooses to fight another, there's a real possibility of harm or death, just as in reality, the result can't be pre-scripted. I must trust that other players will not intentionally ruin my experience, just as they must trust me not to ruin theirs.

Trust does not mean that nobody will ever be disappointed. A hunt may fail. A friendship may collapse. A character may be injured, rejected, defeated, or even killed. The experience may take a direction the player never would have chosen in advance. Trust means believing that these developments arise from sincere play rather than an attempt to target, humiliate, or punish another writer. If something does cross that line, communication remains available, and players can speak to staff about conduct that feels malicious, unfair, or deliberately destructive.

I should note here that the advice to "Step away" if the game got too intense was coming from the idea that all particpants are mature adults who can talk about a situation. The advice was sent in good faith, and based on the idea that we were not talking about a character who was being mistreated so severely and so against the players wishes that the player was becoming hurt and feeling like Horizon was out to get them. Instead, from the more compassionate perspective that unhappy results are bound to happen, a story can take a sad turn and sometimes players have to take a break. -I am still hoping I don't get my feelings hurt by an unwanted character death, but we'll have to see.

This brings me to a broader question: what makes roleplay immersive? What draws a player deeply into a fictional world and makes the experience feel alive? One person might say it is the quality of the writing. Another might point to costumes and physical environments, as in live-action roleplay. Someone else may find immersion in carefully plotting an elaborate storyline down to its smallest detail. Horizon offers another answer: unpredictability.

Its world feels alive partly because it does not always bend to the player’s intentions. Other characters have their own desires. Risks can fail. Danger can have consequences. Stories emerge from the collision of multiple people’s choices rather than from a script agreed upon beforehand.

That style of play requires a particular willingness. A player must be able to care deeply about a character while accepting that the character’s future is not entirely theirs to command.

To conclude, Horizon is a friendly, active, and imaginative community of writers, artists, and storytellers. I am happy to count myself among them, and I am learning to take a few risks of my own. At the same time, I understand why its rules do not appeal to everyone. Horizon asks players to trust others not to misuse the freedom they are given. It also asks them to accept that undesirable events can occur even when nobody has acted maliciously.

That combination, trusting the community while surrendering some control over the story, may simply be incompatible with players who prefer carefully plotted character arcs, firm consent over major developments, or greater certainty about where their stories are heading.

That does not make those players bad roleplayers, nor does it make Horizon a bad game. It means they are seeking different forms of collaborative storytelling. Horizon will not suit players who want to create poor experiences for others. It may also be uncomfortable for players who do not enjoy uncertainty or who cannot feel safe without greater control over major character outcomes.

For me, however, the uncertainty is becoming part of the appeal. I wanted to reflect on why some players may dislike the way Horizon is run—and why those same qualities can make the game so immersive, engaging, and fun for those who embrace them. Feel free to check it out for yourself! The link is in the home page sidebar.

I wanna play more though... 🌸

So I spent all weekend playing BG3. I've never made it past the goblin camp, and never attempted to romance Astarion before. But for two glorious days I locked in and played hard. I got frustrated a great many times and had to fight my way through, reloading a million times and FIGHTING for every scrap of Astarion affection I could.But I beat Act I.

I tried to maek a self instert, so I made a druid wood elf. Gentle and good. And let me say, my gentle wood elf, and my natural way of roleplaying her was a terrible fot for Astarion. Despite taking two days to beat all of Act I, for the first time mind you- and only just starting the underdark portion to get to Act II...I chose to start over.

My go-to class in any rpg is a rouge, and going with anything else is fun, but ultimately a lerning curve. And I started imagining a rogue, immediately I know who she is, where she was born, how she was kidnapped onto the Nautiloid. And with her, I will have an easier time roleplaying the snark and zest needed to be compatible with Astarion. With the druid, having her act tough or intimidating was so out of character, but Astarion likes it. The rouge will act like that more naturally.

So I resolved to start over. While I could re-spec my druid and not lose her progress...I wanted to change her name, background, totally start over. So I skipped breakfast to jump on the game while L was still in bed. At lighening speed, I rushed through the prologue and started Act I. Snatched up Astarion and Shadowheart and Gale (yuck- gonna swap him for Lae'zel, then Karlach as soon as I can). And started the dungeon crawl over on the right side of the map. Temple of Jergal i think? Hoping to grab all the XP.

The idea was to skip all the cutscenes and speed run to beat Act I again. In what took me two days before, I wanted to try to do in 6 hours or less. Since I know what to do where to go, and how to do a lot. I was gonna rush...but...fate said otherwise.

With L being off today, they use that computer to draw on their days off. And compared to me, get significantly less downtime for leisure. And less time with the computer. So, benevolent as I am, I chose to relinquish the gaming PC for their wiles. I promised Horizon posts today anyway and always enjoy updating my blog. If I were playing BG3, I wouldn't do either one today. Besides, if work allows, I've got time to play tomorrow. The gaming PC is a shared thing, I can afford to wait to use it until they are at work.

In the meantime, I can use my laptop for RP, blogging and youtube. And hey, maybe I can game a little bit later. Set a timer or something so I don't get carried away. But if not, BG3 isn't going anywhere, Astarion isn't going anywhere. I'm just really excited to redo the game with this new girl. Allura, the high elf rouge. Orphaned to the streets after her noble family was killed by ruffians, she became an urchin. The nobility of her blood being lost to the grime on her face, the name of her Father's house, lost to time. But it wasn't all bad, when she made it to Baldur's gate, life as a thief became much easier. She could steal all she needed.

While she understands the need for grit, strength dog-eat-dog antics, she's also good hearted, knows right from wrong, and only does wrong to do right, if that makes sense. So heart of gold, trustworthy, loyal, spunky, but tough and witty. With a mouth that can get her in trouble...and catch the eye of a fellow rogue elf...

You see what I mean? I love her, she's gonna be besties with all the BG3 girls in camp, and totally fall for Astarion, and he fall for her more naturally than the gentle do-gooder druid.

Alas, it all must wait. There's a chance work will be very busy tomorrow and I won't get the chance to play until Wednesday. And D has half the week free, starting Wednesday to see me, so I'm excited to go see him- but maybe I can get some gaming in before I go! Again, setting a timer would be imperative to keeping that anywhere near manageable haha. 6 hours of play, starting as soon as I get up maybe? heh.... If I can just get back where I was, I'd be satisfied to stop for a few days.

I might think I wasted my weekend getting so far for the first time only to start over. But I learned a lot about the game and how to romance Astarion that I'm going to be starting with a better arsenal of knowledge, it wasn't a waste at all. I learned enough that I can blaze though and catch up in no time! Until then, dear Astarion- wait for me...

Whistful sigh

Adventure Awaits! 🌸

I write today's blog while waiting for Baldur's Gate 3 to finish installing on my computer. L Will be out of the house all day for work, and will be spending the night with our boyfriend T. I Got all the house chores done yesterday, so I'm free to play as I wish today. So I'm happy to give this another shot. I've never gotten past the goblin encampment, always getting the whole place aggro so I can't escape without fying. Getting myself totally locked in an unbeatable fight out. Not this time.

I've made characters to romance both Shadowheart and Karlach in the past, but I have decided that Shadowheart is too edgelord for my taste, even if you can save her from the cult later. And I Karlach doesn't have a happy enough ending for the Gith character I wanted to romance her with. That leaves Astarion. I initally found him pretencious. Too flambouyant and annoying, and that's coming from one who is a flambouyant gay myself. But I'll cut the poor man a break.

I usually make a character that's a tiefling or a gith, when my default is typically high elves. I think I may play a wood elf this time, and she will be my first. And AS close as I am to being a druid in real life, with my witchcraft and druidic ancestry dating back to 499AD in Tethbae Ireland, I always opt to be a wizard instead. Not this time, a wood elf druid who looks something like me will be the idea. And I'll have her romance the dear Astarion.

Wish me luck! Let's hope I don't get trapped int he goblin cave again. Maybe I can even beat act 1. I've never done that before, and playing all day should surely give me enough time to do that right...right?

Playtime! 🌸

Well, today's a day where I draw the line for myself. See, all this web stuff has been done in the effort to take a break from modern social media. Get back to an older time. Not while away the hours doom scrooling. But, I told myself it would be silly to try and go completely back in time and eliminate modern media all together. So I didn't delete tiktok, but rather tried to teach myself to enjoy in moderation. Like a mental count of 3 videos, then close the app. But the motivation to read, post, code, anything- kinda dried up for a couple of days, and whenever I had down time to engage in something...I laid down to scroll.

As an aside, I had a great time with T the night before last. He's really like a love interst from some kind of fantasy romance novel. He's beautiful! Standing there like Adonis in the flesh! I still sometimes can't believe he's in love with me.

And yesterday, I went shopping and spent a questionable amount on doll stuff for the arrival of my new BJD, Xana. I got her a travel kit of like a suitcase, boarding pass, ipod, cosmetics, travel pillow, and also some purses and makup complete with a vanaty set! I could do a whole scene where she "moves in" by putting her stuff in the vanity and "unpacks." That would be really fun.

Today I put together a playlist of old TV shows and movies complete with commercials from the 90s to the 2000s. First a 2 hour block of Disney channel, then some commercials, an episode of Baby Sitter's club from the 90s, more commercials, clips from Full House, commercials. Movies like Teen Witch and Drive Me Crazy, and even an old Toonami block! I'm gonna let it play in the background today while I blog and clean.

L was feeling sick, sad and tired yesterday, so I got them some gifts and helped cheer them up. So they got a good night's rest and woke up bright eyed and chipper today. The mood of a partner being up or down often can't be helped by a loving partner, sometimes, sad days are just sad days. You can be loving and supportive, but that won't always chase the rainclouds away, but it is a really good feeling when you can.

In between all the posting and old tv and house cleaning, I wanted to squeeze in some time for self care. A little yoga today, a shower later-gotta wash my hair. I'm washing my bedding right now- smells like dog -gross. Ugh. That's the thing, whenever I have animals, I fantasize about not having any, and when I have none, all I do is dream about wanting some. But the every day nasty that comes with living with animals...wish I could have my animals and also opt-out of that part. Remind me next time I find myself without pets that a tamogatchi would be less stinky and expensive. lol Don't get me wrong I love my animals, just not the chores that come with them.

On that note, laundry needs swapped and I gotta get started cleaning the house. Off I go!

Bouncing Back! 🌸

I don't want to spend too much time writing today, but happy to report that I'm feeling better! Not all sad anymore. Instead, I'm obsessed with Ball Jointed Dolls, not as invested as hardcore collectors, but I have a couple- literally, just two, and they're both boys. I've always wanted a girl, and I found one! Her name is Xana, and she's a re-cast, which is taboo filth if you ask anyone who's serious about BJDs, but I could care less. She's a beautiful birthday present to myself.

In the spirit of fun, I got her some clothes, and I'm very inspired to set up my diarama for them again, there's room. I had a whole little living room set for them, I'd love for Xana to come "home" to a couch and sit down. I gotta do a post for Horizon, but I really wanna be done here are go set up the diarama instead. Even though Xana won't be here for a month haha.

I used to create photo-comics of the dolls where a series of photos taken of the dolls in various poses would be used to tell a short story, and i'd edit it little speech bubbles. Maybe I'll start that up again and post the pictures here!

I was also thinking of replacing the current 2007 pixel dolls for my poly-web with piccrew images...if I can find a good one lol.

Sad days happen 🌸

I had an amazing weekend. Spent time with D. He took me shopping. I got to splurge on an expensive romper, it was so ridiculously cute, I had to have it. I got an expensive athletic jacket I've been wanting for a while too. I could have kept shopping there for hours. Shopping makes me so happy. But, downtime with him makes me happy too, so eventually, we found our way back. Lounging in his loft with video games on the screen, savoring the company.

When the time came for me to go home, I was a bit sorry to leave. I always am. And soon it was Sunday, RenFaire. I think the sadness began Saturday night, as suddenly, I found myself not wanting to go. In the end, I did go. L and I got there early, and I was in costume as a faerie. We walked, we shopped, we explored, and by the time D arrived with K and friends, L wanted to go. And sadly, so did I...It was lovely to get to see him, but I was sorry to go again.

To make Sunday even better, T came over after we got back, and played DnD with L and I, and I wanted pretty badly to go back with him to his place after- but we knew it would have been irresponsible. So I stayed home, feeling very loved and in love- but sad, as I fell asleep.

So this morning found me melancholy. I wrote in my journal, planned my day. I don't have much reason to feel down, maybe it's partner withdraw? Maybe it's a crash after having such a full weekend, I'm not sure. I could say I'm in good spirits over all I'm happy to be home and working on this blog, making my site pretty, posting on Horizon. Work isn't demanding the world of me today either. It's very calm, and there's good music and snacks.

One thing I've learned over the years is that sometimes ya just wake up and feel bummed, even if nothing is really wrong. And that's okay, those are the best days to take care of yourself, show yourself all the love you can. So I'm taking it easy. My knee is aggrivated after so mcuh walking, so I'm resting it. Indulging in cherries as a snack, and coding to my heart's content. If I'm sad, then like my own best friend, I can make myself as comfortable as possible until it passes. ♡

Healing, kindnes and anger. 🌸

I wanted to write something a little different today. Rather than ramble about the general goings-on of my life. Today, I wanted to write more like a think-piece about human behavior. Specifically an observation about how mean people are when talking about advocating for accessibility.

First, the anger. Anger is a normal human emotion. Feeling angry alone isn't an accurate indicator if someone is a bad person, or a good person. You could be genuinely a good person, and still get mad sometimes. The line between being good and being evil isn't anger, it's what that anger is used to do. If anger harms ones self or others, that's probably not a good thing most of the time.

Next, I think when it comes to people advocating for disability, the anger is usually coming from a place of hurt. People with disabilities are often treated unfairly both on an individual level and as a collective. And the anger felt there is real and well deserved. As is true for most marginalized groups.

But, let us think. If a genuinely good person wants to open a coffee shop, and another genuinely good person is a wheelchair user. And say that wheelchair user begins to harass, bully, slander and otherwise cause intentional harm to the coffee shop owner over accessibility- how does that look?

Many people on the internet don't have a good understanding of nuance. I have a theory as to why, but that's for another article. Fow now, let's say everyone likes to imagine a scenario in which all the variables are not known, they take what is known and go to the extreme. In the above scenario, you could take either side, and assume things about the other. "The coffee shop owner is ableist!"- Does the information given state that?- No, we know the person is "genuinely goo" and wants to open a shop. We don't know if accessibility is a priority, but we also don't know if it isn't.

We also know the disabled person is "genuinely good" but is being terrible, words like "harrassment" were used. The coffee shop owner doesn't even have a coffee shop yet! So why is the disabled person being so mean?- It's not necessarily meanness. It's misdirected anger. The anger is at the lack of accessibility in our society and it's being fired off on one coffee shop owner who has not yet indicated how they intend to built their shop.

In this coffee shop scenario, I watched things go from bad to worse when a pleasant suggestion like "Ooh! Don't foget to make it accessible! I use a wheelchair and would be sad if I couldn't visit your shop!"- A friendly, and helpful reminder, quickly devolved into a dogpile of comments with the general opinion of, "This coffee shop should be made only for disabled people. Make it only with disabled people in mind and only for the use of wheelchair and cane users. If you don't, you're evil!!"

They pushed it across the line from a coffee shop for all, into a coffee shop just for them. You could apply this to any marginalized group, is it a coffee shop for everyone? Or a coffee shop just for people of a certain race, sexuality, or gender? There is a difference. There's nothing wrong with being passionate about accessibility. It's important to advocate for it. But that's just it. Advocate. Not harass, bully and slander it into being.

Which brings me to something else I saw recently. A person was talking about their website. For every accessible feature they described, each one was paired with a nasty little stab at anyone who wasn't doign things the same way. Rather than say "This website is mobile friendly!" Which is informative and fine on it's own, they had to add, "Because any website that isn't mobile friendly is ableist and evil!"- And in another example, instead of "This website doesn't auto-play music," they had to add- "auto-playing music is evil because it hinders screen readers!"- I am prarphrasing. But why couldn't the intro simply describe website features without having to fire a shot at every other website?

It comes back to that anger. So let's talk about kindness and healing. One can be angry and kind, one can be angry and advocate for change. One can be angry and still a good person who doesn't harm other people, verbally or otherwise. I practice this every day in professional meetings at work, I can be absolutely fuming and still be kind and professional, while also allowing that anger to be processed in a safe and healthy way. Learning how to deal with anger in a healthy way is a ral skill that takes time to master, and I'll admit I'm not perfect with it either. The point is, personal growth. lLearning the right way to care for yourself, be angry, advocate for change, while also not being a holy terror yourself.

Think about it, is the coffee shop owner more or less likely to want to include accessibility in their coffee shop design, if the people asking for it are all acting like angry entitled jerks, calling them names and practically throwing bricks through the window before it's even built? Or if they seem like nice people who just want some coffee like everyone else? Now, granted, this is customer service. It's likely any customer of any kind will be up for throwing names and bricks. Still, it's the catching flies with honey, not vineager scenario.

So where does healng come in? It's very personal, and it takes work. Therapy was a big part of it for me, but I'm also a meta-thinker. I like to question why I think the way I think, and puzzle out what is wrong or right about that way of thinking. I measure action against thought and feeling to try and see if I'm doing things "right."- Being right or wrong is often subjective. So I set a personal standard of goodness that I try to uphold. Kindness, goodness, compassion, empathy. I try to offer each of these most of the time. But I also know where to withold those, and be mindful of when and how I show these. I have boundaries too.

In general, everyone gets kindness, compassion, and empathy from me. But some people get that revoked. And if we apply this to the coffee shop, I can care about th coffee shop owner who has a dream, and the wheelchair user who wants to see that dream up close. I can empathize with the wheelchair user's disappointment at possibly not getting to visit the new coffee shop, and the deep hurt that would cause. But I don't think it justifies the meannness.

In the case of the website, I can understand wanting to let everyone know your website is accessible. But it came with the unessessary vitrol, which lets everyone know you have an accessible website, but also that you're extremely hateful and angry.

So, anger? A valid emotion. Kindness? A learned skill. Healing? A necessary part of personal mental health. I don't see this anger going away until there is more accessibility. If accessibility were part of every day life, everywhere. If it was normal and a given, not something we needed to advocate for, then we wouldn't be angry. And coffee shop owners wouldn't be harassed before they laid the first brick down. Website owners wouldn't be screeching fire and brimstone at sites with different set ups. In the mean time, all we can do is let our anger advocate for change without hurting others and putting them down. In general of course, some people really are intentionally ableist, and that's not okay, but usually, we're all just good people trying to chase a dream.

I'll leave you with this. If you heal the hurt inside, you find that anger is hiding another emotion, hurt, sadness, a need for love or understanding. The goal is community, a better world for all of us. And I'd like to think a better world is made with kindness, inner healing, and healthy anger expressed in ways that build up something new, not break down good people. Let the anger make you advocate for change, not hurt people who don't deserve it.

Thanks for reading.

A long day comes to an end. 🌙

Work continues with it's shenanigans. Asking me to be the pitcher, the catcher, The person up to bat, and the referee all at once. But I'm awesome, so the best I can do is meticulouslly cross reference spreadsheet against spreadsheet, evidence against evidence and grab this project by the horns. I haven't said yet on this blog, but maybe I'll make the about me section have a little card with what I do. I'm a project manager, and getting things done step by step is my whole thing. It's an enourmous workload though.

I was good today though, I followed all my pomodoro breaks! My shoulders still hurt though. I really still did too much, and I didn't even finish. There's more to do tomorrow. Though I dunno how much I will get done.- After all, I have a partner to see!!

Plans were updated, I get to stay the night!! I'm so excited! And after the hard work I put in today, a happy start to the wekend was very well earned. Just gotta make it through two meetings in the morning, and then I'm off!! I might bring my laptop to his place to finish work- but don't worry. I'll either finish all my work and close the laptop early, or I'll close the laptop at 5. You won't catch me working over! I might work all day with no breaks, but I stop at 5 no matter what!

Dunno how much more site-work I'll get done, this weekend. I've got a boyfriend to kiss and an Renfaire to go to on Sunday. Fare thee well until then!!

OUCH!!! 🌸

(｡•́︿•̀｡)Well..turns out locking in for 8 hours for work with no breaks was a bad idea. I woke up this morning with intense pain! It was hard to sit, stand, move, turn, walk...I did myself in. So I took a hot bath, that helped a lot.

But work waits for no man, so there's more to do today...this time I'm going to listen to the pomodoro timer, and when it's time for a break-I'll take a freaking break! It's really not that hard to find my place again after stopping. So I'll do it. Today I took extra steps to take care of myself.

Every day, I do my makeup. It's an important part of helping me feel ready to face the day. So after my bath, I did that. I also didn't have any water yesterday, so as of the time of this blog post- I'm on glass number 4, be proud of me! Heh.I had breakfast too, a banana, yogurt, granola.

My Nesting Partner made yummy meals all last week, but it was time to but groceries again for this week. Given my workload and my pain flare today, I went ahead and ordered groceries through my phone. Thank goodness for some modern tech. I also took care of this chore I needed to do yesterday. I renewed my lease but got an automated email telling me I needed to buy a renter's insurance policy...when I already have one and I alrady gave it to the office. ( ╥ω╥ ) So I left a message, I want the office to confirm I don't have to do anything with that.

I haven't had lunch yet, I paused to write this blog entry first. I could be working right now...but if I'm gonna be stuck at the computer all day, I may as well take a moment for a little fun!

Speaking of fun, my hair is naturally pretty curly, and lately it's been so damaged that the curls just frizz out so horribly. But I got a haircut over the weekend, then did a hair mask on Monday. I just washed it normally today for the first time and it curled up beautifully! My hair is falling in ringlets without me having to even style it!- Happy hair means happy Rin!

On the trend of Good Things (tm), I also have Friday to look forward too. I get to see my other partner, We'll just call him D. -He's so beautiful, long hair to his tailbone, and those gorgeous half-korean genes of his make him the prettiest guy you've ever seen! I can't wait to see him. My favorite things to do with him are cuddle and watch YouTube, though I also like cuddling and watching him game.

I don't get to see him as often as two other partners I have. He's got his own nesting partner he lives with, and a very demanding job. His nesting partner likes to hang out with me too, but there's not much time for intimacy with a third person around. Without explaining the entire dynamic, let's just say group sex is usually not a wanted option for me. So just...no.

Anyway,maybe I'll explain the polycule on the About me page and update the dictionary with what Nesting Partner is. Then fold laundry, then set up the pomodoro and get back to work. I have a list cut out for me- oh, and I gotta eat lunch too. I got this! ദ്ദി◝ ⩊ ◜.ᐟ

Tuesday- My Monday 🌸

(─‿─) I start each day with candle light and writing in my Journal. Today was no different. But gods above and below, bright and early at 8am I attended a meeting at work that was a bit frustrating. It seems that nobody had a brain that operates outside of the meeting. So the meetings seem to be filled with a maddening game of catch up. Most of the meeting is spent figuring out whats going on. (ᗒᗣᗕ)՞

I guess that's a good reason to have the meeting. So everyone can figure out what the heck, but it would be nice if the meetings were spent making progress toward the goal, actively, instead of buzzing around in place going "wait, huh?" ೭੧(❛〜❛✿)੭೨

(´◕ ᵔ ◕`✿) I'm still thinking of all the cool stuff I can do with this blog I think a custom library showing what I'm reading/have read. Maybe a Roleplay log of what forums I'm playing on, and my characters- who they are, what they're doing.

I added a chat box, but I might move it to it's own page. So it's not as accessible. I also might make a splash/Intro page that doesn't just take us right into the site the way it is now. What I'm worried about is this being like typical social media where people can be cruel and hateful, "cancel" people. I don't want that. But if I don't allow any interaction, then I'm talking into a void, I'd like community but that's just it...Community. Obviously, I don't want people who aren't friendly being here at all. It's scary getting involved in here. (つ﹏⊂)

Perhaps it'll be less scary once I learn the culture of neocities pages. If I have control over building my own community, then there's a lot less to fear, rather than dropping into the pool with everyone as-is. So I've got to protect myself as I establish this space. But the real world calls too. We'll see how it unfolds.

I was thinking of looking around to link some affiliates. Maybe the RP sites I'm on. -I also used to run a small business doing reiki and tarot. I could add parts of this site to describe that, though I'm not sure about offering services anymore. It would be fun to at least talk about it. And Move the "About me" to it's own page too.

Sadly, it looks like work is shaping up to have a list for me today. So I might not get to do anything more on this site than this blog entry today. Feeling overwhelmed. Anxiety high, there's a lot to do. At least I'm earning this paycheck. I need to call my apartment's main office too- take care of clerical stuff. Sigh. I'm stressed out. But there's the thing..I dont have to be. So...deep breaths, get some breakfast, a cup of coffee. Everything's gonna be okay...Reeee!

(˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ )

Welcome to My Blog! 🌸

This is my very first blog entry! I am currently learning how to build my own website and slowly making this little corner of the internet feel like home.

I plan to write about roleplay, books, creativity, daily life, nostalgia, and whatever else happens to be living in my head.