Rambling

Thought Stream

Wed, May 20, 2026 - 15:55

This flea situation is driving me crazy. Can I please have my life back. Can I please move out and live by myself or with people who actually care about insect infestations. No, of course.

Mon, May 11, 2026 - 15:53

I'm my own person
I'm my own person
I'm my own person
I'm my own person
I'm my own person
I'm my own person
I'm my own person
I'm my own person
I'm my own person
I'm my own person
I'm my own person
I'm my own person

I don't owe anyone anything
besides basic human decency.
I have limits
I can call it quits when I want
I don't have to give anyone access
and I don't have to let them live in my brain, either

Even if it's a kneejerk, trained reaction at this point.
That's a thought, and I can let it go.
I wish it would leave me faster,
but sometimes there's just no replacement than gentle acceptance
spanning over months, then
unraveling into years.

I will be free. Maybe not today, but it is in the process of happening,
and I will not stop it.

Sat, May 2, 2026 β€” 15:05

I'MMM SOOOOO FUCKING TIREDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd

help

Wednesday, April 29, 2026 - 10:57

Just thinking about how I have friends I care deeply about that have different politics than me.

Like one of them I can tell is still into carceral logics of locking up people who do harmful things, even though they know that it disproportionately affects Black people. There seems to be this idea of "if they get the right violent people, then it's ok in those cases."

Another is very clearly along the lines of trans radfem, which basically treats trans men like cis men in terms of faulting them for the patriarchy and then implying that this is gender-affirming somehow. This friend is the type to boost messages like "I hate trans men" and "all men should die" as long as the poster isn't a cis man. Recently, they boosted a news report of a cis woman arrested for killing a cis man in what seemed to be a brutal way and joked that women aren't allowed to excel in men's fields. This behavior is actually counter to how this person behaves otherwise, considering that sometimes they talk about male figures they appreciate. All I can say to this is that I disagree with boosting bully behavior, regardless of the original poster's identity, and I don't really agree with these people saying/joking (but clearly half-serious) that others don't deserve rights even when it feels like retaliatory justice. I'm just personally wary of dealing with people who have a lot of trauma from societal oppressions who then basically make it a "either you agree with me on everything or you're against me and therefore against victims" thing. (This isn't my friend but the posts that I see them boost.) Like honestly, once you find yourself posting stuff like, "I'm transphobic against trans men specifically" you should probably log off. I just will never understand what people think separatism will accomplish and it always comes off like a cope to me in acting like women aren't capable of horrible things that we should also not encourage.

But anyway, I don't really know if I should or can have conversations about this with either of them. I'm pondering because like for one thing, I'm starting to doubt the efficacy of having these conversations online rather than in-person, and we don't live near. The other thing is that I feel like it's supposed to be normal to have friends that don't align with you politically? So is this me being more flexible, which is a win against my rigid personality, or me so-called shirking my duty in talking to people and trying to open their mind to new politics? I guess I don't really see the point of the latter because it seems to assume that I can change anything about another person, which I kind of don't believe at this point, and neither of these people seem to be active in any movement, so I don't know if it's just me giving them grief for something they're not actually participating in anyway.

It's one of those things where I wish we were aligned because then I'd feel more secure in myself, but I'm also avoiding confrontation. But also, I don't know whether it's my place or not or what I'm hoping to achieve. There's many other factors at play here in their everyday lives also. Social media is kind of poison. (continues to engage in it anyway)

Sunday, April 26, 2026 - 15:19

All right pet peeve as I'm sampling all of these songs: lyrics that say something along the lines of "I love you more than anyone else does," like bitch I don't care how much you think you love someone. Do you respect them? Do you do your best to not do wrong by them, to make up for your mistakes, to communicate clearly, and to respect their boundaries and autonomy? like fuuuuck off broooooooooooooo it's so self-absorbed to be like "I feel this thing so hard no one else will EVER feel like I do

  1. You don't know that
  2. We can't measure that
  3. I don't care about how "deeply" you feel I care about whether you're actually engaging in a healthy relationship

The only exception to this rule is when someone is just mourning and getting over them by the end of the song. This is why Khalid's "Coaster" outsells. "Keep Me" is also pretty good because it's accepting the loss and just hoping for a memory. The one thing I just cannot stand is entitlement by centering one's feelings over the other person's autonomy.

Monday, April 20, 2026 - 13:26

Okay I went on a walk and thought about it and I'm just falling into the trap of thinking I can fix people or encourage people to change again when in reality that's not true for 90% of the people you ever talk to. Naturally, it's more annoying when it's someone I talk to on a daily basis, but this is just another one of those, "They need to hear this from someone else, I'm the wrong person for the job," type of things.

I just need to remember that there's limits to what I can do and other people may or may not listen. I am the wrong person for what other people need, frequently! The quicker I realize this the faster I can give up trying. I think I should just play the very sympathetic "I'm worried about you and that sucks" angle with my sister and accept that she probably won't change in the next year. Even if there was something I could conceivably do to speed this up, if it's evidently bothering me this much then it's not worth the cost. It's not even like she asked for it, anyway, so she wouldn't be grateful to me neither. Not my circus... I'll play my role because we live together and just try not to expend any extra emotional energy.

Monday, April 20, 2026 - 12:31

It's kind of frustrating talking to my sister where she goes on and on about how she needs to quit her abusive job, and then when asked why she won't, she tells me that she has a lot of reasons like the job market is bad right now, etc., but she knows that's all excuses. And then when I ask excuses for what, she's just like, "I'm bad at quitting things, and I always have been." and when I try to get her to think about that, because that is literally not the core of the problem if it's coming from somewhere, she just insists that she knows herself and that I'm just saying stuff she already knows. Yet she won't actually take any steps to change?

I don't know how to tell her that her true reason for not quitting is almost certainly tied up in some kind of shame-based thing that she's just doing her best not to acknowledge at all. At this point, it's either shame-based or some weird rules-based thing, but she's literally not me and not the one with OCPD so I doubt it's the latter. I wish she would just get her ass to therapy and admit that she does have trauma from our parents rather than just trying to act like she knows everything and knows her own problems. I know she prides herself on being the functionable one out of us two but like come ooooon. I also knew myself really well before going into therapy and there was still stuff that was dug up out of nowhere (AKA places I had purposefully buried really deep).

It's just frustrating to talk to people who don't want to do actually dig to the deepest part and admit that they're trying to cover up for some kind of vulnerability they feel. Half the time, the people I talk to that are like this literally have alexithymia, and I can't really do much for them because they have to go sit with a therapist and tease this out hours at a time in an environment where they can't just distract themselves with whatever while I'm trying to take them through it; and the other half of the time it's people like my sister or my dad who insist they know everything already and can't possibly be helped, yet continue to doggedly do the things that make them upset. I know I can't tell people to stop complaining if they're not going to do anything given who I am of all people, but there's truly a unique frustration in wanting to help someone who only half-heartedly wants to be helped and won't take the step themself for like another few years at best, or in cases like my dad, never.

Bonus round: people like my mom, with emotional consistency of a fly who make dramatic shows of "accepting" everything other people are pointing out that they're doing wrong, promising that they'll change, and then like one day later turning around and coming back with all sorts of reasons why it isn't true or why actually some silver bullet will save them instead and then everything will be perfect. This is the number one type of person I cannot stand.

Sunday, April 19, 2026 β€” 18:58

having such a specific ass music taste that it took me 60 songs that seemed like they should be my style to actually find one to download

Friday, April 17, 2026 - 16:15

Having to push back my studying goals by a week to account for all of the time I lost to cleaning due to fleas and the fact that my mom and dad are going to appear soon and wreck havoc on my mental health is like L but what can I do... Idk if I'll be able to finish this course by this year at this rate but I guess there's always a few months into next year if I need it -_-

Tuesday, April 14, 2026 β€” 14:57

Things I need to come to grips with:

Wed, April 8, 2026 - 19:16

I'm probably skirting around the real issue at hand again. It honestly probably doesn't even matter either way, the only thing that really matters is whether I can be resilient in living with the outcomes of my choices, good or bad, and whether or not I can change for the better if I somehow fuck up.

But that's so much harder, man. It feels easier to just berate myself about not being able to live stoically by only posting anything I think into one solitary journal to be read by no one ever. But I mean, I'm evidently not going to live like that, so no matter how much I think that would be a better way to live (being Truly Self-Sufficient Emotionally by entertaining oneself forever and never having to give a damn about other people's thoughts and feelings about it because you just never invite it in to begin with), it's just not what I'm doing. I fundamentally want to talk about my thoughts and opinions no matter how useful or useless they are. This is the part where I'd write "Alas" and leave it be, but I need to loop back to the beginning for a Satisfying Post (^TM).

How does one become non-rejection-sensitive? I hate that the answer is basically always exposure therapy but that's literally everything ever about anxiety and overblown imagination of negative consequences. ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh well. I'm thinking about it and I will or I won't work on it. That's just everything I ever write/think nowadays. It's always "I'm feeling shame about this thing" β†’ "Feeling shame about this is useless, actually, and won't get me to improve and I will never do anything differently no matter how much shame wants me to, anyway." β†’ "Gotta try something different. Gotta not go with the shame approach. What is the not shame approach?" β†’ "To get rid of shame, one must brave the waters of other people's annoyance and/or hatred and foster an emotional resilience" β†’ "I hate that this is the answer wtf" β†’ "Well, I don't feel like doing this right this second so I'll just leave that to future me. Because being upset about not solving it right this second is also just shame in action so I will just sit. and observe. future me will do whatever the fuck ze does and we shall see."

Wed, April 8, 2026 - 19:11

I'm doing that thing again where I post a lot of random fandom-related thoughts on my Tumblr and then feel like an idiot about it for spending so much time on stuff that fundamentally does not matter. It's hard for me to figure out how much I get to enjoy myself and how much I have to worry about being Right or Doing Something Productive, which is not posting hot takes just because they come to my mind or whatever. Sometimes this blog is also like this too, which is why I tend to drift between where I post my thoughts.

I don't ever feel fully accepted or safe anywhere I go, which is weird considering that these spaces are supposed to be mine. I just cannot seem to escape the imagined other's opinions of me, which I guess is a me-problem to work on, but I also don't know like... is posting things that might get me into arguments because they're baseline controversial (if anyone who cared came across it, but I make sure to make my stuff not-searchable, also partly because I don't want to deal with offending people) expressing myself, or is it just diverting me from true enjoyment and from focusing on things that would make my life better?

What is the quality of being a hater? At what point is it funny and at what point is it deterimental? I guess it could be both at once. But surely not all of us can walk around all the time with pure love in our hearts.

Tues, April 7, 2026 - 13:40

Been trying not to think about the war with Iran because what can I even do, but it's coming up in my volunteer call now. Sigh. Nothing I can say about this can possibly be anything that someone else hasn't expressed already. It's bad. As an understatement.

Wed, April 1, 2026 - 15:33

I keep finding myself thinking that I'm really glad that I'm counterdependent rather than codependent because the latter is relinquishing a bunch of control and letting yourself get hurt or taken advantage of, or maybe you're the aggressor/trade off being aggressive in the codependent relationship, but this is victim-blaming and also really funny of me to be thinking when I have so many things wrong with me that I'm sure a well-adjusted person would be like, I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that!

I don't know what this kneejerk reaction is trying to do. Assure me that I at least haven't fallen that far to the point that I've boxed myself in emotionally because I can always hit the bricks? In practice, this isn't even true because I'm also hyperloyal, so I tend to stay in relationships where I feel useful regardless of how much I'm getting out of it for much longer than I should. That's something on the codependent symptoms list I actually share, but in my case it's not coming from having any part of my identity belonging to or merging with the other person's but because I have a hyperloyal, logistical brain and a heavy dose of guilt.

Ironically, learning to leave earlier is something I have to do even though I'm also fundamentally counterdependent. Oh to have overlapping symptoms that do weird things. I don't think I can ever fix my hyperloyality, though. I think I can only choose to aim it at people who are giving me things in return, and the rest is just part of my core. Being able to feel like I can give something to someone that they can't get from anywhere else is something that's too validating for me to give up, I fear. When I commit, I'm committing on years-scale, while people often just say things and only mean it in the moment. If a friend wants to sit down with me and plan out the next 5 years, I'd do it. That's just how I am.

But I also need to learn to drop the years' plan if things change and it isn't working out anymore. So anyway. I guess my distaste for the idea of being codependent (besides the fact that it's unhealthy, much like being counterdependent is) is just that it reminds me too much of being trapped with either one of my parents as a kid and having to attend to their emotional needs. And I just hate that so much I would never willingly put myself in that situation with another person as an adult. Those feelings just tend to bleed over to thinking about the whole concept even though people have many good reasons for how they got to where they are.

And I do want to be supportive for a codependent friend. Sometimes, though, I worry that I enable these things where people form a unilateral codependent bond to me that makes me feel responsible even though I don't feel the same way. Like four (five? idk the specific counts anymore) people across my life have now admitted to having me as their BPD "favorite person" at some point or another, and it just gives me pause. I guess they're just attracted to my hyperloyality more than anything. I gotta get better at reining it in, but also without being dismissive about codependency.

Mon, March 30, 2026 - 20:52

Ugh, feel like I'm in a funk. Already worried about the job application I turned in (prematurely), and feeling somewhat invalidated about the flea situation again just because my sister and her partner don't agree with me on the level of measures that need to be taken about it. I really hate how my sister gets so upset when people tell her bad news or she feels like she has to deal with something she'd rather just avoid and not think about, and I can't help but feel like it's because I can never get the timing right or I'm not allowed to say certain things or whatever. So tired.

Mon, March 30, 2026 - 18:22

Help I accidentally upvoted my own post and there's no way to undo it. sob

Mon, March 30, 2026 - 16:18

Weird to think about how much Taira & Azuma's inner monologues/struggles/resolutions have really just got me thinking about myself. I keep finding myself thinking about something that has appeared in one of the two's panels and about how I relate to it or how it speaks to a way of moving forward. It feels strange because it's not like anything that happened in Polar Opposites was earth-shattering, but maybe because it was so grounded and realistic, it was more relatable. Like even for How Do We Relationship, while I love the raw emotion that's just present there and the way the characters had to work through (and fail to work through) their needs in their relationships, none of it was ultimately applicable to me. Perhaps because I don't actually need people romantically, but I'm not particularly able to be independent either.

I guess there really do have to be different stories for different people. Some people feel like they learn how to be better from stories with really dramatic life-or-death consequences, but I guess I latch onto realistic trauma that doesn't have to do with romance more than anything.

While I ultimately relate to Taira the most, watching Azuma improve at a much quicker pace because she doesn't get stuck in her head like he does has also done some rewiring for me. Like, oh, you can actually just choose to say, "I'm in a different place now, and I will be different." I think it's the contrast between the two and how they help each other that really gets me to think about the different paths of healing and what I want for myself.

It might also be that I'm just at the right point in my life to be influenced by this work in particular. It feels weird, though, because part of me is like, if Agasawa ever turns out to be a jerkwad, it won't be easy for me to give up Polar Opposites because of this role it's playing in my life. Though the steps I'm taking to improve myself are all my own decisions, I still feel attached to one of the various keys. I don't like being that vulnerable, but I guess I'll just have to cross that bridge when I get there.

Thurs, March 12, 2026 - 00:06

Just remembered that my therapist never got back to me on providing me with my requested therapy files and/or giving me recommendations for therapy now that we're no longer working together. Hmm... I don't really want to bother them though because it's not like I need this stuff that bad. I have to come up with my own gameplan then, though, and that's kind of annoying. A monthly OCPD support group is probably not enough. I need to find something for my social anxiety and also do more self-EMDR, but I also don't want to dedicate any more time to this because I already feel like I don't have enough time in the world πŸ˜‚

Can I stop working on myself yet? Most people don't put in 6+ years of therapy to even begin with. Life is truly unfair. Alas.

Tues, March 10, 2026 - 00:10

In that weird position where I feel like a friendship I was sort-of-maybe-starting probably won't work out after all because I don't really have anything to give to this person or a basic common interest even though I was really thankful to her quite recently. It's like fine if it doesn't work out in the end because she has so many other friends and seems to be doing 50 billion things, but it just reminds me that building long-term relationships really are a lot of work because time and energy is always so limited on this earth.

I guess I should just be thankful for the role she played in my life when I needed it. And maybe it's just the natural end for this sort of thing. I hope she feels proud of how kind she was to me... though not so proud that she then feels compelled to do overextend herself. I guess that's for her to figure out and my musing on balance is entirely my own.

How many people is the average happy person even accountable to? I have 2, but it still seems like too small of a number for true emotional well-being in the long run. I feel like people with vast networks must have many more, but how much is more? 10? 20? Human brains can't keep relationships (of all intensities) that go beyond something like 100 people, so it definitely cannot be 100.

...

I guess this isn't exactly what I'm asking (since I'm asking for mutual accountability, which might be possible with people you don't even consider that close of friends if you're in some kind of mutual goal together) but a close enough approximation, I guess. In that case, the number I'm probably looking for is 5. I don't have intimates, so I don't have to sacrifice anything β€” unless having a project partner that you want to spend most of your discussion time with so you make sure that you get the thing done counts β€” so if I can reach 5 at some point in my life maybe I'd finally be secure and happy.

I think people with actually good parents and/or siblings might get a free bump in this realm. If I could actually count my parents and my sister (I cannot) then I would be right at 5, for instance. Life doesn't work out like that, though. I need to find 3 other people or 2 + somehow fix the weird wobbles in my relationship with my sister that I bet she doesn't even perceive but that holds me back personally from feeling truly emotionally safe.

It's a lot of work, though. It took me like 7~10 years of even knowing my two besties to build the relationships I'm mutually accountable in. I guess by the time I'm 60 I might have found the other three. But someone might also randomly die at some point so don't count on that. (maybe I'll be the one to die lol)

Sun, March 8, 2026 - 15:31

The problem with being sleep deprived is that you start misreading your body signals and going oh man I'm so lonely and/or anxious and the answer is no you just need more sleep but don't try to get more sleep until night or else you'll fuck up your sleep schedule even more.

I'm not allowed to stay up for midnight anime anymore. Not that I can anyway with daylight savings gaslightings

Wed, March 4, 2026 - 13:57

I can't believe we have .md file exports for our blogs now because I emailed Herman. Huge shock emoji at how responsive he was

Mon, March 2, 2026 - 21:38

Need to practice sitting with the thought of other people finding me annoying and going about my business (being annoying) anyway

Fri, Feb 27, 2026 - 23:22

I don't feel like finishing this draft so here we go:


It's really a shame that a philosophy such as Baldwin's isn't an actual truth in our world. It would be a much kinder one if there really was such a thing as a baseline of humanity that enables us to see ourselves in every other human (and being) on the earth in a compassionate way that we just have to find our way back to. That bigots are actively harming themselves for every dehumanizing act they take.

Recording three things my friend brought up as reasons for why this isn't true:

  1. Media created by those in a oppressing class who are fondly imagining violence done to the marginalized doesn't display any sense of loss. Rather, it's all about gains and the fantasy of power. Narratives from these people are frequently just a never-ending story about how they continue to enact violence, over and over and over. While cracks in the narratives appear in all the contradictions of whether the enemy is strong or weak, laughable of formidable, moments where the oppressor ever has to contend with the humanity of the people they beat up do not appear: It is all a narrative about conquest. Meanwhile, media created by the oppressed frequently fantasizes that the oppressor is fundamentally changed by the oppressed's suffering, even if they don't realize it at first. That it haunts them.

    A simple example is the difference in rape porn written by men vs. women: Men's narratives are basically "and then he raped her, and he raped her, and he..." ad nauseam, ever expanding the net of conquest, while women's narratives are like, "and then her pain changed his psyche, for his overwhelming desire for her necessitated that he own all of her, but he could not own her heart unless he did XYZ, and it was this desire that became either...love or his own destruction." In the men's version, the women either enjoy their own predicament as slaves or lose all sense of their personhood and life, while in the women's version, the men either come to know tenderness through regret, or they become beings that can be destroyed either through the woman's reversal of emotional manipulation or by bringing about their own end when they take it too far and thus reveal a weakness by doing something reckless. Both of these versions imagine a change upon the other party, but the oppressor's version is a fantasy that necessitates the further subjugation of the oppressed, while the oppressed's version is a fantasy in which the true control is revealed to have been in the oppressed's spirit all along.

    When you look at real life, you really only have to remember that people brought their kids to lynchings as if they were picnics to remember that there is actually genuine fun that is had by bigots when they oppress others.

    Rather, I think the only oppressors taking any mental damage from oppressing others are when they start to doubt what they're doing, which is also why they're more likely to deny it altogether. The people most steeped in their hatred have also built up the greatest defenses to prevent this type of recognition.

    (*This is an overly simplified version given that a lot of people do not exist solely in one lane of oppressed vs. oppressor, but I think many white supremacists in power are not losing sleep over whether what they're doing is wrong.)

  2. Quoted from my friend:

I think what makes it hard [to believe Baldwin's philosophy] is that I've seen patients die surrounded by Trump memorabilia and I've seen patients who were fighting with the hospital so they could have Nazi symbols and white supremacy symbols in their hospital room when they died because these are things that give the dying person peace. I've literally had patients tell me when I was on palliative care that something they're proud of in their lives is chasing immigrants out or standing up against the transes at church. and had their priests and pastors come from their church to do rites. there's no hesitation. only pride and joy and genuine honest belief that their actions will get them into heaven. I completely believe that there are people who lose humanity but i believe that many others do not.

Fri, Feb 27, 2026 - 14:55

Me: why was I freaking out so much yesterday at book club...??

(Today β€” realizing I forgot to take my meds in the morning so I was one pill of propranolol down)

Me: Oh. Okay.

Tues, Feb 24, 2026 - 22:08

What's the point of even being awake...

Mon, Feb 23, 2026 - 23:02

Slacking off so hard in attempts to fix the damn cough that's been dogging me for the past 2-3 weeks like can we please get better so I can return to normal activities instead of being constantly threatened with a bad time that could get worse. will-they-won't-they of illnesses

Thurs, Feb 19, 2026 - 21:50

Late night loneliness and desire to get excited about something/share that excitement with someone. The loneliest hours are like from 9~11 PM for whatever reason that is.

Wed, Feb 18, 2026 - 14:34

Living with outsized anxiety is hard...

Tues, Feb 17, 2026 - 23:15

Having to deal with rejection sensitivity is so uuuugh man. Bro. It'll be okay, probably. Get it togetttheerrrrr

Tues, Feb 16, 2026 - 12:26

I got a 97.5% and the instructor said I might have gotten the highest score ever 😭

my OCPD won this round TF [literally remade all the training materials]. tried too hard 5 real (only needed a 85% to pass)

Mon, Feb 15, 2026 - 16:12

Just took my grammar exam. It was easy. If I don't pass, I'm gonna riot. I'm going to get so much faster with studying the rest of the course because I kicked so much sand during this grammar thing dkjel;jdkl;fd but I also liked learning all of that so... I don't really regret it.... that much...

Sat, Feb 14, 2026 - 23:02

OK something I really want to fix in myself is the kneejerk reaction of trying to compare my art to other people's and trying to suss out how good they are compared to what they say, yada yada. this type of measurement does me no good and only makes me insecure. I'm like. aware of how useless it is now and how weirdly competitive it is and it's some dumb way of trying to prove that I'm Special and therefore deserve to exist because I care more about perfection or something like that but in reality it just stopped me from drawing.

I want to be a nicer person who can accept other people's bad art and my own bad art simultaneously (provided of course that "bad" doesn't mean like "racist" or something; that's a different level of bad). surely not everyone lives with this weird competitive eye???

how do I....... kill it.................

Sat, Feb 14, 2026 - 13:42

I wish I had actually gotten enough sleep last night because now I feel too sleepy to do the things I wanted to do today -_- and it doesn't help that I'm still sick-adjacent and will be for who knows how long at this point.

Fri, Feb 13, 2026 - 18:57

OKAY I finished reading Koori no Jouheki and hm... I do have thoughts but they're not necessarily that Big so idk if I will get around to writing about it. It was good but a lot of it really could've been shaven off for a more streamlined experience. The fact that I don't feel like I missed all that much despite only reading like 50% of any given volume just by sheer laziness of not wanting to look up kanji I didn't know (no furigana) is not really the greatest sign story-wise, but I guess if you like school life then all of that would've been fun to read through.

The main thought I have from Agasawa Koucha's works is the theme of you know the person you like is right for you when being with them enables you to be a version of yourself that you like, especially more than you like now. And for that to be a consistent thing. This is also something my sister has expressed about her own relationships (rather, she knew it was Over when she realized that she was acting as a worse version of herself), and I wish more people would take this to heart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I agree with this wholeheartedly and will be adding it to my own works, thank you!

Tues, Feb 10, 2026 - 00:27

want to finish reading koori no jouheki but I got 4 more volumes to go even when I'm speedreading the JP by skipping over all the non-important dialogue so I won't be done for like another 4 hours at this rate which means I can't do it tonight 😭

really thinking about this one because I can't say I super love it, but it's also really unique in its depictions of like school hierarchies/bullying/trauma and whatnot in a really nuanced way. seihantai almost looks like a Lite version in comparison

like reading this I can see why seihantai would be more popular (it also moves faster because koori is definitely like this mangaka is just writing whatever web-publishing style) and it's more obviously Feel Good because every character is good-hearted, while in koori no jouheki basically everyone but youta has done something lowly that they hate themselves for in the past and that's kind of refreshing. it's super refreshing that koyuki has actually dated before and that it was absolutely terrible. and the mangaka obviously doesn't want to value romance over friendship in a really interesting way, but then they're stuck writing romance so what does that meanπŸ˜‚

fundamentally, as a romance, koori no jouheki is less thrilling. but it's way more complex also.

my main complaint is just that I've noticed that with Taira and now ... I forgot her name but the girl with the bun in Koori, there's a pattern with Agasawa Koucha in making characters who were treated badly for being fat in the past but then have slimmed down since and become conventionally attractive. I don't know why this is. IDK if Agasawa actually thinks that people can or should slim down in order to become worthy of friendship and love or as a proof of self-improvement or if it's because you genuinely cannot publish something with fat characters and have it be popular because of Society, but it's annoying. I wish they had just either been slim from the beginning or they were shown to be putting on weight in their future years, because as it is it's just yet another "anyone can become thin if they just try harder, so fat people just aren't trying hard enough" type of implication even if unintentional. Sigh. People who are fat are lovable too. It's tiring that the needle never seems to be moving on this one in popular media, but I guess even looking to popular media for this is a mistake to begin with. Same with disability...

Sun, Feb 9, 2026 - 00:29

I think it's really funny that my 2 most recently acquired OTPs are in some kind of unfulfilled state though like

  1. Tamamiwa = perpetually unrequited because these two blew up their own relationship in the most delicious way and reading this destruction was perfect to me because it was so fucking real in what happens when needs don't match and people try to deny their own needs out of consideration for their partner just to eventually add so much stress that it cannot possibly ever work. no notes. loved them from the moment they got together but the breakup is specifically what cinches the OTP tier (or OTB, one true breakup). unrequited love fans raise up β€” Tamaki, my queen.

  2. Tairazuma = people who aren't on each other's radars at all that then become friends, turning into a one-sided crush, which the only purpose of is for character dev because they are ultimately platonic. I do not know what to call this, because the pining isn't actually any part of the appeal of this (unlike in epilogue Tamaki β†’ Miwa). Rather, the appeal lies in the absolute rarity in finding someone that really understands and accepts you and vice versa, regardless of all romantic feelings, and bittersweetness of youth and timed partings. What do we call this? It's technically unrequited but the appeal is probably more like "You made this part of my life special, but we'll never come back here again. I'll see you around, my friend." ???

Sun, Feb 8, 2026 - 23:46

There's some extra pages with the final volume of You and I Are Polar Opposites for both Yamanishi and Tairazuma. The latter basically confirms that Taira and Azuma never date, from how I see it, anyway. They don't date but they hang out and go on drives together to random locations every once in a while (emphasis on the "once in a while" given the use of δΉ…γ—γΆγ‚Š). So I guess their relationship is really just meant to show a kind of deep kinship that doesn't turn romantic, which is rare for possible heterosexual pairings. Their time in high school was a necessary period with obvious bookends, and Azuma's feelings for Taira probably were just a first step for her to experience a type of thoughtful and considerate love that didn't rely on simply responding to what men wanted from her. In that case, it's pretty much necessary that Taira's feelings for her were basically always platonic and for her to grow through her crush on him to accept that earnest feelings and a deeper connection besides just playing a "fun" role were actually worth it all along. Which puts her in a good position to have much more thoughtful relationships (platonic or otherwise) in the future.

Part of me is sad that they aren't actually meant to be romantic, but I think that's the monkey that longs for the romance fantasy of finding "the one that completes you" (DISCLAIMER: general "you," leave me out of this). Writing-wise and rep-wise, I think it's actually braver to go this route of being friends that might not always be in contact but who you know is firmly in your corner whenever you need them. It's certainly more realistic to the fate of high school crushes/relationships and avoids the "pair the spares" situation. So I do respect this, and I think this type of relationship could then lead me to headcanon Azuma as bisexual and Taira as... honestly, gay, bisexual, or aroace are all valid options that would be meaningful for me to read. Of course, I don't think the writer actually writes with queer readings in mind at all (as opposed to the neurodivergency readings), but I like to think of it anyway as the other route for Tairazuma if they weren't going to end up with each other.

Overall, it feels like I'm in a limbo position where I simultaneously want the romantic fairy tale ending and the "and then they were BFFs forever and it was ultra-deep," and people could convince me either way by writing something that fulfilled either of these things. I don't know which monkey will win in the fight 5 years down the road, or 10 years, or if their relationship is always going to be something that I think of as existing in these two possible divergent routes that are simultaneously satisfying and bittersweet to me. I don't think I've ever felt this way about a pairing before β€” the closest was Saeko and Miwa from How Do We Relationship? where the arc where they broke up and then helped support each other through new relationships as BFFs felt perfect to me until those relationships reached their natural end and I realized I could actually root for them to get back together again as new, better people. But you see, in that, the ending was determined, so I had an answer. Even though I enjoyed every part of their relationship (besides the very beginning when they got together) separately and appreciated all of it to the point where every part was fun to read and revisit, I didn't have to exist in two modes of "Will they, won't they?" that I am with Tairazuma. How funny. I don't generally like ambiguity and I want to have a version I "prefer" to be able to "preserve" it in some "final" form in my head, but that's just my perfectionism talking. Oh, the ambiguity...!

Thurs, Jan 29, 2026 - 12:41

Incomplete:

a friend recently said to me that every oppression label is defined by the most privileged members in the group and ive been thinking about that. about how elite capture seems kind of inescapable at times. but it's true that even in terms built to conceive of multiple overlapping marginalized identities, inevitably the priorities it is primarily known for will be defined by those most positioned to get the word out and who people want to listen to. this is why racism labels center the experience of men over women and why transmisogyny centers white over color and im sure even more specific labels like transmisogynoir likely center those with higher economic status and who are not disabled.

there is probably no cure for this because people who are speaking of how oppression has hurt their lives as a group are unlikely to reorient themselves to thinking "who is not in the room with us right now, that we are responsible for? and how can we help them, too?" but this is not a unique failing on the marginalized but really of any attempt at organization with a limited population. this is also why people get super focused on issues that impact quality of life less than sweeping change such as securing housing for everyone foremost.

anyway, just thinking about this in regards to Good and Pretti also. is a movement also inevitably championed by those with higher amounts of privilege? Even Ambedkar was well-educated. But of course, maybe that was necessary to form the consciousness

Sun, Jan 25, 2026 - 16:11

not me spending 3 hours making gifs because I forgot how to do this well and also because gif making has always taken so much fucking time. I can't do this again next week I gotta reign it in or I'll never get through 24 eps. I have a life. maybe

Fri, Jan 23, 2026 - 12:18

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAiiiiiieeeoouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

eeeeeeeeee aaaa eee iii oooooooooo eee ooo oh oh oh oh oooo oh ah e eee

uu uuu uuuuu eeeeee

Tues, Jan 20, 2026 - 22:16

Whenever you start thinking that you don't need to take your preventative medication that's the devil speaking. signed migraine attack from yesterday

Mon, Jan 19, 2026 - 12:57

Batoto is finally dead and I feel unmoored. I don't know if we have to wait another 10 years for a site like that to pop up again. I miss all the commenters who had their heads on right. I miss the overwhelming female readership that commented chapter by chapter. I wish I had taken more screenshots of comments. I wish I had actually made friends on there. I miss the high quality and the option to read in Japanese. These are all things that I can probably find elsewhere, but not all together in one.

I keep losing things lately and while none of it is a huge crisis it just makes me feel sad anyway.

Wed, Jan 14, 2026 - 21:04

I think a major part of the reason why Taira(zuma) is sticking so hard in my head right now is just that reading Taira's arc really made me realize that I don't have a place to belong to either. There is no group of friends for me where I have psychological safety. Or put more simply, the ability to be wrong and gently corrected rather than someone having a rejection sensitivity spiral about it, which just makes me feel more guilty. I want to be somewhere new where I actually feel accepted rather than tolerated.

But I also don't know if I want it bad enough to make it happen. Because searching for a new place to be is work, too. But I'm just about done with where I'm at now, so I guess if I keep being miserable for the next few months I'll be compelled to do something. My therapist leaving also is not helping this but that's just what life is like.

Wed, Jan 14, 2026 - 14:07

I'm losing my therapist. okay.png

what do I do now.......... I hate making decisions

Tues, Jan 13, 2026 - 14:21

Day 3 of Tairazuma brain rot

Mon, Jan 12, 2026 - 15:46

Can't really focus again. This is the problem of engaging in the thing that you love. Living is neutral or bad most of the time, but when a comic hits, it really hits. It makes me feel like this is the reason why I am alive. I wish I could do nothing but hole up and read good things forever. Which is not how the world works at all.

Sometimes I wonder why certain mediums touch people so deeply. So much of human existence is actually having a pull towards something that you can't really control, even when other people want different from you. It's just funny. You really do have to follow your heart, but what the heart wants might not be possible in reality. So I wish I could focus on studying, but I also value feeling like this. Difficult.

Mon, Jan 12, 2026 - 13:03

Ughhh monkeys have broken containment. Am thinking of Tairazuma even at the beginning of the day and not just a latenight romance manga-brained theme. Want a college-age adaptaion for these two so bad following the end of the series but it won't happen so I'm just like............................................... damn

Sun, Jan 11, 2026 - 22:23

I think I watched that way too close to release date because now I have to wait 3 more days for the OP song to release for me to download and that's kind of excruciating. I want to be looping it already. god I'm so distracted today.

Sun, Jan 11, 2026 - 17:55

YOU AND I ARE POLAR OPPOSITES ADAPTAION IS REALLY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDDDDD

Sun, Jan 11, 2026 - 17:26

Every Princession episode now is just me struggling between "This is cute and fun" and "my god I hate the fucking siscon bait please save me"

Thurs, Jan 8, 2026 - 17:18

Feels bad

Tues, Jan 6, 2026 - 23:34

I want to have a snack but I should go to bed........ I've been sleeping so late lately and waking up at 1pm it's bad out here. so I need to. go to sleep earlier. sigh.

wondering if I should sign up for some weird coworking website or something just to force myself to wake up before 12 and do... something... all the things I don't seem to be doing because I keep getting up too late. the cycle cycles cycling cycled

Mon, Jan 5, 2026 - 22:35

😎

Mon, Jan 5, 2026 - 15:37

I may be dumb moment but the fact that "adverbs" has "verb" in it but they can actually modify more than that (like adjectives, but not nouns) confuses the hell out of me. Also the fact that "adverbial phrase" means "2+ that modifies other components, and may not actually have a single adverb in them" rather than "phrase that has an adverb" kind of drives me nuts. I feel like both of these words need different names to stop false advertising.

Sun, Jan 4, 2026 - 15:22

learning grammar more seriously only makes me think "what the fuck why is English like this"

(just learned what a dependent preposition is)

prepositions are of the devil actually

Sat, Jan 3, 2026 - 17:25

Hyphens/compound words are killing me. Is this the worst part of English spelling? Perhaps. At this point I'm even having to look up Gregg's manual as a third reference. This is so sad.

Fri, Jan 2, 2026 β€” 15:42

Finally deactivated my private Twitter. I was on there for 10 years (with a break of a year when I was on Cohost instead). Turns out having a blog makes it very easy to not need to yell into the Xhitter void. I still have a blank account just for when people link me stuff so I can view it (much like my utterly blank Bluesky account) but I really don't want to attach it to friends' accounts anymore through follows or else I'll compelled to check it.

They need to stop locking websites behind account walls FR

2025 Thoughts

Link to 2025 thoughts here.

#thoughts