passing thoughts

where the mind gets drawn in too easily before the feeling even has a clear shape, before there is time to sit with it, question it, or understand what it is actually made of

as the wise woman (or my long-lost sister) named chintia has mentioned a thousand times, there should be a check first. Is this something that still has weight when the high fades, or is the high the whole point…?

and that is where it gets confusing, because the rush can feel a lot like meaning

the tiny reward, the sense that something is happening, the intensity that gives the day a shape, that gives the mind somewhere to go and makes ordinary hours feel less empty

which is probably why it gets hard to stop feeding it, even when it starts making everything feel less calm

and when the high is loud enough, it starts deciding what gets seen. The small things become signs, the almost became evidence

but some things are ignored on purpose because looking at them clearly would interrupt the high

and the high is the trap

and this has happened before

the same chase.. the same hunger to make something out of something, even when the something is mostly an excuse for the heart to stay busy 

it is the way you slowly stop remembering the sparks. Like, what was it again? What was the exact feeling that made you start doing this? What was that little fire in your chest? What made you stay up too late reading about something so specific and stupid and beautiful that nobody else cared about, but to you it felt like a secret tunnel into being alive? Why did you love that certain thing so much? Why did one song feel like a whole season of your life? Why did one film feel less like something you watched and more like something that saw you back?

it is the way you look at old photos of yourself and know, technically, that was you, but somehow you cannot fully enter the body of that person anymore. Like, there were causes that made your heart boil. There were things you would defend without even thinking. But where did that go? Did you grow out of it, or did you abandon it? Did you mature, or did you just get exhausted? Did you become calmer, or did you become numb?

and the hyperfixations, God, the hyperfixations. The way they always seem random from the outside, but somehow they circle back to the same wound, the same longing. You think you’re just obsessing over a band, a historical figure, a book, whatever it is. But really, you are orbiting something. You are trying to get close to a feeling you cannot name. Every obsession is a map, maybe. Every fixation is a flare sent up by some buried part of you

it is the way you start forgetting how to love something for no productive reason. Forgetting that some things matter more than others because they touched the exact version of you that still wanted something wildly and irrationally

well to be fair there's still a chance that you are not losing yourself. Perhaps you just changed.

and you know people always say change is growth and necessary… but what if you don’t like the way you changed?

like suddenly it becomes harder to just be present without all the what ifs. Without quietly preparing yourself to lose something that was never really yours in the first place

20th Century Boys is weird, and I mean that affectionately <3

story-wise, it’s actually pretty simple. You’ve got two groups of kids making up their own prophecies that snowballs into a full-on cult situation?

(entering spoiler & super rambly territory!)

the whole Friend thing is genuinely really cool to me. Like, the branding alone? it sticks. The mask is already super distinctive, and bajunya juga selalu rapi, which is VERY jomplang banget sama Kenji and the gang wkwk. Every time Friend shows up, the aura just feels… different.

and it works not just visually, but narratively too! The mask kinda reinforces this idea bahwa dia tumbuh jadi sosok yang ngerasa terlupakan, kayak gak pernah bener-bener terasa eksistensinya. So now he becomes this faceless figure that everyone recognizes. Which also adds to the mystery, karena tiap Friend muncul tuh langsung jadi tebak-tebakan or even spirals into conspiracies like “wait… jangan-jangan ini si Kenji??” 😭

(but at some point, I kinda stopped caring about who’s behind the mask. The identity matters less than the persona itself #sikap)

still… I won’t lie, the fact that Friend managed to build a cult that loyal still makes me go ??? a little. Because I genuinely can’t wrap my head around orang-orang liat mask + simbol aneh gitu terus langsung “yes this seems trustworthy.” 😭ini literally orang pake topeng aneh, bikin simbol random, and everyone’s ok yes savior-ing

i mean, sure, ada justifikasinya juga sih. Friend is positioned as this “world-saving” figure, jadi masuk akal juga kalau orang-orang yang takut bakal ngikut. Fear does that. But still ….

Then again! maybe emang gitu kali ya manusia. When things get bad enough, yang penting selamat dulu. And honestly, that’s also why it works, because it’s not that hard to imagine people actually doing that

!! Kenji disappearing for that long probably should’ve annoyed me more!! Dan jujur emang agak convenient, karena in the end dia tetep berasa kayak kunci utamanya. There’s this underlying feeling of “of course we’re still waiting for Kenji to come back 😒”

but at the same time, gue gak terlalu keganggu juga. Karena malah seru ngikutin temen-temennya yang tetep jalan, tetep nyoba ngelakuin sesuatu walaupun mereka juga sebenernya kayak gak ngerti-ngerti amat haha

and I think that’s what I really like about this manga, it’s absurd, but still weirdly grounded

there’s a cult, a giant robot, virus, apocalypse nonsense… like it’s doing A LOT. But the characters themselves still feel normal. Asbun and random. Gak ada yang bener-bener keliatan fully in control, karena emang ajib banget tuh cultnya

Also, I LOVE the way the pacing loops back and forth. Every time the story returns to their childhood, gue selalu punya moment “WAITTT ohhh so THAT’S what that was???” dan gak pernah bosen. Selalu ada aja yang bikin penasaran lagi

so.. this manga is just… super entertaining. It’s messy, it’s chaotic, kadang rasanya kayak this is doing a lot, but somehow masih fun dibaca

and honestly, i really didn’t expect to like this more than Monster. I thought Monster would stick with me more.

but 20th Century Boys just stayed in my head longer

the kind of person who made your ideals feel less imaginary. Like they were proof that the things you believed in could actually exist in real life. Maybe a mentor.. a teacher, a boss, someone at church? or maybe even just someone you looked up to quietly. And having someone like that in your life can feel weirdly relieving, because it gives you something solid to hold on to.

especially when there are a thousand reasons to just step back.. but the respect you have for them makes you want to keep trying (and not just on your own, but with them) like you actually want to push through the mess together. Even if the environment is exhausting for both of you, you still choose to stay and fight alongside them.

but no one really tells you how much it hurts when that image starts to crack.

and i do not just mean realizing they are flawed, because of course they are. I mean realizing that someone you respected can still make choices that go against everything you thought they stood for. 

choices that feel careless, selfish, or just deeply unfair. And suddenly you are left sitting with this awful feeling of being hurt by them while also losing the version of them that once made you feel safe believing in people in the first place.

i think that is why it feels heavier than any other disappointment. Because sometimes you respect them because of what they represent to you. 

discipline, integrity.. anything.. some proofs that the kind of person you want to become is actually possible. So when they let you down, the damage spreads further than that one moment. It reaches into the meaning you attached to them too.

but you know what, maybe i just don’t know them enough. Or maybe i only knew the version of them that made sense to me. The parts that fit neatly into what i needed them to represent. And everything else, i either didn’t see or quietly filled in on my own.

so it was never really their fault for acting in ways that don’t match the image i had. Maybe they were always just being themselves, and i was the one turning them into something more solid, more certain, more symbolic than they ever intended to be. I think i imposed meaning onto them without realizing it. I let them carry things they never agreed to carry.

but even knowing that doesn’t fully undo the feeling. Because the comfort was still real. The reassurance was real. the way they made those ideals feel possible… that part wasn’t imagined. So when that image cracks, it still feels like losing something, even if it was partly built in my own head.

well people are just people, and the meaning we attach to them says more about what we’re hoping to find than about who they actually are and yeah… maybe i just didn’t know them enough, or maybe i just needed them to be something, and i built the rest from there.

and then, after all of that, i end up turning the thought back on myself.

like really sit there with it for a while, trying to remember what that time even felt like, what clothes you kept wearing back then, what perfume slowly became your thing without you even noticing, what food you were always in the mood for, what used to worry you all the time, what used to make you excited, and that one memory in particular that somehow ties everything together and becomes the highlight of all of it?

or maybe you do not even have to try that hard? maybe memory just comes back on its own, out of nowhere, and then suddenly you have to stop for a second and remind yourself that there is a gap now. That all of that already happened, that it is over, and maybe it cannot really happen the same way again?

it usually comes back little by little. A smell, a shirt, the kind of tired you only knew back then, what used to worry you, what used to make you excited, the version of you that lived through it.

and for a moment it all feels close again, like you can almost step back into it. 

almost.

until you remember you cannot.

and then it kind of just goes quiet again. Not gone, obviously. Just not right there in front of you anymore.

but sometimes it just leaves you with something though. Either a massive hole of regret, or just a quiet sigh of relief.

for me i mean yeah of course i am happy when i succeed at something it’s not like i feel nothing at all but it’s so brief?? like it barely lands before it’s gone... meanwhile failing feels so much louder and heavier and honestly kind of sickening in a way that sits in your chest and doesn’t leave and i don’t even know if that makes sense but it feels real to me

and the worst part is even when i do succeed it doesn’t stay good for long not even half a day later my brain is already flooding itself with the nastiest what ifs like, 'wait do i even deserve this' or 'shit now people are watching me more closely' or 'now it’s way easier for them to be disappointed in me' 

and somehow everyone turns into a fortune teller overnight lmao body language expert…mind reader… like every blink, every pause, every tone shift has to mean something……