Etaleah

Also it is absolutely ridiculous to think that we can deem a work from a country where queerness is illegal less legitimate because the author has not chosen to publicly disclosed their identity. Authors who were forced to hide their names because of government crack downs on queer art have been questioned for not being openly #Ownvoices.

I'm passionate because I have experience with this issue. I was questioned as to whether I could write about trans people, while I had been out as genderfluid in my personal relationships for years. I just didn't think it was a strangers business. If not for pressure from outsiders, I may have had a better experience coming out on my own terms, but some of y'all ruined that for me.

Hi Lovely *HUGS*

First off, SORRY FOR THE DELAY, happy belated birthday *HUGS* I hope it was a good one <3

That said, darling, you're still a lovely little peach!! Oh goodness, 32 seems so young to me now. I'm over a decade older – going to be 45 this year – and honestly, I GET the feeling; my thirties felt really UGHHH, mainly cause I was dealing with a psychotic mother, a sexuality crisis, moving, joblessness, and starting a new job. And you know what? I wouldn't be the person I am without all the highs and lows of all my previous years. It's chaos followed by calm in an endless cycle.

As for birthdays, I haven't had a "true" birthday since my dad died over 20 years ago. My sister and I just pass the same amount of money back and forth between us every year since her birthday is a month before mine, LOL. Sometimes I get an invite for cheesecake from an aunt, but as I get older, honestly, none of that matters to me. I know I'm a minority in that regard since I've been a very solitary creature since my dad died and I moved away. But I make birthdays special for ME, by ME, and it's always great. One year, I booked a trip away. Another, I took a spa day. Every year, I ALWAYS book 2 weeks off from work, and since my birthday ties into Labour Day weekend, it's one less holiday day I lose. I refuse to work on my birthday if I can help it, and I get myself a cheesecake every year, because it's my favourite. Sometimes I buy myself some flowers, or a new game, a haircut... just something that will make me smile.

This is how I learned to look forward to my own birthdays: Celebrate yourself. You are worth celebrating. Make the day special for you, doing things you LOVE to do.

A lot of "getting older" is actually very wonderful, and in hindsight, it's all worked out the best it can given the circumstances. Now, years of therapy has also helped me see the more positive side of getting older, for sure, and absolutely I feel like I am "amounting to nothing with no one" on my worst days. I try my best to manage those dark thoughts.

And who is telling you aging is bad? People whose singular opinions you'll never have to talk to again? The internet? Society? The TikTok? I'm going to be brutally honest, Lovely: NONE OF THEM MATTER. WHO THE FUCK CARES?? It is a HARD mindset to get out of, and I think when I realised most of life is just performing for others instead of making myself happy with the things I enjoy, I just don't care about anyone's opinion on my dried-up eggs, LOL. Fuck'em. I literally will never see them in person, so why does it matter? It literally doesn't.

YES, adulting sucks, I'm not going to deny that. Never feeling like you have enough money, or not enough energy, or not enough time. But it can also be wonderful. You can buy that sandwich you've always liked. You can take a bus to a park you enjoy going to. You can go for a walk. You can pick up a new hobby.

For me, I believe that the problem is the internet "tells us" that once you hit 30 you have to stop having fun. Says who? Why? Fuck'em. I love my Funko. I love my games. I love my art. I love eating and drinking and going for walks. I love reading and writing. I love travelling.

What do you love?

This is a method my therapist has me do sometimes: try to focus on the positives about negatives in my situations, basically deconstructing a BIG problem into smaller more manageable chunks. It helps a bit with the mild crises of having OCPD at the very least, LOL.

I've also started writing down "three gratitudes" daily to help me with my negativity issue, and it helps a bit. Just acknowledging three good things in your day-to-day does help improve my mood a bit, even if it's as simple as "it was sunny today".

I genuinely can't tell you how to learn not to dread a birthday, Lovely. Everyone is different, and require different approaches to their own problems. But for me, just... making a birthday about myself, plans or not, made me look forward to them. I never expect anyone to acknowledge it, nor do I ever expect anything because I usually don't get anything. So yeah. I'm an adult, I save up for my birthday every year, and make it an awesome Party of One.

actuallystillstanding said: You put that so well! A lot of what you say I can relate to, but I stopped enjoying my own birthday in my early twenties. Not because I minded getting older, but because to me it just highlighted everything I hadn't achieved yet, everything that wasn't perfect or even good or at least the way I wanted it to be. By now - not quite in the mid-thirties anymore - I'm okay with where I am in life most days, but celebrating my birthday still is something I avoid. This year, I'll try your approach and celebrate myself in a way that makes sense to me. So thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience!

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YES to all of that. Realizing a lot of shit I used to REALLY care about when I was younger just doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things was an eye opener for me <3

body-n-soul said: I am turning 39 this year. I understand that not everyone enjoys the grey hair and the changes in our faces and bodies as we start ageing like I do, and the start of the aches and pains is definitely not one of my favourites, but it's been wonderful to find a place of contentment and peace with my inner and outer self. At the end of the day, you get to choose how you want to approach your life. The coolest part about being an adult with your own money is that you can quite literally decide to change your life at any moment. Some things may take some time (if you want a new career path the education or training part may take some time), and obviously there are some financial limitations that may factor in, but no one can actually stop you from taking steps towards what you want for yourself. Oh, and if you feel chronically hopeless and incapable of motivation, maybe it's time to check in with a medical professional for a mental health assessment and a therapist for a game plan to help get you unstuck. Can't afford that or don't have access to that? There are loads of free resources (admittedly some more legitimate than others) that you can find to help with life planning

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I used to be scared of aging until I realized how many people never get to age. When the Uvalde massacre happened, the victims were described as “Forever in the fourth grade,” and something about that stuck with me. I’m so lucky that I got to live past the fourth grade. Those poor kids didn’t get that. They didn’t get to be old and it’s so fucking unfair that they didn’t. I’m incredibly lucky that I got to experience aging instead of never being allowed to know what aging would be like. When I think about everything I would have missed out on if I had been forever in the fourth grade, it’s overwhelmingly tragic. I’ve enjoyed life so much since then, and in so many different ways.

When you feel sad about getting older, I find it helps to remember that so many people didn’t get to be the age that you are. So many kids, teens, and 20-somethings who died young from a disease or an accident or an attack, especially in cases where they knew they were dying, would have given anything to see their thirties and beyond, warts and all.

What upset me the most was that Aziraphale and Crowley didn’t really feel like themselves anymore. And I was honestly disappointed that they barely talked about what happened at the end of Season 2. But what probably bothered me the most was the way Aziraphale treated Crowley through most of the episode.

I'm probably going to upset some of Aziraphale's fans now. But I'm a fan of his too, and I just need to get this off my chest.

To me, it really felt like he only came back to Earth because he needed Crowley’s help. Sure, you could say Muriel telling him Crowley looked lost was part of why he went to see him. But if he truly came out of concern, then why did he show so little warmth?

Crowley is literally lying devastated on the dirty street in front of him, and Aziraphale’s reaction almost feels more annoyed than worried:

“Look, I know you're upset with me. But I'm willing to overlook that. If you're expecting me to do the ‘I was wrong’ dance, then I'm afraid you'll be waiting rather a long time.”

Is that really how you talk to the person you love when they’re clearly at rock bottom? 🙄

And then he immediately tries to pretend he came there to help Crowley, only for Crowley to point out that he obviously only came back because of Jesus… which Aziraphale never actually denies.

Even saving the Bentley ends up feeling more practical than emotional, because again it comes across like he only does it because he needs Crowley’s help. Of course we know he cares about both Crowley and the Bentley, but why make him act so emotionally distant after all the time they spent apart? Would it really have hurt him to just say he missed Crowley?

And then this conversation happens: A: “But a deal's a deal.” C: “Right, let's get this over with. So, where is Jesus?” A: “I don't know.” C: “You don't know?” A: “Well, no. Otherwise I wouldn't need to find him, would I? And I wouldn't need you —” C: “Wouldn't need me. Right. Nice. Gotcha.”

Ouch. Poor Crowley 😢

And in the end, all we really get is a pretty weak apology, followed by Aziraphale basically pushing Crowley to say he forgives him, even though he clearly isn’t okay yet. It felt less like a real reconciliation and more like Aziraphale wanting everything to feel fixed again without really acknowledging how badly he hurt him.

I honestly enjoyed Mrs Sandwich calling him out on it. At the same time, though, it was painful to watch. And Aziraphale’s only defense is that he loves their street? Apparently he can say that about everything except the person who’s supposed to be the love of his life.

And I do understand that Aziraphale has his own trauma and issues. He’s been through a lot and genuinely wanted to do the right thing. But after all that time apart, their reunion still should’ve felt more emotional than this.

The entire episode made it feel like Crowley desperately missed Aziraphale, while Aziraphale barely seemed to miss Crowley at all. Meanwhile Crowley spent the whole time drinking, grieving, and protecting the bookshop because it was the only thing he had left. And no, I’m not saying that’s healthy either. Crowley shouldn’t completely lose himself without Aziraphale. But maybe Aziraphale could’ve been more honest about his feelings instead of constantly taking Crowley for granted. Because yes, we know he loves Crowley. But why did they show us so little of it?

Yes, we got some real emotion at the very end, but it came a bit too late, and once again, it wasn't in the form of them actually talking to each other and expressing how they really felt about all the issues from the past.

That’s really my biggest problem with the writing. Their relationship deserved better. In previous seasons, I could rewatch the same scenes over and over and still love almost every moment between them. I could watch them endlessly. But here, aside from the final scene in the bookshop at the end of the universe, I honestly don’t even want to rewatch most of their scenes together, because they just leave such a bitter feeling behind. Almost every interaction between them is built around tension or emotional distance. It just feels like something important is missing.

And honestly, after everything that happens in the episode, it’s not even surprising that Crowley eventually accepts the complete erasure of their existence so easily. That thought really hurts, but through most of the finale he just looks emotionally exhausted, like he has nothing left in him for another heartbreak or another fight. Sorry for the rant. It’s just genuinely painful to watch Crowley suffer like that.

2026 - Make the Republicans hurt for all the ways they're trying to strip people of their votes and put a check on Trump. We can flip the House and maybe even the Senate and actually put some of the checks the Constitution intended back in place. SCOTUS is still fucked and not a lot will get passed over Trump's veto, but we can stop the bleeding.

2028 - Get Trump, Vance, and all the fascists out of the Executive Branch. It's also the only way to start on SCOTUS reform and getting back on the right track. This is also the president who will be overseeing the next census that controls which states get how many Congresspeople.

because Yugioh is a ghost story. it’s not a horror story, once it starts leaning into card games, but it’s always a ghost story. And the trope of “let’s finish the ghost’s unfinished business and put them to rest” is ancient. It’s all over the place, across time and culture. On a cultural and meta level, these stories are supposed to function as a metaphor for grief and closure, about how you can’t live in the past, about how sometimes the things and people we love are gone but we just have to accept it and hold them in our hearts and move forward.

The problem with writing these stories (and again, not a problem unique to Yugioh, I think The Good Place finale is another good recent example) is that if you spend too much time with the ghost, talking to the ghost, fleshing out the ghost, making friends with the ghost, then the audience decidedly no longer feels like the characters are dealing with the phantasmal echo of something long gone. They feel like it is a person that is still here, and very much a real character, their dead status merely a technicality. And putting them to rest doesn’t feel like finally gaining closure on something long buried, it feels like murder.

And it’s a natural inclination to want to flesh out the ghost! That’s part of the fun of a ghost story, those sort of questions–who were they? what happened to them? what do they need? You have to flesh out the ghost at least a little bit, or the audience won’t care. But there’s a trap where if you flesh out the ghost too much you accidentally turn a story about grieving into a story about how we killed our friend.

It really, really is just a writing problem. There’s a reason a lot of the best put-the-ghost-to-rest stories feature the ghosts mostly as vague otherworldly forces the characters have to struggle to understand. Ghost as vestige, ghost as mere ruin, ghost as hollow evocation of something that doesn’t, can’t exist anymore–these are the ghosts that best and most closely parallel the emotional process of mourning these stories are meant to represent.

And if you fuck it up you get stories like Yugioh, where you started out trying to write a story about one thing but you accidentally fleshed out the ghost too much, and now your ending doesn’t work anymore because it’s an ending for an entirely different sort of character, because it’s an ending for a ghost, but you didn’t write a ghost. You wrote a person. And then you killed them. And now the whole audience is pissed.