#satari rambles

Spent my birthday yesterday sick with a virus, still sick. Mom's also sick. And now today, on Christmas, we might have to go put my dog down. Been up with her since midnight, and she started declining fast yesterday.

This day is already hard enough with past events and associations but with this, I just want to sleep for the rest of 2025, please.

it's one of those nights where it feels like something is trying to claw its way out. restless, i suppose. i feel like spilling out a speech of worries and aimless thoughts and jokes to whoever will bend an ear, but it feels impossible at the same time.

i spent my time after dinner alone, resting in bed. the only room i really have to call mine; it's past the point of yearning for a home home now and more a relief i still have anything at all. i got lost in a little fic series that i think knocked something loose in me, grins and out loud laughter and tears and smiles - enamored by a stranger's mind and then my own went, "when will you do something like that? again, if not for the first time."

it's been a while since i've read much of anything, including fanfic. today was the first day i wrote something in who knows how long. writing has felt like throwing a dart without a target. my mind feels foggy with days of working one job, finding time for the second, bringing work home, eating, sleeping, paranoid about my health with each adjusted prescription and change in diet. repeat and repeat. emails, grading papers, managing expectations i placed on myself for a role i never thought i'd stumble into. teaching general education english to freshman in college, and yet i spend nights worrying, seesawing between "is this enough?" and "does it even matter, with how everything is?" like it's a capstone course deciding if they graduate or not.

it's a loaded everything. the world. the exhaustion. the technology. the thought of the kids i teach, how some are apathetic due to how the world can't maintain its promises of a future as well as it seemed when i was their age. maybe i was blind. maybe it was easier to follow along with the blind hopes my family had for prosperity and success with a degree attached to a name.

i hate how i wonder if my father would be proud if he were still around. i hate the negativity that bubbles up when i wonder if it would even matter now.

i like to think it would. i'd like to, and i'm trying to, remember that a lot of things still matter. maybe this is just one of those nights where it's easy to think about everything as if it carries more weight than it does, or maybe it's me trying to place weight onto something to feel like i actually have a point being here.

there's more. but i probably should let this be and keep it for therapy in two weeks. it's 1am and one of my cats doesn't seem to be too happy about the light of my phone glowing in her face.

It hit me instantly when I heard that line to the point where I cried right after hearing it for the second time. It made me think of someone who maybe is wanting to not live anymore for whatever reason, and how feeling so weighed down by one's mental state and that idealization can make it to where your life isn't as important as it maybe should be, or it's easy to get lost in the white noise of existing and not wanting to exist that it's hard to grasp onto chances or make the most of reality. Speaking (hopefully respectfully!) as someone who has/had those thoughts before.

It's almost like the act of the singer asking them to talk to or show them this something beyond a "half-life" that it almost seems like an affirmation, of sorts. Especially with the "come out from underneath of who you were" section that's before and that follows, that's so gentle and sounds patient, and a little curious. To me, I keep thinking of it almost like a kind of victory question or demand. Like a way to express that, well: "life has sucked, and it will suck again, but I'm glad you're still here despite everything."

It's interesting, too, I think. Um, like obviously the song's a bit polarizing with the rhythm among the fandom, with how it feels offbeat and makes you almost feel uneasy, or at least that's how it was for me? But I've been thinking about it and maybe that mimics the difficulty of emerging (no pun intended) from a difficult situation - you have to be uncomfortable with your status quo or with what's happening, and change is and can be uncomfortable but hopefully, in the end, it's worth it. It's worth it to shed who you were and find comfort in who you are now, in making it to a time in your life that you didn't expect.

I'm... surprised I'm happy? After hearing it. I think that's how I'm feeling, at least. It's not a giddiness or me jumping around in joy, but there's a kind of, um. Candlelight flicker among the darkness that was surrounding me as I was thinking about it? Like a light came on once I finally looked and checked it out for myself.

I'm unsure how to word it properly and I don't really know how to without going on a long-winded ramble, but I had some thoughts before I heard the song based on what people were saying, the anxieties I saw swirling about, thoughts of guilt and anger amongst the pointing fingers and the reality of what a sharp rise to fame can do to, well, anyone. I saw so many different opinions and I'm not here to dismiss any of them, or say one is wrong. Music is wonderful and powerful, loving and harsh, not just in its creation but in the context we give it. I don't want to dismiss anyone's thoughts here.

I just want to say that it's a song I'm glad exists. I'm glad he trusts people to hear it. That despite its content, or context - I don't want to comb through why it exists, or say I'm glad any negative things happened so the pain can produce more because that is the furthest thing from the truth for me.

Caramel is sweet as a concoction in it's nature. You can put things in it, like salt, to change the taste and make it more complex. And it can burn, scorch, and stick - it can make a right mess of a kitchen, of someone's clothes, hands. It's temperamental and not set in stone, at least not while you're stirring it in the pot. But it's not always a mess.

If you're patient with it and respect the process - and, in this case, that respect is to him and the others as performers and as people, as well as yourselves as fans of the music and individuals with flaws, personalities, all that makes people who they are - it might turn out okay, in the end.

I could be off with this, of course. I'm just glad the song exists.

Caramel takes time. And it's okay to have it salty, bitter, or sweet. There's times for all flavors and even if it isn't your preference for whatever reason, it's good to accept the choice and respect it. Respect the making of it and the one who spent hours of time and patience on it.

They did fantastic. After touring so much this year, doing back-to-back shows, dealing with a band member having to take a leave of absence for most of their final tour, incorporating new changes to their routine and style, and with Vessel having hurt his voice during such a huge show, they did fantastic.

I watched along with Discord. Mostly lurked. And everything I saw from the effects on stage, the fun antics, the performances, the playing - guitars, bass, drums, the dancers, the choir - they did fantastic. And Vessel. I said it in chat that he doesn't need to hurt himself or his voice to earn the love of those who listen to his music, but he kept going. He sang, and pushed through when he had every right in the world to put a stop to the show and focus on his health. He kept on going while also giving to the crowd the chance to carry him through, and seeing everyone - from those on stage with him to the crowd to people in chat and what I saw on here - still loving him, loving them?

They did fucking fantastic, and I dare anyone tell me otherwise. As a community, we should be celebrating them despite any differences of opinion - being kinder and supportive of one another is literally everything they've shown with III's situation and in general. It's what so many of us showed back to them with the hand salutes for III and the marked ? on our hands during specific songs. Their new outfits have fan-made decals to them, for fuck's sake. They are absolutely, without a doubt, genuine about making everyone feel loved.

Look, I'm just a stranger on the internet at the end of the day but this band has come to mean so much to me since I found them, to the point where they've honestly kept me going some days - them and the wonderful people I've met through them - and I just need them to know that they did fantastic, their music still brings people together despite hiccups along the way, and regardless of any of those hiccups, they are so loved. Loved beyond belief.