Using Tumblr Is Like Living In A Low Class Apartment Building. You Just Get Used To The Landlord Not

LIKEEEE

(spoilers under the cut)

to explain the context of this song (would've could've should've from midnights) taylor is talking about how if she never met the man who groomed her at a young age, she never would've experienced many things that resulted in her losing her innocence so quickly.

obvi this situation isn't super specific to donald, but i think you get how it speaks to how if his whole...childhood situation didn't happen he'd never have sold his soul with the union. he'd have grown into a sweet and kind boy who loves chocolate and is the top of his class and is en route to becoming a future nasa engineer, but now he's the boss of a criminal empire and is committing real estate fraud. he runs from his memories now that he's older, from the feeling of being weak and pitiful, being bullied in school and beat up by his stepdad at home with his new persona.

he's too terrified to confront the past and hides from it under the illusion of strength, but simultaneously he holds it close as a reminder of what might become of him if he doesn't keep striving, keep working till he dominates anything and everything.

the way taylor sings the bridge is so full of ??desperation?? the chorus is fast-paced, with a tone of regret and anguish that creates anticipation for the bridge. which taylor delivers, by the way, bc if the tone of the chorus is one of despair and haunting memories, the bridge practically blares it in your face!!

'God rest my soul, I miss who I used to be' carries resignation and hopelessness, and it reminds me of how donald transformed himself completely into someone he hated. he covered himself head to toe in tattoos even though they disgusted him, pierced every available inch of skin on his ears and his face (thank Razen he didnt get a nose piercing though🙏🙏THAT WAS NEVER THE MOVE) and bought those expensive but scary ass clothes just so he could pull off his 'intimidating' image. he invested so much time and so much money...for what?

i read on Genius.com that 'the tomb won't close' means taylor can't find peace with her situation despite trying. similarly, donald has never stopped hurting because of his past, yet he doesn't confront it. he runs from the pain in an attempt to escape without realising he's just running in circles.

verse three has GOT to be my favourite part in the song. you can really feel the frustration delivered by the last two lines of the song as the pitch and speed increases (soz hope im not wrong in saying this). it reminds me of how donald initially felt ashamed of the helplessness displayed in his childhood and adamant that he never experience it again, versus donald right before his death, finally looking back on his younger self with love and protectiveness.

it also holds the feeling that you get when you feel as if something has been taken from you. donald feels the unfairness of his childhood and innocence being robbed from him at such an early age. he mourns the injustice that his younger self was treated with, and my personal interpretation is that he wishes he could change it. it's normal when you feel like something was stolen from you...which in his case, it most definitely was.

donald is also SUCH a mirrorball girly. yes, he's always been a natural at everything (he's strong, he's smart, and he's sexy. what CAN'T he do?) but he's done nothing but try all his life. he had to work so hard from such an early age, and he could never stop to take a break, because if he stops, he dies. his mom is dead. his stepdad has left him. he's a newly orphaned 13 year old with no money and no school. if he doesn't look after himself, he passes away on the streets.

he never wanted to do crime. even in the union, he wanted to gravitate more towards the business parts of his job. he never got to experience a life where he got to do what he wanted rather than have to fight for survival all the time. he never got the option to learn that he doesnt have to live the rest of his life punished for his poverty and broken home.

because yk, there wasn't a 'rest of his life'.

the archer is another song. don't think i have to explain how the first couple of lyrics express the loneliness he felt in his journey to the top, but ARGHHHH!! the lines 'i cut off my nose just to spite my face, then hate my reflection for years and years...' it's so him, covering his whole body with tatts knowing he'll feel repulsed everytime he looks in the mirror.

the rest of the verse imo, embody the panic and trauma he must've felt with his circumstances that he probably subdued while he was alive.

i bet on losing dogs and class of 2013 by mitski are also honorable mentions

so kudos to taylor for being able to write music that panders not just to academically burnt out eldest daughters but also seventeen year old mafia bosses created by (assumably) generational poverty and a screwed up system

@weakhero-diaries

do you guys get it if i say donald na is taylor swift coded

i love him so much😭

tHIS MAN

Had a dream this morning that Archive of our Own had a Random button which would simply take you to a random fanfic, like Wikipedia has. (AO3 does not appear to really have this, I checked and couldn't find one, but I kinda wish they did.) Someone had started a game where whatever fic you got, that was your new fandom, which is very fun! I would love this meme in real life.

The problem came in where so many people used the button that it broke and just started sending everyone to Stealing Harry, and like...I have fond memories of Stealing Harry but it's not my best work and nobody should be assigned to be a Harry Potter fan in this day and age.

So I decide to go off and find Astolat and demand she fix this but when I finally did (there was a whole quest) she turned to me like the baddie in a horror flick and said, "But that's the most random story there is" in a dark voice and I was terrified and woke up.

In the cold light of day I know there are more random stories by me on the archive, let alone by others, but I'm not going to try to get back there to argue my case. Pretty sure whatever I spoke to was actually the demon specifically assigned to plague fandom and not Astolat at all.

I'd say "get thee behind me, demon" but I know just how many porny fics on AO3 begin with that premise. (I've written some.) Begone foul spirit, and take your Satanic Panic with you!

GOOFY !! UGLY !! OFF MODEL !! BAD !!

i love him so much but everytime i think about him i am in pain

Ouyang is such an interesting character istg. I need a spin off series detailing his entire life just so I can study him.

he’s literally pure rage. he’s fuming all the time. he’s miserable and angry and pissed off and would rather die than even attempt to change or be happy in any way. he kills the one person he loves after destroying Esen’s life and kingdom. he violently denies himself any pleasure out of self loathing yet keeps spec sheet of everyone who was ever mean to him. he desperately wants to be seen and understood as much as he wants to rid the world of anyone who even comes close. don’t even get me started on his deeply complex and incredibly simple misogyny    

I’ve never seen such a fucked up, hateful main character. Ouyang is a pathetic, horrible little man in every objective and subjective sense and I love him so much

My dad and I once had a disagreement over him using the adage "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

I said, "That's just not true. Sometimes what doesn't kill you leaves you brittle and injured or traumatized."

He stopped and thought about that for a while. He came back later, and said, "It's like wood glue."

He pointed to my bookshelf, which he helped me salvage a while ago. He said, "Do you remember how I explained that, once we used the wood glue on them, the shelves would actually be stronger than they were before they broke?"

I did.

"But before we used the wood glue, those shelves were broken. They couldn't hold up shit. If you had put books on them, they would have collapsed. And that wood glue had to set awhile. If we put anything on them too early, they would have collapsed just the same as if we'd never fixed them at all. You've got to give these things time to set."

It sounded like a pretty good metaphor to me, but one thing I did pick up on was that whatever broke those shelves, that's not the thing that made them stronger. That just broke them. It was being fixed that made them stronger. It was the glue.

So my dad and I agreed, what doesn't kill you doesn't actually make you stronger, but healing does. And if you feel like healing hasn't made you stronger than you were before, you're probably not done healing. You've got to give these things time to set.

I'm obsessed, help

“who cares about death note after L died” so sorry you’re not a fan of serving cunt </3

been taking those mellodramattic pills today

this shouldn’t have to be said but if someone who struggles with cognitive issues such as fibro fog, autism or adhd etc has difficulty speaking or getting their point across, do not point it out. im talking about stuttering, misremembering words and definitions, using the wrong words in place of other ones, mixing up words or merging them together. you are allowed to help us find the right word but wait for us to ask first and give us a chance to find it ourselves. blurting out random words causes a lot more confusion for us and we often end up losing our train of thought.

also, in a similar vein, we may pause to think about what we’re going to say next, and it’s important that you not interrupt. for me, my train of thought is already on the verge of derailing. if i stop talking mid-sentence, give me a second to find my words and sort out my jumbled mess of a brain. don’t start speaking like we’ve finished our sentence and please don’t just abandon the conversation. it’s very frustrating, especially when you make jokes or tease us for forgetting words or misspeaking and it makes it much harder for us to get to our point. and tbh it’s embarrassing and it sucks because our brains aren’t doing what we want or need them to do and we don’t need a reminder every time it happens.

like the jokes might seem harmless or lighthearted but it hurts nonetheless because we are constantly in a struggle against our own brains. it seems like it should be such an obvious thing, not to tease or make fun of someone with cognitive issues, but so many people do it, including some of you who don’t think you do— particularly if you don’t think the reason behind it is a disability. it’s not the same as joking about your friend making a typo in the group chat. those are minor slip-ups and they happen to everyone. for a lot of us, they’re constant. we’re almost always trying to get our brains to work with us rather than against us and pointing it out only makes it that much harder to concentrate on actually articulating our thoughts instead of focusing purely on avoiding misspeaking so you won’t point it out again. obviously this will vary from person to person, not everyone with these symptoms feels the same way i do, but i think it’s a good rule of thumb to just. not interrupt and/or draw unnecessary/unwanted attention to our speech problems. i don’t think it’s too much to ask.