i want to kill myself.
YOU ARE THE REASON

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@3kockeleda
i want to kill myself.
Is It Normal to Think About Grief This Much?
(spoiler: probably not. but here we are.)
I've been grieving for as long as I can remember, and the strange part — the part that took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out — is that nobody died.
Not recently, anyway. Not in the way that makes it socially legible, the kind that comes with a casserole and a sympathy card and a socially allotted window of being allowed to feel like the floor has dropped out from under you. The grief I carry isn't that kind. It doesn't have a face I can frame on a mantelpiece. It doesn't have a date on a headstone.
It has a feeling, though. God, does it have a feeling.
Cornfields, Ghosts, and the Guy Who Runs the Diner at Midnight
You never really forget the summer you first arrive in a place like Ashwood.
Not the way the highway peels away into cornfields and wild grass, or how the streets shrink down until even your worries can’t fit. There’s a kind of hush here, an old-soul quiet, like the town’s still catching its breath from secrets it’s not ready to spill.
Some folks say nothing ever happens in a Midwest town like ours, but if you listen long enough—really listen—you’ll hear otherwise. You’ll catch it in the whisper of willow branches against chipped porch railings, in the half-glances from neighbors at the post office, in the low hum of the diner after midnight when the regulars have all but dozed off. Every cracked sidewalk and leaning mailbox has a story or three, if you know where to look.
When my father and I first rolled up the drive to the old Hensley house, I remember the windows watching us—tall and narrow, clouded with dust and the memory of people I’d never know. Dad said it needed “a little work.”
Thewhole place creaked and sighed like it was waking up from a long, strangedream.
We weren’t what you’d call “locals.” Not yet. Not with the way the hardware store clerk eyed us, or how the school secretary said our last name twice, just to taste the shape of it. But Ashwood has a way of folding you in, whether you belong or not. There’s comfort in the rhythm of familiar oddities—the mailman who whistles church hymns, the mayor who collects ceramic frogs, the retired teacher who claims to read fortunes in spilled coffee grounds. Every town has its quirks; ours just hid them better.
And then, there were the mysteries.
People talk. Stories grow wild as milkweed. They say the old mill is haunted, that the cornfield swallows up stray cats, that the man who works the graveyard shift at the diner only comes out after dark. Some of it is nonsense. Some of it, I learned, was only half true—half enough.
If I’d known what we were really stepping into that summer—the secrets, the friendships, the things that move just out of sight—I might have run screaming back to the city. Or maybe I would have just stood there on that crooked porch, as I did, and watched the world change around me, not knowing I was about to change too.
But that’s the way of Ashwood.
Sometimes, the strangest stories grow best in the quietest places. And every so often, if you’re lucky, you get to be part of one.
Are you gay?
no im normal
How to survive without creativity - a helpful guide from a (f*g) to you.
Here’s the deal: nobody—nobody—in this vast, meaningless expanse is actually “uncreative.” Sure, some folks are hopeless at doodling stick figures but can whip up ingenious spreadsheets; others trip over their own imaginations yet excel at, I don’t know, convincing plants they’re alive. Everyone’s got something—even if it’s just a talent for accidentally blowing things up in the kitchen.
“Thriving,” and Other Lies I Tell Myself While the Tram Breaks Down Again
Let’s get one thing straight: I’m killing it.
Still No Idea What I'm Doing (But I'm 25 Now, So It’s Classy)
The air smelled like a birthday cake left too long on the counter—sweet, but tinged with something sour. I was cross-legged on a couch that once cradled childhood sleepovers and teenage heartbreaks, now just an overstuffed relic sagging under my quarter-life weight. The TV murmured in the corner like a dying oracle. News ticker scrolling warzones. A world on fire. Kyiv crumbling. Rafah weeping. Somewhere, a president laughed.
It was my 25th birthday.
The room was full. Laughter echoed, and someone passed me a slice of cake that tasted like every other year. Candles flickered. Wishes whispered. Photos snapped for feeds destined to dissolve in twenty-four hours. But something in me didn’t want to be documented. Not this year. Not like this.
The Quiet Unraveling: Navigating Complacency, Consumerism, and the Search for Meaning in a Fractured World
Let’s begin with a confession: None of us are innocent here. We’re all tangled in the same messy web of contradictions—yearning for purpose while numbing ourselves with distractions, craving justice while clinging to comfort. This isn’t a condemnation; it’s an invitation to untangle the knots together. Because the truth is, the systems that suffocate us didn’t emerge in a vacuum. They grew from our collective fears, our exhaustion, and the very human desire to just make it through the day.
"smut", censorship & why we must defend the freedom to read
Every era polices its stories. Today, the battleground is digital: TikTok, Twitter, and Tumblr simmer with moral panics over “problematic” fiction. At the heart of this debate lies a paradox: in an age that champions individuality and free expression, why are readers—particularly women and queer communities—increasingly shamed for enjoying narratives labeled “dark romance,” “smut,” or “spicy”? These terms, weaponized as shorthand for “morally bankrupt,” obscure a deeper cultural anxiety: the fear of stories that center taboo desires, power dynamics, or unapologetic female agency. What begins as criticism of tropes often escalates into demands for censorship, blurring the line between discourse and dogma. The stakes here transcend genre—this is about who gets to control narratives, and why.
Censorship has always targeted the marginalized. In the 19th century, novels like Madame Bovary and Lady Chatterley’s Lover were deemed “obscene” for depicting female desire outside patriarchal norms. By the mid-20th century, paperback romances adorned with shirtless heroes (think Fabio rescuing a swooning heroine) dominated bookstore racks. These novels were dismissed as frivolous “chick lit,” relegated to the realm of harmless escapism. Yet they sold millions, offering women a rare space to claim ownership of their fantasies.
Fast-forward to today. Their spiritual successors—stories exploring BDSM, morally gray relationships, or trauma—face a more insidious suppression: algorithmic shadow-banning, deplatforming, and viral callout campaigns that frame readers as complicit in harm. The shift from physical book burnings to digital erasure reflects a new puritanism, one couched in progressive language but rooted in the same paternalism: “These ideas are too dangerous for you.” Platforms like TikTok, which amplify outrage for engagement, reduce complex narratives to soundbite controversies. A single trope—a mafia romance’s nonconventional relationship, a bully romance’s power imbalance—is stripped of context, becoming fodder for hashtag activism. Lost in this frenzy is the distinction between depiction and endorsement, between art and advocacy.
Critics of dark romance often argue, “These stories normalize abuse!” Yet this concern is selectively applied.
Consider:
Male-Centric Media: Films like Fight Club (domestic terrorism, toxic masculinity) and The Sopranos (misogyny, murder) are analyzed as “complex art.” Video games like Grand Theft Auto let players enact mass violence, yet their audiences aren’t accused of glorifying crime.
Queer and Feminist Narratives: Stories by marginalized authors—e.g., Carmilla (lesbian vampirism) or Tampa (female predator tropes)—face disproportionate scrutiny. Their themes are pathologized, their audiences interrogated.
This double standard reveals a cultural discomfort with women and queer people claiming narrative autonomy. Dark romance, often written by and for women, subverts the “pure heroine” archetype, allowing characters—and readers—to explore rage, desire, and imperfection. To dismiss these stories as “toxic” is to deny women the right to messy, multifaceted representation.
Fiction is a laboratory for the human experience. Psychologists argue that dark themes in art serve as simulations, letting readers safely confront fears, taboos, or repressed emotions. A 2019 study in Psychology of Aesthetics found that readers of transgressive fiction often engage in more ethical reasoning, not less, as they analyze characters’ choices.
Consider the appeal of dark romance:
Agency in Restriction: Heroines navigating oppressive worlds (e.g., mafia romances) often reclaim power within constraints, mirroring real struggles against systemic misogyny.
Catharsis Through Hyperbole: Exaggerated tropes (obsessive love, revenge plots) externalize internalized emotions, offering emotional release.
Censoring such works doesn’t protect readers—it infantilizes them, implying they can’t separate fiction from reality.
History shows that censorship rarely stops at “protecting” audiences. Once normalized, it expands to suppress dissent:
1980s “Satanic Panic”: Moral crusades against Dungeons & Dragons and heavy metal music targeted countercultural communities.
2020s Book Bans: U.S. schools have banned texts like Gender Queer and The Hate U Give, conflating LGBTQ+ and anti-racist narratives with “obscenity.”
Calls to censor smut follow the same playbook: frame subjective discomfort as objective harm, then demand removal “for the greater good.” But who decides what’s “harmful”? Algorithms? Politicians? Corporations? Amazon’s arbitrary delisting of LGBTQ+ romance novels in 2021 (“content violations”) proves corporate censorship is already here—and it’s arbitrary.
To censor “smut” is to endorse a world where stories are policed by the timid, the authoritarian, or the algorithm. It undermines foundational principles:
Freedom of Literature: Art is not a public service announcement. It must be free to provoke, unsettle, and challenge.
Reader Autonomy: Trust adults to choose their media. Advocacy for content warnings and nuanced critique is valid; eradication is not.
Media Pluralism: A free society requires diverse narratives—including those deemed uncomfortable, “immoral,” or politically inconvenient.
The fight against censorship isn’t about defending specific tropes; it’s about resisting the idea that any story is “too dangerous” to exist. As Salman Rushdie wrote, “What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.” Let readers revel in their smut, their Shakespeare, their sapphic space operas. Let them dissect, debate, or devour stories without shame.
The alternative—a sanitized, homogeneous cultural landscape—is a far darker tale.
Defend the right to read. Defend the freedom to imagine. And never apologize for the stories that make us human.
America is Dead, Long live the Oligarchy!
Oh, I can already hear the chorus of outraged patriots clutching their flags and gasping for air, wondering how on earth I have the audacity to say it out loud. But let’s be honest here—America died a very public, very embarrassing death, and we all watched it happen. It was sentenced to death at 1 AM on November 5th, 2024, beheaded at noon on January 20th, 2025, and, in a spectacle fitting for the end of a grand empire, the victors danced around its lifeless corpse on January 21st, mocking it in perfect synchrony.
Now, before you start shaking your head at the “insanity” or “cynicism” of that statement, take a nice, long look around. Everything we once believed in—democracy, freedom, the pursuit of happiness—has been carted off to the highest bidder. Billionaires decided that profit was worth more than human life, and somehow, the rest of us naïve peasants stood around and let them do it. Isn’t that just adorable?
I’ll spare you the poetic eulogies and patriotic tears because, quite frankly, they’re wasted on a corpse that’s no longer even warm. The world we cared for, the world we tried to save for our children, has been neatly packaged and sold off to the oligarchs who’ve gleefully hung a “Welcome to our Empire” banner on the front door. We’re living in a reality where democracy is now a quaint idea you might reminisce about in your next social media post—assuming you haven’t already had your account banned for daring to be “disruptive.”
But don’t worry, it’s not just America that got the axe; the entire world’s on this same unsteady track. Everywhere you look, the crumbling veneer of “for the people” has chipped away, revealing the real puppet masters tugging at our strings. They exploit our hopes, our fears, our addictions—whatever it takes to keep us clicking, swiping, and spending, until we’re all too exhausted to care.
And the best part? When we finally figure out that the people no longer hold the power—that we’re essentially serfs in a digital feudal system—maybe then we’ll realize there’s no profit when there are no longer people. Imagine that: you spend all this time building an empire, only to discover your empire is worthless without the very consumers you’ve systematically drained of resources.
So here we are, rummaging through the ruins of a once-idealized nation, a once-idealized world, trying to piece together some shred of dignity. Frankly, it’s laughable—if it weren’t so tragic. Our leaders have effectively sold our future for pocket change, and we’re left with rigged systems and hollow speeches. It’s as though we’re the star attraction in an absurd play where the final act is a funeral dirge for the idea of freedom itself.
But please, don’t get sentimental. There’s no room for nostalgia when the victors are busy dancing on the corpse, flinging confetti made of shredded constitutions and worthless promises. They’re having a grand old time, and who can blame them? They got exactly what they wanted: unchecked power, obscene wealth, and a global stage to flaunt it on.
In a world that has been murdered for profit, I suppose the only solace we can take is that maybe, just maybe, when everything collapses, the oligarchs won’t have anyone left to exploit. But hey, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that day to come—these folks are terrifyingly resourceful when it comes to sustaining their blood-sucking empires.
So, rest in pieces, America. I’m sure the oligarchs will give you a lovely eulogy at your unceremonious funeral—if they can pause their celebratory jig long enough to deliver it. As for the rest of us? Well, we’ll be here, wondering what could have been, had we not welcomed the power-hungry elite with open arms. Maybe in the next world, we’ll do better. Or maybe we’ll just dance along, too. Who knows? After all, it’s much easier to join the mocking victors than to stand against them.