crimescenesandtimemachines @crimescenesandtimemachines - Tumblr Blog

sixpenceee

Mount Fuji as seen from the sea (Source)

p0stcards--polaroids

It’s the rock that Ariel sits on

isozyme

here’s the deal with self care, for me:

pleasure, in the fun late-capitalism hellhole of present-day america, is treated like a luxury. it’s expensive. it’s frivolous. it’s guilty. if we want to eat ice cream out of the carton and be socially acceptable at the same time, we’d better have earned that ice cream. maybe by like running a marathon or getting dumped by an asshole. if we’re going to duck into the corner store and buy fresh flowers, it’s because we’ve had a hard week, not because flowers are nice. we can take a day off work, but only if we’re sick. we have to suffer before we’re allowed extra kindness.

in this equation pleasure is optional (irresponsible, even), except when it’s a balm for suffering.

however! we need pleasure to live. a life without nice feelings in it is like a diet with no vitamins in it. it’ll make you sick and eventually it’ll kill you. we know this because people with depression stop feeling pleasure, and they often kill themselves. left untreated, depression is a fatal disease.

pleasure is not optional. pleasure is not a luxury. without it, we die. that is literally the opposite of a luxury.

because pleasure is treated like a luxury, and priced accordingly, it is fucking hard to get. it’s hard to take time to relax and see loved ones when corporations aren’t required to offer paid vacation. it’s hard to buy that special face scrub or art print or pretty yarn when it costs $35 and student loans are breathing down your neck. so pleasure gets saved up for when things are really bad. pleasure gets budgeted. pleasure, once again, becomes something we have to earn by abstaining and hurting and gritting our teeth.

do this to people long enough and pleasure becomes potently associated with guilt. this thing we need desperately to stay alive is suddenly something we can’t seek out without looking over our shoulder and wondering if we’re allowed to have it.

that’s why it’s so important that we talk about self care, and tell ourselves and each other that it is okay to do things that feel good. it is necessary to do things that feel good. we have to uncouple suffering and pleasure, because the idea that we have to earn feeling good by first feeling bad is monstrous and wrong.

take care of yourselves, darlings. don’t feel bad about it.

blackmorgan

You know I went to type “pleasure” in the tags and the auto fill first response that came up was ‘guilty pleasure.’

noaffence

Here's a thought:

What if the Hogwarts sorting process is less about who you are, and more about what you need?

The sorting hat sees a boy thrust into a new world he barely understands, a boy desperate not to blend in with the crowd, and a girl who would sink as deep into her books as she is allowed, and says- what do these children need? They need courage. The courage to keep moving forward despite overwhelming circumstances and high stakes, the courage to see themselves as heroes, the courage to speak up and speak out against injustice.

The hat sees a lost girl whose world has been shattered, who can’t be bothered to fit the world she sees to others’ standards, and says- what does she need? Knowledge. The knowledge of how and why things happen, and the wisdom to accept the things she cannot change.

The hat sees a boy desperate to fill his father’s shoes, used to getting his way and confused at a world that works differently than he was taught. The hat says- he needs power. He needs an identity that will remind him that he has worth, that he can be more than he is.

I wouldn’t want to attend a hogwarts that sorted based on what universal human trait I exhibited most often. I wouldn’t want to attend a hogwarts that sorted similar personalities into uniform groups. I would want to attend a hogwarts that sorts based on its students’ needs, doing its best to help them succeed.

When dumbledore says, “perhaps we sort too soon,” maybe he sees the good that a little bit of courage, instead of a sense of self-worth inflated into superiority, could have done Severus Snape.

Maybe the most dark wizards come out of slytherin because, despite their house’s best intentions, they never quite find the confidence they need there. And it is the unsatisfied, those most disenchanted with the system, who seek to destroy it.