Journaling

Crystal by name and continually crystallizing by nature. She/her, Jesus follower, aroace/queer. D&D player, music lover, general thinking person. Cycles through fandoms. The book of James has grown on me the older I get. Not a cat blog ONLY because I don’t take enough pictures in general.

[gemstarstarlight]

Hi! *waves*

I go by Crystal! I will also accept Little Plant, as I am small and aromantic asexual (or aroace, to make it faster). I post about a lot of things, and it was getting unwieldy so I wanted to make a quick summary and tag list for ease of navigation!

I post a lot about my life, Christianity, being queer, the state of the world and how to live in it, and whatever thing I'm watching right now (check the tags if you're looking for a particular fandom, I usually just update with my favorite ones at the moment).

Here's a quick rundown of my personal tags and what they mean:

#thanks! it’s the trauma: posts that contain any and all discussions of my trauma. Most if not all of my vent posts are tagged with this. Lots of family stuff and emotionally abusive dynamics, with some discussion of events that happen at my workplace (I currently work at a mental health clinic for at-risk youth), so if you wanna filter out a tag this is the one to do that with.

#tw sex reference: If I post anything that has sexual/genital content or references I do my best to put it under this tag. If you’re not interested for any reason in having that on your dash filter out this tag too.

#mentality love: mostly traditional mental health stuff, but I also tag stuff that’s talking about how to grow your mentality, encouraging learning, or just in general things that help you live a better life.

#*checks for cameras*: posts that are relatable to me and make me wonder who's spying on my life.

#pretty pictures: art tag art tag art tag!

#philosophy takes: anything that’s about discussing life concepts, social issues, and how to think about things.

#reblog for posterity: general reblog tag.

#story time: posts I save to read to my grandmother about humans getting into Situations and Shenanigans.

#the hellsite strikes again: Tumblr is a unique website, and so a lot of Tumblr-specific posts go here, particularly if they feel like the quintessential Tumblr experience. I also have #tumblr how to that has ettiquete and general best practices to curate your experience (the tags #ao3 and #ao3 how to mirror this).

#the sacred texts: posts that are old and gold, the history of Tumblr. I lurked here for 10 years before getting an account, so if I recognize any of the posts from when I was a youngling it goes here.

#current status: the equivalent of Facebook's "what's on your mind?".

#tales of the fellowship: anything related to the friends that became family I met in my ministry organization; almost exclusively stories told in the tags of an unrelated nonreligious post.

#caaaaaaats: I have a son and I have loved him and his kind since before he was born, what do you want from me?

#musicians are just like that: musicians are really cool and talented and also some of the weirdest people on the planet (source: I have a B.A in music).

#americana wildlife: the weird/delightful parts of living in my very strange home country.

#mafia mutuals: a group of friends on Tumblr that just…do wild things together. Or say wild things. Most things under this tag won’t make sense. It’s usually Ink’s fault.

#crystal’s cold weather hate campaign: I hate cold weather and collect reasons to under this tag.

#snowboarding brother: I have two brothers: one of them is an adult who pays bills and likes to go snowboarding and get into Accidents and Shenanigans and Weird Shit. He's very nice, but is unfortunately a Man in his 20s.

#am i asexual?: most of the stuff tagged here is earlier when I first started my blog and was questioning and it’s not a huge tag, but I put it up here in case anyone who is also questioning if they’re ace wants to look through this tag and see how I was processing. Lots of my ace self-doubt and how I was thinking while I was figuring things out.

#allos are space orcs: just a bunch of amanormative/allonormative stuff that flummoxes me. I didn’t even notice half of this stuff until I was questioning and now it’s mostly just hilarious.

#tag game: polls, tag games/reblog chains, picrews, and asks all go under here. They're all quite long, as a heads up.

Anyway, hope this is helpful! Nice to meet you and welcome to my little internet home!

Love, Crystal

[angelnumber27]

Just saw someone say “over communicating is a form of begging”

take me out back and shoot me like a lame horse

[theweight]

this orange was pregnant. Isn’t the world amazing

[wheelie-sick]

sometimes people experiencing psychosis and/or mania will come up to you on the street and talk in confusing or upsetting ways. your job is to either have a regular human-to-human conversation with that person or politely leave. your job is not to call 911. do not call 911. you might kill that person if you call 911.

[wheelie-sick]

I don't even have the energy to screenshot and respond to your tags- what the actual fuck is wrong with you? "the cops are scared and rightfully so" "mental health calls are the scariest for cops" OH so this isn't about the safety of psychotic & manic people this is about piggy feelings?

and no, actually, this is not USA specific and no, actually, people from other countries should not ignore this post. police violence and sanism weren't invented in the US and they are certainly not unique to here. if you (or anyone) thinks that this bullshit doesn't happen elsewhere then you are not listening.

[headspace-hotel]

cops r Some Guy with a Gun

do we want Some Guy with a Gun in this situation? answer is usually "NO"

[uncivilliberties]

This is legitimately useful reframing. A while ago I started replacing the word "cop" in my vocabulary with "a man with a gun." It really puts things into perspective.

This homeless person is making me uncomfortable. Should I call [a man with a gun]?

My neighbor is having a loud party. Should I get [a man with a gun] involved?

There are some teenagers skateboarding. Do you think [a man with a gun] would get rid of them for me?

It makes it very clear what you're saying. I can call a man with a gun to threaten or hurt someone mildly inconveniencing me. You're not calling the cops, you're calling A MAN WITH A GUN into a situation that does not warrant a firearm handled by a volatile lunatic who will not be held accountable for his actions.

[headspace-hotel]

^ ^ ^

[magpie-trove]

The thing about courage is I always have this “I was brave once but this is again” reaction like it’s hard and exhausting and crippling to push myself to do the scary thing all the time and I don’t think I have it in me to just continuously make that choice, but actually making that choice is often what gives you the energy and rejuvenation to do the next brave thing, because it is a good choice and that means you will experience some good about it, even if there’s bad and scary too, and the good is self sustaining. The good is life!

[sidebaxolotl]

Christians getting married way too fast vs lesbians uhauling: who will beat the race against the clock

[redstonedust]

happy pride month to everyone who cant pick a consistent label. we may not know what flags we're waving at the pride parade but we're at the party anyways babey.

[phantomrose96]

After 13 years of this, it's still funny to me that detailing a full mental breakdown on tumblr is standard fare, but posting a nice selfie is a fraught decision.

[loki-zen]

this is the correct way around and every other social media site is wrong

[what-even-is-thiss]

I think over the years I’ve realized that assuming people you don’t understand are stupid by default is just like a mental shortcut to avoid having to think about why people act the way that they do.

I’ve kind of gotten tired of people doing that I guess. I used to do it, so I get it, but I’ve also figured out that you can learn a lot if you don’t assume by default that people are stupid. Almost everyone is fairly intelligent in some form or another, actually.

[imstacks]

Obsessed with Emily complimenting Murph and the whole table dogging on him for getting shy and nervous about it. They love him so much 🥺

also "Im waiting for someone to disagree" babygirl who hurt you...

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Ok so lemme get this straight the boys get advertised their body weight in protein powder and girls are told to get by on uncooked foliage and I’m supposed to believe that the observed differences in gender are strictly because of sex chromosomes with no cultural influence at all uh huh sure hey buddy what kind of idiot

[cuuno-moved]

does anyone have that one painting with the ghosts standing in the water?

[cuuno-moved]

like theyre in the water and they're staring off to the side and there's something so very wrong about it and they're bending over and trailing along like deer in the headlights but you can't see what they're staring at which might make it even scarier

[cuuno-moved]

like this

[cuuno-moved]

I FUCKING FOUND IT.

[cannibalcaprine-deactivated2024]

beach day beach day

[cuuno-moved]

[cuuno-moved]

by the way, the artist is olivia steen (website linked above) and apparently, her other works are just as breathtakingly eerie

look at this!!! it's cool as hell!!

[2cupsoforangejuce]

I thought the last one was very familiar to me and turns out it’s painted over a photo of john lennon !

and after looking at the first one again it is also, a beatle photo

[estacium]

Not going to lie the first picture like the ghost on the water It kinda is referenced on the one picture where the Beatles are in Miami for the Help! shooting I dont have the picture but it really looks like! Especially the bending ghost resembles Ringo and The other Picture where the ghost is sitting down I also remember so much remember that that picture is Brian Epstein sitting I also don’t have the picture cause I cant fine IT aaaaa HAHAH

[george-actual-harrison]

Now THIS is some fucking forbidden fandom lore lmao

[talking-perfectly-loud]

[talking-perfectly-loud]

ETA THIS IS THE ONE!!!!

[drivenalphabitchpaulmccartney]

[dontlistentothemmoose]

a JOURNEY

[oopsabird]

god, GOD Freddie Mercury was such a fucking badass

[scumbagsblog]

This doesn’t do the moment justice. He took the swig of vodka, said “I’ll fucking do it darling”, and then ABSOLUTELY NAILED IT in one fucking take

[child-of-dolora]

Mood for 2019: “I’ll fucking do it, darling.”

[finninsanelycoolish-deactivated]

Reblog for Freddie Mercury level belief in yourself this new year! 

[wodneswynn-deactivated-deactiva]

I’ll fucking do it, darling

[books-andbiscuits]

[brightlotusmoon]

Come on, 2023

[dankxsinatra]

[roxylalonde]

[trying-trying2lyk]

i love writing out numbers and then putting them in parentheses like "one (1)" even when i dont need to i think its funny

[justatiredlittlesnail]

[inkskinned]

Every day I handle more money than I will ever make. Every day.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

I’m not worth the cost of a watch.

[inkskinned]

i wrote this while i was working at orlando’s walt disney world parks.

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

we are both worth more than the watch, anyway.

[harbinger-of-silly]

All gays will go to hellsite

[king-of-oreo]

What if in hellsite but not gay

[punky-beaver-offical]

[king-of-oreo]

NO!

[avhira]

[hellsitegenetics]

String identified: A ga g t t at t t t ga T tag g a Ag agag Acctac ! T tag g a Ag agag Acctac

Closest match: Psylliodes chrysocephala genome assembly, chromosome: 4 Common name: Cabbage Stem Flea Beetle

(image source)

[graveexcitement]

[kebbopulos]

[spaghettihell]