There'll be a moment when you realise you're 27 when yesterday you were just 17; and you wouldn't be able to tell how a decade passed away and your life got divided into before and afters. The fury of youth will subdue and nothing will really change but everything will feel different when you look at old photographs and blurry videos taken on cheap mobile phones. Scents will remind you of childhood and certain friends you don't talk to anymore, hangouts will become reunions and mom's burnt pie will become the best food you ever had. And I know on some days you won't be able to show anything of those 10 years but I hope you remember to breathe, and let go of the knot in your chest. I hope you go out in the sun and live a little, because tomorrow is 37.
You live in Germany right? (Sorry if Im wrong. All I remember from you is west european) Im moving there for work and I was wondering what does the social media/AI issue look like there? (Like X/regulations/fake news/addiction/chatgpt... anything rlly, have a nice day)
I think you're misremembering or you've got the wrong person, as I've never lived in Germany. I grew up in the Netherlands (which are next door, so close enough) but I moved to another country during the lockdown period. I haven't lived in the Netherlands in years and I've only been back for brief trips, so I can't really speak on the topic of your question. From what I've heard, though, it's less bad than it is in the United States, and worse than people who try to downplay it make it seem. For whatever that's worth. Sorry I can't be of more insight; wishing you good luck on your journey, love đ¸
Pls ignore this if it's invasive? but how did your sexuality change with your gender identity? Asking cause I think I'm going through something similar rn hope you are doing good
I don't think I'm qualified to answer your question, mostly because I avoided the topic when I was going Thru It: I just told people I was bi (or 'pan' online) to not leave any room for wondering what being transgender would mean for my sexuality.
I suppose what gender you're attracted to isn't really supposed to change: when a lesbian woman transitions, she (or he) becomes a straight man. Or that's how I see it. 𤡠Anyway, I'm very much a boring straight, married woman; I don't reckon I was ever really bisexual, though I did believe so at the time. If I had one piece of advice to give, it'd be to not think in words and labels so much. Just figure out who you love and don't necessarily let that define anything else about who you are.
2018 feels like the last fleeting moment of the web's transitional phase from its early years into the nightmare it's become since, and I've never really looked back or missed having my brain plugged into this perpetual meat grinder. Using social media was damaging in the 2010s too (for me personally but for a lot of folks I think) but these days it feels more and more like selling your soul. Recent developments in politics and AI have seemingly only exacerbated the effects but it's been a steady downhill slope into bright, beautiful 'brain rot' for a while now.
I don't mean to scorn people still using these platforms in meaningful ways to share and connect, though I can imagine it's become much more difficult in recent months... years even? I don't know. Most news about social media completely misses me and I'm glad for it; I don't care. But though it's proven to not be for me, it's nice to see people still fighting to find meaning here: creating, connecting, kicking, screaming, rolling on the floor. I recently finished a quite sizeable oil pastel painting which I am very proud of. Sadly won't be sharing here for obvious reasons, but let it be said that I! Am! Happy with it! I just do everything meaningful off-line now.
Guess who still hasn't forgotten her Tumblr password
I saw a cute puppy named Koda a few weeks back and his name's been on my mind since...
Obviously, I saw the name 'Kodan' fly by a couple times when I was doing this here back in '23 and it felt very weird. Truth be told, even back in 2014â2016, I never got to a point where I could see Kodan as my name. It was always the fictional Minecraft character's (the one with the green and the brown eye), and (and I came to realise this looong ago) it wasn't so much that I based that Minecraft character on myself; rather, I had made this character, and it was just a piece of fiction... until I needed it to be something more. Until I needed to escape an identity and a life I thought at the time I didn't want. So I hid in that story and I adopted the name Kodan in late 2014 (funny: before that, I wasn't even using that name in the Minecraft fandom) and it just sort of stuck, but outside of my social media profiles, obviously, that name never caught on.
After I came out to my parents, we instead started using the male name they would have given me had I been born a boy, but then that didn't stick around for long either: by 2019, I'd scraped my life back together and a part of that was going back to being plain old Kat, my birth name. But that other name, the male one my family, friends and teachers used, became a part of me in a much more legitimate way than Kodan did. After all, Kodan was just an online nickname I was using to escape my real life instead of fixing it. After all, the real Kodan wasn't even a person but a character in an unfinished Minecraft fanfiction (and if anyone was wondering, no, I never did finish that, lol).
In a sense, the name Kodan never escaped the online sphere, and that is also where it stayed. Nobody IRL ever called or calls me Kodan because I'm not a poorly-made Minecraft fan character, and yet, throughout the years, it kept propping up, and each time it did, it felt less like people addressing me, the real person, and more like some elaborate mistaken identity. It was my own fault: after all, I was the one who perpetuated it in an attempt to drown out any hint of my real-life identity.
Anyway, to sort of reel my story back in: being called Kodan again when I started this blog was đŤWEIRDđŤ, as you can hopefully imagine, because although I understand the name was synonymous with me in people's minds... it never was me. My teenage years were the ones where I felt least like a person and that is what the name Kodan reminds me of: of a shell rather than a person. Nobody IRL ever called me Kodan and I am glad for it: never sharing my 'legitimate' male name gave me the IRL privacy I definitely needed.
I've reached the bottom of this collection. When I decided to post it here, I thought I'd be done in week; obviously, it's taken longer than that, mostly becauseâwellâlife.
I was never too fond of looking back on these years and I still am not. I expected to be uncomfortable going through some of the things I've posted but I feel so much lighter now that I've gone through it all. I can still say that most of these memories aren't ones I'm fond of, but I have to be thankful for the lessons they taught me about myself; about lifeâTrust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight. Ultimately, though, most of my teenage years and the things I've re-posted here are just very boring to me. These were my interests when I was a child; ones I've obviously outgrown. Leaving it all hereâgiving it away, so to speakâhas felt like the right thing.
Most importantly perhaps, I've had the chance to temporarily reconnect with old online acquaintances I figured I would never speak with again. It's been humbling to catch up and wish them all well and mean it, because I do. When I left social media in '17 (nearly six years ago at this point! goodness!), I did so without a word to the people who'd cared and worried for me, and though I am still leaving now, I've at least been given a second chance to properly say goodbye, and I appreciate that.
So this is goodbyeâa proper one. I wish you all a blessed life.
2018 | The never-ending bickering between the residents of the Slender Mansion is most often centred around who gets to shower firstâafter all, they get all the hot water.
About how I stopped drawing, or, my relationship with the creative process
I've had this up on my personal blog for around a month nowâI'm split between my desire to leave this here (as many aspects of this article are strongly tied to my time using my ~artist social media~ and how it affected me) and my hesitation because of its personal nature and the fact that it hardly is anybody's business. Compromising with myself by simply censoring chunks of it. Putting the rest under the cut so it doesn't crash this tumblr. xx
The last little story I wrote for my old creepypasta character, Waru, before I dropped the project in '18. This supposed to be a re-imagining of a scene from version of the story I wrote in '15.
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In the darkness of the dead of night it was difficult to see, but the grim outline of the old jumping board that towered yards above the long abandoned swimming pool, blending right in with the lush trees, was enough to pull a sigh of relief from Waru.
She dropped to her hands and knees when she felt her foot touch the first stone slab that surrounded the pool, now a terrarium for moss, ferns and other plant life. She clamped her hands over her mouth when a coughing fit crawled its way up her throat and she desperately tried to sit it out, only pushing very brief coughs out of her lungs which she tried to muffle with the collar of her hoodie.
Jule and her piece of trash friend group couldn't have been very far. Waru was sure of that, and the thought of revealing her location to them was horrifying.
She didn't need light to see what was dripping down into the palms of her hands when she felt the warm fluid touch her skin, and more and more with each cough. Waru gagged and doubled over, finally giving in to the growing convulsions in her chest and coughing as deep as she could in an attempt to get it over with as fast as she could - feeling the vibrations in her chest with each cough, and the taste of iron moving from the back of her throat into her mouth; spilling past her lips and onto the ground.
It was likely only the beginning, she knew, as she finally got to her feet and took a few deep breaths to calm her body. The ringing in her ears had arisen once again - quiet but noticeable -, a symptom of what was to come. Waru coughed again. She wiped her hands on the fabric of her jeans, smearing them with not much thought, and then fished her cell phone from her pocket. She unlocked the device, peered around her to confirm the absence of flashlight beams around her, and then flicked on her own. The soft beam illuminated the tiles she stood upon in a 2-yard circle and just barely reached the edge of the swimming pool before disappearing over it. At her feet laid a puddle of crimson blood, made to seem even darker than it was by the night and the dirt it was mixing with upon slipping through the cracks between the slabs and trickling down to the earth.
Waru wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her hoodie and spat at the ground, ridding her mouth of another thick lot of blood. She flicked the flashlight back off. In a mutual game of cat-and-mouse, the light was more of a disadvantage to her.
At least she knew where she was now.
For a while she considered turning around and stumbling back to her house in the very outskirts of the town. She could try to get some rest and pretend this didn't happen. She wasn't sure if she could sit it out in the forest all evening with a bunch of vengeful, bloodthirsty teenagers chasing her around like she was a piece of game. Op top of that, she didn't have her pills and it was when the world temporarily spun around her and the ringing spiked that she realized how big of a mistake she had made. Simultaneously with those thoughts however, the voiced from Jule and her friends squirmed their way back into her conscious thinking.
So what if she tells her mom or whatever, itâs not like she ever did anything anyway. Sheâd probably thank us. Besides, we just tell her that if she tries anything weâll come back and snap her little muttsâ necks.
Or we just grab her, we hold her down and one of us slices her wrist open, make it seem like she finally did the world a favour and killed herself.
Haha.. If only she would.
Her lips curled upward into a toothy snarl she flashed at nobody in particular. She snarled again as she ran her fingers over her left arm which Damian had, she was pretty sure, tried to turn into a piece of freshly carved ham. Her lips rose further as she stroked her finger past the incision feeling the skin split and the flesh underneath, still dripping blood.
She felt euphoric feeling the skin split. It wasn't the cuts or the beatings that she was angry at - they meant little to her - but the thought of them thinking they had the audacity to even assume they were above her, that they could somehow actually beat her down, enraged her. There was a pride that brewed in her chest. How pathetic.
Waru peered around the small clearing that, in the past, might have been full of people sunbathing in the grass by the pool, and locked her eyes on the small wooden shed that stood between the trees. She paced towards it. How dare they. Threatening her was one thing - and it wasnât like she hadnât become completely numb to it anyway - but threatening her dogs was something else. If she went back home theyâd surely find her there again. Perhaps they were already even there and then sheâd walk right into them.
She opened the small wooden door. It made a bone-chilling creaking sound and Waru cringed a little as the noise filled the silence of the woods. She said a quiet prayer that Juleâs gang wasnât nearby enough to hear it, and then stepped inside the shed where she
finally flicked her phoneâs flashlight back on. There, in the back, standing against the left wall and partially obscured by litter to the point where one could probably walk right by it, stood three baseball bats.
The fourth and fifth were hidden deeper within the rubbish just in case the main three were ever discovered. Waru picked up one of them, nearly falling into the table they were hidden behind as a sharp headache hit her and the ringing in her ears flared up for seconds. Her head spun like crazy and before the flare cooled down she lost her balance, even when leaning against the table for support, and fell sideways onto the dirt ground inside the shack.
She hissed out a mouthful of curses through clenched teeth and curled up, violently scraping her leg over the ground and coiling in agony as her head felt like it was about to split open for a moment. But only a moment. As spontaneously as the agony has soared through her body and mind it was gone again, leaving the trembling Waru laying on the ground, panting probably even shakier than the rest of her.
She slowly rose back to her feet, keeping most of her weight off her feet and on the side of the table behind her until she felt that she could stand right up without wobbling. She took a few deep breaths while her vision slowly stopped warping the shed around her, and then re-adjusted her grip on the handle of the bat. She tightened and then loosened her fingers rhythmically, focusing her attention on the simple action as her head stopped spinning. Ignoring the ringing in her ears, she focused on her surroundings, trying to pinpoint any sounds other than the ambiance of the forest. There was none.
Waru uncoordinatedly stumbled out of the shack, beating herself up mentally over slipping out of attention seemingly every other second but not being able to correct herself no matter how much she tired. The trees warped and swirled around her as she stumbled back down the tiles of the swimming pool, dragging the bat by her feet. A few times the scraping sound ceased and Waru knew she was close to setting foot off the stone tiles and disappearing in the empty pool, and she steered herself back with a swirly motion.
She let out a low croaking groan as her headache got a smaller spike and placed her free hand over her forehead. She dropped the baseball bat with a sigh. No. She needed to go home. Even if it was just to down whatever was left of her pills and then come back to teach these assholes another lesson.
She grinned and moved her hand down from her forehead, slipping it into the kangaroo pocket of her hoodie and stroking the back of the survival knife that was unsafely tucked inside, bumping against her skin when she walked. She forced a smirk on her face that moreso resembled the snout of a snarling animal than any emotion portraying joy. Fuck, she really needed to get back.
âOkay, okay okay okay.â She mumbled to herself, getting stuck repeating that one word for a while as she paced between the trees, trying to stay on the deer trail she normally took to and back from the hideout at the swimming pool. Her mind kept wandering off and she swore she could hear footsteps around her, though even upon shining her phoneâs flashlight around against knowing better, she saw nothing.
âOkay, okay okay okay okay. Okay okay.â Waru grumbled to herself, neck cracking almost uncontrollably and her right hand having trouble keeping a steady grip on the knife she had taken out as they twitched and jerked - as usual, though flared up. âI know you make it worse, I know you make it worse, I know you make it worse, I know you..â She coughed again, muffling it with the sleeve of her hoodie and nearly stabbing herself in the forehead with her knife as she did. She cursed into the fabric.
âFuck you.â
She glared around the treelines, ignoring the static that crept into her peripheries. Ringing filled her ears and gave her a headache that was sharp enough to force her to lower her gaze and grab her head with her hands as she stumbled further away from the swimming pool. She snarled in agony. Fuck. Fuck. Her medication.
Anger came over her as if a switch had been flicked and growling gurgled up from the back of her throat, seeping out between her canines. She was not going to give in to Jule and her gang. She didnât give a fuck about the creature that was watching her through the treelines, trying its best to pull her as if on puppet strings. She wasnât going to let herself get weakened and be at mercy of those assholes.
Waru fiddled with the knife and rationalized that she would try to make it home, and if Jule or any of the others tried to get to her⌠She giggled, knife in her still twitching hand. Well, itâd be their own fault.
