how do you keep the despair at bay? your photographs are always so mesmerising, but seeing the tag "summer as it was before" really did something to the pit of my stomach.
I don't always manage to keep despair at bay, but I've found meaning in it. A lot of things and places that I took pictures of when I started have been destroyed or changed completely now. I wasn't expecting the extent of it. Huge native trees cut down, beautiful landscapes domesticated, lingering patches of native wildflowers wiped out, meandering mountain streams channeled, and at this point all the devastating effects of 3 years of severe drought which turns thriving populations of fish and turtles and waterbirds into sets of a few struggling individuals: It's been hard to watch.
Some things have been destroyed by storms, some by drought, some by new insects, especially spotted lantern flies, but most by people, some by people who just don't care and some by supposed government environmental departments who should know better but who don't think in terms of one small place or ever pay enough attention to that place to really know what would be best for it. They cut down more magnificent old native trees than anyone else.
Meanwhile in the park near my house the decision was made to spray herbicide at the base of every tree, no matter how beautiful, alll summer long, even the specimen trees of special species that people paid to have planted in memory of loved ones. Since they started that about five years ago, maybe more, I have watched gorgeous healthy trees—flowering cherries and beautiful firs, very old pines and many others—deteriorate badly. My favorite cherry's trunk is riddled with fungus. A magnificent Fraser fir is in awful condition and as now has happened with several old and stately trees, will probably be cut down with the excuse that it was sick, never acknowledging that it was caused by spraying the roots with plant killer.
I could go on but won't. I certainly have not helped with your despair, I'm afraid. I suppose what keeps me going at this point is that all of this has made it more obvious to me that I should capture whatever beauty I find and share it because I know without a doubt that it could be gone tomorrow. My town used to have an extraordinary number of breeding bluebirds for example, but three or four different projects by different entities, not related, eliminated all but one or two of the nesting sites so that now I am pleased when I hear any bluebirds at all. Now I always try to get a picture because it's real to me that one year there probably won’t be any bluebirds here at all.
It has given my picture-taking a meaning and urgency it didn't have when I started. I can never capture it all before it's gone but at least some of it won't have disappeared unseen. I don't think most people suspected how beautiful it was here. It isn't a tourist destination or an Instagramer magnet. But to me it is so alive, so graceful and poetic, every species and landform here so heart-achingly beloved, it's unthinkable for it to disappear without at least a few people being shown that here was something simple and wonderful, like the Shire before Saruman came. And yet this is still just a remnant of the life that was here long ago when it was the Lenape people's sacred homeland, and I bear that legacy in mind too.
Despair? Yes, despair is warranted. But if I let myself wallow in it I won't do justice to what's being destroyed before my eyes. When it's finally all gone, then I'll take the time to cry. 💙
It's always "omg how have you not grown up with [insert incredibly popular AMERICAN media]" maybe because I didn't fucking understand english at that time like I might not have known what Sesame Street was but have you ever seen Kouzelá školka? Huh? Cvrček55 ring any bells? No? Exactly. Piss off
aaaa...ahh... i don't really know what to feel about this update. june was supposed to be a happy month, but it ended up feeling gloomy thanks to the company that ironically created the very muse that inspires me rn
i'm indifferent about the 6th LI. he's closer to my type for sure. if this was a console otomege, i'll do his route after my main. but yeah nobody tops the yasashii nii-chan type *taps my username* so whether he's in the game or not, i don't mind. but i'm just sad that he's released at the wrong timing.... where everyone is upset for the lack of content, especially xyz... 520 days without a main story update, bond, or anecdote. what the hell are they even doing?
i'm very patient you see, but it's starting to get to me seeing my close friends slowly leaving.......... 😔 i didn't make many friends when i first joined because the state of the fandom, people used to witch hunt CN trope players so i was afraid to get to know more ppl. now, those left were hurt by the way the company is handling things. im scared that in the end i'll be left alone bc i don't want to stop playing and let him go yet T__T i still love xyzmc so much.
i've always supported the game, bought all the official merchs, but now i feel like the money i spent was for nothing... and bc all of this, it's really hard to hype on the new update, even if i want to.
anyway, i'll keep drawing xyzmc. i just ccan't stop, they heal me.
