ayla

pulvis et umbra sumus

[willothecrisps]

hey, hey, hey, welcome to my blog :) glad to have you around.

• you can call me ayla (eye-lah)

• desi

• 20

• suffering uni girl with adhd and boy will you hear about it

• my original posts can be found under the tag #crispbits i swear im funny

ANYONE BELOW THE AGE OF 18 DNI

[inkskinned]

i was the exception to the rule. i should be the ambassador of the american dream. i did it all right.

we were dirt poor. my parents sacrificed a lot so i could be in an area where the schools were exceptional. we all bootstrapped. i paid my own way through college and grad school. i have student debt, but not a lot of it. it took me a long time and a lot of jobs and working and connections and luck and all of it.

now i make good money at a good (remote!) job with pretty good health insurance. I have vision and dental. they even offer pet insurance and 6 free meetings with a therapist. i work with an exceptionally sweet manager, i like my team, and i don't mind the job. i make much more than some of my friends.

so why the fuck can't i afford to eat.

i looked it up. ten years ago, my current salary would amount to 106 thousand american dollars. it was "well over" median wage.

my position's base salary (according to what i could find) has only increased by about 3 thousand dollars. after all, the work has not changed drastically. estimates say that for me to live "comfortably" in this city, i'd need to be making 139,776 dollars a year, before taxes. i am making half of that.

i always bristle when someone on the other side says something about how we just don't want to work, how it's really about me and my failure to succeed. that i need to be pushier, flashier, better; and then capitalism will work out for me.

in the car yesterday, she said that america is probably fucked. that the amount of damage trump is doing to america is largely permanent. i have difficulty arguing with her. prices went up during the pandemic, and then they just - stayed there. i want to believe in the inevitable rise of the human spirit (you know i'm an optimist) but the truth of the matter feels like a smeared handprint - i have no proof it gets easier.

elon musk becomes or unbecomes a trillionaire. we spend billions of dollars in a pointless war. health insurance companies kill people in cold blood. ai "takes over" jobs; assigns you a random number score for your resume so you are automatically rejected by the system. you're fired to make more profit for the shareholders; they rehire someone else for half of your pay. the government spends millions of dollars to destroy national monuments. the white house needs a ballroom. the fbi just posted that they can preemptively arrest someone for domestic terrorism for "extreme" beliefs about america. when i went to go check my facts about that - i found that the this fucking government website has an email sign-up popup that covers the entire page & i literally could not figure out how to close it.

so yeah, the price of eggs is not going to go down. the cost of RAM is not going to go down. why would it. in the free market, without regulation, all the companies really need to worry about is how else they can bleed a stone.

sometimes when people my age make fun of gen z or gen alpha for being unwilling to work; i think about the lie we've been telling them. because i am not an unusual case. so fucking many of us did it "right". so many of us put our heads down and agreed to the terms and conditions. this was how you do it, right.

almost none of my friends own a house. all of us are in our 30s.

it's apocryphal and likely didn't happen as written, but the myth goes that when Marie Antoinette was told that the general population was starving and had no bread to eat; her chipper reply was so let them eat cake.

there's a 250 foot ferris wheel breaking down on the national mall right now. i can't afford gas, but whatever. our nation's birthday is coming.

i am told to keep trying. do the impossible. solve the puzzle, open the portal. coupon your way to success, high yield savings, skip the coffee break. hustle harder, show up early, leave late. the problem is you, right. it's how you're living life. just keep going!

look forward to the cake.

[eelhound]

“How does one hate a country, or love one?… I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love for one’s country; is it hate for one’s uncountry? Then it’s not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That’s a good thing, but one mustn’t make a virtue of it, or a profession.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin, from The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)

[anxietyproblem]

[inkskinned]

no, i understand the only way out is through, i know this and i am very familiar with the concept and i have forced myself through and through and through and through, like an arrow to an apple; like a bird to the air. i push myself through mesh and sieve and stormdrain.

i am saying this thing is like stone to me. i am saying i have taken a pickaxe and a plow and a chisel and a spoon to it and i have made no dent or scratch in the surface. i have pushed and pushed, sisyphus beside me, and still my skin gave before the stone could.

i am telling you if there is a passage i do not see or some kind of clever way to thwart this enemy i'll take it. i've been up down and sideways of it, i've whispered to it and cajoled it and sang to it. i have tended to it like a kitten and i've kicked it to the curb. i have exhausted all available avenues and approaches as are available to me. i'll do whatever stupid fetch quest or answer the riddles three. i am standing here and every part of my body hurts and the stone is unmoved. please. if you know how to resolve this, i'm begging you.

and still, you say. the only way out is through.

[loveridden1999]

in a way i am my own dead wife

[king-of-the-brethren-court]

Daenerys Stormborn is the greatest Targaryen of all time. There is no comparison. She can't be compared to her ancestors when the whole purpose of her character is to be better than her ancestors.

[king-of-the-brethren-court]

Now that the trailer for HotD S3 has been released, I think a reblog is necessary.

[maidthings]

im generally not a very jealous person so i am feeling lots of brand new emotions right now

[demilypyro]

i'm an expert on being jealous you can ask me anything you're confused about

[maidthings]

how do i kill everything thats ever lived

[lothmoth]

did you know they say calculus is the language of God. did you know they tried to hold math up to infinity like a candle to the void. did you know statisticians plunged into the vastness of random chance and picked out patterns and equations and eight hundred ways to tell you how big your inevitable errors are and how far off those guesses at errors might be. math haters I can't sit with you anymore. human innovation is cradled in these ancient, methodical, desperate attempts at understanding what we are not designed to understand

[headspace-hotel]

Y'all

Im not on tiktok and never have been, but I downloaded RedNote just to see what is up, and I am witnessing something truly amazing

The Chinese user community is giving the American tiktok refugees an overwhelmingly warm welcome, meanwhile the American users seem to have collectively agreed that not only will they not let the app be taken over with English and they will provide Mandarin subtitles for everything, they are LEARNING MANDARIN. Ive scrolled through so many videos of Americans offering greetings in Mandarin to try to acclimate to the new environment and be respectful, and speakers of both languages are posting lots of tutorials on language basics and internet slang in Mandarin

My God, there is an AMAZING outpouring of curiosity and delight among everyone to learn about each others cultures and daily lives. People are posting videos of landscapes, cities, towns, and natural areas in USA and China, posting recipes and traditional foods, vlogs of everyday life, and reaching out to find people with similar hobbies.

And it's not just young people! There are loads of videos from middle-aged American guys who have come to post about fishing or motorcycles and are now happily chatting with Chinese users sharing the same interests using Google translate

One American guy who was like. in his 60's had a comment on one of his videos that was like "Red Neck?" and he replied "Yes!" and I just about fucking lost it

Also the Chinese users love, and I mean LOVE, Luigi Mangione. He is apparently broadly adored in China. There is SO much fanart and SO many edits.

There are many threads initiating Chinese users to ask questions of American users about the USA, and vice versa, and everyone on both sides is clearing up a lot of misconceptions. Some of the questions I saw a lot from Chinese users were: "Is it true that American parents kick you out of the house as soon as you turn 18" (not often, but sometimes) "Do you all really wear shoes in bed" (NO!!! Apparently a lot of characters in American sitcoms are shown lying in bed with shoes on which I never noticed before!) and "are there really guns everywhere" (yes).

For the most part Chinese content creators seem just overwhelmed by the sudden influx of hundreds of followers that are super enthusiastic about what they're doing. A lot of them have made posts about how initially they thought the uptick in follower count was some kind of error, or that there was some kind of joke or prank, but then they realized the interest and enthusiasm was genuine and now they're welcoming all the newcomers.

I found several posts by Chinese users saying that this felt like a really profound historical moment, where these previously separated worlds are suddenly smashing together and suddenly there is freedom to learn about each other's cultures and connect. One of them said something along the lines of "This is a 21st century Tower of Babel and even though I'm an atheist I hope God lets this tower stand." OUGH MY HEART.

The app itself works a little bit like a video-based version of Pinterest. It's not really my thing so I probably won't be on there long term but it's been amazing to see what's happening.

[depsidase]

[sandersstudies]

Sometimes I see some variety of North American Little Guy (opossum, raccoon, etc. ) and I’m like “okay”

BUT THEN I start thinking about how excited somebody from not-North-America would be to see this Guy. Like, would an Australian be excited to see the only marsupial not from their country? Are there raccoons in zoos on the other side of the world that are regarded as unique and exotic creatures? Idk but it’s made me more excited to see Guys in my area.

[sexceptionul]

I’ve seen a lot of posts on my dash tonight about users who are threatening suicide, with other Tumblr members posting in effort to try to get ahold of them. I think you all should see this:

IF THERE IS EVER A TUMBLR USER WHO HAS POSTED A GOOD-BYE MESSAGE, SUICIDE NOTE, VIDEO, OR ANYTHING OF THE SORT, PLEASE FOLLOW THIS POST.

1. Scroll to the top of your dashboard.

2. See the circular question mark icon at the top? It’s the third one over from your home symbol. Click on that, and a screen similar to the one in the picture will come up.

3. Where you can type in questions, the box with the magnifying glass at the top, type in the word “suicide.”

4. Click on the first link that shows up. It should say, “Pass the URL of the blog on to us.”

5. Type in the user’s URL and tell Tumblr admin that the user is contemplating suicide and has posted a message indicating that they are going through with it or will be attempting. Hit send! Tumblr administration will perform a number of actions to contact the user and take the necessary steps to prevent the suicide.

TUMBLR: THIS COULD SAVE A USER’S LIFE. PLEASE DO NOT IGNORE SUICIDE THREATS.

Reblog this to keep other users aware. Suicide isn’t a joke, and neither is someone’s life. If you didn’t know this, someone else may not, either. Pass it on.

[thedanliest]

why on earth doesn’t this have more notes

[outtelligent]

I actually had to do this once. She lived.

[faeirytale]

if you scroll past this on your dash you are absolutely heartless.

[natalie-as-herself]

Reblog this!! This can save somebody’s life!

[aika-chan01]

reblog.

help.

do not scroll down.

[nonextistentttttt-deactivated20]

I SWEAR TO GOD IF ANYONE SCROLLS PAST THIS WITHOUT REBLOGGING I WILL LITTERALLY FIND THEM AND GIVE THEM A LECTURE

[danqueray-deactivated20200703]

may I just update this?

see the little thing that says help?

[josephdreemuur-moved]

Don’t ever scroll past this post. FUCKING NEVER SCROLL PAST!!!

[xcassidy]

🌸🌸🌸

[undiagnosed-autism-things]

Anyone know where it is on mobile ???

[i-am-a-moron-deactivated2020051]

You report the user, choose “something else”, scroll down and choose “suicide or self harm”

[femur-theif]

DO NOT SCROLL DOWN

REBLOG TO LITERALLY SAVE A LIVE

[im-just-trying-to-survive-man]

PLEASE REBLOG

[tastingmellow]

Please don’t scroll past this post, you could save someone’s life.

[mo0oshro0om]

SAVE A LIFE

[housefly77-deactivated20240331]

this. reblogging this on my largest blog for y’all to see this

[paialovespie]

You can also do this on Android mobile.

Scroll to the top of the post

Click the three dots in the top right corner of the post.

When the menu pops up, click Report Something Else

Then choose Suicide or Self Harm Concern.

[beachbutterflies]

Sorry this ain’t my usual content. But this is important.

[department-of-expired-sounds]

I will post soon, but this is very important

[aadyeah]

BOOST BOOST

BOOST

[mango-pickle]

BOOST

[beautiful-sims]

Reblog to save a life

[thecharmedquill-deactivated2022]

Not my usual content, but very important nonetheless.

[willothecrisps]

reblog!

[starlightsweetheart]

You know I don’t really see how Rucas fans can say that Lucas never liked Maya, that he only liked Maya because she turned into Riley, blah blah blah🙄.

In season 1, Girl Meets First Date, Lucas and Farkle are talking and Lucas mentions going out with Maya… Honestly, if he wasn’t interested in her any way whatsoever, why would he even bring up dating her? Why bring Maya up as an option at all, if he’s only interested in dating Riley?

They’re also making a point of showing us who he is referring to by having Lucas call Maya, “other one”…

Then right after insinuating about dating Maya:

and that right there is the real “long game” people!

[adhdannieedison-deactivated2025]

I don’t think I’ll ever not be annoyed at how girl meets world treated Maya. Welcome to my rant on why Maya Penelope Hart (Hunter) deserved so much more.



(Also, let me just say, I work in this industry and I do get that you can’t have the best friend eclipse the main character but they were such equals it could have been let by. My girl was done dirty. )

(Ps all the gifs are from tumblr’s collection, all credit goes to their original makers)

The whole ‘Maya turning into Riley’ thing was absolute BS. That’s what I’m most mad at.

Riley and all the Matthews said for years all they wanted for Maya was to be happy and have hope and motivation to achieve her potential.

But the second she’s doing that, and isn’t the sad lonely best friend who they can use to all feel better about themselves by pittying?

She’s supposedly morphed into Riley.

She’s a teenage girl she’s not meant to know who she is. Life’s changing. She’s changing.

What did Riley represent? Hope. Happiness. Things people just weren’t used to seeing in Maya.

Girl meets upstate was all about how the day Shawn bought Maya all her new clothes she somehow changed.

I’m sorry?!?!

Did we just all forget how happy she was? How Cory told her in class the hope on her face is what looks so good? How she truly learned what hope was? How she finally got her dream come true with Shawn and her Mom? I mean look at her face. Pure joy. She’d been through a lifetime of pain and anger and heartbreak and awful circumstances.

And then, remember when she went to high school and got her first A? How happy she was to have it so proudly up on the Matthew’s fridge? When she found out all her past failings didn’t count and this track could get her to a college - a way out of the life she had lived?

For them to destroy that in her, to force her back into the depressed, lonely shell of who she used to be, which not only obliterated her confidence but probably ruined her future prospects as well all because they had to cater to Riley’s perfect little world that she’s at the centre of? Maya deserved more.

I mean Riley pretty much told Maya she can’t possibly like a nice boy as she is because she’s got too miserable if an existence. Riley obviously hasn’t come across ✨daddy issues✨yet.

OBVIOUSLY she wants a nice boy. Her dad was a ‘bad boy’, and he was the first man to break her poor tiny heart.

Then there’s Lucas. Girl meets ski lodge was so unbelievably disappointing.

Not to mention the gross Josh thing. Dude was in college, she was 15. Really Disney?! How can there be just under three years between them when he’s in college and she was in middle school. It was so freaking gross.

Also josh with all his wisdom and observations about this being some subconscious scheme to protect Riley - acting like he knows Maya and Lucas better than anyone else, even themselves. He saw them interacting like twice? And Maya is the queen of masking what she really feels when it comes to being legitimately vulnerable.

I truly fully believe that in gm upstate Lucas had picked Maya. There’s no other way that episode makes sense to me. I saw a tumblr post that said watch it twice - once thinking he picks Riley and the other with Maya, and only Maya makes sense - and they’re right. But I think Lucas knew that Riley’s emotional immaturity meant that if they wanted to keep the friend group together, there was no other choice. Maya is used to heartbreak, she could handle it and Riley couldn’t. That’s why I’m sure she pushed him to Riley. They had this moment (captured below) where they both just resigned themselves to a fate of longing for the other but never having it.

But he asked her why she dumped the smoothie on his head. What was she going to say, “because with her you might have to be some Mr Perfect all the time but with me you only have to be your messy, imperfect self and you tried to recycle the same thing you told Riley on me so I humbled you back down” while Riley was sat right there?!

Riley’s reaction when she found out about Lucas’ past in texas shows how she truly only loved the fantasy of him. She wanted Cory and topanga and to be honest anyone could fill that role as long as she was the other one in it. But she couldn’t just accept that there was something that made him not perfect. That the world wasn’t just black and white.

Maya let’s him be himself. She has no expectations of him. She understands everyone has flaws and accepts him for his.

Plus the way he predicts her moves, catching her before she tries to chase farkle or the hand thing in science class. You know when you know someone so well it’s like they’re a part of you? Yeah, they know it too.

They can be imperfect together, and they both felt that ease and comfort. I honest think that’s why he lets her call him so many names. It’s their own affection. Others don’t have to get it for them to feel it. It’s a familiarity - a fondness.

Not to mention him calling Zay back home and calling her the blonde beauty.

Maya constantly gave up her own happiness for Riley, and I truly wish she didn’t, because Riley wouldn’t do the same for her.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Riley thinks she would, but she hasn’t got enough experience of the world to know what that commitment means. Maybe the protect Riley committee was actually harming her in that way. She was shielded too much.

To reduce Maya as a human being who was growing up, who was a normal teenager who was unsure of her identity and self worth, and boil it down to the claim she can’t be happy, or work hard, or be smart, or hopeful unless she’s copying Riley is so selfish. She deserves that growth too. She deserves that happiness. And that’s one of the many reasons that even when I love them as a pair, their friendship could get really toxic when she went too ‘full on Riley’.

It literally demeaned mayas entire humanity, so of course she backed down without telling Lucas how she really felt. She felt broken. She felt lost.

I think she wanted him to fight for her in gm upstate, not that she’d ever say that out loud. He was so passionate when Maya nearly lost art class, I think all she’d want is for him to stand up to absolutely everyone else in her life and say that she’s allowed to be both Maya and happy. He looked gutted when she said he picked Riley either way.

The people she was meant to love and trust took it too far and forced her to undo everything she works for and was happy because of. And waiting for her volcano eruption:

I mean Riley really genuinely thought that Maya would steal from her moms work place?! After every money trouble Katy and Maya went through, Riley really disrespected Maya THAT much?!?

She was told by everyone around her she couldn’t be Maya and be happy, so she pushed away the one guy who’s always met her toe to toe, always challenged her, always defended her and fought for her, always understood her.

It broke her heart. But it wasn’t Lucas who really broke her heart, it was Riley. For never letting go of the fantasy. And also, if farkle cared about Maya as much as he did Riley he wouldn’t have said anything on NYE. Maya deserves happiness, but they’re all so used to seeing her unhappy they think it’s normal and okay to keep her that way so they can grow around her and use her as a spring board for their personality growth.

The fake stories both girls told of what the future would look like for each of them wasn’t what Maya was really thinking. Because Maya feels safe in very very few places, and his arms is one of those. She wouldn’t ‘rather argue with him than save the world’ with him, she’d just hide all her fear and vulnerability until she was alone.

And I don’t believe Riley or the matthews was a safe space for her anymore - because they took her and shaped her and let her flourish - and then intentionally crushed her. I think it’s a good thing she had her mom and Shawn more after that. Because the matthews didn’t want two ‘identical daughters’, so they made an already impressionable Maya back into the sad girl they used to feed.

I’m so mad on mayas behalf. I know she’s not real but I think, as one of the kinds of people who always constantly lets my happiness be trodden on and broken down so those I love can be happy, I’m finally seeing how much the world could offer if for once people like Maya and I let our happiness matter just as much as other peoples.

Like a best friend like Riley who can’t handle the idea that something not be perfect. The world had to revolve around Riley, but sometimes being the best friend in everyone else’s main character story sucks.

Maya lost her happiness and her hope and her motivation to be the best version of herself all because Riley was selfish and kinda toxic, and everyone else went along with it. Riley had to be the centre of everyone’s world, she couldn’t possibly imagine anyone else being happy. This isn’t even just about how we were so robbed of Lucaya, the whole girl meets upstate ep spent the entire episode disparaging and undoing one of the most beautiful episodes of giving a girl who had been through the mill some actual hope. Gm hurricane was when Maya learned that life could be beautiful. Gm upstate taught her that it was all a fever dream and she can’t have good things. She can’t have aspirations, or a popular sense of fashion, or hope, or happiness.

And I hate that. So much.

Maya Penelope Hart (Hunter) deserved so much better than season 3 gave her.

[fantasmalresplendent]

I can't be the first to make this connection

[fantasmalresplendent]

y'all slept on the first chart but I will make the world see my vision

[spaceshiporion]

...Can I add this

[zaph1337]

I'm sorry but why was this the post where I learned some rich lady fell in love with the Grinch

[lousontiptoes]

raise your hand if you’ve ever been disgusted by your own fandom…

[alphacrowley]