I’m trying to think of what you mean by summertime sadness… idk if i can think of anything specific. Only i always prefer fall. It’s by far the best season. There’s this haze of eeriness over everything and everything’s dying and there’s ghost stuff everywhere and yeah :D (me coming in later: and Giselle :DDDD we’ll get to that) what’s your favorite season and why?

Yeah Dead End is amazing. Like i just wish the plotting and stuff was better but it’s just so fun - 

Okay so i definitely wouldn’t say there’s more Asians than white people in my orchestra, but wow that’s weird that there are in the writing scene? Huh. i still have no idea if i look white or asian or what. Except maybe more on the Asian side?? Idk. i don’t really talk to people a lot anyway so it doesn’t come up much, and the place i talk the most is higher level orchestra where there’s a lot of Asians *shrugs* 

It might just be that the writer’s block is related to burnout then. In which case maybe you could take a break for a bit? Even just a week. Definitely don’t pressure yourself to write! you will be more productive in the long run (and a lot happier) with less pressure on writing and less writing if you're struggling. 

I need to keep working on drawing. I think I didn’t draw for a while and now I feel like i can’t draw anymore??? Like I was trying to draw Giselle and my proportions were completely off and idk what the pose was doing. Maybe i should work up again with some simpler drawings. Or maybe it’s just an off few days and also i’ve been sick so.

Oh but Giselle is so good!! I finally watched it. So far the dancing is fairly like… Giselle and Albrecht don’t get all the cooler choreography, and overall the choreography isn’t my favorite (not in the "i don't like it" way, just not as much as certain others), though hopefully there’s more Albrecht at the part where he supposedly dances to his death (i mean come on ROH, you can’t neglect your male lead roles that much, right? Right?! *glares at Benno* except i like Benno but SEIGFRIED -). And like - the setting! The ghosts! And Giselle and Albrecht are so fun/sweet. Some of it reminds me of Coppelia, like the superstition of the flower petals being so important to Giselle (as they say, never base major life decisions on whether an ear of corn rattles or not). The music is more similar to Coppelia than a Tchaikovsky ballet or certainly a Prokofiev ballet, but it’s more creative in harmony and less creative in variations and ornaments. But like Delibes’ music, it’s really - charming doesn’t feel deep enough. Enchanting doesn’t have enough of the right feeling. Somewhere in between. All the ghost parts though!!! And I love classical ballet tragedies where they both die :D idk. I feel kind of like… tik tok for saying this (and i’ve never even been on tik tok except to watch like one video about baroque recorders that my mom literally signed up to watch so idk how i’m getting this but I am), but the *vibes* are superb. please for more action for the lead roles later. Solos, pas de deux? Please??

Oh but sometimes people will reccomend Giselle (or even Odette, but we’ll get to that) as a name and like - Giselle they might just not know the story exists ig and it is also a name, but i’ve seen people be like “oh i like Odette from this princess movie with a swan i watched when i was a kid” and i’m just over here sobbing and playing the last act of Swan Lake to help with my misery (like it’s a ballet!!)

However I’ve also seen this trend like “ballet inspired” stuff (like “balletcore”, which doesn’t even look like ballet) - like fake “ballet shoes” that look nothing like ballet shoes and stuff, or butchered Swan Lake stuff or like pink stuff that isn’t from any ballet I know of. How about Concerto costumes XD (look it up. It’s a modern ballet (1966 is what came up), it’s probably the point XD) also that trend seems exclusively feminine, which is also annoying because the guys have such cool costumes too!! And they have equally as cool and difficult dancing!  

Also it’s all like frilly and delicate and idyllic, which just to me defeats the point of the ballets - maybe for like a Waltz of the Hours thing from Coppelia, but if it’s supposed to look like - well - Swan Lake? It just seems to me that they probably haven’t watched it. Like parts of Swan Lake aren’t tragic, but they’re doing like something that’s supposed to be Odette/Odile-y and it’s not - it’s just not - sensical??? Idk. or if they’re doing something more “frilly workout” themed, it just feels almost insulting to the hours and hours that people put in every day. (from what i’ve read, with ballet you have to do a ton of workouts and warmups before you can even practice what you’re working on). 

This probably angers me more than it should but no. people get mad when people ruin books by making bad movies. This is the same, only most people haven’t seen the ballets, and they think of them as frivolous, and then i show them something (forcibly) and they’re like wide eyed “how do they do that that’s amazing and it’s beautiful and *gasp*”. Idk, i feel like society at large has such strange ideas about ballet. Also btw i love the frilly costumes and stuff, like Bolshoi Sleeping Beauty - they’re SO pretty - or English Ballet often I think has AMAZING costumes. That’s part of the beauty. It’s just that they’re always soooo watered down and not even pretty, and even if they were it doesn’t even capture the essence. Which is a story. A dance. Not just an outfit (for all the amazing outfits and scenery add)

Anywayyyy is some frilly sequined concert black (or, all black or a tuxedo for performance) with white socks and accents going to be “violincore” now? (for reference on the white socks thing: my orchestra director is clear that she would prefer literal chartreuse socks to white socks. I know this because whenever she asks “what color socks will you wear?” every year, I yell out a random color other than “black”.) i just hate it. Also because frankly everything that comes up when you look it up is ugly? And ballet costumes are gorgeous?? I’m watching ROH Giselle right now, it’s amazing

Oh and it’s 2016!! And it’s so fascinating because so many dancers who are now principals (or, in the case of Yuhui Choe, not a principal but one of the very best first soloists in the opinion of many) are in the ensemble. Like Yasmine Naghdi, Mayara Magri, Anna Rose O’Sullivan, Marcelino Sambe, Matthew Ball… And Vadim Muntagirov (who joined in 2014) must not have been as popular yet as Marianela Nuñez (who has always been in the company I think), since he got a TON less clapping when he entered than expected even a year or 2 later.

Oohhhh you know a lot more about social media and stuff than i do - what are your thoughts on all the aesthetics and “cores”? Is that even an actual thing? Or just the general “aesthetic” atmosphere (like focusing on the aesthetics of books, like you mentioned)?  

You know, I was reading Silver's post from the 7th and it just really struck a chord with me. I get that frustration so much. I have issues with eating (which is even more of a problem because some of the meds I take require calories to work properly) and hurt myself (although these days I've been pretty good about keeping it as an imagination more than physically doing anything), and I so, so get that feeling that you need to mess things up for people to see how much you're hurting. A lot of times I can pour it into writing and draft up some angsty poetry, but sometimes it becomes more real; like I quit my job, or do things that leave signs, or do something permanent; that kind of thing. It's really tough, especially when it feels like your family/guardians don't get it, or even make it worse. I also hate the fact that if anyone raises their voice or sounds a certain way, I get really, really upset and basically stop functioning. It sucks. Therapy can definitely get annoying, especially when it feels like it isn't necessary. (I've also thought about quitting, and have cycled through so many therapists throughout my life. I still don't know what to do.) Wasting time never feels good, and feeling like everyone is sick of you and your apparent weaknesses is horrible. I feel like that every day despite my best efforts to ignore that voice. I don’t know if this will mean anything to you, but I just want to let you know that there are other people out there who look like they have it together but are feeling the same way as you. Feeling these things are okay. You will be able to figure things out, even if it takes a long time, as long as you give yourself that time. Be patient with yourself. You have people who care about you and love you and are willing to stick with you through whatever you go through until you find yourself in a place that you can feel satisfied with. Love you, girlie <3 /p

i've actually posted stuff about certain things before and then i always delete them later... and i just don't know if any of it makes sense or i'm making it up or being dramatic anyway. maybe i'll post more later maybe not

oh and you know how i came out at one orchestra camp? well besides the fact that i missed the other because i'm sick, i didn't at the other one and i don't know if i'm going to be able to at actual orchestra and my mom doesn't want me to give out all this "personal information" (which is anything other than my name and pronouns, literally anything, because "you just need to let them know what to call you" but not that i'm not the gender they probably assume I am or thought I was or that i don't want to be referred to with feminine terms? and i can't explain dysphoria or anything because i think she already thinks it's ocd or a fixation or something because everything is to her (i think i actually heard her telling the doctor about it and how it's a fixation and i can't even talk in medical situations generally and certainly not enough to explain that it isn't (like ever really, and for typing doesn't always work either and i really cannot write like this if it's like talking to someone and idk how to explain it but also it varies). it doesn't even make sense because like if i hit her she gets so so offended but she can do it to me as much as she wants and she can feel anything she wants but i can't. (my dad mostly goes along with whatever she says and has a different way of getting mad.)

anyway she also seems to think that i'm getting all of it off of online and when i told her she basically did a whole lecture on internet safety and how there are so many disturbing things related to it and it really did not help. and also she was kind of avoiding talking about me for a while to not use my name and stuff but now she is again. so it's all kind of pointless is what i'm saying. and i kind of wish she was like undeniably unsupportive? because... i know this sounds bad but it feels like sometimes people actually get mad and upset about that and care about it and idk they don't seem to for anything else. it feels like the sort of thing you're allowed to be upset about. and also i don't know if i really want to be seen as feminine like... like i like a lot of stuff that's feminine but i kind of wish i could be like that without being seen as feminine. at the same time i think i am some sort of feminine gender. i just am, and i wish i wasn't because femininity hurts too much. and anything else is tarnishing and feels wrong now, but only in the way that like it's tarnished. i don't really want to be anything. anything in general, or any of the things that i am. i don't want to be cis because i can't be, and i don't want to be trans either. also i think my mom just has this clear distaste for visible queerness that has been starting to hurt all that. so the only options feel equally as bad.

and yet sometimes (often!) it's perfectly fine and as long as i act perfectly okay and happy it's fine... and i'm not even acting, really. idk.  also i had a complete mental breakdown yesterday, like unusually bad, except now i look fine again so that's really probably pushing the idea that all of that is just a fixation that comes and goes and they can dismiss it. 

anyway i wrote all that so i'll keep it ig... if i delete it later oh well. 

okay so i'll have a longer post later but for now - moral support! Fritz :D he always looks small in pictures, he was like 15 pounds even before he stopped growing though. this is just him yawning XD 

also i got a chicken stuffie i'll post more about him too! there's 2 pictures of Fritz though

this one's also pretty old so he actually is smaller. he likes to eat - well everything, but he's trying to eat the phone in this one. 

and the chicken! He's a Jellycat chicken. there was a big sale at a toy store that's like... a while from here so we went there and there was a cow and a chicken and i got the chicken. i love chickens and cows. anyway i then researched boba shops and THERE WAS ONE! like WHAT? so we went there and it was really good but - but. They had gluten free dairy free cookies WITH SPRINKLES and yeahhhh. *shock* basically. and it was such a good cookie. anyway therefore his name is Sprinkles. Possibly also Liliko'i or something else. 

anyway he's a cook, so he gives you sprinkle cookies and lychee jasmine green tea boba (and a smoothie for Silver because i think you like that better right?), and also some haupia, guava mochi with white bean paste inside, some li hing cherry and lemon peel and other crack seed of your choice (which you probably won't like but eh), and some vegetable soup! and a fancy notebook with a design of your choice.

this is more directed at Jaybells but either can answer - also Jaybells you don't have to answer

oof about the physical dysphoria stuff… i’m never going to go there with my parents XD i’m also terrified of surgeries and stuff (i had to be completely sedated for a ct scan - i'm really good at ivs and blood draws though!!) but dysphoria is possibly worse than that. 

And yeah i completely understand about “i’d rather she completely hated me” than “we care about you but”. And it’s not like she isn’t trying either, it’s just… idk. She’s trying in the wrong way, kind of. 

Also i understand wanting to just say you’re a boy… i haven’t gotten much experience with this yet (like i said the camp was super accepting, but idk if any of the kids figured out what was going on, especially because my name is Japanese so it’s not obviously masc to them, and a lot were new) but i’m not really… brave enough to be out as nonbinary either. Also i’m really bad at telling people and my mind filters out my old name and pronouns anyway because i hate them so much. And i get that it’s confusing but it’s also hard to have to explain constantly, and i haven’t even had to do that yet. Just like - the neopronouns debate on confessions. It wasn’t awful by any means but still. I also feel like being nonbinary feels much more like… social media trendy sort of stereotype? Also there’s this specific stereotype about being overly vocal i have in my head, and i’m kind of it, but i’m still scared of being it. I wish it was just normal. I also don’t like they/them but just he/him also feels worse. So he/they for now. I wish i could get rid of the old me. And that people didn’t see like dresses and stuff as inherently feminine. I don’t think it’d matter as much though, if i wasn’t stuck as a girl for now. Kind of at least. 

Also annoyingly i also have a lot of other things like i have always acted and felt more like a cat than a human, and i hate my age, and overall it’s probably just easy to dismiss. Even though the other things also haven’t gone away… idk 

Also there’s large periods of time where i don’t really mention it or anything and i think that those make them think i’m fine… i kind of wish i was brave enough to actually do something about it. like tell other people. and deal with that. the problem is i'm not really brave enough to stay closeted either.

And also i’m at least going to be going to college a year late because i’m behind and probably more than that tbh so what do i do when i have extra years to wait? And then what if i can’t do that anyway?

And i just want to be myself but i don’t even know what i’d do for that and i can’t be anyway. 

Also it’s funny that writing books and stuff and daydreams and such can be so nice… i really don’t know why. But i basically can’t write normal characters XD like i can probably (hopefully, for my ski lodge) but i can’t make them. Granted, the ski lodge is a bad example because of all my characters in it XD (idk how obvious it is for Hideto, but uhhh yeah that’s why he’s like this. Also he has ADHD though, that doesn’t hurt) like why? it's also just what i end up writing, it's not like i go out of my way to write it it's just what happens

(this one's more directed at Silver but ofc anyone can respond to anything)

It’s totally okay that you’re taking a writing break! And it’s totally okay if you only write when you’re inspired for a while, even if that’s not often at all. it’s not worth burning out to get to that point, and you can work more on it later. my viola teacher more often tells me that i should to take a break from practicing than that i have to practice more. Granted i usually practice WAY more than i have been, because i’m sick, but AUGH

I agree about the tragic ending!!! It works especially well with ballet, since it’s more about the dance and the music - ballets are the only thing that can make the wedding act my favorite part (I hate weddings). I especially hate it with Swan Lake though, because it’s so clearly an allegory for Tchaikovsky being gay. He didn’t get a happy ending! And it just feels… wrong somehow, like it doesn’t fit the story. Idk, it’s part of why making Swan Lake (or “black swan white swan” really, which doesn’t even mean anything outside of Odette wearing a white tutu and Odile wearing a black one) into this whole dreamy aesthetic is so infuriating to me. Because that aesthetic doesn’t come in… anywhere in the ballet? Except mayyyyybe at the beginning of Nyurev’s Swan Lake?? Like just the first movement, musically? Idk maybe it could in some version somewhere but idk it doesn’t really work.

Also for the “they have to earn it” thing - i think that’s almost always true, but for Swan Lake it actually works better that Odile and Von Rothbart are never given a real reason to keep Odile and Seigfried apart because of the analogy thing. And ballets can get away with that sort of thing. And it’s also just - the whole thing leads up to it and yeah it just works. Far better than a happy ending would. I think with Giselle it’s that since she’s already dead she tricks the queen of the ghosts and keeps her from turning Albrecht into one too. But I apparently can’t read synopsises. Also every ballet company has a different version. Also it’s technically a willi, but i still don’t completely get that part

Also i think that sometimes people value like… nuance and realism too much? Like obviously there’s things that cause harm, but like… idk. I also think it spawns an environment that encourages dismissing lighter stories and favoring darker ones even if they don’t deal with the dark material well, and including “nuance” even when it doesn’t make sense. And sometimes undeniably happy endings can feel more coherent with the book, if it’s light. And at the same time i think people always want characters to be very clearly good and bad. Like idk. It makes sense on one hand, but on the other hand it can be nice to have characters who aren’t so clearly cut into those descriptions? And not in the gritty dark antihero way, in the Albrecht not telling Giselle that he’s actually rich and supposed to marry someone else and they can’t actually be together way. I think that mostly works because of how sweet he is the rest of the time, the super charismatic dancers softening anything that could be rougher (interestingly i think my favorite things from Vadim Muntagirov are anything comedic and light like Coppelia or like this one really dramatic anguished dance in Swan Lake XD the last act DOES NOT have enough dancing for the soloists though) , the way that the other relationship is never fleshed out, and the general medium, though. also the rest of the ballet is a tragedy and Giselle actually dies because of it… idk. I have no clear consensus but just a thought. Nuance in a not super antihero morally grey way isn’t always seen as nuanced also? Idk if i’m putting any of this well

There do have to be lines though - like if Albrecht was mean to Giselle or that sort of thing, then obviously a different treatment would be necessary. And also if it’s something that’s either not generally challenged or has more potential to cause harm by normalizing it. (I also think that sometimes discussions about this sort of thing lean too much into the books causing undeniable harm, which is hard to prove, and less into the books reinforcing beliefs and assumptions. Also often getting mad at people who find something hurtful, but that’s another thing. I think with certain things… idk, it's really an issue with abuse depiction i think. because i have seen a few people online say that sometimes problematic books feel more relatable to them, but at the same time… if it’s like something where abuse is seen as good and healthy? That can be fine to a point - but it has to be challenged. (and since not everyone will get to the end, there have to be strong hints before, even if the character doesn't connect it - like maybe they're just having bad mental health issues and can't figure out what's wrong.) Because a lot of people don’t realize that it’s not okay. And it’s far more dangerous to reinforce that, even if you did relate to the book. and now those people realize that it was bad, or they wouldn’t be writing that they related to it! Idk, but there’s this whole discussion about “is it okay to glorify abuse if it’s just a book” and they focus on all the wrong things. Also, they bring in like Jaws and shark hate a lot and statistics, and people dispute that, but the truth is i have never seen a book about sharks that doesn’t mention how movies like Jaws make it significantly harder to raise awareness and get means to conserve sharks. Because when people hear “shark”, their mind goes to “Jaws” or shark attacks, and not how sharks are definned and thrown back into the water to die or such. Also, nurse sharks actually have one of the highest rates of shark attacks (comparatively, because most sharks are small and as harmless as any other predator with a mouth) but it’s mostly because people bother them, so like if you’re disturbing the shark like… yeah. otherwise they're really lazy and basically never bother people. Okay long paragraph but the whole thing is almost unbelievable. the only good argument i’ve seen for it is that sometimes it’s a coping mechanism that helps people realize things can seem good and bad at the same time, but in that case shouldn’t it be framed as a healing mechanism and not cool fanfic? Idk it’s ridiculous and nobody mentions any of the decent points. also a large part of the worse bits are actually worse than they sound but CB restrictions, which is good because i wouldn't mention it anyway because if you don't know i don't want you to know XD)

Also i thought that there would be more of an emphasis on aesthetics and stuff in xenogender places, where a lot of genders are related to things that are aesthetic-y, and less in mainstream. but actually looking into it i think it’s the opposite?? I also think there’s more trends with aesthetics maybe? And what’s outdated. And people tend to hate stuff so much when it’s outdated? Like apparently a wolf cut with curtain bangs is kind of “90s” and people really hate it for some reason. I have that hairstyle XD (well kind of.) idk. I’ve actually seen people criticize Luciana Vega, one of the American Girl Girls of the Years, because her galaxy print dress seemed like an old trend. she literally goes to space camp in the book. (she's awesome, if it's not clear.) Trends don’t make sense to me, but perhaps more than that it’s hating on old trends. 

Also apparently auditions are in like 2 weeks the terror… and there’s a new conductor for the lower orchestra who i don’t know at all… and it’s also serving as my orcehstra chamber music audition because they started a chamber music program too (!!) and i’d rather miss the lower orchestra than that… so basically i’m going to be trying to do 20 minutes of practice 10 minutes of break literally as many times as i physically can (especially on the Kreisler Praeludium and Allegro). Which will actually be as much as i physically can… I think Rebecca Clarke is in pretty good condition so I’m going to be focusing on the JC Bach a bit more when i do viola, since I’m going to need to get that ready to play in orchestra in a bit. So this year I’m going to have lower orchestra, YS, chamber music, and concerto solo all at once!! I’d be super excited if i wasn’t sick all the time. (edit: i was not able to practice yesterday whyyyyyyy and i feel no better today) 

Sorry admins this is super long.