Throwback To The One Time I Wrote Two Male Best Friends- Matthews And Izumi- In A War-prone World With

Pleading for my exam tomorrow to be cancelled. Can't study jackshit atp. My mind is cooked.

Well. Now to get more serious.

As an indian, this entire india-pak conflict has been enlightening about one thing- other countries don't give a jackshit. Nor does global. In the sense that, the pain india felt due to Pahalgam can never be translated to you.

Disclaimer: I do not hope for a war or escalation. I am just tired of seeing people talk about this stuff in black and white terms.

I am tired of entire narrative with this, "ahhh india attacked civillians!"

Civilian deaths are to be mourned. They shouldn't happen. I pray for their families but the attack was never targeting civilians- unlike what Pak did last night. Which I will get to shortly.

So, it was a calculated retaliation (on terrorist sites) to Pahalgam which was fucking horrific and bone chilling. The entire country was chilled.

And yes. Pahalgam is backed by Pakistan. It has been a pattern. Here is a video to get you started on this mess, entire history of kashmir conflict and what not. The history of terrorism. It has sources linked.

Let's get to last night now.

I live in the state adjacent to a border one. My hometown itself was one of the places which was rained by missiles. My family could hear the blasts, the crackling noise till 2 am. My baby cousin was crying scared. All was dark and the only light was of missiles.

Pakistan attacked civillian cities, alongside the ones with army bases. They did not give a fuck.

I don't know how it isn't clear what the country is trying to do already.

I am just so sick. Hoping no escalation happens. We don't need a war. No one does. But stop painting India in red. Pakistan isn't the victim. They haven't been from a while.

Final words? Asking the common citizens of both countries to stay safe.

god, i was so scared about what they were gonna do with ifa's design and i. They just. Did it perfect. I adore his design, hes sooo cuuuuteee. *breaths a massive fuckin sigh of relief*

Now about what they will do with his kit... *waits with baited breath*

unpopular opinion after finishing 2.5 books: shatter me was entirely ass and hot pile of garbage. The only good thing being aaron warner.

finished shatter me book 1 in half a day and my brother stared at me like i am a lunatic. My mother taunted me about studies. Fantastic.

I know I started reading it at 2 of noon yesterday. I know its not even 10 of morning today. I know my exams are going on-

But I just finished inhaling vol 1 of TGCF and now I have a new hyperfixation.

And all I want to say is, oh xie lian, xie lian- how I wish for there to be more like you.

The Searcher

That’s enough, I think. Enough. It is 2.43 am when I glance at the ancient clock, ticking away. The room is ridden with dust, home of papers and sheets and ink. Pen and books. 

I have been trying and trying to write since long. It is not that the words have not been coming to me– they come, they ebb and they flow. But they miss something. And I am sure, so sure they miss something. 

I know this because they didn’t miss it when I was a kid. I remember my words having that something, that spark and that shine. They not only ebbed and flowed, but sung and danced and set up for the grandest of plays. 

And it’s not today, I am realizing this. I have been realizing it for a long time indeed. I have been trying to find that thing for weeks– the muse of the stories, the core they hold.

I have tried working in my college’s dorms, in public libraries, in the central park, countless different places at countless different times. I have tried searching for answers in the words of the greats, in the sermons of my professors and nothing worked. 

Nothing works. 

Maybe different, far from this modern life, I think. That is where I will find it. And so I decide to pack my bags and leave for the mountains in the North.

This may seem like I was overdoing it but I was not. I am obsessed– I need, need the words to come. I need to write the perfect story, the immaculate tale, the haunting novella that I have dreamed about since I was a young kid.

~

In my time in the mountains I seldom meet people. I usually spend my time working away under the trees, writing on paper after paper– disappointed, wandering from one corner to another until I reach a village. 

I meet an old woman there, sewing a bamboo hat together for herself. She has wise eyes, unkind face. She looks at me and asks, “What are you looking for, young lad?”

I tell her what I am looking for and ask her if she can help.

She shakes her head. “I am afraid not. I used to paint, you see.”

I ask her, “Used to?”

“Used to,” she confirms. “I don’t anymore. I lost it.”

Lost what? I ask.

She goes on that she used to paint, you see. That she was nearly 40 when she quit and she didn’t really know why but she stopped because the colors were not coming from long now, the muse was long gone. “I suppose it was inevitable,” she says. “I forced it for many years, couldn’t force it for life. I took up crafting then.” She holds up the bamboo hat. 

I ask her if she still feels natural at it. She shrugs, she says she is not sure.

“But I will advise you,” she says. “You won’t find it in people you are looking at.”

I am surprised and I ask, “Then where will I?”

“Ah, I..” she frowns. “I think I saw it in my young son once.”

“Where is he now?”

“Oh you know.” She waves her hand dismissively. “In England, studying.”

~

I leave the mountains soon to head for the rainforest. It is a strange thing, one can think. Why go so far for this? 

But if one thinks that, they won’t truly understand why. 

I believed– have believed from long that if you love something, you must be willing to love it till madness. You must continue to love, to create even if it drives you mad.

And in these moments, I thought, I was nearing a sort of madness. A madness of not men but gods.

In the rainforest, I spend my days by the trees, canopies and bushes. Near the streaming river as the hot sun casted glow on it, making the water sparkle. On the 3rd day, I reach a cabin in the middle of the woods. A man greets me. He is middle-aged and toys with a cigarette in his fingers. He glances at me and says he can tell I am looking for something. “What are you lookin’ for anyway, man?”

I tell him my troubles and he huffs.

“Get that, you won’t find it here,” he says.

“How do you know?” I ask.

“Well, I've been here for years. And I haven’t found it.”

“You are an artist?”

“I used to make music,” says the man and tells me about his life. From the man of city and modern worries to a nomad of forests. 

By the time he’s done and the next morning rolls around, I have left the forests. I wonder to myself what is it that the old lady and he are missing? What is it that we all are missing? 

I continue my search for months to come– like a wayfarer, going from one place to another, searching for what?

I didn’t even know anymore. The muse, was it? Or the inspiration. Perhaps a sort of contentment with what we create, the words that flow– the oomph, the x-factor, or simply the joy?

I do not know anymore.

At last, I come to England and meet the son, who is now about 28. He looks at me with skepticism but that fades away when he hears me talk about his mother. He smiles and sighs, saying he misses her. I tell him about my conversations, my search– and his smile falters.

“I don’t have it anymore,” he says. “I don’t.”

I plead, request him to give me something. By this day, I am tired. Exhausted, beat and at my wits ends. I need something. I am getting madder and madder.

“I am sorry,” he goes on. “I really don’t. I still write. But I just.. It’s gone. It was something which is just gone.”

“When did it slip away so?” I question.

“Perhaps when I was 14,” he answers. “Perhaps older or younger.”

I stare and he laughs. 

“We may never know.”

He offers me a stay in his university, saying we could try working together and I accept. I am tired, hopeless but I accept anyway. Weeks pass and nothing comes together– it’s all the same. The same. 

I leave England in the most desolate mood and by the time I am back in my college, I have given up. I rush to my room and I throw my papers in frustration. The ink bottle is hit and dark blue, nearly black, spills onto the floor. It seeps. 

One last time, I pick the old pages up and the new ones. The new ones are better– the better technique, grammar and they are certainly more intelligent. But it is with one look I can tell that they don’t have the ‘it’ like the old stories do.

~

I gave up on writing years ago and I am married now– I have a beautiful spouse and the sweetest little daughter; my little girl, my joy. 

By the time she is nine, she has found my old trunk from the attic. It has the papers, old and new, crumpled and well kept. Countless stories, finished and not. She reads some of them and later asks me about it. I tell her some of it– about my writings, about how I wrote some of them.

“Why did you stop?” she asks. 

She is a child and I don’t know how to explain. “It was only a hobby,” I say. The words ring as false. It was never only a hobby. I had spent months being driven insane, to the brink of my sanity by it. I had spent years honing it, wearing it as my identity. And then I had let go, being as torn as a lover parting from a beloved.

I come back from the office one day to find her. She has been writing, my spouse tells me. And I find it sad how my first instinct was to discourage deep down. But I do not. Instincts and choices must be kept separate. 

She has been writing in afternoons after school and on one such, I go to her. I ask her about it and she says it is a story about a girl who gets a device to make an infinitely huge chocolate sprinkled with candies and sour bites. I throw my head back and laugh. She keeps writing, uncaring.

I manage a glance at her work and my laughter drains.

My daughter has it.

I see it. I see it all too well. Then I look at her and her big eyes, working with no hint of doubt or hesitation– contentment and I am assured that I am right. She hones it masterfully, all that I had been searching for.

She glances at me and her face falls. She lets go of the pen. “Daddy, are you okay?”

I am nearly pale and I am praying.

Praying, hoping, wishing and begging– for her to not lose it. 

Her words are sloppy, her writing is messy– the grammar horrible and the punctuation painful and yet it is perfect, I know. It is enough, I know. It sparkles, it shines. The words dance and sing and form the grandest of plays. 

She nudges me, worried.

I shake my head and then manage a laugh. “You are a genius, you know that?”

She blinks but then realizes that was a compliment. 

She grins. “Just like you.”

~

Friendly reminder that gender, sexuality and your fashion sense absolutely do not have to reflect each other and are things IRRESPECTIVE OF EACH OTHER.

You can absolutely be comfortable with your she/her pronouns, with being a woman and still choose to have a masc presenting fashion sense. You can be completely cool with your assigned gender and still cross dress.

Feeling pretty? Floral? Gay? Hella boyish? Like a princess? A drag queen? A white swan or a black crow?

Go for it. Absolutely go for it!!

PS. If you are a minor and stuck in a rather unaccepting environment, please don't let go of yourself or your identity, but keep yourself safe. College will be better. Growing up will make this aspect easier. You will move out. Wait for the financial independence and then go for it!! <3

ok but i love it when the important moments that have been built up from LONG in stories actually turn out to be really... humanly normal? Yet fitting? The meeting with that once in a lifetime love you been hyping us up for 9 years (see: how i met your mother) actually just happens under rain, on a station and they actually just joke about how the guy once entered the wrong class to teach. Confessions being accidental, transformative moments not appearing like that without the hindsight etc etc.

On A TANGENT, I ALSO love when the moments happen with a full cheesy bang and boom, if it calls for it! yall been beating around to bush for 4 seasons (see: Kaguya-Sama: Love is War) and THE MAN FINALLY confesses with an elaborate set up, on a special night with a hunt and hundreds of balloons timed, the lighting timed and on the damn roof of highschool???

its just good seeing stories be apologetically *themselves*. I think we are becoming too hyper aware of tropes, irony and a lil too critical of unrealistic fantasy that something just leaning into fully being ITSELF, trying hard, being cheesy is just FRESH.

Ah, I babbled.

I just finished watching a video on focus/reading and was wondering about the attention economy and how people are genuinely struggling- then I opened tumblr and then I frowned at how legit I see no one discuss that here for the most part.

And then I realized because this hellsite is a text-driven, minimally algorithmised, filled with a userbase of creatives and holding strongly onto the 'romantic era' culture.

All other platforms being plagued with ai art and posts, but be shunned to death if you try that shit on tumblr. Credit the artist or begone from this place, fool.

Its like the entire place agrees unanimously on some basic ideals and will die before letting go of them.

I love it.

brain: hey sweetie. lets stop this, okay? its not working out. maybe this isnt your cup of tea. a smart person knows when to stop.

me: okay.. *considers stopping and quitting the thing*

brain: you fucking coward. you are giving up in between and running away. you idiot, you moron- you just dont wanna see through it. you fucking dumbfuck.

me: .....

watched some rory gilmore clips and hopefully i wont hate studying anymore