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can you imagine what a crown of teeth likes to eat?
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It can be dangerous to portray that narcissism=self love and can add to the stigma. NPD is a disorder that leaves people with a mutilated idea of self love and security. An inflated sense of self importance in NPD can be mistaken for self love by the person suffering from NPD, but they are not the same thing. Narcissism leaves you with a lack of empathy that damages relationships and can make you disregard the feelings of others in self defense. Self love gives you security that leaves you open to listening to your own feelings as well as others. I just think that's an important distinction to make :)
if it’s alright to ask prince questions too, i would love to know what being a prince means to you /gen
yes of course! i love getting questions, i just might be a bit slow
being a prince means a lot of things to me. to put it simply, it means to be a boy wearing a crown. we can take these terms apart and crystalize precisely what it means to be "a boy wearing a crown"--
being a boy means to be a child. you must not let go of your sense of wonder, and you must remain a playful soul
being a boy means to be a boy, in whatever way you decide this means. for me, a "boy" is the tension, the juxtaposition, between the hypermasculinity mandated by traditional manhood, and the rawness, youthfulness, innocence of youth. these two things are constantly pulling at eachother. boys can't wait to be bigger and to grow up, yet also still get hurt, play pretend, and haven't yet learned to shove away their feelings behind a wall
a crown is both a duty, an obligation, a privilege, and a birthright. you are looked up to, whether you like it or not. you were born with something that not many seem to have, and with this something comes a kind of responsibility to use it well. however, crowns are worn BY you. the crown doesn't wear you. you have to own the crown and make it work for you, or else it simply becomes a burden. many get crushed under this weight. but you must remember that in being a prince, you are royalty, and royalty have certain standards. a crown means a conviction in these standards and ideals, because you would not lessen yourself for others
a crown means the world is your oyster. you deserve things. you deserve to take them. it is indeed a birthright to be hungry, to desire more and be indulgent about it, but it's important to be cognizant and not allow this to lull you into a sense of entitlement. the crown is the mandate and power you give yourself to obtain what you want, but you must do the taking. the world will not bend the knee to an ineffective prince. you must be able to hunt for it and show the world you deserve it. the world has the power to take away your crown if you so let it. in the hands of stagnancy, a crown is merely a decoration on the head of a doll. show the world you can take it, and you will find it will open itself up and give to you generously
also, indulging without regards to your own ideals and standards means to lose the sharpness that makes a prince shiny. so you must have standards. for yourself and others. really, the main idea is sort of just "be full of wonder but also sharpness, be noble in your ideals and do not let go of your conviction. know your importance. recognize your worth"
others may have different interpretations of princehood to me, but this more or less sums up my interpretation of the trope, for how i use it in my own life
ruby rabbit… save me…
ruby rabbit
save me ruby rabbit
There's a printer at work that gets used every day. A lot of people get frustrated with it because it jams or runs out of ink quickly or has other problems. But it wakes up with a happy series every time I need to use it that makes me smile. It's not perfect, but it's doing it's best and it reminds me that I'm doing my best every time too, despite my obstacles. So every time it beeps hello, I tell it "thank you" when I say goodbye.
happy diwali to ruby and november 🪔 may the little stars in your eyes always shine brightly <3
I've never tried Jasmine tea but it sounds lovely! I've really only had Earl grey but I'd love to have tea with you sometime <3
jasmine is the kind of eat that is like childhood, because i would go to chinese restaurants with banquet halls and lazy susans and we would always order a pot of jasmine tea... it makes me feel at peace and the aroma reminds me of when we used to grow jasmine in our backyard... we should have tea together sometime. <3
Do you enjoy tea? Do you have any favorite flavors? <3
jasmine tea, green tea, matcha (distinct from green), peach, honey, mint, chrysanthemum, thai, citron, chamomile, barley... .. oh favorite? kinda depends on the day honestly. nothing really beats the nostalgia of jasmine tea though, with no cream and only a little bit of rock sugar sitting at the bottom.
when you forgive yourself for hurting others, how do you know you aren't abusive? is it ok to forgive yourself for something like that? /genq
to be honest, i don't think it's as easy as simply figuring out whether or not someone is abusive. a lot of abuse happens from well meaning people who have good intentions-- this still makes it abuse. but this doesn't necessarily make you "an abuser" or even a bad person. but i will say that guilt rarely does anything for the hurt party except maybe vindicate them to some degree, but i do not think this is the ideal way to live. you should look forward, do better, and move on if you can, and let the lesson be something you remember, but do not let it drag you down and make you stagnate. you still have the capacity to help others and love them right, so don't take that opportunity away from yourself or them.
Belong? I never have. kindergarten, I was the weird kid who liked their plushies, I'd bring small ones to class to play with during recess. like little lizards and the such. one day I lost my favorite lizard, was playing hide and seek with it. but where I buried her in the gravel, someone else came by and took her. elementary was much the same, except just the weird kid. no friends, excluded from the groups. bullies and the such. middle school I changed schools, made a few friends but was still just a drifter between groups. few hangouts but not much to say. none of the shapes open were fit for me. growing up there were no other people or things to play with besides my dogs and eventually chickens. I got to be really good at knowing what they needed or wanted. they were my friends, but I'm "people". highschool, I didn't last a semester before almost flunking due to a few bouts of strep (one really knocked me down a few pegs with 105.6⁰F) and mono. switched schools to one more suited for people with dyslexia and autism and such. made friends. they kept me around, and I thought I'd made friends and fit in. found out after 4 years they only had me around for a joke between friends and didn't like me really. have bounced from group to group since. I. just don't fit. I've changed my shape so many times I don't know what mine is. nowadays I'm just myself that comes naturally. but even then. nothing changes. I don't know what's wrong with me. I never got the instruction manuals it seems.
i fully believe that there are people out there that accept us completely. it’s a statistical probability. there are so many people in the world that i believe you will definitely find someone like this one day. however, yeah… the track record for IRL friends is pretty bad because it’s such a small pool to pick from. we don’t have many IRL friends either, honestly maybe only two that we really consider friends and one we haven’t spoken to in so long. making and keeping friends is one of life’s most confusing struggles as a neurodivergent person. i sincerely wish you the best in this, but if you’d like to talk more about connecting, please feel free to DM me. i think there is always something we can work with.
Curls up under the blankets on your bed and silently watches you working at your computer with big, sleepy eyes
what does it mean to be owned by another yet practicing spirituality that deals in Rituals and Prices? is it possible you can take from yourself without taking from your owner?
to be honest, all of these factors are sort of being played with loose and fast— everything is fluid. my terms of ownership… prince “owns” me in that i am an literal object that belongs to him, but our relationship is more that of siblings. he still rules his kingdom so his word is law, but we still go through a process of negotiation on equal terms. a large part of it is because we are still, at the core, the same person in a sense. that is not to say we are the same individual, but rather we are branches that come from the same tree, if that makes sense?
for the second part of your question, that has been something we’ve been trying to balance as of late. sometimes i can, sometimes i can’t— it really depends on the frequency of my “Giving” and in what form. lately the issue has been that i am far too social for prince’s energy output so we’ve been cutting back on stuff to allow me to not burn him out. but i think it -is- possible to avoid taking things from him.
unless you speak of being one of june’s things? because in that case, i am not really “owned” like that as much as i consider myself a wayward child born from one of her strings. i do listen and obey out of loyalty but it is a distinct thing from being property, which ruby is not— and he is already owned by prince anyway. but she is my mom! i feel this feeling of “wow! i want to be just like mom when i grow up!”
but again, with spirituality, we play with things loosely and unless we wish for something to be binding, i don’t think it has power. we are buddhist at the core, minus a bunch of teachings we don’t care for or know about, and our experience with religion over the course of our life is extremely unlike others’ with christianity, for example. buddhism has always been more of a general philosophy in which to align your life, rather than like… whatever christianity is doing. it’s a very lax and chill religion the way we practice it, so i think our experience with that also influences the way our spirituality is performed period. everything is play to us, and i mean this as a form of utmost respect. “play” is sacred.
a lot of these asks sound like myself being mimicked. don't know if i've just stumbled upon voices and thoughts similar to mine or if someone's doing it intentionally.
i highly doubt anyone is doing it intentionally. i think this space is one that cultivates a specific kind of voice or interaction style, and it is the consequence of all being influenced by a similar set of sources. the types of people who talk to me inevitably think in similar ways because that is the space we've cultivated, so i think there is nothing to worry about.
Confession?
I always feel like no matter where i go, there's a trail of blood behind me. Guilt that hangs over me like a sword at the weight of every one of my actions. Can never seem to shake it. I dream of absolution
i wonder what is the shape of that guilt that binds you. but i will say that guilt is often even useless to the ones you have wronged. it is a good reminder of what your values are. but to really truly live your best for yourself and for others, i do hope you can forgive yourself for what you believe you have done wrong.
but, i wonder also if it's guilt that others have unfairly placed on you. guilt, for being just a person with flaws. i don't think that's right.
The tweets about life being art resonate (haha) so much with me. I like music. Do you know about all those ancient Greek and medieval theories of music, about it being the sole governing force of the gods and our bodies and temperaments? Or Tolkien whose world was literally sung into creation?? To me, music is the closest to magic we can get, so I'm eager to become that magic as well!
i actually do not know that much about ancient greek! but oh, i believe it. i think a lot about "in the beginning, there was the Word" and even though i am very very not christian, the act of writing is in of itself an act of bringing things to life. i feel similarly about all kinds of art. <3 i believe in you.
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