Where I Rest When My Mind Gets Loud

Sometimes I notice that people don’t really know where to place me.

I like survival horror games, I follow politics, I read about military stuff, conflicts, history, all that heavy, uncomfortable material. I don’t exactly look for comfort when it comes to the world. I want to understand how things break, how people hurt each other, how systems fail. That part of me is very real, and I don’t think it’s strange at all.

But then there’s the other side of my playlists, my thumbnails, my website visuals. Soft songs. Cute melodies. Anime characters who look calm, gentle, sometimes a little shy, sometimes just quietly existing. And most of the time, they’re female characters. Not because I’m trying to project anything complicated onto them, but because, well they feel so gentle. And I like that. I really do.

It probably looks confusing from the outside.

Like, huh, how does someone who reads about war and political tension end up pairing his writing with something that looks soft and cute?

Honestly, I don’t see it as a contradiction. It looks more like balance.

If I spend a lot of time thinking about dark or intense things, I don’t really want my entire mental space to stay in that tone. I need somewhere to rest, even if it’s just visually, emotionally, for a few minutes. And softness does that for me. Quiet colors, calm expressions, music that doesn’t try to overpower me. It feels like a place where my thoughts can sit down instead of standing in alert mode all the time.

And yeah, I know, liking soft things as a man sometimes gets interpreted in weird ways.

There’s this unspoken rule floating around that says if you’re male, your taste should lean toward the tough, the loud, the aggressive, the confident. And if it doesn’t, people start guessing. About your personality, your identity, your “side,” whatever that means. It’s exhausting, because most of the time there isn’t some big story behind it. Sometimes you just like what you like.

I don’t use female anime characters in my writing because I want to become them, or because I’m hiding behind them. I use them because they fit the emotional tone of what I’m saying. My writing is quiet, personal, often hesitant, sometimes tired. A loud, heroic, masculine visual wouldn’t feel honest there. It would feel like a costume. The softer imagery feels closer to how my thoughts actually move.

And yeah, I’m attracted to femininity. Not in some dramatic or symbolic way, just in a very simple human sense. I like gentleness. I like warmth. I like calm. That doesn’t cancel out my interest in serious, even harsh topics. If anything, it probably explains why I need both.

Sometimes I wonder if people think I’m performing a personality. No. Like I’m mixing aesthetics on purpose, trying to look unique or different. And no. But most of the time, I’m not trying to present anything. I’m just arranging things in a way that feels comfortable to sit with. This website, these visuals, these songs, they’re not a brand. They’re more like a room I spend time in.

And I guess that’s the part that matters to me.

Not whether my interests look consistent, not whether they fit into a neat masculine template, but whether they feel honest to the way I experience the world. Some days I want intensity and analysis. Other days I just want something gentle playing in the background while I try to make sense of my own thoughts. Both of those feel like me.

So, maybe it looks strange. Maybe it doesn’t match what people expect.

But I’m kind of done trying to flatten myself into something easier to label. I don’t want to trade parts of my comfort just to look more predictable. If my mind needs both heavy questions and soft corners, then that’s just how it works. I don’t really see the point in fighting that.

And if that makes my online presence feel a bit messy, a bit hard to categorize... well, honestly, that feels closer to being human than anything perfectly consistent ever could.