#ALSO did reconnect with a few old friends i’d kinda fallen out of touch with

[stardial]

12! :)

12. Talk about a new friend you made this year

i didn’t make a single new friend actually 😭 i guess i did get closer to a bunch of ppl i already knew though. and made a bunch of friends in school but none who really stuck yknow

[eloquenceassassinated]

I’m Leaving Tumblr: A Farewell to my Followers

I haven't been very active on this blog lately. If you're observant, you've probably noticed it. If I really wanted to, I could probably just leave it that way; everyone would eventually take me off their followed list as an inactive blog and absently wonder where I went. But I don't really want to do that.

In his poem “The Hollow Men,” T. S. Elliot wrote, “This is how the world ends: not with a bang, but with a whimper.” In my case, though I'm not a popular blog by any stretch, and though this arguably isn't a website that deserves the fanfare, I don't want to leave with a bang, but at least with a whisper: “Thanks for the memories. I'll be on my way now.”

To do that properly, I have to take you on a little ride. 

In my time on this website, I:

Joined tumblr in June of 2017 for the purposes of posting art.

Proceeded to not post a lot of art.

Found the Captain America, Voltron, and Ninjago fandoms on here and got swept up in those instead.

Got my first 100 notes on a post about Dr. Julien. Dabbed in celebration.

Made a post about Shiro and Bucky maybe being friends.

Bought a mug from mintmintdoodles—and liked it!

Went on a missions trip. Came back.

Reblogged a LOT of fandom stuff.

Saw Wonder Woman, which was good.

Celebrated my first Steve's Birthday—I mean Fourth of July on the site.

Made lots of Clone!Shiro theory posts. 

Made a dumb “who in Voltron likes anime?” post. 

Fell in love with Matt Holt.

Started posting “Grass Whistle”, my first multi-chapter fanfic. 

Got a job, which kinda put the kabosh on the fanfic for a bit.

Bought a print from mechinaries.

Found a bunch of my other fandoms on this site including Lord of the Rings, How to Train Your Dragon, and Hamilton.

Celebrated my first Christmas on the site. 

Participated in the Ninjago Secret Santa, where I actually got my friend Candaru's prompt and it was hilarious.

Kinda ghosted through the first winter months of 2018 as my job occupied more and more of my time. 

Resumed posting Grass Whistle in the spring of 2018 and finally finished it, to a wonderful reception.

Saw Black Panther and loved it!

Started posting “The Run and Go”, to a better reception on FF.net than this site.

Saw Thor: Ragnarok and wished we got to see that hug.

Witnessed the best season of Voltron (S6) before everything went downhill.

Went on vacation. Came back.

Wrote and posted “Brother”.

Posted art celebrating Candaru's story “Several Dead LEGOs Play Cards”.

Went on the missions trip again. Came back.

Saw Infinity War and was in DENIAL.

Reconnected with a friend with whom I'd been through a really rough patch over the past couple of years, and began to mend our friendship.

Posted a really long queue of LotR stuff for no particular reason.

Watched Voltron end; it was terrible.

Started a new year and continued to keep the blog busy with lots of queues.

Watched Alita: Battle Angel and it was AMAZING.

Posted a really long How to Train Your Dragon queue for no particular reason.

Continued to dread Endgame.

Watched Endgame. Stayed in denial.

Fell behind on Ninjago seasons.

Watched the Voltron and Ninjago blogs I follow fade into inactivity until I was left with nothing but gifs of Endgame and my own sadness.

Kept the charade going until the summer of 2019 hit and I realized that I'm doing out of obligation what should be for fun.

I don't really know how to state this in a kind way, but neither the circumstances that brought me here nor the conditions that kept me here exist any longer. This is a fandom blog, and it's a tough break when you've fallen either out of step or out of love with your fandoms. Keeping up the queue is the only way that my blog stays active on my work days, but it isn't fun. This blog stays inactive because upkeeping it is a chore—a chore that I keep putting off, and a chore that no one asked me to do.

2 Timothy 2:20-21 says, “In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for special purposes and some for common use. Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.”

I never really understood that. What does Paul have against common things? Does he have beef with clay? But I think I get it now—it's a simple matter of removing clutter. Cleaning out what's unnecessary so that the only things that remain are the best ones.

I'm not leaving tumblr because I have any anger against the site or any one person or fandom or whatever. I'm not leaving because something cataclysmic happened, or because I was abducted by aliens and their planet has bad wifi. I'm leaving because I've had some time to think, and I've decided that it's for my best mental health that I leave this chapter behind. Plain and simple.

Those who know me personally probably know that my prayer for 2019 has been centered around a single word: Restoration. The past few years have been hard ones for me, and it's time to rebuild and restore what's been broken. Sometimes repairing a house means tearing out the moldy walls first. Sometimes being your best self means eliminating distractions.

Because that's what these are—distractions, layered on distractions. Marvel distracted me from the real world, and Voltron distracted me between Marvel movies, and Ninjago distracted me when Voltron turned sour. When those fell through, I turned to old fandoms to distract myself. And when I finally extricated myself from that mess, made amends with some people, looked up, and faced my situation for what it is, I realized that it's not something I can maintain.

I'll still keep the blog up. I won't deactivate it, because deactivated blogs make me sad and wonder if there's some tragedy here that I don't know about. Especially since the platonic prompts post continues to make rounds, I want people to be able to come back to this blog if they wish and see what the original poster was like—someone who loves friendship in fandoms, celebrates it, and spent two years creating a safe haven of nothing but positive, pro-bromance content. If this blog was ever a safe haven for anybody, I want them to still have it available in its entirety. Even if it should never have been work, I did work hard on this. I don't want that to go to waste.

As for those I follow, there will still be some blogs that I check on from time to time—particularly the ones that my personal friends run—but I likely won't be interacting with the posts. If you know me in real life, you can still contact me through email or my fanfiction account. I'll be there.

But starting today, I'm taking the tumblr app off of my phone. I might come back sometime, but I don't see it happening. No offense or hard feelings to anybody—I'm just done for now.

If I ever made anyone smile, I think this would all be worth it. If I made someone laugh, or think, or cry, or if I inspired them to write something or draw something or create something that had never existed before, I think it would all be worth it. If I can truly say that I was a positive Christian influence in my short time here—that I touched somebody—I think it would be worth it.

After all, life isn't about followers. It's about friends. It isn't about notes. It's about whose lives you touched, whose day you made just a little bit better. And I know that all of you (except for the pornbots) are real people, and I want you to know that, to the best of my ability, I care about every single one of you. I want all of you to live happy lives, and I hope that God makes Himself very, very real to you and fills you with a love that words can't explain and a joy that our hearts can't contain and a hope that our minds can't imagine in our wildest dreams.

I wish all 119 of you well. I wish everyone who has ever crossed my path through this blog well. I hope I could make you smile. It's been fun, and I've met some great people and made some wonderful friends, and I'm glad to have been here.

Thank you to my friends. Thank you to anyone who ever liked or reblogged my art. Thank you to everyone who reblogs the platonic prompts post—it's just over 3,000 notes as I write this, which is about the size of my church, and while that isn't terribly a lot I guess it's still wild to think about.

I especially want to thank the Ninjago community for always being so enthusiastic, warm, and wholesome my whole time on this website, from giving me my first 100 notes on the Dr. Julien headcanon post just a few days into my time here to your staggering and sincere support of Grass Whistle a year later. Never stop being your wonderful selves—it was wonderful to interact with all of you.

Thanks for the memories. I mean that.

Here's a picture of one of my hermit crabs, Clover, on a tiny boat I got in Michigan. Peace out!

—Sincerely, EA