#I know myself 100% more/better than you do and I know my experiences/reactions/etc | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

arowitharrows · 11 months ago

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hello again, recent anon here! first of all, i wanted to thank you for your wonderful response. i did read the article you linked to, and i must say that i was certainly ignorant of the very serious ways, pertaining to medical/health care, that people are affected by hostility (and ignorance) towards asexuality. i would also like to put forth some context for my outlook on things, just in that i was raised in what i've been told was an unusual and very sheltered environment, so while as i've grown older there are some things i've realized on my own that i may see as the norm that many do not, and it's actually my own mistake. i am a bit surprised that i had never some across this information online before, but i suppose i may have overly cultivated my online experience to be rather narrow, so upon reading your response, i realized that this might be one of those things where i just hadn't come to the realization on my own, and I decided to discuss it with a much more worldly cousin of mine who i am close to, for a better perspective, and she told me that what you said is generally true, and that a majority of people really do just experience sexual and romantic attraction like, from the get go. it was a bit embarrassing to realize that, but it's probably for the better. while that certainly was not my main take away from reading what you said, i sort of feel like my bubble has been burst. like i was really naive about that sort of thing. since i'm hiding behind anon, i will say that i'm almost 24 and it's really surreal to learn, like what else do i not know? that's apparently common knowledge? at times like these i recall that my father always said, "a wise man knows that he knows not", and i feel a poignant sense of failure to keep that with me as he would have tried to impart. your point about the time and effort put into books/movies/etc with those sort of themes makes alot of sense that i never even considered. my thoughts on the matter only ever went as far as "well they do that to sell more things, but only certain types of people would buy that anyways". i see that my view on all this has been severely limited. I really appreciated your anecdotes about your own life experience, and the different perspective they contained. in my life, few people openly spoke of sexual matters, and certainly not at length, but i can definitely see how being in an environment of your peers that did could lead you to feel how you described. i've been a total dunce here, like this is a part of an overarching "different people have different lives" common sense sort of thing that's gone way over my head in a really messed up way. the only people i've spoken to at any great length in many years are my relatives, so my understanding of community in a general sense may be a bit warped there. besides, all that, i would also like to say that i had not even previously thought about the ways that considering any ace identity to be a reaction of any sort could overlap with rad fem politics, another great oversight on my part. it is obvious now that ignoring these issues and pushing them out of my mind when i hear about them is not a correct course of action. i wonder how much of this train-of-thought rant would be an issue if i had delved deeper into other people's lived experiences pertaining to these matters when i first learned they existed. i will 100% be taking your advice on listening to more people about this all, and plan to read more about it immediately. i'm sure, based off even just this one interaction, that i have much more to understand about these things than i ever could have guessed i didn't know. I may even seek out some videos on the subject online as well. (as a small note too, i would like to say to the singular commenter on the post that while i'm doubtful any such label could apply to myself, your suggestion is certainly something i will take under consideration.) So for now, i thank you again for your gracious and eloquent reply. I have found it to be quite enlightening, and I bid you a great new year!

Well I am glad I could help a bit! The context of your upbringing makes sense and I'm certain you aren't the first or only person to go through such a "bubble bursting" process, it's a part of life and of opening yourself up to new perspectives. Also don't worry too much about the radfem train of thought thing, it is not a well known or discussed topic and I would not expect many people to be aware of it. I did not believe that that's where you were coming from, it just felt important to mention in that context.

I also wish you all the best in the new year, and thanks for listening and reaching out to learn more about the topic!

#ask #anon

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getfitnessgym · 2 years ago

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The clouded side of the exercise centre

Fantasies: I should stay away from carbs to get in shape. On the off chance that I lift loads, I will look "massive". I need to tighten up .

I routinely work out and find powerlifting in the exercise centre very fulfilling; I love to perceive how my body changes shape as various muscle bunches answer my exercises. I've become mindful of a disturbing sensation at the rear of my brain, which makes me more worried about my psychological state when I'm not working out.

I realize that rest is both essential and valuable; it's when muscles modify and develop, forestall wounds, and upholds consistency (since you don't feel as obliged by a constant everyday practice). However, no matter what this information, I find it hard to give myself "personal time" from working out, much over bubbly periods or when I'm not feeling 100 per cent. I'm fortunate to be somebody who doesn't get harmed effectively, be that as it may, I wouldn't say I like the prospect of not having the option to prepare because of a supported physical issue.

Am I the one in particular that feels as such? I don't think so. Thus, I invested energy in exploring the reason for this disturbing sensation to recapture more command over my psychological state.

Here is the splendid side

You're possibly mindful of the advantages of activity — controlling your weight, combatting medical issues and supporting energy levels — yet emotional well-being benefits are frequently disregarded.

I most appreciate "that inclination" when I've completed an extreme exercise and feel depleted and phenomenal. In any case, what's filling that sensation? Indeed, I know that it's not only a response to a "great siphon"; it's the arrival of a class of cerebrum synthetic substances called endocannabinoids, which are otherwise called "relax, be cheerful" synthetic compounds.

In our cerebrums, a few regions direct our reaction to stress and uneasiness, the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. These regions of the cerebrum are rich in endocannabinoid receptors. When these endocannabinoids arrive at these receptors, two things occur:

We experience a happy state of mind that causes us to feel content and decreases uneasiness.

We experience an expansion in dopamine, a synapse (our body's compound couriers) that assumes a critical part in the cerebrum's "reward framework".

Regarding psychological well-being, these substance responses manifest in more ways than one, including higher fearlessness, more inspiration, amiability, and expanded aversion to satisfaction.

What's more, here's the clouded side

Dopamine is habit-forming.

All the more explicitly, the sensation of remuneration and satisfaction we experience when we practice is habit-forming. The genuine concern is that it's a compounding phenomenon that can prompt more extreme circumstances, for example, dietary problems and body dysmorphia.

I'm not saying you shouldn't work out;

if you are dependent on anything, there are far more terrible things you could be dependent on. However, it's essential to know that practice dependence can begin quietly with an unrestrained craving for actual wellness. For instance:

You sort out a couple of times,

you feel perfect, you begin to eat better, and you feel improved. You figure out a couple of additional times and feel exhausted, so you take a rest day. On your rest day, you feel like you're being lethargic, so you go for light exercise. Etc.

This is how it begins;

I know from individual experience where it closes. In the best case scenario, you don't rest enough and deprioritize well-being in your daily practice, and to say the least, you feel a profound vibe of responsibility when you don't work out and over-examine an excessive number of parts of your life, for example, how you search in the mirror, how others see you and all that you eat.

How do I have any idea about that? This is because that is how I believe; I realize I'm an activity fiend.

It was most horrendously awful when I couldn't exercise I've been in past circumstances when I've been unable to work out. My most expanded period was when I needed to go through two hip arthroscopy tasks to fix an inborn (from birth) issue. I was on support or restoring on and off for the most fantastic aspect of two years — it was extreme.

During that time, I encountered what I could portray as melancholy, which was even more recognizable since I'm mostly hopeful. I encountered a large number of the signs that somebody going through melancholy would introduce, which include:

Mental side effects:

A steady low state of mind or trouble

Feeling sad and powerless

Low confidence

Tension

Hesitation and indifference

Being touchy or intolerant of others

Actual side effects: Changes in craving or weight, muscle exhaustion and touchiness, low energy, low charisma and upset rest.

Social side effects:

Low efficiency Participating in less-friendly exercises Disregarding leisure activities and interests and being hermitic

While it's enabling me to comprehend this, looking back, my anxiety is that I would feel similarly assuming I wound up experiencing the same thing now. Of considerably more concern is that I experience a portion of these sentiments (but gently) presently, in any event, when I take a solitary rest day — and I know I'm in good company.

Having addressed individuals similarly as excited about wellness, I know that many stress over not having the option to practice out of the blue and feel like a rest day rises to a terrible day (as opposed to one that is equitably great for your brain and body). What can be done Assuming that you understand this and (like me) a lot of it reverberates with how you feel, then, at that point, the most exciting thing we can furnish ourselves with is mindfulness. Familiarity with ourselves, the consciousness of our necessities and attention to everything others notice and say to us. That is the general purpose of this post; it's to make you and myself more mindful of what we're putting ourselves through and, afterwards, get it sufficiently early to take care of business.

In the soul of mindfulness, I need to cause you to notice a great article I found on Healthline that will assist you with distinguishing whether your activity propensities are coming from an unfortunate spot. What number of these signs do you relate to? (I'll put a next to the ones I connect with).

You work out to compensate for dinners or body parts you could do without

You're consistently at the rec centre.

You feel tired more often than not.

Your change intends to oblige your exercise plan.

Your sentiments about practice incorporate words like required, responsibility, nervousness, and unbending.

Your outcomes are lessening.

You have a negative self-perception

Supportively, the article likewise prescribes a few activities to handle practice fixation:

Keep a work diary to assist you with distinguishing sentiments and examples associated with working out.

Look for professional assistance. Indeed, this can be treated (which I'm a colossal promoter of). Yet, it could likewise be a wellness expert or fitness coach who could assist you with rearing better exercise propensities.

I will check the work diary out, particularly on days I compel myself to take a very much-procured rest — wish me karma!

#nutrition #fitnessmotivation #gym body

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dambiex · 1 year ago

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with that said, i want to share some of my experience. so i sent the following as a chain of messages to a mutual i met on tumblr, who has trouble with self hate and only loving themselves conditional on them studying well (with suspiciously high standards). sounds familiar? the messages:

if you imagine a friend in your situation, do you hate them? is your love to them conditional on them doing the work they said they will? will you understand if they lack the discipline and they will not be able to work any more? if they say they need a day off because they feel like shit and cant focus, will you get mad, or will you encourage them to rest?

if a person is struggling to work and beating themselves up, will you try to cheer them up? will you berate them and tell them they are good for nothing until they get some discipline and work ethic?

when thinking about another person, can you see their struggles and failures are caused by their environment and human nature? even when they say they want to work more and they are obviously upset when they cant?

if you can see those things and be compassionate to other people in situations very much like yours but not to yourself, then i think you can agree with me is that there is some problem of perception here. when you see a stranger in your position you see one thing, and when you look at yourself you see another. this is a form of bias, or as i like to call it an illusion: your perceptions of yourself are not really caused by your actions. your actions are normal. but something in your perception is flawed.

when you learn this is an illusion and not an accurate representation of reality, you can use this to start and correct your perception when you notice it showing you things that you now know are false.

for example, it can look something like that: thought: "i hate myself for not working today. i tried and it just didnt happen. i dont know where these X hours went. fuck me for chasing these <hedonistic tempations> and not doing what i said i will" reaction after noticing what is going on: "what would i say to a friend who came to me and said these harsh things about themselves? what do i think caused their behaviour?" *imagines a person in a similar situation*

it really helps me picture myself using the same mental machinery that i use to think about other people. you just see this person who is trying so fucking hard, and is suffering needlessly because they are not 100% perfect and they blame themselves for that.

and it allows you to use the tools you would have used with a friend: to help them see it is not their fault. they are not robots. they need some rest and a shower, and maybe then they will feel better. there is no reason to hate themselves because they are not perfect.

just to repeat the most important part: you think you are bad not because you are bad, but because your perception of yourself is flawed.

(and once you know a tool is flawed you can try to fix it or use other tools instead)

yeah i feel like im repeating myself at this point. wow that was longer than i expected. oops :P

sources: this is what i implicitly learned from my therapist, and phrased myself. this is not professional advice and if you feel you could use more help go see a therapist. statistically it has a very good chance of helping. termsandcondtionsapply, etc.

i think its useful to hear about people's experiences from therapy, and see what they have learned from their therapists, because people mostly have very similar problems to yours, and what helped them might help you, or at least lead you in the right direction.

#my posts #therapy

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meichenxi · 4 years ago

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Dear ‘White guy speaks perfect X and shocks Y!’ language YouTubers: STOP

A rant about every single fucking video by Xiaomanyc and similar YouTubers all titled things like CLUELESS WHITE GUY/GIRL LEARNS [INSERT NON-WHITE LANGUAGE HERE] AND SHOCKS [INSERT PLACE].

Disclaimer: I am white British, and I am also very often a moron. I'm trying to inform myself more, and would like to learn. So let me know if there is anything I should change, anything I’ve got wrong or any terminology I can change.

So this evening I opened YouTube to get some quality Hikaru no Go content, and saw yet another video recommended to me about Xiaomanyc called Clueless white guy orders in perfect Chinese, shocks patrons and staff!!!!

Really? Really. Ok, his Chinese certainly is good - but it isn't great. And it isn’t necessarily any better than people I've seen in the higher levels of a class at university who have spent some time in China. It's solidly intermediate. That's not an insult - that level of Chinese is hard to attain, and definitely worth celebrating!! Hell, I celebrate every new word I learn. But while it may be unusual, it doesn't forgive the clickbait type videos like 'White guy speaks perfect Chinese and wows [insert place]'.

These kind of clickbait titles rest on a number of assumptions. Before I say any more, I just want to make a note about terminology. Note that ’majority’ and ‘minority’ are not necessarily helpful labels, because they imply both a) a higher number of speakers in a certain place, and b) socially prestigious in some way. Of course a language like standard Mandarin is not a minority in China, but it might be in Germany. Talking about ‘minority’ languages that have a large speaker base outside of the country, like Chinese, is also not the same as talking about languages that have been systematically surpressed by a colonising, dominant language in their original communities, like indigenous languages. In many communities, especially in colonial and post-colonial situations, the language spoken by the majority is not one of prestige at all. Or some languages may be prestigious and expected in oral contexts, but not written - and so on. I use these terms here as best I can, but don't expect them to work 100% of the time.

So let’s unpack these assumptions a little.

1) That there is something inherently more ‘worthy’ in somebody who learns languages because they want to, rather than because they have to: and that, correspondingly, the people who want to are white (spoilers: much of Europe is multilingual, and white immigrants in majority white countries also exist, as well as discrimination against them e.g. Polish people in the UK), and that those who have to learn are not (spoilers: really? There are plenty of non-white monolinguals who are either happy being monolingual, don’t have access to learning, or don��t have to learn another language but are interested in it).

2) That everybody from a certain background automatically speaks all ‘those’ languages already, or that childhood multilingualism is a free pass - spoilers, it isn’t. Achieving high levels of fluency in multiple languages is hard, especially for languages with different writing systems, because no matter how perfect your upbringing, you’re still ultimately exposed to it maximum 50% of the time of monolingual speakers. Realistically, most people get far less exposure than 50% in any of their languages. Also, situations of multilingualism in many parts of the world are far more complex than home language / social language. You might speak one language with your father and his father, another with your mother and her family, another in the community, and another at school. Which one is your native language then? Monolinguals tell horror stories of ‘both cups half empty’ scenarios, but come on - how on earth do you expect a person to have the same size vocabulary in a language they hear only 25% of the time? Also, languages are spoken in different domains, to different people, in different social situations: just because someone hears Farsi at home doesn’t mean they can give a talk on the filing system at their local library. If something is outside of a multilingual person’s langauge domain, they might have to learn the vocabulary for it just like monolinguals. There’s no such thing as the ‘perfect bilingual’.

3) That learning another language imperfectly for leisure is laudable, but learning one imperfectly for work or survival is not. If you’re a speaker of a minority language, learning another language is necessary, ‘just what you have to do’, and if you don’t do it ‘properly’, that’s because of your lack of intelligence / laziness etc. It’s cool for the seconday school student to speak a bit of bad Japanese, but not so cool for the Indian guy who runs her favourite restaurant in Tokyo.

4) That majority speakers learning a minority language is somehow an act of surprising benevolence that should not go unrewarded. Languages are intrinsically tied up with identity - and access to them may not be a right, but a gift. Don’t assume that because you get a good reception with some speakers of one language that speakers of another will be grateful you’re learning their language, or that everyone will react the same. One of the reasons these videos are possible at all is that many Chinese speakers, in my experience, are incredibly welcoming and enthusiastic to non-natives learning Chinese. Some languages and linguistic groups have been so heavily persecuted that imagining such thing as an ‘apolitical’ language learner is a fundamental misunderstanding of the context in which the language is spoken, and essentially an impossibility when the act of speaking claims ownership to a group. Many people will not want you to learn their language, because it has been suppressed for hundreds of years - it’s theirs, not yours. We respect that. Whilst it’s great to learn a minority language, don’t do it for the YouTube likes - do it because you’re genuinely interested in the language, people, culture and history. We don’t deserve anything special for having done so.

5) That speaking a ‘foreign’ (i.e. culturally impressive / prestigious) language is much more impressive and socially acceptable than speaking a heritage language, home language or indigenous language. There are harmful language policies all around the world that simultaneously encourage the learning of ‘educational’ languages like Spanish, and at the same time forbid the use of the child’s mother tongue in class. And many non-majority languages are not foreign at all - they were spoken here, wherever you are, before English or Spanish or Russian or, yes, standard Mandarin Chinese. Policies that encourage standardised testing in English from a very young age like the ‘No Child Left Behind’ policy in the US disproportionately affect indigenous communities that are trying to revitalise their language against overwhelming callousness and cruelty - they expect bilingual children to attain the same level of English as a monolingual in first grade, which in an immersion school, they obviously won’t (and shouldn’t - they’ll get enough exposure to English as they grow up to make it not matter later down the line). But if the schools want funding, their kids have to pass those tests.

There’s more to cover - that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Some people’s response to these videos and why the titles are ‘wrong’ would be: does it matter that he's white? Shouldn't it just be 'second language learner speaks perfect Chinese'? This is the same sort of attitude as ‘I don’t see race’. I think it does matter that he is white - because communities of many languages around the world are so used to them having to learn a second language and colonial powers not bothering to learn theirs. You wouldn't get the same reactions in these videos if he were Asian American but grew up speaking / hearing no Chinese - because then it would be expected. You also wouldn't get the same reaction if he were an immigrant in a Chinese-speaking community from somewhere else in Asia.

It also implies that all white people = monolingual Americans with no interest in other cultures. While we all are complacent and complicit in failing to educate ourselves about the effects of historical and modern colonialism, titles like this perpetuate a very harmful stereotype - and I don't mean harmful as in 'poor Xiaomanyc', but harmful in that it suggests that this attitude is ok, it's part of 'being white', and therefore doesn't need to change. The reaction when someone doesn't engage with other cultures and isn't willing to learn about them shouldn't be 'lmao classic white guy'. That not only puts the subject in a group with other 'classic white guys', but puts a nice acceptable label on what really is privilege, a lack of curiosity, ignorance, and the opportunity (which most non-white people don't have) to have everything you learn in school and university be about you. If you're ignorant - ok. We are all about many things. But you don't have any excuse not to educate yourself. The 'foreigner experience' that white people get in places like China is not the same as immigrants in a predominantly monolingual, predominantly white English speaking area. As we can see in those kind of videos, white foreigners may be stared at, but ultimately enjoy huge privilege in many places around the world. It's not the same.

It also ignores, well, essentially the whole of Europe outside the UK and Ireland and many other places around the globe, where multilingualism is incredibly common - and where the racial dichotomy commonly heard in America isn't quite appropriate, or an oversimplification of many complex ethnic/national/racial/religious/linguistic etc factors that all influence discrimination and privilege. Actually many 'white guys' in Europe and places all around the world speak four or five languages to get by - some in highly privileged upbringings and school systems, yes, but others because they have grown up in a border town, or because they are immigrants and want to give their children a better start than they did, or because they want to work abroad and send home money. Many, like people all around the world, don't get a chance to learn to read and write their first language or dialect, which is considered 'lesser' than the majority language (French, Russian, English etc); many people, like Gaelic speakers in Scotland or speakers of Basque in France, have faced historical persecution and have been denied opportunities for speaking their mother tongue. My mother was beaten and my grandparents denied jobs for being Gaelic speakers. They are white, and they have benefited from being white in lots of other ways - but their linguistic experience is light-years from Xiaomanyc's.

It isn't 'white' to be surprised at a white person speaking another language - it's just ignorant. But the two ARE correlated, because who in modern America can afford to go through twenty one years and still be ignorant? People who have never had to learn a second language; people who have always had everybody adapt to THEIR linguistic needs, and not the other way around. People who have had all media, all books, centred around people who look like them and speak like them. And even in America, that's not just 'white' - that's specifically white (often middle class) English monolinguals.

I'm not saying everybody who doesn't speak a language should feel guilty for not learning one ( it's understandably not the priority for everyone - economic reasons, family, only so many hours in the day - there are plenty of reasons why language learning when you don’t have to is also not accessible to everyone). But be aware of the double standards we have as a society towards other socially/racially/religiously disadvantaged groups versus white college grads. You can't demonise one whilst lauding the other.

To all language YouTubers - do yourself a favour, and stop doing this. Your skills are impressive - that's enough.

tldr; clickbait titles like this rely on double standards and perpetuate harmful ideas - don't write them, and let your own language skills do the talking please.

#linguistics #lingblr #racism #sociolinguistics #languages #langblr #polyglot community #I don't really know what to tag this as #chinese #xiaomanyc #taking a break from my break to clearly post about two (2) things #hualian over on main and this here #meichenxi manages

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aquirius555-musings · 3 years ago

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Pursuing Your Purpose Over Grabbing the Bag

The Necessity of Motivation in Pursuit of Wealth

Being a witch with ADHD can be contradictory at times. And now is one of them. I am confident that wealth follows and it does not lead. I am comfortable not leading my life in pursuit of wealth. However, I am still a human existing on this planet, a planet where wealth not only leads, but having some form of income is a necessity for survival. For most, a steady income is a necessity for creating a comfortable, safe, and healthy environment to prosper in this decaying world.

I am in a position where I have less wealth than I ever have before, but I have also achieved more dreams than I ever have before. I am living in a place I have dreamed about since I was young. I am living among the mountains and the great glory of this Earth’s nature and all it has to offer. I am living with and building a family of humans and animals that love me greatly and our soulmates of mine. I am living as a witch who believes in my value and abilities.

These things drive my passion, my hope, and my willingness to do more than simply survive. My willingness to always push to be thriving. What doesn’t drive this will to live fully is paid work, perceived achievement/success, and valuing profit.

It is very difficult for me to “show up” as my full self or with 100% energy when I am not intrinsically motivated by the values I consider most important. These are things I typically do and express in spades. Especially, in critical situations and oftentimes to a fault or to the great annoyance of others.

However, I’ve learned the hard way in my adult years that when I try to pursue things that don’t fulfill my soul purpose or innermost values, I not only fail, but I suffer greatly, relapse, and regress.

ADHDilemma

As I referenced in my introductory post, I was a high-achiever growing up. This is also a result of being an AFAB person and an empath with severe ADHD. I knew all the rules, I studied hard, I hyper-focused, I hyper-felt, I had way too many varied interests that were always changing, I wanted to win, to be loved as I was, and I took rejection and torment to heart. This allowed me to rise up as a star student, star sibling, star employee. I masked the qualities and behaviors that I was ashamed of or the ones that led to torment, rejection, or guilt.

You see, I could read other people and knew when I was upsetting them or when they were intentionally upsetting me. This made it easy to designate different emotions, behaviors, reactions, and conflicts into different buckets in my head. There were buckets that were safe to dump out in public, within a specific system, or with certain people, and others that were not. I became a masked person instead of myself.

What societal rules mixed with my persona and neuro-status didn’t allow me to do was love myself, and therefore, it prevented me from being a star-friend, or at least being friends with those who had my best interest at heart. More than that, the lack of love I had for myself regressed my ability to be a caretaker for myself, to be spiritually aligned, and ultimately to be happy. I let so many people victimize me throughout my life because of this and therefore have accumulated my own traumas along the way.

I have now learned so much about myself, unlearned so many unhealthy habits and behaviors, worked through a lot of trauma, embraced so many emotions and qualities about myself. This makes it heartbreakingly difficult for me to face what I call “the old me”. I really do not align with this person anymore, and I don’t really feel them in me at the deepest levels, but at the surface they are fully present.

Old Habits Die Slowly and Painfully

This “old me” knew how to present on LinkedIn, in the professional world, knew how to do what I needed to do to get the job, to fit in, to lead the group, to follow the leader. Whatever was needed of me, I did it.

I am now in a really tough financial position. I don’t have enough money to pay my bills, get medicine, go to therapy, take my pets to the vet*, get groceries, get more soil for my plants, etc. I know that I need to make money, and I know that the thing stopping me has been restraining myself from pursuing higher-income gigs. I have been fearful that I won’t “make it” in this new field that I am pursuing and that I left my corporate job to pursue. This has been stopping me from taking the leap into freelance writing gigs, into seeking out magazines or sites to submit stories too, to recording my first podcast episode, to finish setting up my profiles for freelance sites that are connected to my LinkedIn or require examples of my work.

*Both my pets had full vet exams in April, I have simply not been able to afford a visit to a new vet for either pet since we moved. They are healthy.

Instead of going for these things that may make me more money AND fulfill the want and need I have to try to write and create content for things I am passionate about, I am settling for much less. Getting low $/hour to do low-brain-capacity work. A big part of this is feeling like I won’t be represented as I am now and for what I want to be doing, but rather for the “old me” because of the work I’ve done in the past for tech companies or consultants. The buyers of the work I want to do won’t have any specifically-relevant work to review. And the buyers of the work I used to do don’t want someone like me and I don’t want to write for those types of topics anyway.

So why am I stopping myself from presenting in my full form online? Why am I not believing in myself to do the things I went to school for, live and breathe and consciously learn about with my time?

Because I was always told that to succeed in business or in any field or industry, you need experience, presentation, professionalism, etc. And these things have always been defined through a straight, white, and male-driven lens. This means no tattoos, no colored hair, no piercings, no political issues or talk (even though what I want to discuss isn’t political to me, even if it’s politicized by the public). Why, no matter how much I oppose and despise those who set these “precedents and standards” do I still give in to them?

Because old habits die slowly, painfully, and only with a lot of work and resilience is it even possible.

Shadow Work Makes a Great Assassin!

The only one qualified to kill off these old, and frankly unwelcome, habits is with an old friend - Shadow Work. Suffice it to say, I think all of this means that Shadow Work is calling my name. It’s time to have a real focus on this as I also work to pursue my creative and professional dreams.

Shadow work allows us all to go inside and break down these old habits, old traumas, old blocks that come back our way to try and break down our soul. Consulting, tending to, and loving your shadow self can allow one to break free of these things, or even better, allow them to work for you and propel you on your journey to achieve your soul’s purpose.

To get started, I am working with this very poignant Full Moon that takes place tomorrow at its highest illumination. I have some shadow-work journal prompts, a Full Moon spell, and a ritual planned.

I guess sometimes, being an ADHD witch has it’s upsides too. Witchcraft is a tool that really helps me live a meaningful life despite the struggles that come with my ADHD. I am who I am, and embracing the intersections of these two identifying pieces of me allows me to pursue my soul’s purpose.

- Aquirius (July 2021)

#soulpurpose #purpose #witch #witchcraft #ADHD #AFAB #Enby #ADHDWitch #Writer #Shadow Work #Wealth #MakingMoney #BreakingHabits #BadHabits #ProjectAquirius #MyStory

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annetteblog · 4 years ago

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Intro & My take on KM

Hi!

I’m new around here so it’s supposed to be (not so short) introduction, since I don’t know how to start a blog heh. I hope to sprinkle my 0.5 cents into the KM conversation and maybe to bring a new perspective from someone, who is not a part of the typical English-speaking West.

Who /the hell/ Am I?

(please, consider it to be said with NJ’s voice from Intro: Persona :D)

I was born in Siberia (it’s in the Asian part of Russia), currently live in the European part of the country while studying at a Uni (European in terms of geography, not in terms of everything else i’m definitely not shading rn lolllll). English is not my first language, I’ve just kind of learnt it to some extent. Due to this it takes me more time to write a post; and I may (and will) make some grammatical & other mistakes. Plus I’m lazy AND busy with Uni, so I won’t even promise to be consistent in posting smth lol. But I thought I need more practice in terms of writing in English, so here I am, actually scribbling something. This feels weird, because I’ve been around stan Tumblr since 2015, but never ever interacted, just read.

How I ended up around Jikook/Kookmin (and BTS) & My (long&messy) take on this matter

Although I had heard of BTS before, I became an Army only in October 2018. I had kinda avoided them, because you know... boybands.... sing songs about romantic love and how they love girls.......... (+I had been around Twitter when 1D been at their peak and I remember a quite toxic community of fans, whom always had scared me). Shortly, hello stereotypes. Obviously, after I got engaged I felt terribly sorry that I had been sleeping on them, but what is done cannot be undone.

Someone I knew back then reposted one of their MVs and I, during my sad hours of procrastination, decided to watch it. Then I saw their live performance with the same song. And I thought “wow these guys can sing and dance and the music is kinda cool, i need to check this out maybe??”

Then a funny thing happened. One of the next videos I watched (the same person had it added to their page) was a 2016 BangtanBomb where JM and JK practiced their Coming of Age dance.

Do you know this moment with Gina from the 1st episode of Brooklyn 9-9:

Well, that was precisely me after I watched it. I don’t even know how to explain this, it was kind of a gut feeling? Whatever you call it, I started to get suspicious and couldn’t even explain to myself why. /actually now a do have questions to this vid and the main one - why does everyone cringe that much? if it’s a girly choreo than they had done some “girly” moves before. why is there such strong reaction??/

I started to get deeper and went to some ru-shipper communities. Shipping culture among Russian speaking fans is... well, weird to some extent, but I maybe address this topic some time later. You need to consider that (as far as you probably know) Russia is quite homophonic country and sadly is not the greatest place for LGBTQ+ community at the moment. The non-frienly influential attitudes hanging in the society + the general shippers’ weirdness = the result is not that nice honestly.

I struggled for some time in order to find more mature people (not just in terms of age but in general sanity), failed, ended up with some EXTREMELY toxic ru-fans of TK, which was/is the most popular pairing here, spent among them like 15 minutes and ran away horrified. After that I didn’t even try to engage with shippers or believers or whatever of any pair and just decided to enjoy the music and the content (which is a great idea, highly recommend!)

After a couple of days I discovered that JK makes videos. I love video, films and visual art so I immediately found them on YT, saw the titles with names of different cities from all over the world and was like “Oh that must be so cool, he’s visited so many outstanding places I’ve never been to, so I really need to watch it! I shall enjoy some beautyyy”. Then I clicked on GCFt.

Well, what can I say. I did enjoy some beauty, but not the type I had initially anticipated. The biggest clickbait in my entire life. JK should be proud of himself.

/as I said - the beauty/

I had already known Troy back then and I known the song’s lyrics so it would not be an underestimation to say - the video just blew my mind. I was like - hold on is this real? seriously?? no really really????? he manage to get away with something THAT obvious?????? dude how

As a person who edited videos AND is not a native English speaker, I don’t buy the explanation “oh he mustve didnt get the lyrics lmao”. You just don’t do that. You don’t. DON’T. You google and translate every shit you don’t understand, every word and idiom you’ve never encountered, because otherwise the possibility of an epic failure is very likely. You wouldn’t want to give your mum a video as a birthday present and then discover that you used a song with WAP-ish lyrics, right? (well maybe that would be okay in your family, I don’t judge, but that’s not the case for people I know). So don’t you dare to degrade JK’s intellectual capacities; such assumption is really offensive. He is a smart boii, he knows exactly what he’s doing in terms of his art.

So I was shocked, but decided to look for the context - maybe I missed some previous events regarding this Tokyo thing (another great idea - always check the context). Well, apparently I didn’t, because the whole narrative with the trip for two, lovely selfies etc. made my poor brain lowkey explode. (I still don’t buy the rings theory thing though)

But I didn’t give up lol! I’m a bit stubborn and it’s very hard to convince me in anything, so I decided to search for more context, more of their interactions, moreeee. Remember, the late October 2018, there were no swan lakes, RB, and even MMA18 hadn’t happened yet.

This time I ended up watching content in more or less consistent way, and when I saw all of these scenes with affectionate JM and a cool badass i-don’t-care-about-anyone-i’m-a-manly-man-with-no-feelings-whatsoever JK, I just hysterically laughed.

Homophobic Russia, remember? I recognized this. Growing up here being LGBT myself, taught me the same type behaviour during my high school days. When a girl I kinda liked but didn’t what to admit it to myself was nice to me or (oh god) flirted with me, I did something similar. It’s like a huge panic mode. Being an introvert doesn’t help either. The funniest thing is that you may not entirely realise what exactly is going on in terms of your own feelings, especially at that age (16-18ish). In my personal case, I thought I liked her but as a friend, only later to realise that well not as a friend oops :DDD The second thing (already not so funny) is that you actually consciously or unconsciously try to avoid the subject as much as possible, as long as possible and pretend that nothing is going on. We’re just bros. Stop doing this stupid gayish thing and don’t look at me like that, you’re annoying. If you ever do this again I (gently) kick you. I’m straighter than a straight line in my math textbook. IDK, but probably that’s your brain is somehow trying to protect you. Again, in my case&position I knew that the consequences for any non-straight person being outed would be bad (TW not to the point of being killed bad, but to the point of being excluded from a big part of society). So for me it was a mixture of the internalized homophobia + lack of self reflection + just being a bit emotionally slow + very! straight community around. Shit happens, I was a teenager and made my share of mistakes, but that experience helps me to recognize the same pattern of behaviour up to this day.

So coming back to KM, because the post is already waaay too long and I just ramble. It’s been 2+ years for me being a part of this fandom, and what can I say... Things become more intense and eventful with every year passing by ;) Funny how I felt that vibe from the 2016 dance practice video. Seeing the Black Swan performance a week ago almost had me choked, no joking. They are amazing.

Pure Art

However, and I would like to emphasize that, I do not incline that KM are 100% romantically involved and/or gay or whatever. I tend to treat people with respect and not to make too much assumptions about their private life. That’s not my business. However, I’m also not a fan of heteronormativity, so I’m just sitting here and observe everything that’s going on putting some distance and not forgetting being generally polite and critical thinking. But if they are just straightest besties please give them an Oscar before Grammy

Anyways, I hope this blog won’t kick the bucket from the very start and I will post something every now and then. You can always ask me questions about some BTS/Jikook related stuff or something about Russia and a Russian view on mass culture topics, since I’m pretty sure some of you have very stereotypical view of what is going on here :) However, do note that I’ve never been to America or Europe, therefore I may not be aware of something verrrry obvious to you or just have a completely different experience.

P.S. And yeah, I’m used to say Jikook, since it’s the name which is used much more frequently in Russian. i like it better and what will u do haha

#jikook #kookmin #what am i even doing here #i'm gonna regret this #long post

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lilydalexf · 4 years ago

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Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Michelle Kiefer

Michelle has 55 stories at Gossamer. If you haven’t read them, what are you waiting for?! She has great takes on Mulder and Scully. I’ve recced some of my favorites of her fics here before, including Christmas in California, Making Other Plans, and Six Inch Valley. Big thanks to Michelle for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

I’m not sure anyone is still reading my stories. I haven’t migrated my X-Files ones to AO3. I don’t think Gossamer provides any viewing statistics. I’d be very happy to hear that people still like my work.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

My X-Files fandom experience was amazing. I remember that sense of excitement and immediacy. It was thrilling to write stories (and read those of other authors, of course) in an active fandom for a show that was on the air. It was truly my first experience in an online world--a parallel world to my real life existence. I learned how to keep a foot in each world. As I recall, it was very hard to keep my focus in my “meat” world, when the online one was so fast moving and thrilling. But I did get some balance in my life as time went on.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

Message boards and mailing lists were my experience. They were primitive compared to the pretty screens now. I forged some amazing friendships, some of them with people I discovered lived relatively near me. All I wanted to do was discuss episodes and fic. The flame wars were a little intimidating, but also amusing if you didn’t get swept up.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

I was very passionate about the fandom--as I said, there were times when my online life seemed to overpower my real life experiences. I learned to manage that, and think I’m all the better for that. And I found some amazing friendships that are active and thriving today. I learned a lot about writing with XF fanfic. The level of quality was stunning. A decent percentage of fic were as good or better than traditional published fiction. But there were so many writers! I wanted to make an impact on the fanfiction world, but that meant taking my writing very seriously and learning to develop a story, pace that story, make it compelling and believable.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

I had a couple of coworkers that talked about the show all the time. I was curious, so I watched an episode. I believe it was the cannibal town one. I thought David Duchovny was odd looking and wasn’t terribly impressed. But I tried another episode - Wetwired, which blew me away with the morgue scene when Mulder thinks he’s going to identify Scully’s body. Ah...I thought, now, I see what everyone is talking about! And from then I was hooked.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

As I watched, I wanted more. I was fairly new to the internet (frankly, the internet was new to almost everyone) I found episode reviews, and some of them were fantastic. Some mentioned fanfiction. I was unaware of such a thing, though to be honest, since childhood, I’d been spinning stories in my head about characters on TV shows. I found some fanfic. The first couple of stories were not great (at least one was horrible) but then I found some that were very good. Probably a bit soap-operaish, but still readable. And then I became voracious as I plowed through the mass of stories looking for the good stuff. And boy was there good stuff.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

I’m not estranged from it, but I don’t spend much time with it after all these years. I’ve found fanfic in some other shows that I like and only occasionally read old XF stories.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I’ve not been as involved with any other fandoms, i.e. following commentary on the show. I tend to dive into TV shows well after their heyday, so I’m always late to the party. I do read fanfic from other shows, and have actually written fanfic for other shows, but I need a really good idea to write. None of the other fandoms for my other shows are as busy and active as XF, even ones currently in production. And none of them have as much fanfic and certainly not the level of brilliance that we had in XF.

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

I tend to go for interesting partnerships, very much in the XF fashion. And a flawed hero is always a plus! The partnerships don’t necessarily have to be romantic---in fact I find I prefer those that are not. Really, Mulder and Scully were the only ones I felt deeply as a pairing, probably due to the chemistry between the actors. But the partnerships have to be well-balanced and realistic. I loved the characters on Sleepy Hollow. The two main characters were very much in the mold of Mulder/Scully.

My newest passion is British detective shows and I’ve completely fallen for the “Morse-verse” shows, Inspector Morse, Inspector Lewis and Endeavour. Less of an XF feel, but compelling characters with interesting backstories. Other favorite partnerships in the British detective genre are on Inspector Lynley and Broadchurch.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

A bit less now, though I’m still involved with a wonderful group of ladies who love the X-Files. When we get together for a yearly weekend, we binge episodes and eat impressive amounts of junk food. XF isn’t on network TV these days, but if it was, I’d probably watch it.

A couple of years ago, I listened to Kumail Nanjiani’s XF podcast on my long commute. I loved the commentary and interviews so much that I did watch some old episodes.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I don’t read much XF fic. I’m currently reading in some other fandoms, but it’s harder to find good stories--the ones I follow aren’t very active these days and the quality just isn’t what XF was. We were so lucky. We had maybe 20 incredible top authors at any one time, then maybe another tier of 50 to 100 good to maybe great writers. And with new episodes, there was so much inspiration. We were so spoiled.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

Everything from Syntax6, MaybeAmanda, Kel. A special story for me was “Strangers and the Strange Dead” by Kipler because I remember reading that very early in the morning in my unheated basement in the winter because that was the only time I could use our single computer without others in the family complaining. I remember actually gasping at the big reveal in the story. I can even remember the story’s opening line!

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I was just learning how to write fiction when I was involved in XF, so I’m not sure my best work is there, though the bulk of my stories are there. I liked some of the work I did with others. I wrote Bone of Contention and Out of the Everywhere with Kel and I think that those stories got the best aspects of both of our styles. For stories I wrote myself, I think they’re not bad, but they are rather short and it’s always easier to maintain a theme and style for a short story. I liked Black Cherry Velvet. I’m writing some Inspector Lewis stories that I think are pretty good--they benefit from the years of experience that I was gaining through XF.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

Never say never, but I probably won’t write more XF. I used to burn with it, but I think that got burned out a bit. Still, I have such wonderful memories of the whole period. It might be worth looking at again.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

As I mentioned, I am currently playing in the Inspector Lewis world. It’s sad--it’s a very small and not terribly active fandom. Sad that my best work is in an inactive fandom where I’m lucky if 20 or 30 people are reading them. It doesn’t help that I don’t write the most popular pairing.

But I’m really enjoying it. I occasionally write for Man From Uncle, which really shows my age, as that was a childhood obsession.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

With XF, it was always a take on an episode--did I get a tiny idea that I wanted to develop, or was I not thrilled with the way something went on the show. Now, it’s usually a “what if” kind of thing where I get inspired by a possible event and explore how that would play out, i.e. “What if this character had a one night stand resulting in an unplanned pregnancy?” What would happen? How would he handle the consequences of this? How would it change his life?

What's the story behind your pen name?

It’s literally my own name. I SOOOO wish I’d used a pen name. But I was naive and fandom was so new to me that it never occurred to me that a pen name would be better. I always told myself that my real name sounded like something made up, like a TV newscaster name, and I hoped people assumed it was a pen name.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

My husband and my kids were the only ones who knew about it for many years. Then I went to a fandom/fic gathering for three days and had to explain to a few other family members and my work mates why I was going to Chicago on my own. It’s still mostly a need to know thing and they don’t really need to know.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

I’m on AO3 as msk. And everything I wrote for XF is on Gossamer.

(Posted by Lilydale on February 2, 2021)

#new post #old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #michelle kiefer

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aliveandrestless5 · 3 years ago

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What is disassociation? I’ve heard of it, but I don’t really know what it means. If it’s ok with you, may you explain it?

//Dissociation!

Sure, anon.

Disclaimer: This is based 100% on my own experiences, I am by no means a professional. This is a disorder I have been diagnosed with by a licensed therapist.

Disassociation is, in short, when you feel a severe disconnect from your body and surroundings. There are a lot of different diagnoses underneath the umbrella of “Dissociative Disorders”, such as Dissociative identity disorder, (DID), Dissociative amnesia, and Depersonalization/derealization disorder. I’ve been diagnosed with the last one.

The symptoms of Dissociation can range from mild, such as feeling like you’re living in a simulation or a video game, to more severe episodes where you feel like you do not control or own your body, (Not recognizing your reflection, your hands not seeming like your own, etc). It’s uncontrollable, and It can be really scary and uncomfortable, especially if it happens in a public setting.

In my most severe episodes I am “frozen”, as I like to call it. Basically, I zone out, my vision blurs and becomes unfocused, my limbs feel heavy and numb, and I am unable to focus back in no matter how hard I try. I can answer simple questions and follow someone, but that’s about it. I also am not able to remember most of what happens to me while in an episode, and sometimes I’m not even able to recall what caused it. Even smaller, less intense episodes can cause me to loose an entire day’s worth of memory, or more.

This a trauma response. Because of (insert childhood traumas here), my brain uses disassociation as a way to protect me, by allowing me to “escape” the situation. You about Fight or Flight responses, right? Disassociation is my minds way of picking “flight” when I am unable to physically leave. It protected me during some of the worst years of my life by allowing me to “escape” what was happening, and not retaining the memory of it.

Unfortunately, however, mine is a bit over reactive. The trauma I have received has caused my body’s first reaction to any sort of stress to be disassociation, even though I’m now in a safe place.

Any situation where I feel an intense emotion, can cause me to have an episode. Lack of sleep and underlying stress about other things can make me incredibly susceptible to having episodes, too. It’s a bit strange, some stressful situations where you’d think I would disassociate I’ve been fine, and then I’ll turn around and have an severe episode over a car honking too loudly nearby.

(True story! The severe episode I was talking about in the Ranboo post happened because I was walking around an unfamiliar city at night with my brother, and a car pulled out of a side street and honked at me. In my defense, I was already incredibly on edge because that city is very unsafe at night, and the car was very loud. Thankfully my brother was able to get me home, but I remember next to nothing about that day, before and after the episode.)

I’ve lost a significant portion of my life to this disorder. There’s a good 2-3 years I have maybe three memories from because of how much I disassociated during them. Entire years just… Poof! Gone. It keeps me from remembering some of the bad stuff, but it took the good memories, too.

… That ended up more depressing than I wanted it too, sorry anon.

I’ve been in therapy for this for almost a year now, and I’m making good progress. I’m getting better at preventing and pulling myself out of these episodes, and there’s ways to help with the memory loss aspect, too. My therapist is lovely, (she’s gay, married, and lives on a farm. Living the lesbian dream), and extremely helpful. I cannot recommend therapy enough if you feel like you’re struggling, a good therapist can help you reframe your thoughts into a way that works better for you.

Hope this helps!

#disassociation #tw disassociation #ask #irl

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abiteofnat · 4 years ago

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If you’re reading this, I’m coming back to Chicago, beetch

The non-existent rumors are true. After a brief 10-month exit from the city to soak up the fresh air and social distance-friendly suburbs, I am now returning to Chicago as a single, slightly more anxious version of myself. While I’m still trying to kick some of the anxiety and OCD that COVID-19 pushed from “lifelong tagalongs” to “all-controlling demons”, I feel 97% ready to be back where I feel most myself, and cannot wait to welcome that change. While that 3% still makes me a little uncomfy and hesitant, I’m a believer in pushing your boundaries to allow yourself to grow, and also, I am really sick of suburbs food.

Ha! I joke. I wouldn’t move downtown simply for access to more diverse & higher quality food... or would I? All I know is while there are plenty of gems in the North Shore, I’ve eaten take out from all of them ten times over, and I did not foster my dislike of cooking out of nowhere. My parents do not enjoy cooking, my sister pretends to enjoy cooking, and I will cook if it is 5 ingredients or less. My latest speciality is a toasted bagel with butter, hummus, and EBTB seasoning. Voila. So when it comes to dinner, we are living off of a carousel of suburban favorites, and are losing steam as we are still not comfortable with dining inside (or dining inside in the city, where the fun food is).

All of this to say, it’s exciting to imagine what life is going to be like in a few short weeks. While I’m still extra precautionary, I can’t wait to have my own space downtown, where I can enjoy coffee on my little balcony (!!!) and dream of the days friends can come squeeze into my studio safely while I lay out an entire table of sharable spreads and snacks from Ema (Charred Eggplant Spread is the best one, don’t fight me).

So you may ask, how did you come to this decision to move to the heart of downtown out of seemingly nowhere, you hermit?

It starts with my mom and I having a brief, simultaneous breakdown and coming to the conclusion that we would both feel comfortable doing a staycation downtown, as long as we wore masks, sanitized always, and braved the cold to eat outside. This was big for me! As a person with real OCD, not cute TV show “I have to keep my pens straight” OCD, this would be the most exposure I’d had to a lot of uncontrollable variables since the pandemic started. If you’re thinking, “you get to spend a weekend downtown in a hotel with your mom, shut up”, know that I hear you. I am unbelievably grateful that I’ve gotten this time with my parents, and that we can do a staycation. However, having anxiety comes at a cost, and that cost is blowing everything way the fuck out of proportion instead of being able to rationalize it sometimes. Let’s! Normalize! Having! This! Discussion!

So, we went downtown in early March for a two-night stay, and oh my goodness. The realization that we got to be in a different space, and do different things, and eat different food for a weekend made it feel like a legit vacation, and not like we drove 30 minutes to get there. The view from our room was of Michigan Ave, and hearing the traffic and seeing the people out and about instantly made me feel a sense of peace I wasn’t expecting. I’ve lived downtown for 6 years, but it always shocks me how much the city feels like an extension of me once I’m in it after being away. My mom and I went out for a walk (gentle yet forceful reminder to please wear a mask), then decided to grab dinner while we were out. The plan was to bring it back to the room, but there was a warm spell, and there just happened to be a table for two at Topolobampo on Clark, and suddenly we were sitting on the patio under the lights eating masa quesadillas dipped in a spicy salsa verde. It just happened!!!

Before getting downtown, I was tentatively looking at apartments for the spring. I was looking at Lincoln Park, Old Town, maybe Lakeview, and came across a listing in the Gold Cost that caught my eye. That one was swiped out from under me within days, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the area. Then I discovered another unit that was available, and couldn’t shake it from my mind. Over mushroom tacos I discussed it with my mom, and we decided to go see it. Totally not what I had been planning for in terms of location, but why not?

Once we polished off breakfast the next morning (Eggs Benedict with fried eggs, extra hollandaise) we headed out to see the place. Let me say I have never seen my mom fall in love with a single apartment I’ve lived in, and she was ALL. FOR. IT. Unreal reaction on her part. Once I saw the west-facing views and the incredible natural lighting, I was 100% in as well.

We spent the rest of the weekend wandering the downtown area, enjoying another dinner outside at The Gwen and my mom’s first visit to the Starbucks Reserve Roastery, which was 95% more empty than I’ve ever seen it given we went in a pandemic at 8:30PM. Shit on Starbucks all you want, but that Roastery is an incredible use of space (in non-pandemic times) and the coffee & Princi pastries are really, really good.

When we got back home feeling refreshed and like we had actually gone on a vacation, I jumped into apartment shark mode real fast and signed as many documents as the very kind realtor could send over. One week later, whabaam, I was a Gold Coast girl. Ahem, *lady*. What better way to celebrate than going to Somerset and having the Rapini & Roasted Garlic Flatbread and Wild Mushroom Risotto? No clue. As I sat outside, yet again with my mom, I felt a wave of excitement come over me and realized, this is it. This is the sign and feeling I’ve been waiting for, telling me it’s time to move back to the city and start over. The creamy, herbacious risotto also helped solidify that.

SO. After all of that, the news is I’m moving, and you’re probably wondering why I shared all of this on a blog about food. I meant for this post to be about everywhere I ate during my staycation, but realized quickly we ate at some very basic places - DELICIOUS, but still basic. Oops. Below are all the dishes I had and a rundown of the flavors, textures, etc., however don’t expect to find any new, revolutionary restaurants. Sorry!

1. Topolobampo

This Rick Bayless restaurant has been around forever, and unfortunately, you can tell by the interior. We’ve eaten here as a family a couple of times before, but never had a noteworthy experience. I can confirm that in a pinch, the patio covered in fun lights & mini piñatas, and the sharable, filling bites will do just fine. This was my first time going to a Mexican restaurant as a non-alcohol drinker, and instead of my typical mezcal margarita, I opted for a Fresh Limeaide which was refreshing and flavorful. We split the Guacamole and Chips, which if you’ve ever stopped at the Frontera in O’Hare, you know is good as fuck. It’s smooth, creamy, tangy, and topped with chopped onions and cilantro for a little crunch. It’s not the most life-changing, but it is consistently satisfying. Next, we got the Mushroom Tacos and Masa Quesadillas. The Masa Quesadillas were a fun surprise, as instead of a tortilla, the masa is what makes up the outside. They are almost like empanadas and stuffed with gooey, melty cheese, and come with a spicy salsa verde on the side. I would come back for these alone - they’re rich yet light, warm, and comforting, all the things you would want when dining outside when it’s still a little chilly. The Mushroom Tacos were quite frankly unreal, because whatever they seasoned the mushroom slices with and grilled them on made them taste unlike any mushroom I’ve had before. There was definitely some meat crossover on the grill, so don’t order those if you’re vegan, or ask them to prepare the mushroom separately. I however was LOSING MY MIND. Over mushrooms. The joys of being vegetarian!

2. The Gwen

On a happening Saturday night in Chicago, Upstairs at The Gwen is sure to be a packed scene. Located in River North, this hotel bar/restaurant offers a somehow cozy rooftop filled with loungey couches, fire pits, and ambient lighting, even though you’re surrounded by apartments and skyscrapers and there is nothing “cozy” about River North. Every table was filled, yet since you’re outside and it’s fairy spread apart, it still felt safe. I got my new classic, a Lemonade, and we got the Burrata to start. With sourdough, roasted beets, squash, pomegranate, pistachio, & arugula, this plate was nothing short of mouth-watering. It has textures! It has flavors! It has pomegranate seeds, the TikTok must have of the moment! The bread was 10/10, the burrata was 8/10, and all of the toppings made for a very find bite of salad on their own. For my main I got the Lobster Fettucine, a beautiful bowl of “charcoal fettuccine with saffron-tomato sauce, lobster, calabrian chili butter, and basil-brioche crumbs” as listed on their website. Take any of those ingredients and it’s going to be delicious, but all of them TOGETHER? INCREDIBLE. The chunks of lobster were huge, absolutely making the dish worth its price tag, and the sauce was flavorful, unique, and unlike any sauce I’ve tasted in the last few years. It’s typical to do a squid ink pasta with seafood and tomato sauce, but the saffron added a new element I very much appreciated.

3. The Starbucks Roastery

I KNOW. THIS IS A TOURIST DESTINATION. All I am saying is if there’s no line, go get an iced latte with two packets of sugar in the raw. That’s all. It’s really good after something like, I don’t know, Lobster Fettucine.

4. The Penninsula

You cannot go wrong with hitting up The Penninsula for breakfast or brunch, especially if you are staying there and have the option to do room service. Typically we would go to Pierrot Gourmet, the cafe in the ground floor of The Penninsula, however it has been closed temporarily. If there’s one thing to order with your breakfast, it’s the smashed fingerling potatoes. Delish.

5. Somerset

Somerset is becoming a quick go-to of mine for an impromptu dinner downtown, given it’s in the heart of Gold Coast and is cute if you’re sitting indoors or outdoors. The food is nothing too innovative, but it is done well, which is the most important part with “cuter” restaurants that may focus on the Instagram appeal over the food sometimes. Each time I’ve gone I’ve gotten the seasonal flatbread and a pasta or risotto, usually something with mushrooms, and it’s always been plate-licking good. To drink, I got -you guessed it- a Lemonade! For dinner I went with the Wild Mushroom Risotto which was everything you could hope for in a risotto, topped with olive oil, herbs, and local parmesan. We split the Rapini & Roasted Garlic Flatbread which was as it sounds, flatbread covered in rapini, garlic, and ricotta, which added a nice crunch and had enough rapini to feel like it was replacing a boring vegetable side dish or salad. The patio vibes were wonderful, the judgemental girls in the greenhouses looked like they were having a good time, and our waiter couldn’t have been sweeter. I will be going back to try the Fontina Arancini, which I just noticed on the menu. FRICK.

So there you have it, a very long-winded explanation of the last few weeks of my life and where you can find me on a staycation in Chicago. Hopefully once I move back to the city I’ll have endless new spots to try and won’t be basic anymore!

Until next time, Happy Eating!

-Natalie

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piracytheorist · 4 years ago

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So I went down some t*rf tags the other day to find which blogs I should block, as you do, and of course in order to avoid accidentally blocking people who were mocking the ideology or sarcastically agreeing with it, I actually read the posts there and scrolled down some of the blogs.

And with some of the things I saw... it made me understand how they reel people in. In some of the stuff they said, I understood them. I understood their struggle, and their anger, and I got how their feelings could make them burst out the way they do in their blogs. Also the fact that many of the blogs I scrolled down and blocked were by women between the ages of 15 and 19 didn’t help. That’s the exact age where you do the most reckless, the most emotional, and the least experienced thinking. It’s when you think of something and immediately think you’re right, because you’re not developed enough, neither mentally, nor emotionally, nor from the aspect of life experiences, to know better and reflect on how well developed your thoughts are.

And to see them act the same way older t**fs do, like in the ages of 26+... it’s fucking scary. It genuinely feels like a cult, where teen women, frustrated with the misogyny they experience, come to a website to vent out their feelings about that and find passionate adult women agreeing with and supporting them and saying that they’re in the right to hate men and trans women... it solidifies their at then immature thoughts.

Like, give me one (1) cis woman who during her mid- or late teens didn’t hate men, even for just a few months, in reaction to being treated as lesser just for having a female body. Just one. I specifically did. I was, for a couple of years actually, believing the bullshit going around that “Girls are more mature than boys”, that “Girls love truly, boys only want sex”, that “Women are statistically smarter than men” etc etc. But then you grow up, you reflect on those thoughts and you go like “Damn older people are right when they say that teenagers do stupid stuff sometimes”.

And that’s the thing with being a teenager; it’s the time to do mistakes, it’s the time to screw up, to vent out your frustrations, and when you grow older and have more life experience, look back at how you used to think and say “Wow, cringe. Good thing I grew out of that.” Absolutely not saying that everything teenagers do is stupid, if anything, most people start discovering themselves at that age. But that’s it; it’s a start. And on that road you’ll make mistakes, you’ll reflect, you’ll change your mind, you’ll learn, you’ll grow. The things that you start connecting with as a teenager which you keep on in your adult life also change, in the way that you look at them deeper, you understand them differently... it’s like with favourite films. Any movie you love as a teenager and as an adult, you’ll have a different mindset on the two occasions. Even if it brings you back to those times, you still have developed and you see it in a different way. Both ways may be positive, or fundamentally similar, but they’re still different, maybe one is the evolution of the first; it’s still not 100% the same. Because you grew up. It’s kinda sad, in a way.

So the issue I have with indoctrinating young women into the t**f ideology from so early on, is that it’s an ideology based on hate. By saying that women are only those who experience misogyny, you’re basically normalizing misogyny and abuse, and averting the blame. You’re saying that it’s expected from men to be misogynistic, and that women should band together against the oppression... instead of looking into why men are misogynistic and looking how you can inspire change in that. It’s victim blaming, basically.

By saying that “trans women are not women because they don’t grow up experiencing the effects of misogyny and patriarchy on themselves” (in a way that’s bullshit but as a cis woman I can’t expand on that, read trans women’s stories instead), you’re putting the responsibility of erasing misogyny on trans women. And again, you’re normalizing the abuse, and you’re defining your gender by the abuse you went through.

Like, fuck no. I was bullied for more than half my school life. It has impacted me greatly, many of the emotional scars I carry them still, my character has been affected by the abuse I went through, but by fuck no does it define me. I choose to try to be kinder. I choose to see abuse as wrong. I choose to be an educator so that I can help bullying stop being a thing in the schools I’ll be teaching. And not because I feel ashamed, or that I pity children who are being bullied, but because I want to make this world a better place, because I believe in teaching the younger generation into not perpetuating any kind of hateful ideology.

That’s not what t**fs do. They just say they hate men and perpetuate the idea of female supremacy... as if women, even women who are privileged in every way other than having a female body, can never do wrong.

Like on one hand, they deify JKR who said that “I am not a victim, I do not pity myself and I’m growing out of my trauma strong” in a very, very victim-shaming way, and on the other hand they define their femininity on the fact that they’re victimized by the patriarchy. Make it make sense.

And in general, it is still an ideology based on hate. When you take a group of people that are struggling both on the inside (either through gender dysphoria or through the pressure of not feeling free to express themselves) and on the outside (either because they’re bullied if they act “out of the gender norm” or because of transphobia if they come out), and you hate on them, when you put the entire responsibility of erasing unrealistic expectations on beauty and appearance for women on that specific small group that’s in a fundamentally disadvantageous position... bro I don’t know what you call it, I call it targeting. You have your frustrations with the patriarchy and sexist men, and because those people won’t listen to you - mostly because they’re privileged and assisted in that by the system they create - and you take it out on a group of people that’s just trying to live their lives in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone.

Like, I saw someone being upset by people comparing t**fs to nazis because she’s Jewish and I’m like... how the heck can you not see the similarities? How can you grow up Jewish and not see that it’s wrong to target an entire group of people, massively hate on them, say that they “have an agenda” just because they want to be themselves and aren’t hurting anyone? How can you not see that cherry-picking the unkind or misled ones and defining the entire group by those few people is wrong?

In fact, how can you not see that “trans women are perpetuating Hollywood’s beauty standards for women” has the exact same basis as “immigrants of colour are stealing white people’s jobs”?

And you may say, “Lillpon, you’re doing the same with t**fs right now. You’re going out there and blocking them after having said you hate blocking people” and I’ll say, I am not hating on them. As I said, I’m scared by seeing how many of them are teenagers, but at the same time, it’s telling. It’s a cult-like mentality, it finds people who are frustrated with how they are treated, who feel wronged, who feel they’re in an unjust world, and it takes those feelings and targets it to one specific group or characteristic. For t**rfs, that’s the XY chromosome set. For neo-nazis, that’s non-Caucasian races. The whole “finding young people who are alone, who see that the world is unjust, who feel no-one listening to them and indoctrinating them to an ideology of hate” is point-blank exactly how neo-nazi groups work. Here is a very interesting TED talk on the matter by a former neo-nazi, if you’re interested.

Also, I never said I hate blocking people, or that I think it’s wrong. I just don’t think it’s something to be proud of, and in fact I’m not proud for blocking those people, I even feel a little guilty as I understand how many of them are just victims of indoctrination.

You’ll say, “But Lillpon, a lot of neo-nazis are spoiled, privileged white men! How can you know how privileged t**fs are??” And to that, I’ll turn communist and whisper in your ear, “The privileged are few. They’re the minority. And they depend on the lower classes fighting against each other so that people forget that it’s the privileged who make all the laws and standards that hurt all the lower classes.” To that extent, you can never, never know who truly hides behind the blogs and twitter accounts with “r*dfem lesbian” on their bio. There are many occasions, especially on twitter, where accounts that claimed to be queer poc were found out to be run by straight white men.

... So, who can guarantee that everyone running a blog with “r*dfem lesbian” on their bio is actually a cis, lesbian woman? And again, on its basis, it’s the same.

Neo-nazism is putting the blame on people of colour; that not only causes a rift between neo-nazis and poc, but also between neo-nazis and white people who oppose them. It’s in fact a pawn so that the white people in power - the people who are responsible for the problems poc and lower class white people face - can avoid having everyone against them. They give poc and less-racist lower class white people a scapegoat.

T**f ideology is putting the blame on people born in male bodies - absolutely no matter what their character is. Again, that causes rifts between t**fs and cis men, t**fs and trans people, and t**fs and cis women who support trans rights. Instead of focusing on seeing how we can stop cis men from being sexist - which of course will inconvenience the men in power who rose so high because misogyny is holding women back - we’re fighting against each other. It’s again, a pawn, a scapegoat, to distract us from blaming the one who’s truly to blame.

If anything, if you’re a t**f, the fact that what you do is helping the white men in power - because absolutely nothing you or your friends can do can affect them in a negative way - should be a reason by itself to not be a t**f. But what do I know.

#anarchist lillpon coming out #long post

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illimitablespaces · 3 years ago

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1,4,6,25,39,62,86,100 c:

Allow me to preface these questions with an apology to @ant-soul, who kindly asked these some weeks ago. It is my hope that the saying, "better late than never" holds true. Forgive me, friend.

1. How are you feeling right now?

[A strange combination of pleasure and exhaustion. I attended the premier of an opera which has been exciting, beautiful, and moving. There is something truly wondrous how human beings come together in the most fundamental ways in the arts—this communion between us is essential; it’s how we know ourselves. A current of feeling which moves through the composer (or poet or painter, etc.) reaches a hand out to us in an act of generosity.] *I had this answer ready a couple weeks ago when I was abroad but such is life that my current state has changed a bit.

At present, I am admittedly feeling quite sad (certainly most different than what I wished to respond with before). As for the reason why, I think no single cause is at the root of this feeling... it is more a reaction to the circumstances of this moment in time, which I do not wish to explain in this particular post.

4. Are you organized?

—Barely. I do like to keep things organized but the process of getting there is a strange and difficult one.

6. Are you sensitive?

—Yes. It is a sort of burden but I bear it with the knowledge that to be a human being is to remain sensitive in a way which the world seeks to destroy. A hardened heart, unmoved like stone, is one of the dangers (and terrors) of human existence, especially in our contemporary age. I am grateful for my sensitivity, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

25. What do you do under stress?

—Most often I experience a shut down of sorts, where I try to make everything within me as still, calm, and quiet as possible. I have a tendency to boil over as it were, when pressure builds so this is why I react to stress in a rather unproductive manner, in the hope of establishing inner stability and calm.

39. What’s your favourite colour and why?

I love all colors, and I think choosing is besides the point, since we are blessed with hues limitless to our senses. But for the sake of an answer I will say yellow. Over the years I’ve noticed some people have an abhorrent repulsion to this color in particular, and there is a book (it doesn’t matter the title) that attempted to chronicle the “history” of yellow. In any case, yellow—in my experience—is a color of joy, exuberance, emblematic of the sort of naive ecstasy that children work themselves into when they take extreme delight in the things they favor. This is only a bit of what makes yellow my favorite color.

62. What is your main goal in life?

Now, my main goal is to live an honest and authentic life, not hindered by the contemporary traps in which so many find themselves ensnared. These traps are various but ultimately amount to the same thing—a lie. Whatever is not right and just, beautiful and true… this should, and ought to, be done away with, for it leaves one with a hollow sense of self and not much else other than the sham of attempting—futilely—to substantiate the emptiness with anything other than that which is true.

86. What are your thoughts on your name?

For some years it has bothered me to be named after one of the Archangels (Michael). As a human being I have no business to attempt to embody those characteristics of this divine and sexless creature, and one so terrific. As such, when I reverted to Islam, I took the name Yusuf, after one of our Prophets. This seemed more fitting, since I’ve always thought this a beautiful name from when I was young, and furthermore, Surah Yusuf in the Quran is deeply moving, important, and personal to many people, myself included.

100. What is the meaning of life?

I think meaning and purpose should be delineated here. I believe the purpose of life is to seek knowledge to the best of our ability and with that knowledge, it is our duty to share it, and this is done in a myriad of ways. The fact of the matter is that human beings are learning and reasoning creatures and when we learn, we inevitably wish to share what we have learned with others. The myriad of ways I mentioned might be any--but not limited to--the following: composing a poem or music, writing a scientific text, growing and nurturing a garden, healing or visiting the ill and infirm, caring for animals, etc. etc. The positive possibilities in sharing knowledge, no matter how "small" it may seem, always result in positive repercussions. So, this is what I believe our purpose in life to be, and indeed, it is what is commanded in religion.

Thank you again, it was my pleasure to answer these, albeit a bit late.

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sankyeom · 4 years ago

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belle’s 2020 tumblr wrap up

i almost didn’t make one of these because i lost my laptop charger on my flight home to california and i didn’t want to type this out on my phone but after being tagged in so many people’s wonderful end-of-year messages (thank you @sunlightwoo @heartyyjeno @atbzkingdom @chaoticdeobi @xfirebenderx @fairyoftbz and for including me thus far 💗) i decided i had to join this beautiful love fest and end the year on a good note!

m i l e s t o n e s (personal and for the blog) ✨

◇ on february 17th 2020 i started stanning (and eventually ulting) the boyz! ↳ this is important because i had been listening to the boyz’s music since no air era, but never watched their videos or learned the members’ names. after stanning the boyz, i was introduced to my beautiful deobiblr, which is such a warm and welcoming community. i met most of treasured mutuals through this community and honestly don’t know what i’d do without it!

◇ on april 23rd 2020 i reached 1,000 followers on my blog! ↳ this was very special to me because i have previously reached 1k followers on many different platforms (quotev.com, wattpad, a different tumblr blog, etc.) but after not writing for a long time i was worried people wouldn’t like my writing anymore or that i wouldn’t be good at it after taking a break. reaching this number was surreal for me and it made me realise that i wanted to study creative writing in university, which i am now doing!

◇ on may 30th 2020 i graduated high school! ↳ i graduated with honours and a 4.0 along with a lot of life-long friends that i had made in the two years i spent at my competitive, college-prep private school. i faced a lot of hardships but eventually got through it and i am a better person for it. congratulations to all the graduates who didn’t get the graduation they all dreamed of, you did something spectacular this year!

◇ on august 24th 2020 i started university as a creative writing major! ↳ 2020 was a crazy year for everyone and it made picking which uni to go to really hard, but there was one uni in particular that loved my admissions essay and wrote to me personally saying they would love to have me in their creative writing program, which really touched me and interested me in this uni. i’ve always been someone who finds academics really important so i had gotten multiple scholarship offers from different “higher ranking” universities, but i was able to learn what was important to me in picking a school that would both foster my learning and make me feel at home.

◇ on september 21st 2020 i got my first ever B on a test! ↳ and i was really happy about it. in high school i strived to get 100% on every test and would have panic attacks when i got even a single point off. i wish i was joking, but that’s the truth. i’ve always been a perfectionist and i wanted to have a more healthy relationship with my personal expectations in university. being in uni helped me to pace myself academically and learn to juggle doing fun things – like this lovely blog – alongside studying. i still managed to get all As in my final grades for this semester, but i really loved letting myself get Bs and take breaks.

◇ on october 18th 2020 i reached 2,000 followers on my blog! ↳ if you read how important reaching 1k to me was, you can probably guess how amazing and emotional this was for me. not only did i have enough followers to fill three of my high schools, but i had made a lot of friends at this point, and that was so special to me. i had also never done a special series to celebrate a milestone, and as i stand here on december 31st with 2,457 followers, i have yet to finish my 2k celebration due to taking a short break from writing. don’t worry though, it’s all coming very soon!

◇ on november 29th 2020 i reached 1,000 notes on a masterlist! ↳ facade? was my first social media au masterlist to reach 1,000 notes and when that happened, it truly blew my mind. i have no words to describe how special that moment was for me. a lot of people loved it because they resonated with the main character or because they found all the plot twists fun, and i really love that so many people enjoyed it and gave it a chance, despite the general plot being quite common.

◇ on december 7th 2020 i reached 1,000 notes on a fic! ↳ he loves me, he loves me not was my first one shot/fic to reach 1,000 notes and my second fic ever to reach 1k notes, which was literally crazy. so many people have reached out to me about that fic and how much it resonated with them and their experiences, and i just loved that this was the first written fic i ever had reach 1k notes because of the emotional implications.

m u t u a l s 💛

i have so much love and appreciation for you all, it’s unreal. i’m a very shy, often times insecure, and quiet person so i have a hard time reaching out to people. this means that minimal interactions actually mean a lot to me, so please never think that i don’t love or support you guys just because i’m a little quiet. that being said, here are some mutuals who i have gotten to know better in 2020 and a little love letter for you each 💌

@xfirebenderx

💌 nani, you were one of my very first mutuals here on tumblr back when i ulted seventeen and literally never spoke to anyone or interacted with people other than the few anons in my inbox. you made me feel comfortable and welcome here on tumblr, and i’ve always seen you like an older sister figure because of that. your enthusiasm and support are often times unparalleled because you never hold back anything and i am in awe of how lovely you are. thank you for having my back this year and making me feel so supported! 🌟

@chaoticdeobi

💌 bea, you’re such a ray of sunshine and brightness in my life and on my dash, i’m in awe of how much of a social butterfly you are! you were one of the reasons i started writing for the boyz because i felt excited when i read your fics and i was extremely impressed with how immersive your writing was (and still is!). aside from your amazing writing abilities, you’re truly someone who i feel comfortable with even though we haven’t spoken that much privately, and you have an amazing gift of making people feel accepted and at home. thank you for being a wonderful brightness in my life this year! 🌼

@heartyyjeno

💌 alesha, i’ve said this to you many times before but i truly treasure you as a person and as a friend. you are without a doubt one of the most supportive and uplifting people that i’ve met on tumblr, and i can always rely on you to make me feel like i’m loved and a good writer, especially on days where i feel like i’m neither. i know that 2020 has been a struggle for you and i wish i could have done more to support you, so i hope you take this love letter as evidence of how loved you are and how much i cherish you as a person and as a friend. thank you for being my rock this year! 🌷

@httpsohnpouts

💌 rosie, you are someone who is very dear to me and i always feel so lucky to be your friend! we’ve spoken quite a bit this year and i loved getting to know you and finding out we stan/ult so many of the same groups! i loved gushing over dark haired eric, seunghoon from cix, and blackpink’s comebacks with you this year so much because it made me feel much closer to you! you’re always one of the first people i send love chains to on tumblr and i just really appreciate your lovely energy every time we interact. thank you for being a caring friend for me this year! 🌹

@stealerz

💌 qiu, first of all your url change is absolutely adorable and i’m a huge fan. second of all, your writing is so stunning and it was also another reason why i wanted to start writing for the boyz this year! you’re somebody who i often see on my dash and try to interact with, and it always feels a little surreal when you gush over my writing because i look up to you in that sense. you are such a lovely friend who i don’t talk to very often because i’m shy, but i feel like you’re always around to remind me that you support me and just make me feel loved here on tumblr. thank you for being an inspiration to me and sending me so many cheerful love chains on tumblr this year! 🌻

@neoskidz (i wasn’t sure which of your blogs to tag so i’ll add @chocolattees just in case)

💌 elsie, i always feel undeserving of your hype and excitement when you comment on my fics or leave me lovely asks in my inbox to sing my (absolutely undeserving) praises. you’re someone who seems very bright and warm-hearted so i always feel comfortable around you, and i only wish i could have praised you and given you as much love as you did for me in 2020. i love when you randomly pop up in my inbox and i love to hear about how you’re doing because i feel like it’s the least i can do to show you that i support you and am always interested to hear what you’re up to! thank you for reminding me that friends can come from anywhere and for always being so compassionate this year! 💐

@deobienthusiast

💌 k, i always look forward to when you reach the latest chapter of my social media fics because i’m always living to hear your reactions to them! i always feel so lucky that you interact with me and reach out so much because i’m shy and it makes it a lot easier for me to talk to you and actually get to know you. i love that we stan so many of the same groups and can always gush about cix and the boyz together, especially when we tag each other under any posts that have to do with blond baejin. you are honestly someone who i feel very relaxed with because we talk so often and have so many of the same interests, i really appreciate your presence in my life. thank you for being someone who i can talk to about my fics and all of our bias wreckers this year! 🌈

@atbzkingdom

💌 dee, i’ve said this before but you’re a literal ray of sunshine to me and you warm me up like the sun with all of our interactions. i always love to hear your comments about my fics because you never hold back and always unleash so much excitement onto me that i can’t help but reciprocate and allow myself to get super hype and happy. you have an ability to make me open up and actually feel excited about my friendships here on tumblr and my own writing, which can be really hard for me sometimes. i’m blessed that you look up to me and i have to say that i absolutely look up to you as well, in more ways than just your writing! thank you for being my personal hype-man and helping me come out of my shell this year! ✨

@lsangyeons

💌 yu, i think you are seriously so damn talented it’s actually unbelievable. not only are you an amazing writer but your designs, sketches and other amazing works of art are just so inspiring and i find it incredible that you’re so multifaceted. you’re always someone who i think very genuinely wants to know how i’m doing and is always ready to catch up and share what you’re working on with me, and i find that really illuminating and fun because you’re so talented. thank you for reaching out to me so often and making me feel comforted this year! ❄️

@fairyoftbz

💌 rosy, i am totally kicking myself right now for not reaching out as often as i wanted to because i feel like we get along well and we could be really close if i wasn’t so shy and bad at keeping up with my asks/mentions. i think you’re a lovely person and i’ve felt so fortunate to have gotten to know you better this year. as i mentioned before, you’re a very thoughtful person and i look forward to getting to know you better in 2021! thank you for being a supportive friend to me this year! 🪐

@sunlightwoo

💌 gina, i adore you, and that’s the absolute truth. i’ve been so happy that we were able to connect this year and become friends because you are a fiercely supportive and lovely mutual to have. i have to thank the kpop gods for getting you to start standing the boyz so we could meet and be friends after all this time. i love how you yell and gush about my fics because it makes me feel like i’m actually writing something people like and not just rubbish that i come up with in my head, and you make me feel grounded and supported, which i can only hope to reciprocate just as enthusiastically to you! thank you for being a fiercly kind and supportive friend to me this year! 🌠

here are some people who i haven’t interacted with much (because, like i’ve said, i’m terribly shy and don’t interact with people much in general (feel free to reach out though i would love to chat 🥺)) but still wanted to mention! i love and appreciate you all for replying to my posts, recommending my fics or just posting really amazing content here on tumblr for us all to enjoy, and that i’d love to get to know you better in 2021!! @1ovejisung @jenoleeaesthetic @thepixelelf @honeycobie @tbzwurld @meltingjukyu @mae-gi-writes if i’ve forgotten everyone i’m terribly sorry but also very jetlagged and bad at keeping track of my friends xx

a n o n s 🦋

i’m grateful to everyone who joined my anon list this year and i’ve genuinely enjoyed all of our interactions so much! i wanted to give a short thank you to a few specific anons but i also love my other anons, 🐝 anon, 🧸 anon, 💫 anon, 🦋 anon, 🥯 anon, 🍇 anon, 🌜 anon, 💒 anon, and 🦕 anon a lot and appreciate you all! thank you for joining my anon list and i hope we can continue to get to know each other in 2021!

🤍 anon 💌 you always check on me and ask me how i’m doing, and i feel so comfortable around you it’s like talking to a friend. we always talk about anything and everything and i appreciate that you’ve been such a constant in my life this year!

🌱 anon 💌 my sweet deobi 🌱 anon! i love gushing about the boyz and my social media fics with you, it’s always so fun to see how passionate you are and it’s honestly everything to me.

🐹 anon 💌 you really feel like a sibling or a friend to me because you’re always telling me to take care of myself and encouraging me to take breaks and be happy. i want everything that you encouraged me to do for you as well and i hope that you take care of yourself and stay healthy/safe!

🐱 anon 💌 literally the absolutely king/queen of getting involved in my fics and gushing to me about how every chapter made you feel. i love seeing your responses and i’m always so touched when you leave me simple messages telling me to have a good weekend or asking me to be your friend. we are absolutely, 100% friends my love!

🔮 anon 💌 you’re my most recent anon but i feel like we’ve known each other forever now! we talk quite often and i always love it when i see the little 🔮 emoji in my inbox because i love how enthusiastic and understanding you are. thank you for deciding to join my anon list so we could become closer!

f o l l o w e r s a n d r e a d e r s 💘

i doubt that all 2,457 of my followers are going to see this, but i’m going to write this as if you all will anyway. thank you for being here and for caring about my content enough to hit the follow button. numbers don’t mean much and are quite arbitrary, but i still think that it’s amazing that there are 2,457 of you cuties who put up with me. to those of you who don’t follow me but read my fics/like and reblog my posts, thank you. i personally see those things as small praises and/or appreciations for my efforts and i wish i could tag you all here to tell you that i love and appreciate you, but tumblr won’t let me and i think most of you wouldn’t want that either. i couldn’t make a love letter to the people that shaped my 2020 without addressing all of you, so i hope that some of you decided to give this a read. i appreciate you and i want you here, healthy, and safe on this planet. please take care of yourselves as i would love to take care of you. x

#babbles #belle's babbles #magical mutuals ✨#wrap up #2020 wrap up

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vaulthigh · 3 years ago

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Written in the stars.

Saturday, I stepped onto the baking 100+ degree University of Oregon track to compete in my second Olympic Trials. The feelings overcoming me were quite different than those I experienced in 2016, which back then were derived from being one of the fresh faces on the scene - one of the youngsters who had “plenty of years” to chase the Olympic dream. There may have been some pressure felt then, but this time around it was incomparable.

The Olympic hype is no doubt a factor in the emotional roller coaster most experience at the U.S. Olympic Trials. I compete 9 months out of the year every year, yet this competition (and the Games themselves, of course) is the only one that really grabs the attention of the public eye outside of the track community. Not even World Championships can compare to the Olympic hype, which I find ironic because that team is just as difficult to make, and you end up competing against the same fierce competitors at Worlds as you do at the Games.

I digress.

The point of that paragraph is to say - the pressure was on for the Trials, and while I preach to interpret it as support and encouragement from outside sources, it’s hard to overlook the feeling of expectation when I repeatedly hear the phrase “oh, you’ll make the team easily. Just go for gold in Tokyo!”

“Make the team easily”… ha. The Trials are a beast, and even the top dogs have to be on their A-game. No bad days allowed, because a dozen other athletes slightly down the totem pole are chomping at the bit, rearing to snag those rare 3 spots on the Team. My bad day is their chance to claim the spot, and rightfully so - but no matter how good you are, you can never go in thinking you have something in the bag. That’s when your bag will be lost, and you’ll never get it back. (Sort of like losing luggage while transferring through Charles de Gaulle airport - it’s just gone 😅. I hope someone who has followed me a while giggles at my reference.)

All this to say, the pressure was surmountable, and the most unfortunate part of my story is my confidence on the runway has been lacking the last month or two. It’s been a culmination of attempting to push my physical boundaries and raise my grip, but also combined with attempting to change technical things this season. I ended up biting off way more than I can chew. Being at the level I am, I will be the first to say “don’t try changing too much at once, that can really mess you up.” Well, I guess my judgement has been clouded by my burning desire to improve, and I ended up going against my own advice without recognizing it - until things came crashing down, that is. And I mean that in a literally way.

In my final competition prior to the trials, I ended up going back down to my shorter series of poles because I have felt my technique suffering. I was putting so much energy into trying to jump on the longer poles that my training sessions lacked focus on the basics of my form, which is what made me a 5 meter pole vaulter in the first place. Grip height never got me there - physical ability did. I cannot lose that because speed and power, and my ability to attack at the takeoff, are what made me great. They are my bread and butter.

While change can be a good thing, there is always going to be an adjustment period. Unfortunately for athletes, we still have to compete during the awkward times, which leaves you trying to compete at your best when you’re in the middle of a metamorphosis. It’s going to look as though you’re suffering, but in reality you’re just in the middle of morphing into a butterfly 🦋, and no butterfly can take flight before it leaves the cocoon.

That’s how I feel right now. I believe big positive changes are on the horizon, but they will only happen with persistence and positivity, and also with understanding given to myself from myself. As elite athletes, we hold ourselves to the highest of expectations at all times. I know the process I am going through, yet still was so infuriated at myself for my performance at the Trials. I don’t want to lose that fury and that fire, because that is what’s going to get me through to my goal, but I do want to work on not being so hard on myself. I know it sounds elementary, but it’s true at all levels. If anyone understands the struggles you’re enduring, it should be you. As humans, we should be allowed to show ourselves compassion just as we do toward others.

In that final competition before Trials that I referred to, I felt just ok on the shorter poles. I mean, no worse and no better than I do on the longer ones. (For reference, I’m talking 4.45m/14’7” poles versus 4.60m/15’1” poles.) I am glad I went back to them because it made me truly recognize my technique was suffering. It had nothing to do with what poles I was jumping on. I needed to “get my jump back”, regardless of poles, and I needed to do it fast because the trials were two weeks away at that time.

A few days later I did another vault session on the short poles, and I think it was probably the worst practice I have had in years. Like, literal years. I mean it. I don’t even know why - my body felt fine, the conditions were fine, etc. For whatever reason I just didn’t have it that day. I would run down the runway feeling good, plant the pole, and completely miss the swing and connection. I chalk that day up to sport. That’s just sport. Your bad days are going to happen and you sometimes can search and scrape for an explanation, and there simply isn’t one. You just didn’t have it that day.

“Well, crap.” I thought, when I ran through my last vault of the session and the pole ripped the skin right off the palm side of my thumb. “I needed that skin” I said, laughing in disbelief and also laughing because my body didn’t know what to do with my panic. Isn’t the human body such a strange thing? I felt panic and my reaction was to laugh - not sure that was an appropriate reaction but hey, I’m weird and I know it.

So now I was one week from the trials, I had just had a poor competition, and even more poor practice session, and ripped off vital skin I needed to heal within six days. A pole vaulters ability to grip is vital.

My emotions went numb at that point. I think I had worried away all of my worries. I decided to focus on getting lots of sleep, nourishment, and healing my hand. I kept it bandaged properly 24/7, and soft with ointments. This turned out to be the perfect approach because day 5 it was nearly perfectly healed and didn’t end up being an issue for my first competition day at prelims.

Prelims were absolutely necessary for me, and ended up being the first step in getting my groove back. Aside from it being hot (which I’m used to, thank you Arkansas…) the conditions in prelims were close to perfect. Throughout the warmup I got my feet under me and felt I successfully shook off the former horrid practice. I made 4.50m on my first jump, and with that single jump I qualified for the final round.

Two days later, the heat dome in Portland roasted the stadium to a whopping 111 degrees F. I wanted to take as few jumps as possible the get myself to the higher bars. In hindsight I know that was the right call because wow, doping control took me two hours because I couldn’t pee 90ml of fluid. (90ml is the absolute minimum required amount for a drug test - and it’s not much!) In warmups my run started to feel like “Sandi” again. I hadn’t felt like that in quite a while. I entered the competition and made 4.50m and 4.60m on my first attempts, but I didn’t expect those to be my only jumps of the day.

The bar went to 4.70m and I felt like I was rolling and ready to go now, shorter poles and all. It didn’t matter. First attempt, huge blow through. Needed a stiffer pole, so I missed. Second attempt, same thing! I landed so deep in the pit I had zero chance of making that bar. “Ok” I thought to myself “the next bigger pole has got to be the one. That’s always been my money pole!” So I went up a pole a third time, and after watching Morgan run down and make 4.70m (congrats Morgan!) I knew I had to respond. At this point I didn’t even know I was already in 3rd place and on the team, in my mind, I had to make this height to qualify. (Thanks ADHD, I’m not so great at processing those things mid competition when the adrenaline is pumping.) I ran down with more confidence than I had had in a few weeks time, jumped and had plenty of height over the bar! But my energy was a bit off center and my arm caught it on the way down. I missed my third attempt. I landed in the pit and was rolling out of the landing, simultaneously throwing my hands to my head in frustration, when I heard the announcer clearly state that I was one of the three on the team.

*Cue sigh of relief*, yet I couldn’t shake my extreme frustration so quickly. I had just had a bad day at the Olympic Trials. Needless to say, I was embarrassed. That’s not the feeling I wanted to have while qualifying for my second Games.

That night I experienced just about every emotion that exists. I went through sadness and disbelief, feelings of being lost and hopeless, then anger and rage at myself. I finally fell asleep at 3 am and woke up a few hours later to the videos of my jumps. My dad had texted them to me. I hadn’t wanted to even look at them after the meet because I was so angry and upset, but after I collected my mess of a brain, I took a solid look.

I found hope.

Seeing the videos helped me realize the reality - that my approach was better than it had been in weeks, and it really comes down to the fact that the poles were just too small. That’s it. I just needed to trust the feeling that my run was good and go up poles even in warm ups, but at the time I didn’t recognize that, and I didn’t go up. I started on my small pole.

So here I am three days later, and I feel like a completely different person than Saturday night. I have had time to process my emotions, endure the roller coaster, then watch my jumps with a technical eye. I am so close to being “myself” again, I just have to stay the course.

I am determined. I am going to pick up where I left off on that third and final attempt at the Olympic Trials. I am going to push forth and forge my own path. I had a bad day at the Olympic Trials, and I was still lucky enough to snag the 3rd spot to Tokyo. That was written in the stars, and I can’t help but feel it happened for a reason. I am meant to compete in Tokyo - even the stars believe it to be so, and I’m not about to waste this chance I was just handed.

Have you ever caught a shooting star? Me either. But I’m going to try. 💫

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freddieofhearts · 4 years ago

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Bye bye, dears (for now!)

I know there have been a lot of rumours and some posts about me leaving, so here I am to set the record straight and say a quick ‘au revoir’. This post is long, and I don’t expect everyone to read the whole thing—if you just want information on how to keep in touch, or about access to my removed fics, scroll to the bottom. ⬇️

Why are you leaving?

Firstly, of course I’m not leaving Freddie. This is just an ongoing hiatus from the social side of fandom, because while I have some incredible friends here, who have done all they can to support me and have made this experience wonderful in lots of ways—it’s also true that the social space has become more and more toxic for me.

I get a wild amount of hate. Despite never having my ask box enabled on here, people create new accounts just to message me and tell me all the problems in this fandom are my fault, that I’m faking being sick, that I should kill myself, that I’m fat, etc. I also very regularly get hateful comments on AO3.

Obviously I realise that I’m not the only one who receives these cruel attacks, but it’s become increasingly hard to handle them—especially as some people (‘real’ accounts, not faceless anons) do continue to blame me for wider problems in the fandom. It makes me feel consistently sad, anxious, and paranoid, so that I can’t focus on anything Queen-related that I enjoy.

More pressingly, it’s affected my mental health, which is—imperfect at the best of times. As I’ve occasionally alluded to in older posts on this blog, I have a history of anorexia, OCD, PTSD, and some other overlapping issues. Most people who know me in the fandom are also aware that I’m ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’ to Covid-19, significantly immunocompromised, and have been isolating at home for eleven months.

The combination of all of these things + the constant toxic messages has really been triggering me, and leading to an uptick in disordered behaviours, which my body cannot sustain. Every new instance of hate from an anon—every time there’s another indication of groups in the fandom wanting to ostracise me further—my reaction is deeply self-punitive and unhealthy. Ultimately I need to be out of this environment for, at least, a protracted period. My therapist, my partner and my close friends in the fandom support this decision.

So, what went wrong?

In 2019, I expected to be an absolutely tiny blog in the Queen Tumblr landscape. The fandom was already well-established, and I have never worked to ‘build a following’ on here—I think I’ve linked my own fic a maximum of three or four times!—in fact, more or less the opposite. As I mentioned above: ya girl is nutty as a fruitcake. As a result, I often avoid extremely niche things in daily life which cause severe anxiety for me, Relevant examples here: I never look at my timeline. I never intentionally look at my follower number. Yup, it’s strange, I fully admit it, but it’s best for me to go with these things—usually. In Queen fandom, however, this avoidance both of analytic stats and of most direct engagement led to some problems... My followers grew without me realising, and way more people were reading my blog than I was aware of. I was still in a—“Wow, this fandom is very frustrating, and rife with ableism, racism, etc., so how do we fix this???”—mindset, and I wanted to share my opinions, sure! but I also thought I was sharing them with 15-20 like-minded people.

Now, intent is not impact, and I recognise that I was brusque, didn’t phrase things particularly sensitively, and absolutely did hurt some people by criticising the fandom so freely. I still regret this—and I regret just as much the fact that some assholes have used my criticising the fandom on my own blog as implicit justification for attacking authors. I have said on here many times that I don’t condone that behaviour—but I also think there’s some truth in the presumption that these anonymous malcontents felt my critiques somehow ‘permitted’ them to engage in abuse. For the first few months, though, I genuinely had no idea there was a link at all—and so I was initially slow to condemn this abusive behaviour in public, because I was taking it for granted all authors agreed it was shitty. It took someone directly telling me (shoutout to @a-froger-epic) that people had identified a connection between my posts and the anons, before everything fell into place.

I would like to offer my apologies to the fandom at large for not being more quick on the uptake about this, because I feel that had I realised sooner that these people were taking ‘inspiration’ in some way from me, it might have been easier to put a stop to it. It does seem that there is still a lot of confusion about whether I support them and which of their views I agree with. Let’s be 100% clear on this: I do not support the anonymous commenters on AO3. At times there is some, limited overlap between parts of their views and parts of mine, but even that is less than you may think—I often see anonymous comments from so-called ‘Freddie fans’ that I substantially disagree with.

Perhaps even more importantly: I do not support anyone who sends anonymous hate on Tumblr.

What’s all this about ‘overlap’ with the anons?

Let’s do a mini-summary of the myths vs. the truth. There are views I hold which are genuinely unpopular in the fandom—but which I own up to completely, and have never tried to hide in any way. I’ve never needed to use anonymous to share my opinions because I’m completely open about them! What people who don’t know me tend to have ‘heard’ about me, though, is usually a drastic distortion of my real opinions.

What people think I think:

- Freddie should never top.

- It’s okay to send anon hate if someone writes Freddie ‘wrong’.

- It’s more important to correct ‘wrong’ portrayals than to respect other writers.

- It’s inherently wrong to be more interested in band pairings than canon pairings.

- Freddie should be overtly written as a r*pe survivor/victim (and not doing this is wrong).

- Freddie should be overtly written as having an eating disorder (and not doing this is wrong).

- Kink fics are wrong.

What I actually think:

- I believe Freddie did have a strongly defined sexual identity with marked preferences, but I don’t think Jim Hutton lied when he said that Freddie topped. I believe Freddie did top, but this isn’t the time or place to get into my thoughts on why/when/how much. I do believe that my analysis of the sources relevant to this subject is as historically accurate as one can reasonably be in matters of sex (where historical accuracy will always be particularly limited and imperfect)—but I don’t think it’s morally wrong to write Freddie as topping more than he probably did.

- I don’t believe there’s only one ‘right’ version of Freddie (all others being ‘wrong’). I do believe it is possible to be more right or less right—but I’m also conscious of the fact that this scale of value is not one by which everyone measures fanfiction. As a result, then, I don’t think that any perceptions surrounding ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ justify sending anonymous, non-constructive criticism, or outright hate.

- I do believe constructive criticism is a good thing. I welcome and appreciate it myself; I have received it on my fics in Queen fandom, and it has made them better. I have been in writing workshops which included very forceful criticisms, and the value of such feedback has been intimately and immediately part of my life as a writer for years. However: in this case, I have accepted that my opinion differs from the general community preference, and so I no longer offer any constructive criticism (outside private beta-reading). I haven’t changed my view, but I’ve changed my practice to align with community norms.

- I do not think any single, individual writer has a personal responsibility to write about Freddie Mercury in any given way. That ranges from including the more distressing topics to which I’ve devoted attention (such as trauma)—to concentrating on ‘canon’ pairings like Jimercury—to, even, focusing on Freddie at all.

“Now, that doesn’t sound like you, @freddieofhearts,” you might be thinking. And I know it doesn’t; I think something I’ve done a poor job of articulating is the difference between how I view each individual fan—namely, as free to shape their creative experience at will, even in ways that I might find distressing or offensive; even in ways that you might find distressing or offensive—and the way I view the Collective. I think people have interpreted some of my critiques of ‘Queen Fandom’ as meaning something like: “You-in-particular, a specific Queen fan, are doing it wrong and should change everything about how you do it; also you don’t really care about Freddie.”

And—that’s not it. What any given fan, as an individual, does, isn’t a problem. And that can be true alongside—concurrently with—a multivalent critique of how the fandom is lacking in representation of Freddie’s life, with all that that (wonderful, deservedly celebrated, but also profoundly traumatic) life entailed. I still hold that view; I still have myriad problems with ‘the fandom’ (structurally, collectively, historically and presently—from the 1990s to the 2020s). Some of what I want to work on (away from the social life of fandom) is expressing those critiques with greater nuance, in ways that can’t be misinterpreted as shading any particular fanfiction author or subgenre of story.

In brief: I haven’t changed my mind, but I think Tumblr is an untenable environment in which to discuss the things I want to analyse, especially as there is an ever-present danger of hurting someone.

Can we keep in touch? Where is the fic?

I will drop by this account periodically to check out posts that friends have sent me, so you can always sent me a private message to ask for my contact details on the other app that I’m using now for fandom friends. Multiple Freddie conversations and projects are going on over there, off-Tumblr, with a much ‘gentler’ environment and no bad actors—I personally love it!

All my fic has been downloaded and saved. I don’t want to deal with constant harassment on AO3, but I’m happy to share a copy with anyone who missed it and wants to read/re-read something. I also saved everyone’s lovely comments and thoughtful con-crit, so none of that has been lost or erased.

Thank you to everyone who welcomed me to the fandom, made me think, taught me, shared with me, sent me into fits of the giggles, collaborated with me creatively, and otherwise made this one hell of a ride! Love you all. ❤️

#au revoir my dears #lil gay bby

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