#I know people on tumblr sometimes are doing recaps and such? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

joyful-enchantress · 15 days ago

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Is it 2025 yet? 🕚

Folks tend to get reflective during this time of year and... it's me. I'm folks. Reflecting on 2024 has been hitting me in the gut like a sucker punch.

Some of you know, in great detail, what I've faced in 2024. Some of you know parts of it, but not all. And some of you know none of it. But 2024 has been the most difficult year in my 32 years of life. That's not to say that there hasn't been any joy throughout the year, because there has been. That's just to say that the things I've had to process this year sometimes had me feeling like both my brain and my heart were in a blender.

I've been a bit of a recluse as a result -- not just on Tumblr, but in all my communication channels, and even IRL to an extent. I certainly haven't been myself for much of the year.

With the holidays upon us, I'm feeling extra reflective, and so I decided to do a 2024 recap. And there's some people I want to thank that will be tagged. PLEASE, there is no obligation to read on, even if you're tagged. There's some heavy shit below the cut. If you're tagged and don't choose to read on, just know that you've played a part in adding some warmth and light to my year despite everything and that I love and appreciate you 💚

Here goes nothing --

January 2024: After a few months in a nursing home, we learned that my husband's grandmother was put on hospice.

February 2024: My husband's grandmother passed away. Our first loss of the year. It was sad, but not tragic. She was 99 and passed away peacefully. Later in the month, we get the news that my maternal grandfather has cancer. It was discovered very late.

March 2024: My grandfather was put on hospice.

April 2024: My grandfather passed away. Our second loss of the year. I'm trying to comfort my mom as she mourns the loss of her dad. Later in the month, MY dad has some tests done and gets a call with the results -- they detected tumors in his abdomen.

May 2024: After a few more appointments, it becomes clear that my dad's situation is dire. He is shortlisted for major surgery to remove the tumors ASAP. He had surgery on May 21st. They removed several tumors, the largest of which was about 44 lbs (20 kg) ‼️ Recovery from the surgery seems to be going fairly well at first, but then things take a turn with some additional complications. He passed away for the first time on May 31st, but they resuscitated him. Now he has 6 broken ribs on top of everything else.

June 2024: My dad spent most of the first week of June unconscious and on life support. My family, considering all options and all the complications, made the difficult and heartbreaking decision to take him off life support and end his suffering. He passed away on June 7th. We held a beautiful memorial service for him on June 22nd. I started therapy to get support through my grief.

July 2024: Towards the end of the month, my mom found a camera in the house as she began sorting through things. She found it in the stand beside my dad's chair. After some digging she also located the charging cord and turned the camera on expecting some happy memories. Instead, she found photographic evidence of my dad's infidelity. And the woman in the pictures with my dad is one of my mom's sisters. The pictures are from about 10 years ago. Obviously this news rocks my world -- tilts it on its axis. I feel some cracks forming in the foundation of who I am as a person, since my dad shaped so much of that. I was close with my dad. I never suspected in a million years that he could have done something like this.

August 2024: During this month, my mom managed to find my dad's phone, which had become lost amongst the chaos of bringing his things back from the hospital, funeral planning, etc. In light of what she found on the camera, she opens my dad's text message thread with my aunt. It is damning; full of pictures, explicit messages, and arrangements. Some as recently as early 2024. My dad's affair with my mom's sister was ongoing for a decade.

September 2024: I feel like I'm finally making a breakthrough in therapy (thank god I didn't waste time deciding to start in the first place or I don't know if I would have made it through the year). My therapist is wonderful and she has me start to work on reparenting myself and relearning how to express my emotions in a healthy way, after a childhood of being raised by a dad who would yell and scream and get angry anytime I cried. I seriously would stare at my therapist through the screen and say "I WANT to cry right now, but I can't" My body would shut it down without me even thinking; a defense mechanism that I had developed as a kid to avoid getting screamed at. (GREAT news -- I'm way better at crying, now, guys!! 🥳)

October 2024: My husband is in a car accident. Most importantly, he is okay! He did end up with whiplash and a concussion, and his concussion symptoms do still flare up from time to time even 2 months later, but we've been told that's not abnormal and they are getting fewer and further between. As a much more minor but still disappointing note -- the accident happened the day before we were supposed to leave for a trip that we had planned and had been looking forward to since January. We had to cancel the trip.

November 2024: My first Thanksgiving without my dad was very difficult.

December 2024: My mom closed on a house! This is obviously very exciting and I more than understand why she wants to move out and sort of leave everything of her life with my dad behind. But it is still... a lot. It is all so strange. And scary. And sad. I celebrated my first birthday without my dad on December 19th. It was hard. He gave me roses and a balloon every year without fail. So, this year my wonderful husband got me 32 red rose cookies... he didn't want to replicate exactly what my dad did (he might have, had it not been for the discovery of my dad's decade-long affair) but he wanted to pay homage to it, and I think he knocked it out of the park. I love him so much and I'm so lucky to have him.

And now I'm about to celebrate my first Christmas without my dad. I already know it is going to be difficult. This entire holiday season has been more difficult than I could probably explain. But I'm being kind to myself and I'm trying to look for the joy amongst it all.

If you've made it this far --- whew. Are you okay? Seriously, I know that is a lot, even to just read about all at once. I've spent a lot of time this year being so confused and angry... my grief journey for my father, which is already difficult in and of itself, doesn't even get to be straightforward or "normal."

I'm aware this has been bleak. I didn't post this to bring you down. I just wanted to put it out there so you know. So you know why I may have seemed distant or absent this year.

I sincerely hope that you all have the warmest and most wonderful holiday season, and a kick-ass New Year! So many of you have been there for me this year, whether in direct support, or just by providing some fun, silly distractions that injected joy and laughter into my year. Truly, you have no idea the difference or the lasting impression even one comment or whisper of support can make. I love you all, and don't you forget it.

Here's to 2025! May it be kinder to us all ✨

@ijuststareatstuffhereok89 @lokisgoodgirl @mochie85 @sarahscribbles @infinitystoner @loz-3 @loopsisloops @holdmytesseract @muddyorbs @give-me-a-moose @maple-seed @ladyofthestayingpower @tallseaweed @loki-cees-all @liminalpebble @fandxmslxt69 @lokiandbuckysdoll @superficialdomina @jiyascepter @gruftiela @simplyholl ++ people I'm sure that I missed 💚

#happy holidays #happy new year #end of year post #joyful enchantress says #i love you all #tw: loss #tw: grief #tw: death

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bomberqueen17 · 4 months ago

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who let me out

Most of the time I spend on Tumblr has been taken up in writing these Aubreyad book recaps so I haven't been talking about my own life but there's not a lot to say.

However!

I am making a voyage to England next week which is extremely exciting, and yes I'm going to see the museum exhibit about that archaeology dig I was so excited about. I have been so stressed lately that I have barely thought about this and in fact last night I finally was like "do i need like. socks n underwear for this trip. idek." and i haven't even looked at weather reports so I don't know what clothes I need. But I did live in the UK for a while once so I'm fairly confident that my good raincoat and new waterproof boots will be a good start towards an autumn wardrobe.

So I hope to talk about that more, coming up.

Meanwhile, rambling about personal life stuff

The last stint at the farm was so fucking stressful. I had to work the market sometimes, which means a full day of work on Saturday. We had so much work to get through, and several people who help us weren't available, so we had to do it all ourselves, and that meant some ten-hour days, meant some exhausting slogs. At the end I was like "do you know what I'm not going to do while I'm on vacation?" "no, what" "ever touch raw chicken." I singlehandedly had to package like 1000 pounds of raw chicken in two days, after having packaged 200 whole chickens the day before. I was just so tired of the way raw cold chicken feels in my hands. Ugh ugh ugh.

I got so stressed I just wasn't sleeping, which sucked. Oh, I'd get into bed, and I'd fall asleep at my normal time-- usually around 10pm-- and then I'd wake up at 2am and that was it, I was up for the day. I tried various things-- went to bed at 9, woke up at 1-- lay there pretending to sleep-- got up and wrote-- got up and walked around-- one night I watched the entirety of the Master & Commander movie from 2003 on YouTube. Why not! I did remember some of it from 20 years ago, how funny.

(My dad liked that movie. His favorite thing to do during movies was to quibble about historical inaccuracies. But this movie had so much fanservice for reenactors in it that he was quietly delighted. His quibble was that the violin and cello duets were too good, they should've recorded amateurs. He had a point.)

Anyway. I was researching various methods of helping one sleep-- the only one at my disposal was weed gummies and I spent one very miserable night just lying there high and bored and not sleeping and wasn't totally sober when morning came and that fucking sucked. I commute on foot or I never would have risked it, but being very slightly still high and exhausted and trying to do repetitive physical work was really, really dispiriting.

but we got everything done. In the end. And I left. And once I got home I went to sleep and I have not had really any appreciable trouble sleeping since. I can even nap, sometimes!

Heck.

One of the things I'd meant to take care of while I was at the farm was that of course on my birthday, my fucking driver's license expired. On the one hand, thank you DMV, it used to be that everyone's license expired on the same day, so you'd have to go wait in massive lines to get it dealt with. Now it's... not evenly distributed exactly, because people's birthdays are a random distribution, but it's a perfectly logical and reasonable way to organize expiration dates. But it meant that in the midst of this exhausting miserable stint of work when I didn't have time to do anything really fun for my birthday (don't cry for me, my mom made me a cake and my BIL bought me ice cream treats) I also was consumed with angst about needing to renew my license. i was so sure they'd yell at me because I hadn't renewed before it expired-- but they wanted me to do an eye test, and I could not, could not coordinate that, I'm overdue for an optometrist appointment by several years and I just could not fucking make it happen.

So I went to the DMV yesterday and was like "i both want to renew this license and upgrade it to the enhanced version since that will be required for planes soon" and they were like "we need both your passport and your social security card and two proofs of residency." and i was like you need the social security card and proof of residency to get the passport. and they were like yeah but we need all four things too. so I went back home with the form and found the various necessary proofs, but then I was able to make an appointment to go back. Great!

(They say, "make an appointment online!" but if you look up the DMV website there's nowhere to do it, and if you go to the website of that branch of the DMV there's nowhere to do it. Want to know why? Because it's not through the DMV it is through the county clerk's office. Now U Know: Go to the county clerk's office and navigate to their section on the DMV. It's separate! Who fuckin knew! Now you do! [In my case this was erie.gov because that is my county, but it may vary for you and if you are not in new york state i have no advice for you.]

All having an appointment means is that you are in a separate queue to be seen, which is likely faster than the general pool but may not be. Still, I thought it was a good idea.

And then it was early for my appointment and I was getting my shit together and I had my social security card and an old W-2 with my address and social security number and my old license with my address on it and for some reason I thought I could use my checkbook but that's not what they mean by a cancelled check but whatever. I had just a random pile of shit. And

where was my passport

where is my passport?

i'd had it in my pocket but i was sure i'd removed it from the pocket and put it into my purse. but it wasn't in my purse. "did you see it inside the house," asks dude patiently, who also is prone to losing shit and who knows me very well. "I don't know," I have to answer. "I remember putting it in my purse and it isn't there." I search the place I put my purse a thousand times, I go through the desk where I was sitting to collect the other proofs but i knew, I knew I had not brought it in there. Time is slipping away, I will miss my appointment. God time is slipping away and I can't find the thing. I ransack the house. I finally run out to the car, did I leave it on the seat in the car? It is not in the car.

In desperation, as it is fully time to leave the house and I will be late if I don't, I gather up all my other papers and go out to the car. "I will just go," I say, "and ask them, did they find it, because that is the last place I am absolutely sure I had it." Because the woman had looked at it to see if I had my social security card between the pages. And she'd handed it back to me. But my memory is such that the rest of what I did is not certain; I remember taking it, I remember putting it into my pocket, but this might be a story I am telling myself. This is the way in which I am a very good liar, because I do not remember things very well, and my well-honed abilities as a storyteller mean I am very, very good at instantly constructing what it would make the most sense to have done, and telling that story even to myself. But. here's the horrible truth: i don't know if it really happened that way. Many things I have witnessed, important things, I remember the story of but I'm not entirely certain they happened that way. Any story I tell may be fictionalized, and I usually dont' know it.

So anyway.

Got out to my car and there on the ground in the road (I am parked in the street) there is my passport lying next to the driver's side door of the car. When I had checked the car earlier, I had only gone to the near side, the passenger side, and looked in the window. It had never occurred to me that my memory of putting it into my purse might have been me just setting it on my purse and it not going in, which is clearly one hundred percent what happened.

So that was. A fucking wild ride, and I did not cry but only because I was too overwhelmed. I made it to the appointment and I could not hear the very nice clerk very well so I kept nodding at her in blank incomprehension and then not doing what she'd asked me to do. But this is the thing-- if you think of the most brutally competent people on the entire face of the planet Earth you might be tempted to imagine like, IDK, Marines or something, but that would be wrong, it is the clerks at the DMV. They will Get It Done, whatever the fuck it is, and they will NOT put up with your shit, but they will also not be mean to you. They will not usually waste time in smiles or gratuitous displays of humanity, but they are never cruel, they are implacable and pitiless but they are fair and they will help you and they will not smile about it but they will tell you which option to tick off on the form so that you don't have to pay a bunch of extra money, and they will be understatedly kind if you are frightened, and they will calmly and impassively repeat their instructions until they penetrate your uncomprehending skull, and you will get what you need to get because this is deadly serious and they are the kind of bureaucrat that actually make the world go round. It is not sunshine and rainbows but it will absolutely get done even if it takes months and years.

Anyway there's some kind of divinity in low-level bureaucrats who actually have to talk to frightened people, I tell you what.

The only time my clerk smiled at me was when I didn't hear her and she had to repeat that the screen was asking me if I wanted to register to vote, which is an automatic part of all their transactions. "Oh, no," I said, "I'm already registered," and she said "then press no," and I said "I do really appreciate the reminder though," and she smiled at that.

(They also ask you to enroll as an organ donor. NYS is an opt-in state, and many people just don't opt in; opt-out states have much higher enrollment for obvious reasons. Please opt in unless your religion or beliefs proscribe it! There are never enough organs and your grieving family will almost never remember to opt you in at the moment of extremity. You could save so many lives, and improve so many others. This PSA brought to you by someone who spent the pandemic lockdown in the home of a member of the local hospital's liver transplant team, who was so busy because all the New York hospitals had shut down their transplant facilities in order to turn the ventilators over to Covid patients, so everyone in New York who was getting a liver was getting it in Rochester. From my guy's team. So it was a stressful time. But I am successully re-enrolled as an organ donor. I am quite sure I already was one but the only two options were Yes or No so I checked Yes.)

Anyway I have so much to do and am so burned-out that I'm repeatedly getting stuck staring at things in odd rooms, so. We'll see how this goes. I have five days left to get ready for this trip wish me luck.

#about the author #personal updates

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giveafike · 29 days ago

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TUMBLR WRAPPED 2024!

hi!

did i scare you? unexpected post, huh? I wanted to have something fun to wrap up the year before we move on so I thought, why not a "wrapped"?

Keeping it short & sweet with some insights too + i luv statistics and seeing patterns, so this is always super interesting to me. Without further ado, here's our wrapped together!

Stats Recap (nerd stuff):

As of 10/12/2024, I have 106 posts. 21 of those are actual fics, meaning almost 1/5th of my posts are works.

The rest is yapping - need to stfu got it! noted!

I received 1,901 notes and 149 followers.

You people are INSANE!!! I have a more emotional post due for New Year's but truly, that is wild, wild work. I'll save the tears and heartfelt stuff for that one, but I want you to know how eternally grateful I am for all of you. Being encouraged by you guys is not just inspiring—it’s addicting, electrifying, and everything in between.

Thank u for the outpouring love.

Inbox Recap (what to look for in 2025?):

Hold ur horses, there's gonna be a lot to write and get through! Thank you for requesting and trusting me to make your ideas come true, I hope to do 'em justice.

Here's a little "reading" so to speak (I HAVEN'T WRITTEN ANYTHING SO DON'T START @ ING ME):

Dominic Fike/Elliot:

sensing an alarming amount of unrest and horn*ness over here. Sensing two posts, both for elliot....smth smth... NSFW... something to do with Nate as well, joining....? Nate and NSFW has the same about of letters too, not a coincidence!!! Also sensing a blurb with a massively underrated song. u btches ab to pmo, why don't we listen to Açaí Bowl more as a collective get the streams up omfg- sorry got sidetracked. that's ab all I can say.

Jude Bellingham:

Pretending to be shocked when I say: more smut requests? Oh brother. But one's very sweet and cute and respectful awww-- SIZE K*NK? oh gosh guys um..the only way I can describe this one is...desperate smut. Anon... cmon now. I would say more, but anon owned up to it saying "This is a long and sick request but I believe you are the only writer on here that can bring this to life 😭😭" which makes me giggle so FINE i'll let it slide, I'll try to do as best as I can (luv u don't u worry I got ideas brewing)

Ben Shelton:

phew. lot of nsfw. like a lot. like a crazy amount. Talking ab that damn car (I'm gonna do smth DRASTIC to that fkin car if he posts w it one more time) talking ab being a munch, ab a supermodel, talking ab scratches, talking ab laver cup (THROWBACK!), about ben showing off.... it's getting hot under the collar, oh gosh. Ahem. We have some sweet fluff ones too! including reader getting insecure/jelly. Ben being irrational, one about....homesickness? a LOT of pregnancy asks. like A LOT. SHELTON NATION DON'T GET KNOCKED UP. PLEASE. One I'm very excited to write, Ben x a certain Doja song...heheheheehehe oh and also, Ben and a 'knock-on effect' w his precious little car, ykwim? no? you'll find out. shush. A very exciting story ahead, the first one with NSFW incorporated - thank u 'D' for the prompt!! Also, I finally got my hands on them tiktok editors and I've made a promise or two to do something w their works.....catch my drift? you'll see soon. Special little hints as to who: victim no 1 and victim no 2 🙂‍↕️😝😙🥰

Post Recap (what went on the billboard charts for u?):

IN 6TH PLACE:

At 85 notes each, we have a tie between "Yours" and "Come Here". Both Ben posts, one SFW the other NSFW. Writing "Yours" was super fun, writing jealous/possessive and sassy Ben kills me laughing, IJBOL and writing Carlitos too? SO funny (wonder how that'd go down differently since we saw them being bff besties at Garden Cup) - Possessive Ben is a guilty pleasure, hehehe. Writing "Come Here" was really interesting since it was my first NSFW of Ben. Also based off of my fave Dom Fike song that's just as h*rny. Thigh riding being my FIRST one off the dome is lwky crazy lmao. Sometimes, I wish I could write more in my NSFW posts, i feel a bit insecure in my NSFW writing? I believe in quality>quantity in fics always, but I hate how short mine are for NSFW posts...sigh. Maybe I should build up the tension more? Go deeper (no pun intended)? you let me know, that would be incredibly insightful!!

IN 5TH PLACE:

At 93 notes, we have my baby, "Shattered"!!! "Shattered" ended up becoming a mini-passion project for me (clearly). What was meant to be a mid-sized blurb ended up progressing to 10k words - how that happened is beyond me. Everytime I thought I was done and ready to close up and conclude, there'd be another part, another bit that I'd want to add. It even got to a point where I'd be on my bus home from work or college, almost falling asleep when I'd get woken up with more inspo, lol. It was my first time writing angst in a very, very, very long time but looking back now, I really truly enjoyed it and I'm quite proud of it! Maybe more angst reqs in my future? I’m leaning towards YES

IN 4TH PLACE:

At 102 notes, we have the "NSFW Alphabet with Ben" - you people are so horny omg. This was the first EVER NSFW thing written about Ben from me. And honestly? my least fave hahahahaa. I deadass have this blocked out of my memory, like I haven't gone back to read it after I posted it. I feel like I'd read it and cringe, or disagree w it or be like "erm acshully ....that's not canon" it prob needs to be redo - I'd never hate any of my children but I'm just saying if this one went missing, idgaf. If you want a crazy NSFW reading thats prob more accurate than anything, check this reading out. Feral, bye.

IJBOL what in the equality is my top 3 posts- I MEAN, here's the top 3 that you people ate tf up!

IN 3RD PLACE:

At 142 notes, we have the "When it Rains, it Pours" - smut always wins here huh? My 2nd fic post! This is a whole nasty NSFW post w Elliot from Euphoria (aka Dominic Fike) mixed with friends w benefits, rain noises, a homemade fort and w**d! Amazing trio imo. Literally as I'm writing this, I just got another like for that freaky ass blurb. As much as I'm excited to write more Dom/Elliot stuff, ALL OF YOU PEOPLE ARE SOOO HORNY? LIKE EVERY SINGLE INBOX REQ IS SMUT? EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. Idk how many times I can reinvent the wheel, so to speak, but I'll sure as hell try....hehehe

IN 2ND PLACE:

At 143 notes, we have "Game, Set, Match" part 1 - Ben Shelton. AWWWW MY BABY, MY LOVECHILD! This was the first ever STORY and I'm so glad it became a 3 part story too. Triple Platinum, I know that's right!!! I really loved making this, I didn’t plan to add the Instagram element, especially since I’m usually terrible at fake IG fic stuff (finding the right images is so limiting). But for GSM, it just felt right. I think my writing has improved a lot since then, too. I always laugh at my Ben posts because my A.Ns are always like "oh brother a LONG ONE HERE" and then my next post is even longer 😭 Thank u fr for the love on this one, because THAT'S when I really got a whole lottaaa support and love and it rly blew me out of the water, I could cry.

And finally....IN 1ST PLACE:

At 147 notes, it's no surprise that we have the "Waves", a Jude Bellingham blurb.

No surprises here, it was meant to be. I say that because I had this ask sitting in my inbox and decided to do a poll asking what I should post first - after tagging all the tags, I should've known it'd be crazily ratio'd by the Jude community on here, hahahhaha. I think it was something like 80% for Jude and the rest scattered throughout? This was my first ever Jude blurb, and I think it'll be one of many. I have a couple in my inbox but the future is there for me and writing about that silly guy.

Final words:

Was that as interesting for you as it was for me? I've been meaning to talk and reflect to u all inbetween the whole "Advent Calendar" series.

If anything, these stats tell me more about you guys, what you want to see and how I should continue going forward. I always want to write about things that matter the most and stick with you, fics that have you coming back to reread and enjoy.

Having representation in my characters and creating a world where you can sink into time and again is one of the best and only things I can give, so you bet by all means neccessary I don't want to half-ass it.

I might not know where your headspace is at, or what's going on in your life but I hope whatever happens, I can have a little space right here, make you laugh, smile and feel things that take your mind off of reality. At least until you finish reading.

As for the rest of the year, I still have my finals and work this weekend and as the season comes closer, I'd like to spend it with my loved ones while I still can :) The "Advent Calendar" will continue as per scheduled!

I hope to write some more before NYE comes round but we'll see. It's never a burden to write, it's always a destresser, but you bet I'll be enjoying company with family and friends too. That's all I've got for 2024, I can't wait to continue creating silly little imaginary situations in 2025 <3

- lots of love,

azzie.

#azzie asks #ben shelton #benshelton #ben shelton x reader #dominic fike #dominicfike #jude bellingham #elliot euphoria #dominic fike fan fiction #jude bellingham x reader #jude bellingham headcanon #judebellingham #jude victor william bellingham #dominic fike smut #dominic fike x reader #elliot euphoria x reader #euphoria

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sing-to-survive · 2 months ago

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Yo! To anyone out there dealing with this musical apocalypse shit too: you're not alone! I'm Emma, and I've been dealing with avoiding this "apotheosis" bullshit for far too long now-!

Emma, chill out a bit, okay? It's an intro post on Tumblr, not a call to arms! You're gonna scare people off!

*ahem*

Hi. I'm Paul. That's...obviously Emma. We run a survivor camp in Hatchetfield for those who have managed to survive the apotheosis. We've decided to make this account in hopes that either someone out there would see this and help us out, or another survivor sees this and we can help them.

Don't be afraid to reach out! We're here to help!

...there. That's probably a bit less intimidating than whatever you were saying. .....I hope this works.

You and me both, Paul.

[OOC UNDER CUT!!! :D]

Hello everyone and welcome to the TGWKLM AU ask blog!!! I'm Disaster from @multi-fandomdisaster & I use any pronouns! For AU context, head over to my main account and look for the tag #tgwklm au, but for a quick recap, Emma and Paul run a post-TGWDLM survivor camp, except Paul is partially infected...and is slowly getting worse... Now hold on tight, because this is gonna be a DOOZY!

There are (technically) 4 different characters that you can send asks to on this account: Emma, Paul, Hive!Paul, and Pokey! Pronouns and text are as follows!

Emma will speak in green, and uses she/her pronouns. All posts where she speaks will be tagged under #emma speaks

Paul will speak in white/black, and uses he/him pronouns. All posts where he speaks will be tagged under #paul speaks

Hive!Paul will speak in blue, and uses they/he pronouns. He'll also notably sometimes use collective pronouns ("we") to refer to himself. All posts where they speak will be tagged under #the hive speaks

Pokey will speak in bold blue, and uses he/they/it pronouns. All posts where Pokey speaks will be tagged under #the singular voice🎶

And last but not least, any & all ooc text will be in red. Ooc posts will be tagged as #Disaster says stuff!

Oh yeah! We may have some guest characters show up from time to time! When they do, their text color will also be black/white, but with quotations, and they'll always sign off with their name at the end. These posts will be tagged under #special guest: [insert character name]!

I politely ask that you please steer away from any NSFW content, as it makes me incredibly uncomfortable. Dirty jokes are generally fine, but anything explicit will be deleted and/or ignored.

I'm perfectly fine with angst, violence, & gore on here. A preemptive heads up: this blog will contain ⚠️emetophobia⚠️, as we're dealing with a hive-infected Paul Matthews here, as well as angst and ⚠️potential violence and gore⚠️. I'll try to tag anything triggering as best as I can, but if I ever forget to tag something, miss-tag something, or you would like me to add a trigger tag to a post/to future posts, PLEASE let me know!!! I want you guys to stay safe out there!

Hatchetfield OCs are just as welcome here as canon characters! Bear in mind, though, that it might just take me a little longer to come up with a good response because I don't know the character as well. If you're using an OC, don't be surprised if I message you asking for more info about them!

And with all that said, I hope you have a wonderful day!!! :D

#Disaster says stuff #hatchetfield rp #hatchetfield roleplay #hatchetfield ask blog #tgwklm au #intro post

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waitmyturtles · 1 year ago

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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: The Bad Buddy Rewatch Edition, Part 3b -- More on BBS and Asian Cultural Touchpoints

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I offer the second half of the third (ha!) of five posts on Bad Buddy. I'll look today at themes that myself and fellow Asian fans of Bad Buddy have caught and related to in this wonderful show.]

Here are links to part 1, part 2, and part 3a of the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series. Today's post is a continuation of part 3a. Part 4 is here.

Yesterday, I began an unwinding about what I am calling the "Asian Cultural Touchpoints" of Bad Buddy -- the Asianness of Bad Buddy that is rooted and coded in the way people interact with each other.

As a quick recap from yesterday: I have been insanely lucky to engage in conversation with a number of legendary Asian BBS stans about the Asianness within Bad Buddy: huge shout-outs and thanks go to @grapejuicegay, @recentadultburnout, @telomeke, @neuroticbookworm, and @lurkingshan (who is not Asian, but has Asian relatives and is well-versed in the nuances of our cultures!). We captured a lengthy list of Asian cultural signposts in Bad Buddy and we've been having great discussion around them, including:

1) saving face, 2) intergenerational/inherited trauma, 3) the unique nature of secret-keeping in Asian cultures/societies, 4) enmeshed family boundaries, 5) setting up children to compete against each other for the sake of familial pride, 6) patriarchy, sexism, and the reversal of sexism among next generations, 7) the inset/assumed roles of family members based on patriarchy and elder respect, 8) assumed community within and external to one's family, usually based on where you live and where you go to school, 9) how one's identity is defined based on patriarchy and individualist vs. collectivist cultures, 10) how various cultures within an Asian nation live peacefully (or not) together (for example, what makes Pat and Pran different by way of Pat's Thai-Chinese heritage vs. Pran's ethnic Thai heritage),

and many more.

I unwound yesterday on the cultural touchpoints of saving face, intergenerational/inherited trauma (partly as a follow-up from my very first thesis on Bad Buddy), and the singular nature of secret-keeping in Asian cultures.

There's no way I can get through this entire list in two posts, but I do want to touch upon competition, enmeshed family (and friend, sometimes) boundaries, and patriarchy and sexism as three other cultural touchpoints that engendered quite a bit of conversation among our BBS mini-village.

Competition: ALL OVER BAD BUDDY. All over it, and we know it, and for the most part, we love Pran's and Pat's little love battles. Pat and Pran are constantly competing. Pat gets Chief Phupha into it in Our Skyy 2, dang it ("I'm Pha Pun Dao's top-notch," Phupha, psh). We don't know if the guys can function without having a competition going between them at any given point.

We know this structure started with their parents. As I talked about yesterday, considering the trauma that Ming and Dissaya faced in their young lives -- the trauma that they passed down to Pat and Pran, the rivalry and almost unbridled hatred that they expected Pat and Pran to embody -- all of that emanated through competition between the guys. Their parents asked them, daily, how the other kid was doing in school, making sure that their son was winning on top. As we know from Pat's rooftop monologue in episode 5, that was baggage he carried with him his entire life.

So many of these cultural touchpoints can be connected to the idea of saving face, as I wrote about yesterday. It is an overarching rule of any Asian child's life that Asian parents demand to be able to brag about their kids. Give me an Asian kid whose parents didn't do that to them, and I'll give that kid a huge hug, a gold medal, and a wish in an envelope that I could have had their childhood. Awards, top grades, top class positions, top university admissions: the need to be the best is neverending, for the sake of a parent not losing face for their child not succeeded at the top level of everything.

@telomeke notes the inherent cultural demands of Pran's and Pat's family in the competition paradigm that Pat outlines above.

[Re: Ming and Dissaya]: [E]very time [the children] do well, the bar often gets pushed a little higher. We actually see Ming doing this to Pat in Ep.1 ... when Pat tells him he was made class president. Ming says something like "get yourself a gold medal for rugby and then I'll let you brag"; Pat's achievement (though not dismissed) is downplayed rather than celebrated, and another goal is set. Anyway, my read is that both the boys had caliber to start with; it's natural to Pran (we don't see Dissaya really pushing him to excel), and I think he pushes himself to excel, to be the virtuous paragon of everything, as a barrier to the outside world, and to protect his vulnerable, secret interior. ... And Pat was pushed by Ming to match Pran's achievements, though not for the usual Asian parent reasons – it was to continue his own efforts to best Dissaya, IMO...

What @telomeke outlines here correlates perfectly with my own experiences of my Asian childhood: that even in the face of successes that my parents demanded, the reward was only a passive comment that I had to be doing more. There was never a moment where a parent's cup of happiness was truly filled from the child's perspective.

However, in the case of Pran and Pat specifically: @grapejuicegay had a further illumination that highlighted the utter pain and sadness of the outcomes and consequences of their lifelong competition. We know they were perfectly paired as a couple in love. But ultimately? Because of the pressures they faced as children vis à vis each other -- they also become the only people who could compete with each other. AND, because of that reality -- a new kind of empathy sprung up between them, what I called in part 1 of this series a radical empathy of a kind we don't always see between enemies to lovers. @grapejuicegay's thoughts:

I'm just thinking about the first family interactions we see for Pat and Pran and how Dissaya is framed as a concerned parent with her main worry being Pran taking on too much on his plate with being the head of the department. But also how that's so far removed from what her influence had made of him - an overachiever to the highest degree. ...[T]he whole point of Pat and Pran is that they're evenly matched in everything (which works so well because they're both such EXTRA little shits with so many lil' interests), and it's been there since the [original] trailer. They both keep competing to see who can get the most achievements to brag about, eventually settling down to a point where they help each other out because they're each other's only worthy competition because they're the only ones who can keep up with each other [emphasis mine]. So.... Dissaya's concern is nice and all, but she created this monster who not only can handle having so many responsibilities, but ENJOYS it. And Pat's help is always pushing him to do all of it, just have some help along the way so he's not doing it all alone. Wai helps, but he has to be manipulated into it. So the only person ACTIVELY helping Pran even when neither of them thinks he needs it is Pat ("I know you can do it, but I want to do it for you").

I was tremendously moved when @grapejuicegay shared her read with me on this, because not only did it land fully with me -- but it served to highlight the sadness and loneliness that existed in the gulf between Pran and Pat prior to their union. In other words, because they knew, so well, HOW to compete with each other -- if they needed help, they were the only ones who knew HOW to help each other. Pat showing up at the dilapidated bus station; Pran showing up at the empty auditorium. They could vibe when each other needed a little push. They knew WHEN and HOW to help each other, with the fluency they had ABOUT each other, even before their relationship began -- because they had been competing all their lives. As Pat said in Our Skyy 2: "we've been neighbors all our lives." They knew each other's ins and outs better than even their families did.

The competition that Pran and Pat engaged in had significant cultural roots. But the long-term impact of that competition? It rendered the guys on their own lonely island, a place where only the two of them could understand each other fully. It's a romantic conclusion -- to know your partner so well like that, it can fill your heart with nostalgic reckoning. But as Pat said above and to his father -- it was a bruising path, for the both of the guys.

There's a lot to enmeshed boundaries in Bad Buddy. The boundaries that SHOULD exist between two people that regularly get crossed. I definitely want to acknowledge, before I unwind on these boundaries, that Western vs. Asian viewers will have different expectations of exactly what enmeshment looks like and what it means. I'll have more on this in a bit.

When I think of enmeshed boundaries in Bad Buddy, I think of Dissaya having almost total control over Pran's physical placement. Of Ming knocking on Pat's dorm door, unannounced. Of Pat's expectation that Pa would do his laundry (which will speak to the sexism I'll talk about in a bit). @neuroticbookworm noted how hilariously Asian it was that Pat and Pa -- older brother and younger sister -- literally shared a dorm room. Pat could scuttle to Pran's solo room, to their love nest, to leave their shared room alone for Pa and Ink. But: what an Asian set-up, to have big bro sleeping on the floor, while little sister got the bed.

But besides what Western viewers might traditionally think of as "unhealthy" enmeshed boundaries, there's also a conversation about how Asian families engage -- or, don't engage -- with expectations of privacy. The biggest and most obvious example of a violation of personal privacy in BBS is that Pran's and Pat's parents forbid their children from having friendship with the kid next door. We know, in the end, that the parents cannot control that behavior of their kids, and yet, the parents try to do so anyway, with traumatic results.

@telomeke talked in our mini-village about the everyday functionality of Asian families crossing borders of assumed privacy. These are crossings that I fully relate to: for instance, I wasn't allowed to lock my bedroom door very often when I was growing up, to allow for complete access to my "private space," even and especially while I was in it.

I remember this as a thing growing up, that it's perfectly fine in [Asian countries] to drop in unannounced when it's family (though I think with widespread cellphone availability, people do check in beforehand now – however it could also be just to make sure there's someone in to receive them when they drop by!). It's a bit of a truism that the more traditional Asian parents will be in every part of your life and may not always know how to give you more distance when you grow older. ... For the more traditionally-minded, I think this phenomenon would be even more pronounced. And we definitely see this with Pat and Pa too.

The stories I heard about parents busting in on their Asian kids in compromising positions because the kids HAD to leave the doors unlocked? Stories about full-grown adults being interrupted in their intimacy because their parents came into the house? Countless stories. Us as Asians -- we might laugh about it, but there's also an unspoken and inherent sense of annoyance, of fear, of "how do I explain this now?" that's like a dull, permanent foreboding.

In thinking about how these boundary-crossings were inherited vis à vis Pat and Pran, into the next generation, of course -- all we have to think about are the many, many times we saw Pat crossing into Pran's threshold at Tinidee. That shot of Pat wrapped in his comforter as he shuffles to Pran's door.

However, @grapejuicegay flagged for me an utterly legendary Bad Buddy meta post written by @transpat now nearly two years ago, describing the Indian concept of haq, a concept I know very dearly well. To quote @transpat on the definition of haq:

in context of relationships, we use it to describe the entitlement ppl we keep close are allowed over us. in our culture, with every bond we form and built, we owe those ppl certain rights over us. like our filial duty to our parents, supporting our siblings and relatives emotionally and/or financially, the loyalty to our friends. lovers and spouses are ppl given all the rights of a family member by choice and obv other stuff like touching u in ways others can't, sharing worries and secrets you wouldn't indulge others w, the permission to carry and lighten ur burdens.

We know so well that Pat didn't just cross the hallway of Tinidee; he climbed through and over windows, over roofs, to get to Pran. And Pran... let him in. We know now what Pran's feelings were all that time, at least from 10th grade to university. Of course, Pran would let Pat in, because he had already let Pat into his heart. Maybe not into his psychological safety zone -- that had to take much longer. But in a much more primal sense, Pran had let Pat in, for so many reasons beautifully illustrated by @transpat in their piece, and for the examples up above, especially by way of the inadvertent closeness they achieved through their never-ending competing with each other.

I want to take a quick moment to highlight the two concepts I bolded above in @transpat's description of haq. I don't know if I have the words to describe this as well as @transpat, but to the point of entitlement and having rights over someone... there's a certain sense in Asian group dynamics, that one's business is everyone's business, if that makes sense. Think about cliques when you were growing up. Those cliques were formed on similar desires and interests -- being rich, beautiful, "cool," etc.

I feel like Asian group dynamics go a bit beyond this. Because you are in a group, it must go that any one single person's business is everyone's business. There is an entitlement to information about other people. In the States, we value individualism, and when these cliques are being formed in our youthful years, there's certainly a clash with people wanting to express themselves as individuals; very often, the group dynamics do not allow for individual expression. I would argue that that's even more strong in Asian circles.

If I could describe what I think was happening when Pat was climbing into Pran's window to, say, make that first deal about getting Wai to apologize -- I do very much believe that Pat felt it was his intimate right to go into Pran's room, as it had been established that they were, once more, schoolmates and neighbors, now that Pran was back in his family home. If Pran filled those roles -- schoolmate, neighbor -- it automatically clicked into Pat's social expectations that Pran was there to be talked to and engaged with, no matter if Pran would try to push him out. We know that Pran would give up on pushing Pat out, because Pran had feelings for Pat. BUT: what I love about @transpat's INCREDIBLE meditation is that Pat also clicked into unspoken social roles that allowed him to seek out a moment of friendly intimacy with Pran. (Besides the fact that it's more theorized now that Pat had unknown attraction for Pran during high school -- but I don't think attraction was what brought Pat into Pran's room to discuss that very first deal.)

I think this meditation on enmeshed boundaries, as I mentioned earlier, feeds nicely into the final points I want to make about the last cultural touchpoint for analysis, that of patriarchy and sexism in Asian families.

The BBS mini-village sliced and diced the incredibly overarching examples of patriarchy in this story, as emanating mostly from Ming: Ming's role as the head of the family and doling out roles; Ming ensuring that Pat would "not forget" Ming's reputation at university; Ming's parents doing nothing to interfere with Pa's role as serving Pat; Pat reinforcing that role to Pa in the family home.

Why Ming? As @telomeke broke it down for us: Ming is the head of the household of a Thai-Chinese family. It's not to say that patriarchy and sexism don't exist in ethnic Thai families -- but a patriarchal dynamic isn't shown in Pran's house, as Dissaya is the one who holds the emotional control over the Siridechawats. It's in the Jindapat household that we see old-fashioned roles of men and women doled out.

In traditional Chinese society (before the Communists came to power in China), sons had absolute pride of place in Chinese families, and we see Ming giving special treatment to Pat, while Pa was made to clean up after Mr. Jindapat Jr, doing his laundry, having the piece of chicken she wanted stolen by him in Ep.1, etc... Ming invited Pat home for a meal in Ep. 7, but didn't mention Pa, and Pat had to say he'd bring her along. But Pat and Pa, away from home didn't care for any of this, (e.g., when they were kids Pat let Pa win the bicycle race and skip washing up duties, in the Ep.1 flashback), and while Pa would begrudgingly do Pat's laundry, she would give as good as she got as well whenever they tussled (verbally).

As @telomeke says above, we see Pat, within his generation, to Pa, in their own private space of bicycling outside or moving into his own dorm room, quietly dismantling that patriarchy and sexism of Ming's and Pat's mom -- letting Pa win the bicycle race; talking out of earshot of their parents about Pat protecting, instead of hurting, Pran. [Another great example, a little outside of the patriarchal example but still worth noting, is Wai's role, as a stand-in for Dissaya, sticking to the definitions of the role of Pran's best friend, but showing -- within the cohort of his own generation -- that he CAN change to accept Pat in Pran's life, as opposed to Dissaya's inability to do so (scroll down through the whole liveblog post for the commentary!).]

@telomeke mentioned in our conversation about patriarchy and sexism that he was surprised that he'd see a parent as young as Ming -- a parent to a student of Pat's age, much younger than myself and @telomeke -- keep up with these traditional, old-fashioned values. I think that's a great point, especially in the way that Ming ignores Pa only until the end of the series, when he's instead cut Pat mostly out of his caring reach for disobeying him. We know from the Soonvijarn analysis and reaction videos by Aof Noppharnach and his collegial community of filmmakers, that Aof took inspiration for Ming stealing the scholarship from Dissaya from a real-life occurrence of the same story. I think Aof intentionally had such strong patriarchal structures in Bad Buddy vis à vis the Jindapats in order to highlight what a stronghold old-fashioned notions of life have on generations -- and intended to have a conversation vis à vis Pat, Pran, Pa, and Wai, that the ways in which these old-fashioned notions are updated over time, is through the work of the subsequent generations of children growing up and learning and knowing better.

The coded Asianness of Bad Buddy... god. I could sit with my fellow Asians and talk about the coded Asianness of Bad Buddy for at least weeks, if not maybe even a year or two. We could laugh about the comedy of many of the experiences or traumas we have faced vis à vis the cultural touchpoints that I've listed and analyzed, and we could also share our shared pain, our shared joys, our shared ways in which we express emotion, love, our highs and lows, through our shared Asian cultures. Talking about this makes me tremendously glad that there's national and international fandoms watching Asian shows -- even if, say, Western viewers can't exactly pinpoint what's happening by way of a culturally contextual moment in Bad Buddy, at least there's a community of Asian bloggers out here that can unwind what might be confusing.

Once more, I want to thank @recentadultburnout, @grapejuicegay, @telomeke, @neuroticbookworm, and @lurkingshan for engaging me in such amazing and extensive conversation about the best show ever Bad Buddy. More than education -- the process was INCREDIBLY fun and rewarding.

(Tagging @dribs-and-drabbles, @solitaryandwandering, and @wen-kexing-apologist by request! If you'd like to be tagged in this series, please let me know!)

[WHEW! SEVENTH INNING STRETCH, FRIENDS, stand up and stretch yer arms as I crack my knuckles one more time for this fabulous show! My last post for the BBS OGMMTVC Series -- a breakdown of my theorized reasons and timing regarding Pran leaving for Singapore -- drops next week. Stay tuned!

And after this, I take the tiniest break from the OGMMTVC to review one of the most important shows of 2023: La Pluie. And then I'm back on my tip with Secret Crush On You and an end-of-the-year rewatch of KinnPorsche. So, much more to come!

Here's the status of the Old GMMTV Challenge watchlist. Tumblr's web editor loves to jack with this list, so please head to this link for the very latest updates!

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 5) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 9) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here) 21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 24) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) (review here) 25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here) 31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (The BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series is ongoing: preamble here, part 1 here, part 2 here, more reviews to come) 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) (on pause for La Pluie) 35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist 37) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 38) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 39) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 40) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 41) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 42) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) 43) Wedding Plan (2023) 44) Only Friends (2023) (tag here)]

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with-god-as-my-worstie · 4 months ago

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Thanks to @spaghetti-trek convincing me via insane reblogging about it, I'm going to be watching Supernatural all the way through, and doing up a little recap post after each episode in an attempt to improve my adhd-riddled gremlin brain attention span.

I have (about a decade ago) seen a random assortment of episodes, and being on tumblr means you just pick up some info without trying. So before we start, this is what I think I know about Supernatural.

It's mostly about three guys:

● Dean Winchester, a man who is bisexual in the most homophobic way possible.

● Castiel, a gay angel with 2 braincells (1 for plotting against God, 1 for obsessing over Dean).

● Sam Winchester, who is tall.

Other characters I can remember include:

● Bobby Singer. World's best dad. Spends his time impersonating authority figures and teaching people how to play catch with their emotions.

● Crowley. He's meant to be a Bad Guy, but he's so cunty about it that no one really minds.

● Lucifer. Also bad, also cunty. Sam's imaginary friend, maybe.

● A red-haired sword lesbian with a gender-neutral name that I can't remember right now.

● God, who's just some guy.

The show is pretty much everyone playing fuck-marry-kill with everyone and everything else that they meet.

Sometimes Jeffrey Dean Morgan is there.

#supernatural #gods unfavourite #with-god-as-my-worstie #rachy recaps

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paintedbutton · 5 days ago

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2024 Recap Tag

@writernopal tagged me in this, and it came at just the right time since I didn't manage doing an actual reflection post before the end of the year (working between christmas and new years is always weird that way for me).

2024 Accomplishments

Let's start with the big one, obviously: I finished and shared Worthy of a King! I'm incredibly happy that I accomplished this. Sharing my boys with the world and having people love them as much as I do was absolutely something special. <3

Beside that, I wrote a silly little pirate story inspired by a silly little song just because I wanted to. That also feels like it matters a lot.

I managed to figure out the vague shape the Queen's Guard series is going to take. I always said it was gonna be somewhat like the Paladin books by T. Kingfisher - interconnected standalones. It's not quite that, obviously, but I'm looking forward to exploring this world more.

All in all I wrote about 82k words in 2024, and that's with about 4 months that I took as planned breaks in between. I feel pretty comfortable with that number.

I also had a pretty active year, non-writing wise. So many concerts, festivals, markets, etc. This isn't in any way writing related but I feel like every year I've been chipping a way at prioritising myself and the things that make me happy more. I finally managed to get rid of a pretty big burden in my work-life that's made me breathe a lot easier. (It probably says a lot that I haven't had a crying breakdown about work this year ... for the first time. In fact, the last time I broke down crying was when I thought they wouldn't let me give up the position they forced me into. Damn.)

2025 Writing Goals

Again, the big one: Shadow of a Queen is my one serious goal for 2025. I wrote the first draft of WoaK in six months in 2023 and then took a couple months break before starting on revising it, and that felt like a pretty good workflow for me, so the goal is pretty much the same: Write draft 1 until the summer (I am probably aiming for August, here, because June and July are already packed full with other activities). See where we go after.

(Re)establish a writing routine that works for me. With the break, I've kind of fallen out of it and I'm having a bit of a hard time getting started again right now. I know I'll get there, but kicking my own ass into gear is one of the first goals I'm gonna have to achieve this year.

Figure out a writing setup that is future proof. I'm a Word girlie. I've been a Word girlie my whole life, and while I've looked into dedicated novel writing programs before (it's kind of hard not to stub your foot on Scrivener at some point in any writing community you stumble into), I've never felt the need to dive deeper. But with AI growing ever more ubiquitous (and all the big companies pushing it lbr), I at least want to give my options another look. Maybe I'll stay a Word girlie, idk. I want it to be an informed decision if I do. Tentative searches so far have turned up a whole lot of browser based bullshit that I do not want, subscription services galore, and nothing that works as a program both on Windows and Android, which I would need because I write on my tablet on the go. Related to that, I might just look into getting a refurbished laptop or something. But we'll see. If you have any recommendations for me to look into, please do send them my way.

I want to be more active on Tumblr again, and on Writeblr specifically. I go through phases with social media where mindless consumption is all I can muster, and I fucking hate it. But I love sharing my stuff and reading other peoples' and doing tag games. Sometimes I just need to remind myself of that.

Not exactly writing related, and a little bit silly: One of my goals for the year is to dress more like a fantasy character. Simply because it makes me happy. And, honestly, I wouldn't mind closet cosplaying my own little guys to be a part of that goal. ;)

Tagging @winterandwords , @malimaywrite and @boundedsea if you all feel like doing it. No pressure though. :)

#writeblr #tag games #personal

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kiefbowl · 2 years ago

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In response to your post about recently peaking: I think I'm still very much in the progress of getting into radical feminism, but one of the things that made me start to search it out was the huge discrepancy I noticed online with regard to how for example J.K. Rowling is treated by TRAs compared to any man ever who also has a "bad" opinion. That made me want to look up what so-called TERFs actually have to say, and I had to admit to myself that a lot of it made sense. A lot of things I felt uncomfortable about regarding gender politics and sexwork for example started falling into place as I read through more radfem blogs on tumblr. I want to use my free time this summer to read some proper feminist literature (very open for recommendations!)

I must say I feel hesitant sometimes to go further and actually peak though, because ever since I went on this journey a few months ago I've started to notice the misogyny in many places where I could ignore it before, and it scares me sometimes. I'm worried that if I become to aware the anger I feel about how women are treated will keep growing and I won't know what to do with it.

Sorry for rambling in your askbox! It felt kinda nice to write it all out once, I don't feel comfortable yet discussing all these thoughts with the people in my life unfortunately

Anger can be a very productive emotion if you're willing. I've been watching a youtuber who does recaps of SisterWives, and she said something in one of her videos recently that I agree with but never heard it articulated this way. I'm paraphrasing but: Emotions are like our five senses, they're there to give us information. Then, you have to process that information and decide how to act on it.

The example she gave is if you see someone far away that looks like your friend, but you're not sure - your eyes gave you information, but you have to go look closer to investigate to see if it's really them. If you feel angry, you have to investigate and take some time exploring why, and to what extent, and what you're willing to do about it.

Maybe you've never had anyone say this to you plainly but: I don't see my ideologies as an identity. I don't see my social identities as extensions of my virtue. I'm not afraid to get angry because if I'm angry it's probably something worth getting angry about. As with sadness, or happiness.

Misogyny is scary, but life has many facets, and truth is a worthwhile pursuit. I can't imagine my life another way because I can only be living this life as me, and like every life, it's full of complexities. I'm subjugated, I'm privileged, I'm a good person who has made bad choices, I'm a smart person who can be obtuse, I've been poor but never the poorest, I come from grandfathers who fought in wars and grandmothers who raised children in a bad religion yet they are all so deeply in my heart, and I've had to weigh my values against self serving decisions time and time again to get some of the comforts I have now. I have to live in the world now, and I'd rather live with open eyes despite any pain, because otherwise I miss out on joy. This is my only chance of joy, so I'm taking it. I will never turn my back on knowledge lest I leave joy on the table. Maybe one day, you'll see what I mean. Good luck sis! Thanks for sharing :)

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hey-loser · 2 years ago

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TLDR: SRB Zoom Chat

In case you missed it, Sarah did a webinar on Zoom a couple weeks ago hosted by The Sunday Morning Transport to answer questions about Tears Waiting to be Diamonds. You can get a 60-day free subscription to access both the story and the Zoom over on Sarah’s tumblr, but for those who are unable to access for any reason, I received a request to provide a little recap, so here goes! Tried to make it somewhat organized but also it is going to be a little chaotic haha.

New IOL Deets

The scene of Luke and Elliot getting together and confessing their feelings was almost only ONE SENTENCE LONG. Many thanks on behalf of the fandom to the anonymous critique partner of Sarah’s who told her that absolutely wouldn’t fly.

Elliot and Luke Post-IOL

Sarah says that Elliot doesn’t go over the border much, even though he is able to. Luke is afraid of Elliot going somewhere where he can’t follow, and even though Elliot doesn’t even think of it as a possibility, he tries to be respectful of it.

Pet names: Elliot sometimes will take classics and make them weird (like he does at the end of IOL). Luke will occasionally embarrassedly call Elliot “darling”.

Luke has fairly regular contact with the harpies. Elliot tends to spearhead their contact in terms of keeping up correspondence - he knows relatives even Luke doesn’t, and they often attend harpy festivals. According to Sarah, it’s a classic case of the in-law being the favorite kid. She jokes that he could have just gone to the harpies and lived with them when he was exiled, and they would have gladly taken him in.

WHY SARAH

TWTBD Parts 1 & 2 were initially meant to be published on consecutive Sundays. SARAH SUGGESTED THAT THERE BE A LONGER WAIT IN BETWEEN.

Why Elliot do that?

Even though Elliot has made some progress with his insecurities, he still thinks that Luke doesn’t truly know the worst that he can do, and just puts up with him. Over the years, they have worked through smaller issues, so he’s learned that he can be forgiven for these things (while before that he considered himself completely unloveable). Once he’s committed treason, he thinks that is the worst possible thing, something completely antithetical to Luke’s value system as a soldier, so he considers it inevitable that their relationship is over.

Sarah likened it to “the mortifying ordeal of being known” – Elliot never holds himself back from being completely known, because then he can be loved for who he is. But Elliot doesn’t think that Luke knows the worst he can be (even though Luke obviously does and accepts him for it).

Luke’s Letters

Luke starts with angry letters, then more worried, then back and forth between the two. Some of the letters Luke sends to Elliot are well thought out and composed (probably because Serene helped him), while others are basically drunk late night texts that he has to admit to Serene later with shame (side note from me: anyone wanna write the fic that comprises all his letters? or am I gonna have to do that myself).

Luke doesn’t even consider them broken up in the first place and was entirely unsurprised to hear what Elliot had done when he returned, while Elliot dramatically thinks they’ve been broken up for months. He doesn’t want to hurt himself by looking at the letters when he thinks he knows that they will say.

The meantime:

It had been a month since Elliot was exiled by the time Luke and Serene returned from war. By the time Luke arrives it has been almost four months. A lot of that time was spent figuring out what thad happened, possibly variously threatening people who had been planning on executing Elliot.

“A lot of Elliot’s diplomacy relies on the fact that there are people who will enact violence for him”

Peace is not a stable thing, and there isn’t an easy answer for it. As they get older, it becomes more difficult, since adults are held more accountable for their actions than children.

Serene and Luke actually were trying to figure out the diplomatic way to solve the situation: i.e., sending letters to form a plan once communication was initiated. After getting no response, they tried to get him pardoned, which was difficult considering someone apparently has a transcript of a long speech Elliot gave that essentially said “I did it and I’m not sorry”.

Luke and Serene would sometimes spontaneously decide they were going to go find him alone, and the other would talk them down from it, or they’d decide to go together, and Golden would convince them to wait.

Where’s Serene?

The story was unfortunately too long to include Serene, or even the few references to her that were initially included (such as Mark mentioning a rumor of the Sunborn Champion being involved with her).

Logistically Sarah couldn’t get Serene to the battle, since Luke would have flown to get to Elliot as fast as possible. She says that Serene definitely arrives within the day.

What happens after TWTBD?

Luke and Elliot have to have several conversations, starting with a yelling conversation, a tender conversation, and then the normal combination of yelling/tender/insults.

“If Elliot says loser, Luke knows that he’s okay and so pretty much the first words that Elliot said to Luke in the battlefield were reassuring because when he says loser, he means I still love you, which is what Luke was getting worried about.”

Elliot puts himself in tall towers and high places specifically so Luke can find him.

Sarah specifically quotes “This Ain’t a Love Song” by scouting for girls: “I know I’m lost, but I’m waiting to be found”.

More IOL

Sarah has said this before, but just in case anyone has missed it: she definitely has ideas of what happens to the characters in the future. She has said she has a strong story idea which would also need another novel in between to explain the middle events – so essentially a trilogy. TWTBD would take place in between these second and third books – the second would explain the events up to TWTBD, and the third would continue on from there. To be clear, Sarah has not confirmed whether this is actually in the works yet, or whether these would take full-length novel form or short story form.

On Trans and Nonbinary Individuals in IOL (specifically in elven culture):

Sarah says there would be some more freedoms for nonbinary/trans elves or dwarves than in human culture, but they would be restricted in other ways.

Sarah acknowledges that the IOL universe has been represented in a more binary way thus far; she plans to delve more into gender beyond the binary in the future after taking time to get the details and complexity right.

Long Live Evil Information

Sarah’s new upcoming novel! The protagonist is thrown into her favorite fantasy novel, but is unexpectedly classified as an evil sorceress and cast out with the rest of the villains. From how Sarah talks about it, the novel delves into villainy in fiction and what truly makes a villain. It also explores the joy of finding magic even if you think you’ve reached the stage of your life where you’re past it. (I AM SO EXCITED)

Hopefully this was somewhat coherent!

#in other lands #iol #twtbd #tears waiting to be diamonds #sarah rees brennan

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guessimabasicnerdgirlnow · 1 month ago

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All of this being said, I do think the people who didn’t like it only because symbrock spent most of the run not bonded together are being foolish

Of course this probably doesn’t mean much since I am personally an enjoyer of their moments of mutual hatred too (which didn’t happen in this run, as we all know, their actual divorce makes whatever little moments of conflict they had now seem like children’s play), but

I feel a bit like I did in the beginning seeing non shippers of the non tumblr side of the fandom complaining too about them being separated. I think I had some of the same arguments I have now:

It can be nice to see them existing without each other! I actually love that they managed to do it without making them hate each other like in the actual divorce! They can get to have their own individual conflicts, and individual flaws, and individual relationships!

I’m particularly not a fan of Symby being written as just an extension of Eddie, which happens sometimes. I like it when they are a whole person

Besides, just them being bonded means nothing sometimes when for example in 2018 they seemed like they didn’t even like each other. Do you remember the anti-psychotics, I can’t forget the anti-psychotics. That was shocking for me to see after having only watched the movie

And it’s not the only example, they had their whole toxic era before the divorce in the 00’s, and there are all the canon AUs that go fully in the corruption route…

Did this run always portray their relationship well when compared to my personal view of it? No. There were moments in it that bothered me a lot. The Dylan author really fucked up in how they portrayed Symby before the paternity reveal, for example. The backstory recap in Venom War: Spider-Man was a little weird. While I personally was convinced by it, I can see why some may think Eddie eventually becoming Meridius makes no sense. And they did retcon Sleeper into having been born from a vacuum

But them being separated was not the issue. Did we all miss the whole thing that Eddie becoming distant from the ones he loved, losing his feelings and humanity, is what doomed him and almost the entire world?? Or that Symby learned to see that their feelings are not a poison?? They got Spider-Man’s blessing, of all people, to go back to Eddie, who loves and needs them??

They didn’t get to get together again in the end but it’s not because they don’t belong together. It never felt for a moment that they didn’t belong together. This is just the conflict, the obstacle in the way to keep the story going. They both sacrificed themselves to save their kid (and in Eddie’s case, to save Symby too). Their separation in the end was too an act of love

#shut up brock #i have such intense feelings about the whole second half of venom war #and how their love for each other and for dylan is such a huge theme in there #the official synopsis is stupid and inaccurate there was never a struggle for power #there was distrust at the beginning but it grew way beyond that #venom comics spoilers #venom spoilers #spoilers

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stevensavage · 4 months ago

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The Throughlines

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve's Tumblr, and Pillowfort. Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

Last week I discussed how I took a long walk where I reflected on my life and choices I realized that, as I drifted back over the years, my choices led to more and more “alien” selves the further back I got in time. At some point the you of the past is unknown territory and you can’t learn anything or relate to them.

Now I’d like to discuss an insight from the same exercise that is not about not who I am, but instead very much who I am.

To recap, at one point in my life I took a walk for over an hour, viewing points of “divergence” in my life, asking where choices may have led down different paths. Sometimes I realized that choices would take me so far away that I’d be a complete different person. However throughout this exercise I saw something else, I saw what I call the “Throughlines,” common, consistent parts of my life.

Throughout the many mes there were consistent patterns in my life, weaving not just the life I had now, but most of the possible ones I could see. There was me now, the mes’ I could have been, and behind that were certain, nearly omnipresent elements. I vaguely call them “Throughlines” because they are consistent over time.

I have always been a writer, and rarely go longer than a year or two without some writing project. I never became the fiction writer I once half-heartedly comprehended as a teen, but I am a writer. My past “maybe selves” included technical writing, grant writing, and science writing. Writing is a Throughline, a deeper me.

I’m always an organizer, always having a plan, always having a project. I ran RPG groups and zines, planned software, and more - it’s no wonder I became a Project Manager. Whatever choices I made in my life, I know I’d have been the guy with a scheme. Planning is a Throughline, a deeper me.

I bring people together, it’s the organizer in me. I’m the guy behind the movie night and the writing club, the gaming group. I love to network people so they can come together, and it’s visible in my past from where I was nearly an administrator for an anthropology department, all the way to team building now. Networking is a Throughline, a deeper me.

There’s other Throughlines of course, from my love of theology to the fact I always return to doing art (even when I’m not good at it). You get the idea, somewhere among all the mes I could have been, probably even the ones so strange I couldn’t imagine them, there were these Throughlines. There’s a me under all the me’s.

In fact, I could see times where I could have ignored my Throughlines, tried to be someone I’m not. I can also see how I would have been miserable. For instance, for those who know me, try to imagine me as a humorous corporate IT ladder-climber - had I gone that direction I’d have hit midlife crises two decades early.

As I noted last time, I invite you to try this exercise. Give yourself at least an hour to walk somewhere pleasant and work backwards through your life, asking who you’d have been with different choices. It’s not just a way to ask about different yous, you might just find out more of who you are, even if you’d have been someone different.

There’s a you behind the yous. Go on, get to know them.

Steven Savage

www.StevenSavage.com

www.InformoTron.com

#psychology #time #identity

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danpuff-ao3 · 2 years ago

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ChaosBlue, my Bethy, host of @fanficmaverickpodcast...I wasn't sure I would do this one, as she's not all over Tumblr, but, well...I'd be remiss not to take a chance to talk about such a sweet friend!

I first met dear B after the episode she did with perverse_idyll. The encouragement to reach out about an episode sort of stuck with me. I was so impressed with the work on the Fanfic Maverick podcast, and it seemed super fun...What did I have to lose? So I drafted an email and then promptly hid from the internet for a while, because wow scary! My brain is quite mean and I was thinking such rudeness as "she's going to laugh at you. Like, who tf is this lady and why would anyone wanna talk to her??" I am very anxious and insecure, okay? And I live in fear of rejection.

Only...that didn't happen! She was perfectly sweet and excited and we got to planning! We had to schedule a ways out, which was fine. At least in the moment it was fine, but that much time gave me plenty of time to worry myself to death LOL. And when it came time to record, she was very patient and encouraging. We had all sortsa tech issues to sort out, and then my nerves to settle.

Thus was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Sometime before our interview, I believe...(maybe, my recollection of the timeline is a bit fuzzy)...okay, so at some point, I reached out after listening to another FFM episode to explode astrology nerdery all over her. To which she was very receptive! And if you know me, you know I love to talk! The first several times I reached out via email just to chat, I was so worried I was being a bother. We're well past that now! Now I text whatever randomness is on my mind, and if I'm very chatty I return to emails.

Astrology, crystals, numerology, tarot, philosophy, all manner of things! We talk about life, and history, and a shared enthusiasm of terribly human characters.

What you need to know about Bethy is...she is the GOAT, fr. (And not just because she's a Capricorn, though that certainly helps.) She is a KING. She is Daddy. She is badass and amazing. Super professional and personable on the podcast. So creative, and so much enthusiasm for life and for people. She has an endless well of curiosity and compassion.

We've talked a lot about my anxiety and how long and how hard I've fought through it. How much it took for me to reach out to her in the first place. And I'm glad I did. Not only was being on the podcast twice (so far!) a great experience, but more importantly it earned me an incredible friend who I am lucky to have. And it's comforting to know that...facing those fears and trying new things can bring you all sorts of blessings. The most important of which are friends.

Okay no time to cry, gotta leave RECS.

The Fanfic Maverick Podcast

Ep. 3 - #CobraKai - Interview With Fanfiction Writer Storyshark2005 (@talkinfanfic) - I had 0 interest in Cobra Kai but listening to this? Suddenly interest!

Fanfiction History with Talkin' Fanfic PART TWO (@talkinfanfic) and Part 1 on Talkin' Fanfic here.

Ep. 20 - #GameOfThrones - Interview With Fanfiction Writer Priestess_of_Groove

Ep. 21 - #HarryPotter - Interview With Fanfiction Writer SouthronWildling - Drarry a/b/o fic!

Ep. 25 - #HarryPotter - Interview With Fanfiction Writer Perverse_Idyll (@perverse-idyll) - probably my favorite episode so far!

Year-End Recap: Behind The Scenes Chat - 1 year anniversary episode with ChaosBlue and her brother! Very wholesome stories and a sweet sibling vibe! Gave me all the feelings. (Also I too have a brother David so I was weirdly extra excited??)

Ep. 28 - #HP: NextGen & MHA - Interview With Fanfiction Writer MicheleBlack (@micheleblack)

Ep. 29 - #TheTerror - Interview With Fanfiction Writer Snagov (@ripeteeth) - another case of "wow I had no interest in this fandom before, but now...?" Also teeth is amazing!

Ep. 30 - #HP: Tom Riddle - Interview With Fanfiction Writer Phantomato (@phantomato) - oh wow lotsa good stuff in this one! Gave me all the Voldemort feels when I hadn't really had much interest in the character prior. This episode had the biggest impact on my actual reading habits as I started to look more into Voldemort-centric fics than I had before, and I'm quite glad for it!

Ep. 32 - #HP: Snarry - Interview With Fanfiction Writer Danpuff - oh look, it's me!

KC PLanet Comicon Recap With Talkin' Fanfic - ngl I wish I had been there for Comicon last year and this year! Seems so fun!

Ep. 35 - #OurFlagMeansDeath - Interview With Fanfiction Writer Mia_Ugly (@mia-ugly) - I knew mia_ugly from Snarry fic (of course) but now OFMD???? I ran to those fics, let me tell you. (I really do need to read more OFMD fics, fr.)

October Frolic: Controversial Fanfic Ships & Tropes - me again! We do love our controversial stuff!

Ep. 46 - #Supernatural - Interview With Fanfiction Writer Thanks Tacos

Ep. 49 - #Sherlock - Interview With Fanfiction Writer AtlinMerrick

Ep. 51 - #HP: Snarry & Severitus - Interview With Fanfiction Writer SerenaEW - loved this one! I was so excited to see she'd interviewed Serena! What a sweetie (the both of them.)

Truly a great podcast, even if you're not familiar with specific fandoms. They're still cool to hear about and it's always so fascinating to hear from other creators. And through it all lives on ChaosBlue's great love and appreciation for fandom, creation, learning, and people.

I love you, buddy!

for an explanation about Mutuals March, or to figure out why i wrote you a thing, please check out this post.

#mutuals march #chaosblue #fanfic maverick podcast #danni loves her friends so much #i did NOT cry writing this #i didn't #i promise #i very stoically sucked back all the tears #i think #okay maybe one or two escaped #maybe

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