#I mostly talk to myself in the tags tbh

[digo3d]

here’s another ask! What is a tick/character aspect that Dobble secretly likes about each of the cats?

Hmm let's seeee

Naturally with T.C. he admires how much he cares for/all he does for the gang and how much that cat tries to make the best life for them despite their situation or their poverty. I think he simultaneously despises and admires how stubborn T.C. is as a person.

Benny is a very happy and funny little guy and he's almost always able to make Dibble laugh even just a little bit. He does wonder how an innocent lil lad like him got wrapped up with a character like Top Cat but does recognize just how important he is to him and how much he looks up to him.

Dib really likes how expressive and empathetic Chooch is and especially likes how his enthusiasm is contagious. If he's excited you also will be very soon. He's very transparent and wears his heart on his sleeve, he doesn't try and hide his feelings away like most people Dib knows. Also he's very fluffy. Foofy fella. Foofy woofy Choochie boy.

I like to think that Dibble secretly wishes he could have Spook's relaxed attitude so that he wouldn't be so stressed all the time. Spook has got sort of a calming aura to him and while he does beef with Spook the most (besides T.C. ofc), being near him is like a little mental break and he also offers some damn good wisdom and advice.

Fancy's self-confidence is only to be rivaled by the most popular of celebrities, yet he always managed to make room for the fellas in his life despite how many girlfriends he might have at the time. Fancy's boisterous enough to be incredibly charismatic yet he's also humble enough to recognize what he has and hold it near and dear to his heart. Dibble thinks more people can (and should) learn from him.

This is very much a self-indulgent headcanon but Brain is very much Dibble's favorite kitty. Aside from just being the cutest and silliest little scrunkly around, Brain is very kind, patient, doesn't believe in holding a grudge (most of the time) and is a very good listener. It baffles Dib how he didn't become a cold-hearted cynic with all he's been through. Brain's unwavering kindness is a shining light in Dibble's grim career, reminding him that the world doesn't have to be so evil.

That was very long winded and yappy but atp that's the standard for my Sleepy Middle-of-the-Night Posts

Also I meant to reply to this earlier my bee I took a 3 hour long nap and forgot i was alive when I woke up

[payaso-gomi]

Got venture bros charms on the mind,,,, ive done a couple of designs now but i dislike most of them now so im starting over again-

I do have finished sticker designs, I'd like to promo those and then put it em on the store but for the keychains i'd need to plan it out a lot nore

I plan on doing a little interest check! I'm a bit indecisive on which designs of venture bros to do because we kind of see the same designs in merch but maybe people like that? We'd do an interest check to see which designs would be preferred and then open a preorder! However we would only be able to do us shipping :( at least until we can fully figure out international shipping

[theroseeatsribs]

silly comic

[trans-axolotl]

so hot out. fainted twice already today! chugged a gatorade. trying to do things but i think the rest of the day will be for lying on the floor. trying not to get lost in my brain but this place is full of ghosts and i am haunted. just going to hold. until i leave tomorrow night.

[mildcicada]

[n7viper]

this year it seems the seasonal depression isn't so much depression as it is near-constant anxiety (that then does tack on some depression of course), so I'm gonna try to offset at least some of it with positivity where I can. publicly, at that, since I normally come on to tumblr and post some negative ass post or drop into server vent channels to do it

I finished my 4th ever GM and survived lake of shadows, which feels pretty important to me :3 I'd really like to get conqueror this season after putting it off last season, and I feel like it's finally possible. my friends already started thinking about the best way to knock out the last things I need for it

I also have pretty much been a hunter-only guy for the last year and rarely play anything else. so on a whim, I decided to try duo-ing warlord's ruin earlier to test secant filaments (unsure how I feel about them) since my warlock skills are weak. we made it to the final encounter and only quit because I realised how late it was and that I need to work tomorrow

so I'm doing it :) I'm surviving :) it's not even January and I'm fighting for my goddamned life, but I'm gonna do it

[goodplace-janet]

should i go to the first downtown walk of the year this evening OR should i get a bunch of tasks out of the way today so i'm not overwhelmed with tasks on my day off tomorrow and end up wearing myself out before the first run group of the year tomorrow evening

[chronic-escapist]

i just can't do twitter and all this keeping up with everything shit anymore lol. i need to like go outside, read a book, go like actually have a face to face conversation with people. i can't like constantly keep up with whatever's going on, but like fomo is a bitch and i am fomo's bitch.

but also i don't really have any friends. i don't have to think about that if im constantly looking at whatever's going on in the world, whatever's going on in fandoms. but it's also fucking exhausting, but i feel like if i switch off from that stuff then i really am alone. like the only people i regularly interact with outside of my family is people online, as fucking sad as that is lol.

idk i just got used to someone else being around. ive always been fucking lonely, and then i wasn't for a bit and now i am again and it's you know, idk ive never done very well when im left to my own devices. ive never been very good at making friends, i always felt kinda different. but i think maybe most people do. and that's kinda where my love of fandoms and online communities comes from, there i finally had people to talk to about things or people and music that i love.

i mean you can look into the loneliness epidemic, as a society we’re more connected than we ever have been and yet we’re the loneliest, that’s fucking sad. and everything these days is pretty fucking sad, idk how to have an optimistic view on that. but if you have any answers to any of this shit lmk. sometimes i kinda wish i was religious, but also if there is a god maybe that’s even sadder.

[kalashtars]

venting in the tags yippeee

[usertoxicyaoi]

also! a very good desi gl movie that hit the bollywood mainstream that i would reeeeally rec is ek ladki ko dekha toh aisa laga (2019) available on netflix!

The Absence of India in Discussions on Queer Asian Media

So, yesterday @lurkingshan tagged me in an ask she got from @impala124 about the absence of India when we're talking about queer Asian media. I was intially just going to reblog it with my thought, but as it kept growing I figured it'd be best to just make my own post. Please read the ask linked above first so this makes sense.

*cracks knuckles* this is going to be the most fun I've had writing a post in ages. (For a little background, I'm a queer Indian, born and raised)

So, this is a very interesting question on a subject I've been rotating in my head for the past several months. There's a lot of different variables that contribute to the noticeable lack of discussion on Indian and South Asian queer media in general, so I'm just going to talk through the ones I've noticed a little randomly.

Talking about Asian media in general, it's well known that the mass popularity of kpop and anime has contributed massively to the increase in popularity of Asian media. If you've been in the Asian media fandom for any amount of time at all, you'll have noticed that media from Korea, Japan, and China gets by far the most attention from international audiences; all East Asian countries. There may be several reasons for this, but in particular, it's no secret that the fetishization of East Asians is a massive proponent in the popularity of media from these countries, while there's no such interest in South Asians. If we shift our focus to queer media specifically, media from these three countries is still extremely popular, with the addition of Thailand and the Philippines to some extent; both South East Asian countries. From what I've seen, there's very little international interest in media from South Asian countries (although, if we're talking about India specifically, I can't exactly say anything. Bollywood has not been good lately). If we talk about queer South Asian media, the scope of interest falls even further. If you'll notice, MyDramaList, one of the most commonly used websites for finding and tracking Asian shows only allows for East and South-East Asian shows. So, that's one reason—there's just not much international interest in Indian media in general. As Shan said in the initial post, it's partially because of a difference in priorities. Korea is notorious for using media to gain global standing, the role of the 'soft power' of Thai bls in the recent bills for equal marriage in Thailand has been widely discussed, the list goes on. Could racism also play a part in the massive gulf of interest in media from East Asian versus South Asian countries? Probably. But I'm not going to get into that too much.

Moving on, there's obviously a massive lack of queer media in India. I think this is greatly exacerbated by the fact that it's very hard to support the people making queer media beyond buying and/or streaming their work. The majority of people engaging with Indian queer media are queer Indians, and a lot of us have to do so in secret because of the society we live in. This means that creators that have to push through several obstacles to publish their work often receive little incentive to continue doing so because of the lack of engagement. Because of the lack of media, international fans are less likely to become interested in queer Indian media, and the cycle continues.

I will say though, contrary to what Shan said, I think Indian media, particularly anything that came out post 2019 might actually be on the easier end of the spectrum when it comes to access. This may simply be bias, so forgive me if I'm wrong here, but from what I've seen, a lot of queer Indian shows are in fact available on streaming sites, and at most you'd need a vpn to access them. I think the two main things that actually hold back queer Indian media from becoming more popular are a lack of noise and it's relatively lower quality.

The main way we find out about new shows in this space is through either word of mouth (well actually, post) or because we follow production houses known for producing media. Because of the sparse nature of both the media and the consumers, there's very few people who learn enough about the media to want to give it a shot. For example, there's a film on netflix called Badhaai Do (hindi for Congratulate Us) that I've been meaning to watch for a while. It centers around a lavender marriage and I've heard a lot of good things about it, so I was slightly surprised to see that most of the people on tumblr I interact with who have been engaging with queer media for far longer than me had never heard of it. There's also a, Indian BL from 2017 called Romil and Jugal that I've written about before here, and I would've never learned of it's existence if not for a friend hearing about it from another friend of hers.

Because there's so little queer indian media, it's natural that the quality leaves much to be desired. The main issue is, because the queer asian media market has become so saturated lately people are becoming a lot more selective with what they watch, and for good reason. This means that queer media from india is simply unable to grow and improve over time, leaving it stagnant. Back in 2016-2018, the overall dearth of queer media from Asia meant that a lot of people were willing to watch shows that were average or even worse. Thailand particularly seems to have benefitted from this, being able to grow and evolve its queer media due to the successes of shows like SOTUS, 2gehter, TharnType and more even recently, KinnPorsche. Queer Indian media will have a much, much harder time with this because of all of the factors I've talked about and more, meaning that it is much harder for queer media to evolve. Honestly, though I haven't been able to watch/read much queer media from India, the stuff I have seen is really quite decent, it's just that it tends to fail in comparison to some of the brilliant stuff we're seeing from other countries. A while a ago, I bought four queer books by Indian authors, and of the three I've read so far, I'd genuinely recommend two, albeit one with quite a few reservations (I'll be writing about them sometime in the future, just haven't found the time yet). While talking about this with @neuroticbookworm, she brought up the excellent point of how Indian media in general has just been of fairly poor quality lately. It seems to me that a lot of it is catered to more conservative audiences, which results in people like me becoming disillusioned with Indian media and simply moving onto things from other countries. It has been a long time since I've watched anything worthwhile come out of Bollywood. So, it becomes even harder for queer Indian shows to be found at all; a majority of their target audience has already forsaken Indian media as a lost cause.

So, those are a bunch of reasons because of which there's not a lot of discussion about queer Indian media in fandom spaces like Tumblr. Something else I'd like to point out is, it's very hard for queer shows in India to gain much traction whatsoever. Live television slots are ruled by the infamous Indian serials, the majority of the audience being people in their late thirties and older, particularly women. And while homophobia is just as prevalent amongst the youth of India as it is amongst older generations, younger people are far more likely to be engaging with queer media, in India at least. This means that it would be near impossible for queer shows to air on live television the way they do in countries like Thailand and Japan. The majority of Indian youth use global streaming services to watch shows, hence the greater concentration of queer shows on service platforms. (Romil and Jugal is something of a dark horse here—I don't believe it was ever aired, but it was produced by a producer who has a few decently popular serials under her belt and is available on an Indian steaming service—another reason I'm determined to research how tf this show ever came into existence) If we talk of movies, the industry is limited by the iron fist of Bollywood, another reason it's very hard for queer movies to be produced and why they're generally found on streaming sites.

There's just not a lot of people who have the balls it would take to make a queer Indian show/movie and push it to the Indian public beyond a streaming service. I mean, we're all seeing what's happening with the Love in The Big City drama right now, and believe me, public backlash in India would be the same, if not much worse. And if no one in India is watching these shows, why would anyone in any other part of the world? There's barely any public figures that would be willing to participate in such a project, so queer media stays underground. Currently, Karan Johar is the most popular—and one of the only—out celebrities in Bollywood, and, well, he's treated as something of a laughing stock by the public. He has one or two queer adjacent shows under his belt as a producer, but once again, they're barely known and available only on Netflix. There was a movie called Dostana in which he played a straight guy pretending to be gay but, well, that speaks for itself. And well, I can't exactly blame him for it, knowing how the Indian entertainment industry is.

To talk a little more about the specific comparison between India and Korea, I think you're fairly accurate in saying that the two countries seem to be roughly on par in terms of homophobia, although that's an extremely vague statement that's rather hard to either prove or disprove. While the difference in international attention towards Korean and Indian media is certainly a major component of the difference in discussion about the queer media from these countries, there's obviously other things that go into it as well. There's this video I watched some time ago on the progression of queer representation in K-dramas that's quite well researched. It's an hour and a half long, so in case you don't have the time to watch it (though I do recommend it), it basically talks about some of the dramas with queer rep that have aired on Korean television and their impact. While it's hard to gauge the level of impact of these shows on the availability of bls and gls in Korea, they certainly had an effect, if only telling the queer population of Korea that they are seen and heard. To my knowledge (although I may be mistaken), no such queer rep has ever aired on Indian television, meaning that there's nothing to push creators to put queer media out there. There have been old movies and shows that depict queerness, but none of them ever reached the sort of the scale where they may have some sort of impact on the industry. As I mentioned earlier, the widespread popularity of K-dramas (and k-pop) does make it easier for creators to make queer media since there's a much higher chance of the shows being successful thanks to the international audience. Bringing back Love In The Big City, the success of the book abroad and the high probability of the show being well received internationally is probably one of the reasons it was able to be produced amongst domestic backlash.

Now, I've been talking a lot about how it's difficult for queer Indian media to gain any sort of international recognition with domestic attention. However, it's not necessarily the case. Here's where I start rambling (I say, as if this post isn't verging on 2k words). It's been proven that the presence of the international market allows for greater creative freedom in spaces beyond television. The best example comes from Korea's very own 'soft power'; K-pop. There's a K-pop group called Dreamcatcher that debuted in 2017 with a rock sound and horror concept that was extremely rare in kpop at the time. They succeeded mainly by focusing most of their promotions to the foreign market, knowing that their concept would not be well liked in Korea. And they succeeded. Today, Dreamcatcher has a sizeable fandom and has even been growing in popularity in Korea, with the Korean public warming up to their genre and having influenced other girl groups to try out similar sounds. We've already talked about the lack of international attention for Indian media, but there's also the issue that the producers of queer Indian media aren't marketing to foreign audiences, which remain ignorant.

That's all I have, this is so long good lord. All in all, there's a bunch of factors that feed into each other creating a cycle which means that, unless there's a break somewhere, queer Indian media will remain unrecognized. I'm excited to see what other people have to say, because this is a topic close to my heart and I'd definitely enjoy seeing more discussions around it.

[sneppu]

Hello! Welcome to The Sneep Zone

You may call me Nagi

Main blog: @nagoo (I'm also on Bluesky! absolutely NO MINORS on the bluesky, no exceptions. nsfw art will be going there.)

@headmasterseverussnape and @sevsbestfriend are my beloveds

u better be able to tell fiction from reality i stg.

first and foremost: fuck jkr. i do not endorse her. i do not agree with her. we dont do that weird shit here.

we do different weird shit instead (bask in the decadence of The Sneep)

This sideblog is for me to post all my Snape art and Snape related ramblings! I am addicted to snape fics, and have found myself needing to make fanart for some of my favorite writers. such things will be posted here!

Severus Snape is my favorite guy!

I am known to refer to him as: Sneep, Snorp, Sneb, The Sneberous Sneb, The Snebulous One, He Who Sneeps In The Dark, SneepSnorp, Mother, Sneppu, El Sneepo, Snorpo, Snib, The Best One, The Only One That Matters, precious beloved sneep, Babygirl, etc.

rest assured, I am talking about Severus Snape every single time

I ship him with everyone! yes, even [insert character]. I always tag ships so block the tag or w/e if theres one you dont like.

I truly and genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, do not care even a little bit about The Grievances u may have about my ships or my sneeps. I cannot stress enough how much that is not my problem. If you're the type to throw a tantrum over ships and fictional content I'm just gonna block you tbh.

Dark/Fucky content WILL be found on this blog. Snape was practically MADE for that shit and I like to project my traumas onto him so like. ykno. I expect ppl with critical thinking on here ONLY.

in my ideal world, everyone would love and cherish Sneep. I tend to focus on marauder's era Snape

not to be rude, but i kind of only care about Snape really. the slytherins are cool and chill too (especially Lucius, Rosier, and Mulciber), but i mostly care about how they interact with and potentially fall in love with The Sneep. the marauders are rat bastards and i ship them with Snape in a "grovel eternally for the scraps of his affection" kind of way. I am not sorry.

dont expect nothing serious from me unless im waxing poetic about Snape or heavily projecting my own Tragic Past onto him tbh, and even then...

i have zero interest in any debates whatsoever. i cannot emphasize this enough, my thoughts are disjointed and nonsensical. The mere thought of having a serious debate about anything is stressful and unpleasant. I mean it as kindly as possible when I say it makes my eyes glaze over.

i am just here to draw Snape and shitpost about my favorite little guy.

i dont care that he's mean.

he shouldve been meaner, actually.

he's better than me and he's probably better than you too, because i wouldve absolutely lost it big boy style.

Art tag: #nagi nyart

Have you ever written a fanfic about Severus Snape? If so, please PLEASE read this post Here

this shouldnt even have to be said but please do not??? take me stuffs and completely re-upload it without credit or permission?? dont do that to anyone, actually? like idk basic courtesy towards artists or w/e. you know better, i know you do.

BUT that said.. using my stuff for your header or profile pic is fine with credit somewhere easily visible, like the profile description, or pinned post!

[germesthegenie]

Brief Respite At The End Of The World

Little doodle that I imagine takes place some time either during Arc 29 or after Arc 30. Wanted to do a quick drawing of this ship that for some reason lives rent free in my brain (Does it even have, like, a ship name? If there isn’t I think either Gauntlet or Handcuff could work for if I ever need to tag it but idk)

Way Too Much Yapping about a relationship between two tertiary characters below:

Part of the reason I like this ship is because these two were surprise favorites in the latter half of Worm, and I thought the mentions of them getting together in Arc 26 and 29 were cute. Though thinking a lot on the two characters (and probably a good bit of headcanon tbh), I started to appreciate it a lot more.

For Theo’s end of things, he’s always been burdened by expectations. His father tried to mold him into the next leader of the E88 from a young age, but Theo pushed back against that, instead wanting to be a hero. And then he got that, and a lot more than he asked for, accidentally becoming essentially a hero of prophecy thanks to Jack’s promise. Suddenly he wasn’t just a hero, he had to be *the* hero, live up to impossible expectations and save the world. And he was treated based on those expectations. His friendship with Weaver was pretty much based on the fact Taylor had to train him, try to make him the guy who could defeat Jack Slash. And then he failed, just barely missing the mark, and those expectations came crashing down around him. He distances himself from his team, and is mostly sulking in the background for the opening acts of Gold Morning, though one person does make an effort to reach out to him.

Aside from maybe Purity (who has her own set of issues), Ava is one of the few people in Theo’s life who likes and cares about who he is, not who he could be. And at his lowest point, where he feels he failed everyone, she’s trying to do what she can to help him recover and see he’s not a failure. And she does succeed eventually, as we see him up to fight a couple chapters later in the arc.

(Also it’s really funny and sweet that the meek girl from Arc 24 was able to almost convince Taylor “You can’t tell me what to do” Hebert to drop everything and talk to Golem, made a doodle of it a while back)

On Ava’s side of things, there’s admittedly not nearly as much to glean from just her characterization in the text alone. Like I said, she’s one of the few who appreciates Theo for who he is, regardless of expectations put on him by others. Their stories aren’t so different, only that her nemesis of sorts (Behemoth) was killed just as she was starting out. And after that fight she’s terrified, choosing not to attend the Khonsu fight. But Theo keeps pushing himself, trains knowing he’ll have to fight things that are arguably worse than the Endbringers when it comes to pain and fates worse than death. I like to think his inspiration is what led to the much more confident Cuff we see after the timeskip (though the Taylor Hebert Bootcamp probably also helped there). The main other thing we know is she had a previous boyfriend who she broke up with due to the pressures Weaver put the Chicago Wards under (which is probably a whole separate post to get into). So maybe their relationship is something that lets them both have a sense of normalcy in the insanity that is late Worm.

Or, you know, maybe I’m reading way too much into my two blorbos whose relationship gets like 5 lines of canon mention and 1 fanfic that I know of (shoutout again to Chartic, Off the Cuff is like a third of the reason I like this ship so much) and this is the best way I could put together why short of writing a fanfic myself (I might ngl but I do not have time atm)

[he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle]

POLL TAG- FIVE FAVORITE CHARACTERS

tagged by @wen-kexing-apologist.

Challenge: make a poll with five of your all time favorite characters, and then tag five people to do the same. See which character is everyone's favorite.

I am choosing to limit myself to BL characters because otherwise we'd have a Will Graham (an unhinged FBI profiler in Hannibal) vs Yu Ji Ho (the boundary-respecting pharmacist single dad in One Spring Night) vs Bart (the Universe-appointed holistic assassin in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency) vs Benjamin Sisko (the legendary single dad and captain of the space station in Star Trek Deep Space Nine) type of situation going on.

The Spiel - IN DEFENSE OF MY FAVES

Nozue (Old Fashion Cupcake)

Everyone's favorite boss with a heart of gold, this 39yo repressed hottie could flirt like a pro. My favorite thing about him is that he experienced utterly transformative character growth without having to experience severe pain (a breakup, a loved one's death, job loss, rejection, etc). He just looked at where he was standing and... stepped left.

Kakeru (I Cannot Reach You)

My boy learned his childhood bestie had a crush on him and did not flee in terror. Instead he faced it and asked for patience and examined his feelings and treated the potential change in their relationship as seriously as it deserved to be treated because the request came from someone he loved. Clearly, this is a boy who knows how to spell R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Wei Qian (Unknown)

He stepped up and raised his younger sibling when their druggie mother died, then added an adoptee into the mix. And he cared for them so profoundly that they had relatively normal childhoods despite being orphans. Yet this softie was tough enough to be a gang enforcer, and then smart enough to get a college degree, and then competent enough to co-create a successful startup. Like what kind of super hero bullshit is he on?

Karan (Cherry Magic, Thailand)

A competent and talented employee, and he's a total simp who looks great in or out of a suit? Sign me up for his tender loving care, y'all. I literally melted into a puddle of goo every time we saw a glimpse of his very earnest yet sweet fantasies. He just wants to take care of his boo!

Iwanaga (Love Is Better The Second Time Around)

I confess he's here mostly because he's eye candy. (Well that and recency bias, because if we're really talking about my favorite eye candy, it'd be Porsche from Kinnporsche without a second's hesitation.) But roll with me here, please? This man can fuck! And fuck so well he pissed off the love of his life! And all the men in town are dropping for him like flies. They get one hint of a taste of his juice and they're down bad! They're hooked. They're his. He is legendary. He is epic. He knows how to work his angles and his puppy dog eyes! And he's also talented and wealthy and considerate to boot.

***

Most of my mutuals have probably played already, but if you care to go again or want an excuse to play by different rules, please consider yourself tagged. Also I'm tagging some of you just in case you haven't done it yet because tbh I haven't been paying that close of attention to my dash this week: @absolutebl, @syrinth, @dean-you-assbutt-cas-loves-you, @lurkingshan, @bengiyo, @chickenstrangers, @thequeenofsastiel, @tiggymalvern, @spicyvampire, @my-rose-tinted-glasses, @wanderlust-in-my-soul, @twig-tea, @telomeke, @guzhu-furen, @gunsatthaphan, @lymeandcoconut, @itwoodbeprefect, @shortpplfedup

[r1poutmygvtz]

longgg ramble/vent/whatever's on my mind, idk man i'm tired and should probably schedule another therapy appointment soon

also this is kinda just all over the place, idk my thoughts are kinda scattered rn for some reason

(tws: mental health talk, sh, suicide attempts, od mention, ed, body issues, weed + alcohol talk, medicine misuse, childhood abuse, pet + family death mentions, possibly more idk if i missed one lmk and i'll tag it and put it up here)

my mental health right now is so fragile i don't understand, like obviously i know i'm depressed, i've been diagnosed for nearly two years now but i should've been much earlier, maybe that's why it got so bad, i don't even remember why i was diagnosed tbh, i think it was my first time back after like a year and a half maybe two years of not being in therapy and obviously a lot of shit happened, in that time that i went without therapy i tried to kms three times, had an alcoholic phase, and got addicted to weed

it was also sometime around my birthday i believe, which would make sense on why i got diagnosed, im always super depressed around my birthday, i mean i was expelled on my 13th, my great grandma died the day after my 14th and the day after that i tried to kms and that was the most traumatizing one and it took me over 2 years to be able to take the meds that i od'd on again without freaking out, i was literally so high i can't even remember my 15th, 4 days before my 16th i graduated (horrible for me, i had a panic attack everyday leading up to it for like 2 weeks straight) and 2 days after that my cat that i had since my 12th birthday died, so there's literally nothing enjoyable about my birthday and it feels more like a curse than anything

anyways, i've been the same since i was like 8 or 9, i was depressed and dreamt/wished i would die or get seriously hurt, maybe i just wanted my dad to care about me for once or maybe i did really just want to die, im not sure, i can't really remember my childhood, my therapist says i most likely have ptsd from the abuse which would explain the memory gaps and dpdr (depersonalization & derealization for those that don't know, the derealization is confirmed by my therapist btw just not the depersonalization but that's probably only because i didn't bring that up)

i think the most fucked up part is the fact it took me 16 years to find out the abuse was also physical, i spent the entire time before that thinking it was only verbal towards me and my siblings but i guess not, also apparently all the times me and my sister went to my neighbors/aunts house was because we were hiding from my dad, i thought we just went over to watch cartoons because we didn't have them at home, idk it was just weird for me to find out 7 years after it stopped, it doesn't really bother me all that much tbh my dad was already dead to me and i've been mostly no contact with him for almost 3 years now

also speaking of me as a kid, that's when a lot of my problems started, i was 9 almost 10 for the dpdr and 8 or 9 when i started hating my body, sh came in later tho i was like 10 or 11 when that started, i actually remember being like 9 and writing down everything i ate on a piece of paper, and when i was 10 i kept a notebook full of what i weighed in the morning and night and would see the difference in it, i also vividly remember asking my mom how many calories were in something from mcdonald's and she told me i was too young to be asking that so i just kinda stopped after that which obviously ended up coming back, i mean just look at my account

anyways yea i just hate how back and forth my mental health is, one day i could be doing great and think i'm amazing and unbelievably pretty and smart and ill try to better myself by getting sober and staying clean, then the next day i'll hate myself and consider going back to taking my meds throughout the day just so i was loopy and hardly able to process anything

tbh i do miss it a lot, i started back when i was heavily addicted to weed and would take my meds when i couldn't smoke, actually i used to take melatonin a bunch throughout the day so i could just pass out if anything happened that i didn't want to deal with (literally anything at all tbf) but that started to not work as well as i wanted so i turned to my meds, i'd take my nightly dose (50mg instead of the 20mg i was supposed to take) at like noon and would be loopy until it was time to actually take it, i didn't do it much tbh, my sisters bf caught on after the third or fourth time because i had just met his family for the first time that day and their dog tried to bite my face apparently and i didn't even react (didn't even realize it happened tbh) and he asked what was up with me and i told him bc i've known him forever, anyways yea he yelled at me to knock it off and went on about how it's gonna kill me if i kept doing it, so i did it like once after that and it's been months since i've done it again

it's kinda funny tho, those meds actually could've killed me regardless, i was supposed to take them three times a day but only really did once at school and i still got a bunch of the more serious side effects because i wasn't supposed to smoke while taking them but obv i did bc i was addicted, like breathing was hard, i nearly fainted all the time, my appetite was nonexistent, my heart was starting to mess up, like i literally thought i had a heart attack one day because the side effects were that bad and my mom and sister started looking up symptoms of POTS because that's what the side effects looked like, anyways i got taken off those months ago but i still have them somewhere and i'm fighting the urge to find and take them just so i have no appetite and so i'll sleep through the day

i think that's really all idk, there's more i was gonna say but i can't really remember plus this is already super long jfc, i don't expect anyone to actually read this, i just wanted it off my chest and i don't really trust talking to many people about this kinda stuff

[hermiola]

Writer's Meme, 2024 Edition

I've been tagged by @turquoisedata 💜

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How many works do you have on ao3?

14. 6 Good Omens + 8 MCU, but we have to go back to 2014 and 2016 for those. I also used to publish on an Italian fanfiction archive where I have 70 more fics (I went back to check and count them after approximately two thousand years and HOLY SHIT, I didn't remember them being so many! My first fic is more than 20 years old WTF).

What’s your total word count?

150.000 words on AO3. But I'm guessing it's waaay higher than that (the Italian archive doesn't show the word count 🥲).

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

My GO fics have the most kudos (given the popularity of the fandom + the fact that they're written in English and not in Italian). I have 6, so the top 5 is basically all of them:

Take a Little Love From Me (Pretty Woman AU)

Final Breakthrough (Now!) (Post-Season 2 Fix-It)

Crazy Little Thing (Called Love) (Non-S2-complying silliness)

When Hell Freezes Over (Human AU with magician!Crowley and critic!Aziraphale)

Let There Be Rock (First meeting after 1967)

Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

I do! I don't get that many, so it's not overwhelming, and I just like to respond. As I said somewhere else, my experience in the GO fandom has been mostly a solitary one (recently not so much though!) so I just like to interact whenever I can.

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

I'm going to consider only the GO ones because I feel like the others have been written by another me entirely (also I'm not sure I even remember them).

So it's definitely Let There Be Rock.

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

I'd say all of them, but Take a Little Love From has a proper epilogue and everything. I guess their happiness has more space there than elsewhere.

Do you write crossovers?

I have in the past, but not anymore.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not that I know of.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Not really. I LOOOOVE reading smut (especially in those chonky slow burn fics), but I can't bring myself to write explicit smut for some reason. I love describing the tension and the heat of the moment (I love UST so much I'm going to marry it tbh - like nothing makes me happier/hornier than two people who want to fuck each other but can't for some reason - am I edging myself? IDK) but when it comes to my own writing I feel like spelling out the details just ruins the moment. I do think it's my ace showing in some way. But, anyway, I read the filthiest filth so this definitely doesn't apply to reading. And who knows, maybe one day I'll try! I'm not ruling anything out.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so?

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but I used to translate HP fics back in the day (from English to Italian). We're talking 20 years ago. And it's funny when you think about it, because I translate novels for work now 🤣

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, always back in the day with HP. I'm still friends IRL with the girl I wrote them with (we actually met because of HP) (this is as good a time as any to say FUCK YOU JKR).

What's your all-time favourite ship?

This depends on the hyper-fixation of the moment. I cannot multitask with my OTPs. If I get obsessed with a new one, I retire the previous one. Like I could split my life into different time periods just based on my OTPs. Ron/Hermione has been my personality for YEARSSSS, but now I can barely think about HP without cringing. Another BIG ONE was Clint/Natasha from the MCU (which explains my look here on Tumblr), but the MCU as a whole has gone a bit stale for me (with few exceptions). And now it's all about Crowley/Aziraphale - it's so bad I had to unretire from fanfiction writing after almost 10 years LOL.

(I like many other ships but not to the point of *obsession*).

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

The only one I can think of is a Clintasha Actors AU, but I don't think I have it anymore, and I wouldn't finish it even if I had.

What are your writing strengths?

Dialogues and banter are my favourite things to write, and I think it shows.

What are your writing weaknesses?

English is not my first language, so my writing lacks variety I think. I feel like I have always the same phrases stuck in my head, so it's probably kind of repetitive, especially when compared to some of the fics I read. (But when I started writing my first GO fic in English I wasn't even sure I could *actually* do it, so I'm proud of myself either way!).

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I think it's okay! I personally would ask a native speaker to help me (if possible) instead of going the Google Translate route. Being Italian and watching/reading almost exclusively in English I know how silly it sounds when the characters start speaking your language and they're saying nonsense (but no harm done even in this case, imo, especially in fanfics. In movies, though, it's just lazy!).

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

HP, back in 2004 (welp).

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

None, thankfully. If I'm writing fanfic it means I'm in the late stage of hyperfixation and I don't wish that on myself if I can help it. Like I used to read 50+ books a year before GO S2. It's bad!!!

What's your favourite fic you've written?

Take a Little Love From Me mainly because it's the one I've spent more time with.

Tagging some people if they feel like doing it (but no pressure at all!): @beerok23 - @sabotage-on-mercury - @gaiaseyes451 - @leviosally

[hippolotamus]

You wanna talk fic?

tagged by lovely @spotsandsocks (rescuer of wayward bees) @inell @tizniz @kitteneddiediaz thank you 💞

1. How many WIPs do you have currently?

*laughs in Distracted Author while shoving a bunch of docs under a rug that now looks like it's hiding a body* I'm going to try sticking to the ones I'm "serious" about, but... yeah, take a seat, friends

watch my shattered edges glisten, with my heart in my lap (Twylexis), you can plan for a change in the weather and time, all my days i'll know your face, Bi Buck, home is where you love me (Twylexis), lights camera bitch smile, if this love is pain sequel, come close (let me be home), you're where I wanna go, run to the water, the darkest fairytale, a new religion, Buddie kid date fic, this is the part (OG work)

so let's see that's 1, 2... (runs out of fingers (fuck!)) 15! (not nearly as bad as I thought actually)

2. Which one are you finding the hardest to finish? Why do you think that is?

Other than all of them? I would say home is where you love me because it's for someone and I'm probably putting a lot of pressure on myself that doesn't need to be there.

3. What does it usually look like when inspiration strikes for you?

Usually it comes from a song I've been listening to. Like a single line (or several) hit just right and make me think of a certain scenario. So then I go to my docs and tippity tap like hell so I don't lose whatever I'm thinking about. Then inevitably James will ask me a ton of questions that help me hash out what comes next.

4. Do you curate playlists for each fic or is your process different?

Not on purpose. The only current WIP with an intentional playlist is watch my shattered edges glisten. Some of these have acquired quite a few songs that carry the right vibe so they wind up getting a playlist.

5. Do you go balls to the wall and write as you go or are you more organised?

Mostly balls to the walls tbh. Longer WIPs, especially those that cross multiple years/decades do get an outline if only so I remember what happened when 😅

Any one want to share? Not sure who’s actively writing right now so if you do please tag me

np tagging @actuallyitsellie @a-noble-dragon @diazheartsbuckley @dangerpronebuddie @saybiwithme

mi amor @bidisasterevankinard @theotherbuckley @diazsdimples @daffi-990 @stereopticons

@your-catfish-friend @thekristen999 @filet-o-feelings @wikiangela @steadfastsaturnsrings

@jesuisici33 @rmd-writes @dr-shortsighted-owl @eddiebabygirldiaz @elvensorceress

@bi-buckrights @lemonzestywrites @monsterrae1 @slightlyobsessedwitheverything @the-likesofus

@thewolvesof1998 @wildlife4life @welcometololaland @blackandwhiteandrose and anyone else who wants to 😘