#I wish more people talked about John's mental health issues lmao

[fablexdreams]

Do yall think that John was hurt and jealous when he found out that Dutch and Hosea went fishing with Arthur at the start of chapter 3 but didn't bring him? Idk, the mission just felt...wrong without him, y'know? Maybe I'm projecting, but I'd feel so left out and alone if I was John lmao. Everyone always thinks and says that John is Dutch's favorite, that he's the 'golden boy', but he is left out of things and pushed aside an awful lot for being so golden. Even with the random stories we get about the 'old days' from the gang sometimes, it hardly ever feels like John has any of them. John has always given me lonely vibes, and i know a lot of people argue that its just his lone wolf personality, but I can't help but wonder if it's by choice or not. If that's how John wanted it to be, or if it was just what he had always known. I just wish we could have gotten more moments of Dutch, Hosea, Arthur, and John all together. It all started, and ended, with them after all.

[space-blue]

🤍🍭🤲

🤍what's one fic of yours you think people didn't "get"?

I don't have a fic I feel people didn't get. I've had comments that completely missed the mark on what I was doing, the characterisation I was going for, etc. But it's rare. It happens most often on my biggest fic, Fathers and Daughters. I don't think there's an issue with either the fic or the readers. It's simply that when you have a story with 130k hits, you're bound to get a few commenters who either don't gel with your style or truly don't 'get' it.

Interestingly the most blatant case of 'not getting it' always happened with people who were completely new to fandom and didn't understand the concept of AUs. I've had people argue with me with stuff that was so fucking dumb like 'Silco would never swear'.

My friend, they're trying to stick to a rating and they already have a child swearing once. Do you really want to argue with me in my comments about the crimelord from the undercity saying 'fucking' once? (yes, they did)

🍭why did you start writing?

Oh shit, you sure picked a funny one. Buckle up for some TMI.

I was on a working holiday visa to Australia, fairly depressed from having had to leave NZ against my better wishes, and I had to do some 'remote' work in order to earn the right for an extansion to my visa. I picked the wrong person. A batshit crazy lady in Grafton in horse training for races. She basically ran us (she had two people at the same time) like slaves. I was doing WAY more work than I should, entirely unpaid, and getting manipulated and gaslit into doing extra work as a photographer.

It was swelteringly hot. Most days I worked in a bikini and shorts, ankle deep in mud when it was raining, and the rain was basically good enough to be a shower. My own showers were often via garden hose. So many flies. You can see me here in front of the 'feed shed' prepping the wet meal.

As soon as you locked the doors to that container it'd be SWARMING with roaches. I was expected to go in there and spray every night. They'd fly everywhere… I was also supposed to lift the feed bags and sic the dogs on mice nest under them. And carry the 50kg bags on my back from the truck. And much the truck. And go everywhere with her. And babysit the awful kids. And spray for spiders. Killed so many redbacks, not even funny. Their dogs had a litter and we had problems (due to not feeding the bitch enough) that resulted in a ton of bacrking right outside of my flimsy little window. I would do all the physical labour and proceed to be totally unable to sleep.

It drove me to the brink of sanity. Like genuinely losing my shit. I grabbed a series and started reading the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. Highly repetitive Vampire smut. I think I read up to book 6 in a week? I can't express how mentally unwell I was lol

Oh, and I couldn't get away because I had like 50$ in my bank account.

So yeah, I spiralled and started writing, like stuff was swirling in my head and putting it down was a lifeline. I still have it… a 40 pages manuscript on shitty paper written in pencil about immortal being that live off of life-force and struggle to live alongside humans in a post apocalyptic world. It had ghouls and roof gardens. lmao.

Anyway, I eventually left (in crazy circumstances) to another horse trainer in Orange (haha).

There I lived on a mattress on the floor at the end of stables, making food on a camping stove. Ruined my mental health even more by reading The Collector by John Fowles. It was so bad, I tried to read The Exorcist as a Palate Cleanser.

I was mucking stables all day, listening to Benedict Cumberbatch reading Metamorphosis on repeat, buffing my already pretty OP shoulders… Here I am atop an enormous pile of horse shit.

So at that stage writing to myself just wasn't cutting it. Talking to horses wasn't fulfilling my basic human needs for social interactions… So I joined an oline scifi and fantasy forum. Someone suggested I join their monthly writing competition, where you were given a topic and had 1.5k words to write about it. I wrote my first one in a feverish haze that day. Then we voted on the best story, and gave each other concrit.

It was my first sserious Writer Serotonin injection. I've never looked back. I went back to civilisation (Melbourne), got a decent job, a shit room (typical East Coast gig), and I carried on writing monthly for… 7 years! Whenever I was in a bad spot it was a real life saver.

I think it's a lot to do with preventing negative thoughts from spiraling. I'm not looking at how shit MY life is, but instead this little witch is in supernatural beings jail and she has to lick the fucking walls to make a potion in that special hidden organ of her and the last ingredient is the blood of her favourite warden and---

You feel me? It's a great way to help regulate my own moods and feelings and explore ideas. I'll stop before I feel like I' m reinventing the wheel.

TL;DR : I started writing because my sanity was crumbling and my life depended on it.

🤲what do YOU get out of writing?

I think I've made my point there. Once I have a good story in mind, it practicaly begs to be written. But sometimes characters, original or not, are some of the best company you have in difficult times. And then people tell you how your story touched them and they're grateful to you, for playing with your little dolls? It's an insane thing. A communion with strangers, over something that comes right from your soggy little frog brain?

Fantastic!

[tea-at-221]

Ask: New in Fandom, S4 Confusion, Fan Creativity

@artist-in-space​

If there was a part 3 to this, I didn't get it hun! I'm sorry--I wish the ask system was easier/clearer/more reliable to navigate on both sides.

So, first! Please don't apologize. Share away. I appreciate it. :) I like getting messages--in fact, I wish I'd get them more.

Oh boy. Yeah...it's...oh, it's such a trip. It's so nice/validating, even now, to see newer fans come into the fandom and go...WHAT??? Wtf was that??? We were all knocked so horribly for a loop when S4 came out, most of us, whether Johnlockers or not. And especially for the TJLC group, who are quite used to being told that we're crazy for our perceptions of the show to begin with. So I don't know about other TJLCers (more on that in an extended post, linked below), but for me personally like...I feel like *anyone* should have watched S4 and known it was obvious insanity. But not everyone *did* have that reaction. So there's part of me now, all these years later, still going, "Like, should I have seen that any differently? If I say at this point that I still think it was NUTS and totally unrealistic, and continue to spout off mini-metas about EMP (extended mind palace), will anyone be interested in that or will I just come across as still being a problematic TJLCer? Because I used to always think Mofftiss had a "plan", and I want to think S4 was some screwball misdirection/not real, but I no longer have faith that Mofftiss do *anything* intentionally, sooo...the "c" is kinda missing for me at this point from "The JohnLock Conspiracy." It's more like, "The Twisted and Half-Intentional (Moffat) / Half-Subconscious-Learned-Internal-Homophobia-Nostalgia-I-Should-Really-Be-Self-Aware-Enough-Not-To-Perpetuate (Gatiss) Johnlock Queerbaiting Illusion." :\ Lmao. Sooo...THIHSLIHNRBSAENPJQI? Makes sense, yeah.

More on my personal take on being TJLC here. (As I was writing this, it sparked a lot of other things I wanted to post about, so that extended rant continues to this post lol. I’m wordy when I sit down to word, which isn’t too often because I just don’t have time, but I made some today.)

This post is LONG, so more is under the cut.

Anyway, you nailed it basically on the character assassinations. Like, where to even begin with that? Mofftiss started off the series apparently wanting to do something different and groundbreaking with the characters--to, as the put it, "get something right" (some unnamed thing) that apparently "everyone else had gotten wrong."

I guess they succeeded, if they think that what everyone else had gotten wrong was having John and Sherlock form a cohesive, supportive unit for each other. Some of the wrongs they did each other--particularly John to Sherlock--I mean. That scene in the morgue...like many other fans, I will never get over that. I tend to treat it as canon in my fics (AO3), I guess so that I can parse it and deal with it in my own way and make John apologize the way we never got in the series. But S4 feels to me like it left cracks 10,000 miles wide in that relationship. I think we were *meant* to feel just the opposite--that Sherlock and John came out the other side of S4 stronger together, but Mofftiss never seem to understand that people actually need to talk to each other and that needs to be shown on-screen for viewers to be able to feel the growth, and a sense of a satisfying arc/resolution. It can't be glossed over or implied just because they have run out of screen time or something. SO FRUSTRATING. Like do these writers understand anything about human psychology at all? How do you write something that is so simultaneously clever/loaded with subtext and parallels, and yet so clueless? They could teach a master class in that, they really could.

One thing a lot of people had issues with in S4 that I don't, however, was John's "affair." That man had been so massively underappreciated/swept aside/made to feel powerless in his relationships, and his wife SHOT HIS BEST FRIEND. Like??? Somehow his infidelity is the worst thing that's happened? I think not. I think it was an honest depiction of someone who has many reasons to feel dissatisfied/unfulfilled in their relationship. But there were depths to be plumbed with that that a season of 3 episodes just doesn't allow time for, and that I doubt Mofftiss are perceptive enough to do justice to.

SO long-winded. Man. My apologies!

But you're right. A lot of fans *didn't* survive that, metaphorically speaking. A lot of people rightfully felt hurt and betrayed and left the fandom. Because if Mofftiss ever did have some master plan, the time to implement it would have been a lot sooner. People aren't just going to sit around for years and years and years and years without answers. They'll lose faith that there ARE answers, and walk away. Some of them might come back later if they ever get it right, but a lot of people will have moved on to more fulfilling things, just like John was tempted to do (and that Mofftiss wrote John in that way shows that they're aware of how people lose interest, at least. They feel undervalued, unseen. But Mofftiss are immune to irony).

That so many of us had maintained hope for so long is a miracle, especially given the notoriously short attention-span of most audiences. This fandom was the perfect magnet for people, especially vulnerable LGBTQIA+ people, who were hoping for more from their shows and ships. We all thought there was some complex "wink-nudge" thing going on and that in the end the writers would stand by our side, especially since one of them is a gay man. And they encouraged that idea more than tried to dissuade us from it (and no, them saying “Sherlock and John aren’t getting together” wasn’t actually enough, because we thought they were being sly/not wanting to give the plot away). They thought we were engaging as fans and that was good and would make them money...but no one was looking out for the mental health of the younger viewers enough to advise Mofftiss on how to approach the obsessiveness that was going on in a diplomatic way. So fans kept hanging in waiting for the payoff...and instead of "wink-nudge", what really came out of it all was "wink-stab" and a distinct air of disgust aimed at Johnlockers/TJLCers by all and sundry.

Anyway, it IS sad how much writers and readers and fanart makers have become disheartened/disenchanted and walked away. I almost walked away myself after S4 because I was so heartbroken and angry that I didn't know if I could ever look at John and Sherlock again without being reminded of the pain and how foolish I felt for having faith in my perceptions. I couldn't even read fic for a while. But I *needed* this fandom. It filled a hole in me and nothing else was going to fill that. So I had to find a way to reclaim it, and I did that by deciding that all the positive things I felt about the show and the characters belong to me. It's my right to keep my feelings. I had to find a way to embrace my own telling of the stories (something we're so lucky to have AO3 for, because AO3 allows us to legally be able to do just that), and overcome the idea that canon is law. Their canon isn't even canon, anyway! Mofftiss are just writing fanfic like the rest of us. And doing a worse job of it.

So. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, I beg you--I beg all of us--if you're moved to create content for this fandom, do it!!! It all means everything to me and I will be SO disheartened if the day ever comes where this fandom is barren of new content. That would be so insanely lonely. We need *everyone’s* versions/depictions of these stories. The fun and light and life are in the creativity we're filled with when we're emotionally moved by something. Do it, and soak up the praise that comes along with it and let any negativity bounce off you. Do your thing, do you, and rest assured that if you are creating things you will doubtless touch people in ways you may never even see, but they appreciate it. I will appreciate it. More than I can say.

Thank you for messaging me, and enjoying my blog and the things I have to say. You are so sweet. I'm glad you're here and I hope you will stick around and create. Don't hold back on that blossoming, not in any area of your life. I promise that doubting yourself will never help you get where you deserve to be. <3 <3 <3

[teenagebeautyqueen]

[Image description: a young person holds a mobile phone with a blue case and a paper on the other. the paper has a drawing of an umbrella colored with the trans pride flag. we can only see their upper body. they are looking down and to the left of the image. they're smiling without showing their teeth, and look relaxed. they're wearing a black, loose hoodie and some shorts can be seen at the bottom of the picture. they're also using black nail polish. on the background there is a door and a star wars poster. the other image is a close up of the paper. end ID]

🌈ʜᴇ/ᴛʜᴇʏ🌈

happy trans day of visability to all my fellow trans*!! here is me and my project for peace's day... i personally love it. it's on spanish, but i'll translate it for y'all.

the text on the left says "cada persona que conoces está luchando una batalla de la que no sabes nada. sé amable. siempre", which is the translation of that quote that goes like "every person you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. be kind. always".

the one on the right says "¿qué sentido hay en pelear? ¿por qué insistimos en sabotearnos mutuamente? Todos caminamos por el mismo sendero embarrado, todos nos dirigimos al mismo final." its translation is something like "what's the point on fighting? why do we insist on sabotage each other? we all walk the same muddy path, we are all headed for the same end."

and above the umbrella there's words like "odio", "acoso", "ignorancia" & "discriminación", which mean "hatred", "harassment", "ignorance", and "discrimination".

yeah i'm very subtle.

i've decided to share my story with the world. but i got kinda carried away. it's not s fairy tale, so don't read it if you're sensitive to themes like bullying, mental health issues, and toxic people.

——————————————————————

it's been... one ride of a journey, to say the least. i've said a few times that i started to question my gender around summer. but that's not quite true.

growing up, i never was fond of... anything that i associated with femenine, really. this included, but wasn't limited to, any color that wasn't blue (pink and purple get a special mention, i despised them), flowers, clothes too loose or too tight, shorts if they weren't from some sport, etc. i think you get the idea.

this collided with me being afab (aka a girl for everyone including myself) & neurodivergent. i wanted nothing to do with those things. but society wanted me to love them.

5 yo me said she didn't like Monster High. 5 yo female classmate said i was a weirdo. 7 yo me loved football. 7 yo male classmate said i couldn't play because i was a girl. 9 yo me hyperfixated on minecraft. 9 yo pretty much every classmate called me a geek.

so i stoped trying. for a while, i loved pink, wanted to have rapunzel's hair, watched disney channel, etc. but i already was the weirdo. i remember being three and friends with all of them. i remember playful fights for the toy rocket and reading books with the only other boy who could read, to ourselves, each other, and the whole class. but people grow up, and they change. so yeah, i was bullied. always the last one to be chosen, left alone on the bus rides, on my own at the playground.

and you'll be thinking "that sucks, but pao, how is it related to you being trans?"

you'll see, i didn't have many friends. i was kinda alone until i turned 7. then two new kids came to my class. let's call them eva and john. i made friends with them asap. i loved them so much!! they were my first friends since kindergarden. so i allowed myself to let go. i was already hated by most of my peers. why wouldn't i be myself with those who didn't despise me? (i was 7 when i thought this. 7 years old, and i thought that out of 20 people, 18 hated me. and then people wonder why i've got self-steem issues lmao. i'm tryna make the point that bullying in primary school isn't just some mean kids calling you names. i'm currently in high school and it still has its mark on me. but that's for another moment.)

so yeah. i went "wild". eva has adhd too (noice, right? i mean she has her diagnosis becaise she's primarly hyperactive, while i'm primarly inattentive, but we understood each other way quickier than with neurotypicals– even if i didn't know why yet), and john was kinda shy & corpulent (he wasn't fat, but he didn't look slim either), just like me. so we became friends. and i slowly opened up a little, while still playing my role of "the freak kid". i knew i was seen as that AND as the smart kid. double pressure, double bullying. but i had my small circle. it evolved until my current friend group, in which, god bless, there's a trans girl!! (eva's still on it– she's my best friend and i would die for her, no doubts. john can go fuck himself, the goddamned fascist).

but it ain't that easy. it never is. i'm 14 and afab. shit happens. y'all get it.

my first period happened while i was on a school trip (bad), on a hotel with no pads avaliable (very bad), on another country so i couldn't call my mum unless i had wifi because politics & stuff– and i did not have wifi (really bad). cue a lot of dysphoria (even if i didn't know it was that) + not being able to contact anyone. add the fact that i was the second one to have it, and it was some kind of taboo– it meant the other girls wouldn't leave me alone, and the result is clear: one of my worst panic attacks ever, on a tiny bathroom of some shitty hotel room.

from there it went downhill. my body started to become femenine, and the football short didn't make my hips smaller. my face, my oh so alarged face, suddenly became rounder. puberty hit me not only physically, but emotionally. and if that wasn't enough, we, as a class, were entering what's called here "the turkey age", a.k.a. teenagerhood, where looks become even more important. it didn't take long until i hated my body.

[WARNING: from here, this gets hard. mentions of eating disorders, depressive episodes/thoughts, toxic enviroments, homophobia/transphobia (both internalized and external), anxiety attacks, and thoughts of self-harm]

i thought "it's big, it shouldn't be big, it's fat. besides i don't want it to grow so fast. i want to make it stop growing. how? well, i grow up by eating. no eating=no growing".

yeah. eating disorder. when i think about it, i want to laugh. because it only took a few comments and "jokes" for me to be so angry at myself when i should be mad with them. i'm big. always have been, very likely always will. i've been told that i could make a very good rugby player. i probably would. i shared my cantine table with people (😔). and they wouldn't shut up. "[deadname], the rest wants to eat too!", "look at [deadname], she's gonna eat it all!". things like that. i stoped eating. i would pick up the smallest amount of food i could, even if my stomach was begging me to please eat something. eventually, my mum found out. and she helped me to grow out of it. i sometimes releapse, but never for that long. because i went on a whole year like that. and it sucked.

so, last year. socially anxious neurodivergent girl with several doubts on her sexuality gets to eight grade.

i play basketball. since i was little. i used to enjoy it a lot. we weren't a team– we were a family. loved 'em so much, 1000/10 one of the best things of my life. BOOM. now you're old enough & good enough to be on the "good" team. in the good time there's the cool kids. i am not a cool kid. oops. i was left behind, they all laughed at my back, no one cared about me (except one girl, but she was in the group and was scared to act until almost the end of the year. love her for that tho). i felt like shit. i was too scared to go to train. the sight of a ball scared me, because i couldn't help but think everyone was talking shit about me. we went to a national championship and when they went out to the city, they didn't tell me, then sent a pic of them having fun to the groupchat & delated it saying "oops it was for the other group". i had several breakdowns on my room that night. it was such a bad experience i can't even hear the name of the city without tearing up.

not to count that a new girl decided to make my life a living hell. now i know how to deal with her, but then i didn't, and i ended up curled up on the bathroom floor crying.

all while i discovered my own identity. i was so scared of being non-straight i hated myself for it.

it was a tough year and there were times where i would wish i'd never existed. it was too much for me to deal with, and i was just miserable. but i got out of it. remember the trans girl i mentioned? she's closeted, and she told me just this october. but even before that, she was my friend. she bought a new life to it all, a fresh one. i owe her a lot, including accepting myself as i am.

she is here, despite everything.

i am here, despite everything.

you are all here, despite everything.

some of us aren't here. they are the ones we remember. each one of us has our history. i shared mine with you all. it is not an easy road. you know that. it's hard, and it's tough, and it's difficult, and it's unfair.

but we are here, despite everything. the ones who made it, the ones who didn't, the ones who are halfway through it, and the ones who are to come.

we are here. we are trans. and we won't be erased.