#and also less comparing myself to other people and especially people younger than me who have amazing art it's BAD for you

[chalkrub]

mockley time it's mockley time will you have some mockleys of mine

[ame-to-ame]

Rereading ayaka is in love with Hiroko senpai!!! Last time I read it I don't think it was finished/I didn't finish it but ack. Now I also want to be in love 😭😭😭

[bumblebeesfromvenus]

Hey I was a fan of your stuff but literally only realised that you’re a minor writing smut. Not gonna shame you for it or anything since that’s your choice but as a grown adult myself it does make me uncomfortable interacting with a minor who is posting 18+ content and I didn’t realise before since it wasn’t as obvious with there being so much in your bio. Definitely think it would be better if you made it more obvious on your blog at you are under 18 as it’s kinda uncomfortable for some adults read smut that is written by a minor. Not trying to be rude but this is more of a suggestion so others are more aware before choosing to interact with your content :)

Okay, first of all, thank you for being nice about it!! ✨️

But I would like to emphasize that I'm 17, not 12, and that I'm turning 18 in less than 3 months.

And quite frankly, I don't understand this whole argument from some adults.

I get it if we're talking about people under 16 or 15 but what difference do 3 months makes? Lmao

I definitely know people who've had sex at this age and even younger, so I don't quite get why me writing about sex is that big of a deal?

Some adults on here are just so nitpicky about this shit and that's annoying.

Because teenagers (and I'm saying teenagers and not minors because a minor is someone from the second they're born all the way to 18 and that's a big fucking difference that a lot of you want to ignore.) Know about sex. They know about porn.

You can still easily get access to porn online, which is way unhealthier than the smut I write.

Like is this about maturity??? Because I can assure you, absolutely fucking no one will be more mature the second they turn 18.

Is this about the legal side of it, like I don't get it. In a lot of countries the age of conset is under 18.

We literally learn about sex in school!!!

You're definitely not getting any brownie points for shit like this, if that's what you want.

A lot of y'all need to lose the superiority complex.

Besides, my smut is very tame compared to most of the stuff on here.

You need to humble yourself. Because you're not protecting minors, which you claim to do. I'd rather have them read smut than become addicted to porn.

Porn is not an accurate representation of sex at all, it's setting dangerous and unrealistic standards for performance, expectations and beauty standards. Especially for girls.

I'm not saying my smut is the holy grail, but it's better than porn. I write soft and loving intimacy, aftercare, and I have and always will mention stomach rolls, stretchmarks etc.

Also, my age is smack dab in the middle of my bio. It's been there since October last year. That's on you, my friend.

The fuck you think the 17 was for, huh??? 😭

And you're using aware like I write dead dove content or like I'm a fucking criminal or something.

The majority of my blog is NOT smut. All my NSFW works are marked on my masterlist.

I'm not a child, I'm aware of my decisions, and I'm a pissed that some adults can't get that in their fucking head.

Oh yeah, and guess what??

Teenagers get horny!!!

God forbid we go through a normal human experience.

Or would you rather I sleep around and be at the risk of catching an STD and getting pregnant???

Because I could very well be doing that instead, but I'm not.

I obviously don't know if you're American, but I'm not. I'm European, and teenagers here are very different. They're more mature, grown up, and independent.

Please get over yourself, I'm not 12 and laugh every time someone says Penis or Vagina.

Jesus fucking christ.

[cannellee]

how did you get so good at writing? i'm so deprived of Tokyo Rev content (not that there isn't alot but I read so much that I basically refresh AO3 and tumblrs tags every day to see if anything new has been posted), that i'm almost to the breaking point of a Thanos "fine i'll do it myself" and starting up writing again Is it just practice? Is it better to post cringey writing that isn't that good ;-; I think I fall into the trap of making any OC or y/n Mary Sue and some authors write with such prose and emotion that i'm like dang how can I write like that love your work!!!! always re-reading <3

first of all thank you so much for all of your kind messages!!! you're literally so sweet😭

(I really tried to be useful and concise, I hope it's not too messy/long : i'm definitely not a real author so my tips might be really bad and specific too😭)

I actually started writing tokyorev abo content precisely because of that reason, I felt like I read everything about it and I couldn't find anything more, especially one with scenarios I actually like. this is why I started my blog!

I honestly wasn't so sure about opening my own blog on tumblr. of course you're bound to compare your work to other authors out there who are definitely wayyy better at writing than you, which is why I hesitated a lot.

but! I already had an account on wattpad where I posted fics, so I felt like my cringey era was behind me (it was easier for me to start here because i knew what my mistakes were when writing and what i struggled with. whereas, when i just started on wattpad, i really felt unsure if i was doing correctly + i was younger, so less sure of myself). but wattpad really helped me see what made my work cringey, what parts were unnecessary and stuff like that.

but what is so frustrating is how bad my writing is in english compared to how I'm able to write in my maternal language. like, when I read other posts and everything with better vocabulary, grammar, who know how to articulate sentences and words, you can tell it's something you can only achieve by being reallyyy comfortable with english. I'm not saying I struggle with english or anything, but the language barrier was one of my biggest doubts when I thought about starting posting fics here on tumblr.

also! when I write something and think it's cringey, I let it marinate for a few days and read it again. it's easier to judge my writing when I put some distance with it, then I correct my mistakes and stuff like that. but really, writing and writing is the only way you'll be able to improve, so it should really not stop you!

but in the end, I don't think anybody ever started writing fics and was automatically good at it. you really have to try and see what works and what doesn't. youre able to see what post gets more attention than the other and try and understand why : is it because of a character or the scenario was better or is it your writing ? feedbacks on your work really help actually, so don't be afraid to try even if youre not fully convinced and confident! I posted cringey stuff too and I still do sometimes😭 I know people do a wayy better job than me, but I really like to write so I don't let it stop me from posting.

and for the y/n character, I try to make her and her reactions as neutral as possible and make her do stuff anyone would do in those situations. but I honestly can't deny that I sometimes fall into those stereotypical y/n writing, which I actually enjoy☠️. but I really try to have her say normal stuff, not describe her too much and basically just think of her as the most basic girl you could meet (generic ahh traits : kind, sweet, bubbly, soft spoken...). some people hate that and some don't, I just write what I'm most comfortable with.

same, if you to start writing you should start by doing stuff and scenarios which you really like and inspire you. don't go and try to write something you know people will like, but rather something you're confident in writing because that's a character you like and know how to describe, and because you have so much ideas which would really fit him etc.

and what helped me are the headcanons with the lists. maybe you noticed, maybe you didn't, but I used to list stuff when I started posting. it's just easier to structure my ideas, to see them more clearly. writing huge paragraphs are actually more of a hardwork I think, because everything has to follow the precedent idea and it has to be comprehensible, linked to what you're gonna say next etc. if you list what you wanna say, you can talk about how a character's personality is like and then change the subject radically without having to think and care about the transitions and overall plan (of course if it's too out of pocket it looks weird, but I hope you understand what I mean)

and if you want to write stories and not do little headcanons, what I do when I'm stuck and don't know what to write is that I also sometimes only write a part I really like and leave the beginning (or any other part) for another time when I'll be more inspired. I really don't have any hierarchy when I'm trying to find ideas, I wait for them to come naturally. I don't know what else I could say, it's really messy lmao😭

I hope you found it useful! you definitely will find people who write way better than me and who can help and guide you better than that, with better tips... that was more like my experience on tumblr than anything else, but I hope it could help you!!

[kafus]

something that’s missing from a lot of discussion on GSC, both positive and negative, is the context in which those games released. and i say this as someone who has no nostalgia for GSC and did not play them until adulthood, and who was very unaware of gen 2’s existence as a young kid.

when GSC released, the only other mainline games were RGBY. “generations” weren’t… a concept yet. through digging around and talking to folk just slightly older than me, i’ve learned that players back then would sometimes call RBY “colors” or “chromatics” while GSC would be “minerals” or “metallics” or other such variants. they were not calling it “gen 2.”

this is important because pokemon discourse and critique is always very echo chamber-y - we all, myself included, tend to judge pokemon game quality based on how they compare to other pokemon games, instead of the lens of general game design. so people judge gen 2 based on their preconceived notion of what a new pokemon generation is supposed to be, when generations weren’t even a thing and GSC was more intended to be a… RBY expansion pass? for lack of a better term.

stadium 2 being left out of the conversation is also immensely frustrating for me, though to some extent, i get it. the only ways to play stadium 2 properly with the transfer pak are to own a ton of old and increasingly expensive hardware that have dying batteries you have to replace, or to wrangle together an N64 emulator with transfer pak support. i understand that both options are not feasible for a lot of people for a variety of reasons. and it’s not like nintendo does a good job of reminding you about the stadium games properly either - the virtual console releases of RGBY/GSC on 3DS came without them, and the stadium releases on switch without RGBY/GSC, literally putting out a shell of a video game and forever burning the legacy of the stadium games as half finished rental gauntlets with minigames into younger generations’ minds instead of postgame & difficulty proto-DLC before the likes of the emerald battle frontier could fit on gameboy cartridges.

and of course none of us can teleport back to the 90s/early 2000s if we weren’t there for that, or in my case, a bit too young to get it - especially increasingly younger generations who are only going to hear discussion on johto through poketubers and have much less conception of what that era of time looked like. but i think knowing about that time at least a little bit is crucial in understanding GSC as games.

i’m not sure what the point of this post is, i just really love johto and the modern conversation about games this important to me is frankly demoralizing, and i wish i could convey what i love about them without hearing the same parroted talking points that don’t even hold up. constantly. all the time.

[starfruitgirlie]

guide for highschool to not suck

HEY GAMERS! I catch myself a lot looking at people younger than be and being annoyed or thinking "wow I know so much more than you" but when I was the age they were at I desperately wanted to be older and I wanted to know what I was doing and I sucked at life. Im 17 so I can only give life advice up to that point. I was absolute garbo at age 13-15. I was cringe, fowl, thought I knew everything, was experimenting with my identity and style, had acne, had access to the internet when I probably shouldn't have, the works. Instead of looking down on a reflection of myself I want to give advice on how to make things a bit better. Unfortunately, you can't avoid being cringe. However I was mentally ill and had adhd, and there are things you can do to make those things less sucky. (disclaimer I am not a professional and you should always reach out to a trusted adult or a therapist for help and not the internet!)

So highschool sucks it's awful it's absolute doodoo. I changed school districts so I went into my freshman year not knowing ANYBODY. I was also a cringe gender non-conforming queer kid with a bad haircut and bad fashion sense so I know what it's like to be picked on. so this is for anybody already in highschool or going into it or just wants to know what to prepare for.

I can't sugarcoat it highschool is so bad. It's not all bad, you can have nice experiences but ultimately it sucks because when your entire social atmosphere is insecure teenagers everything sucks. I just completed my junior year and I feel like I have made a lot of realizations just in that year alone. I'm not a senior yet so I'm just dipping my toe into college prep stuff so I am no where qualified for that so if that's what you want go somewhere else and if you get good advice tell me I need it. so this is starfruit's guide on how to NOT SUCK HIGHSCHOOL! (from someone with no friends and is lazy)

no one is looking at you as much as you think they are. I don't mean this as a "you're full of yourself" statement, it's an anxiety thing I still deal with. Embarrassing incidents are going to happen unfortunately. You forget deodorant, you have your period, you trip in the hallway, your pants rip, all the sucky stuff. There are going to be some assholes who laugh and make you feel bad but most people are going to understand. everyone knows what it is like to feel embarrassed and it won't be a disney-channel bully type scene if you mess up. even though social media doesn't show it, people make embarrassing mistakes and have accidents. It took some time, but I had to learn to laugh at myself and not take myself as as seriously. I don't spend my whole day hyperfocusing on other people or going out of my way to laugh at someone. It can be tough especially if you're as shy as I am but there will always be kind people who will offer help in situations like that. As you grow things will be less embarrassing. i am not at the point where that feeling is completely gone but I yearn for the day.

I was in my first AP class this year and at first I was super super self-conscious. I am a good student, but the people in that class made me feel stupid sometimes. They all took like 6 ap classes when that was my first one. reality check!! it doesn't matter. your future employer isn't going to go "So did you take 6 ap classes at once and get 5s on all of them?". highschool doesn't matter as much as you feel like it does. don't get me wrong, still try but be kinder to yourself. Don't compare your grades to somebody else's. A big part of this too is not asking people for what they got on a test even if you think they got lower. It's not done out of malicious intent, but I know for a fact a lot of good students ask other people for their scores to feel better about their own when someone answers a lower grade. When people ask I say "I don't tell people my grades, it's just a personal thing I guess" and people will move on. A big thing for juniors is the ACT. the day those scores came out it was awful. I had to delete instagram for a week when someone I knew posted their super-good score just to brag. everyone was asking what I got and everyone was comparing scores. "Oh I got a 34" and when somebody said "28" I heard "that's not that bad!". that is a phrase I hate. "it's not that bad!" SHUT UP!!! You can avoid this by not telling anyone your scores. the only people who know my act score are me, my therapist, and my parents. and I intend to keep it that way forever. I'm grateful that a lot of aspects of school come easy to me but this is applicable for students at any level. my grades don't make me any better of a person. What is important is to try your best and only compare yourself to yourself. if a C is your best effort, that's good! You tried and you put in hard work. school is not a true judgment of how smart you are what matters is you are trying and learning.

don't be on snapchat. my school used it for a long time to spread nudes and take pictures of alt people and make fun of them. and to also send threats. "what's yo snap" is not flirting. it makes me want to hit you with a metal bar. I can't really explain all that much but I just hate snap chat and I will never use it.

don't spread information you aren't sure is true. big and small highschools both can start rumors that get out of control. a kid who I never knew was talked about so much and the rumors kept spiraling I have no idea what is or isn't true. it's also just not that fun to talk about?? I mean there is a certain enjoyment in gossip but if you're just making fun of someone behind their back it's not cool and even if you're laughing in the moment that's not healthy behavior. and if your friends shun you for not wanting to do that and being uptight, get new friends.

ask questions. if you are confused in class, ask. even if it's a dumb question. I admit I have thought before "are you dumb" when someone asked a question but at the end of the day I'm just a hater and that person benefitted from hearing an answer and learned. if you can, email your teachers and go in during your study halls or lunch hour for individual help. I never would have passed ap calc without all the days I spent in my teacher's classroom during my lunch period.

set boundaries with your friends. you can still show your friend you want to talk to them and value their friendship and express you want to listen in class. also you're just annoying if you talk the whole time. that's the hater in me coming out I'm sorry.

stop following made-up social media teen rules you hate. that makes me sound old when I say that but I can't describe it any other way. an example of this is instead of asking for someone's snap, just say "hi I really like you do you want to go on a date and can I get your phone number?". have real human interactions. Just because Brady Smith and his friends always sit at that table at lunch doesn't mean you can't sit there if you get there first. just because it's "cringe" doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Be polite. shake someone's hand instead of dapping them up or whatever the hell. high five unironically. read a book in class instead of being on your phone. it doesn't mean you're trying to be quirky. it just means you want to read a book and people who make fun of you for reading probably should be the ones reading.

which leads me to: read more books. doesn't have to be something profound like a classic. it can be shitty YA vampire love triangle. it can be the series you loved in middle school about dragons. it can be something super long and profound. it can be non-fiction, it can be manga, it can be whatever!!!!! just read!!! just because someone to your left is reading jane austen doesn't mean you can't read warrior cats.

this might be more of an american thing but participate in dress-up days. this helped me overcome a lot of my social anxiety. even if no one else is doing it, I am going to dress like a cowboy because god damn it, it is dress like a cowboy day. i guarantee nobody cares. There's this kid at my school that regularly shows up in different costumes and I think its awesome and I also don't care. It could be some random tuesday and I could see Goku in the hallway and go "That's weird" and go about my day. Dress like Goku. End up on the school snapchat story with popular kids putting comments over it with a skull emoji. be free. The same kid also dressed up accordingly for holidays. Kids like that make you smile and you remember them fondly. my sister had a classmate who brought a toy thor's hammer to school everyday. i guarantee people made fun of him but thats awesome dude. nobody cares and if they do they need to get their priorities checked.

do your work in class so you don't have to do it at home. it saves time and you have more time to be lazy. if you have to work at home make sure to keep a planner. It's not cringe you're just being responsible. write it down or it will be gone from your brain in an instant and it will be 3 am and you will be writing a last minute research paper and not remember how to do citations.

make accommodations for yourself at school. for me this looks like dressing comfortably even tho I want to be stylish. It's also always bringing my headphones to school to have music on so I can focus. There's no reason to make school hard for yourself, bring things you might need, you don't need to raw dawg the day.

if you can, utilize time before school and after school to get help. I know so many people are busy so this might be tough but most schools will have resources like saturday school or they open early and have teachers who come in to tutor. at the end of the day though, prioritize you over your grades. You should still try but if you need the day to play video games and sleep, play video games and sleep.

to sum it up: stop comparing yourself to other people, compare yourself to you. only you know what you've been through and your level of growth. it's easier to be a happy teen when you arent worried what other people think. I hope this was useful!!!! thank you for reading if anyone made it this far.

[al-the-remix]

I’m sorry what?? You’ve had fic written about you?? Are you famous? How did I not know this?

lol no and that's the part that's actually embarrassing, not the actual fic... It's really not that interesting but if you're curious i'll explain btc

I don't know if you remember 2010-2016 ish tumblr pre porn ban fandom, but it was a slightly different flavour than it was now. Maybe it was just the circles I spent time in, but I feel like that was before tumblr as a whole had learn its lesson BNF wise. This was post the big move of fan artists over from Deviant Art and there was also still a large number of "famous" cosplayers that were most notable for being hot and posting suggestive photos of themselves on the internet. (Which don't get me wrong I'm all for, I was a big fan of having random dicks and tits pop up on my feed without instantly getting community labeled) but this was also the hight of the "tumblr girl/boy aesthetic" which was basically just repackaging heroin chic to insecure, impressionable teenagers, which for reasons beyond me people love to romanticize now. "Oh remember 2011 tumblr, it was so great", what I remember is like 2/3rds of the platform mainlining glamorized anorexia and self harm content non stop, so like agree to disagree... But that's beyond the point, which is: people were super primed to bestow ""celebrity"" on people who didn't deserve it at all, and being in a group of like seven relatively attractive queer people who posted way too much of their personal lives on the internet and were overly familiar with each-other on main was enough to end up with fan fiction written about you.

I'm still good friends with most of these people, and we all agree that in retrospect this was a cringy period in our lives that was a result of our own behaviour not any one else, because like what I wouldn't give to be able to nuke all reposted aesthetic pictures of myself on pinterest, lmao.

But literally the only reason I ever invoke this cursed knowledge is when I think it could be used as like a moral tale to help prop up an opinion I feel very strongly about now, which first and foremost will always be:

there is no such thing as tumblr famous, especially within fandom, the way the site functions works directly against it and that's a good thing. Anyone who tries to gain clout within a fandom and either consciously or subconsciously turns their entire goal of participating in fandom into "making an impact" or becoming a "prominent figure in the fandom" should be avoided at all costs. If they're unsuccessful in garnering attention they'll become bitter, unbearable, and often cruel, if they do end up getting that attention they'll turn into the most annoying person you'll ever have the misfortune of interacting with and will most likely end up trying to dictate how everyone in the fandom should interact with the cannon material. (i've seen both examples play out more than once much to my own and everyone around them's suffering).

RPF... you don't have to like it, you can personal qualms with the ethics of it, it can very simply make you uncomfortable and you don't want to participate in it, all of those reasons are valid and there are interesting conversations to be had there, but I would say about 95% of the time when I come across people arguing about it has less to do with personal issues, and more to do with this sort of overcorrecting when it comes to sex, attraction, and intimacy we see now a days where especially younger people think that if you so much as find someone attractive you're violating...or god forbid...fetishizing them in some way. And there's a ton I could say on that topic, but I'll try and keep this to the point. Obviously what I experienced is like a speck of sand compared to beaches that are some RPF fandoms, and it likely affected me less because I am queer and I was actually sleeping with a number of those people that I was being "shipped" with etc.--though I'd still argue that whether you're queer or sleeping with that person, being written about by strangers on the internet is an odd experience-- But that's really all it is: odd. The same time all of this was going down I had someone who I hadn't seen in a very long time beginning to stalk me. And like the RPF half of this story, I'm using that word in the lightest of terms. This wasn't a man I was physically intimidated by (I was taller and stronger than him), I was lucky enough to be in the process of moving to a different province so unless I went back to my family home he didn't have physical access to me, and I never had to get the authorities involved. But despite all that I was much more affected by him hanging around outside my house, following me, leaving me weird handwriten letters and presents, insisting that we had some sort of connection even though this is someone I hadn't seen or spoken to in 6+ years, then I ever did being perceived by people on the internet. It made me feel paranoid, physically revolted, and worst of all no one around me took it seriously so I didn't have anyone to literally have my back. So after like four years of microdosing having fanfiction written about me and also having someone physically in my space that I didn't wish to be there, I can confidently say the latter is far worse. You're not breaching anyone's (agency?? idk i'm blanking on the word I want) by thinking or writing or drawing them, it's when you begin to try and physically breach that person's personal space, or because we live in the age of social media, their online bubble and directly engage them, for fandom reasons or because you wrongly believe that you and them have some sort of connection, that things begin to get out of hand. To me the whole issue really comes down to the breaking of the 4th wall, which I'll admit is a super delicate balance and becomes harder to maintain the larger the fandom grows. I think you can see some of the most negative consequences of this when it comes to some of the worst behaviour exhibited by Kpop fandoms, just because they're so large, and the management companies play into it feeding the fire, but at the same time we have talk show hosts getting a kick out of showing off character fan art and fanfiction to actors on air... so wether you're engaging with the "actor" or the "character" in your art and fic there are still ways for that forth wall to be breached, and trying to moralize it is a looser's game. You might as well not engage in fan fic at all, which some people will argue, but I obviously don't agree with.

TL;DR life is short, stalking people is bad, and if you want to write fanfiction about your favourite singer no one should be able to stop you, but I highly discourage emailing it to them.

This is why I still don't use my main blog, because even though I nuked all that content in like 2017 and rebranded as a anime/manga/comics blog, it keeps ratcheting up non-porn bot followers and I've discovered I have much more fun on the internet with fewer eyes on me (another good reason to use the block button liberally, lol)

[saucy-mesothelioma]

Meso's Mixtapes: Tabitha Scarlet

Jesus it's been a hot minute since I've done one of these.

I got into Scarlet Hollow one or two months ago when I got the game on sale then proceeded to play through it four separate times in one day, so it was only a matter of time before I wanted to contribute to the fanbase. And since it's been a while since I've done a playlist, I figured what better time than now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

9 to 5 by Dolly Parton

Gotta Get Up by Harry Nilsson (I think this song fits Tabitha for two reasons: one having to do with where I first heard this song, and the other being the actual lyrics. First: I was introduced to this song from the TV show Russian Doll, which deals with a woman trapped in a time loop of her 36th birthday [It's a good show, I highly suggest it]. This song plays at the beginning of every loop, and thanks to that I associate this song with having to get up for those monotonous days that feel like you're reliving the same day over and over again. Due to Tabitha's job and general demeanor, I highly doubt that she doesn't view her normal routine as being the exact same thing over and over again. Secondly, we have the actual lyrics for this song: "We used to carry on and drink and do the rock and roll | We never thought we'd get old, though | We never thought we'd grow cold, but now". When Tabitha was younger, she was able to prioritize her relationships rather than her work. She was able to hang out with her friends even with her mother constantly over her shoulder for the most part, but when she got older, she was forced to shift her focus to her work. She used to be able to go over to Stella's every day, but now she's got a mine to look after.)

Lucretia My Reflection by Sisters of Mercy

Barton Hollow by The Civil Wars

Alles im Griff (auf dem sinkenden Schiff) by Udo Jürgens (The primary theme of this song is saying that you're fine when everything is falling apart around you; the title basically translates to "Everything Under Control on the Sinking Ship". Despite all of the shit happening to Tabitha, her cousin, and her friends, her attitude always seems to be that of just bottling it up rather than really taking the time to completely process it, or at least that's how I see it. The ship of her life is slowly sinking, but she keeps going on as if things are more or less fine.)

Mrs. Bluebeard by They Might Be Giants

This Town by Jinkx Monsoon

Coal Miner's Daughter by Loretta Lyn (Ok yeah I couldn't help myself. The story of the song is so ironic when you compare it to that of the Scarlet family, but with the title is was too funny not to include in the list.)

Heroes by David Bowie

Dream a Little Dream of Me by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong

Get Out of My House by Kate Bush (Obvious secrets of Scarlet Estate aside, I think this song does a very good job of representing Tabitha's treatment of her relationships [both romantic and platonic]. The singer of this song is desperate to not only keep other's out of her life remove the "stains" of those she has previously let in. She's locked the door to her "house" and the mere suggestion of someone wanting to enter, no matter the reason, is cause for retaliation. One of the first things we really learn about Tabitha is that she's pretty much shut out those who were in her life, somewhat due to Pearlanne but also by her own means, and even with the player character she is still rather reluctant to fully let them in.)

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now by The Smiths

Pressure by Billy Joel (It feels obvious to me that Tabitha was forced to grow up far quicker than she should have, primarily due to the expectations of her running the Scarlet Mines. She's had to deal with pressure her whole life: from her mother, from her job, and from the Scarlet legacy. She sees people like her cousin and Stella come in "with your faith and your Peter Pan advice", and especially in the case with her cousin she often laments that she is the one who must take on the pressures of the Scarlet name, primarily with the mine but also with the pain that their family has caused [such as with Charlie's payment of years].

Badlands by Bruce Springsteen

Poor Girl by X

Sans toi by Michel Legrand and Corinne Marchand (This is a song from the French new-wave film Cléo from 5 to 7, and it's a film that I personally think Tabitha would like because she can relate to parts of it)

My Silver Lining by First Aid Kit

I've No More Fucks to Give by Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq

Pretty Lavinia by American Murder Song

Kingdom Come by The Civil Wars (Despite feeling that the tone of this song fits her well, I also personally like the contrast it holds to Tabitha's view on her situation. Deep down, she wishes to run away like the subject of the song and have a peaceful, simple life of her own, but she feels unable and incapable of doing so. She can't fly away til kingdom come, because in her mind she has already fallen back into a fate she can't escape from.)

[seeingteacupsindragons]

This is such an extremely dumb detail to analyze but when I’m out of things to analyze this is what I do. I was always under the impression that Fred is like 15 (pre time skip). Like no more than 16, but then the characters birthdays came out and even though Fred doesn’t have one listed (still sketch to me) it has 18/19(?) as his supposed age which is kind of weird to me because it feels like he’s younger? Like people who talk about “this kid” being in that type of work and yeah he is young but if he is technically a legal adult why would people be surprised by the line of work he is in? Also it was probably just a comedic moment but I remember the whole bond situation and Moran being weirded out about bond changing with them and he comments “she has a bust .. Fred’s too young to see that.” Again, why would Moran think an 18/19 yr old is too young to see nudity? I know all this pretty much amounts to “it’s not that deep bro” but these are the things that plague me.

So, I think you've gotten a little caught up here in your assumptions having led you very astray from canon:

I cannot remember a single time anyone referred to Fred as a kid or were surprised someone his age was in his line of work. I'm not going through 20 volumes of material at 2am to check, but if it does happen once or twice, it's fairly inconsequential and from someone who doesn't know Fred well.

Moran never, ever says that Fred is too young to see nudity. This one I did check because it was easy to find that scene, and Moran actually just says that Fred didn't want Bond in the changing room either (and Fred was unimpressed and unamused by being dragged into Moran's brief foray into transphobia). The English translated this one a little funny, but he didn’t actually comment on Fred’s age directly in Japanese.

My assumption that his age comes with a question mark and a lack of birthday is because he doesn't know exactly when he was born. While birth certificates and records were quite common in the time period, I think it's a massive assumption to assume everyone knew the exact details of their birth, especially someone like Fred who seems to have come from poorer origins.

But the actual reason I'm answering this right now is actually this one specific detail: Fred, at 18 or 19, is not a legal adult. Not in Victorian England (where the age of majority was 21) or in modern day Japan where he's being written (the age of majority in Japan is currently 20).

So, he's the youngest on the team by a few years, and, yes, he's actually the only minor in the on the team.

But I think he comes across as "younger" than the others because he's initially less entrenched and more in doubt of things, and he's much more openly kind and hopeful than the others. He doesn't have the same angry jadedness. And even in Baskervilles, his warm heart is compared to William's own. He is the one with the same love and idealism as our disaster boy. So that probably contributes a lot to the impression.

So anyway, I think this is a reminder that fanon is fun and gut instincts make sense, but sometimes it's important to double check canon before getting too caught up in something not making any sense, 'cause sometimes we forget or misremember things. I know I have, and sometimes when I'm writing longer meta, I've got to double check myself because my memory is good but not infallible.

[nounpolycule]

This thing for me is fine hate Rose people are entitled to their own opinion, but Dan is the hill to die on?? Dan is peak character writing and representation?? Dan??

Also, the "try liking a character that gets actual sexism and racism on the daily" is getting to me. What does that even mean?? This is talking about working class characters? The way they said it implies that Dan goes through racism and sexism everyday? Dan??

Yeah, honestly I couldn't give two shits about people hating Rose? People have been talking about how Rose is boring and a bitch and too stupid and so on for longer than I've known the show existed (a bit over a decade at this point), and they'll be saying the same shit until the end of the fandom's existence. I take issue, however, with acting like everyone who disagrees with you about a dumb (affectionate) little sci-fi show is stupid, especially when you're actively insulting them.

And yeah, there's like a lot to be said on the concept of "representation" in general. Other people have articulated this better than I ever will. If you focus too hard on a character being "representation", somewhere along the way, you lose the "character" part. Not every character that fits the same demographic(s) as you is going to feel like they match your experiences 100%, and they shouldn't! If no one person's experiences are universal, how can we expect a character to portray universal experiences without losing that piece that makes them feel more like a character than a plot device being used for diversity points? It's good to have diverse characters! I'm not joking when I say Jack Harkness was a stepping stone in realizing I'm a lesbian - would it have taken me less time to realize if I'd had Bill to look up to when I was 13? Would I have felt comfortable with myself at a younger age if I'd seen a lesbian character on my favorite show? I can only hope that that's what happened for people younger than me! But, at least to me, you lose something when you focus on "good representation" over diverse good characters.

The thing about looking at Rose through the lens of representation is that... that's not what she was designed to be? Her experiences inform her character, but her story isn't about that background. Sure, call her bad representation. She was never intended to be representation. It's not a fucking gotcha. She's a character first.

And with Dan... I can't see him as serious commentary. His house gets shrunk as a joke. His house stays shrunk as a joke. We do not see the ramifications of him losing his house, I don't really see that as commentary on poverty or homelessness when we don't actually see what happens to him afterwards. I won't tell anyone they can't see themselves in his character or situation, but to say that everyone should universally agree that he's more relatable is literally bringing us back to square one of "this character resonates more with me and therefore they are better universal representation and if you disagree you're just a basic bitch that needs to grow up." It's not productive. Besides, isn't the point of representation supposed to be that the more a particular marginalized experience is portrayed, the more likely it is that someone will find something that resonates with them?

And as for talking about Rose being a disservice to Dan... I haven't seen anyone comparing Dan and Rose aside from OP. I won't say it doesn't exist, clearly we do not run in the same circles, but it's not something I see at all. Though if we want to get down to it - yeah, I see my experiences (admittedly as an American) more in Rose than Dan. And that's okay. I'm a young adult who has barely left home whose experiences of being poor are colored by that - of course I'm going to see myself in the 19 year old still living with her mom than the 50-something year old who is living on his own. But that doesn't mean I can't respect people who feel differently.

As for "try liking a character that gets actual sexism and racism on the daily", I can only assume that they were talking about Yaz. But of course, as you said, the placement makes it sound like it's about Dan. It's a really weird place to start talking about Yaz, especially since they didn't actually mention her by name and she wasn't being discussed prior. And they did block my friend for pointing out that actually experiencing racism and such is worse than being a fan of a character that is treated that way by fans so... take that as you will.

Also no part of main tagging these posts (including one that begins "rose tyler is so fucking boring"), calling Rose fans "basic bitches" (again - whether or not you think calling Rose a bitch is misogynistic - calling real people, at least some of whom are women, bitches because they disagree with you is, in fact, misogynistic), and saying "#rose stans are so easy to wind up #just say you don't like her or she's bad rep #and they start crying and shitting themselves #it's so funny" reads as attempting to have a discussion about these characters in good faith. It's just so clearly deliberately trying to start shit. Like grow up, it's 2023, get a hobby less reminiscent of a middle school bully.

Also like. You didn't mention it at all but I will talk about Rose's ending (especially looking at Doomsday specifically) being 1. a punishment rather than a reward, and 2. really horrifying to me, actually (from a power imbalance perspective, not just a Rose fan perspective) until I'm blue in the face. And also I do find it funny that someone said that "Rose Tyler and Charlie Bucket are a fantasy, that if you work, behave and are good at heart, you will get the ultimate treasure in capitalist society, capital." Like first of all I know it was someone on the pro-Rose side that brought it up, but I don't think the Charlie comparison is worthwhile at all. Second of all, I love her but what part of Rose's story is her working and behaving and that's how she ends up rich? Babe didn't work for money (though she did work to be undercover for what, a week?) onscreen a single day after the Doctor blew up her job. Since when is Rose "jeopardy friendly" Tyler known for behaving? And if half of your point is that she's a bitch... well that kills "good at heart" a bit, doesn't it?

[escape-from-arcadia]

To The Ends of Our World: Prologue and Chapter 1

A Pre-Canon Douxie-centric Wizards Fic

A wicked king, a runaway sorceress, and a young boy... Ever since the disappearance of his mother left him under the care of Master Wizard Merlin Ambrosius, Hisirdoux Casperan has tried to be a good child. He is diligent in his work and studies, and his boundless enthusiasm for all things magical never wavers. All he hopes is that one day his efforts will be enough to become a master wizard himself and bring his mother back home. But on his thirteenth birthday, everything changes. Sudden flashes of memories that occur at seemingly random times and secrets Douxie's mother tried so desperately to keep hidden begin to spill out into the light. Douxie is starting to uncover a plot far greater than anything he ever could have imagined, but can the young apprentice evade the people trying to keep him from learning the truth of his mother's disappearance? What is it that they're trying so desperately to keep hidden? And will Douxie like what he finds?

General content warning for dark themes (abuse, mild gore, violence, depression). More tags will be added to the AO3 work as the story is written since most don't appear until later in the work. However, you can expect content involving torture, suicide, and a major (and a minor) character death in future chapters. There may be other untagged things that I haven't thought of yet or planned on.

Hi.

I'm back.

Maybe.

Long Convoluted Author's Notes Under the Cut:

I'm not doing particularly well (guess who got a mild case of Covid a week before winter break? lol), but here to say I've started a new fic. I like writing angst when I'm sad. And this slightly convoluted pre-Wizards origin story came to me in a dream. I planned most of it out, wrote the prologue and a few chapters, published it, and realized that since all of my content is now on archive-lock, I should probably promote the fic here.

So here we are.

No update schedule.

No minimum (or maximum) chapter word count.

No clue when it ends.

No beta.

We ball.

So this story doesn't have a hidden meaning or big message you should get by the end of it. It's just an angsty mystery drama with some cliches just because. And the ending (I know what the ending is for once, yes) is very cliche and annoying because it lets me say "Nothing is stopping me from making this canon!" Anyway...

You'll get to see a take on a younger Douxie and Merlin's very...complicated relationship with him. You'll see another interpretation of how Douxie and Archie meet!! You'll see a 17-year old Zoe!!! You'll meet two (2)!!! OCs I suddenly came up with while planning out this story!!!!!! One is a mean lesbian and the other is a cool cleric!!! You'll also see Douxie's mom!!!! Because she is very plot-relevant!!!

I was scared of publishing this fic because compared to a lot of the stuff I've written before (especially coming out of ADAU - I still owe y'all posts), this is much darker. I've written stories about time loops and the inevitability of death and somehow the existentialistic dread I got from writing that left me less unsettled than this fic. To be fair, I'm not working with a beta so this might actually be a lot lighter than I think it is. But compared to my other works, it is...a few shaders darker.

If you do read the fic, I'd be really glad to hear your feedback and comments. Yell at me if there are typos (because stars know I'll miss something as I'm editing). Ask me questions. And if you think there is something there that needs to be tagged, please let me know; I'll add it to the AO3 work tags.

All this is to say that I am very grateful if you managed to read this entire post. Thank you for bearing with me and this blog being...something. It's been abandoned and resurrected several times, and my relationship with this fandom is still a little bit funky. But hey, I've learned to make stuff for myself and on my own time. And if this content isn't your particular cup of tea, you can always not read it. And this blog is just for fun, no pressure to make content, so yeah. I'm going to have fun on the internet.

I guess I'm back.

P.S. I am yearning for more people I can share these darker fics/AUs with, but I'm also very anxious and very busy. Just saying, if anyone has Discord (or a server) and/or doesn't mind sporadic appearances that may or may end up leading to very long conversations, my DMs are open.

[splinter-cat]

I don't know enough about our history/history in general to answer many of the questions, sadly, but I'll try for a couple:

4. Honestly this is hard, because I love inserting trans OCs into any historical show I watch and they all have different challenges that would be interesting to see. I think what I come back to most though is something like Downton Abbey.

So for example for a Downton Abbey like setting, I picture a trans man as one of the footmen. I'm not much interested in the noble/upper class characters tbh but to see how he navigates being around them would be interesting to me, especially where the jobs themselves were so gendered (to my knowledge). I've heard (though not confirmed) that many footmen were queer because nobles wanted less risk of their daughters getting with the servants/getting pregnant, so I'd like to see him interacting with other queer men, too.

The thing that makes a Downton Abbey setting more interesting than say a Bridgerton setting to me is WWI. So if that happened during the series, what happens to our lead? Does he sign up and go to war? Or does he not want the risk of being discovered? How does he deal with people who question why he's not going? Etc.

I'd also be interested in a broader look at the era, too, like comparing and contrasting the experiences of the trans man working as a servant to nobles vs one working in a factory, because the cultures were very different.

7. I honestly don't know, like I did have a couple incidents when I was younger where I might have just died without modern medicine sooooo setting those aside I'd probably go for... probably post Civil War and pre WWI? If I had a to choose a time in American history that is, I don't know enough about world history other than "a lot of it sucked for a lot of people." I'd much rather avoid any major wars, idk. I honestly probably wouldn't have figured myself out, I'd just know I had the desire to wear and do "men's" things but the fear that I wasn't allowed them would probably have outweighed that without a community around me (I didn't even figure myself out until after years and years of being around online trans communities). I think I would have avoided having kids as much as possible.

8. Hopefully my writing, I'd like to break into screenwriting one day and it'd be cool to be known for creating/running TV shows about queer characters.

since October is queer history month:

who is your favorite historical trans man/transmasc?

what areas of transmasc history do you wish were more discussed?

which historical trans men/transmascs deserve more attention & praise today?

if you could have a period drama starring a transmasc main character, where and when would it be set? who would the character be?

who is your favorite transmasc activist from history? what did they do?

what are some things you think people misunderstand or don't consider when talking about transmasculine history?

(for transmascs) If you had to live in a different point in history (pre-1950s!), where and when would you choose? how do you think you would have navigated life as a transmasc?

(for transmascs) if you became a famous transmasc icon, what would you be known for?

answer in reblog and tags, @ your friends, use this as an ask game, whatever you want!

[thetrinitarianmystery]

A Frog Somewhere: On Perfectionism, pt. 2

A Frog Somewhere

I am One with the great Silence, and I am the calling-forth: The echo of “Who am I?” In the stillness of “I AM.”

Again and again, my assertion; My falling over myself, responding. Can it be? How can I be? And why at this time, now?

( )

But for every call to righteousness— For every cry for being— There is a foggy, sleeping pond;

And a frog somewhere, I’d like to think, who knows not one thing about me.

------------

I wrote in my last post about perfectionism. I would like to continue that discussion here. The usual story I tell when asked about my intellectual history is that my interest in science originated from my love for the woods around my childhood home in Hudson, Massachusetts. I was fascinated by the sights and sounds of the New England deciduous forest. I loved rocks and minerals, trees and frogs, and I wanted to learn everything about them. When I studied biology in high school, I loved it; but they asked us to take some results from chemistry for granted, such as the details of the Krebs cycle or photosynthesis. This didn’t sit well with me: how could I claim to understand biology if I didn’t understand the “facts” on which it is based? When I studied chemistry, they told us to take some results from physics for granted, such as electron orbital shapes. When I studied physics, they told us to take some results from mathematics for granted. When I studied mathematics, they told us that we have to take axioms and logical rules of inference for granted; and when I thought about this further, everything started to unravel a bit. I then spent some time with philosophy and mysticism, and now the whole picture is coalescing again. That is the usual story. But the blog sees the inside scoop 😉 The more complete story is that while the descent from the forest to the study of physics and mathematics was certainly influenced by ongoing intellectual curiosity, it was also motivated by the desire to be seen as intelligent or successful. Physics and mathematics are generally regarded as some of the hardest subjects, so part of my reason for studying it in college was just to prove that I could. It’s hard to say when exactly perfectionism crept into my thinking. I was singled out as intelligent from a very young age by my parents and by metrics in school, such as grades and awards, and eventually by class rank and GPA in high school, as well as roles like class president, team captain, etc. It became a part of my social identity within my family and among my friends to be relatively successful at everything I pursued. It is fairly clear to me that my family circumstance also contributed to my problems with perfectionism. I am one of ten children of my parents, and as such I may have received less individual attention than I would have in a smaller family. Perhaps as a result of being such a large group of people, it sometimes felt like we all were implicitly competing for our parents’ and each others’ attention and approval. This only reinforced the sense of an existential need to be exceptional. I can see that this implicit competition drove both my insecurities and my goals. My insecurities growing up were mostly about my stature, since I was always a tall and very lanky boy. I didn’t have the strength or build of my older brother, David. I also didn’t have the confidence and fierce, go-getter mentality of my older sister, Carmen. I don’t think I really compared myself with my younger siblings in the same way. But I see that my “angle” toward being different or “better than” my older brother and sister was to be the smartest or most accomplished, especially in a “hard” STEM field; and hence this became one of my goals. ...

Continued On WordPress

[declanowo]

31 Days of Horror - Day 29 - Happy Death Day

29t/10/23

When I was younger, there were two movies in particular that spring to mind as haunting me with their adverts. Us and Happy Death Day. They were the kind of adverts that I would rush to skip out of fear - sure, as a child there were always adverts like that, but these two always stuck in my mind. Strangely enough, I watched Us only a year later, and I remember by the time I saw that one I was getting into a horror a bit more - I was still scared of it, but I did enjoy it. Distinctly, I remember braving the advert one night, watching it through and wanting desperately to watch it. Happy Death Day on the other hand, I never watched fully. Yet, the film was immensely popular when it was released, and I do remember watching the trailer for its sequel Happy Death Day 2U, which actually spoils the killer of the first film! After watching that, and hearing my brother and his girlfriend discuss it, I decided I did in fact want to watch them both. 

Christopher Landon’s Happy Death Day is a slasher of sorts, that follows Tree as she is forced to live her birthday over and over again, as a killer stalks her down and kills her. Going into this film, I was incredibly excited - as a result of it having such a strong premise, and also having already watched Freaky (which I think is one of the best modern slashers I’ve seen). However, Happy Death Day is less of a slasher than one would expect, and it leans more into comedy and the mystery element. 

While I enjoyed this film, I definitely didn’t love it as much as Freaky, which I partly feel is partly down to not watching it when it came out. To me, the tone and comedy feels very much of the era, which I often enjoy in films, but sometimes this just didn’t work for me here. 

I found this film’s strongest asset to be our protagonist Tree, whose time warp allows her to see how bad of a person she has grown to be. I found the time warp itself to be an excellent way for her character to change and see the error in her ways - first, when she suspects nothing is wrong - we are able to witness how she treats those around her just in the cycle of a day. Yet, she never grows to be unlikable, in fact, I still found myself routing for her throughout, which is down to her actor Jessica Rothe. Each time she dies, we get to see something new about her, be it looking into a different relationship she has, or something about who she is… I think the premise works excellently because of the character, and despite several moving parts in her life, nothing ever gets confusing or feels convoluted. 

The killer's design is also instantly iconic and pretty fun! Although the baby faced mascot is kind of peculiar, it works nicely with the y/a tone and setting of a college campus, as does the hoodie they wear! 

Maybe the most disappointing part of this film, for me, was the kills. A tones down and (mostly) bloodless slasher can work - and once again, whether or not the film is intended to be a slasher is somewhat unclear to me - Tourist Trap comes to mind for sure, but unlike a film such as Tourist Trap, or even M3gan, I found these kills to be mostly boring and uninspired. Tourist Trap especially works when comparing these films, because it is certainly a slasher, most of that films kills use its premise to great effect, with the killer using telekinesis, dolls and most famously plaster to kill people. In contrast, the only kill that comes to mind as using its premise to great effect is when the killer lights a fire with a candle. Here we see the birthday theme shining through, and it works really well for me. I think this came to be more disappointing to me after watching Freaky, which has great and incredibly fun kills. As I mentioned, I don’t mind a film not being super gory despite being centred around the murders, but so many of these did nothing for me, since they were neither gory nor stylized. 

I also want to mention how great a lot of the camera work in this is! Both the twisting camera and shaky footage come to mind here. During a chase sequence, the camera twists around the room, which is utterly disorientating, and it makes everything all the more tense. As well as this, the shakier footage after Tree has died several times shows us the damage that is being done to her, and places us in this frame of mind. 

While I enjoyed this film, I think the years of anticipation I had for it might have dampened my enjoyment! I think a lot of this film is fun, although some of the comedy doesn’t land for me, but it doesn’t do loads for me. That being said, I am very excited to watch the sequel at some point, which has also been spoiled for me a bit, and I hope it builds upon the best aspects of this film! 

6/10

[gabby-salvador]

Swampcon

I have been to quite a few conventions as a kid, and Swampcon was surprisingly not much different from the bigger conventions that I used to go to, including New York Comic Con and Otacon in Washington DC. Although the convention was much smaller, the energy was very much the same as the bigger conventions.

The first experience I had at Swampcon 2023 was as a volunteer at registration. Although it may not seem like I would be able to experience much while volunteering, I actually felt the excitement of all the people attending the most while I was a volunteer. This was actually the first convention that I have been able to be part of the volunteer/staff crew, and I am pretty glad that I did it. Not only was the energy of the attendees immense, the energy of the volunteers during my shift were as well. Everyone was very excited to be there, and I got to volunteer with a couple of classmates as well! During my shift, I got to have a couple of conversations with those registering: there were actually quite a few people who traveled a couple of hours to come to the convention (mainly because they heard of it from their friends who went to UF). I was also very impressed by the number of people who cosplayed for the convention as well, and I recognized quite a few costumes that impressed me, such as Asuka from Sword Art Online. Some of the cosplayers even told me that they created their costumes themselves rather than bought it online! 

As a kid, I actually cosplayed as younger characters such as Nanako from Persona 4, Wendy (during the Tartarus Arc) from Fairy Tail, and many others. While I cosplayed, I would often bring a lot of attention because of the fact that it was unusual to see a younger child cosplaying. However, to my surprise, I saw quite a few child cosplayers who came with their family, and there were also a couple of families where all family members were cosplaying.

Once I finished my shift, I ended up immediately heading over to the Artist Alley and Vendor Hall. As I went around the convention, I was pretty excited to see what kind of doujinshi I would be able to find (and even buy) for myself. My experience in the Artist Alley was definitely different compared to what I experienced as a kid, although I think that it is partially due to the fact that I don’t remember much from the conventions that I attended. I felt like I was able to better appreciate the art of the vendors, especially now that I have grown up and watched much more anime than the ones that I stuck to as a kid. In the Artist Alley, I saw the typical posters and paintings made by vendors that you would normally see at pretty much every convention. To my surprise, I actually also ended up finding a booth which had real animal skulls, insects (and other miscellaneous animal/insect body parts) in a jar, which I was actually scared of looking at because I am an avid animal lover who does not like to see them displayed. I also found a booth with soaps, bath bombs, and other shower supplies which I didn’t think you would normally find in an Artist Alley. My personal favorite merch that I saw, however, was actually the stickers (which I have on my computer at the moment). I also really liked these artworks which were painted on glass, but I did not have the money to pay for them.

Overall, I definitely felt more connected to the experience of attending conventions and the fandom culture within it, especially after our discussion about culture capital, otaku, and doujinshi during class. Compared to Genshiken, I definitely feel like this convention was much more lively and diverse than the one that they displayed in the first part of Genshiken. I was able to experience, and meet, quite a few people with various personalities and interests, which was much more different from those that attended the convention in Genshiken because the people attending all seemed like they had the same personality. I also felt like the otaku at Swampcon were much less obsessive and perverted than those displayed in Genshiken. I was also able to better grasp how vendors were able to actually “possess” anime as they displayed their own derivatives from it in pretty unique ways as well. I didn’t get to see much doujinshi, however I think that this was mainly due to how the convention is pretty family friendly. I definitely appreciated how the convention also allowed everyone to express their love for anime and manga without being judged by the world around them. Because of the lack of judgment from the outside world, otaku are able to genuinely express who they are as a person comfortably without feeling the need to conceal it, thus helping them better express their identity as a whole.

(P.S., Sorry for the bad pic, I swear I'm the one with the brown shorts)

[longtallciara]

Thinking is my fighting - Virginia Woolf

Originally published on my website during Neurodiversity Celebration Week (13-19th March)

I began writing this as a therapeutic essay, but also with an intention of sharing it.

As I have gotten older I have tried to ask myself, 'Do I really need to share this on social media?' so that I avoid, in my own judgmental mind, having what I would consider an annoying social media presence. Oversharing, attention-seeking, humblebragging, are things that everyone, myself included, is so prone to doing now and my distaste for it can feel borderline curmudgeonly, but I know that innocent people's sharing can just strike right into my own insecurities. Jealousy, rejection, and loneliness. It's an emotional own goal. In light of the past few years, and especially the past several months, I have decided to go back and remember what had brought me pleasure when I was younger, when, although I was struggling, I think I felt more connected to myself. Whilst reading Samantha Irby's book Meaty recently, she had me recall a truly meaningful relationship that I had with my tumblr account in my early twenties. Followed by people who I didn't know personally, I felt an ease in expressing myself. It was an extension of my personal diary, but I was also practising my writing craft, and publishing whatever I wrote. I clicked 'Post' to the void. It felt better to express myself in writing because I had always limped my way through talking to people verbally. The less people I have to tell the following verbally, the better.

Just after my 35th birthday in January of this year, I received my autism diagnosis. On 1st February, St Brigid's Day, I received the report from my psychologist who identified my autism. Reading through it felt like I was not reading about me. I couldn't believe it was me, that this was all reporting back on everything I had told her that ended up aligning with diagnostic criteria. The feeling of 'this is a joke ... a joke that has gone too far' came back, along with paranoia that I had lied to her - and myself - throughout the entire process. Yesterday I got off a zoom call with an autistic mentor for what was my post-diagnostic support session. It was tough - I pulled myself open whilst clutching my stuffed seal toy. I related so much to my mentor, and felt so validated. My head felt so full afterwards, I changed into my new fluffy dressing gown, hopped around on my tiptoes and put my headphones on and listened to 'U&ME' by Alt-J to try and calm down. I had unwittingly booked my post-diagnostic support session for a day during Neurodiversity Celebration Week, and my experience with the mentor was so buzzingly wonderful, that it felt fitting to finish and publish this piece now.

I am still going through a tremendous amount of imposter syndrome and that is because I still hold on to the learned stereotypes of autism that I have seen or read or experienced through other people. I compare myself to these stereotypes as well as other autistic people online - my stims are far more subtle than others, I don't know as much as others do about my special interests, and I have no idea whether I notice patterns or connections more than other people. Although, by the same token, I have been extraordinarily validated by reading posts tagged #actuallyautistic.

The thing I have been most worried about is telling people. I find being around people so hard even at the best of times. So far it has been okay, but there have been a few disappointing conversations so far which have refuelled the idea that I am an imposter. I have been met with age-old assumptions, 'but you're an empath', 'but you're very warm', or an actual eye-roll. I ain't nothing like Rain Man, nothing like Greta Thunberg. I am not a non-speaking super-genius. There are autistic stereotypes which I do not live up to, so it's like I have a lot of explaining to do. Because I have lived and worked in communal settings, I have never said anything about my discomfort because there was some forbearance on my part in accepting that most people need to talk or have the radio on all the time, or this is the normal level of lights people need to be able to see. I sidelined my feelings because I like people, and I thought that I was just being an over-sensitive and annoying killjoy. I didn't know the full story, and neither did they, so I acknowledge that all this will be coming as a surprise to people.

I feel terribly selfish that I only have better knowledge about autism at hand now because I am autistic. My awareness was next to non-existent before I began digging. It's not that I didn't care for it - one male friend and one ex-boyfriend told me of their autism, and I read The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida when it came out because I was curious. But in the films and books I had seen/read in various depictions over the years, and even the 'training' I received when I worked in the public sector, they all painted a very narrow and similar picture of what autism 'looked' like. I never suspected that I might be, until the day my therapist, very bravely, asked me, 'Have you ever wondered if you might be...?'

Life is hard enough (and comes with inevitable suffering, that is something that I think we have philosophically accepted), yet on a daily basis we continue to flagellate ourselves for not living up to some spectral expectation. These expectations are entirely made-up (mostly by the media and then perpetuated by us always comparing ourselves to other people, or, the perceptions we have of them). They're imaginary, yet we persistently fail at living up to them. I have always known that most people can relate to this. And yet. The world of work has been a problem for me since day one of my first job. The number of my sick days has always been high, all throughout school and in any job I've had. I have never been able to get through a sizable period of time without calling in sick. Everything has always felt incredibly difficult. The poet Morgan Harper Nichols wrote about being a neurodivergent adult, that you are always 'trying to navigate life's socially accepted checkpoints when everything else is just as hard.' I was always having suggestions thrown at me to try and turn my life around, and I always felt that I must be so useless and lazy. At age 33 I got a full-time job in a bookshop. On paper it is the perfect job - being surrounded by books and it being my job to talk about my number one interest with colleagues and customers all day. Still, I willed myself to get through an entire working week, every week. I endeavoured to be a devoted and dependable colleague, someone who the manager would not regret hiring. I really wanted to make it work, but I felt constantly under threat. I always seemed to get stuck, reverting back to what I meanly called 'being a teenager' - feeling impossibly miserable, ungrateful, lazy. In the year that I worked there I didn't write anything, I had no mental or emotional space to. I went home every night completely depleted.

No matter what convictions I held inside about how to live, there has always been something. A weight, or a block. A block that stops me even though I imagine doing the thing I want to do so much that I am almost convinced I am doing it, or that I will do it; and yet, I can't, don't, and won't do it. I cannot move. A block that in social situations I depend entirely on alcohol to soothe, dissolve. It is a block that can momentarily shift, for example when I decide to embark on a new interest. Last year it was a lino cutting course to give me some nourishment outside of work. I went for three weeks, and then I could no longer do it. Burnout. The most upsetting block is the one I am currently in, being unable to face my book which I started writing in 2020. The block is understandable, the past six months have been objectively challenging. I am burnt out, and have felt swampy for a long time.

The time I felt most myself was in lockdown in 2020, which is awful but true. Whilst retail and healthcare workers were out there every day putting their lives on the line, I was so relieved to be at home. Firstly, so that I was no longer working in an unpredictable public space where I wasn't constantly feeling endangered by people who were not social distancing. Also, it was because I did not have to talk to anybody except my partner, who is always kind to me. I carved out my own routine in which I genuinely thrived. Mostly, it was because I was finally calm enough to be aware that an idea had arrived. I started writing my book, and it was the most precious period of my life so far. The joy of the idea itself, having the time to run with it, and having the space to dive so deeply into research and follow my various trains of thought uninterrupted. It was bliss.

I love and I hate going places. A place is anywhere outside where I live. By where I live, I mean the brick and mortar dwelling. I visualise myself walking out the door and walking into a shop or grabbing a coffee or even just simply going for a walk, just like anyone else. I do these things, I have to sometimes - I need to buy food, and I do need to see friends from time to time. But I cannot explain how difficult it is to leave my home. The hours I have spent dreaming about taking myself out, and getting myself ready, before I wind up talking myself out of it. Sometimes the sun is too much and I worry about how the skin on my face will feel and that people will see me. Even if I dress appropriately for the weather, everything feels too abrasive and cumbersome to balance, carry, or wear, to proceed comfortably. Preparing to dress appropriately still leaves me feeling desperately inadequate. I am always over or underprepared, never at the sweet-spot of being just fine. Even if I bring all my creature comforts away with me to facilitate my habits and routines, just by being in another place that isn't my home throws my entire being out of whack. I don't know how to operate anywhere else. I love my family and friends, of course. I love being around them, and I love when they come to stay. Even though I love them, and I have had an amazing weekend with them, and everyone might be in their own room (no sharing or sofa-surfing anymore), my brain will not calm down until they are gone and I am finally alone again.

When I read Kurt Cobain's journals as a teenager, I was struck by something he wrote: 'I use bits and pieces of others personalities to form my own.'   I don't really know who I am when I am around other people. All I know from feedback is that I can sometimes come across as boisterous or stand-offish. My social anxiety can get the better of me (one ex-boyfriend's uncle said to the group I was sitting in, 'What is she, a mute?').  I laugh at things that I don't think are even appropriate, and steal other people's turns of phrase to use for next time. Thankfully I have met a few people on the way whose souls sing alongside mine, but I still want to be more like them. There is only one person who I do not feel scared around, and that is my partner. I am fortunate to have this single person who understands me, and who can reassure me as my witness that this isn't all in my head. It would be nice if other people could understand as well, but most importantly, accept. To not turn around to me and say, 'Aren't we all...' or 'You don't seem...' or 'But you're very...'; or 'so you're on the spectrum but you're high-functioning' - this came from a person close to me who knew that when I left my job at the bookshop it was because I was neither coping or functioning. I was speaking to my therapist yesterday about my continued imposter syndrome, how 'I seemed to get along fine for the past 35 years, I thought all this was normal,' but then in the next beat explaining the cycle I've been stuck in since I started school of having one sick day, then another, and another, then getting signed off, going back to school or work, then getting sick, sick, and sick again. She asked me, 'How is that 'fine'?' Autism is not about how you perceive a person, but how they experience the world. I need people to find a balance between expectation and acceptance. My ways of being are not preferences, they are my needs. I am 35 now and I am tired. This is not a joke.

In another recent therapy session I said that books are my language. I told my therapist about an idea I had about reading books in which the protagonist is autistic, and that I would highlight passages that I relate to and then give the people in my life copies of that book. I haven't done this with books yet, but I have done this with articles I have read.

Some books and articles I have read so far that have most-closely captured my own experiences: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata Untypical: How the World Isn't Built for Autistic People and What We Should All Do About It by Pete Wharmby Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty The Electricity of Every Living Thing by Katherine May

This article by Hannah Gadsby: Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis

This article by Naoise Dolan: I'm struggling to talk to friends in lockdown. Being alone has been a relief.

I have always wanted to be a writer. Since I left my job in November, I had hoped that suddenly my creative tap would run freely again like it had before I started. Sometimes I forget about the state I was in when I left and wonder why it has taken me so long to write anything. I am still recovering, and in the meantime I have written out a daily routine for myself to ease myself back into life. I have restarted a yoga routine (since I got covid in July last year, my body all but rejected any extra exertion on top of working in retail. I LOVE yoga, and it has been a slow return to being able to get through a 15-minute video without feeling like I've run cross-country afterwards) and I try, fail, and try again to practise mindfulness before going to bed. Instead of trying to penetrate and navigate the multitudinous caverns of my novel, I am scheduled at 2pm every day to 'WRITE ANYTHING' for an hour. Other hours are devoted to reading and watching films or a show. Those activities are laced with guilt, but I try to remember that they are part of creative nourishment, and go into what one of my favourite writers David Mitchell calls 'the creative compost heap'. When all this stuff does become routine, I'm hoping that the fog will clear and I will climb out of the swampiness. I hope that this gives a helpful glimpse, especially to people who know me, into what is really going on inside me, a seemingly high-functioning person. I am still learning so much about myself that I'm sure more will come to the fore eventually, and maybe I will write about it then. Thank you.