#cus I’m convinced they’ll hate me! And idk how to tell ppl

[poppytuft]

i can’t figure it out, and i think when it comes down to it it’s just the plain and simple fact that i have too many faces.

i do this a lot. people don’t always see it and it isn’t always clear to those who don’t look, but i can spell it out for you if you ask or if you take the time to notice. look, here it is: i am an actor.

and i don’t mean that i lie. i do, but not about what you’re thinking. not about feeling, not after middle school, but i am still an actor—so i have a lot of faces.

there are a lot of things i hide, okay? and you can read all my letters and attend all my shows and sleep under all my sheets but you still won’t know me. most people don’t know me. people don’t like me, they like the me i put up for them. people like to think i have it together. i don’t. people like to think they see me fully. they don’t. they see what i let them see.

and i think this is what scares me. that i showed her, yknow, some of the most “me”s that anyone had ever seen, and she went and called me a manipulator, and a bully, and non-empathetic, and a spineless bitch! so i guess there’s a part of me that believes the core faces i have really are those things. and i hide them.

so when you like me, i doubt you like, yknow, me. because you like what i let you see. you like gentle hands and you like laughing in a courtyard and being an active listener. you like counting for a swear jar and swallowing judgement that has been bred into me like i’m a show dog for gossip and you like hearing me say your name. you like when i look at you but still can’t always look you directly in the eyes, or maybe i look too intensely, because my social anxiety kicks in and i go on autopilot.

you don’t like the trenches. which, okay! we all have trenches. but these are bad, and ugly, and they make me sick to think about. people don’t know about what is buried between mud and gore here and i don’t like to tell them. but vulnerability voluntarily means they have to know. and then i am put up for judgement.

(it is here, where i am a manipulator and a bully and a spineless bitch, by the way.)

this masquerade tells another story. one with which i am poison fanged and angry. i fantasize about tearing everything i have down and sinking my teeth into the people i love just because i know that my words hold that weight, that with one sentence and a well timed snark i could ruin everything. it is here that i know that i am a lighthouse, and i can guide any ship to any harbor and you may think you are in control of a situation but i am the one guiding you home, you see, and i will take whatever secrets you will give me and hoard them in the captain’s log. and in the past, i cried crocodile tears and i wailed at the thought of people i love leaving me in the hopes that they would pity me. i fished for days and never caught a carp. even just yesterday, i spat out words like they were teeth and laughed in the face of reality and still, now, i hate the people i am supposed to love the most but i would never tell them. i believe i am a god, i know in my chest i am a saint and i am better than you and i want to rub it in your face but i don’t, i contain this and instead i smile gently and tell you everything is going to be fine, while my body contorts in my mind’s eye to a jungle song of perverse pride and greed. i am stingy, i am gluttonous, i am cruel.

so those are the trenches. this is what i am dealing with here. so it will never truly be someone else’s fault. and i have a hard time saying this (this is a trench in of itself, okay?), which makes this all the harder to verbalize that i am terrified of loving when they don’t know me in this way. people leave when they find out, people wrinkle their noses at me and i laugh it off and take note and compartmentalize instead. so i don’t let them see it at all, and people end up enjoying the company of a girl who doesn’t exist. (the child inside of me, however, does, and it is very angry.)

and yknow, i realize to an extent i’ve always been this way. i don’t like people in ways that really, really mean something to me until i have them for a year or so and they see me for a year or so and even then that’s not a guarantee. there’s some sort of tint on romance for me, but they aren’t rose colored lenses. grey, maybe? half moon glasses and something soft and shapeless in my hands. it has always taken me longer. i never understood how you could like someone without really knowing them. that truly blows my mind. i could never, ever imagine loving someone without having any basis of a connection with them and i guess that’s why this time is working out so well for me emotionally? so i guess it isn’t totally her fault, but i don’t think getting a knife twisted in my gut helped very much. trauma is one hell of a drug.

i hide a lot. people don’t realize it. whether they choose not to or i just have secured my masks that well, i’ll never know. but i have a lot of guilt, over this. i know people want to know me. i want them to know me too! i just can’t get it to happen. i keep spoonfeeding them a superficial stew of “me”s and hope they get enough flavor to guess the mystery meat in the bottom of the pot. i should probably give up, i think, and resign myself to the fate of eight, but i can’t bring myself to do that either. i am obsessed with being seen. i guess i just want to know how your me fits in with my me and how to curate the catalogue of personas to fit you just right. i want you to be happy with your purchase, don’t i?

fucking hell, this whole thing is a mess. i am exhausted, and tired of how complicated i make things. (trench number three: i can’t communicate for shit. i am a huge pussy bitch. i am terrified of hurting any feelings so i generally make things worse instead of dealing with anything. my mom dug this one for me, actually! go mommy issues, aka trench number four—but that’s a different story.)

(besides that, it’s pretty roomy inside here, if you ignore the blood and rats. do you want to take a seat?)

[wellthatwasaletdown]

Larrie posts would get 10s of thousands of likes. It was like a huge wave that carried you along.//// I was there. And honestly, I still go through some Larry theories once In a while. Just for fun. I recently read one of the scarlet letter and how both HL signaled their lives pertaining to the themes of the book- and it’s prob just a coincidence and the person who wrote it is obvs delulu but damn was it Interesting. Especially as a literature geek, that was a fun post to read. Very engaging. Bulletproof larrys blog is a hilarious place. And I am absolutely not a Larrie bc I just don’t have the time and energy to read into this now unlikely theory anymore. Not when all logic points to it being false all along. And not when the cult leaders are doll lady and Gina the fan fic lady. Both misogynistic assholes who are solo harries in disguise.

But the 1d fandom has been such a core part of my life that I simply cannot let it go. And why would I if I love being here? My happiest memories are 1D concerts and tumblr discussions and jokes and all types of ppl who ship different things and have different lanes and opinions coming together to just have fun. Like the day Eleanor and Lou broke up most of us were genuinely there for each other, just making jokes and talking abt how we miss and love her(bc god was 2015 a mess and what came after was all the crazy theories and confusing times). Only the toxic larries like I doll lady and lassurex(I think?) were being assholes that day and onward. The tumblr community on here was, by in large, a wonderful (dare I say safe for my introverted ass w only online friends at the time) place. And this fandom was SO SO SO huge that we usually squashed the rude peeps under a boot and went back to making jokes.

I do have plenty of friends who are still Larry shippers/larries, engage in the fandom, etc. It isn’t that deep for me or them- we’re just doing our thing. And they’re Def not toxic or crazy like the cult leaders. They’re just spectating and agreeing w certain things. I can’t relate- but I don’t like argue w them. I’m still streaming their music till this day( u can’t tell me what a feeling isn’t a BOP like it’s a B O P). (And strong has no right making me feel things in 2021). I still play the last 3 albums a couple times a month.I still watch some old videos and interviews where their youthful and vibrant personalities shine through… especially the ones from the midnight memories era bc that was the best era. I still read Larry fics(💀) bc it’s just fun. One of the best things I’ve ever read is that young & beautiful fan fiction. Truly a skilled writer. And yes in a fictional world I do ship it idc if all the other anons will have my head for it. The chemistry was v much there during those years, U won’t convince me otherwise. U can’t make me Unsee what I still see when I watch those interviews and vids. I do see the nature of their relationship during those years as suspicious and very intense and idgaf if I’m just crazy for it cus I’m not actively pushing it and pretending I know the facts. And fuck is it fun to do these things in my free time. And that’s the purpose of fandom. To have fun. None of this is that deep. And this was a fandom for those of us born in the 90s/early 2000s. Our middle school or high school or college years WERE these 5 kids. Some maintained their authenticity. Some fell off. Some- Idk. Some’s solo stuff I enjoy, some I don’t. Some I think are secretly assholes cough mr homewrecker, the rest I think are good at their core(Exept Liam I’m eh on him but I wish him the very best.) I don’t Stan them per se anymore(though I’m still emotionally attached to 1/2 of the Larry ship cough it’s not the one we hate on), but they’ll always mean a lot to me. And when any of them drop an album I will listen. Even when hs3 drops I’ll be a masochist and listen to him whine about cockburn. That’s just what it means to be a directioner. And yk what the Larry ship was so much fun for us fans but it caused sm harm to these real ppl- I wish ppl would’ve accepted it’s just a fantasy of two men who just have this intense chemistry, and likely a deep bond(that WASNT A ROMANCE.) I wish ppl would’ve accepted it when they denied it, even if their behavior was, like I said, intense and suspicious, it’s not the fandoms business. These boys were overworked asf I’m sure they didn’t appreciate us bugging them 24/7 abt it. And clearly, larries were wrong abt their perception of this bond. And if Larry ever were something *more* it’s sure as hell over now. Mr Donny chav and mr homewrecker probably never want a teenager daughter who’s allowed on the internet bc us teenage girls basically ruined a lot for them. And yk what? I feel guilt for the very minimal part I played in it. Even if it was never too serious for me- I should’ve called out some Tin hat behavior some mutuals displayed.

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