#for me i started to read in 2020 so my mental health was way worse. it became easier when you're clear in the head duh

[gigamuffin]

Ahoy! I need inspiration to continue man o' war-ing on through the Aubrey Maturin series. (No matter what I do, I can't finish Fortune of War.)... What do I do!? Yours Faithfully, some weird person.

I struggled with Fortune of War too, I struggle to read, period! So I'm probably not gonna give good advice, but here are some things that got me through this series.

I was tag teaming both reading and audiobooks. Having my own paperback copies of the books was a HUGE help, both as physical copies and as ebooks (aka epub files). Being able to read back when I didn't catch something in the audiobook was my lifeline. (How you would get those is entirely up to you, nudge nudge wink wink.)

An advice for catching what you read in general is highlighting and writing stuff down, I did this anytime there a summary of where they were going and why, etc. Write down a condensed version of the mission in words that's easier to understand.

The other option is learning to cope with missing bits. I read all of it, but I didn't read all of it, you know? I would say I have not read the Mauritius command, even if I've gone through it three times I cannot tell you anything past the first chapter. There are chunks of this series I cannot retell even if I tried, I cannot tell you what the main plot of the yellow admiral is. I got through this series with only a vague understanding of a good chunk of it. And if you asked me what fortune of war is about, I probably wont be able to tell much besides, America and espionage intrigue ft. Diana.

[fannyrosie]

I've followed you for quite a while and I've always loved your style plus I lived vicariously through your life in Japan lol. I'm sorry if you've already posted this I couldn't find the post but I was wondering why you left Japan. It's my dream to live there one day and I was curious what it was like.

I have answered that in my Instagram Stories, but here is the long story version (TL;DR: I came back mainly because of my poor health):

I left Japan after 6 1/2 years for several reasons, but one the main reason is because of my health. I've never been the healthiest person, even before moving there (I was even dubbed "the sick one" at my old job because I often had to suddenly leave work in the afternoons). I was constantly tired and had really bad abdominal pains. I saw several doctors in Montreal, and all I managed to get was a diagnosis for IBS and anxiety. However, I was functional most days, and managed to work and live relatively normally, as long as I rested a lot and stuck to my FODMAP diet.

During the few first years of my life in Japan, my physical health remained that way, with some random very bad health periods, but overall, I was fine. I even started to workout regularly to improve my posture and muscles. However, from 2020 onwards, my health declined significantly. On top of my worsening IBS, I started having really bad spine pains, radiating to my head, chest and arms, and making me so tired I had to take several days of rest every time I went out. I started to catch every little virus I got in contact with, and had to avoid taking public transport the most I could. I was working from home, and walked a lot, so that was manageable, but it made me more isolated.

I saw several doctors, but even though they did blood tests and x-rays, they couldn't find anything and just assumed it was stress. After reading about EDS, I thought I might have that (since I am also hypermobile), and had to wait 7 months to get an appointment at Todai's hospital. However, on the day of my appointment, I got told that Todai only deals with EDS related to heart issues, and my tests were all normal, including my x-rays. That was in June 2022, and was the final straw, as it proved that even the most advanced hospital in Japan couldn't help me. By that time, I had to wear a back brace to do the most basic things, like laundry or going to the supermarket, and was taking painkillers every day. I had to stop working because I couldn't work on my computer for more than 2 hours a day. Obviously, no work=no money.

Coming back to Québec, I had to wait 3 months to get back on the public health system, and as of today (6 months after being back), I managed to get x-rays and MRI showing I have: discopathy (degenerative spine disk disease), osteoarthritis (degenerative joint disease), several herniated disks in my cervical region and pinched nerves due disks collapsing. Basically, I have the spine of a 70 year old. I have been referred to a physiatrist, but we all know that Québec's public health system is very slow. so God knows when I'll see one. Nevertheless, they found something, which is better than all the doctors in Japan who told me it was just stress. Japan sadly has a big culture of having to "endure" pain (mental or physical), and it shows in their medical system.

Due to the degenerative nature of the illnesses they found up to now, my health is constantly getting worse. I used to have good and bad health days, but now, I have more bad health days than good health days. I still take painkillers every day and wear my back brace to do normal tasks, but most days, these are not enough. I am trying to make the most of my "good" health days by dressing up and doing nice things, but I never know how I will be the next day (or hour).

I had to take two breaks writing this; hopefully it makes sense haha

[eddiemunsonswhxre]

where have i been?

an update for those curious.

hey there my loves, long time no see.

i’m not sure how many of you will actually read this or care to see why i haven’t written in over a year now but typing this stuff out helps me process and get back into my groove.

well, today is january 16, 2024. the last thing i posted that was an actual one shot was posted on january 3, 2023. i haven’t written since. 2023 was my worst year yet and caused me to learn a lot about people and myself.

things were going alright in the beginning, i was in my second semester of college and my biggest problem was 2 of my 3 roommates (lived in a quad) hated each other so me and my bestie/3rd roommate had to play mediator and it was exhausting. i started liking a guy and got my hopes up. and i started to get more and more annoyed with school and my living situation every day. i was ecstatic to move out of that room despite hating my hometown. the day of move out, one of my roommates who i thought was someone very close to me blocked me and all of our friends on everything with no explanation but we knew she wasn’t coming back for 23-24.

i like where i grew up for a maximum of a week at a time, after that my depression just kicks my ass and im not having a great time. my plan for the summer was to work my ass off so much so that i wouldn’t have time to think of anything else. that backfired, because a few days after i came home one of my two jobs fell through unexpectedly and my other job was giving me less than half the hours they promised me. i was broke. everyone says it’s so easy to get a job these days because everyone is hiring but i applied to over ten places within a reasonable distance from me and didn’t get a single one. so i spent too much time with myself and that’s not normally a good thing.

to make matters even worse, in june my mom was sentenced to three years in prison for a crime she committed back in 2020. i don’t want to get into too many specifics, but my mom would never harm anyone she just has struggled with addiction. my mom was my constant emotional support, and knowing she was no longer going to be around ripped me to shreds. not even a month later after my mom was shipped off to prison, my dog died. and i know you might think “dogs die all the time it’s a pet.” but my dog was much more than that. she wasn’t even three years old and was a beautiful great pyrenees german shepard mix and she was the sweetest girl ever. i don’t care how ridiculous it sounds, because i know my soul and hers were meant to be together. i was even in the process of registering her as an emotional support animal so i could take her to college with me because she was finally old enough and for the most part out of the puppy phase. but one night out of nowhere she got really sick and within an hour of her showing signs something was wrong she died while i was holding her. not the greatest thing for a 19 year old who’s already struggling to experience. it took my over a month to stop seeing her like that every time i closed my eyes. call me dramatic, but that dog really was a child to me.

after that, i went to stay with my cousin for a few weeks and that was nice but i still knew i wasn’t feeling right. i moved back to school in august and had way too high of hopes that everything would fix itself. surprise, it didn’t. in fact, i just got worse. i reached lows i haven’t hit in over two years. i was having roommate problems, i was trying to do way too much at once, and i was neglecting my health. i had a breakdown.

the highlight of my semester was taking a week off to visit my best friend since age 2 for her birthday (she lives roughly a 2 hour plane ride away from me now) with our other two best friends. then i came back and immediately totaled my car. my car was a piece of shit yes, but it got me places. not having a car when you’re a person who drives around to destress is not fun. i was even worse mentally at this point and i was trying so so hard to get into my overbooked doctor to get my medications raised. the only constant i had were my three friends at school and my studies. so i threw myself into them. i was never alone and if i was i was nose deep in a text book. i was just avoiding the rest of my existence. i was able to get my meds upped and decided i was done wallowing. i started a diet that is actually manageable and enjoyable and discovered for the first time workouts that i actually liked doing. it was something small, but i knew i was turning myself around.

i went home for winter break knowing it was going to be tough. i also had to spend this time looking for a new car. it was an extremely stressful process to say the least. but i focused on myself, taking all the time for myself that i needed and processing everything that had made me get to such a bad place. i’ve always been very spiritual, so i dove more into that as well as trusting the universe.

i’ve decided that 2024 will be my best year yet. i got a new car, im getting a new job, im doing great in school, my mom is getting released from prison literally six hours after i post this, and im taking care of myself in more ways than one. while doing a lot of that reflecting, i remembered how much i used to love to write and how that passion just died after loving it since i was ten. i started small, doing short story exercises and getting into reading again. i finally, after an entire year, have my passion for writing back.

i can’t promise i’ll be consistent with uploads because i’ve decided that my goal for the year is to write a novel. so that project is going to be my main focus and it isn’t anything fanfic related, it’s actually a psychological thriller. more than likely i will be asking for opinions on here throughout the year as well.

with that said, my plans this year for this blog are to keep posting. eddie munson is mainly who i write for, but i want to expand my horizons. i want to challenge myself with genres and types of characters. i will greatly appreciate any requests you can give and i promise i will read through them. if i don’t post them right away, just know it may come out three months later. sometimes inspiration sparks at weird times.

if you’ve read this far, thank you. i hope this can inspire you to see that there’s light at the end of the tunnel but sometimes you’ve gotta dig the extra dirt to it yourself. beyond thankful to anyone who was here a year ago and has come back to read my new stuff- you made an aspiring writer really proud of herself.

much much love

-eddiemunsonswhxre 🤍

[la-principessa-nuova]

OK, time for a more introspective discussion of where I’m at mentally right now.

Basically, about a month ago, I left a job that was very toxic and making my mental health much worse at a time that it really didn’t need any help getting worse, and after that, I immediately felt a tangible boost to my mood and to my general feelings and I felt much less disregulated than I had been, so I was able to focus and get stuff done.

But after a week or two of that, I suddenly started to feel much more disregulated, even though I was still in a much better place, and I overall felt less stressed and less exhausted emotionally.

But it’s almost like the exhaustion of dealing with the past couple years of stress is finally keep catching up with me. Honestly the last time I had a string of a few months that felt completely normal stress-wise was probably either late 2020 or late 2021 depending on whether being in grad school (which I started in 2021) still counts as a normal amount of stress.

But yeah, it’s like suddenly the immediate threat is gone (at least the one the least in my control) and it’s like my body is just like, “OK, now let me rest.”

Most of the day I’m mostly fine, but around like 6-7 PM, my body just crashes, and I can’t motivate myself to do anything. And this then means around 11 PM to 12 AM, I wake up out of this and feel like, “What the heck? I had plans!”

So then I either try to do the plans and stay up later, or I put off going to bed thinking I want to do the plans.

But now twice I’ve laid down “for a second” while waiting for something and then I woke up in my clothes bc I just fell deeply asleep.

And like, I think if I have the right mindset and can adjust my life around this, it’s a good thing. I need the rest. But if I’m not careful it can be bad, and also it means I’m still not able to be creative or get things done or relax. I’ve had episodes of D20 piling up for the past few weeks and every day I say I’m going to watch them and then I don’t but also did nothing.

One thing that is nice now is that since I had a friend over (hi friend if you read this!), that prompted me to clean up all the little messes that were adding up and disregulating me even more, so now at least I’m starting from a good place in terms of the state of my house.

And I’m also doing a lot of cognitive work in fixing my relationship with my parents (i.e. fixing the way they fucked up my brain by learning to ignore their attempts to keep it that way), so that plays into it a little too.

But I’m really hoping that over the next month or so I can get back to a normal healthy place because even though it’s technically fine, i want to make progress on certain things and I just need my brain at least a few more hours a day for that to be possible.

[toointojoelmiller]

Personal (tw: everything lol don’t read seriously this is an emo self indulgent trauma dump bummer I just need to vent)

Also this has nothing at all to do with Joel so I’m doing tiny font

Since February / March I've been stuck in the worst depressive episode of my life. I'm so fucking crazy and it feels like I’m not getting better. Probably have been low key dissociating for at least half of the time. Started a new antidepressant in April and had a lot of hope for it because when I started escitalopram when I was 24 I had the best response and literally a very fun and nice and pleasant several years. DIdn't last though, unfortunately, and this newest one hasn't really helped me that much other than letting me get out of bed in the morning and I feel so insanely stuck.

I worry sometimes that I have fully snapped this year. My brain just doesn't feel like it used to and I barely recognize myself sometimes. I've isolated myself so much from family and friends. Sometimes even from my boyfriend (we literally own a house together aka I have been isolating myself to like, my office and bed).

I lost a pregnancy and it completely broke me, I feel like I've been permanently shattered by it, and I don't see the world the same way anymore. It’s truly like part of me died. And now it is legit so painful for me to be around babies and kids. And that is especially hard at this age because there is pregnancy and baby news literally every fucking day.

And there is so much fucked up background trauma I’m struggling with. Since 2019 four of my former patients who I worked with when they were teeangers have died terribly between the ages of 19 and 21. I have nightmares about it, see them in my sleep all of the time. Plus numerous of the adult patients I have bonded with over the years have died recently, mostly in extremely upsetting ways. Sometimes it feels like working in the mental health & addictions space has destroyed my soul. And before that I did palliative nursing and watching people die scarred me so much. I am way too sensitive of a person for this sort of work but financially walking away is impossible right now. I wish I never went into nursing. And yeah I’ve done lots of trauma therapy.

It's so upsetting for me being in my thirties and struggling like this. Worse than ever. When I was a mentally ill little teen I would tell myself things would get better with time and it feels like that being true is getting more and more far fetched.

The other thing about getting older obvi is so many loved ones getting diagnosed with health issues. My dad's Parkinson's diagnosis in 2020 was like a fucking bomb going off for me and it’s progressing fast and sometimes it just hurts to be around him and watch him struggle.

Sometimes I seriously just fucking hate life. I don’t even know why I’m posting this on tumblr of all places lol but I feel like I have absolutely no one to vent to so I guess that’s why.

[fuwungi]

Alright so! Here’s the updates on what’s been going on! I was going to put it under a read more/cut thing but I can’t seem to figure that out on mobile so just general tw for mental health talk, trauma, etc

This isn’t going to exactly be linear or anything either cuz my minds just been all over the place but I haven’t been doing good. Haven’t been for a while. I’ve been working on getting help for years now and im thankfully seeing my therapist on the 8th and hoping this one actually stays (cuz my last trauma therapist ghosted me). I got a psych evaluation before hand that took a bit and got diagnosed with severe ptsd and bpd and also paranoid schizophrenia. I never really took my mental health seriously or as seriously as I should becuz for years I was so used to hearing from family and etc that it’s nothing, im just over thinking, “everybody does that” but it’s clearly not the case.

Everything started getting much worse in January, my health started dipping again. I had someone I considered a close friend abandon me and hurt me. Eventually my job I had pretty much set me up to be fired, me and others have considered it’s due to the fact I disclosed my diagnosis cuz it didn’t take long after for me to be fired. And what I was fired for was literally doing exactly what one of the managers told me to do. The next day I had an ex friend blow up at me and trigger my paranoia severely. And after that my abuser outted me and tried to spread harmful lies and misinfo in an attempt to I guess have me run off the internet. A little while after the shop I was apprenticing at also dropped me for my diagnosis but not until the spent a couple weeks straight up ghosting me and ignoring me for hours when I came in (I would come in to practice and work and all of my stuff was moved without telling me, and I also still don’t have any of my stuff back, and nobody would say a word to me or even look at me hardly. And after hours of waiting o would just eventually go home, which was also frustrating cuz I would have the person I’m about to practice on with me waking too. I reached out with messages abt things but was always just left on read.)

All of this just made things worse. I haven’t been able to significantly leave my house for a couple months now ( I say that cuz I still hype myself up to do smaller things like run out to pick up my meds, etc. but if there’s a way around physically doing said thing like ordering groceries, etc I take that). Outside of that I was already having a hard time getting myself to be social or talk to anyone. I haven’t really been talking to anyone or very active since 2020 (which I’m still working on fixing cuz it’s not that I don’t want to talk or anything, I want to so badly, I just really feel like I’m unable to do it).

My psych also diagnosed(? Idk if that’s the right word) me with agoraphobia. Which also explained a lot and helped me realize some things that help me cope and navigate my way socially and in life (and kinnie stuff is one of the things that really helps with that).

So at the moment I’m just freelancing and trying my best to work on myself. After finishing the rest of my comm queue I’m thinking of taking a break from taking comms and just focusing on my own/personal art and school (going for botany and economic science).

If you’ve read through this all, thank you so much for listening. I hope this was worded okay/sounds okay. And I can’t thank the ppl who continue to support me enough.

[euphor1a]

Camelia, aloe vera and papyrus for the ask gameee???? I really wanna knowww

Hihi sweets! Thank you for sending in 💗; i appreciate it so much! 🥺

camellia ⇢ what were you like when you were younger? do you think you’ve changed a lot?

whoa this is gonna get heavy, so i’m warning everyone reading this beforehand. things have changed for sure, i’d say... but it’s hard to point it out exactly. my younger self went through a whole different spectrum of human experiences. things were... nice(?) when i was a literal child, but it got gradually worse, worse and worse to the point where i moved out at the age of 17 and started living in a dorm in a different town. younger me was incredibly strong willed, hardworking and hopeful. i still find it super crazy how i got through everything i did and that i’m still here, surviving. younger me had so many big dreams and was motivated to follow through. i was also a bit naive, and i struggled a lot with determining characters, so i ended up getting even more hurt trying to maintain friendships with the wrong people and such. it’s not the same anymore with these things... my mental health has been a constant issue since mid-2019 (although, i must say that i’m doing a LOT better now — people who’ve been here for a while would know), and the world just kinda turned black & white... i think a lot of young adults feel the same though. i’m also super cautious about making connections with people now, which has been... idk, both good and bad? like sure, i’m a pretty lonely being, but at least i’m not hurting for people who don’t deserve me! also, it all just crashed down with the pandemic, y’know? it’s hard to say how much i’ve exactly changed, because i was brought up in a situation where i was forced to mature very early. and to be uncomfortably honest, i might seem a bit childish when i get comfortable around someone. guess i had suppressed my inner child too much with everything going on, and whenever a comforting/reliable presence comes along, it resurfaces 😅. anyway, i’m still very very proud of the younger aleyna. i wish i could hug her and tell her how amazing she is, how thankful i am for everything she did that led to me being here (in a relatively stable position) now, how the lessons she learnt through hardships made it easier for me to navigate through this complicated world... the list is endless. i just hope that a few years from now on, i can look back to this self (my late teenage years and early twenties) and feel just as proud for doing whatever i am doing right now ☺️

aloe vera ⇢ what’s something (mundane) you really want to experience in life?

answered here ♡ !

papyrus ⇢ if you put your ‘on repeat’ playlist on shuffle, what’s the first song that comes up? what do you like about it / associate it with?

the song which came up this time is “to you” by seventeen. i, genuinely am, in love with this song. have been that way since it was released in 2021. see, i got into kpop back in 2019 through bts and twice (good times)! and it took me a lot of time to actually branch out from that starting point — txt playing a big role in it because i was obsessed with run away when it came out (still my fav title track by them). i came to know about seventeen on 2020 when left & right came out, and i loved it! but i didn’t exactly go straight to “stanning”, i just added them on spotify and just vibed along whenever it came up. after that it’s mostly a blur with svt for several reasons. until attacca came out on late 2021, i saw the rock with you mv, and was like: HOLD THE FUCK UP I NEED TO GET INTO THIS SHIT IMMEDIATELY?! i remember doing everything i possibly could (following their socials and stuff, adding all their albums to my spotify library, etc.)... believe me or not, it took me almost 7 months to catch up with all the content i wanted to check out. and well, the rest, i’m sure you can see/guess. about “to you” specifically though, my first impression was — “is it legal for a song to be this good?! did they put drugs in it or something 😭?” and it’s still the same. “to you” is a work of art, one that made me feel emotions i thought i’m not capable/eligible of feeling. i love attacca the mini album so much, from the top to bottom. what a gem!

— random get to know me asks 💌

[tales-of-cerano]

As 2022 comes to a close I'm starting to look back and reflect on the past few years, something I haven't really done much in the past. Now I will for anyone who is willing to listen. You don't know me, I probably don't know you very well, but I invite you to do the same.

2020: The Year of Pain

An edgy start I know but a lot happened in this year. Fear in many flavors, opportunities closed, regression we're all themes of the year. For me personally nothing terribly tragic happened. I most likely had COVID and gave it to my whole studio in the beginning of January before I even heard of it (parents friends who had a business trip to china got a weird illness and it just worked it's way as it does). A hiring freeze locked me out of an opportunity with a university conservatory that I was extremely excited for. I felt lonely without my friends. Besides COVID I was consistently stressed about future graduation and career choices. It's a year that went so slow yet now I forget most of it.

2021: The Year of Transition

I went through 3 major transitions in my life during this year: graduated college, started a salaried job, socially and medically transitioned. Way more than I expected and probably more than I could handle. It's weird now that I think about it how much actually happened. The imposter syndrome took a lot of the good out of those accomplishments at the time but now I am starting to see it. I also will flex here because it wasn't really recognized but I was valedictorian of my college. My class rank was 1 out of not just the major/department I was in but also the entirety of the NCState class of 2021. Like 1/6000 people. I don't tell that to anyone really cuz I don't want to be a bragging asshole but I worked really hard for it so I'll flex in front of internet strangers who don't know me.

2022: The Year of Change

Not a lot of "things" happened this year like last year but I finally had enough time to actually sit down and reflect on things because of things slowing down a bit. I worked with a therapist for a few sessions. I started listening to Healthy gamer gg stuff and started thinking about my mental health as something that was a part of me rather than something to solve. My outlook changed. I can safely say that I am 1000% better with being comfortable with myself than I was before. Anxiety attacks over things went from being dissociative and lasting for weeks to being something manageable. It's nothing I ever thought would ever happen. I think the biggest thing that kick-started my change was to give things the benefit of the doubt and try them. I used to fight meditation saying it was something that wouldn't work for me cuz I'm too in my head until I just said you know what let's try. What's gonna happen it won't work and I waste an hour. So I did and now its one of the most influential things of my life.

2023: The Year of Forgiveness

This upcoming year I'd like to focus on letting myself live with mistakes I've made in the past and let go of some deep shame I have. I was dumb and while I never did anything like commit a violent crime against anyone I still feel like I caused a lot of emotional damage like bullying people in middle school and being critical to my friends. It's all stuff that I've either worked though, became aware, and changed. Of course I don't want to just toss it aside like it didn't happen but I want to recognize that while it was something I did it's also something that I can forgive myself for and move past as a better person.

This might change and who knows it might be another year of pain. Could be anything tbh. I'm open to it.

I wish anyone who reads this an insightful new year. Thinking and analyzing the past can be helpful to some. Tho if you have issues with deep and intense trauma I recommend you talk to professionals first. Exploring the past can cause things I think and make things worse when there is trauma.

[aevyk-ing]

2022 review and stuff

So... this has been a weird year. Bad, sometimes terrible, sometimes hopeful, but yeah, utterly bad. I’m sorry that this is the third time I do this and things haven’t improved much (2020, 2021) but hey, I’m still here, fighting and doing my best. And that’s enough. Anyway, I’m going to rant again first and then add the stuff that has helped me. 

1. Health so-so

Got a huge drop after having to leave say the last goodbye to my house but I’m far stronger now, both physically and mentally. I still feel sad from time to time, but I know how to deal with it in a better way. 

2. Writing Not bad

I’ve published Kylkos and I’m so happy! Also wrote another book in the midst of emptying my room and fixed it some months after because it was a huge mess (but hey, my life was a mess too so no worries). Been working on Zem’s sequel and the next books (both Gingaria and not). Gingaria has also grown a little and I know it’s going to be a long journey, but at least I’ve made the first steps. 

3. Cosplay So-so

Most of my stuff is in boxes right now and I had less and less energy. It’s difficult to do anything when you have everything scattered in several places. I finished one cosplay and got photos for other but, even though I really wanted to keep on cosplaying, things were hard right then. Hope it gets better this year.

Now for the things that have helped me!

1. Webtoons

I started reading webtoons during the pandemic, but took it to a whole new level this year. My favorite is See you on my 19th life. Reading has helped me disconnect and has also improved my creativity when I was in my lowest points.

2. Gingaria

Working on my own books and characters always make me feel better. I’ve spent a lot of time doing research and creating new characters and countries, exploring all that this world has to offer. I just can’t let go of it now. 

3. Ghibli

Finally started my Ghibli journey after years procrastinating. My favorite one so far is Arriety and I’m enjoying going back to 2D animation, the soft look of everything and the mythology.

4. Vegan food

While I could never be a full vegan (sorry, I like meat and fish a lot), I’ve been trying to add more vegetables to my diet with vegan food and recipes. I even got a vegan advent calendar (from the KoRo brand)! I’ve discovered that my ever sensitive stomach tolerates some versions of the same food better, so I’ve been trying to be kinder to it (it’s even worse after having my appendix removed). 

5. “Revolution”

I joined the group of people affected by the subway problem and I’ve not only met some new people, I’ve also helped them actively. This is a huge problem for our city and I’m happy to be fighting for a solution. 

Plans for 2023? Well, I’m going to start strong with a presentation of two of my books (Gotxinka and Kylkos). I’ll publish other two (only in Spanish, though) on the next months, a poetry one and the other has short stories. I want to start writing the sequel of Kylkos and translate the next book, Zem’s sequel, so I can publish it at the end of the year. I’m also working on a new cosplay, so hopefully I can do photoshoots again. Let’s hope everything goes smoothly and they pay enough for my house so we can buy a new one. So yeah, lots of plans. 

Thanks for reading and being with me, guys. Have a Happy Golden Sunrise/New Year!

[free--therapy]

it's anon! thank you for helping, i think I can think about the compulsion and rationalising thing much better now.

I am sort of still confused as to what healthy or proper rationalising but does this work?

like recently I've been kind of remembering worries from 2020 and early 2021 because that's where my anxiety actually started or rather, got out of control due to covid and stuff. i just developed health anxiety on and off which led me to a habit of googling whatever I was worried about or joining forums and such and other stuff like that.

looking back, that googling habit or joining anxiety forums and stuff did give me a few "good" results but overall, it did more harm than good. it helped me in few ways but was also pretty destructive in other ways. but since I had no other way of knowing what was going on iwth me and how to get any help or reassurance, so looking online was the only way for me. i also visited the doctor quite a few times in a span of three months due to my worries about a specific symptom I was having and didn't know what it was. I did see one psychiatrist who said it was health anxiety. this lasted on and off for about six months until i got over it.

however in August 2021, i just randomly looked up something I was worried about and OCD came up which triggered me bad and I started looking at forums and support groups too but only for a month or so. Because after that I got a therapist for a few months who asked me that the forums were doing me more harm with minimal help so it was better to leave. And I did which was a great decision because after that, I never read anything online about any mental health disorder. Which works best for me.

Either way, all i know is it was health anxiety but beyond that, I'm not sure what disorder I had or what it was, etc. So i know assuming it was a symptom of xyz disorder is wrong since I can't say for sure.

These days, those memories are coming back and since I've been worried about OCD, thoughts like "was that googling habit a compulsion?" Or "was that xyz thing you did many times a compulsion?" "So was it OCD or obsessive disorder or any related disorder?" Etc.

But i also know, it's in the past and I can never know for sure. So no matter how many thoughts like "was it OCD? Was it this xyz disorder?" etc. come up, i always rationalise it by telling myself certain things.

So now when i remember it and find myself getting worried, no matter how many times the thoughts pop up, how i rationalise it is by telling myself things like:

"right now I'm worried about specific disorders so my mind is trying to bring up anything that sounds similar to trigger me"

"i don't need to know what it was because it's not going to change anything. it's not like it means I have that disorder again. besides what I do know for sure is it was health anxiety. beyond that, i don't need to guess or assume anything because it doesn't matter"

"it most probably wasn't any of those disorders I'm worried about but either way it's in the past and doesn't matter now"

"whatever it was doesn't affect me in anyway in the present. so whatever it was doesn't matter. I'm just overthinking and i know that in the present, I'm fine."

"right now I'm just anxious after a long time of being okay. so I'm having all sorts of worry thoughts but I know they are not true. and this includes thoughts about the past"

"I'm healthy and okay in the present. i don't need to take these what ifs seriously. I'm okay"

Is this a healthy way of rationalising? Am i doing it right?

Hey Anon, yes, it does look like you're on the right track to combatting these thoughts that keep coming up!

And yes, it's probably the best thing you did by leaving those forums because for the most part people on those kinds of forums are only just feeding each others' anxiety and making it way worse. While the internet can be a tool for good use, it can also be more harmful than good, like your therapist said.

When it comes to rationalizing your thoughts, the idea is to basically tell your mind that everything is okay because when these intrusive thoughts start to happen, your mind has been switched into survival mode and it will say and do everything to keep you out of danger, even if the "danger" is only something that is perceived, such as a thought.

[kicking-mushrooms]

I’m going to casually scream into the void, for old time’s sake.

There has been a lot that has happened since I last journaled in here. I’ll try to do a quick summation over the past 5 years, to the best of my ability. Nobody fucking reads my posts, so this is mostly to have a place I can write about without worrying about it being lost because my computer crashed and so my hard drive has to be been wiped. I could post this on a google doc, but that feels weird for some reason. I guess I like the idea of potential comradely? I’m not entirely sure….

I remember being mostly active here during high school, so this is everything that happened since graduating.

Trigger warnings: mentions of Ab*se and R*pe

I had a singular close friend, and ruined that relationship because of mental health issues I didn’t understand.

Turns out I have ADHD and Autism, and I struggle with mood regulation. I won’t start anti depressants until a year or two later, which help stabilize my mood IMMENSELY. Starting them made a lot of my anger slip away. However, it won’t be until around 2020-ish that I even find out about emotional dysregualtion or executive dysfunction. I won’t be able to get an ADHD assessment until 2022

Ahhhh. I deeply regret the way I acted. I think about it a lot. I hope she’s doing well in life

I was…. Very lonely, and angry for a while.

The timeline for this part is very foggy…. I know I was extremely depressed. I resented my friends for being more successful than me, and I also felt trapped. I didn’t have a driver’s license, or a parent who helped me at all. Everyone else was supported, and had a future. I felt so…. Trapped

I know I stayed with my mom in a little room above someone’s garage….. and I some point I was homeless and staying at a friends place…. But I cant recall where that lies chronologically

my mom started dating someone and basically abandoned me for him. She dumped me off at her uncle’s and aunt’s place.

BOY HOWDEY were they are SUPER toxic, and casually made jokes about how they emotionally abused their kids. They were also chain smokers, and being around them was hard on my health. There was never any food in the house because they lost their apatite from smoking. I lived entirely on a singular lunabar a day :) They also didn’t drive (much) because they were both disabled and retired. This was a problem all on its own because I still didn’t have a license, and they couldn’t teach me. For context: They live in a trailer in the middle of boonfuck nowhere. There weren’t even any buses in that area.

They also talked about sex a lot, which made me uncomfortable because they’re grandparents??? And hearing your granddad talk about “getting fucked in the ass” as a joke is really weird. It could just be compounded since I was also sex repulsed, so it made me extremely uncomfortable.

My mom was visiting them, when suddenly the new dog my gruncle took in attacks me.

The dog was apparently an abused rescue that my Gruncle wanted to rehabilitate. The dog had already bitten him twice at this point…. I still can’t believe that it took a large ass Saint Bernard ripping chunks from my arm before my mom did anything…..

I dressed up as John Egbert at a Halloween dance, and made a friend

I have since lost contact with them, because I am too socially inept to send a message 😭 Anyways, she invited me to go to an anime convention at that time, which I accepted because I had absolutely no friends around me. At the convention, I met some other people that I became friends with! I hit it off with two of them particularly well. I’ve loss contact with both at this point, for different reasons. One of them started dating an emotionally abusive bigot, and started changing for the worse ….I think about them a lot

At some point, I saved up enough money and bought myself my own god damn driver’s ed

I will never not be bitter that I had to do this. Family did provide a car…. Which was because mother’s husband had a great uncle who died, and so they gave me his old car.

My friend asked for my help to move into Austin

My mom’s boyfriend reaction to this was to have his own kid move into the room I was staying in :)

Guess I live in Austin now

My friend let me co-sign, and we started dating…. This was the first person I ever dated seriously! And was it HELL. They turned out to be EMOTIONALLY ABUSIVE AF. On the bright side, I was able to deal with a lot of body dysphoria I have, and also my sex repulsion. I still hate the sound of kissing, and anything like it, but that turns out to be a weird ADHD thing so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ what can you do

Also learned what an Empath is from him!

I started working at CVS, which was right down the road from where I lived

If you are thinking about working there… don’t!

I was there for a year, I think?

When the lease was up, I had no friends and nowhere to go. I had to resort to Craigslist. Oh! And my credit card info got stolen! The paycheck I had just gotten the day before was GONE. All I had to eat was a couple of saltine crackers to last me for two weeks until my next paycheck

My mom gets married (June 9th, 2016 at least according to the photos on my phone)

This is the anxious man my mom abandoned me for, and he also basically forces her to drop me for him. Mmmm I foresee an unhappy marriage Spoilers: it is

….Chanthony

So, I found a place! And it was a hell all its own. He was/is a fucking NIGHtMARE to deal with. I’m pretty sure he has undiagnosed Autism, but he definitely has untreated depression and anxiety. To get a good idea of what he is like - when he was looking for a roommate, he wasn’t ACTUALLY looking for a roommate. He was looking for a manic pixie dream girl to fix him. He thought that would help, instead of actually taking medication.

Right off the bat, his apartment was infested with fleas. I diligently took care of it myself, and ended up investing a decent amount of money and a whole LOT of time. I had to shave my cat, Jada! He would go into these depressive states and wouldn’t clean…. Anything. The sink and counters would be overflowing with moldy pans and plates. There were soda cans everywhere, full of cigarettes. Absolute ton of laundry everywhere. The worst was actually his dog. His dog was greasy and PUNGENT. I fucking cleaned the SHIT out of that apartment, and even invested in an IQair purifier. That bitch EXPENSIVE, but BOY was it worth it! The smell was gone after a few days of it running. It also helped prevent my migraines from him smoking weed inside, despite him saying he wouldn’t. Asshole never even recognized my hard work. He insisted I did it for myself. Like, yeah, to a degree? But if it was for just me, I wouldn’t have deep cleaned and organized the whole apartment. I figured that a clean environment would help with his depression, if only a little. Ironically, I was trying to help him like he romanticized but he was to self sabotaging to see it

If it was just mess, I could deal with that no problem. I would help deep clean this semi-retired lady who would walk to my work. I also did this for a “friend” of mine (Tangent: That friend would FREQUENTLY bail on me while we were hanging out for Tinder dates. Then got pissy and avoided me for months when I stayed with a friend after I was in between places because my lease ended? ?? That still baffles me to this day) I’ve got depression, I get how it be sometimes. What bother’s me is his attitude. He would vacillate from putting me on a pedestal and go on about all that I do for him, to complaining about how I wasn’t doing enough.

He was very much a “Nice Guy” who thought that being someone’s friend meant that they were courting, and that by not dating I was leading him on. Things like going to the grocery store together were dates to him. He would give me things I didn’t even ask for, and expect shit from me afterwards. He even asked for Christmas gifts back after I moved out. He would manipulate what I said into his favor. He also kept making the ultimatum that if I didn’t date him, then “All this goes away” and we had to stop being friends. Which, considering that I am his roommate and he sleeps in the living room, it felt like blackmail!

Arguing with him was so frustrating. He would try to manipulate what I said into his favor, or made blanket statements to discount anything I said. He mocked my opinions, and disregarded my boundaries - which the arguments were usually about. His most common response for not stopping something after I say no, or more likely repeatedly saying no/stop, was because I was smiling…. Even though I worked retail, and I frequently smile when I am pissed because of this. He ignored my gender identity. He even used my it to try to make sexual advances? “Oh, you don’t believe in gender? That it’s fine if I come in there and change my clothes with you” Just because I recognize our gender biases based on our society, doesn’t mean that they’re no longer there. He made me so DEEPLY uncomfortable, that I would just crawl in through the window when I got home to avoid him. I have never hated going home as much as when I stayed with him. It wasn’t just me, either. Jada even tried running out the door when I came home once. She hid a lot while she was there. Unless I was around, then she would hide under the blanket, behind my legs.

It’s been 5 years, and he STILL stalks me on social media and harasses my mom to try to talk to me. I think he has messaged me on almost every platform at this point, including PINTEREST. FUCKING PINTEREST. He also will make new accounts just to message me, because I keep blocking him.

On the bright side, I got to see firsthand some of my own toxic traits reflected back at me. I have a feeling I acted a lot like Chanthony did towards my mom, and I can understand not wanting to sacrifice your own mental health for someone else. You are not a therapist, and no matter what you do, it won’t help. They have to recognize it, and want to change.

I think I got a sublet after a Chanthony (Sept-??? 2017)

I was only there for a few months. It smelled like cat piss. I cleaned it, and the original tenant I was leasing under apologized and sent a care basket :)

I didn’t have a car during this time, so i had to take the bus…. Which is all well and good, except that the closest stop was over an hour walk away

I got a girlfriend! (Dec-ish 2017 to ???)

It was…. Interesting! It was nice while it lasted… There was an age gap. I think I was 22, and she was 19. It was only a few years, but I could feel the age difference. If that makes sense? She just seemed young. Not in the youthful sense, but in the “ah, you still have some mental development to do :| “ She had a lot of trauma that she didn’t get into, and was very cryptic about. She also had an emotionally abusive mom that she idolized, which is very unfortunate. For many reasons. One of the things she imitated was from her mom was quick to cut you off, or ignore you at the least, when she was upset.

She caused a lot of damage to me emotionally, because she was my only friend at the time and she just…. dumped me, and completely cut off contact. It wasn’t even that long until she asked to date again. Maybe a month or so? but it wasn’t the same. Abandonment is a big issue of mine, so I was pretty broken after all was said an done. I couldn’t even get closure the first time. I tried asking, and got berated by her on-and-off again friend.

I think about her sometimes… mostly out of curiosity. Both because she was a great opera singer, and because I hope she realizes how toxic her mom is and grows to be her own person instead of what her mom wants her to be

Another new place

My roommates and I didn’t really get along….. Specifically the homeowner, who lived in one of the rooms. She was HELLA privileged. The house she lived in was a gift from her family, and she worked maybe 5 hours a day. That, alone, isn’t why I didn’t like her. Sure, I was envious, but I’m not gonna dislike someone because of that. She just was ignorant about anyone outside of herself. It was obvious she wanted to live alone. She was so bothered by everything everyone did, and was so blind to her own mess. She would get upset that I wouldn’t sweep, despite me cleaning her messy ass kitchen when I would get home from work. I doesn’t help that I also just… can’t see dirt on the floor very, thanks astigmatism. Though, the times I did, it turned out to mostly be her own dog’s hair, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Even so, I was struggling with taking care of myself at the time. I was suffering from SEVERE depression because I had been dumped, my godmother got diagnosed with cancer (and I got a vague message from her about giving up, and I thought she was going to kill herself, and freaked TF right on out), and I had lost my car. So cleaning the kitchen when I made meal prepped was the most I could do….

Even if that wasn’t the case, she was just hard me to be around. Very passive aggressive, and a lot anxiety.

On the bright side, this was the first time I could really decorate my own space. There were a lot of nice thrifstores around that I could get cheap decor. Despite everything, this was the first time I had ever felt “at home” in my space. I also got Tobi, my GIANT stuffed fox. I love him very much. I am so glad I got him ….sigh, I need to restuff him and throughly wash him. He’s gotten pretty grungy :(

Tangent: I never wanted to do physical harm to a pair of shoes as much as I did with hers. I wanted to burn her fucking crocks SO BAD. THEY WERE SO LOUD AS SHE CLOMPED UP THE STAIRS. She woke me up on more than one occasion, and I am not even a light sleeper

According to my phone, I got into my first major car accident on Feb 18th, 2018

I hydroplaned off an overpass onto another, DIFFERENT, overpass. Real GTA shit right there

???

At some point, I got a new car…..? It was a pain in the ass to get because I couldn’t get co-signer, even though I needed one because I don’t have credit . It was a ‘08 Toyota Prius that I named Eiffel. I also wrecked that car when a pickup took the front end off while I was turning on a protected left turn.

I think I moved back with my mom for a while? I remember I took some time off of work as well. God, I was so burnout…

My best friend of 10 years at the time said she was looking into moving out of her parents house into an apartment, so I went out on a limb and moved states

Fall or maybe winter of 2018? I know I was there over Christmas. I spent it dressed up as an elf at work! Just cause it made me happy. I also got cheap decorations, and decorated the place. I was there by myself, so I didn’t have to worry abut anyone else

Since there wasn’t a place ready, I stayed with my Alcoholic brother and his Narcissist, alcoholic Dad. The Dad hated me because I was my mom’s kid, and flat out told me that. He said my mom was a filthy whore, and went into EXPLICIT DETAIL about supposed things she had done. At some point, I told him to please stop, and he got irrationally irate about that, which escalated to him wanting to kick me out….. even though I was paying for cable, cooking their meals, and cleaning their house. He was also pissed that I wasn’t psychically looking for apartments, even though they are online. And even if I did look at them, I needed the input from the person who I was gonna room with.

I got the best car I could with all the savings I had, which was only $1,000. Because of that, I had to work a few months before I could afford a down payment on an apartment. I thing I had it for 2 months before the timing belt went out, and destroyed the engine.

Also, during this time, I had gotten r*ped by my brother while he was shitfaced one night. So, even if it wasn’t for his dad, I would still have left

I got a new car from a very kind coworker

And I am so glad they did, because I lived in that car, quite literally. I had a queen mattress topper already that I folded and used as a bed in the back seat, so it wasn’t actually half bad! If I were to do it again, there are a few things I woulda done a few things differently. One would be purchasing those window insulated covers for cars. I would still have stayed in the Walmart parking lot at night, but I should have parked on the LEFT side because apparently there is an OUTDOOR OUTLET over there that I didn’t discover until LATER. And, finally, I should have caved and got the $20 gym membership

Also, my friend decided to stay with her grandparents. I haven’t talked to her since, and I am still very bitter

This gets me to about the Spring of 2019, when I move into an actual place

I will get into this in part II cause I am kinda tired of talking……

[theogalison]

Chitty Chat Catch Up

...That could have been a better headline if I could find an antonym for "Up" that started with "C".

Things have been pretty tumultuous for me lately, and as a result there's been a lot of changes that have already happened to my "outward" online appearance and others that are surely going to be happening in the near(ish) future. I'll try to keep this brief to not waste any time and to not look like a complete buffoon (if that's even possible, but I digress).

So, let's rewind back to the end of May of this year. As I had left everything, I was taking a hiatus from video production to work on the new SubdermalGazette.com. That work is still going on, and will continue going forward as planned (with some caveats).

However, there was an incident on Twitter that involved me making a decision to distance myself away from content that I did not want to see, and that led to a confrontation by an aggressive (now ex-)follower. The incident left me traumatized to an extent (amplifying my anxiety to levels that it was beginning to affect my physical health), and the fact that Twitter told me that the aggressive behavior was 100% "did not violate their rules" gave me a rude awakening.

My immediate response was to leave Twitter. This really did nothing to help me and my anxiety, and in reality made things astronomically worse for me in ways that I would rather not discuss publicly. This, in turn, caused a runaway snowball effect leading me to think "Damn, if I wasn't such a garbage content creator, then maybe people would actually respect me." And that's where this community post on YT came from:

At this point, I have already invested a small fortune into the Subdermal Gazette's future, but that incident and the fallout from me leaving Twitter led me to put my foot down and say "No more." The money invested is for the site, which I still have plans on doing, but I had not yet invested anything into the video stuff, and that along with the feelings that I wasn't good enough for anyone led me to drop the axe.

After all of that happened, I basically just "drifted" along and tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do next. Well, I knew what I needed to do, and was working on what I needed to do, but it wasn't working out like I was wanting it to. I'm sorry if that sounds vague, but there's a method to my madness, I swear!

And then came last Wednesday, the 7th of June. My internet went out that afternoon and stayed out until well into the next morning. Folks, when you don't have any access to WiFi and your mobile data makes 2000s dial-up look speedy, you tend to get bored and lost in your thoughts. I was cleaning my fridge out and I got this eureka moment.

A lot of the stuff that had been dragging me down, emotionally and mentally, for the last couple years, was stuff that I wish that I could do over, or stuff that I wanted to do but couldn't do because of 2020 in general. Everything, from what happened in June 2021 (funny how these always end up being June things, amiright?!) to now and everything in between really could be tied back to one common element. And until now I really wasn't in a great position to do something about all of that.

While I was technically IN a position to do something about all of that, I really couldn't because I buried myself so deep into being Theo Galison, if that makes any sense. I always kept telling myself "Nah, I'll do this after I finish editing this video." or "Nah, I'll do that after I plan out these reviews." To make more sense of it, I've been using the Subdermal Gazette and my whole Theo persona as a crutch to deal with grief that I had suffered a few years prior.

Let me put this in terms that are familiar to those who will likely read this: Subdermal Gazette is my Headspace and Theo is my Omori. I know that's a stretch of a parallel (I'm not living off the guilt of a lot of absolutely horrid stuff like Sunny, obviously). I can keep living in this cycle of grief and despair, or I can do something about it. And I'm going to do the latter.

Of course, if you're going to make huge changes in your life, you're obviously going to have anxiety about THAT. However, as this week progressed, a lot of interesting things have happened (CrowdTap's false allegations, for instance, and other things that are more private). Now, I'm not a spiritual man by any means, but I feel like everything that has happened has been a sign from a higher power telling me that "Hey, this is where you need to go." and "Everything's going to be okay."

And I took those feelings and that inspiration and turned it into motivation. I started exercise again (as I posted on Instagram, I'm doing Ring Fit Adventure once more... just with more self-discipline). I started eating right, and I started making sure that I get plenty of sleep every night. Those actions alone have made an astronomical difference in my quality of life.

Are things better now? Not really. In fact, one can argue that things are a bit bleak right now. But I'm still feeling hopeful. I could go on and on about other things, but I think I need to wrap this up because I'm sure at least one person reading this is thinking "Bruh, if this what you call 'brief' what the hell do you call 'extensive'?!"

Even though my return to Twitter was brief and was only intended to call out CrowdTap for their scammery, I feel comfortable with myself to take the good with the bad and give it another try.

As for the Subdermal Gazette, it's still happening and I hope to have something up by the end of the summer. Well, if I'm going to do it, I need to have it done by the end of the summer, I mean. The videos are now unlisted because I still stand by my beliefs that the quality wasn't that great (and I think that's something to talk about in another episode of SUT). I may or may not make new video content with some changes in mind, but that's going to depend on quite a lot of stars aligning. As of this writing, I have zero idea on what the rest of the summer will bring, so I'm going to stop short of making any promises that I cannot keep. But if I do have something to announce, please rest assured that it will be somewhere (here, Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon, etc).

Until next time, I'm still not shutting up. ~ Theo 💚

[undercover-bun-etc]

I've been thinking about... the reason I'm even using Tumblr. It's... alot.

It's basically something I've pent up inside for a little while. It's not something I would normally tell the internet but... it's taking such a toll on my mental health right now that I feel I need to.

I don't know what to warn for so just don't read if you aren't in the best mindspace.

I created my first Tumblr in about 2017. It went unused and forgotten until about 2020.

The beginning of that year I moved with my father and siblings into a house with his two best friends, their 2 year old, and their newborn. Just before quarantine started. We were there till the beginning of 2022.

The entire time the wife actively caused problems. I will not give specifics as the whole experience left me with a shoddy memory and a near constant brain fog.

Well, I will give one. It's the one that's preventing me from seeking help for any of it. At the time I was doing digital schooling, as most did with zoom meetings and all jazz. Well, I apparently had concerned the counselor or something cause I was assigned a therapist, completely free of charge. I did a zoom call every other week with her.

The wife didn't like it. After I started these biweekly sessions, things started getting worse. CPS was called a few times and things just started becoming... hostile. She claimed that I was saying shit and I was why these things were happening. By this point, I was on eggshells whenever a session came around and would literally lie about what was going on or I'd cherry-pick the not so bad and talk exclusively about that. And still the things kept happening. Eventually she threatened my dad. She threatened that if I continued seeing my therapist, we would be kicked out.

So I was forced to stop seeing my therapist. My problems, which were improving, got even worse than they ever were before. I went from mildly anxious to "look at me even slightly wrong and I will cry" levels of anxious by the time we got out of there.

I had to unlearn so many of the behaviors I had picked up there. There are some I still haven't been able to shake, some negative others more annoying than anything. Like my daydreaming, I can sit somewhere in silence for hours and play through a story I create. Or my habit of sitting in the corners of rooms, typically as far away from people as possible. Or of never unpacking things from boxes, one that my mom gets on to me for every once in a while (she knows as much of the stuff that happened in the house as I could remember).

Throughout most of my time there, I used Tumblr as an escape. A way to step away from all stuff that was going on. To actually feel like I wasn't just a completely useless waste of space.

Tumblr was how I kept myself from becoming something else.

It's been my social media of choice since then and I hope it will be for a while.

Cause this is place is the chill one I've found and the only one I'm not absolutely terrified of.

[purgtry]

Yes, I’m back with a new muse, you can’t escape me. No,  ’m not going to go through a name change, hide who I am, etc. That’s never been my style despite trying it once because I felt desperate. But I want one thing to be addressed while we’re in the brand new year. I’d highly appreciate it if you read this, especially if we no longer are mutuals or never saw eye to eye on things. I feel like this is long over due, and maybe that was just because I didn’t know how to word things. But this is something I really want to be known on how I’m going to behave from now on.

For the past few years I have been called out for my bad behavior, the most popular being my stance on certian taboo topics I’m sure you’re already aware of. I want to make it perfectly clear I know very well that they’re bad, weaither or not I assure you that I’d never condone them irl. I believe fiction dosen’t equal reality, but I also understand other people’s stances- so perhaps I’m just in that big gray area?  I get both sides is what I’m trying to say. This is why I never engage in it publicly with or around people who I know are uncomfortable with it. This is why I’ve always made it something I wanted people to know before hand, despite knowing I’d be judged harshly for what I believe in. Infact, I don’t think I’ve even made any public posts with these things since a few years ago on one of my old multis (This excludes my old personal Twitter where yes, I was more open because I had other friends I knew were comfortable with it) This year I really want to improve my mental health. Since 2020 it has been terrible, only getting worse the more this goes on. I am going to cease doing anything that I know may seem harmful, this of course including engaging in any sort of contact with people who want nothing to do with me. I’d rather not upset myself or anyone else. I am simply here to have fun and I’m tired of all the stress. Please respect my wishes of trying to improve myself, because it can’t really be shown when dealing with people who may turn a blind eye to the offer in general and act like I’ll always be the same. It’s like I always say, I practically live by the quote “Do you believe even the worst person can change for the better?” You may think I’m a disgusting person now, but I’m willing to change myself, for the sake that I know it’s the best thing to do, and it will help not only my mental health, but others aswell. I want to start fresh, to be given another chance. I truly understand I’ve disapointed and upset plenty of people already because of my past actions. I truly apologize for the way I had acted in the past, and trust me I understand now how shitty they were, I’m not just saying this to get easy forgiveness. Though it’s up to you if you forgive me or not. If you’ve read this far I thank you, and if you’d ever like to talk or give me any feed back, please feel free to send an ask or IM. I will not be having anons turned on, simply for the sake that I’m terrified of them still.

[zhenjun]

white people, your cosplay is yellowface

Content warning: images of yellowface that may be upsetting below

Note: I have made the decision to remove the images of modern-day cosplayers. I stand by my initial choice to include them, as I believe actually seeing images of modern cosplay side by side with “real” yellowface was essential to understanding the point. However, this post has gotten much more attention than I ever anticipated. I had, at the time of making it, fewer than 30 followers.

In addition to harassment from sockpuppet accounts, assertions that my opinion on racism is less important because I am in the diaspora, misinterpretation about what this post was initially about (several people claimed cultural appropriation), threats to report and suspend me, and, apparently, discussion on twitter, for my own mental health, I am taking these images down.

I will no longer be responding to criticism or questions on the post, but I will happily answer DMs or asks on the subject. If you disrespect this or try to start more discourse, you are getting blocked, not because I want to silence your voice, but because I am a real person who can choose not to engage with people for reasons as seemingly unfair as my mental health and not wanting to continue filling my blog with the same post that honestly is upsetting for me to look at (as I already stated within the post).

If you have been blocked by me it is either due to disrespect and/or some form of unrelated drama due to how I like to interact with fandoms (i.e. ships like Ch*ngxian, Xu*xiao), not because I am trying to silence you. As I have so few followers, I am sure you can make your own post and gain even more traction than I did.

If you are white, please stop cosplaying MDZS/TGCF characters. It often looks like/is yellowface, and honestly there’s no way to respectfully do it when these media are based so heavily on Chinese culture. I’ll try to sum up why these fandoms need to be more mindful. You can find links and citations at the bottom that read best on my desktop blog theme.

The goal of yellow face in the past wasn’t always to look “authentically Asian;” white directors, actors, set designers, and playwrights set out to use what pieces of East Asian culture they found most inspiring, fun, cool, violent, or backward. Sometimes, white people had "good" intentions" with their use of yellowface and were not "trying" to demean our cultures, but the practice itself did so regardless.

To summarize, white people of the past did yellowface to erase our identities, take aspects of our culture that they liked, or ridicule us. Most modern-day cosplayers are doing the first two.

Below are examples of early Hollywood yellowface and modern-day theater, as well as modern-day cosplay:

[Previously pictured was a white Xie Lian cosplayer who was very receptive after seeing this post and has since removed these images from their social media. If you happen upon any of their cosplay or other social media, please do not send them any hate.]

As you can see actress Katharine Hepburn in “Dragon Seed”[1][2] is in very traditionally inspired Chinese clothing. The previously pictured Xie Lian cosplayer was in a similar hat and wearing white robes. They both had some sort of eye makeup; Katharine Hepburn darkened her hair for the role while the cosplayer was wearing a dark-brown/black wig.

Of note, the character Katharine Hepburn plays in "Dragon Seed" is supposed to be positive; an adaption from (white) author Pearl S. Buck's novel about a brave Chinese woman who stands up to Japanese imperialism. Like modern day cosplayers of Chinese media, just because the white people creating this film did not intend to be harmful does not change that it was yellowface and racist.

[Previously pictured was a before and after picture of a white Xue Yang cosplayer with blue eyes, brown hair, half of which was dyed blonde in the before image. In the after, they were wearing a long black wig, heavy eye makeup, newly shaped and darkened eyebrows, and robes made to emulate CQL in warm lighting]

Here are before and after pictures of actress Katharine Hepburn in 1944[3] and, previously, was a white Xue Yang cosplayer in 2020. Both had altered their eyes and eyebrows as well as donned black wigs or darkened hair.

[Previously pictured was a Jiang Yanli cosplayer in a black wig and robes meant to emulate the donghua]

Yellowface does not always involve modification to the eyes. In these two images, neither Mary Pickford in Madame Butterfly[4] nor the previously shown modern Jiang Yanli cosplayer have done anything noticeable to shape their eyes. They were, however, both wearing black wigs with traditionally inspired outfits. Jiang Yanli wore a modified version of Tang Dynasty fashion.[5]

[previously pictured was an image of a Wei Wuxian cosplayer with face powdered white and rouge around the eyes. Their eyes were still blue as the Madame Butterfly’s were on the left, and they were wearing a long black wig as well as robes designed to emulate his. This image has been replaced and amended with an additional example of modern theater; the production of The Mikado where one actor is wearing a black wig, the other a Japanese inspired hat, and both are wearing Japanese robes]

The final comparison was an example of a stage actress from the 2015 Fargo-Moorehead Opera production for Madame Butterfly[6] on the left (the earlier movie is an adaptation of the play). [This image was previously erroneously attributed to the Knoxville Opera which faced backlash for their production as they had an all-white cast depicting actors in yellowface in 2019.][7]

Honestly, these images just had a strange similarity to me so that’s why I chose to put these two together. Most importantly, was the similarity in makeup, hair, and East Asian clothing. Though the image is not there any longer, but just google Mo Xuanyu cosplays and ask yourself, if you didn’t know the fandom, would you be able to spot the difference of which one is supposed to be worse?

The new image is just another example of modern yellowface in theater, where the actors do not necessarily wear extensive eye makeup to emulate East Asians but, much like modern cosplayers, nonetheless are trying to look like the Asian characters they play in a Seattle production of The Mikado.[8]

As you can see, it’s pretty sad and disturbing to see how the rise of East Asian media is creating a new modern wave of yellowface. I think white people tend to think that black/brown/yellowface is only about darkening the skin, but that is just not what many depictions of yellowface have been for East and Southeast Asian people.

I know a lot of people recognize this is wrong and I appreciate those of you that do, but if you didn’t recognize the past parallels, please read up on the links below! Researching this was honestly triggering and emotionally taxing and caused a mild breakdown, so if you clown on this post you’re getting blocked.

Despite the post losing effectiveness to an extent from taking down the modern day photos, I suggest a quick google search of cosplays from the series during/after reading this. And if you don't agree with me, feel free to block and don't send more hate to me! I'm not trying to get into fights. I just wanna feel like I have a semi-safe space in the fandom but if this annoys you, it's better to just block me.

HISTORY, Casting White People in Asian Roles Goes Back Centuries[↩︎]︎

Youtube, Dragon Seed (1944) Trailer [↩︎]︎

NBC News, 'Correcting Yellowface': One Woman's Project to Fix Whitewashing[↩︎]︎

IMDB[↩︎]

Stony Brook University, The Influence of Chang-An Culture to Korea and Japan: Cultural Diffusion in the Glorious Age of Tang Dynasty[↩︎]

Howard Sherman, Yellowface Bait-And-Switch With ‘Madama Butterfly’ In Fargo[↩︎]︎

OnStage Blog, Knoxville Opera Forgets It's 2019 and Opts for Yellowface for "Madame Butterfly"[↩︎]︎

Seattle Times, The yellowface of “The Mikado” in your face[↩︎]︎

[pendragaryen]

I'm wishing you a happy new years eve, dear fam, friends and followers- and of course only the best for the upcoming new year 2022! 2022 already... Wtf... The last year seems to me almost like a blur tbh...

I've read my post from last year's NYE and I almost had to laugh-cry or something like that... The hope and the optimism was almost unmatched. What has changed, so that I'll probably be unable to spread much of this positivity today then (even if I desperately wanted to)?

Let's have a look ok?

So, first, and on the brightest note, there's to mention that my family is still healthy, even after almost 2 years of a worldwide pandemic. Even the condition of my father's health had gotten better after the heart attack on christmas eve last year. I cannot stress enough how important these things are to me. Other wishes... had shrunken to almost nothing within the last years. Other things grow much more important to me. Small things. Like a visit of my mom or my sister here and there, seeing my best friend, and if it's just once every three or four months... Talking with friends and colleagues via social media... Decorating my flat and rearranging my furniture... Treating myself and my little hammy with small gifts... The nearby nature and photographing it... Watching all my favourite shows or movies (I'm sooo looking forward to watch Bob's new show Love Me! And the movie, that Beliza is starring in!🧡)... Homeoffice... Scented candles... Coffee... Food...

On the other hand tho it's more than difficult to stay positive if nothing seems to have changed since last year concerning the pandemic. Not really. I see the small steps my government takes in the right directions (more vaccine for example...), but if there's so many people (almost 30 % in my country) who still don't want to cooperate and get vaccinated, I can see us all spiraling down into the next lockdown on a frequent basis... There will always be new mutations of that damn virus. This will never really end. I just really hope that they will be able to create a medication (in combination with vaccinations for example) that can help us to prepare ourselves for that. I heard there's a medication already in the making and ordered. But whether it really helps ALL people? I don't know... I know we're all trying our best to stay positive (more or less) but I'm tired... Gods I'm so so tired... And I do not even start again about my very own mental health condition... no... It would lead to nothing here. Just know that despite the fact that I'm so tired... I'm still here trying, working on myself. It seems to get harder with each passing day though.

I am an introvert. So I was alone most of my time even BEFORE Covid-19, and it was okay for me then. But this situation now... It truly makes it much worse. And I know it's not only me who silently suffers that way. But to know that doesn't help much. There are better days, when I try to remind myself of all the good and small and precious things I mentioned above. And it works. But there are also the "dog days", when it's even hard for me to get up in the morning...

So.. sorry if on this fine new years eve I'm in trouble finding the proper words to send you optimistic thoughts. I have cero expectations for the new year this time. Therefore I can only be positively surprised if things will turn out well in the end, right?

The only thing that I have planned for next year is (like in 2020 and in 2021 as well) my trip to Paris in April and to attend the Spacewalkers Convention, that had been postponed... what was it? 3 times? Or was it already 4 times? I have lost count... And I almost lost my eagerness to go too. This is... frustrating. I blame the pandemic as well as a certain shitheaded showrunner for this, for "killing my mood". It's just me and my way of thinking, I know. I shouldn't let myself be influenced by such things. But as I said, I am getting more and more tired... and so it's really difficult to stay strong and keep up the ability to be... euphoric. And not only in regards to the plans I mentioned above.

However... Let's see what the new year will bring us. We haven't much of a choice, have we? So let's dive head first into it. For all its flaws... earth is really beautiful... It should be our first priority to keep it alive and well. If we try to treat our environment better, I'm sure we would heal some major diseases of mankind itself. And at long last.. maybe even that damn virus.

But despite my own thoughts and state of mind: Of course I'm thinking of you guys and wishing you all the best, lots of health and love and everything you wish for yourself! May it all come true. And may the new year surprise me/us in the best possible way. *whispers* Please...

See you on the other side! Thanks for bearing with me. Thanks for existing. I love you, dear fam.😘🍀🍾🥂🕯

Tagging just a few people, but please note, that my wishes go out to each and every member of the fam🤗 @togetherkru @natassakar @geekyogicheese @bellamyblake @carrieeve @ninappon @roguetwelve @infp-with-all-the-feelings @immortalpramheda @poppykru @kateemcintyre @lee-em-dee @heartbellamy @jeanie205 And a special thought from me to @merlination and @toshihakari