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outlandishcraziness · 5 years ago

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Well, someone f@&’d up. Here are my thoughts regarding the latest from Mr. Heughan.

First, some background:

You know me as a voice of positivity, a silver lining in the fandom. I came to OL after I read book one and learned of the show about 5 years ago. I didn’t get thru all the books and came to dislike DG as a writer and ego-maniac. I discovered the fandom on Tumblr at the time the IFH happened.

Honestly, my impression of the IFH was to think they’re together! It was a lame denial, with their looks at each other not matching their words, and Sam saying “we can try!” Duh, I decided to jump down the Shipper rabbit hole then and there.

I got to know so many nice Shippers and created artwork for each season I sold on cards, prints, pillows, and tea towels; the dragonfly in amber is by far the most popular.

It was fun! We looked at reflections and studied backgrounds in fan photos. Receipts piled up among the slip-ups and phoney stories. I never got mired in the Shitner stuff and didn’t like the overt fanning of certain bloggers here. I kept it light and positive—“Shipper Light.”

I almost jumped ship when Sam stood in front of the Georgia sign, hung out at a NC wedding, and Cait appeared to get engaged and then married. But my gut told me they were PR stunts. I’m an artist with friends from college working in HW. I know how low things can go—honesty and truth are extremely endangered animals there.

I also work with photography, Photoshop, and Adobe all day every day so I know what I’m looking at and what to look for in a photo. So many of the official or accepted images regarding the personal lives of SC look like utter BS.

This brings me to Sam’s rant. I’m shocked he was so wordy. I was surprised he referred to a vile narrative more than once (we think the “we’re not together lie” deserves to die, too, Sam). Personally I think he’s protecting his family (SC & kiddos, his mother and brother), his friends, and his career.

His team sucks—we all know that. Sam is to blame here, but he’s not alone. He made mistakes. He knows it. His image is badly tarnished. We’ve all grown more introspective and reflective with time on our hands to worry about the world.

Sam never learned how a good leader takes responsibility for his own misjudgments and those who work for him. I think his tweet rant was his attempt to acknowledge things and move on. But he didn’t apologize. It’s damn frustrating that SC continue to lump all fans together to blame for their woes.

But no, they did NOT sign up for abuse, harassment, death threats, and the kind of mean trolling they’ve received. They made mistakes, but no one should be abused for any reason. If you’re in the public eye, either as a celeb, politician, or other, you need to treat others with respect AND can expect respect in return. SM is vile because trolls have anonymity and act accordingly.

I will always believe that SC are naturally kinder, gentler, and more grounded than many of their peers in show business. Just about every single person who works or collaborated with them have said so and I believe it. Both of their families seem genuine and raised SC in loving homes.

Finally, the saddest thing for me is I no longer find joy in the show. My husband and I loved it together, but now it just drags on. Sophie and Rik are boring as mud. I don’t know about the ratings, but I can’t see any reason for the show to keep going. Story-wise, it’s all downhill from here IMO.

Maybe Sam’s rant is part of an exit strategy. He’s seemed stressed, ill, uneasy. He looked terrible in Mexico. I haven’t follow the latest UBA or Hawaii-2-O, but I don’t care anymore. I wish Sam, Cait, and everyone associated with OL the best. One day, I believe we’ll find out SC have 15 kids, 6 homes, 25 cats, and a children’s book in the works. Until then, my interests are ebbing away from the outlandish OL world.

Cheers! Be well.

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gravitasfalls · 5 years ago

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A rant on fandom etiquette, the GF fandom, and what they did 4 years ago (and now)

By now, my “bullshit” tag has refuted most of the ridiculous hot takes, fun policing, and harassment that fans of Stanford Pines have had to face from the wider Gravity Falls fandom. But these rebuttals fall short of naming the real problem with anti-Ford wank: we never should have seen it in the first place.

People might have genuinely forgotten this, but fandom used to have etiquette against character hate. We called it “wank” and “bashing” instead of dignifying it as “discourse”. As late as 2014, fandoms on this very site had “X hate” or “anti-X” tagging systems for blacklisting, as courtesy to people who liked X thing...

...a far cry from GF fans of 2015 demonizing Ford in the most inexplicable ways, making every post a platform for that, siccing their followers on anyone fully positive about him, then pretending that never happened post-finale as they continue the bashing more insidiously to this day.

Like, what even was that? There’s a lot to unpack in those people’s arguments but let’s just throw out the whole suitcase.

(Under the cut: Snapshots of discourse I shouldn’t have had to put up with over the years, and snark-based coping with that. It gets ugly, you’ve been warned.)

Ford is irredeemable/deserves to suffer, why he didn’t even thank Stan!!1

Thanks I hate it! “It” being your apparent decision that, because you can’t make the fictional character suffer, real people who like him are the next best thing.

Ford is egotistical! Have I mentioned on literally every post I think his only trait is “egotistical”?

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. But while that is just, like, your opinion man, you’re entitled to it on your own posts; you’re falsely entitled about it by forcing it on dissenters’ posts and inboxes.

*dumps negativity into inboxes anyway*

Your Hot Takes have disturbed and insulted me. You fools are unworthy of my great knowledge. The era of human enlightenment shall never come to pass.

You really think Ford is some kind of hero?

Only after you told me I wasn’t Allowed to see him as one and I Examined My Desires™ like you demanded! Funny how critical thinking ≠ agreeing with you.

Ford is your favorite? WHY DO YOU HATE MABEL.

Better question, why are you copying “WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA” logic? 9/11 did fan drama I swear

Ford is NOT PURE OF HEEEAAART, so you have to Constantly Explicitly Acknowledge his Sins and interrogate what relating to him says about you.

I got no friends ‘cause they read the papers. It’s funny, actually, projecting onto him got me dangerously close to processing some negative experiences from my past... good thing I have you here to shut those thoughts down <3 Thanks for saving me from myself uwu

If you just want to project onto a comfort character in peace, Stan is right there! His lack of fantasy elements makes him more relatable anyway!

Ford brought Bill’s manipulation on himself!

Damn fandom, back at it again with the GROSS VICTIM BLAMING

FFS why is this take as prominent now as ever??? at least the outlandish criticisms were funny, this one just makes me want to be dead.

Ford is abusive/manipulative because he doesn’t make fun of Dipper/ made a case for his apprenticeship/ called Mabel good/ complimented her personality!

(Yes, people did these mental gymnastics; yes, my soul left my body instantly.)

STOP trying to justify Ford’s actio-ma’am this is an Arby’s. also:

Ford is the Epitome of Toxic Masculinity, if you defend him either he’s your Male Power Fantasy or you’re a ditzy fangirl broad with ovaries for brains!

Ah yes, the two genders. Pack it in, everyone, we’ve reached peak feminism and patriarchy is over.

Someone negativity-tagged my Ford post, WTF?! I’m not “anti-Ford”, I’m “pro Ford-learning-a-lesson”!

And pro his-fans-never-having-a-moment-of-peace, apparently! Sorry I assumed you were a hater by your complete lack of positive things to say about him tho

Ford is a sociopath/deserves death for having no empathy!

"Tumblr is as ableist as any majority-conservative site," I say into the mic. The crowd boos. I begin to walk off in shame, when a voice speaks and commands silence from the room. "You’re right," they say. I look for the owner of the voice. There in the 3rd row stands: tumblr.

*Dozens of 10000+ note posts calling Ford stupid, manipulative, solely at fault for everything that went wrong, other inanities*

(This is the fandom that made me get Xkit. I’m sure hundreds of my 1000+ blocked posts are theirs.)

If you like Ford on any terms but ours then I’m sorry, but Gravity Falls just isn’t for you, k?

I don’t have a flippant response to this one. Just... stop. No one has to agree with you about this character; no, nor with me. No one even has to engage with fandom moralistically; I promise it wouldn’t hurt anyone if I were to watch this show without having to Interrogate its Morality. It wouldn’t even hurt if people voiced character hate within reasonable bounds of tagging, as I’ve said. But instead they spread it like the plague in the name of Purity and insinuated (using ages-old “ur a fake fan!!1″ no less) that we don’t get to have outlets. I’m tired.

Look at my hilarious/satisfying art of Ford saying OOC strawman things, Stan beating him up, the kids turning their backs on him! (Srsly look at it I’ve put it in all the tags)

You’re madness, Gravity Falls fandom. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you.

This is only a fraction of shit we’ve had to wade through, practically every day while the show was running. You couldn’t avoid it if you followed popular blogs. I saw the best meta writers of my fandom dogpiled by BNFs, dragging themselves through the blue hellsite at dawn looking for a fix-it fix. And people now expect me to believe it was “just Discourse” or that anything equivalent happened “in reverse” toward Stan. If I didn’t know better that they don’t know better, I’d call gaslighting.

I don’t expect to change anything. In fact, until this blog’s next go-around I don’t intend on seeking out new content anymore. I can’t keep looking at a fandom where the consensus on a canonically abused character’s victimization is that it was stupid, funny, a moral failing, or deserved, and expect anything to improve.

But to anyone else these people hurt: your anger or upset is valid, and I’m sorry. None of us deserved this. And I’m not letting it follow me into the next decade and make me forget why I liked this show in the first place, even if the only way to do that right now is cut off from the fandom a bit. I’m telling you, it never should have come to that. I don’t know if negativity-tagging can ever catch on here, considering tumblr has no boundaries by design and fandom no boundaries by choice... but for the sake of everyone who comes next, Gravity Falls fandom, make an effort.

#gravity falls #fandom discourse #purity culture #Filthy Ford Apologist Squad #thoughts on The Bullshit #(putting the Drama Tags on this post to practice what I preach... so please no one start any more on this post)

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dvp95 · 5 years ago

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quiet on widow’s peak (2)

pairing: dan howell/phil lester, pj liguori/sophie newton/chris kendall rating: teen & up tags: paranormal investigator, youtuber phil lester, dan howell is not a youtuber, online friendship, slow burn, strangers to lovers, nonbinary character, trans character, background poly, phil does some buzzfeed unsolved shit and dan is a fan word count: 3.2k (this chapter), 6.4k (total) summary: Phil’s got a list of paranormal experiences a mile long that he likes to share with the world. Abandoned buildings, cemeteries, and ghost stories have always called his name, and a particular fan of his has a really, really good ghost story.

read this chapter on ao3 or here!

"Do you remember the Wilkins place?"

"I'm well, thanks." Martyn's voice is dry, and Phil finds himself grinning at the wall despite himself. "How are you?"

"Good," says Phil. It's mostly true, although he could do without the piles of clothes he's sorting through. He holds his phone between his shoulder and his ear as he picks up a top of Sophie's and starts a whole new pile that he's calling delicates, aka things he's absolutely going to screw up somehow. "People think the Wilkins place is haunted."

There's a beat. Presumably, Phil's brother is trying to fit the name into adolescent memories to see where it slots in. "Oh, that wreck in Rusholme? It hasn't been condemned yet?"

"Apparently it's still a hot spot for binge-drinking teenagers," Phil says.

"Well, sure. But haunted? Really?"

"That's what I said!"

Phil feels a little vindicated by the skepticism in Martyn's voice, to be honest. His friends hadn't taken his weird feeling seriously at all.

"I mean, it's a dump," says Martyn. "More likely to be haunted by a bunch of rats than anything else. Why haven't we heard this before?"

"According to my sources," Phil says, only feeling a bit ridiculous about referring to a bunch of strangers on the internet as 'sources', "the activity only recently started. Which makes me think that someone's lying, or maybe one incident kickstarted everyone else's imaginations?"

"Both could be true. Why don't you ask Ian to go check it out?"

It's not exactly a sore spot, but something inside of Phil still twinges at the question. "He's a little busy, isn't he."

"So am I," Martyn says in that same dry, familiar tone that makes Phil feel as comforted as his mum's fretting or his dad's bad jokes do. "And yet here you are, on my phone."

"You don't have a toddler," Phil points out.

"I don't? Yet here you are..."

Phil snorts a laugh and drops all of the socks he's gathered into an empty basket. It's as good a place to start as any. "Shut up, Mar. I'm at least six."

There are, literally, enough dirty socks and pants between the four of them that Phil has a whole load of just underthings. He spares a moment to be grateful to Sophie for not including her bras, because he'd have no idea where to begin with those. He sighs and picks up the basket, fitting it against his hip with one hand so he can hold his phone with the other.

"Well, I can ask around," says Martyn. "I think my friends might be past the point of sneaking into abandoned houses to party, but maybe they've heard something from their annoying little brothers."

"Ha, ha," Phil says dryly. "Think I should contact some of the people making these claims?"

"Deffo," says Martyn. "If you can record them, it'd be best."

"Yeah, that way I can use them in the video," Phil hums, setting his basket on the washer and opening every cupboard to try to find the detergent. "I mean, if they're okay with that, obviously."

"I actually meant because your bullshit detector is dysfunctional, so me or Peej will have to tell you if someone's lying."

"Wow, rude. Whose fault is that?"

"Yours," Martyn informs him dryly. "Just because I told you Santa would pull you up through the chimney doesn't mean you had to believe me."

Phil rolls his eyes, but he's grinning. Maybe it's just a big brother thing, or maybe it's their personalities, but Martyn isn't wrong - Phil has a hard time telling when someone is lying to him. Martyn was always good at lying with a straight face and seeing right through Phil's outlandish stories.

"I still blame you," says Phil.

"Alright," says Martyn. "When are you coming to visit?"

"Probably not ‘til after this one," Phil says slowly, glancing at the kitten calendar on the fridge. They'd let one of their milder housemates pick this year's after everyone got tired of looking at Chris' previous choice of nude knitted puppets.

"Yeah? You gonna head up north for this one?"

In the very last cupboard he checks, Phil finds the detergent. He wants to be annoyed about it, but the truth is that Holly's habit of switching around the kitchen when she's anxious has saved many a pack of biscuits from expiring behind some flour. Phil has never once been useful to anybody when he's having a meltdown, so.

Phil absentmindedly loads the washer while he considers Martyn's question. Maybe it would be best to check the place out for himself, see if anything's really going on. He likes being on-site best, trusts his own gut more than he trusts strangers' eyes.

The problem, of course, is that Phil's childhood home is up for sale, he has no money for a hotel, and Ian's gone and got himself a child. The last thing Phil wants to do is impose or, like, get roped into babysitting. A trip to Manchester might be out of the question for him right now.

"Maybe," Phil says, noncommittal.

Martyn sees through him in an instant, like always. "Want me to ask Mum if they've got any viewings next weekend? I'm sure you know not to trash the place."

"Have I ever once trashed the place? Don't answer that," Phil adds, remembering the shaving cream incident.

A huff comes down the line, and Phil feels the same pride at making his brother laugh as he had when he was seven and making weird noises out the car window. Yeah, he definitely needs to go to London soon, the Isle afterwards - he hasn't seen his family in way too long.

"I'll let you know what's buzzing, if anything," says Martyn. "And I'll call Mum for you and all. I know you get weird about asking them for favours."

"I get weird about asking anyone for favours," Phil says instead of a thank you, because if he gets weird about asking for help, then Martyn gets twice as weird about reacting to gratitude.

"Except me."

Phil smiles, watching the rainbow of socks and pants spin. "Yeah. Except you."

Laundry does end up taking Phil most of the day, but he doesn't mind much. It's the least he can do when Chris always does the first draft edit for him, PJ reminds him to take his EMF meter and his meds when he's packing for an overnight, and Sophie sends him pages upon pages of research while she's at work. He's so fond of these people, and he appreciates all they do for him, but being in debt to them - and not in sole control of his projects - makes Phil feel like he's got ants crawling up his arms.

While he waits out the machine cycles, Phil starts putting feelers out into this story. He checks the sources linked to him again and shoots off a couple of direct messages and emails to see if any of the people posting about the Wilkins place are eager to chat one on one.

He's got his laptop set up at the kitchen table and he's on his third coffee of the day when it occurs to him that he's not out of the woods of owing favours just yet. He clicks back into the Tumblr submission that started this spiral.

He decides that he needs to thank this person, at the very least, and maybe offer to buy them a coffee or something when he's in town. They did so much of Phil's grunt work that it feels weird not to pay them back somehow.

"Well, I can't exactly do your laundry," Phil murmurs to the screen. He hopes none of his other housemates are milling around to hear him.

Another click, and he's on the blog. It's minimalist and monochrome in a way that makes things easy to read, but not very interesting to look at. Phil's eyes start to glaze over as he scrolls through, because it's entertaining enough but - well. It's a typical Tumblr blog. That familiar mixture of memes and rants about social issues and some gifs from shows that Phil doesn't have time to watch. There are a lot of familiar walls of text tagged as personal posts, but Phil still can't parse them without really trying.

They do reblog Phil's video posts, though. That makes him grin.

He scrolls back up to the top of the page to shoot them a message and immediately gets distracted by the bio.

winnie. 21. any pronouns.

For someone who sent Phil a wall of text that could be mistaken for copypasta at first glance, it's surprisingly succinct. Phil takes another swig of his coffee and tries not to get caught up on the last part of it.

Any pronouns? What does that mean, any pronouns? What if Phil uses the wrong ones? He isn't exactly a queer theory student, and as much as he supports everybody under his little rainbow umbrella, he's got to admit that a lot of things still go over his head.

He dithers for so long that his laptop screen goes black, and he makes a face at himself in its reflection. Surely he's overthinking this.

Hi!, Phil types, and then accidentally hits enter. He was just trying not to send the fan a paragraph back, but, fine. Oops. So I'm looking into the things you sent me on the Wilkins place and I'm really impressed by the amount of time you put into this? Like it makes MY job a lot easier haha. Is he a triple-texter? He's a triple-texter. The first one didn't count anyway. So thanks!!!!! I'll def give you credit in the video, but is there anything else I can do to pay you back?

Not literally, he wants to add right after he's sent it. Oh, well. He can't just keep spamming this poor person's chat. He hopes it's obvious that he'd offer monetary compensation if he had it.

Phil leaves the Tumblr tab open and works on editing for a little while. It's almost frustrating how bad this video is, how little effort and energy Phil has started putting into these, and he doesn't know how to fix it short of rethinking his entire career.

He could easily keep churning these out for as long as people watch them, but. He's not having fun anymore.

The Phil on his laptop screen is asking questions, wandering around a cemetery just to see if anything will happen, and Phil can't help comparing it to things he did last year, the year before that, the year before that - it feels like his content is declining as his enthusiasm for the topic does, or maybe vice versa.

Phil zones out for so long that the dryer chime goes off from the hallway, echoing through the old, creaky house. He'd given up on sorting the loads after the fifth shirt that could belong to any of them, so he just takes his own things out and folds his housemates' clothes into one basket.

They can figure it out, he's sure. There's only two bedrooms between the three of them, so there's only two closets, and Phil has gone so long without knowing who's officially sharing that it would be awkward to ask now.

Phil swaps the load over and goes back to his laptop, even though the very last thing he wants to do is continue editing and uploading this mediocre video.

The thing is, Phil doesn't need his content to be perfect. He's happy to post things that just make him laugh or have a nicely spooky vibe or whatever, he doesn't need to solve mysteries every month or two. It's just that. He can hear how little he cares about it, lately. It won't be long before people notice, if they haven't already.

Phil sighs and exits the project. Maybe this video is best left unposted. He's not happy with it at all.

Maybe, if this Wilkins place video doesn't pan out, Phil can start redirecting his energy into a different type of creative output. He's got so many stories bouncing around in his mind, he just needs to figure out how he wants to tell them.

It sounds like his father's voice inside his head, telling him you can't chase ghosts forever. He wishes he still had the gumption to disagree with it.

His laptop makes a little noise, and Phil blinks back to reality. He has to click on a few different tabs to figure out where it came from, but then he realises that he's gotten a response on Tumblr.

Phil smiles despite himself and gets ready for another difficult-to-read message.

Sure enough: UHHHHHH hi hello what the fuck i didnt expect you to say anything this is so weird i am being so weird right now um like no problem? i was procrastinating an essay and this was more fun to research so you dont have to thank me or pay me back whatever that means like i was just fucking around its fine but thank you?????

Phil thinks about the four word Tumblr bio again and snorts. Maybe Winnie wanted to seem as cool and minimalist as their theme itself was.

Procrastination or not, I appreciate it!, Phil replies. Would it be ok if I use you as a reference?

?????????????? i mean yeah but what the fuck, he gets back almost immediately.

It's nice to see you know some punctuation! Sorry if it's weird to reach out like this, I just wanted to like acknowledge the work you put in. I don't have to mention you in the video if you'd prefer!

The sound of the front door creaking open and slamming shut interrupts Phil's nervous typing. He freezes for a moment, fingers still on the keyboard, but then PJ comes in the kitchen with a little salute and several bags of craft supplies, and Phil can breathe again.

It isn't that the other people who live in this house are bad people. Far from it. It's just that, of the people Phil has opted to share this large space with for nearly two years, only three of them have made any kind of effort to understand Phil. The others are nice enough, he supposes, but sometimes they come and go and new people replace them and - Phil isn't exactly good with change, is the thing.

So he relaxes when he can talk to PJ instead of making small talk with someone who thinks he's weird and too messy. "Hey! How's your day?"

"Better than yours," PJ laughs. He drops all the bags on the table and starts puttering around the kitchen. "Hungry?"

"Please. And it wasn't so bad, I got some work done."

"Yeah? Any new info on the new haunt?"

It's incredible how genuinely interested PJ always is in Phil's work. Phil grins down at his keyboard and shrugs a bit. "Some. Mostly just poking around right now, though. Mar's asking his friends too. Oh, and I thanked the person who sent it in."

"That's good," PJ says. He's putting the kettle on, because that's what PJ does when he comes home. "How'd they react?"

"Mostly confusion," Phil laughs. He glances at his screen to see if Winnie has responded - they haven't - and chews on his lip a little bit. "Hey, Peej? If someone says any pronouns are fine, what does that mean?"

"Generally," PJ hums, "it seems like it would mean any pronouns are fine."

"Oh, shut up." Phil runs a hand through his hair, always anxious about getting stuff like this wrong.

"I'm not joking," PJ says, although his tone is still light.

"Oh. So it just... doesn't matter?"

"Not to some people, I guess." PJ leans against the counter as he waits for the water to boil. At least he's smiling, although Phil can't help but notice that it's a little patronizing. "You do know that I'm not a gender guru, right? I'm barely a gender novice. I failed gender out the gate, buddy."

Phil knows his cheeks are pinking up a bit, but he rolls his eyes. "Shut up," he repeats. "You still know way more than me."

The shrug he gets in response makes Phil huff a laugh. This isn't something they talk about, but Phil has been present for enough of Chris and PJ's conversations that he'd gotten the idea.

He wonders if PJ cares that he's bringing it up. Is he making PJ uncomfortable? They don't talk about this.

"Stop spiralling," PJ says easily. His smile is warmer, now. "I don't hate you, nobody hates you, and the fan who doesn't care about pronouns certainly doesn't hate you. If you're that worried about upsetting them, though, you can always ask."

Maybe he's known PJ too long. He's grateful for it, still, so relieved that he doesn't have to voice the swirling anxiety of doing something wrong when he only has the best intentions.

"I guess I could do that," Phil mutters, embarrassed by how easily he's been read.

Winnie's responded by the time Phil looks back at the chat window, a lmao yeah ofc thats fine i just cant believe you want to, im not trying to b weird ive just been a fan for a really long time?? (used a comma for you too) (and brackets) (youre welcome) that makes Phil smile.

Awesome! And are the name Winnie & they/them pronouns fine to talk about you with, or do you prefer something else for this?

no yeah thats good idc how you refer to me, is Winnie's immediate response. It's stupid how much of a load feels like it's been lifted off of Phil's shoulders at that easy reassurance.

"You were right," Phil informs PJ.

PJ nods, solemn, as he stirs his noodles. "I often am."

"You're annoying, also," says Phil. "Hey. D'you wanna come up north with me?"

"Phil," says PJ dramatically, holding the wooden spoon up to his heart. "Are you asking me to run away with you?"

"No, absolutely not, stop making that joke." There's no way in hell Phil is going to keep putting up with this from both of them, and PJ is more likely to listen to him than Chris is.

PJ laughs. "Yeah, yeah. You going to see the haunt?"

"If my parents are okay with us hanging out for the weekend, yeah."

"Oh, okay," says PJ. "We're just waiting on confirmation that Kath and Nigel want to spend time with you? Might as well pack now."

"Your stuff's folded," Phil says helpfully. PJ throws a noodle in his general direction. It flops onto the floor between them, a sad, wet spiral of a thing, and Phil touches his nose at the same time PJ does.

"Well, one of us has to pick it up," PJ says in his Reasonable Adult voice, as if he hadn't thrown it in the first place.

Phil looks at his laptop, valiantly pretending not to see the floor noodle, and blinks.

and i mean i havent seen any of this shit firsthand but if you need to ask me anything about the stuff thats gone down im always free. like literally always.

#phanfic #phanfiction #dnp fic #phan #words words words #quiet on widow's peak

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exit-path · 4 years ago

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DO NOT READ THIS POST.

Below is a long rant I’ve had about life and death. I’ve wanted it on the Internet. So that, ya know people can read it. But I also don’t want people to read it. Potential mental scarring, and all that.

So if you wanna get the rest of your Daily Tumblr Experience (tm), keep scrolling. But if you want to have a SUPER out-of-body experience, “Keep reading.”

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

So wait, this is it?

After you learn all the languages you know now, after you’re taught everything in school you remember, after you read all the books and hear all the stories...

This is it?

That’s everything? Your toolbox to brave the world. That’s all you get?

You’re gonna have all this until the day you die. You know that, right? This is pretty much all you’re ever gonna get, forever.

You know you only have one life. After this, you can’t try again. You get no second chances.

But I want more! Why can’t get more? Why does learning new things only get harder with age?

You’re never gonna truly experience anything besides what you’re currently experiencing. Sure, you can imagine, and you can daydream and come up with full-on stories in your mind, but truth is, you’re never actually gonna leave your current story. It’s all been one straight line.

We are trapped in the mortal realm. If you were born a man, and you wanted to be a woman, then even through all the wishes in the world, you could never truly become a woman. Baseless wishes do nothing, after all. But you can get close. If you see a man trying as hard as they can to be a woman, because they really wanted to, and they did a really good job, then please cheer them on. They are doing as close an act to defying the impossible.

So wishes don’t work. You will never experience anything outside of the life you’re currently living. So make the most of it. And embrace new actions taken. Because they do what wishes can’t: they work.

This all still feels so empty. I’m so lost. It feels so bleak, and it’s cold and dark down here. I’m currently getting therapy, but I want happiness. Happiness that lasts. Like, an hour.

Can anything solve this? Like, death anxiety. Can anything fix death anxiety? Because it’s a really shitty thing to be afraid of. It’s a phobia that, by definition, is chronic. If you’re afraid of death, and you’re eventually gonna die, then you’ll be panicking your whole life.

That seems like a really shitty way to live life. I don’t want to live like that! Please! I want to be liberated from my chronic anxiety! I don’t want to die!

How did you discover this? Do you know me? Did you find this? Did I show you this? Or did you not discover this? Will this be forgotten about, buried under all the other posts on this platform? Every time I make a new post, am I burying this one a foot deeper? Will no mortal eyes ever gaze upon this post ever again?

And this all came with no warning! Back on my main blog, I’ve posted nothing about my recent thanatophobia! Okay, well maybe I posted something about anxiety and stuff like that, but nothing like this. I’m scared!

I really hope I don’t delete this. There’s a really good chance I won’t. I want this to be out in the world. If only for a moment, I want this post to breathe.

When Tumblr shuts down, even if it’s after my lifetime, this post will go with it. And when the universe dies in a trillion years, everything will go with it. Why did some astronomist figure that out? How much alcohol do they drink?

It is Friday, June 12th, 2020. I dunno why I date things. I hope some day in the future, I can come back to old stuff and know exactly when I brought it into existence. Or maybe dating things is for satisfaction in the moment. Maybe I date things to look at it over time while I can still constantly see it: two days, three days, two weeks, three months, a year. A year? Wow, that’s a long time! And what about decades-old things? Centuries-old? Nah, I won’t think about that. That’s outside of a human lifetime.

I don’t get why people have existential crises. Like, you’re worrying about how people will remember you after you’re gone? What’s the point in that? Do you have so much sympathy that you care about it miles over your own mortality? Also, you’d end up in a similar situation to thanatophobia! You’d end up constantly worry, with every waking moment, whether your actions are making an impact on the world. Like, what’s the point in that? Just live life!

Will I ever share this? I hope I do. In fact, I hope I share it to my main blog too. I hope I share it with one of those “Keep Reading” tags that I see elsewhere on Tumblr, when the person has a bunch to things or extra words that they wanna keep behind a wall of sorts so no one’s constantly terrorized by a wall of text. I hope I figure out how to do that in time.

Also, am I getting deja vu of this very moment? Like, I’m not even done writing all this! How am I remembering something that hasn’t even finished yet? Is my memory really that bad?

I’m worried my memory will be the bane of me. I’m worried that in the end, I’ll remember very little, because I know so much more, and I’ll regret remembering so little. That would be a horrible way to die. Regret? I don’t want to feel regret on my deathbed!

I’ve thought in the past that when I grow up, and I become rich enough to own things, then I should hire a transcriber to follow me around everywhere I go and transcribe everything I say. That way, every thing I say can be written down. All my information will be on paper. Nothing will be as short-lived as the wind that takes my words away. That way, there might be a chance that even some of the more elusive words I say, perhaps the most beautiful quotes I utter that are completely unfathomable today, can survive longer than me. So nothing is lost to time.

When I was five, I had a dream. Maybe it was a nightmare. Maybe I made a post about this already. If so, then that’s scary, because I don’t remember that. I don’t like not remembering things. But anyways, I had a dream. I was standing on top of a light pole. You know those white lamp poles in New York City? The ones that curve like a hook onto the road? Yeah, I was standing on top of one of those. Somehow. I dunno how it could have supported my weight. And there were three pigeons. Three New York pigeons. Pretty slim, not like the big meaty ones you find sometimes. And the pigeons on the light pole next to me. They were closer to the pole, and I was closer to the light. I know they were exactly three pigeons. Not so sure about their placement, actually. In fact, I’m not so sure about my age at the time. Anyways, the pigeons flew away. And I jumped. I jumped from the top of the light pole. And I hit the asphalt. And I woke up, probably in a cold sweat. My heart was beating really fast. I woke up immediate before I hit the asphalt. I had felt the wind whizzing by my face. So that was the whole dream. I was on a light pole, there were three pigeons, they flew away, I jumped off the light pole, died on impact with the road, and woke up immediately before the dying part.

I feel like it’s almost like a prophecy, that eventually, that’s how I’m gonna die. That’s the clip of how I died. That I would commit suicide from the top of a light pole. And I don’t want to die that way! I don’t want to commit suicide! Life is precious! I want to die of old age, not of my own doing, fulfilling some “prophecy” that I was never told in words! That would really suck. Then again, it’s probably never going to happen. With as outlandish a story as that, I’m probably never gonna die that way. That lifts my spirits.

I’m so glad I could eventually get all these things down somewhere. Especially the “dream at five years old” part. I’m sixteen years old. I had constantly worried about how I would eventually get these thoughts down on paper somewhere. Yeah, it had always been in the back of my head. All. This. Time. It sucks, but I think I finally got it done, I think.

I didn’t want to keep this to myself, or put it in a diary entry or anything like that, because I don’t believe in privacy. Yeah sure, there are some things you keep to yourself, touchy subjects like masturbation, and if you’re lucky, you can go your whole life without a secret being told, and it dies with you on your deathbed. But I personally believe those should only be the rare cases. At least, they should. Because I’ve been growing up in a world full of information. All of human knowledge is at my fingertips, and it’s called “Wikipedia”. But still, it’s had I’d say a pretty big impact on how I view information. Information should just be out there in the world, ready for anyone to read and critique. So I’d never own a diary. To have that much information and to know no one else is looking at it would be painful. And I know that sounds counterintuitive, like how can you be scared when people are being not nosy, but that’s just my worldview. Yours can be different.

Well that’s our show for tonight, folks! Stay safe out there. And remember, you only live once.

#serious #serious tw #death tw #life tw #what tags do i use for a topic so strong #future tag

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inpursuitofmanydreams · 8 years ago

Text

It started with a dream...

When I was little, I wanted to be a figure skater. Or a gymnast, or a ballerina, but mostly a figure skater. I remember checking out books from the library and rereading the same pages over and over, pointing out things excitedly to my mom because I wanted to do that! And watching the Olympics enraptured, because I wanted to be just like them!

But it never happened. I was reminded every time I asked. There were seven of us living on a petty officer’s salary, or it was too dangerous, or there wasn’t a rink near us (there was), or why don’t you pick something more realistic.

So now I find myself at 24, wondering where that dream went in all those years. Wondering what would have been different is useless now, so instead of wondering, I decided to try it out anyway.

Let’s be real here from the get-go: I have no delusions about becoming an Olympic skater, starting at almost a quarter-century old. I’m not the most athletic person in the world. I did cheerleading for a minute and a half (the more “realistic” option that I ended up hating), and marching band all of my high school career, and martial arts in college before I had to quit. I even tried soccer in middle school, but didn’t make it past the conditioning.

So why now? Why of all times start something as challenging as figure skating now? Well, in short, because I want to. It’s something that I always come back to, thinking wistfully of the could-have-beens as I inevitably do every time figure skating season rolls around. Half-heartedly looking up skate clubs, watching performances on the internet. Hell, I’ve only ever been on the ice twice in my life for one reason or another. I’d long since resigned myself to being too old to even try.

But then a little show called “Yuri!!! on Ice” happened. And it’s going to sound like the most weebish thing ever, but after watching YOI, suddenly the idea of starting late didn’t seem so outlandish anymore. Seeing other people in the tags on tumblr sharing their stories of taking up figure skating lessons for the first time, or going back to skating after having stopped for years and years made me think about it more and more. And suddenly I ended up relocating to Minnesota, and the opportunity was there.

So, after agonizing on the decision for a while, I decided, “why the hell not?” I went to the local Play-It-Again Sports shop (in the same vein of secondhand shops as Plato’s Closet, Once Upon A Child, and Music Go Round) and bought myself a pair of skates. A week later, I’d signed up for group lessons that will start this week.

So now that I’m done ranting about my ~story~, here are my goals for this blog:

- Documenting my adventures (or rather, misadventures) as I start out on this path, as I ultimately hope to make it to the adult competition circuit

- Providing resources for others who also want to start skating as adults, because a lot of the resources out there are a little or very much outdated

- Provide ideas for how to do this whole adulting thing while pursuing such a time-consuming hobby

- Create a community where other people can share their stories of starting their figure skating journies as adults and not be judged for it

So yeah. That’s my ranty blabby introduction. I’m going to try and keep up with this regularly, but I’ve a known track record for being bad at keeping up with side blogs. I’m going to provide links to some of the more helpful pages I’ve found so far that are relevant specifically to adult skaters, as well as links to some of the skating clubs in the US here in my next few entries.

Please feel free to drop me an ask or a message if you have any questions for me! I’ll do my best to answer :)

#figure skating #ice skating #20170219 #progress log

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