#i got the email of that person from someone on livejournal and i fucking emailed her ��

[alsaurus-loves-dean]

.

[perryavenue]

rainjoy Has A New Post. It's Personal

rainjoy is one of my favorite Klaine fanfic authors. Their first Klaine fanfic was published on LiveJournal in 2011, their last in 2021. Health issues have become more intense over time. Their most famous works, All The Other Ghosts and Grey, were published in 2012 and 2013. So those who've joined the fandom fairly recently may not even know about their other fics, the most recent one being from 2021. rainjoy has written Klaine in every genre: high school!Klaine, college!Klaine, married!Klaine, supernatural!Klaine, fantasy!Klaine, and even superhero!Klaine.

Here is a link to rainjoy's works on Live Journal

Here's a link for Dreamwidth

I hope that you'll help boost it by re-blogging. Thanks in advance, @klaineccfanficlibrary and @todaydreambelieversfic

This is rainjoy's post from today (October 27, 2023).

"Hello, I’m still alive.

Hello, I do mean it, hello anybody around to see this, I really hope you’ve been well, I’m sorry I haven’t been around, I *haven’t* been well. But I have, over a course of fucking months, actually written something, so I’m writing *this* here so I don’t need to leave a novel-length author’s note on it, as some kind of explanation of where I’ve been.

Largely, I’ve been in bed, I’m likely going there again after posting this, they need to invent new words for how tired I am so much of the time, my upgraded wheelchair is worth about as much as my *laptop*, my life revolves around Can I? Probably not. and lots and lots and lots of ‘resting’. I’ve not been well, but please don’t worry, I’ve not been unhappy. This is the golden age of being ill, the sheer quantity of stuff out there to amuse the bedbound – I have books and podcasts, all of Netflix, I practically live on Sky: Children of the Light, when I’m too dopey even for that I have Animal Crossing, when I am genuinely such a puddle of not-human lethargy that all I need is for time to pass until I feel just slightly better again I have videos of other people playing video games on YouTube and I’m sorry my darling baby moths I will pick you up and help you every single time but it will never not be funny watching someone go through Eden for the first time on YouTube, it just never will not make me laugh, oh my gods I’m so *sorry* my loves <3

So anyway, there’s all that, that’s where I’ve been, life really does not work out the way you planned it to, huh? Because outside of my bed, I know I have messages and emails and someone got a tattoo?? You got a tattoo and I’m just really sorry I haven’t been in touch, my energy has to be paid out like a miser, if I want to wash my hair then wow the world is really not getting anything else out of me, you know? But I am still here, and I do still love the things I love. I still think all of it is worth it. I think the world is a *lot* of fun, though I bear in mind that still, and always, we live through very frightening and distressing times. Which actually makes me think we need to cling to the things we love *more*, not less, love makes better people of us, when we let it.

So I did watch the new season of Good Omens when it came out, and safe to say I was not impressed, but it did jog in me the memory that didn’t I write a sequel to it? Yes I did, and it involved *all* that blood. But I reread it – it’s like reading a stranger’s writing after so long – and that jogged the memory: Didn’t you start a sequel to *this*?

Yes I did! Two thirds written, actually, hurrah for my past self. The last third took, I don’t know, when did the new season come out, it took that long. I used to sneeze out this sort of thing. This, now, is getting at my arms, it’ll be another lie down soon. But anyway, the point of all this: I live yet. In the next few days I *hope* I will be formatting and posting a sequel to But Thou Readst Black because of course everyone wants *that* back in their heads again, my gods. And I hope hope hope you’ve been well, I do think of people while I’m stuck doing nothing but pooling my brain out of my ears on YouTube. Look after yourselves, take care of each other, my gods you tattooed yourself I mean more power to you but it alarms me when things I make turn out to be *permanent*, you know? It feels like I barely touch the world anymore, my circumference has become so small, but it makes the world seem only more precious. Take good care of it, and of yourself as part of it. And very, very much love, to anyone remaining to see this, much love <3"

[theteablogger]

Is there by any chance a screenshot of the details of the shaman wizard battle in a better resolution? I cannot make any of it out

Here's a screenshot of another archived version.

In case that doesn't work, here's the full text of the LiveJournal entry in question. m_oquinn is Brittany, who wrote the emails from her and Andy. To avoid confusion, I've put the emails from Brittany and Andy in italics.

28th-Dec-2009 11:32 am

Okay, my friends, here is the sum total of the Astral Undead Shaman Wizard exchange. I am leaving out the contact info and also one entire email that contained extremely specific personal info about Cfc, who is completely innocent of all of this and had no idea this was being done behind her back.

The worst part of this? Cfc has kids, and Andy and company divulged her address and other personal info which should never, ever have been revealed. So that part is left out.

Keep in mind I never bought into this for a second...from my very first response, I was leading them on, for the lulz.

The good stuff is behind the cut. *passes out popcorn* Everything beginning with this > is from me. The others are from m_oquinn and Andy

First: Many weeks ago, I posted about a recurring dream I was having of wandering through the woods. Somehow, that led to this:

Dear [redacted], Look, I know that you were the one to talk to Luvcharlie, AND I know that you did not mean for anything that happened to happen. Someone has been fucking with us. Cfc is under some kind of attack, something is trying to literally eat her kids. She sent message and we didn't get it because we were on road-now when we contact her it is like no one is home. Cheerful, everything is wonderful mode-nothing has been wonderful for ages. there is something big and something dangerous and deadly-You have the capacity and strength and power to do something. We are powerless and have been rung out by trip. Please, this is your dream-the children are in the house in the woods being eaten by monsters-Andy is down and when his shield over those kids break. it. is. over.

> Oh my. > Anything and everything else aside, let's deal with the > important stuff. I can and will help of course. > > I need a general idea of where they are. If you have a pic > you could email that would help. Their names, if you know > them. Anything that would help me zero in on them, > y'know? > I'll do what I can right now, but it won't do much > good without something more specific to work with. > > Please get me whatever info you can asap. > Love you dear, be strong, all will be well. > xoxo > [redacted]

[Way too much personal info, redacted] We will have more info following. The most important thing is to get inside the house so to speak, and distract from the children. Thank you thank you thank you

>working. more info on nature of threat? >please tell andy he can step down and relax, not to burn himself out. i've got some serious >shields started and am trying to target the actual threat, but i can't pinpoint it yet.

Spirit/Astral form of technically dead but v. powerful Seneca Sachem-level shaman, plus allies and minions. I know this sounds crazy, but is true.

>ok. i'm enlisting some help. >do you know why this is happening? who's ultimately behind it? that would help...whoever's >sending the ill will is a tool. i want the source. >something isn't right here. this isn't shamanic energy, but something darker. and there's >only one energy signature, no sign of "allies" or "minions". are you sure of your source? >also, there seems to be a secondary target, but i can't identify it. what's really going on?

A source said that it was above " the wheel" with each spoke a world and the hub a connection place. it was a shaman/wizard cross in late 16th possibly but that has passed from place of dead to something above that. Several targets have been hit so far. Not sure who or what is current secondary. The "allies" seem to have been neutralized by someone from the hub as a favor to Andy.

[At this point, I grew weary of the insanity and decided to go to bed. This was my final reply. I have heard nothing since]

Okay guys, this has been vastly entertaining, but I've had enough. I don't know if you all are serious about all this and therefore either being duped by someone or are in real need of some help, or if you're just trying to draw other people into your little games, but really. This? All of it? A genius level of what-the-fuckery.

Some good lulz, but I like playing in the real world. You've failed your saving throw. Your low charisma stat made this inevitable. Is there a paladin in your party?

Evil twins, IRA, mysterious pasts, Claymore scars, now astral undead wizards? Really? And you all just believe this? Without a second thought? What next, a coma?

Such amazing energy and clear creative talent should be used for something a lot more productive than this nonsense. It's a shame that the talent doesn't seem to be enough.

I'm sorry. I just can't be a part of this drama and lunacy. I have a life, in the real world, and I like it just fine. I hope all of you find the same someday.

[piratical-princess]

Who is ready for a WHALE of a tale?

It begins back in 2003. I was a few days away from graduation, awkward and trollish in appearance but still convinced I would one day blossom into an elegant, Sandra Bullock-esque knockout. I'd reached a point in my life where I was through being shy around people I found attractive - I would simply say what I felt, and hope that eventually someone wouldn't turn tail and sprint.

A fella - for this story is name is Frankie Avalon - passed me a flier. He was running for class president and his flier was a comedic list of reasons students should vote for him. At the time, it was hilarious and charming, and I was sure I was also hilarious and charming enough to make Frankie fall for me - lumpy potato figure and swarthy appearance notwithstanding.

I wrote a list of my own - reasons that Frankie Avalon should stop everything he was doing and date me at once. I was witty, charming, a Lucille Ball and Audrey Hepburn sandwich. Aaaalll lady.

Frankie Avalon never spoke to me, positively ran when he saw me in the halls. No problem - I was graduating soon and leaving this raging tire fire of a town.

Three years in the future and I am living in Hawaii - still unattractive, but working on it. In 2006, record shops still exist and I work at one. I have an mp3 player and a cellular telephone with buttons. LiveJournal is THE social media platform for disillusioned twentysomethings with a creative streak, and back in those days a post just talking about how weird dating is or how I nearly got in a car accident would garner 50-60 comments each, if you can believe it. (Sidenote: Should we all go back to LJ?)

A friend from back home sent me a link to a pre-reddit style computer club forum where a certain type of male could compare software programs and D-20 dice with impunity from the pedestrian world at large. In the post to which I was directed, my old crush-letter to Frankie Avalon had been posted by someone I didn't even know, for everyone to see and snicker over. Another old crush Dave was among the snickering jerks, as well - to my absolute mortification - as Frankie Fucking Avalon.

A few words from my 2006 self on aforementioned LiveJournal: There are some things, particularly things in high school, that one should never, ever have to relive. Once you graduate and you move miles and miles away and leave absolutely everything behind in favor of a new life that actually makes sense and nobody knows who you used to be, you think it's over. You think you won't have to remember all that dumb shit you said, you won't have to play nice with people who called you names, you'll never have to go back to your stupid fucking high school reunion, and you can happily forget everything that happened to you back then.

But you can't, and it's there, and it festers under your skin like some loathsome disease, waiting until you feel safe to strike. I was gone, it was over, I'm living in fucking Hawaii for chrissake, and my past can just stay put, slowly fermenting in my psyche and building up complexes that will take years to fix like every normal person. But it's not good enough to be far away, it's not good enough to forget everyone you used to know and misplace their email addresses and never return phone calls. It's never enough because the worst, most humiliating parts of your old life will always, always come back and grab you.

I was horrified, and I moved on. Abusive relationship, money struggles, comic projects coming and going, death of my mother, the end to the abusive relationship, a move to Florida, a real career, and someone sweet and funny and smart and hot who loves me later - I get a message. A message through my etsy shop, of all places, although I imagine I'm not an easy name to find on the google.

Frankie Avalon had found my 15 year old post about him when googling his name for an upcoming job. He wrote me a massive apology.

I've always been embarrassed for just avoiding you after you gave me that letter, but I was, you know, 16 and let's say not exactly a model human being. I would never publicly shame you for that, I wasn't involved in reposting it or anything. I'm not even sure who scanned it or what my comment was on the matter in 2006 as the link is now deleted, but I imagine it was something assholey. I wish I could read what my stupid past self wrote so I could properly apologize, but anyway, I am sorry. It was pretty awkward, is all my brain holds about it currently. Most of my high-school - late-20's life is categorized that way, so it's pretty full and the details have been lost. I wish I was the sort of person to say, "Hey, it was actually pretty cool this person wrote me this response," but alas, I was a creature of peer pressure. So, mystery solved if you ever wondered.

I hadn't wondered. I knew I had put him in an awkward position as he was young and nerdy and I was not especially overburdened with good looks and charm. The apology was, however, tarnished ever so slightly by the ending, where he asked me to remove his name from the post so it would not show up in a screening for this job he wanted. Maybe if not for that, he would have apologized anyway - one can assume he had no idea I'd written the post until he searched himself, and one can further assume he didn't know how to contact me back when it initially happened.

I think all of us have fantasized about being in this position - the person responsible for childhood humiliation now coming to you with an apology and a favor to ask, the power you might hold if you decided to be a vengeful god of destruction.

But I'm not. I deleted the incriminating post, said good luck with the job and happy Halloween, and left it. The other ghosts of my past are a hell of a lot more frightening than some mush letter to a guy who never spoke to me.

But... what a day for an old ghost to come haunting.

Happy Halloween, witches.

[daggersandsparks]

Why your OC love is bullshit

I wasn’t gonna be salty, but enough of my fellow OC writers [especially female OC writers] are talking about side-eyeing the OC love posts and are actively avoiding their dash because we don’t wanna be reminded of hypocrisy, that. well. 

Imma be that bitch. 

[Partially because I don’t give enough fucks and don’t mind clearing out some followers. Cuz that’s what’s going to happen because I’m being “”bitchy””.]

Let’s start with this: I’ve been RPing for nearly 20 years now. Online written, tabletop, LARP, online tabletop, email exchanges. I’ve been there. Done it. [Except LiveJournal, amusingly.] The vast majority of my experience has been OC-only and OC-majority. 

It wasn’t until I came to tumblr that I had to really worry about people not interacting because of RPing an OC. Much less a female OC. And I started in the Supernatural fandom. Which is notorious for being bad to female characters. 

I do pretty well with interactions on my OCs. Most of the time. When I’m the one actively reaching out, talking to people OOC, spamming people with memes, loving on other people’s shit. I got busy and stopped meme spamming and my interactions dipped HARD. 

To the point that I debated giving up. 

And I have 400+ followers. 

I was gonna talk about my personal experience on RPing, but I decided instead to talk about what I see. [And this is over time, not just now. Cuz I’ve been here for 5+ years.]

I see OCs posting OOC about how they want more interactions.

I see OCs talking about how they don’t feel like people actually like their muse. 

I see OCs whose interactions die with other muses if it doesn’t fit into a narrow little window. 

I see female OCs have to dance a narrow line between not being too ship-happy and not avoiding ships. Because fall out of that space and you won’t get interactions.

I see female OCs get hate for shipping with canon. Or writing smut. And I see a lot of them turning to wlw heavy because other female OC writers are the most likely to be welcoming. 

I see those “LOVE FEMALE OCS!” posts. From people I’ve seen interact with maybe two female OCs. Or have consistently been seen NERFing OCs because their muse is canon and therefore definitely 100% always is better. [Even if the muse is weak in their canon.]

You love OCs? 

Actually fucking show it.

Go and love an OC you haven’t show any to. Someone who isn’t popular and gets showered with love all the time. Who isn’t “”RPC APPROVED””. Love on the female OCs, who don’t ever get that shit unless it’s from their active RP/ship partners.

Don’t tell me you love OCs if you only love them in theory. Especially female OCs.

just because your rules say you’re OC friendly doesn’t mean you are.

[callsignbaphomet]

Wow, I got an email from a birthday reminder from someone I was following on LiveJournal and remembered I still had one from like 2012. I’ve had other accounts before that one. In fact, my very first one should still be around somewhere in there as I never deleted it. Was from back in 2005. In fact, I still remember the username as it was the first username I had back when I started using the internet for actual real.

My fucking god, the cringe in that journal is enough to melt your face from the second hand embarrassment.

Anyway, I deleted the one from back in 2012. It’s not the same and I much prefer Tumblr despite all the flaws and unpleasant people your run into. Before deleting it I saw someone’s name and idk I guess a pang of guilt washed over me.

Ok, this person, I don’t think saying we were friends is correct. We talked for a while and followed each other everywhere and even moved here at some point and I even added her on FB back when I had my first account. No longer have FB, it’s trash and a lotta family was following and I couldn’t be ME, ya know? Anyway, last time we spoke it was me calling her out on something really dumb she said. I can’t remember but there was some discourse running around here--because of course there was--about a Youtuber who was banned for uploading racist content. Remember when YT gave a shit?

She got mad because people were paying attention to that issue and not some other Youtuber who was apparently problematic. Honestly I was fed up that day and her post was so “Hey, how about you pay attention to THIS guy instead!” and I was like “Dude, we can also bring attention to that guy as well. Nobody’s paying attention to the one you’re talking about because no one knows who the fuck that guy is.”

She blew up a few times at several people and then I called her out on her shitty way of spreading information about someone that needed to be reported. She deleted the post, her Tumblr account and basically every other social media account that she was in. Yeah, she was known for being explosively dramatic. Truth is I coulda worded things a bit better but I confess at that point and time I was resenting her and my patience with her was at 0% and we hadn’t actually talked in over a year. She was one of those that used the “Can’t get mad at me despite having been a shit person to you because I have several mental illnesses.”

I remember unfollowing her on FB after she posted one of those “Leave a comment and I’ll tell you what I think of you” meme things on her timeline that ended with something like “But remember that I have [list of mental illnesses] so if you don’t like what I said about you tough tits, that’s your own fault”.

I honestly thought she woulda reactivated all her accounts and gone back to normal as if nothing happened without even apologizing. I came to expect that of her, she was usually always starting some drama with people and then posting about it so her friends could back her up and then when she was getting attacked back she would once again mention her illnesses.

Look, I really don’t care for people who act like assholes towards others and use their mental illnesses as a shield against criticism and callouts and shit. Still I felt guilty that that was the last thing we said to each other. Granted all I did was callout her shit behavior and since the Youtuber in question was really hated here people reblogged from me and started attacking her as well. It was a shitshow of a situation tbh.

Honestly I hope she’s doing well and gotten more help than she was at the time and that she stopped that “can’t say shit to me because I’m mentally ill” nonsense because it wasn’t winning her any favors or people.

[linearao3]

I don’t know if you’re still taking asks about Kohelet or not, but Since social media plays a key role at several points in the story, I was wondering if you could share who’s on what platform and how they use them.

Are you kidding me? I will literally always be taking questions about absolutely anything. I am fucking thrilled to be asked! But: to the question:

POE: 50% of his Insta is pictures of Baby, and 50% of those pictures have captions with jokes about how he needs to monetize her adorability. The rest is 25% pictures he got someone to take of him looking handsome and argumentative, 10% protest signs he saw that he liked, 10% businesses that are closing due to rent hikes with angry captions about gentrification, and 5% pictures of his to-read pile, with ironic captions about partying. His Twitter is mostly retweets, split between Weird Left Twitter, Jewish POC Twitter, and Faintly Ironic Academic Left Twitter. When he tweets himself it’s mostly earnest. If Nazis @ him he retweets them with mockery. Avoids Facebook on principle, regards Tumblr as “anti-intellectual.”

AMILYN: As noted, Amilyn is very, very popular on Twitter. I think she does earnest long threads about personal growth and social justice, and is very patient about explaining Judaism to well-intentioned gentiles. Nazis are summarily blocked and reported. No other social media, though she frequently appears in the Insta feeds Kaydel runs for Chai and for her congregation.

REY: Twitter and Facebook only. Mostly retweets, but also a lot of pics and video from protests, with orderly hashtags. A few scattered personal jokes/drunk tweets with chaotic hashtags that nobody understands. She used to be active in Cybersecurity Twitter but got scared off by a combination of feds and bros. Likes a lot of pictures of elegant wiring jobs, and sometimes posts her better projects. Is extremely wary of expansions of Facebook’s “real name” policy. Gave up on Insta because she felt like she was just repeating what was on her Twitter.

BEN: Had a LiveJournal back in the day! Forgot the password, so all his college angst is still out there for the finding! If only Rey knew the email address he used! But he’ll never tell. Has a bare-bones Facebook page he uses strictly for detective work. No other social media, because he was always afraid Hux might send him a friend request.

ROSE: Was briefly on Twitter as herself, got too many DMs from horny dudes, and threw in the towel. But she likes a good meme, so she keeps an alt around just to post them, and can always tell you what the latest joke tweet format is. If Poe does a bad tweet she is the first to let him know. Has an Insta which is ONLY pictures of things she draws on Finn’s palm with a sharpie while he’s sleeping. Is grudgingly on LinkedIn. If you ask her about Facebook she’ll make you read their TOS.  She and Rey SnapChat, but Poe refuses to learn and Finn insists it’s over.

FINN: 0 Tweets, 0 Followers, 500 Following, 20.5K likes. Was super-active on 20th-Century Historian Tumblr for several years but eventually got harassed and quit. His friends all miss him and his goofy, informative posts, and regularly use his harassment as an example of why Tumblr sucks. He belongs to every “We Love 90s Lo-Fi Punk” Facebook group in existence, and checks them regularly, just in case. His Insta is mostly pictures of Rose, and selfies taken with Rose or Rey.

LANDO: Is occasionally active on Law Twitter, and always trying to get Leia to join. All his followers love his selfies, especially the ones he takes to show off his favorite ties. Uses Facebook mostly to flirt.

[detafo]

Below is a thing I copy/pasted from, my LiveJournal, Nov 11, 2007... I have no freaking idea.

MY STORY Hi, my name is: Allison But you can call me: Al Never in my life have I: Grown mould in an orange juice bottle as I am doing right now... The one person who can drive me nuts is: Old and crabby and there's 32 of them... 1 just isnt enough. My high school is: currently looking into raising money to rebuild the building that burnt down 2 years ago and no I didn't do it. When I’m nervous: I bite my nails... and probably the nails of the idiot sitting next to me when I'm nervous. The last song I listened to was: You Can't Stop The Beat - HAIRSPRAY OBCR If I were to get married right now it would be to: some random asshole that I'd ditch in 55 hours, just like Britney My hair is: behaving badly. When I was 4: I was old enough for little legos. Last Christmas: I was alone I should be: In bed When I look down I see: My lap The happiest recent event was: going out and getting dinner If I were a character on ‘Friends’: I would be Joey - I'm thick, I'm Italian... how YOU doin'? By this time next year: I will be in Melbourne. You have all been warned, bitches! My current gripe is: m'I lsydexic! I have a hard time understanding: The basic rules of nature that cause a human being to add two numbers together, therefore getting an totally different number and then using that number as a margin of how many times they should squeeze a pimple on their face, and then use the two beginning numbers as a margin of how many years they have to spend in therapy for thinking crazed thoughts of killing innocent kittens and slathering margarine on their faces while singing "Baby Got Back" and quoting lines from Jackass that no one even remembers being in the show or the movies. There’s these girls: down the street. They have penises. If I won an award, the first person I would tell would be: Myself. "Hey, dipshit, you won." I want to buy: Your soul. Where do you plan to visit: My room... and hope I don't get swallowed by the warzone that it currently is. If you spent the night at my house: You'd probably leave straight away, screaming bloody murder. The world could do without: really big books that make excellent murder weapons. Most recent thing I’ve bought myself: An icecream, because it said WORLD DOMINATION on the wrapper... I had to see if it started with "HOW TO ACHIEVE" Most recent thing someone else bought me: A jelly KILLER PYTHON so I could have something to eat. My middle name is: Hucklebilly, dumbass. In the morning I: wait til I hear the neighbors going at it like rabbits and hide my head under the pillow before shooting myself in the foot with a paintball gun, because I want to be just like Bam Margera... that is why I have no fucking life. Shut the fuck up. Last night I was: deciding whether or not world domination was a serious career option. Probably not, so I'll use it as a lovely little hobby to do in my spare time. As well as making homing pigeons spread the word about impending doom. That is, because I don't believe in email. There’s this guy I know who: is a drag queen and oh my, isn't he just a lovely little charmer when he wants to be? If I was an animal I’d be a: fox terrier, so that I could be annoying and yap and jump on people and pee on lamp posts and fire hydrants and chew on shoes and chase cats for no reason and then sniff other dogs butts because that's just what kind of kinkiness I'm into. A better name for me would be: Hucklebilly, pig breath. Tomorrow I am: not working, and can behave badly in a normal fashion. And not do any more of these really stupid survey things that Nicholas always posts and makes me feel obligated to keep it moving. Tonight I am: Sitting here typing out the most fucked up, retarded answers to these question that my sleep-addled mind and come up with. My birthday is: Not for another 348 days You got this from: A survey geek in Melbourne who, like me, has no life.

Hmmm... I had issues...

MY STORY Hi, my name is: Allison But you can call me: Alli Never in my life have I: had a friend who would bail me out of jail The one person who can drive me nuts is: the bitch next door with her bitchy random crap My high school is: doing who knows what. I haven’t been in high school for 15 years... do you think I care? When I’m nervous: I make inappropriate jokes The last song I listened to was: Secret - The Pierces If I were to get married right now it would be to: someone with a nice voice. My hair is: clean When I was 4: I had an imaginary friend named Pokey Last Christmas: I got a whole bunch of Hufflepuff stuff I should be: ... doing something constructive When I look down I see: My keyboard The happiest recent event was: having a beer If I were a character on ‘Friends’: I would still be Joey. Idiot. By this time next year: I have no clue... planning my holiday to England?? My current gripe is: pedophiles trying to find shelter under the Pride umbrella I have a hard time understanding: sports scores There’s these girls: they awesome.  If I won an award, the first person I would tell would be: My mum I want to buy: Too many things Where do you plan to visit: England... one day If you spent the night at my house: You’d be terrified by the sound of my snoring The world could do without: the entire Trump family Most recent thing I’ve bought myself: A case of beer Most recent thing someone else bought me: Phone credit My middle name is: Ruth In the morning I: I will be jittery because I can’t wait for my new tattoo Last night I was: sleeping There’s this guy I know who: knows a guy, who knows a guy... you know?  If I was an animal I’d be a: A cat. I’m a lazy piece of crap. A better name for me would be: Detafo Tomorrow I am: getting a new tattoo Tonight I am: getting drunk My birthday is: a day where people celebrate me getting older. You got this from: My old LiveJournal. 

[onrooftops]

This is a post that I’ve been thinking about writing for a long time. I’m not putting it on my main blog because this one is brand new, has no followers, and no one I know offline knows about my onrooftops days, so it feels safe. I am ashamed that I still feel ashamed about my involvement in fandom, but there it is, an admission straight away. As much as I am going to say that I love and miss fanfiction in this post, know that I have never once loved it enough to tell anyone I know offline that I wrote it. Only two people even know that I read fics, and they’re the people who introduced me to it back when I was a college freshman.

I started reading fanfiction late. Most people who talk about it, talk about how they read and wrote on FFN in middle and high school, how they grew up with it. When I first started writing, most of the people who were writing alongside me were in high school. At 18, I felt ancient. But I loved reading about what could be happening or could have happened in my favorite fictional worlds. I loved reading marauders-era Harry Potter fics and, early on, alternate-universe Twilight fics (confession: my first published fic was Renesmee/Jacob, and it was terrible. I deleted it a long, long time ago). I had always loved writing, and writing in the fictional universes I knew well (Twilight, at first, then Harry Potter, then Teen Wolf) was pure fun. There was so much inspiration available online, and the responses--the reviews and the kudos, the comments and questions--were all incredible motivators. Writing fanfiction was a social experience in a way that writing original fiction has never been for me. Being involved in the fanfiction community made me realize how much I love talking about things that I’m interested in, and how being able to discuss plot points and character quirks and irritating tropes can improve the writing process immensely. I have never felt comfortable discussing my original work with anyone, but I was able to be open (online) about writing fic, and I loved the conversations that I had with people about it.

Fanfiction also made reading a more social activity. I left chatty comments on fics that I loved. I made recommendations to friends and then obsessed with them while they read my favorite parts. (Or we would be assholes together about the worst fics. Is there anything more representative of this generation’s life online than My Immortal?) There are fics that I read back in 2008 or 2012 that I still go back to, even though I never read new fanfiction anymore. I have reread The Shoebox Project once a year since I first read it. I have yet to come across a fictional character that I connect to more than Remus Lupin as he’s written there. I could probably write an essay about my love for that fic alone. But there are also Teen Wolf and Sherlock and Raven Cycle fics that are incredibly homey to me. I just have to open them, and I am immediately comfortable. 

The common interest of fandoms was a great jumping-off point for friendship, and I had a lot of fun getting to know the writers I met through fanfiction. I still talk to a few of the people I met in the early days, and I love that something as silly as posting a 6000-word Harry Potter fic could have given me the chance to meet someone eight years ago ago. But I miss that community--most of the people I talked to back then do not seem to be a part of it anymore, and most of the authors whose work I loved back then no longer write fic, nor do they appear to be active online. Not that I am, particularly, and it’s a little hypocritical that I’m sad over people I didn’t know stepping back, when I’ve done the same.

In early 2015, I decided that fanfiction had become too much of a crutch for me. If I had the option of writing original fiction or fanfiction (and I did), I was going to choose fanfiction every time. Because I am lazy, and the worlds and characters were already there. Mostly, though, because I crave praise, and I knew that every fic I posted would get at least a few positive comments. I was used to receiving notes encouraging me to write more, and I was not used to having to motivate myself to write without immediate feedback. It’s been over three years, and I am still struggling to motivate myself to keep writing my original fiction. In theory, I love what I’m working on, but I miss being able to talk about it with other people. I miss being able to whine about dumb characters with a friend. These days, no one knows the characters I’m writing about other than me.

When I decided to stop writing fic, I changed my FFN URL back to what it was when I originally made my account (squeakyswings), deleted the fics there that had been cross-posted on AO3, changed the password to a bunch of random numbers/letters that I would never remember, and deleted the email address associated with it. I did the same with my LiveJournal, which was inactive and essentially just an archive. I then orphaned the works I had posted on AO3.

I have terrible self-discipline, and I knew that if I had a place to post fanfiction and get the response associated with my definitely not popular but also not unheard-of username, then I would write fic again. Still, I regret that choice, because, as embarrassing as offline-me finds the fact that I wrote fic, real me, the person I would be if I were able to live unapologetically, loved it, and I loved a lot of what I wrote. I would like to have a place where it is collected. I sometimes reread the more recent ones, even now (is that embarrassing to admit?).

Lately, I’ve been feeling nostalgic for my early fanfiction days, and I’ve gone in search of some of the authors I used to love reading back when I was writing. I’ve found their works on AO3 or LiveJournal or even FFN, but most of them have not published anything in years. The dates on the sticky posts on the LiveJournal pages are long past. Remember when those dates seemed impossibly far away? Time fucks me up. I’ve gotten better about accepting it, since it’ll keep going whether I want it to or not, but something about the way the internet preserves the past still makes me sad. What makes me saddest, though, is the loss of connection. The people I spoke to, the ones whose friendships extended from FFN/AO3 to Tumblr or email or texting, I can reach out any time. I can ask how they’re doing, whether they’re still doing something creative, if they ever feel nostalgic over Harry Potter or Sherlock. If they remember our dumb, juvenile inside jokes. But the people whose writing I loved but whom I never spoke to? I have no way of finding out if they’re publishing elsewhere, if they still hang Harry Potter art in their cubicles, if they’re enthusiastic about something new. I’m a nosy person, but I feel the same for any author whose traditionally published book I love. As soon as I finish reading, I want to know what else they’re working on.

It got me wondering whether anyone who used to like my fanfiction ever wonders whether I’m still kicking. After all, I tried to erase evidence of my fanfiction-writing-self. If anyone out there is curious about me, I thought it might be nice to just...dust off that onrooftops name. I don’t expect to publish anything under this name (except maybe fic recs for the fics that I still return to), but if anyone Googles, I guess this blog’ll come up. And if no one does, it felt good to share a little about what fanfiction meant to me and why I disappeared.

[linfas4]

Toxicity

A lot of us have been stuck in toxic relationships. If you haven’t, I envy you. When people hear about toxic relationships, a lot of them automatically assume those to be romantic relationships. This morning I was reading an article about toxic friendships and how some people ended them.

Trying to let go of someone who is a best friend is tough. I’ve had quite a few toxic friendships end. Most of them ended dramatically, unfortunately. I had a BFF, we’ll call her A, many years ago. We went to art school together. She was a semester ahead of me but our program was small so the classes all knew each other. We weren’t close in school, but after we both graduated we ended up working together. We didn’t get to talk too much and after I had been there for a few months, she left. We kept in touch on Myspace (this is how long ago this happened). My 21st birthday was approaching and we made plans to hang out. We became close after that and our friendship blossomed. She was my go-to whenever I had any problems, she always had my back when other friends turned against me, she was my person. in 2006-2007 we both had shitty jobs. We would text each other all day about how much we hated our jobs. In June 2007, she got an interview for a position in our field of study. I drove her to the interview because she didn’t have her license yet. The people she interviewed with told her they were looking to hire more than one designer so if she knew anyone please recommend them. She told them I was also a designer and I got an interview as well. We both ended up getting the job. For a while it was AWESOME working together. After about a year, our bosses promoted us both to assistant managers and this is where things started getting rocky. Everything turned into a competition with her. It was like she was trying to prove she was a better manager than me. I think bosses realized it and ignored it. It started having a negative impact on our friendship outside of work.

I found myself constantly overthinking anything I had to say to her because any time I said something that would upset her, she wouldn’t react to it until months later. By then I had forgotten whatever it was I had said or done. I could tell when she was upset with me. She would write a nasty entry in her Livejournal, or post something on Facebook. They were always vague but I KNEW they were about me. Each time she did this I’d have to go running to her asking what was wrong. I told her I knew her posts were about me because she would treat me like shit to my face or completely ignore me. Whenever I asked her what was wrong she would say “well you said this” “you did that and it upset me”. Some of whatever upset I remember doing or saying but months had passed. I told her first and foremost, I would NEVER intentionally say or do anything to upset her on purpose, and asked why she didn’t say anything when it first happened? She would say that she doesn’t like confrontation and just forgot about it until something made her remember it. I told her to PLEASE just talk to me. I didn’t care how she did it, email, phone call, face to face, whatever she was comfortable with. I don’t like confrontation either but when there’s an issue that needs to be addressed, it’s better to get it over with instead of dragging it out. This went on for about a year or 2. I got really fed up with it in 2010.

Somewhere around November, she stopped talking to me altogether. She would post really nasty shit on Facebook and mutual friends of ours would ask me what’s going on? At first I had no idea because, I’M NOT A FUCKING MIND READER, so I would check her Facebook and read her posts. I told our mutual friends that her posts were most likely about me because she gets mad at me for dumb shit that I said or did months ago. I was tired of chasing after her. I told her NUMEROUS times to talk to me if she was upset with me and she never did. She continued her childish behavior so I cut her off. Even though we worked together, it was still possible. I blocked her on all social media accounts. She thinks I did it because, in her mind, she’s right and I’m wrong and I don’t want to admit it so I blocked her. in REALITY, I blocked her because I got sick of seeing her nasty, immature, childish posts about hating someone while I’m sitting 7 fucking feet away from her. If she can’t grow a set and tell me shit to my face, I don’t want to see it on Facebook. I told our mutual friends I blocked her and to stop telling me what she posts. If she wants me to know so bad she can tell me to my face. She NEVER did. She would just act like a complete asshole at work. Coming in late, leaving early, calling out a lot. Bosses finally got fed up with it and fired her. I didn’t find out right away because I ended up getting a stomach bug. I had left early the day they let her go and ended up staying home the next day. The day after that I came back and saw that any sign of her presence was gone. My supervisor told me what happened and asked how I felt about it. I said I was fine with it and told him how she had been acting towards me during and outside of work. We haven’t spoken in 8 years.

After she left it was like a black cloud was lifted from the office. The other designers started talking to each other more and having more fun. She just sucked the life out of that place with her negativity and immature behavior.

A part of me misses her because we had a ton of fun together. Working together really ruined out friendship though. There’s a reason you can’t really mix business with pleasure.

I occasionally hear from mutual friends that she will still make stupid posts about old shit. Like, why though? Why keep digging up old bullshit? What are you trying to prove? That after 8 years you’re STILL an asshole? I don’t get it and never will. It’s not like I can see any of her shit anyway. She’s still blocked.

I just don’t understand why people insist on being horrible on purpose to people. If someone says something to upset you, just talk to them. 9 times out of 10 it’s unintentional. Anything I said or did that upset her was NEVER on purpose. She knew it but still would get mad at me....months later.

Oh, and if someone asks you if you’re mad at them and you LIE and say no, the situation becomes null and void. You have no right getting upset about it later on. You have no right to be an asshole to that person after you LIED to them. You were asked if you were upset, you LIED and said no, now you have to move on and forget about it. If you’re not ready to talk about it, just say so. If whatever upset you was not done intentionally, the person you’re mad at will understand. Just be an adult about it.

Peace out!

[savvyliterate]

What’s the story with how you met your husband through fanfic☺️

Once upon a time in the ancient year of 2005, this author wrote in another fandom called Slayers. I haven’t ported everything over to Ao3 yet, but you can see those stories here. I ship and write for the lead pairing, Lina Inverse and Gourry Gabriev, and so does my husband.

I received an email one day from a person reviewing one of my fics, and because I love responding to reviews, I wrote back. This is legit how I make 80% of my friends. To my surprise, I found myself talking with a guy, so out of curiosity I checked out his LiveJournal. The one photo of him on there was a very bad webcam shot.

He looks like a Internet stalker, I thought, and figured we would just be casual fandom friends.

Except, he wasn’t a creepy Internet stalker at all. My perspective on guys was really sour back in the fall of 2005, because I had found out that my almost-fiancé had just married someone that people claimed was my doppleganger. That makes a girl feel really good about herself. I had zero interest in men or dating. Give me my cats and my fandom.

Meanwhile, guy reviewer and I continued to exchange emails, and eventually moved to AIM chats. He lived in England, and by this time, I had moved to Arizona. Shortly before the move, I saw another photo of the guy from where he got his undergrad/master’s degree. His blue eyes leaped out at me, and I felt my heart do a tiny flutter for the first time in a very long time. But England. So I put it out of my mind.

Over the next two years, the reviewer and I became friends. Then best friends. We talked every day, sometimes for hours, because the time zones happened to work out. He was in a bad long-distance relationship, and I had started dating again. We talked each other through those experiences, and we really understood each other. 

In January 2007, I dated this guy I met via Match.com for a couple of weeks, who claimed I was his soulmate on the second date. Um … no. No. Nope. Nada. Are you out of your fucking mind, we have been on TWO dates. 

As I stared at the guy in shock, this thought leaps into the back of my mind: “Why can’t you be like my friend in England?”

… uh oh. 

Most of 2007 was dedicated to me channeling my inner Lorelai Gilmore in denial because I can’t have a crush on my best male friend. He was just getting out of that bad long-distance relationship, plus ENGLAND. This was not the recipe for a successful relationship. Even more importantly, I didn’t want to lose him as my friend. Because if we started something and it failed, I would lose him as a friend, and it would gut me.

By the time my grandfather died in August, I knew it was a lost cause. By September, I couldn’t take it anymore and I confessed my feelings. This came after weeks of escalating flirting and sexual tension that was building toward something. I cried the entire way through it, convinced he would think I was crazy.

But, I wasn’t. He had a crush on me too.

Six weeks, we decided. We’ll get the UST out of our systems. And if our friendship was ever threatened by the romantic relationship, then we would end the relationship. Our friendship was way too important.

That was 10 years ago. Since then, we have been through airplane emergencies, a heart surgery, a Ph.D, and the U.S. immigration process. Reader, I married him in 2010, then stole him like a TARDIS 20 months later. Except with actual paperwork. 

And last night, he gave me one of those Luke-like expressions of amused tolerance as I twirled my way through the grocery store. I laughed as he glared at pumpkin spice everything. I baked him blondies and mocked him for his ice cream choices. He vacuumed the apartment and rubbed my back when I woke up from my nap. He’s still my best friend. Sorry, best human friend, as I am now getting glared at by the cat. Now, I hope I can get dressed for work without waking him up. 

[masala-and-thunderstorms]

Okay. I dislike being dishonest and I don't know a not-public way to do this, so... here goes, I guess?

The fun thing about having been stalked several times is you download a thing that tells you when certain blogs are looking at your blog. So I know someone I used to be friends with is reading my Tumblr, and looking for her name, presumably to see if I've talked about her. Which I haven't, because we haven't spoken in ten years. But maybe she wants to know what I think, so. Here's the story as I remember it.

Ten or eleven years ago, I was a teenager and a total mess. Abusive home life, health problems, money problems, etc. etc. Definitely not in a good place to make close friends, because I didn't have a healthy model of relationships. But I made friends with a girl who was funny and creative and sweet and a fantastic writer, and I liked her very much and also had a crush on her, and I leaned on her way more than you should lean on a teenage girl.

This wasn’t a one-way thing: we both frequently discussed our problems and offered each other a lot of support. But her life was relatively peaceful and very privileged, while I didn’t expect to live past twenty, and I had low enough self-worth that it didn’t occur to me that my problems would be a source of major worry. I also frequently hid or downplayed the worst of my issues, often to the point of outright lies which I only sometimes corrected later. In other words, being my confidante was fucking terrifying, and I had no idea.

She responded by talking about my secrets to, in approximate order, every single person in her grade in high school (which to be fair was only fifty people – she was a rich white girl; it was a fancy private school), several of her friends I’d never met, and all our mutual friends including one of my best friends who she wasn’t even friends with.

When I found out about the first fifty people, I wasn’t upset, because I didn’t know any of them and anyway it wasn’t the stuff I really cared about people keeping secret (my home life, my suicidal urges), and I felt bad that she’d been so worried and that I hadn’t realized. But when my own friends started knowing, it scared me, because I thought I was just obviously sick. And when it turned out she’d told them my secrets too, it was harder to understand why, because she already had so many other people she could talk to instead. Another thing I forgot until rereading old emails to see if I was just deluding myself is that she frequently reacted by breaking down and saying she was awful, and occasionally by begging me not to stop confiding in her, and I ended up putting all my energy into reassuring her that she was wonderful and I loved her.

It got worse when friends showed me the emails she had sent them. She painted herself as a hero and martyr, bravely and selflessly helping me through my plight without ever discussing her own, while I was fragile and insecure. (I was fragile and insecure, and I knew it, but she never talked to me about that either.)

As I met more of her friends and as more and more of them told me that she’d already shared my secrets, my emails, my private LiveJournal posts, etc, I finally expressed anger. She apologized frantically and then stopped talking to me for a week. She came back and, shockingly, I was still mad, and I didn’t want apologies -- I wanted a conversation about why she’d done it and what I could do to keep it from happening again. She said she still very much wanted to be friends, but she had feelings too and this was too much for her, and she proposed we try a less-close friendship. She said that at any time, I could send her a long angry email, but she wouldn’t reply. She concluded, somehow, with “Things can only get better. We’re going to be okay.”

In retrospect, this was very reasonable: it was clear that it had been too much for her for a long time. But at the time all I saw was that she’d lied to me and then disappeared, and now refused to engage in how I felt about it, so I agreed to drop it but made it very clear I was still mad. Another week without a response, I changed my mind and sent a letter saying I didn’t want to talk again.

That was the last I ever heard from her, but her response to various other people and on various forms of social media was, in no particular order:

- I was manipulative - It’s abuse to tell someone you love them and then tell them that they’re “a terrible awful person” every time they “accidentally hurt” you (what I had said was that I trusted her and she hurt me, not that she was terrible and awful) -  It was unreasonable and outrageous of me to be upset that she’d shared a public post of mine (she never mentioned the multiple private emails and private posts and just straight-up private conversations she had also shared, presumably because it was more comfortable to focus on the single public post) - No matter how many people told her she’d done nothing wrong, she still felt guilty, because I’d manipulated her into feeling guilty

Ten years later, I realize that it’s a common tactic of privilege to say that the problem wasn’t you hurting someone else, it was them not being polite enough about how they expressed the hurt. But I’d spent my whole life being punished when I expressed hurt or anger, so I just took this as confirmation that I wasn’t allowed to.

Like most of this situation, I handled it badly. I spent years wallowing in guilt, wishing I could fix the relationship that I’d ended in the first place. I tried several times to apologize and get back in touch, and the first time I just missed my friend and didn’t know that she’d reframed “I really want to be friends but this is too much for me” as “I did nothing wrong and this was awful and unreasonable,” but once I did find out about that, I should really have stopped -- first because it’s gross and invasive to keep reaching out to someone who wants nothing to do with you, and second because apologizing would have hinged on accepting that she’d done nothing wrong and I was awful and unreasonable. Which I did accept back then, but I shouldn’t have.

She was in the stressful and difficult situation of being the confidante of a very sick and very suicidal person who had no idea how worried she was. I was in the stressful and difficult situation of trusting someone who constantly lied to me and had zero tolerance for conflict. Honest communication or healthy boundaries would have prevented the whole problem, but by the time I attempted the former and she attempted the latter, we were both too upset to see them as anything but attacks. And when it was over, we both accepted a narrative where it was my fault, because for different reasons it made both of us comfortable, and didn’t require either of us to actually change anything.

I’m not sure why she read my blog, whether she will read this post, or how to reach out beyond writing this. But if you’re here and you want to see my thoughts on what happened with us... there they are. Do with it what you will.

[its0katka]

I’m Bringing Blogging Back

I’ve always been a journaler, scribbling thoughts and stories in marble notebooks that I’d throw away once they were filled because I didn’t want anyone finding and reading them. I used marble notebooks because then my teachers would think I was taking notes during class, when in reality I’m not a notetaker at all, I’m more of a visual-retention learner and forcing kids to take notes is lazy teaching, in my opinion.

Then LiveJournal came on the scene and it was great because suddenly I had a platform for my thoughts and stories. It was a way for me to express myself but also passive-aggressively talk shit about people in my school, I had this whole blind item thing going and it was great when the semi-popular girls would try to comment on my posts when in reality, I was literally starting rumors about people who didn’t exist. It was super revealing. 

Once, I had to write an essay for a summer writing program at Simon’s Rock College, on the author whose writing had influenced me the most. I wrote about how my own writing influences other people instead, via my LiveJournal. I got a full scholarship but had to forfeit my placement because I was trying to save money for my first trip to London. 

MySpace ended up replacing LiveJournal, especially in college, and I took full advantage of those blog options, hot damn. Where else was I going to write some emotional love essay to the guy who broke my heart? Social journaling was on full display by that point, almost to the point where blogging about your feelings was getting pathetic. 

Facebook statuses and tweets offered a way to micro-blog, but if you really wanted people to see the heart you wore on your American Apparel sleeve, you got a blog. A Wordpress, a Blogspot, a Tumblr. At first it was kind of, “Hey here’s my life and all the things I do in it!” and it was a mess because like, no one really cared about how many tacos you ate that day, or your mom problems, or the garden you started but never finished and was accompanied by blurry images from your 5 mega pixel camera.

The thing was, that people soon learned they could make money off of their blogs. Ad placements, affiliate links, and sponsored content became a thing, and made it possible to basically be financially independent. People started calling themselves “bloggers” as a profession. It was the first time people were able to turn their side hobbies into massive amounts of cash via what seemed like a relatively “fun” and “easy” job based on your interests.

Then the blogosphere became oversaturated; it wasn’t good enough to have just a fashion blog, you needed a specific kind of fashion blog. You couldn’t just write tips about how to take a trip to Paris, you had to be some kind of French expert. The folks who had been blogging just to blog, and had built up some pretty loyal followers for fun, did the best, while the rest of the wannabe bloggers desperately tried to carve their own way with some kind of weirdass specialization — budget, luxury, gluten-free, millennial, shoeless, couples, dogs, etc. 

I tried to do this but realized swiftly that like, everything has already been done. It’s really hard to be “special” when special has 0 meaning anymore. Plus it takes a lot of time to be niche these days. It compromises what you write because you’re trying to write for a specific audience, in a specific way. I kept losing joy in my writing because I felt like I had to “fit” a genre that just wasn’t me. 

It became about the clicks. And the Google Analytics. And the social media followings. And the idea that, fuck, why am I writing this post for free when I could easily write it for money (another issue that has stunted my creativity over the years. It’s hard to write “for fun” when you know that, if you tried hard enough, you could find someone to pay you $400 for the same kind of content). I realized that I’m a polymath and a Gemini and a generally interesting person who likes many things and I’ll never be able to commit to writing about one thing, ever.

So I’m bringing blogging back, 2006-style. I’m using my old website (a failed travel blog that was dormant for like 3 years) as the base for writing whatever the hell I want. Some days, I’ll tell you about an awesome meal I had. Other days, I might write about a Broadway show I saw. I might write stream-of-consciousness-style sometimes, because I’ve started using talk-to-text on my phone and it’s awesome, and makes me feel like I’m a “hip” writer and junk.

There will definitely be travel-related posts (travel encompasses about 90% of my life. The other 10% is dedicated to my dog) but I won’t be forcing myself to “be” a certain kind of traveler, because how fucking limiting is that, really?

Anyway, hopefully this is the longest, dumbest post I write (I also hate intro posts, as a rule). I don’t care about who sees my posts, I don’t care about optimizing or monetizing or SEO or whatever else people email you on the side about when they see you’ve started a new blog. This is mainly for me and if other people enjoy it too, cool, that’s cool, we’re cool.

[kane-and-griffin]

PSA

Hi kids!

This is a gentle public service announcement to let you all know that I’m no longer engaging in any more discourse about the kink meme. 

This has become a really polarizing topic, I think the fandom’s collective ability to discuss it in a constructive way has eroded quite a bit, and the “callout posts” about it have themselves begun to feed an alarming amount of sensitive or triggering content into public social media spaces, which, quite frankly, runs a far higher risk of landing in front of the eyeballs of someone who needs to avoid it than when it’s safely quarantined in spaces like LiveJournal and Ao3.

It is staying open for at least the next couple weeks, and I intend to keep writing Kabby fic for it and sharing that fic here, as well as on Ao3.  I’m a big proponent of people curating their own social media spaces, so if you need to unfollow, block, blacklist, etc. because that is a nope for you, that doesn’t bug me in the least and I don’t take it personally.  We all have to know where our boundaries are.

A few last words on this topic and then I’m done. 

(P.S. this post contains no potentially triggering references to any of the specific kinks or fics in question.  It’s safe for all.)

There are many fics on the kink meme and Ao3 that I can’t and won’t ever read.  There are many kinks that squick me out.  But if you’re asking me to condemn specific writers or specific fics because they upset you, just know I’m never going to do that.  Even if it’s a fic I would never read myself.  My position is always going to be that I’m a writer and I stand with writers.  Even when I disagree.  Even when what they wrote squicks me out. 

“But what about this kink? Surely you can’t defend that writer.” 

Yes I can. 

“Okay, but what about this???  This very upsetting thing involving your favorite character?” 

Yeah, even that one. 

Free speech is most important when it isn’t convenient.  It’s most important when you have to go to bat for the rights of people to say shit that makes you want to die inside.  It’s why the ACLU defends Westboro Baptist Church.  If I only held to my values when it related to people who agreed with me and did exactly what I approve of, then they’re not values, they’re personal tastes I’m trying to legislate on everyone else.

My best friend and I were discussing this on Twitter yesterday when this cropped up over there.  We have very, very different personal tastes.  As in, there are rarepairs I write for and kinks I enjoy reading that hit some places of really deep “please don’t discuss that fic while I’m in the room” discomfort for her.  And we’ve learned, over the past years, how to be sensitive and respectful to each other about those things.  I offered - without her asking - to write a censored version of one of my fics to remove a personal squick of hers so that she could read it and not feel left out of the fun the rest of the group chat was having.  She, in turn, never once judged or shamed me for writing the thing that made her uncomfortable in the first place . . . which is just as important. It’s crucial to our relationship that, just as I don’t judge her for her preferences, she doesn’t judge me for mine.  And I don’t judge other people for theirs, even when they’re MILES away from things I would ever consider erotic, or even feel comfortable reading.  Because another trigger which is very, very real - which for many of us is deeply lodged within our body and our sense of self - is the trauma of being publicly shamed, outed, maligned, or criminalized for your sexuality.

I am gay, and for eight years I was a youth minister at my church.  When I was in my mid-twenties, an anti-gay hate group found a video clip online of a documentary about LGBT Christians that I had been interviewed for, and they emailed it to the entire staff of the church where I worked, the school, and the office of the diocese.  Until you have been outed by force, against your will, to your pastor, your coworkers, your middle school health teacher, the school moms whose kids are in your youth group, and the fucking Archbishop, with a letter explaining that young people are in danger from your deviant sexuality; until you have been on the receiving end of a campaign of online harassment that went on for four years; until you have read a complete stranger write on her blog, not three months after your mother’s funeral, that she hopes your mom died without knowing she had a gay child, to spare her that humiliation; then you cannot possibly imagine the sense of sexual shame that I have carried for my entire adult life about the idea that the things I do in private behind closed doors, or even the things I think about in the privacy of my own mind, are fundamentally evil and wrong.  

This is why I do not make assumptions or judgments about other people’s sexuality.  There is a wide gulf between the things that turn you on in fiction and things that turn you on when done to live human beings (including not just your own sex life, but any other area such as the sex trade, trafficking, the porn industry, etc., where real human beings may potentially experience harm). 

If I can make a distinction between you enjoying a television show where people have murdered each other without assuming you are a murderer, I’m not going to come after anyone for what they masturbate to, no matter how squicky I find it, by assuming they would practice or endorse criminal sexual behavior in real life.  

If you were in a car accident, it might be really, really traumatic for you to watch movies or TV shows that show graphic depictions of car accidents.  That’s 100% legit.  It would be fair for you to expect a warning about that content so you know what you’re getting into and can skip that episode, close your eyes and look away during that part of the movie, or say “nope this isn’t for me, that’s not content I’m comfortable with.”  And nobody would judge you for that.  However, there are other people who have been in car accidents who might be fine with it.  It might not land in their body the same way.  They might find it cathartic to watch the thing that happened to them from a safe distance in a context which is fictional.  They might process the trauma they went through - which is the same as yours - in a way that looks totally different.  

None of this is universal.  There are no hard-and-fast rules about what sexual fantasies are and aren’t okay.  For example, I know at least two fics which I’ve seen alluded to as being content that should not exist because it triggers survivors of _____, which were written by survivors of that exact thing themselves.  You have every right to protect your own boundaries, but you cannot assume that everyone else’s boundaries are in the same place.  

This blog is and remains a primarily Kabby-only blog which I do care very much about keeping a safe space.  I have always, and will continue to, post occasional fic here with Raven or Bellamy OT3s, and am absolutely happy to help you out if there is a way I can be more helpful in tagging that content for you so you can blacklist it and keep your Tumblr safe if that’s something that makes you uncomfortable.  It is always, always okay to come to me with “hey can you tag this thing so I can filter it.” 

In terms of the kink meme, the fic I’m writing and sharing here is primarily Kabby.  I have written for some other pairings, which you can find on my AO3 in my collection of kink meme fills (Doctor Mechanic, etc.) but this is a Kabby blog designed for Kabby shippers, so the kink meme fics I’m writing are largely for them.  They are also all labeled very carefully when I share them to AO3 with the specific prompt I was filling, and a plethora of tags, in case the kink they’re about hits a button that is a nope for you. 

I am always, always open to helping you guys create safe internet spaces by opening up a conversation about ways I can tag fic more helpfully.  But just as I do not police who anyone sleeps with or what gender(s) they’re attracted to - because I remember on a visceral gut level the shame and trauma I felt when that was done to me - I do not police what anyone masturbates to, fantasizes about, is turned on by, writes about, or reads about.  

Before anyone gets the wrong idea that my inbox has been flooded with assholes, I should be clear that 99% of all the conversations I’ve had on this topic - whether people love the kink meme, hate it, can only handle parts of it, don’t read smut fic at all, or don’t care what anyone else does behind closed doors and just wants to go back to talking about whether Isaiah’s tweet this afternoon legit means Jaha got killed off??? - have been thoughtful and civil and great.  The Kabby fandom is awesome and the majority of the really ugly drama has been swirling around around at a distance from our happy little corner.  But I still get occasional anons about this which seem pretty clearly intended to draw me into conflict I have zero interest in, so I wanted to state, one last time, very clearly, that I’m not going to be engaging in any of those from this point forward, and explain as thoughtfully as I can the reasons why.

MOM LOVES Y’ALL A LOT, THANK YOU FOR BEING AWESOME

[pillybaxto]

The sister I never had

hello. haha i was browsing buzzfeed and they were talking about the early 2000s. then inside the article, they mentioned livejournal. when i saw that buzzword (pun intended hehe), something inside me fuzzed and i felt uncomfortable. then i went to my old email and i remembered that i had a fucking livejournal account. so i logged in and i have never ever ever fucking ever cringed so badly in my fucking damn life. lol. fuckmylife. fuck it. i felt like burning it but then i thought, it really was a part of my life and i shouldn’t bury it. lol. but it was so fucking damn cringy man. i cant wait to see it again when im 80 years old. it might actually be the cause of my death. lol! 

so, i found that i have a friend on my fuckinggross livejournal. and its lorraine! haha. so i decided to pry into her blog. and woah. hmm, i think all those things she wrote in her blog i already knew back then. but cus its been so long, now reading it makes me feel like giving her a hug. and then i realise its been a long time since i commemorated our sisterhood. haha. i think the last 6 years or so, we were all busy. especially since she went to uni and for me, since i started work. and to be very very honest and speaking from my heart of hearts, maybe even since i dated nathan. i know that even though i make myself look like nathan isnt everything, he is. and i know because of this, i neglect alot of people. lorraine is one of them. so with all these busybusy schedules, we sometimes see each other less than 10 times a year. but of course, every time we see each other, its always happy. and when we do meet alone, it always end up in a deep conversation about life and philosophy. she is my tumblr. i tell her things i never tell anyone else. i sometimes tell her things i dont post on tumblr. i even tell her things that i dont tell nathan. and i definitely tell her more things and more details and more truth about things than i do to anyone. in fact, i think i got so used to her being there, that i didnt think to appreciate her like how i do to my friends and nathan. hence, i’ve decided to dedicate (lorr if you’re reading this, you used to spell dedicate as “delicate” bye) haha. as throughout the years we have agreed, that we are no longer friends, no longer cousins.. we are sisters. i used to think that its common for cousins to be close.. but now that i have more friends than before, it seems like to be THIS close for cousins is very very rare. haha. i remember the days when i secretly go clubbing and i could only tell lorraine. and she would be so worried and yet, not judging. and how the night before i confessed to nathan, shes the first person i called to ask for an opinion on whether i should confess. and of course, when i eventually did, she was the first person i called. when i got my ogilvy job, shes the first person i told. nathan was second. haha. even though we seldom meet in the past 6 years as compared to before that, we have never really been not close. i think our level of closeness just strengthens with time. till today, i feel like there is nothing in this world i cannot tell her. haha. and she always listens and gives her 2 cents worth without a single shred of judgement. 

and i also like it how she tells me about her problems and how she thinks they are stupid but she just wants to say it. and i also like how she tells me how she truly very truthfully feels. there is no political politeness between us (when we are alone together. of course, when in company, people often know that we are close.. but they don’t know how close we actually are). hahah. i remember how our sleepovers .. we always end up sleeping super mega late. there was once we talked till 4am i think. haha. just lying in the dark and taking off our masks and tell each other everything. 

i dont really know if she still reads my blog hahahaha. if she doesn’t, i’ll just have to force her to read it some time. haha. 

anyway, time really flies. its so weird how all my lil ones (lionel, gerald, lorr) are out working as well. im always the oldest and being in the workforce 3 years ahead of them, i always felt like the big sister. but im a terrible example of a big sister. haha. in fact, i think lorraine makes a better big sister role model than i do. 

im really glad how now that we are all working, we meet up more than we did in our school days. haha. recently we have been meeting twice a week to swim. which is really nice. and good for me cus shes mega athletic and im like, so unathletic, theres no word to be used on me. haha. 

i am not close to my own blood brother. i am not close to my own mother. but im glad i have a family member to whom i really really am super genuinely close to. im glad i have lorraine to always always always be there for me, to listen as i risk my life and she probably wants to stop me but she holds herself back and lets me do it while sharing all my raw experiences and emotions with me. i am really glad i have such a well behaved, such an inspiring, such a smart, clever little sister who has the most self discipline i have seen in anyone. i really wished i rubbed off some of that self discipline which i desperately need. i am very thankful to have a little sister who takes care of me when i never really take care of her. for letting me prioritise nathan over her without complaining. for going through 23 years of my life with me. from when we were super young kids playing masak masak, to playing drawing with ollie, to teenage days when we were mad crazy over hilary duff and chad michael murray and of course, THE CLICK FIVE! haha. thank you for always being someone whom i can turn to when there is no one to turn to. haha. thank you for allowing myself an outlet where i can truly be myself. to tell you my deepest and darkest thoughts no matter how evil, bitchy, fucked up, gross they sound. thank you for trusting me enough to tell me your own deepest secrets and thoughts and opinions. haha. no i do not judge you for them. and yes, i think you will be very successful in life. and i really admire your courage to pursue whatever you want despite the mountainous pressure on you to conform and move on a certain path and you managed to stride away from that path and walk down one where it is less travelled. and thank you for bearing all my burdens and the weights of my secret, especially for the past year. haha. i love you, lorraine! i think my familial love for you is the most i have ever felt for a family member. haha. i know it sounds gross.. but yeah. cheers to many many more 23 years together and may we go through more lame and stupid stuff together and one day, while we are retired in our millionaire retirement homes, we can look back upon all these adventures together and have a good laugh. haha! 

@lorrainetsj