#i havent done that really negative talk in like a year

[beneathsilverstars]

very possible youve done this before but…. can u come up with some hcs about how the party connects with nille? in a post canon hypothetical

(youve probably talked a lot about nille before but just!! general ideas. maybe silly ideas. anything u wanna share you havent talked about before. etc :])

Ok this is all minor spoilers for my currently unposted Nille fanfic and major spoilers for my currently unwritten post-canon fanfic but I don't care if you don't, let's go.

People usually write Nille as quite overprotective of Bonnie, and I do too, but I also write her as unsure that she's good enough to protect them! So her big reaction to meeting the party is "I failed to keep Bonnie safe, of course I failed, I was always doomed to fail. And these people succeeded!! Who am I next to the Saviors of Vaugarde??"

So she kinda feels like shit, personally. And she has no idea how to act around the party, because there's the way she acts around strangers, and there's the way she acts around people she trusts, and it is understandably bizarre for those circles to overlap. Since she can't be suspicious or friendly, and she's feeling somewhat useless, I think her instinct is to kinda just... fade back..? Which is upsetting to her in itself, which feeds back into the problems. But! Everyone is very determined to connect with her, and "we love the same kid" is a great way to bond, and Nille still has her usual Bambouche support system to help her sort out her feelings, and the party have been working on their communication skills. So they figure it out!

Her exact first impression of Siffrin probably depends a lot on how he's coping at that point post-canon, which isn't something I've decided yet... But it's some sort of strange mix of "I owe you my life" and "Wowww do you need my therapist's number" and "#Relatable /neg /pos". Siffrin meanwhile is anxious as fuck because he's not just meeting the most important person in Bonnie's life, she also has the power to break apart the family he nearly destroyed the world to keep together! So it's a little awkwardly intense on both sides.

Then once they get to know each other better, there's some emotional difficulty in how similar they are; it's hard not to compare what's worse, remembering shitty parents or not remembering any family, being alone or having to take care of a young child. So there's some pity and guilty jealousy on both sides. But also commiseration and understanding! But also they're liable to trigger each other's issues occasionally, what with Siffrin still having a rather poor handle on their own emotions and Nille disrupting the party dynamics. But they don't really hold it against each other; it would be hypocritical, and none of that matters compared to the fact that they've both nearly died for Bonnie. They like to go fishing together, sometimes Nille helps explain things that Siffrin only knows through muscle memory. And Nille does end up passing on some therapy tips!

Nille is a little star-struck by Mirabelle, who is the Chosen Savior of Vaugarde and only a couple years older than her and so heroic and nice and well-adjusted! Mirabelle is on a similar but less extreme wavelength, excited to meet Bonnie's sister who she's heard so intriguingly little about, but who must be so brave and cool! Once they get to know each other more it's kind of a confidence boost for Nille to realize that even Mirabelle has anxiety and imposter syndrome and is just some girl who found herself in the position to do something and she did her best to do it. And Mirabelle thinks Nille is just as cool as she imagined!

They end up taking some small classes together for fun at various Houses while they travel. When Mirabelle figures out that Nille isn't very good at reading, she reads books to her sometimes, and recommends her books that aren't too hard but also aren't too kiddie. One more for the girl's night book club! They have some good convos too about the balance of protecting and caring for a child vs giving them space to grow confident and independent, since Mira's parents were quite stifling; it's easier to find the acceptable middle range when you know what both failure modes look like, instead of just the one horrible extreme.

Isabeau is very friendly, and used to working with strangers and projecting an aura of safety, so he's got the chillest dynamic with Nille to start. He's the one who notices that her easy acceptance of the group was a little too easy and actually has some difficult feelings behind it. And he's been working on being braver, so he consults with his friends and then talks to Nille about it! I think it's a scary conversation but helpful in the long run, it's the start of establishing actual personal trust rather than just assumptions and idealization.

Since that precedent has been set, Isabeau becomes Nille's first choice if she needs to bring something up to the group. Doesn't hurt that he reminds her of one of the first people she met in Bambouche, too! On Isabeau's side, he likes having the opportunity to get to know someone new while he's figuring out his new self. And he's so delighted when she joins the war on puns as a whole new front: dad jokes. She wasn't even particularly into them before, she just wanted to shake up the battlefield. Nille and Isabeau also spar sometimes, because she hates how poorly she did at defending Bonnie, and Isabeau has the most formal/practical training in self-defense to pass on. (And he's the most willing to do physically-demanding activities for fun after already walking all day.)

Nille finds Odile intimidating. She's not sweet like Mira, or exuberant like Isa, or, uh, whatever the fuck Siffrin has going on. She's a full generation older than Nille and hard to read! Scary! But Bonnie adores her, and she's been making an effort to be more reassuring to Siffrin lately which shows, and Isabeau starts being more teasing-rude to Odile (the way she is to him) to prove that he can annoy her without repercussion which is really funny. So it doesn't take all too long for Nille to come down from high alert for the most part! And Odile respects Nille hardcore for raising Bonnie and takes her very seriously, which she appreciates.

Odile takes point on tutoring Bonnie, because she has some formal teaching experience and they're most likely to sit and listen for her anyway, but the others will give lessons on this or that. But Odile soon realizes from the way Nille hovers but doesn't help that she is actually further behind in schooling than Bonnie, and makes it her mission to rectify that. It's kinda rocky at first because Nille is both self-conscious of and resigned to her lack of education, but once she starts getting into it she really gets into it! This brings Odile and Nille a lot closer and Nille ends up admiring her a lot, especially as she catches hints of wild Odile lore.

Loop really likes getting to know Nille, since she never knew pre-loops Siffrin but she's still connected to their family. Not a stranger, not a copy, best of both worlds! Nille also appreciates having another person there who feels out of place in the party dynamics. She thinks Loop is funny, but also worrying, but they have enough people worried about them that she decides to goof off with them and enable them instead. Like yes it's probably bad for their mental health to make this kind of joke but it's worse to have everyone constantly analyzing their jokes' healthiness, yknow? Ironically, this (along with her newcomer status) means that Loop takes her worry more seriously and is more likely to listen to her than anyone else (except maybe Siffrin but only maybe).

Sometimes Loop gets a little too frantically irrational and it freaks Nille out because it reminds her of her and her mom's manic episodes. But she can disengage and tag someone else in, and see from afar that it all turns out okay! Loop gets some therapy tips from her too, but not necessarily the same ones as Siffrin. And they give her super shitty advice in return, in that way where it makes you realize how shitty it is and commit yourself to doing the opposite. They like to do silly things together that Nille never got the chance to do as a child and Loop doesn't remember doing, like rolling around in mud puddles and staying up all night just to watch the sunrise. Nille doesn't feel as self-conscious about acting juvenile because Loop is like a billion years old, but she also doesn't have to be in charge the way she is when playing with Bonnie! And Loop gets to make brand new memories with someone who has no old ones to compare them to!

Bonnie is super happy to see Nille for like, a day, and then they get really mad at her more often than not for like a week (because now that they're home with her it's safe to be distraught and uncooperative), and then they settle back into a more consistent dynamic. But it takes a while longer for them to be able to comfortably get any farther away from each other than maybe a room over; Bonnie confidently heads off and then suddenly comes running back, and Nille is so brave about separating and bravely panics the entire time. Oh well! The first time around it only took her a couple years to get to be okay with Bonnie being away from her, she'll figure it out again eventually!

There's no rush.

[spelllingandthemysteryschool]

how do you handle friendships changing? not being able to talk to the people you could talk to before? looking at text threads with your friends and they havent been updated in months? how do you know if it’s over? sorry if this is out of the blue, i just have no one else to ask and i’ve always thought of your blog as a kind of older sister presence :’) thank you for answering this yaz

hi hi hi! 🦢 hmm… i think first of all it’s important to remember that things are not always as cut-and-dry as u feel they are—there are lots of cases in which a friendship can be revived and shaped into something different from what it was before but still beautiful and important. reaching out can be mortifying when conversation has stilled for months but if you know an old friend’s in town and you haven’t spoken in forever but you miss them and want to hang out you really can just tell them so. sometimes they respond & tell you they miss you too & then you have the chance to turn a friendship you’ve both outgrown into something that better suits the needs of the people you are now! i recently reconnected with my elementary school best friends & though we don’t share the same easy, effortless, consistent bond we did when we were small children once upon a time, we make sure to grab coffee together whenever we’re all back in our hometown and catch up on whatever we’ve been up the last six months and it’s actually really nice and was so worth the process of reaching out. it is kind of awesome to see how they’ve stayed exactly the same & how they’re come into their own.

if you do end up trying this & don’t find that your friend is receptive to it or willing to put in the same effort, or if things ended on negative terms & you feel one party or the other was wronged in a way that’s not possible to come back from, or if you’re not really feeling it for whatever reason, then maybe it really is over & it really is best to try letting go—which is easier said than done of course. but it is always a worthwhile task to grieve a friendship that meant something to you… even if sometimes the grief lingers longer than it does for others and even if there are some friendships you never really ‘get over’ in the sense that thinking back on them leaves you with a dull ache for years to come. but i try to keep in mind that the fact that a friend is no longer in my life for one reason or the other doesn’t undo the ways in which we touched each other’s lives or were important to each other when it most mattered. as long as you are alive people will not stop entering and then leaving your life, so i feel like the best thing you can do in the wake of any relationship is honor that you had that time together and cherish the people you once were, allow yourself to think on old memories fondly when it feels right and when you’re no longer waterlogged with longing, and then return to the work of tending to your current relationships and to the person you are growing into day by day, reassured in the knowledge that you will always contain imperceptible but very real traces of those who once loved you and who were once loved by you in return.

i am wishing you well! i hope your life is always filled with the most wonderful friends—both old & new 💌

[millionmaggots]

did/osdd/posdd/etc havers, can i mayhaps get ur opinion on something please?

i havent rlly been posting abt it bc the plural/system space online is HELLA SCARY with all the fakeclaiming n discourse n shit, but im realizing i proooobably have some kind of dissociative shit going on 😭

- can't remember the first 10 years of my life with any detail, then it gets a little clearer until age 15 or so when i can remember pretty well / maybe normally (idk what normal really is tho)

- i lose hours at a time

- i don't have distinct people in my head except for this one lady who's basically the ceo of violent / upsetting intrusive thoughts (i don't think i experience switching)

- but i do have a very disorganized train of thought, with a lot of different things going on at once / overlapping (i also have adhd tho)

- ive heard voices (that don't sound like me) on and off since i was like 8 or 9

- ^ i got tested for schizophrenia and i do not have it

- my parents get annoyed with me bc apparently i take / move their stuff, but i often have no memory of doing it, and little/no reason to have done it, despite evidence that i did. i usually just say that although i have no memory of doing it, i guess i did and im sorry. this one happens probably at least weekly and causes me a lot of distress bc it's scary being told that i did something i don't remember / wouldn't do

- people (esp my parents) sometimes tell me im acting off / different, and it's really confusing, bc as i see it, im always acting like myself

- i have a history of acute dissociation / depersonalization, especially when i was working a rlly stressful job

- i have an absolute dogshit short term / working memory

- i space out and fail to process things ALL THE TIME, especially auditory information. i need about 20% of everything said to me repeated.

- i get inexplicable feelings of dread from things i have no (conscious) emotional connection to

- i have cptsd symptoms and at least 2 distinct triggers associated with bad experiences ive had

- accidentally called myself a 'we' when talking to my psych? i remember everything about the appointment except the context around why i would've made that mistake

- like i said, i have adhd, and my adderall helps me focus, but doesn't do anything for my general inattentiveness / spacing out / forgetfulness

- my childhood was like. fine? in terms of like parents/housing/money/friends/etc, but i grew up not knowing my gender identity or that im disabled, and i had a severe undiagnosed anxiety disorder dismissed by adults as me being "shy" and "sensitive" so there was a constant ever present feeling that i was just inherently a bit off / wrong / broken

- nothing bad was directly done to me when i was little (as far as i know?) but i was, in hindsight, emotionally abused by my principal and homeroom teacher all throughout middle school (severe depression and anxiety, i was told to "stop being so negative" or i would be put in a different classroom without any of my friends <- the people who helped me and made me feel at least a little bit safe)

tl;dr: if anybody w osdd/did, etc, took the time to read all this, i would REEEEALLY appreciate u guys giving all this a sniff test 😭 not asking 4 a diagnosis obvs just kinda a peer review

i have a psych appointment abt this in about a month but in the meantime i would love to hear from systems who know abt this kind of thing. what do u guys think is up?

(PLEASE don't drag syscourse over here bc i know it'll just make everything im dealing with worse and more confusing /gen /srs)

[spearxwind]

Hi hello I wanna talk a bit about CD currently but Im not sure if its gonna be too long/negative so I'm gonna put my thoughts under a lid <3

So like. To start off it's really not a secret that I have a lot of trouble when it comes to crafting stories. This has been the case for many years, and will continue to be the case probably forever.

Challenger Deep felt like an exception to this at first, but since starting development on it my life took some turns that made it clear that CD suffers from the same and from different problems

To start with... I started using it as a vehicle for my grief at the start. Talas (especially) and Graves were both used as vehicles for my grief while I was going through stuff the past couple of years, and that inevitably bled through into The Everything.

It's not a bad thing to do this at all mind you (It helped me immensely) but it gave CD a strange foundation for me to build on that now I feel like I am at a major disconnect with, so I would like to build some more foundation around it, so to speak.

I would like to recraft the story (not rewrite it entirely because theres things i rly love, but theres others that I'd like to improve), and a lot of the lore (I feel like I closed my options a bit too much with some of it so I want to make it more expansive too. Part of why I wrote it the way it was was so I could invite friends to make stuff for CD but that did not go over well at all so I think I am going to not do that again). I just havent had the time to work on it properly, and since it's in this state where I feel like I need to "fix" it, I don't feel as passionate about it as last year so at the moment I'm letting it ride and waiting for when I'm excited to work on it again

I would like to add more characters as well and actually do justice writing-wise to the characters that are already in there too.

Also I won't lie, a big part of my investment in CD until recently was my oc ship, with Talas and Hades, and ever since I got into my current relationship I just havent thought much about them at all because I started pretty much actually living all of the shitposts and tropes I'd written and it started making me feel a bit strange to write/draw about that, so I need to fix that as well. See why I feel weird about it and what I can do to stop it and get back to those two

Additionally I've had a redesign of talas and hades' markings in my WIPs for months now. Hades is done, but on Talas' side Im not sure how to add in his bioluminescence pattern because something isnt working for me. I wanted him to be more visibly purble though with said markings. Everything else I really like, its just the glowy pattern (though watch me change the markings anyways bc im an indecesive beast)

Here's a snippet of them:

I wanted them both to have more natural fishy looking markings pretty much

So yeah, that's currently the state of things. I miss it a lot and i rly wanna work on it again proper, maybe now that I've acknowlegded it and made a post about it I will get a second wind like I've gotten before after getting The Gunk out of my chest.

If you read all that thank you I hope you have a swag day <3

[morphogenetic]

Mediaposting 2024, #6: Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2/The Great Ace Attorney Resolve

Completed: April 21st, 2024 (/i still have to watch the DLC episodes that didn't get released with the official loc, I guess but I'm not playing it any more so ?? lol)

Time spent: 49.5 hours (will be like 50.5 after the DLC stuff)

Rating: 9/10 (more objectively. but a very biased 9.5 in my heart.)

ohhhhh my god alright where do i even start with this. i guess i also have to talk about dgs1 a little bit in this review/mini completion log but I will TRY and keep it to just 2. [editor's note: somehow succeeded with this! lfg]

first, to get the non-spoiler parts of this out of the way:

please for the love of god play this fucking game if you've played the original AA trilogy but not the DGS duology. i can not stress this enough. i would not recommend playing them as your FIRST aa games because a) they will set your bar way too high (and too low simultaneously bc wow dgs1 still has whack as hell pacing) b) there are a few details, especially in this particular game, that will evoke no reaction in you if you haven't played at least the main three games but WILL cause you to start gnawing on drywood if you have Knowledge Of The Future

the whole dgs duology - and specifically as a duology, bc 2 makes no sense without 1 but 1 by itself is not on this level - is absolutely in my top 3/4 AA games now. i admittedly have not replayed the original trilogy in quite a while, buuuuuut T&T/AAI2/DGS1+2 are my new top 3. not necessarily in that order, give me a bit to think about it lol.

im going to be thinking about this game for the rest of my life probably. i can see why my best friend wanted me to play it for uh. seven years. because yeah it really is that good.

i want to cosplay four different designs from it. i have not wanted to cosplay anything new (to me) since neo twewy came out three years ago. take that as you will.

music still slaps. obviously. my favorite new song is absolutely partners (IYKYK) but agh. the new theme(s) that characters get are all so fucking good. clenches fist. the leitmotifs

definitely becomes relevant in retrospect in a few places where capcom obviously cut the hell out of the budget but they saved it for where it matters so i dont care. im also uh. very used to low budget VNs so frankly even 3D models are better than I'm used to LMFAO. i also you know. didn't realize that they did that until after the fact. so. they hid it well

if you havent played this go and play it (after playing the original AA trilogy). please for the love of god im on my hands and knees.

everything below the cut (i.e. below this point) has blatant unfiltered spoilers. you have been warned.

okay so welcome you've presumably played all of dgs2 if you're reading this. i have THOUGHTS. a lot of these will come off as critical/negative but i need to strongly emphasize that these are the only reasons that this game is not a 10/10 for me and otherwise i'm in love with it. it is fucking CLOSE. i am not talking a lot about the things i really love because that is.............................a lot of the game for me and we'd be here all day. the critiques are much more limited in number. but. you know.

dgs2 absolutely has much, Much better pacing than dgs1 does overall. it does not take 3 cases to get past a bunch of tutorial cases. this is a good thing. however..............the first two cases are still very slow. i won't call them pure filler, because a) reminding us about yuujin was a very good idea, b) they contribute to the Themes of the game. and im glad hosonaga was there again and (of all of the side characters we could have had) seeing souseki was good. i like them. but they really didn't need to be there to fulfill the themes of the game. case 2 in particular feels like a filler case, which I do not love given how tight the rest of the plot feels. if anything i feel like they should have done an interim flashback case without susato, as much as I adore susato, because as-is it's canon that ryuu had 3 cases in the span of a week. which feels INSANE

speaking of better pacing: im so glad dgs2 remembered that AA games can take investigation breaks between courtroom shit because running through ALL of the trial after ALL of the investigation in 1-5 was. let's say. taxing. the 'finding their footing' aspect of the first game

i do kind of wish we got One more case with the masked apprentice where susato wasn't there at all for the entire case. if only because then the delay between ryuu Thinking It and susato Knowing it would be even more painful. but i do really appreciate that they don't try to make it a woah big reveal as much as a painful "i know who you are but you don't." really adds a certain je nai se quois or however the fuck you spell that. idr. its 1 am when im typing this

also hey asougi can we fucking unpack how susato (the girl you were raised with to some extent, probably not like your sister but your weird younger cousin) called your name and you didn't remember who you were but you DID remember when you saw a wax reconstruction of your dead dad. can we fucking talk about that for a minute. can w

speaking of asougi. my god. they did such a good job with him. i think i wouldn't have cared nearly as much about him if all we had was the dgs1 stuff but his extreme motivation for the truth almost turning him into a violent attack dog is. aaaaaaaaaah. god. and the parallels between him and his father's followers (read: the von karmas) that one has from playing the mainline AA games. truly brainworm material

speaking of this: i can absolutely tell they did NOT think about writing the professor stuff with this game until they added in the masked apprentice - before he got turned into asougi - even though the reaper was obviously something that was planned. i do not care personally about this, because game dev is weird as hell and it REALLY works with asougi and van zieks' character arcs. in the same way that i don't think [SPOILER CHARACTER] from vlr would have been as good without the knowledge of 999, i think if barok had been foiled against a new character it wouldn't have worked as well. all that said. it sure is obvious they didn't know what they were doing. this makes me even more impressed that that they got it to work at all

the same is true of everything with the hound of the baskervilles but im really glad that they took it in the direction that they did.

also man it is so obvious that they probably wanted to have this be a proper trilogy like the original trilogy but then budget happened. because 2-3 through 2-5 all slap but they feel so fucking weird next to 2-1 and 2-2. like i dont feel that theres anything missing per se but a little more time for character growth would have been nice. hell even adding in an extra case (and/or editing 2-2....)

the only writing thing, aside from. 2-2 being like that. and the other weird pacing issues..that extensively is off to me is the whole assassin trading plot. i do think it is Very stupid and that they clearly wrote themselves into a corner with 1-5 on how to deal with it because they just...proceed to not deal with it until 2-4 and 2-5. however. even with that said. i actually kind of like that it is so stupid. because stronghart definitely feels SO obsessed with his version of justice that he wouldn't think through the potential downsides of having two free-roaming assassins running around and maybe coming to get his ass. obvious flaw that would not occur to him because of his insane ass behavior

its still dumb. but it's ace attorney dumb. so i can excuse it a little bit

stronghart being a damon gant expy was funny but goddamnit was it predictable. making him be so obssessed with justice that he talks to ryuu about it for 4 hours was funny as hell though and absolutely adds to him as a character. still dont like him that much Personally but hes definitely a character

his breakdown was peak. by the way. top 3 breakdowns in the series

jigoku being like that kills me. also. the way he just let genshin

g. genshin impact (sorry)

i dont care that sherlock's bullshit was a deus ex machina bc honestly.....electricity was real at that point. its fine

also. holy shit i love ryuunosuke in this game even more. 'i'm not doing this for you, kazuma. i'm doing it for the truth.' BANGER!!!!!!!!!!!! his growth across these two games is really good but especially in this one he shines so brightly

however..........this game made the glaring lack of ryuu's parents even more obvious. its not like i Need it or anything but considering how he very literally refers to yuujin/susato/sherlock/iris as his family in 2-4.....where are your parents!!!! what was your childhood like!!!!!! I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS THAT I WISH COULD BE ANSWERED!!!!!!!!!

and asougi. i could write an essay on asougi alone i think. but i adore how both he and ryuu are like 'you've changed' at each other and neither of them are wrong but then by the end they're like 'wow you're the same as before.' theyre so fucking gay. anyway

and sherlock (WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU WHY DO YOU LIE FOR FUN LIKE THIS????????)

and yuujin (partners ~ game is afoot starts playing and i start crying). obsessed with how they only had to write the dynamic for a single case and you can believe all of it because they can just go. lol. ACD canon. anyway

and susato

and, most surprisingly of all for me.....fucking barok van zieks. i would not call myself a Fan of him in the way i am a Fan of asougi and ryuu, but i am obsessed with him. he did so many things wrong but realizes he genuinely fucked up and wants to atone for it. he gets genuinely upset in prison when he can't join the red-headed league. he's a professional alcoholic. he has bats in his office (???). what is wrong with him. (i know the answer is 'literally everything that could be wrong with a person.' but still

i love every single character in this game (or i hate them but because they were written to be hated)??? how did they manage this again. dgs1 helps so much here because the character growth.

argh. the character parallels with everyone realizing their parent / mentor figure was fucked up and/or hiding shit from them in some way. thinking emoji rotating in a circle goes here

wow that magically became way less critical as i was writing it. i thought it was going to be a lot stronger of a critique. its still weird pacing stuff basically that bothers me but i have very minor complaints that im forgetting aside from this

UHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YEAH HI GUYS IM BRAIN ROTTING NOW FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this has had almost the same brain impact on me (as evidenced by the 1 million words about it) as raging loop i think and thats never a good sign since i still think about raging loop at least once a week despite the fact that i played it 3 goddamn years ago

[doll-poetry]

long time no see... *TW|heavy topics|what ive been up to*

Life has been really unpleasant since my birthday last year... & social media is intimidating now, to say the least especially busy social media like Instagram, Twitter, YouTube. Ive deleted both my personal & creative Instagram pages. Havent been on anything except Reddit & Pinterest.

More & more I'm alone... realizing how much I don't have nobody, no family, nothing.. the only person that was in my corner; my traumas made me be so aggressive with him, having my armor on & walls up. Times of being provoked made me instantly think I had to be defensive to the highest extent & now I'm stuck trying to get him back, talk to him... i need him but not in a codependency, negative way but in a good for my soul, mental, emotional way & he agreed{s}

A person is my home & its him.. besides that~i just don't feel like an adult at all.. for me my adult life was supposed to get started at 16{it was} but I didn't know that my own choices was allowed... as time went on I noticed how much I could have my own voice & do my own things...

As of now & recently, ive separated myself from all things that arent for me, all people that are negative & not genuine.. which is the so called family.. i crave love, genuity, positive everything. I don't wanna sit around & talk shit about everyone & everything, acting like everything's ok like these people haven't caused so much pain & damage

Somehow doing that for myself deems me false labels & to be talked about... the amount of self control it takes to be stuck around & in an environment that's negative & toxic takes some real strength! None of these people know me at all so to keep overhearing me being talked about & called some kind of name is so WILD TO ME but that's exactly why I separated myself from it all...

Having to leave my original so called home to come to another house I thought would be my safe haven & now having to leave again just says it all... I'm struggling so bad! & these people wanna think everything about them & say stupid shit like "you wanna be like that alright, when I'm dead you gonna miss me" who the fuck says shit like that... so weird

I literally dont bother anyone, ask for anything AT ALL~not money, not help, not essentials, not food... how my existence & me worrying about myself, trying to better myself deems me false labels... i have no idea. Im just as confused as yall...

Ive tried to depend on these people for a lot of things, be helpful, be there, be the bigger person but everytime it was the shit end of the stick so I literally cant do those things no more, I cant be my authentic self around here... i wish I could be but I cant... the fact that these people don't even know how much I wanna care for them & be there but don't realize the damage & pain they've done & caused is just....*sigh*

He was the only one i could be myself with & I tried not to have the bullshit I grew up around & learned to influence me which then influences us.. but sadly it just overpowered; causing me to look like this cold, heartless, bitch of a person.. when its not the case...

I completely stay away now... no tv, just eating bread, eggs, canned goods, some fruits because I don't take advantage of people{i wish I did though} & I'm not tryna end up hearing that but it just isn't me. I used what money I don't have to get some food, some essentials, something to drink... i stay out the way cause this ain't my house & go downstairs late if I need to make something...I'm trying so hard & nobody knows...

Been forever, decades since i had another suicide attempt & cut yet nobody knows... just wanna sit around talking about what they don't know cause I'm not up their ass, in their face etc... somehow before I even said anything he knew...{he just knows me so well, its crazy}...

I just wish i had a true family, love & genuine everything...i really am love, light, fun, bubbly but like i said i cant be that person{my authentic self}. It hurts but its boundaries & me having no choice but to outgrow all of this...

Now for awhile, I just been keeping my self occupied intelligently & trying not to be irrational, unsafe trying to find an escape from it all. Ive accomplished sooo much intelligently & creatively... have some certificates{currently working on another one & its the only way now my face is seen & voice heard on YouTube} & made a new book{yall now & him are the only people that know} & started reading again{on book 3 now}

Wish i could share these things but I cant. There wouldn't be no genuine "I'm proud of you" just another topic for these people to talk about... I just hope I make it... truly

I dont know if im coming back to social media but I have no money, cant get a job{even if I do, I don't have money for ubers to get to & from} so its creative work & social media as the only ways...

I'm very creative & self aware, ambitious... i wished I knew how to turn all of these skills I have & capable of into a career but I don't know what I'm doing or how to stay consistent.. wasn't taught to push for my goals, reach for my goals, be more than just a child had... but that's all it is.. a curse...

I hope i make it...

♡THANKS FOR READING...♡

[ghost-town-dwellers]

im writing a full smpronpa review because honestly that fic kinda changed my brain chemistry. this will be bullet point format as i am lazy

okay, so disclaimer- i havent seen smplive so i cant talk about those streamers characterizations. HOWEVER, i had a 3 year long derange danganronpa phase and have been abnormal about technoblade since 2017 so i do consider myself a bit of an expert on those aspects. oh also im taking the poke route and replacing that guy with yahi 👍

- gettin the techno things outta the way. first off, really likes his characterization and how it didnt fall into the trap of “overly bloodthirsty and unemotional” technoblade while still keeping his hitman status from tekkitlive i believe? and his deadpan demeaner. A+

- on the negative side, i will never get forgive the author for missing out his speech quirks like dropping the “g” at the end of words or constant use of “bruh”. additionally, plotwise, i feel like technoblade as the hitman sent after schlatt and co was disregarded a bit too quickly? and also came off as weird considering no one was meant to have any memories?? like why did schlatt and co and techno remember that part??? idk that just confused me but its danganronpa so whatevs

- the talents. they didnt.. feel like they had much of a purpose? like they didnt feel like they added much to the characterization, but that does add something interesting to the fact that the talents were a fake concept all along so i will not say if this was good or bad and will leave it up to you

- speaking of, was there a reason we never found out ty or travis’ talents? like they died and we just never found out what they were or why we didnt know. like. that confused me

- on the OTHER hand. the fake talents imply that yahi made HIMSELF the ultimate comedian which is objectively hilarious. big obama giving obama a medal energy

- poke. girl they did so little with him that i REGULARLY forgot he was there. bro just do SOMETHING with him. however, this is also a classic danganronpa experience so i will accept it

- the third trial kinda went crazy. i liked the twist on two victims to instead be two killers. genuinely an interesting version of the third chapter, and ryan was like.. a weirdly compelling character, especially after that trial

- half of the end twists were just straight ridiculous. im not.. really a fan of the “it was joko actually it was yahi actually it was cooper” thing, but its very sdr2 core so tbh thats fair. on the other hand, what in the world exactly happened to joko????? like he was at the final trial for like a Minute but he was dead beforehand in the flashbacks???? was he a robot????????? im so confused

- also, what was the purpose of charlie fakin his death? once again, very danganronpa of them but fundamentally kinda weird and unnecessary. i understand the in universe explanation but like.. out of universe why was that decision made?

- i would like the give the author massive kudos for the actual murders and trials. as someone who has participated in and even RAN danganronpa fangame rps, that shits HARD. it was pretty well done! not perfect, and some parts were hard to follow but i have ABSOLUTELY seen worse

- i also started really liking angel as a character. i liked the choice to have her actually be a detective lying about her “ultimate” and she felt very genuine and interesting. schlatt also came across as a pretty interesting antagonist with canon-typical confusing motives

- also whatever the fuck joko and cooper had going was gay as HELL. like idk what was up but it was deeply homosexual

- i also liked the way the ending had a sort of commentary on fan culture and the increasing escalation of entertainment for the cruel enjoyment of the masses. very yugioh arc v z-arc core for the like two people who get that reference. im not entirely sure on how WELL it was executed especially within the wider context, but i still found it interesting

thats the general review! ill update this if i realize i forgot stuff but all in all thats what i wanted to say

[chiosblog]

Per l'ask game💛:)

12, 17, 21, 25 , 34 e 48

Ce ne sono un sacco quindi non sapevo che scegliere XD ma ovviamente puoi fare solo quelle che vuoi!

Grazieee💛

12.  Describe your perfect writing space

My desk in my room, big bonus points if my cat is on the desk with me.

A requirement I have (but sadly happen very rarely) is being completely alone at home. When I write I like to comment my own work and scream at times lmao so if there is other people around that kinda make it impossible to do.

Also hearing my family talking in the background take me out completely from the writing mood and that's fucking annoying.

The best thing would be being able to have some beautiful view in the wild in front of me but that's not easy to do lmao

17.  What writing habits or rituals do you have?

I don't have specific rituals before writing other than having some spare time and listening to music (well that's a thing I do 24/7 not just while writing XD).

But if I really wanna be in a cozy mood I prepare myself some tea.

21.  Who is/are your favourite character(s) to write?

To be completely honest I love writing characters who are, in some capacity, similar to me; if a character is on a completely different planet compared to me it may be a fun passtime but the writing process become really tiring.

I know a good writer knows how to write every type of character but since I do it just for fun I dont wanna that to become a burden. I abandoned the idea of posting/sharing my works for like 8 years for that exact reason and I've been coming back to that just in the last year but it's not my priority to become the best writer ever lol.

25.  Favourite part of writing

Like you said, having your brain collaborating it's the best part of the writing process XD

But the best moment is having the right inspiration with the right music at the right time and having the best people give you a feedback on your work 💛

34.  What was the hardest scene you ever had to write?

Well I don't usually write heavy stuff (for my own sanity lol) but one scene I remember struggling was the end scene (the beach one) of 'When All Is Said and Done'.

It was the last scene so it had to have meaning for it to be a good conclusion to the story (and thats no easy task lol) but the real problem were the feelings.

That moment of the story in particular gave me the opportunity to externalize some of that melancholic feelings that for some reason I carry around all the time. It's hard to put into words but it helped me handling these feelings cause they can create the most overwhelming experience both in a positive and negative way.

Sorry if that make no sense but thats how my mind work 😵

48.  What’s the most self-insert character/scene you’ve ever written?

Well I dont have self insert characters because, as I said, I write characters I can vibe with, even tho we are not that similar at the end.

But I wrote many self insert scenes if I can call them that lol

I've written most of them just for myself ages ago and dont remember shit about them lmao

But the latest was in 'Ultimately' which I still havent posted yet ooops (I will, soon tho!)

In that fic, Murdock's emotions get real close to what I've been feeling for a big part of my life so putting it down was kinda liberating but at the same time also embarassing on some level cause I was afraid he would become to ooc.

But I enjoyed it at the end cause, you know, that's some good whump for my favorite characters lol

[credulouscanidae]

i feel like this year has been a huge bust mentally

i didnt wanna be like this still by christmas, let alone the new year

i dont want it to become march and im still like this, a whole year since moving by then.

but i can feel myself improving, funny enough.

ive spent a lot of this time in despair and grief, and i was giving myself a time limit on those feelings. which made me unable to meet my own expectations, which made me recede and become unable to challenge myself, because i wsa constantly setting myself up for failure to begin with. it feels impossible to do a challenge youre already failing before you begin.

and i have been self aware this whole time too, having that logical part of me talk me through it all. i can look back at myself almost in a third person, as ive always done, and see all the connections as to why im feeling and therefore behaving this way.

so instead of sitting around punishing myself, ive been /trying/ to tell myself theres no time limit on adjustment, and that i am strong enough to pull through. even if i come out of this being disliked. ive put so much energy into being anxious about what people think of me, that ive caused my own cycle of not being able to face it.

i have been acutely aware this whole time that others can only do so much for me, and in the end the only person who can change my situation is me. for me to find that inner strength to do that.

i feel like a lot of the noise has quietened down now. because i had to suddenly grapple with not only accepting my old life was changing, but that i had to suddenly build up a brand new life from scratch with very little support. but the life building in england is finally feeling...like i can do it. things feel less confusing and daunting, the roads feel less scary to navigate, i know where to go for what i need now, and ive been falling into daily routines again. which i didnt have when i first arrived. it's like my roots are finally burying in. and thats making incorporating my aussie roots back into my life feel a bit more doable.

i WANT to have voice chats with friends, or have a casual hello. i dont want to be like this. having a twisted tummy and palpitating heart every time i see a new notification on my phone. i havent even cleared my notif bar on my phone for months, out of fear of seeing a message i havent checked from so long ago. there is so much literal and mental clutter. and i want to be free of all of these notifs and emails etc. its not anyones fault but mine. i WANT to be more engaged, i feel homesick and miss everyone. and i HATE that those feelings dominate my behaviour, and how EASY it is to fall into a self fulfilling prophecy. i hate how it makes me a neglectful friend and family member.

but, with therapy, and settling into my life here. i think i can slowly work my way up to getting over all of this. i really. really. REALLY. fucking want to. i want to draw again, i want to learn how to sculpt, i want to be involved in peoples lives again. because right now, im finding it hard to even humour the idea of making friends here in the uk, because of how guilty that would make me feel, and how not ready i am to make new connections, especially cuz i would rather reinforce connection with existing people in my life.

again. self fulfilling. all that does is make me continue to be lonely.

but as i said, it's slowly getting better. i feel bad about how negative ive been all this time. i just want people to know that, in regards to my relationship, i AM happy. and i know that 10 years from now im going to look back on all of this with evren and go "fuck man that was a lot huh"

you cant hate yourself into loving yourself, and thats something that has kept my spark going, even when it's been one bad thought away from fizzling out.

im trying to be easier on myself. i know that all of this can exist at the same time as me having negative effects on others (which i guess is just an assumption to begin with) and i am not immune to causing that damage. but honestly? right now in this moment, im trying to give myself some compassion and lenience. because ive spent years and years feeling anxious and being hyper vigilant about my behaviour and how i affect others, that i have barely taken the time to consider myself and be healthy and strong in my core self. as they say, assume the best unless told otherwise. thats going to be a goal of mine. i always assume good intentions from people, even to a detriment, so i hope to take that view and shape it into a healthier outlook. maybe not everyone has their best intentions or insight, but i think overall people are just trying. god, in this goddamn fucked up world, all we can do is try.

and thats why i need to be more lenient.

sorry for all the tangents and sloppy execution. im probably in the acceptance stage of grief atm lmao, and im tired of being like this.

[cloudjumpervalka]

ill elaborate on this over the day i think but im very mixed on what i think about the w.i.t.c.h. reboot but uh. its mostly negative

first off, this is partially coming from a place of im just a fan of the comic and already didnt care for the tv show.

i mean... i liked the show as a kid because it was what got me into the series, but once i picked up the comics i knew it had my heart and it couldnt compare. (its very similar to how i felt about fma03 > going into the manga after)

but anyway, i think the reboot is of all things, just disney being lazy in making new ips of course. if theyre doing a full rework of the plot, characters, and costumes, why not just make a new magical girl comic? oh because of the obvious theyve been testing the popularity of the comic by rereleasing it over the past couple years, and now the ip is recognized enough again that they can use it to their advantage. definitely in the wake of winx getting their reboot (which i also think is unnecessary but i think the circumstances may have been different. which leads me to..)

i worry about what theyre going to do with the story in general. if its anything like the later half of the comic (ie new power onward) iiiiiii dont know if we need that. i personally dont think that was the strongest era of the story. it, unsurprisingly, came off as an attempt to haha... copy the winx by doing power upgrades and becoming even more glittery and pink and what i would call a typical "girls piece of media"

ofc side note nothing bad with that but again leading into another point

heh.. the treatment of the original team. its early and i dont quite remember all of the details but i do know that they were done dirty. I know for sure it involved barbucci and canepa, unsure if gnone was involved as well, but disney took that series from them. as far as i know, that series was their baby and disney plucked it apart into something they never intended it to be. barbucci and canepa haved regularly talked about their dislike of disney and their personal beef with them as a direct result of what happened with w.i.t.c.h.

it was their dark fantasy series that disney wanted to girlie-pop-ify to most likely have it compete with winx directly. completely going against what the team envisioned leading to their ? departure from disney. im personally not quite sure if they quit on their own or if disney fired them to make room for a more cooperative team but Still. the point still stands: disney is shitty in this situation

so just from the inital description and seeing will's transformed resign, it looks like... it will most likely go in the direction of being a direct winx competitor again and will continue to take the story in a completely different direction than it was originally intended to be. some part of me hopes tho that because will looks like an edgy hot topic kid that maaaaaybe theyll have some darker tone to it but uh.... again disneys reputation makes me think that wont happen lmao

if they really cared enough they would literally be like sorry og team, here do what u wanted. because uh. at least barbucci and canepa still regulary post about w.i.t.c.h. and share fanart and stuff so theyre still interested imo (again i havent followed up with gnone over the years but im sure she'd be on board)

i reaaaaally want to know if they even knew their series was gonna be rebooted like this or i guess however it ends up being. god i would do anything to read the nda they signed when splitting with disney.

but eh i also hope its good just for the sake it wooooould be cool to have new w.i.t.c.h. content (again sad its not like a comic accurate tv adaptation or like... the og teams work) buuuuuut this is suuuuch a comfort series to me so i wanna hope for the best

my nostalgia is probably ruining it for me and the fact ill already rant about how i hate the cartoon adaptation now dkdbksbf but eh i wanted to just dump my thoughts before starting my work day

[inke-ri]

Gonna try to watch ep 3 today but I just wanted to explain a bit of why the claiming sequence and Annabeth throwing Percy in the lake in ep 2 bothered me.

The first reason I already mentioned in the big liveblog post: setting the scene at the canoe lake paints Annabeth in an unflattering light. In the book, her decisions are strategic in nature and make sense. She puts Percy as a border guard, trusting that Clarisse is going to bite bc of her need for revenge. Clarisse and the Ares cabin being distracted by Percy leaves their team without their best players, allowing Luke to win the game -- Clarisse is livid that Annabeth has outplayed her. Annabeth also actually SEES Percy get pushed into the creek and how the water gives him strength, so she can after the hellhound attack tell him to step into it again.

The show *kinda* does the same but not really? She just leaves Percy in the middle of the forest, and the way Clarisse approaches him does not make it seem like she was actively hunting him. It's /possible/ she put him on the top of the hill to be seen too but? Without the book that was kinda unclear. Clarisse also straight up says she doesn't care about winning, so we get no payoff about Annabeth's strategy and how smart she actually played it. And of course, they do a whole bit by the canoe lake but Percy doesn't fight in the water at all. Ofc, the idea here is Annabeth figured it out from the toiletwater shenanigans, but then why have to test him further? It takes away from her own anxieties and biases, how she didn't /want/ to see that Percy was a Poseidon kid. Now she just knows and is smug about it. It's not too poorly done, just less nuanced.

The second reason is more important to me tho: I don't like that Annabeth physically pushes Percy in the lake bc in the first book she doesn't really physically press, hurt or bother him, no matter how often he thinks that she will.

And it was a pattern I found extremely sweet. It's implied Percy comes from a physically abusive household, or at the very least the difficult way he was raised lent him to always end up bullied, getting in fights, and getting punished for one or both. He's always tense and defensive, he always expects the worst. And I always loved that Annabeth NEVER lived up to that subconscious expectation, not even when they're not properly friends yet. It goes from Annabeth pulling her knife and he expects her to hurt him but she doesn't, to Percy arriving from Ogygia and thinks she's gonna punch him and she hugs the heck out of him instead.

Of course, it's just not something Rick bothered to keep going forward: see Annabeth's infamous judo flip. For the record, I've seen the many posts talking about it like she was abusive in this.. She really wasn't. Heck, her throwing Percy off a cliff later on and stuff like that isn't bad either, he's trying to showcase the trust they DO have in each other. But it STILL broke a pattern I REALLY loved in the books before it - if this was Percy's pov, he would probably imagine she looked angry enough to flip him, and then she WOULD. She was anxious and hurting and afraid, it was valid, and it was a cute little moment, but it still makes me kinda sad (I still maintain that she should have hugged him first, THEN flipped him before he could react, heh).

I think - bc I havent watched the new ep yet - that what Rick is going for is trying to ACTUALLY give Percy and Annabeth a rivals to friends to lovers arc, cause in TLT they never really had that. It was Annabeth trying to be his rival and Percy getting annoyed by her but at most he's just "okay but WHY do we have to?? WHY can't we get along??".

and that's FINE. It's cute in its own way. It just immediately breaks that pattern of Annabeth never really living up to Percy's negative expectations. Percy has been thrown around, physically and emotionally, for years. Annabeth is doing something similar here- she didn't need to be physically mean to him and "humiliate" him so he'd get in the lake, it's no wonder she pisses him off and he wants nothing to do with her. It's probably gonna make their eventual friendship/romance feel very nice. I just. REALLY liked that pattern, and it was one of the things lost in adaptation that I really miss :(

[goremet-chef]

being friends with me sucks because i will never ever send the first message unless ive like. slept in the same bed as you (AND EVEN THEN ITS HARD ive known these bitches for 10 years why am i still nervous to send them dms specifically KSJFS)

(ramble)

i think dms naturally just make me anxious because then i have to do smalltalk in a private setting? god i hope not, im really awful at carrying a conversation. ive done my best to like... get better but its hard to keep track of things. im the kind of loser who looks shit up like "how to keep a conversation going" its real bad

but oh man, do i wanna talk to someone? absolutely. bouncing my leg biting my nails type shit the urge inside of me to reach out, the urge is strong but the anxiety is stronger SKFJSF

like many things it sorta comes from bpd too? ive got such a crippling fear of rejection, of not being wanted or not being welcome, that shit will keep me away from ANYTHING i dont care we could be roleplaying hot gay sex every day if i get the idea that there could be some reason im not wanted at that moment i CLING to it and i will never speak to you again unless you start it. its. humiliating and EMBARRASSING but.. its just how my brain works.

it makes me feel awful too, cuz i dont like.... there is a very real chance that if you tell me something and its not clear what you mean, or its blunt, short etc. ive heard people with trauma often take neutral cues and negative and that is so fucking true for me my brain immediately is like "oh you pissed them off lol" and im just. sat with dread because I KNOW ITS NOT REAL, i know trust me i know. i know my brain is making it up and everything is fine,

i used to ask for clarifications, but i learned to stop doing that because it makes me sound even crazier. they mean shit normally, so i cant ask "are you mad at me, did i do something wrong?" cuz it freaks em out like??? no nothing is wrong tf (and even that reaction alone could cause my brain to double down. its EXHAUSTING).

THAT ALONE will keep me away as well, i hate feeling like a burden, and big surprise lots of people think of borderlines as burdens. yippee. this is technically fine though? i dont make many friends to begin with, or well. i dont MAINTAIN them i think i make them a decent amount but i guess.. in my head, if you are my friend, yr my friend forever. like unless we specifically part ways, i will always think of you fondly. doesnt matter if we havent talked for weeks, months, years. ill think of you and go "oh yeah, that person is my buddy :]"

UNFORTUNATELY i dont know anyone else who thinks this besides me, which means theres probably lots of "friendships" in my head that are now one sided, bummer. idk it sucks, i have dreams about that kinda shit, where like... my friends from middleschool, id come home and theyd be happy to see me again and tell me how much they missed me, but thats just fantasy 😔

[dykelibraries]

sup its me jack welcome to my vent palace heres my motherfucking sityaaation trigger warning for maybe everything under the sun this is genuinely gravely serious but ill try not to go in depth w anything.

yah tldr here my awesome backstory dads a pedophile i cut him off a few years ago he did some narsty stuff and my mom knew and didnt dooo anything. and she says she hates him now but my brother still visits him and im not allowed to say anything. my dad also severellllyyyy neglected me (he had sole custody for a whilee)

uhh my mom keeps making Choices in men. her last boyfriend tried to kill us and my mom had me lie to the cops about it. her current boyfie is a racist and has referred to meee and my brother and family with slurful wordage maybe a couple times. and he constantly threatens to kick us out if we ever say anything negative about him but then my mom gets on my ass about not liking him.

my mom straight up fakes my identity constantly soo she has control of my bank account and medical records and like. i dunno. everything that should be private. she comes in with me to doctors appointments and will lie to the doctors if she doesnt agree with a diagnosis. also she hid my social security card and birth certificate so thaaat suuuuucks

she refuses to let me learn how to drive, and. gestures. i have horrible chronic pain, i cant usually walk past my driveway in all honesty. soo i cant really GO anywhere.

uhh my mom kinda gaslit gatekeep girlboss Manipulated me out of reporting my dad when i had a chance to. and then kinda sorta told me i couldnt trust my therapist. who i havent seen in a while so idk. my mom also refuses to get my brother help with his eating disorder and kinda. encourages it a lot if im being honest.

uhh i recently figured out that i think my mom may have been posting child porn? of my brother and i growing up. which isnt superbly sick i dont think. idk maybe im being dramatic. i posted a couple comics on here about some stuff shes said/done in this context so i guess yall can decide if anyones even reading this.

i guess this is more petty teenage bullshit than a serious problem but shes really mean to me. and its not great i think. idk she does this thing where shell act like im an unstable and horrible person and i have been since like..i think three? is the number she usually uses. but she acts like im the devillll and shes calm and collected so Obviously im in the wrong. and shell say really mean things and act like i started an argument by standing wrong. like leaning on a wall or smth. i guess shes kinda mean at kinda. vulnerable times too. like i remembered. something my dad did. and she kept yelling at me for crying cuz it wasnt a big deal. sophie said it was a really big deal but i dunno. or another time when i had a really really bad ptsd episode at school and when i asked to go home early she made me stay Past the end of the school day bc she wanted to teach me i couldnt quit. or another time when i had a chronic pain flareup while at work and my boss straight up TOLD ME to go home (librarians arwe chill like that) and she came to my workplace and uhh. gestures. had me stay multiple hours past when my shift would end. while i was like. yk breaking down cuz of the pain. she was there the entire time and just refused to take me home or give me the painkillers she keeps in her purse for Her chronic pain. i dunno. shes really mean to me.

uhh she checks like. a decent. amoutn of my social media. she slipped up one time and told me. n shes had friends in the past tell her things behind my back so i get kinda nervous telling people anything tbh. and she listens in on verbal conversations.

this isnt her fault i guess but it makes things harder for sure. but i dont havee my high school diploma. long and complicated story i dont feel like telling. shrug. and i dont have literally. Any friends offline, nor family i can talk to outside of this house.

i dunno what to say after this bwomp. if you read all this heres a sticker ⭐

[threewaysdivided]

Have you ever abandoned a fanfic? Just curious. I havent started one because i know that i WILL abandon it and feel shitty about it.

Hey nonnie,

Sounds like you’re in a bit of a bind right now 😔

To answer your question: no, there hasn’t been a point where I’ve personally discontinued a posted fic. 

I think I might be a little bit like you in that regard.  I’ve had quite a few potential story or scene ideas over the years, but either I didn’t feel like those stories headed towards a satisfying end-point or I just didn’t feel like committing to the work of fitting those scenes into something that would be interesting (or even understandable) for another person.   When I start a large creative project I like to have an idea of what the end-product will be, or at least some specific creative goals to aim for.  I need to feel as though I have a good chance of seeing a project through before I commit.

That being said (if it’s okay) I’d like to talk to the sentiment you expressed: that there’s something you’re not starting because in your mind giving up is inevitable and you’ll feel bad when (not if) that happens. 

To me, it kind of sounds like you’re already feeling shitty about it?  Like, you haven’t done anything yet but you’re already anticipating the worst possible outcome and emotionally punishing yourself for it. 

If that’s the case, then why not just try it anyway?  The time will pass regardless.  And what’s the worst that could happen?  You start writing a story, you post a few chapters, and then maybe you feel like the story isn’t going the way you wanted, or you get frustrated by a creative roadblock, or you find yourself losing interest, or maybe it’s just that other things come up that you’d rather spend your time on… and so your story becomes one of the literally thousands of discontinued fics that exist.  Maybe a few invested readers are disappointed for a while, maybe it slips quietly into being forgotten…  or maybe the part that you did post inspires someone else, or another fanwriter adopts and continues it, or you yourself find inspiration again and come back to it somewhere down the line.

It's worth pointing out that the vast majority of fanfics are either currently-unfinished works-in-progress or in some state of hiatus/ discontinuation/ being abandoned.  Many of the fics that inspired me are either discontinued, have sequels that were discontinued or were written by fan-authors who had previously discontinued other projects.  In fact, several of my favourite published original series are in some state of cancellation, indefinite hiatus or have endings/continuations that myself and others prefer to ignore, but that doesn’t make the revisit experience any less enjoyable.

a good plot was one which made good scenes. The ideal mystery was one you would read if the end was missing. - Raymond Chandler in the introduction to Trouble is My Business, 1950

Still, that doesn’t really change the fact that it can feel really shitty to pull the plug on a creative project.   Even if you never showed anyone, it’s okay to feel disappointed or frustrated at yourself for not reaching a personal goal.  That’s a perfectly normal reaction, so long as you don’t let it spiral into self-punishment or something self-destructive.  It can be easy to fall into a state of analysis paralysis or procrastination, where the fear of “failing” or choosing the “wrong option” means you just don’t start, or you keep stalling because you expect to feel guilty at the end for not finishing sooner (something which I’m definitely prone to doing).  There’s also the risk of falling off the other end into sunk-cost fallacy or trying to overcommit your time, leading to things like sleep-procrastination and burnout.

Some of that might come down to broader personal challenges like overcoming perfectionism, depression, self-criticism or negative self-talk, learning how to be more gentle and reasonable about personal goal-setting/ expectation-management, and finding ways to celebrate the progress/ achievements you did make, even if you didn’t achieve everything.  If these are things you struggle with, then it might help to talk to someone about it or even seek therapy if you’re able to (I am currently doing both of those things and it genuinely helps).

You might also like to check out my writer self-care and digital self-care tags, where I’ve been squirreling away helpful advice from other users.

In the meantime, here are some practical ideas that might help your story to cross the finish-line:

#1: Keep the scope small You don’t have to jump into a big multi-chapter ensemble fic as your first project.  If you’re worried about sustaining creative energy (or even just having limited time) then maybe single-scene or one/two-shot stories would be a better place to start.  Pick a project which you feel confident that you can finish, and which lets you see and enjoy a tangible result quickly.  Consider using AO3’s series feature to assemble short stories into a bigger narrative that you can build piece-by-piece.  Set your bar low, start small and work your way up as you develop your creative workflow and stamina.

#2: Outlining might help you I don’t know where you fall on the planner-to-pantser scale of writing styles, but having a roadmap for where and how far the story is going can give you a goal to keep focussed on.  I’ve previously written a post series with some tips for outlining stories: [Part One] [Part Two].

#3. Know what you want from your story I talk about this in Part One of the Outlining Series, but understanding what motivates you to start or keep writing can help you to understand where the creative drive for a project comes from.  Maybe you’re writing purely for yourself, maybe it’s to share with a community, maybe it’s in response to another story or maybe it’s because you just want this to be a thing that exists. 

For example, my long-fic Deathly Weapons started because I couldn’t find a story like it in the archives, and now I keep writing it because I want to see whether I can pull those things off for an audience who don’t have my behind-the-scenes notes.  Meanwhile, there are a lot of other potential ideas that I haven’t written down because those are just for me – I get what I need from them just being in my head and I don’t feel a need to codify a “canon version” or do all the drudge-work of making those ideas accessible for someone else.

#4. Find a cheerleader Sometimes it’s good to have writing buddies who are also interested in your story and can help to sustain enthusiasm, inspiration and excitement for your project.  Whether that’s finding a beta-reader, joining/starting a discord server, reaching out to commenters on early chapters, roping in IRL fandom friends or finding community in other places.

#5. Your first attempt won’t be your best and that’s okay I do a lot of cooking and a common rule there is “the first pancake always comes out wonky”.  You need to get a feel for what you’re working with before things start to flow.  Similarly, the first draft almost always feels rough�� because it’s purpose is to be a rough draft.  Don’t be dispirited if it’s not immediately perfect, or as good as what you pictured in your head.  Each time you iterate/edit you have a chance to identify something you’d like to do differently and experiment with moving it closer to the effect you want.

#6. Set milestones and consider an exit strategy If you feel like there is a possibility that you might (or might need to) pull the plug on a larger project before the end, then it might ease your mind to have a plan for how and where you would want to draw things to a close. 

This is something I have for Deathly Weapons. It’s a very long story that I planned at an age when I had more time and energy to spare, crossing two fandoms (of which one is getting pretty old and the other died of sudden-onset seasonal rot) and something I’ve been aware of for several years now is that one day I might need to call it quits, whether due to lack of time, inspiration-loss or for mental health reasons there have been times where this fic (and especially the attached fandom-rot) has been legitimately not good for my headspace.  I’d like to finish DW and I don’t like the idea of leaving either the characters or my readers without closure, but I also recognise that it simply might not be possible.  My compromise is that if that day comes I’m going to polish up all my story-notes and make them available so that the full narrative at least exists in some form.  In the short term I want to make it to the end of the Mission 2: Flashpoints-Equilibrium set.  Once I get there I’ll take stock and see if I feel like the Mission 3: Something Wicked set is still on the cards, and so on and so forth.

#7. Remember that fanfic is a hobby You can certainly learn valuable things and meet wonderful people through writing, but ultimately this is something you do for fun, because you find it inherently rewarding or compelling.  It’s a knitting club.  Sure it might feel a little bit worse to close down a project that other people are invested in but, just like with any other hobby, it’s perfectly fine to take a break or move on if it’s not something you enjoy anymore, if it’s effecting you in a way you don’t like, or if you don’t like the particular group of people you’re currently doing it with.  It’s your free-time to use, and it’s fine to weigh options and decide that it would be more fulfilling or better for your health to pursue something else.

Above all else, remember that it’s okay to “fail” 

I feel like this is something we don’t talk about enough as a collective (and it’s definitely something I wish I had been told more).  Sometimes you try things and it doesn’t work out.  Sometimes you screw up.  Sometimes you give up.  That’s alright.  It doesn’t change your worth as a person.  Put it down to experience: it still teaches you things.  And you can always try again.

Be kind to yourself, okay? 💚

[simphasocs]

Silence - Lore

TW: Thoughts of su*cide, depression, negative thoughts

So, I randomly decided to write something as I have a breakdown. I dont know, this is pretty messy and just... eh. I needed to let out some feelings so there. I honestly dont know if i wanna change Lore's UM but I might someday or something. The people here are supposed to be Rook and Azul but right now Im too tired to wrjte them in detajl. I dont know why i did this in first person either since I havent written a first person persctive in a long long while. My lack of sleep and breakdown explains the messy,.everytbinf. i really dont know what the hell i wrote but i wrote something, so yeah

I thought I was fine. Sure I was wrong to think that I can handle this by myself. I'm on my third year, I'm not foreign to the concept of asking help. I've done that before. In little things such as studying so I can understand the lessons better.

So why is it that I feel so terrified to ask my friends for help?

I can't breathe.

I can't breathe!

I can't—

I could hear a faint knocking on my door. I don't think I can face anyone right now, I can't.

As I hug myself tight, the headache never fading as I feel my vision swirl. If I were to collapse here and not wake up for a while... would anyone notice? Surely someone would, they're my friends after all. And yet, I still feel uncertain. What if they don't notice? What if no one does?

Again, the knocking continues except this time much louder. I hear a few voices but they sound so muffled to my ears that I don't know who it is. I don't think I want to know either.

I want to cry and scream but if I do then they'll hear me.

I'm so tired.

I just want this to be over with. I want everything to be over with.

There was a faint clicking sound from the door— no!

I can't let them see me like this! I can't let anyone know. If they know then what if they see me as a burden? What if they see me as pathetic? What if they hate me?

And with that, despite being exhausted in every sense of the word—I used what's left of my energy to use my unique magic. "Dream Well", so that everyone outside of my room can't get in. I know after a while they'll just get in but at least... at least I held them off for much longer.

Grasping my chest for air, I felt my pen. My shaking fingers carefully removed the pen as I examine it; black, it's covered in black...?

I don't... I didn't think I used my magic all that much...

I feel so lonely. I don't want to exist anymore. I want to talk to them but I'm scared, I'm terrified. I want to pretend I never existed. I want to be comforted. I want to feel safe. I don't want to be a bother. I want to fade away.

The thoughts are getting louder... I know I shouldn't listen, I already went through this. I shouldn't listen. I shouldn't listen.

And yet I do. Even as the thoughts are nothing but doubts and lies that hold no truth, I listen.

The thoughts that tell me that they—everyone— won't care if I stop existing. The thought that I'm nothing but a bother to everyone around me. The thought that I shouldn't have interacted with anyone so that they wouldn't be dragged into my mess. The thought that I should've left them when it was still early, that way I wouldn't be wasting anyone's time.

I feel something wet on my face, the moment I touch my face, I was pulled back to reality. When did I start crying...? My fingers are shaking too...

I guess I was hyperventilating the whole time...

The more I feel myself come back to reality, the more I notice things. Like how my vision is foggy. Or how the dulling pain in my head never left, same with the dizziness.

I've been stuck to my thoughts this whole time that I never heard myself speak, I don't think I even remember how I sound like. My whole body feels so numb and weak. Do I just give in...? Do I just let the fatigue get to me...?

I feel like I'm close to fainting, it's a good thing I'm on the bed. I won't bother anyone. I won't be anymore. I'll just stay here for a long long while...

I must've forgotten about the people at the door since I heard a the click of the doorknob, someone's probably gotten inside. I don't have the energy to check anymore...

I think I heard someone say something to me but I can't make out what they said. Everything sounds so muffled. My vision is slowly being covered in black and all I saw are yellow and white till—

I woke up a day affter that. I knew because they told me. I don't know why they're here by my side. I also don't know why I opened up to them. I still want to run away and pretend I never existed nor mattered but right now... I'm fine existing...

They made me feel like my existence isn't a burden. I don't really understand how nor why... but I tried to trust them and their words. For now I'll accept the help they're offering.

I'm scared still. I don't want to involve them in my messy private life any further than this. I really don't want to, I'm fine choosing to hide my presence and my existence than to trust people. I really don't want to be a bother. But... for now I'll allow myself to be. I'll ignore the thoughts telling me how much I'm wasting their time and efforts. How I'm a waste of space. How I don't deserve the help they're giving me, the comfort and kindness.

The thoughts get louder each moment but I ignore it. For now I'll endure it, for now I'll ignore it. For now I'll accept their presence by my side. I may not tell them the thoughts in my head for now or any time soon but I can allow them to see my physical weakness. The effects of thoughts. For now I'll be fine.

[dimonds456]

its disability pride month and i'm going through it. vent. check the tags on this one.

sorry there's been so many of these recently, I'm really, really trying not to be this negative, but... man.

something out there wants me dead. bad.

first it was water. then it was depression. then it was anxiety. then it was trauma. then it was graves disease. then it was trauma. then it was adhd. then it was summer in general. then it was maybe autism. then it was trauma. then it was nervous system failure. and now it's an eating disorder.

like not all of those are life-or-death (though adhd can feel like that sometimes lmao) but i've had so many fucking brushes with death that i'm not even afraid of it anymore, i'm just fucking frustrated.

i feel like Mugman from Casino Cups, honestly. "Death is so sudden, it could happen at any moment... everything could end at any moment... and I wouldn't even realize it...

[...]

"I've moved on, I'm not mourning, it's a part of life, but... the unpredictability of it... it's... it's not even SCARY, it's more INFURIATING!! One day, I'll disappear, and... never see where we'll go... never do anything I could have done! I HATE being at its mercy..."

the only difference is that he's died and come back 527 times. i will only die once and then that'll be that.

i've always had a weird fascination with death. maybe it was getting diagnosed with graves disease in middle school that started it (seriously who the FUCK picked "GRAVES" as the name for a disease, did they WANT to freak people out??), maybe it was the realization I'd have it for the rest of my life and now I would have to take pills forever, or maybe it was that first time I almost drowned in elementary school, or the other six times after that. I really don't know.

but i've made it. somehow, some way, i'm still here.

y'know, i wrote an entire ode to death and recorded audio of me reading it. i wanted to put it on youtube but i havent found time to make a video for it. maybe one day. that ode means a lot to me.

i don't know.

the only thing i know is that I want to make the best of the time i've got, which isn't a lot. i don't know how much time i have, but it's less than 20 years i can tell you that right now. if i reach my 40th birthday i will eat both of my shoes AND my hat. i don't mean that in an "i am depressed" way i mean that in a "death and i have a rehearsal at least twice a year and brother i do not know how to dance" way.

i try so, so hard not to be negative online. i really do. i don't want people to remember me as the one who only ever complained, or the one who got angry at everything, or the anxious one who never said anything original or worthwhile, or the one who only ever talked about politics. i want to be a good memory. it's the quote i live by. i want my memory to be a good one.

and i'm failing.

you, right now, reading this. i'm failing you. and i'm sorry. i just... don't know what else to do.

i've realized now that the reason i've been so bent out of shape as of late is because i will never feel safe. even if i moved to the kindest community in the world, even if all the world's political shit got fixed overnight, even if my anxiety and depression suddenly vanished... i can never feel safe because i live in this body. this long-suffering vessel that always, always has something life-threateningly wrong with it.

this eating disorder i have now is only the latest in a long line of shit. each new threat just gets more and more dire. i'm terrified to find out what the next one is. i almost wanna bet money on appendicitis or something but i also don't wanna jinx it, ha.

i'm sorry.

"Someday we will all just be a memory for some people. I just want that memory to be a good one." - Camila Cuevas (Glitchtale, 2017)

i'll keep trying. i'm going to pass with a smile on my face. that WILL be the last thing i do. i promise.