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slightlyrebelliouswriter23 · 4 years

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hey so i'm hoping to get some writing advice about creative burnout? like i seem to write in fits and spurts. some months i can churn out a oneshot or chapter everyday and some months i can do one (1) creative thing only. so i'm wondering how to prevent creative burnout and how to just create more smoothly <3 thank you!

Creative Burnout & How To Ward Against It

First, I’d like to preface this all by saying you’re definitely not alone. You probably already know this, but sometimes it’s nice to be reminded.

I know from personal experience that creative burnout can leave you feeling hopeless, detached from yourself—the kind of identity crisis no one needs in 2020.

So buckle in, folks. It’s a dosy.

I. The Symptoms

Not to be the local WebMD page here, but signs of burnout can include:

Procrastination (more than usual)

Dreading writing and feeling stuck or overly perfectionistic when you try

Physical tiredness and/or irritability

Feeling like everything is monotonous

It’s more than just writer’s block. It’s a physical and emotional exhaustion response to something that goes deeper than a simple lack of inspiration. In my experience, and from a bit of research, I’ve found that what your brain is really looking for is dopamine.

Dopamine is essentially your brain’s chemical reward system for doing something interesting or exciting to you. As someone who is diagnosed with ADHD, I have chronically low levels of dopamine, so this is a constant struggle for me—but it is absolutely made worse by creative burnout.

II. The Problem

Studies have shown that the more we do A Thing the less that thing will give us dopamine (unless a component of the activity changes regularly). This is because eventually our brains desensitise to the stimuli provided by the activity, and subsequently, we become disengaged.

But it’s not necessarily The Thing (i.e. writing) that becomes boring. Actually, more than a few factors could be at play here, and the first step to finding a solution is to identify the problem.

1. ENVIRONMENT LACKS EXCITEMENT/CHANGE—

Sometimes, the monotony of everyday life can feed creative burnout. This becomes especially applicable in quarantine when you’re not leaving your house.

What we don’t realise is that even something as small as the variables of driving to and from work, or interacting with passing coworkers, gives us dopamine. So if you have the same routine every day that does not involve any added variables, your brain will begin staunching that dopamine supply.

2. EITHER TOO EASY OR TOO CHALLENGING—

In 1975, Hungarian-American psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, coined the term “flow”, which refers to a heightened state of creativity and concentration on an activity. Csikszentmihalyi posited that if your skill level is equal to the level of challenge in any given activity, you will experience this state of flow.

The chart below is taken from Csikszentmihalyi’s own study on the subject of flow and motivation. It examines “your skill level” on the x axis in relation to the “challenge level” on the y axis.

Essentially:

Too much challenge + not enough skill = anxiety, worry (which might lead to procrastination and perfectionism)

Too much skill + not enough challenge = boredom, apathy (which might lead to monotony, irritability, and other depression-like symptoms)

Skill level = Challenge level = Flow

3. NOT ENOUGH “ACTIVE” STIMULATION—

When it comes to dopamine seeking, there is a distinct difference between active and passive stimulation in the brain.

Active stimulation is any form of activity that you have to actively engage in. For instance; exercising, doing a crossword puzzle, or reading a book. These kinds of activities not only give you dopamine, they also facilitate critical thinking and problem solving thought processes, which act as catalysts for creativity.

Passive stimulation, on the other hand, comes in the form of television, social media, and YouTube. It’s anything you can consume without having to actively engage. Passive stimulation will indeed give your brain dopamine, however, it won’t activate your creativity.

The problem also lies in the speed at which you receive the dopamine from passive activities. Passive stimulation is so easy to access that the more you consume, the harder it becomes to pick up active stimulation. Your brain expects a hit of dopamine just by picking up a phone or turning on the TV—it becomes addicted to the quick fix of a Netflix binge.

III. The Solutions

Based on the problems mentioned above, I am going to list a few solutions. Keeping in mind that not every solution will work for everyone, these can act as both preventative measures and remedies for someone who is currently burned out.

1. CHANGE UP YOUR ENVIRONMENT/ROUTINE—

Aim to do at least one thing per day that will add “variables” to the monotony. This can be as simple as going on a long walk, dressing up in that bold outfit you always wanted to wear to the office but never did, or sitting at a different workspace in your home.

Anything you can do that’s simple, but might provide an extra variable to your day to spice things up. Note: this shouldn’t be the same thing every day.

2. CHALLENGE YOURSELF MORE—

If you find yourself bored by your work, try challenging yourself more. This could mean setting goals for yourself that go a bit beyond what you’ve been doing.

For example, if you’ve been writing 500 words per day, see if you can beat your own word count every day for the next week. If you’ve been writing mainly fluff pieces, switch it up and do an angst piece. See if you can write a book in a month, or start a blog where you don’t write fiction at all!

Anything you can do to add a little kick to your workload. Note: Beware of challenging yourself too much! This can lead straight back into burnout.

3. CHALLENGE YOURSELF LESS—

If you’re on the flip side of that coin, and find that you are anxious, procrastinating, and perfectionistic when it comes to writing, fret not. Just because you’re experiencing any of these things, doesn’t mean you’re incapable of doing the job with your skillset.

It just means your perception of the job needs to be shifted.

Procrastination, at its heart, is a fear of failure, which results in actively avoiding the negative emotions associated with the task that causes this fear. Perfectionism is a type of procrastination that is a combination of a fear of failure and a fear of success (or, more accurately, other’s critiques of your success) all at once.

Neither have anything to do with your actual skillset, but they have everything to do with your perception of your skillset. Obviously, this is a harder thing to fix, as it has to do with deeply ingrained levels of self-esteem.

What I can offer you is a tactic to trick your mind into thinking you’re capable.

If you have a task, big or small, and you are feeling overwhelmed by it (like you might go curl up in bed and scroll Tumblr), immediately break that task up into smaller tasks. Keep breaking up the smaller tasks until you have the smallest possible part of the bigger task without doing nothing.

Then do that smallest possible thing.

If your goal is to write a 2000 word one shot, a small part of that task is writing half of it. An even smaller part of that task is breaking the one shot up into “scenes” and writing one scene. For instance:

Jude wakes up to a sore throat, a runny nose, and a fever.

She tries to go to work, but Cardan, being the mother hen that he is, threatens to never make her another grilled cheese sandwich (her favourite food) ever again if she doesn’t stay home.

Jude agrees begrudgingly, and Cardan sits her down in front of the TV with a bottle of Gatorade. He leaves to go get medicine from the store.

When Cardan comes back, Jude is worse than before. He makes her soup and saltine crackers and spoon feeds her.

She complains the whole time and, in her feverish state, threatens to never buy him another bottle of wine (his favourite food) ever again if he doesn’t let her feed herself.

Each bullet point represents one “scene” of about 200-400 words each. Obviously, there will be more details that you work out as you write. But with these five smaller scenes, your goal is no longer writing the 2000 word one shot. Your goal is writing the first of the five scenes.

If you complete the smallest possible task, you can stop, and you’ll still feel like you’ve accomplished something because you can cross off that task from your list. But chances are, by the time you cross off one task, you may have inspiration enough to keep going.

4. ENGAGE IN ACTIVE STIMULATION—

Since active stimulation has been proven to turn on the creative “tap”, try incorporating more of these activities into your daily routine:

Exercise: As the resident couch potato, I hate to say that exercising is good for creativity, but it is. Even if it’s just going on a short walk, so long as you’re moving.

Reading: Sometimes you have plenty of ideas, but no words to fit those ideas. Fill your well of words by carving out an hour or two each day for reading a good book.

The Creative Process: In the writing world, the creative process is a process of about 20-30 minutes that the writer partakes in every day before they start writing. This process should be creative, but also have nothing to do with writing. You can try colouring in a colouring book, painting, organising a page in your bullet journal. Anything that is creative but does not make you think about everything you have to do that day. Think of it as creative meditation.

Listen to music: Having APD, I personally can’t listen to music while I write. However, studies have shown that if you listen to at least ten songs per day, it will significantly benefit your dopamine levels and overall mood. If you’re like me and prefer to work in silence, maybe stick on a couple songs during your creative process. If you can manage music and writing together, get out those headphones!

5. KEEP A REGULAR SCHEDULE—

I know this is the most cliche point in the book, but it’s valid. This doesn’t mean do the same thing at the same time every day over and over, because ultimately we’re looking to avoid monotony.

But having pillars of structure to bolster the excitement can definitely work to keep you from slipping into burnout. Going to sleep, waking up, and having your meals at relatively the same time every day are good examples of this.

Feel free to change up the things you do between breakfast and lunch, but make sure you have those pillars of consistency so your brain knows that a break is on the horizon and doesn’t get tired.

6. PACE YOURSELF—

This is particularly difficult for those of us who are coming out of a creative burnout, but I urge you to pay special attention to this one. If we are suddenly hit by inspiration and the writing is flowing and flowing and flowing, eventually we will hit the point of highest dopamine capacity for writing.

Not putting a check on the flood of inspiration coming out of a creative burnout, I’d argue, is actually a guarantee that many of us will experience burnout all over again. It becomes this vicious cycle in which we are trapped.

While it feels great to write non-stop and receive immediate validation for that work, try to limit yourself to how much you’re writing and how immediately you post your writing (if you plan on posting it).

Whenever I finish a one shot or a chapter of something, I like to allow at least one day for editing before I post. This timeframe is important, because it acts as a buffer of rest between writing marathons.

You can take however long you need for the editing process, but definitely make sure you have a set amount of time in place. Otherwise, your brain might not have enough time to come down from what is essentially a writing high, and you will always need to reach greater heights in order to achieve that same level of dopamine.

~~~~

Overall, the most important things to take away from all of this are:

Change up your environment

Keep your brain actively stimulated

Have pillars of structure between which you can run about chaotically to your heart’s content

PACE YOURSELF!

Hope this helped. Happy writing!

-Em 🖤🗡

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ignitesthestxrs · 4 years

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i apoligze for this in advance but idk who else to ask. so i’m attracted to women like 92% of the time but i’ve been dating a guy for a few months now. it’s not super serious yet but i still find myself feeling sad about never having had a gf/worrying i never will and just feeling like a bad queer. i KNOW that it’s terribly biphobic of me to think that if i a femme enby date a cis dude i’m not queer enough. but i also cant get past it no matter how many times i look at these ugly brain thoughts

first of all: you never have to apologise for sending me stuff like this. it is a known facet of my tumblr, and while i know i am hardly around at all, i do periodically check my inbox and am never angry or annoyed or any other negative emotion to see people reaching out for help/advice. i don’t always have the mental bandwidth to respond, but i am only ever glad that people still consider this a safe place to reach out to.

there are a couple of things i want to address here! in no particular order:

you are not a future teller or a psychic, no matter how much your worries and anxieties insist that they know what is coming. the fact that you are in a relationship with a man in this moment has no bearing on what relationships you may find yourself in, in the future. the fact that the person you are dating currently identifies as a man is no guarantee that they will always identify that way, even! you could be with them for the next couple of weeks or for the rest of your life and there are a million permutations in between and around those two options.

what i’m saying is - obsessing over things you might not do in the future because of things you are doing now is a game that nobody wins. you have no guarantees of what the future is going to hold - you can make decisions now based on what you want and/or expect the future to hold, but stressing about the path not taken means that you’re going to spend all your time straining to see that path and like, walk into a big boulder in the path you’re actually on or something. currently, you’re not even stressing about the fork in the road that you came across. you’re on a single path, and you’re worrying about a path you haven’t come across yet, which may or may not diverge from the path that you’re on, or might be in a different forest entirely and and and- at some point you gotta love the path you’re on and take in the scenery, my darling.

which, incidentally - this path? not incompatible with queerness. and i know you know this, but feeling it can be! so hard! so i am here to remind and reassure you that - queerness is not an action. the nature of identity is not things that you do, it is the person that you are. you do not cease to be non-binary because your outfit changes - your fashion choices are simply a way of expressing your non-binary-ness, and they are not the only way, and if you are not using fashion to express your enbyness then that doesn’t make you not enby. you don’t stop being enby when there is no one there to look at you and make external judgements about your gender, and you do not stop being queer because you are a femme-adjacent person dating a cis dude.

queerness is a thing that you are. you can take actions that express that queerness more clearly to outside observation, but outside observation does not change the fact of your queerness. i will not deny that it can make it easier to participate in community, because community is in part made up of particular signs that individuals recognise in each other and gravitate towards - but who you date is only one such sign. i’m a lesbian who hasn’t dated anyone for over half a decade - am i less queer because i have not hooked up with a chick in that time? i am not. if i fuck a dude am i less of a lesbian? idk man that depends on how i feel about fucking a dude. am i romantically and sexually attracted to the dude, or was his dick just inside me? what if he just uses his fingers? i feel like i could feasibly have sex with a cis man out of sheer curiosity and still be a lesbian, sure, but what if there’s a single man that just perfectly meets me where i am despite my overwhelming preference and interest in women? what if that man is trans? what does that mEAN? at which point do we stop dissecting identity and carving lines into each other?

queerness is a useful umbrella term to cover those people who exist out of heternormativity - cismen attracted to ciswomen, ciswomen attracted to cismen, exclusively. the second the spokes of that umbrella start poking you instead of protecting you from the rain, it has ceased to do its job. identity is useful in that it helps us understand ourselves and it helps us find community in other people, but there are no perfect words that encapsulate the whole of our individual experience, and there are no individual experiences that perfectly match up with another person’s individual experience, even if we use the same word/s to describe ourselves.

you can’t be biphobic at your own experiences. it’s not biphobic to look at the way you have identified previously/up to a certain point, to recognise a difference in your current behaviour, and feel weird or discomforted by this difference. it’s not biphobic to need some time to figure shit out - who you want to be, how you want to identify, what outfit fits you best. i think identity works best as a conversation with yourself - i think we should all be checking in on ourselves to make sure that the way are living is expressing the way we are being. this urge to build walls of definable identity is a protective instinct meant to save us and gather us together from the very real threats of a heteronormative society, but it can also mean we get trapped in a place that no longer suit us.

some practical advice - if the idea of never dating a girl stresses you out that much, i’d take a break from dating this dude, because it sounds like you have some work to do in terms of figuring out what experiences you want to have in life. but only you can decide where that stress line fractures, you know? but if you read this post and you sit with it for a bit and you find that the experience of dating this man is still making you miserable, it’s okay to take some time away from it. you don’t deserve misery.

that being said - like, you’ve only been dating him a few weeks? it’s cool to just envision this relationship in terms of weeks. you truly don’t have to stretch the current experience you are having out to cover the rest of your life in one daunting ‘what if’. so long as everyone involved in a relationship is clear with the terms of engagement, go forth and short term yourself some fuckin joy.

i stress, i beg, do not deny yourself the pleasure of a joyful experience with another human soul now because you are worried about what this means about other people’s perception of some amorphous identity. you are queer. you are a femme-enby person largely attracted to woman, but dating a man. you are queer, you are enough, you don’t need to question that anymore. i think that the last year, last four years, last lifetime has more than proven that life is, frankly, too fucking short. seize your joy and run with it. whether that means dating this man or take a pause to breathe and reflect, or whatever else! you’ll still be queer.

be kind to yourself my love i wish you well <3

#hannah does advice #Anonymous

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ask-de-writer · 4 years

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LOST TIME (part 1 of 3) A fantasy of Flocking Bay.

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LOST TIME

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

5556 words

written 2003

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express written consent of the author or proper copyright holder.

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Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights. They may reblog the story. They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions. I will allow those who do commission art works to charge for their images.

All sorts of Fan Activity, fiction, art, cosplay, music or anything else is ACTIVELY encouraged!

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It stands out even in the dark ... It shouldn’t. It’s just a house. A damned old house. Not even that old really, not for New England. It’s a two story salt-box style with an observation deck under a cupola at the peak. It is probably just the setting. Rusty old iron fence, gnarled elderly trees, unkempt lawn not quite out of control, windows that the neighborhood kids haven’t broken. It should be a witch’s house but it isn’t. It is mine. I just closed on it yesterday.

The kids are going to have a field day this time. I don’t like the daylight... been on night shift as far back as I can remember. That’s a longish way back. But I’m not a witch, nor vampire. Nothing exotic that I know of. I’m just one of those people (you probably know one or two) who don’t show their age. If you envy me, think again. YOU try to explain to a traffic cop why your ID has you pegged for seventy+ and you don’t look over twenty. I carry a copy of my fingerprint record from the military, because they can check that.

Funny part of it is, I really don’t have the slightest idea how old I am. Traumatic amnesia the doctors called it, during the war. The head wound was minor, they said.

That is a matter of opinion. It robbed me of my past, my name, my identity, my loves and hates but left my skills intact. I was an empty shell. I am still trying to find my past.

The name that I use comes from more or less modern myth. Vandervekken. The Flying Dutchman. Wandering Dutchman would be more accurate. He sails the seas off the Cape of Good Hope until Judgment Day. He can’t find his home either. I bought the house because it is the first place that I have seen in over fifty years where I want to stay. You explain it.

The rusty gate opened silently, thanks to the bit of oil that I put on the hinges. Going up the uneven walk, between the looming trees is an experience. The door lock is old-fashioned but still works smoothly. Covered furniture could have made ghosts to haunt the place, if I were superstitious or given to being easily frightened.

As I said, I like the night. I even enjoy things with a bit of a spooky atmosphere. I also like antiques and handcrafted things which is why, if I ever find out who did it, I will cheerfully throttle whatever philistine covered the finely inlaid hardwood parquetry floors with battleship gray paint.

Stripping and refinishing those floors was on my priority job list. Actually, I shouldn’t beef too much. Pointing out the problem got me a price reduction of nearly $2000 on an already underpriced house with all of its furniture as part of the deal. Estates can be wonderful when you are on a tight budget. Too bad that someone else had to die to create my good fortune.

As I pulled the dust covers from the furniture, I saw that my good fortune was been complete. It was all sturdy, hand-carved hardwood with Chinese silk brocade upholstery. The furniture alone was worth what I had paid for the house and contents. The tops of even the smallest hall tables were inlaid with rich veneers, ivory and mother of pearl. You couldn’t buy furniture like this any more. Besides the cost, the ivory in the inlays is no longer legal to obtain. I could get as much from the sale of just one or two pieces as I could from a year of writing if I could bring myself to part with any of this treasure. It just feels like the house would not be complete without it.

Whoever it was that had died and left this for me to have has whatever blessings it is in my power to bestow. The only wonder is that this place stayed on the market long enough for me to find it. Usually, deals like this get snapped up by the real-estate brokers before people like me ever see them.

When I got to the kitchen, I received another little jolt. I knew that it was fairly up to date, but some thoughtful soul had stocked the fridge and set out a bit of a snack for me. Just cookies and a glass for the milk, which was staying cold in the cooler. Thoughtful. I wondered who did it.

While munching on the cookies, I opened a few windows to air the place out a bit. Going out to my car, I saw that the flags of the walk needed leveling because of the weeds that grew up between them. I drove around to the alley behind the place, opened the garage and parked Lilitu, my classic pre-war Packard touring car. She looked right at home in there. Few, even of modern garages were big enough for her. I ferried my few personal goods up to the house. On my last trip, I saw a couple of wide-eyed kids looking over the back fence.

“Told ya, told ya so!” one of them chanted. “There’s somebody sneakin’ inta the ol’ Vekin place!”

“I wouldn’t call it sneaking, to move into your own place,” I answered as civilly as I could manage. “I just bought it. Why do you call it the Vekin place?”

“If ya ain’t sneakin’, why ya goin’ in the back way? An’ after dark, too?” she shot back. I could now see that they were a girl and a boy. She was obviously in charge.

“I like nights. I’m a writer, so I can keep any hours I like. Why is it the Vekin place?” I asked again.

“Dun’no - Crazy guy named Vekin used to live there,” she contradicted herself.

“Lot of folks tried to buy the place since then,” the boy piped in.

“But nobody ever stays,” the girl finished for him firmly.

“So, this is the neighborhood’s haunted house?” I inquired jovially.

“No,” was as far as the boy got.

“Its down the street, on t’other side,” she cut in.

“I looked at that one,” I said thoughtfully. “The old Victorian. Somebody’s broken out all the windows. Not like here. If the Vekin house is so bad, why hasn’t some kid chucked rocks at it?”

“‘Cause we’re not THAT crazy!” exclaimed The boy, getting out a whole thought. The girl gave him a push, and they ran off into the night.

I got up about noon, after the most restful night’s sleep that I’d had since the War. After my breakfast and a quiet tour of the place from attic to basement, I went out. My goal was the local newspaper. THE FLOCKING BAY VOICE was sprawled across the plate glass window in Old English style letters of gold leaf and black. Smaller letters proclaimed Est. 1841. I pushed open the door. My nose was assaulted by the multiple odors of printer’s ink, paper and grease. The VOICE occupied one large room. An elderly web press crouched at the back of the space, behind several rolls of newsprint. Cubicles made offices in the middle of the room. An old oak counter that had once seen duty as a bar had several signs suspended over it on thin chains. They read ‘submissions’, ‘advertisements’, ‘subscriptions’, ‘billing’.

There was a bell on the counter. Some wag had put a sign on it, “Please ring bell, it won’t help but it will give you something to do.” I gave myself something to do, energetically, a few times.

A trim little blond lady answered the bell’s summons. She wore a green eyeshade and a pin on her sweater announced, ‘Lois Martin - cook, bottle washer & EDITOR in CHIEF.’ “What can I do for you, today?” she asked.

“I came to see what I can find out about the Vekin place,” I answered, trying not to stare at her.

“Just a moment, I’ll get the file out of the morgue. I was going to get it anyway. Somebody went and bought the place again.”

“Wait a minute,” I protested. “Someone buys a house and that makes news in Flocking Bay? This town must be even quieter than it looks.”

“Oh,” she retorted, “it can get downright interesting around here when the old Vekin place sells. You’ll see.” She disappeared among the cubicles and I heard her feet clattering down a flight of stairs. I heard a file drawer creak and slide, then slam shut. It wasn’t long before she reappeared, a rather fat file clutched in her hand.

“If you’d like, we can have lunch over at Mike’s Soda Shop,” she proposed. “He makes decent submarine sandwiches and real ice-cream sodas.”

“Well ... ” I pretended to hesitate, “I haven’t been invited out by a beautiful blond in a long time, so, yes.”

“I hope that I haven’t just made a fool of myself,” she remarked, laying aside the eyeshade. “You are Mr. Vandervekken aren’t you? The man who just bought the place?”

“Too true,” I said.

“Then I’ll make it an interview and deduct it from my taxes,” she smiled.

“You make enough to pay taxes?” I asked, looking back as we crossed the street.

“I have hidden assets. The paper is a tax shelter.” She opened the door of Mike’s and ushered me in.

As I was seating her, I just couldn’t help blurting out, “Your assets seem to be pretty obvious.”

She grinned, “Go ahead and stare. I don’t mind. If I did, I wouldn’t wear a snug sweater and put my pin just here.” She pointed, then added, “Looking at it will keep you off your guard while I ask my questions.”

“OK, Ms. Martin, but let me look at the file first. You can order for me. You know the food here,” I said, reaching for the file.

“Lois,” she replied, “call me Lois, everyone else does.” Then she hollered to the man behind the counter, “Oh, Mike! Two butterscotch sodas and a big turkey sub! Divide it in half!”

“How did you know that I liked butterscotch?” I asked. “It’s not that common a preference these days.”

“I just had a hunch, that’s all. You looked like another butterscotch type person.”

I was leafing through the file on the rather beat-up table while we waited. I couldn’t resist snorting with amusement at the name of the house’s builder. Capt. Von Der Vekin. The house had been built in 1894 by the Capt. and his elusive son, Charles. Nobody had ever seen Charles until he came into town, on April 1st, 1900, to report his father’s demise and burial on the property. He ordered a headstone hewn of the local limestone. Charles had returned from WW I with honors and lived quietly, claiming to be a writer, though nobody ever saw any of his work in print. When asked, all that he would say was ‘Pseudonyms are great for privacy’. He was not so lucky when he volunteered to assist the French resistance in 1939. He never came home.

Next==>

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#LOST TIME #Part 1 of 3 #Flocking Bay #Written by De Writer

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obiternihili · 5 years

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Something about property rights

I felt like I needed to rant yesterday and decided to adapt the discord messages into a tumblr post.

I spent most of a class this morning thinking about the Anglo interpretations and notions of property rights, trying to actually contrast it with workable alternative notions of property rights and feeling kind of hopeless about it and finding it hard to actually come up with anything that isn't literally communism.

And in retrospect it made the whole “philosophically questioning the whole notion of property rights” feel more, idk, respectable than it had before, when it just sounded like the USSR and China opposed its inclusion in the UDHR for technical reasons or pure self interest in covering their own atrocities.

The whole thing started with thinking about the Zapatist slogan “la tierra es de quién la trabaja”. “The land belongs to those who work it.” To me, the Zapatistas were pretty cool guys, who sided with the little guy and the indigenous peoples of México. But I thought immediately about how a colonial American might react to it, and I couldn’t escape the idea that they’d hear the slogan and go, “ah, yes, we should kill the savages and steward the land correctly”.

As much as the magna carta is held up as this great precursor to democratic rights in this country, its origins are far more dismal and petty. It wasn’t really a democratic impulse, it was more like a bunch of petty-kings coordinated to overwhelm a high king. But it doubtlessly had a strong effect on feudalism and came to be a part of English identity before that even really made sense from a modern perspective. In short it came off almost as a promise that “every man is a king of his own home” and that helped to make property itself sacrosanct.

So when capitalism changed the people’s relationship with the land, the serfs were “liberated” as the commons were siezed by their de jure owners. The collapse of the commons fundamentally changed people’s relationships with property, exacerbating the whole “every man is a king of his own house” issue, and making property the be-all-end-all of basic needs like shelter. To the degree that the Magna Carta made property sacrosanct, in a literal “this is a divinely appointed right” sort of sense, the collapse of the commons codified exactly what that meant, making that sacrosanctity intrinsic to thriving.

So because of tying these issues together so deeply, it made sense to steal the lands of people “not working it” according to how you might work it. So that it made sense to go to war because the yankees were stealing your chattel, and horror of horrors not even repurposing them! So that telling South Africa “hey, no, black people are people too” was unholy, violating their sacred authority to clean their own house. So it makes sense that Australia continues to break promises to its Aboriginal communities, if, say, their homes have a potentially profitable mine to work. So it makes sense that Canada breaks promises to its indigenous population, if there’s an oil pipeline they can lay. So that it made sense, paradoxically, for the US to strong arm México into changing articles of its constitution about indigenous land rights in order to pass NAFTA and be able to threaten to go United Fruit Company on the people for not being profitable to the corporations. And the EZLN, which formed directly because of the anxieties of these moves as the Maya genocide was still very fresh on everyone’s minds, are neo-Zapatistas; the land belongs to the one who works it! The Maya who always has, or the companies that want to (exploit it)?

I remember once as a teen confronting the attitudes this bears on a small chan.

Before the BLM stuff, actually regarding OWS and those "rich punks arguing for socialism with their iphones" and shit; I'd made an off hand comment about things not being worth more than lives at some point and someone replied "I'd totally kill someone if they stole my phone".

I made a comment in utter exasperation (this was on a board that was like /pol/ before that was really what it is now and there was no reason to believe they weren't serious), saying something like "Is, what, a month's pay really worth a human life to you?" ($800 really was more money than my mom was making at the time, let alone taking out rent and shit first, and I gave them benefit of the doubt that they weren't rich first world fucks who could afford to take a hit. At that point I’d learned that most people in India, even dirt poor people who couldn’t afford water, generally had smart phones in order to help with work and things; conscientious of this, the fact that I know and knew dirt poor almost homeless people in the US who needed phones for work, I was trying to allow for “if I lose this phone, I lose my job, my home, my health, and my life” which is a reality a lot of people live with, and at least somewhere to come at this issue with).

(But) the commentators, both the user I was arguing against and several people using trips, proceeded to mock me for apparently living in a 3rd world country for thinking a phone cost more than one paycheck.

To these people a phone wasn’t even worth a week’s pay, let alone two. And yet, to them, another person’s life, no matter how desperate they were, no matter how hungry or sick or anything they were, they were worth less than that.

This exchange was about the time I started nurturing (or giving in, depending on your perspective) the idea that "maybe some people aren't just, mistaken, or seeing something I don't, or have some complex network of beliefs making them bite a bullet, but like, actually goddamn legitimately evil in terms of their fundamental values". I gather absolutely that there’s a lot going on with this; that you could understand the guy to mean “I think thieves should be killed” as opposed to ““humans”“ or whatever. But, like, still.

Traumatizing is an overly dramatic word for what that conversation all those years did to me, but maybe it was. And it’s not like a phone’s *nothing*. But the way the users undercut me, and revealed not only how worthless the phone was to them, but how little human lives were worth to them in relation to the phone just kind of knocked the wind out of me

This made the rounds recently. This is the legacy of that property is sacrosanct bullshit.

And, like, fuck, this is the whole cultural underpinning of what’s been going on with the gun shit here. It’s why guns are so important to us. Why we feel it’s absolutely justified to shoot a kid in the back for lifting a $2 bottle of beer from a convenience store and leaving him to bleed to death without so much as calling the police. The entire fucked up thing we got going on w/r/t race here in the land of the free? It’s because of our relationship to property rights.

At the same time, you get climate change from people who feel it’s their right to do whatever to their property. Oil’s money. Dairy farms, meat, cash crops like almonds. You don’t like your water dirtied? But I’m only fracking over ma plotte!

What’s going on in Brazil? Some natives won the right to their lands against farmers who wanted to clear the forest, and mysteriously within a few weeks everything’s lit on fire. 𝅘𝅥 Dark torrents shake the airs, as black clouds blind [São Paulo] ♫

You even get the nimby zoning shit out of this. How dare you let colored people into my neighborhood! That’s stealing from my property values! A tall building? That’s stealing my sunlight!

In a more mixed sort of way, you got homeless shelters, oil wells, chemical plants, industrial parks, military bases, fracking, wind turbines, desalination plants, landfill sites, incinerators, power plants, quarries, prisons, pubs, adult entertainment clubs, concert venues, firearms dealers, mobile phone masts, electricity pylons, abortion clinics, children's homes, nursing homes, youth hostels, sports stadiums, shopping malls, retail parks, railways, roads, airports, seaports, nuclear waste repositories, storage for weapons of mass destruction, cannabis dispensaries, recreational cannabis shops and the accommodation of persons applying for asylum, refugees, and displaced persons - a list i just lifted from wikipedia’s articles on nimbies. Looking at that, there’s some clearly sympathetic issues too. I mean do you really want a train cutting through your farm, no matter how well you’re recompensated, no matter how much it will objectively improve the lives of the people in the cities, no matter much better it is for the environment to commute together?

But, like, what exactly are the alternatives?

We could look at other cultures. What did Belgian property notions look like? Leopold of the Congo? What do French notions look like? Forcing Algieria to pay back the “investment” France made by colonizing them? Well, the English and the French go back a long, long ways, maybe we could look at Germany?

The first genocide of the 20th century is often recognized to be that of the Herero, in Namibia’s, Germany’s biggest steal in the struggle to carve up Africa like the Black Dahlia.

I already mentioned Brasil.

What about China? Surely they aren’t western!

By some notions they were the first feudal nation in the world, and yet only left the system really in the 20th century. That’s a lot of cultural baggage that underlays the reality the Chinese live under today.

The early republican period saw the rise of warlords and other petty bastards effectively continuing the feudal reality in much the way sharecropping and jim crow continued chattel slavery in the US. The successor states aren’t pretty either; Taiwan, continuing republican ideals, cleared out much of its indigenous population for the Han in ways analogous to what European powers did to the natives of their countries; the PRC, which was born to challenge the ideals of the old republic for its own, took back “what was theirs” with Tibet.

The PRC, explicitly rejecting property rights as the west understands it, doesn’t even have a legal analog to eminent domain, and in effect can seize property on a whim without compensation, forcibly engaging in actions like people moving, which I feel it should be known when done to a community often results in genocide.

Something else illustrative of the conflicts of interest in the problem lies with the 3 Gorges Dam project. Ostensibly to control flooding to villages downstream, over a million residents of the Chongqing area were forcibly relocated, with rumors of people who resisted the project being explicitly drowned and because everything’s just hopelessly corrupt the money actually provided for recompensation never made it to the hands of farmers now stuck in a big city without the education for work.

Similar stories to Taiwan’s play out in other capitalist countries; similar stories to the PRC’s play out in countries that reject those notions.

Generally you just reinvent the same concepts drawing from the lord and serf mentalities of old. There’s shit like this going down in the Muslim world, in East Africa, South America, South Asia, whereever. It’s not just an Anglo thing, even though I’ve let myself believe it were, because of how I was taught about history, from my culture’s perspective.

Then you have to ask yourself, when there’s no net, when you have to provide for yourself first, do the commons necessarily make sense?

Is it even viable, economically or politically, to abolish private property and return to the commons like people have advanced? Would, to enjoy the benefits of something evidentally only stable under feudalism, we have to return to some kind of practice of feudalism? Is that even worth considering?

There are more people alive today than ever before. And that didn’t happen just by accident. We really, actually, seriously have made incredible improvements to agricultural yield and safety, ensuring that the only places on the planet that starve are those that are being starved, by monsters like the Saudis. But the scale we need, the scale we want, the scale we have - is much more than just what one farmer can provide for himself. And the fact that we do have other farmers do the mass farming with their bulk fertilizers, machinery, pesticides, and such, means that most of us don’t have to spend time every week tending to our gardens making sure we have enough staple foods to survive, so we can pursue our own hopes and hobbies and dreams and undertakings and services and so on.

All of it sort of leads to the question, Who deserves the land?

The worker whose blood sweat and tears are wrought into the soil? That could lead to the issue of killing my Yokuts friends' gatherer ancestors for stewarding their lands, husbanding their ecosystem and managing burns and wild populations, instead of raping the lands, burning everything to ash to farm foreign crops that aren’t even adapted to the water issues here. And it doesn't proclude the workers from choking us with smoke, if they feel they need to. The guy on the oil rig isn’t doing it because he endorses what the oil companies do or because he thinks it’s necessarily a good thing, he does it because it makes him bread. Why would worker’s self management solve that? Shareholders and workers alike would only care about taking home what they can.

The "owners” in the English sense? Taking subsidy after subsidy, fighting actively to drain our rivers, collapse the formerly self-renewing resources entirely, bringing us droughts, feeding even the lactose intolerant among us the lie that we need fatty heart clogging cheeses to be healthy? Illegally hiring, exploiting, and deporting the vulnerable? Big farms are just any other business, their owners are the same venture capitalist vultures preying on anything else in that world. South of me used to one of the biggest lakes in North America, virtually the entire south valley was lake Tulare. It’s a bunch of cities now.

So, the people who need it?

Maybe but who decides that? War for territory is a fundamental struggle built deep into us; war is even practiced by chimps. Military ration planning like we saw in the USSR and PRC cause Holodomors. United Fruit and their entire coalition caused the Silent Genocide. Abolishing private property entirely would, what, return us to the times when the lands were unclaimed? That would just lead to petty struggle after petty struggle, like a chimp disemboweling another.

And now, having written this a second time, I’ll end with what I wrote earlier

#effort post #property rights

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full-course-identity · 6 years

Text

Overview

Queere Theory: a deeper look at Jeremy Heere, by Sebastian Sabra Thomas

Anxious teenager. Main character. Chronic masturbator. All of these may be used to describe Jeremy Heere at quick glance, in and out of both canon and fanon alike. However, I believe no flippant descriptors can adequately describe his hidden potential lying just underneath the surface.

This is part 1 of a multi-part meta essay wherein I make my case for Jeremy Heere’s character. Links are added to text in [brackets]. Per Tumblr’s broken spam filtration however, I will be removed links and content warnings from any versions of these posts in the tag, and censoring any words I think might be flagged (unfortunately). For the complete version of part 1, please see /post/183607694271/overview on my blog, or /works/18187976/chapters/43020944 on AO3.

This is my first meta, as well as my first essay since… shit, high school. Feedback is greatly appreciated.

For closing on a year now, I’ve been consuming from, and occasionally participating in, the Be More Chill fandom. Still rocky on its feet after the initial Boom of Summer 2017, but steadily gaining traction with the Off (and now On) Broadway performances, BMC is coming to terms with it’s own fanon identity as common characterizations grow more locked in by the day.

As the months go by and I fall deeper in love with this series, I’ve been slowly tracking down abandoned or underappreciated content in my usual stomping grounds (excessive angst and unpopular pairings), solidifying my own thoughts and opinions as a creator first and a fan second. In some ways, I’ve come to similar conclusions as the rest of the fandom. In others, I stand alone.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I’d like to try and make a case for what I’ve come to think of Jeremy, or Jeremiah, Heere, both for my own benefit and as an attempt to persuade others to my side for various, admittedly selfish (but c’mon, would I be writing this if it wasn’t?) reasons. I would deeply appreciate it if you’d come along on this metatextual journey with me to places far and wide inside Jeremy’s subconscious. Do you hear that? That’s the sound of Pure Imagination played over wet slapping noises and the occasional electrotorture flashback!

Anyway.

This essay will be broken down into 7 Parts (links to be added as they’re completed):

[The Overview (that’s this one!)],

[Characterization],

[Mental Health],

[Interpersonal Relationships],

[His Family],

[The Squip], and

[Final Thoughts and Recommendations]

To start with, Characterization will be loosely split two ways: personality, and appearance. This will overlap with the other parts of course, but you should have a solid understanding of the foundation from which I carve details like ‘neurodivergency’ and ‘familial bonds’ from by the end of it. Jeremy Heere may look like an Enigma along a Fault line, but really, he’s a vulnerable kid who’s gone through some intense trauma--whether in canon, fanon, or my own funky concoction of both.

He’s also insanely pretty. Don’t worry, I’ll be reminding you of that a lot.

Mental Health covers MI Disorders like PTSD (which, yes, I do believe Jeremy has), and Neurodivergent behaviors like his autistic symptoms (I don’t generally consider him autistic, but it’s not a hard sell, and I’ll try to go over it either directly in the post or through a follow-up some other time). It’ll also be going over his traumas, both in canon and my headcanon. Heads up: I am mentally ill and neurodivergent, including professionally diagnosed PTSD, among other fun things. I have strong symptoms and trauma which, yeah, I sometimes see in Jeremy. I will be going over how these personal experiences color my perception.

Interpersonal relationships will discuss his friends and romantic prospects--as well as his se-xuality as a whole. From his identity as queer(e) and bise-xual, to his thoughts on being Achellian, to his kinks and latent polyamory and desired hook up habits. Also, all of his identities here reflect ones similar to mine, but with a few important distinctions.

(Speaking of Queerness, across all of these posts, as I feel it’s necessary, I’ll be making a point to talk about the differences between cis boy Jeremy, trans boy Jeremy, and brief thoughts on how I could see a trans femme narrative as well.)

I’ll be using the Family part as a follow up for, and a further exploration of, the specific trauma he’s sustained from his Mother and her abandonment, and how his dad (bless his heart) is 100% canonically neglectful. I truly believe Jeremy has all the hallmarks of an abused kid.

… The Squip will be an interesting topic. If you’re opposed to Squipemy, feel free to skip it, although I will try to segregate the shipping half from the platonic half.

Finally, for the Wrap Up post, I will be writing down my final conclusions and then going over fan content that inspires me and tweaks my perception in ways large and small. For example, I’m always consuming animatics in some form; one great artist is the famous [Cla Comics], who provides a good base for mannerisms and overt humor, though, by nature, her content is on the lighter end of the spectrum then what I’m usually wallowing in. Other artists, like [PINE TRE3] and [Torpedomyass], have both provided some nice angst, and fit right in line with my general taste in aesthetics. It’s not just those three either of course, and I’ll also be doing the same for fanfic, too.

(… in fact, and I consistently sing this to the Heavens whenever I have the chance, but uh, do yourself a favor and read anything written by [Vanceypants]. Vancey is not only my best friend, they’re my longest running collaborator, my biggest fan, and my other muse. They also far surpass my writing, and Smoke Signals, a Rich Goranski origin story, is a fuhcking masterpiece.)

Okay, gushing about content aside, I do truly appreciate anyone who takes the time to read my rambling, and I hope to keep you both interested and engaged from start to finish. All I truly want is for the world to understand just how lovely Jeremiah “Furry Enthusiast and Slowly Burning Anxiety Attack” Queere really is.

Thank you!

#be more chill #bmc #jeremy heere #jeremiah heere #jeremy queere

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ilovereadingandilovebreathing · 7 years

Text

The Great Ukulele Caper

Sorry my titles are cheesy lol

So this was supposed to be cute and funny, but it got out of control, so prepare yourselves for the post-”Moving Forward” feels cuz here. they. are. That video wrecked me and I needed an outlet, okay? Okay.

So here, and I am actually sorry.

Also, this is my first time writing a fic with Thomas in it, so sorry if I get him all wrong or step on any toes. I don’t usually write him in, but I felt like maybe it was okay in this case? Either way, I did my best.

Summary: Thomas’s ukulele is missing, and the only place he hasn’t checked yet is the MindScape…

Characters: Thomas, Patton, Roman, Virgil, Logan (no pairings)

Word Count: 3,280 (my longest SS fic yet. oops.)

Warnings: “Fix You” by Coldplay is back, and I’m. Not. Sorry. It’s too #relevant to ignore, and I have a lot of emotions. Other than that, no real warnings that I can think of besides angst.

Tags will be in the reblog because Tumblr hates me.

ALSO I’m SO sorry the Read More keeps disappearing!! I forget that every time I edit something on mobile, that vanishes. SO sorry to everyone who had to deal with that.

He’d been searching all afternoon, but he just couldn’t find it anywhere. Not on the couch, in the couch, or under the couch. Not in his bed, on his bed, or under his bed. Not in the laundry room or the kitchen; he’d even checked the stairway!

Thomas just couldn’t find his ukulele anywhere, so he mustered all the mental power he could spare and transported himself to the MindScape.

When he appeared in the living room nearly identical to his own, Thomas immediately spotted Patton sitting cross-legged on the floor, happily humming “Winnie the Pooh” while coloring a picture of the same eponymous bear.

“Hey Patton?”

The Moral Side’s head jerked up, for he hadn’t heard Thomas enter. Once he had a second to process, a characteristic grin broke out across the Side’s face as he replied, “Yeah, Thomas? What’s up, kiddo?”

“Have you seen my uke anywhere? I thought I left it on the couch in my living room, but I can’t find it.”

“Mmmmm nope, sorry, kiddo, I haven’t seen it! Maybe Roman has it? He’s the one most likely to be involved in a capo’ed kidnapping!”

“True.” Thomas chuckled a bit. “So, which way to Roman’s room?”

“Up the stairs and to the left; his door is the one right there, on the left side! Good luck, kiddo!”

“Thanks, Pat, see you around.” Thomas gave the waving side a two-finger salute as he mounted the staircase. “Weird how this place looks just like my house, but is just different enough…” Thomas mused as he approached the Royal’s door. From behind the thick wood, Thomas heard the smooth tones of a familiar little instrument being strummed to the tune of “Once Upon a Dream.”

“Uh, Roman.” Thomas tapped on the Creative Side’s door, opening it slowly as the music quieted a bit.

“Greetings, Thomas!” Roman declared, turning to face the doorway with the ukulele strapped around his neck, held in place by a bright red strap. He played the ending notes of the song, gently singing out, “The way you did once…upon…a…dreeeeeam…”

“Roman!” Thomas exclaimed, throwing his arms out. “I’ve been looking for that everywhere! If you want to borrow my ukulele-”

“Whoa, there, my Confidently Confused King,” Roman threw up his arms defensively, keeping Thomas at arms-length from the instrument. “This is my ukulele. I conjured it up after you bought yours. Well, it took a few tries to get it just perfect, but-”

“Wait, Roman, you made this?” Thomas stared in awe.

“Why, yes, I did!” Roman beamed with pride. “I had to study yours first, of course, because I love its tonality and wanted to emulate its sound perfectly! Although, I did make a few design changes…” He gestured to the sides of the instrument, intricately carved into designs of a castle, dragon, shield, and sword.

“Roman, that’s incredible! It’s beautiful, and it does sound exactly like mine. I thought it was mine when I heard it in the hallway, actually.”

“Delightful!” Roman exclaimed, clapping his hands. “Though, I am sorry yours is missing. Did you ask Patton, perhaps?”

“I did.” Thomas sighed. “He hasn’t seen it; he told me to come talk to you.

“I’m afraid I don’t have it either, compadre.” Roman smiled sadly. “I can’t imagine where it could be. It’s not like Logan could see any use for it…perhaps Virgil? He does love music, even if it’s that Chemical Romance garbage.”

“I guess it’s possible. I have been meaning to check in on him and make sure he’s doing okay more often…”

“It’s settled then! Thomas’s Quest for his Magical Instrument is underway! Now he will head into the darkest, most dangerous, most-”

“Roman.” Thomas warned.

“Most….enigmatic corner of his mind.” Roman grinned sheepishly. “I apologize. Old habits die hard, and all of that. His room is at the end of this hallway, the final door on the right side!” He gestured grandly before strumming his own ukulele again, the beginning notes of “How Far I’ll Go” from Moana filling the air as Thomas took his leave.

“Best of luck to you, Brave Thomas! I surely hope you find your ukulele before it’s too late.”

“Thanks, Roman.” Thomas smiled, shutting the door. “No need to be so dramatic, though.”

“There’s always room for flair!” Roman declared. “I’ve been-”

Thomas shook his head slowly as he turned from the Royal’s room and headed toward the end of the hall; the “DO NOT DISTURB” sign attached firmly to the door was an obvious signal that he was in the right place.

“Virgil?” Thomas knocked on the Anxious Side’s door, frowning when he did not receive an answer. “Virgil!” Thomas called louder, knocking harder and turning the door handle. It was unlocked, and for an instant Thomas felt bad for entering Virgil’s room without really getting permission, but that faded when he realized the Anxious Side wasn’t even in his room.

“Hmm, weird.” Thomas thought to himself. “Maybe he went out for some reason…to another part of the MindSpace I can’t get to…” He shrugged and pulled the door shut. Maybe Logan knew where the other Side had gotten off to, so Thomas started toward the opposite hallway, smiling as he passed Roman’s room, the Moana tune still in full swing within.

Thomas approached one door, realizing instantly that it must be Patton’s, if the “Come On In!” sign written in bright marker was any indication. Thomas continued down the hall, coming to a halt outside the door that could only have been Logan’s. Hand on the doorknob, Thomas’s jaw became slack as soft tones slid from beneath the door. A voice, similar to his own but quieter, with a slight rasp to it, was singing the bridge of “Fix You” by Coldplay. The voice cracked on a higher note, and Virgil’s familiar, frustrated tone bit out, “Crap. So close. We made it so far!”

“I apologize. Do I need to transpose the song into a lower key to suit your range?” The Logical Side replied evenly, sounding patient in spite of Virgil’s outburst.

“No, no, it’s fine.” Thomas could hear the bite in Virgil’s tone, even when it was muffled by the door. “I just….Ugh. We’ve been working on this for days, and I really thought we had it by now…”

“We have worked through most of the final bridge, so, comparatively speaking, we are much closer to the end than we were when we started.”

“Of course, Logan…” Virgil grunted. “I just need a second…”

Thomas suddenly realized Virgil’s voice was closer to him than it had been, but before he could retreat, the door was flung open and Virgil stood there, eyes bulging and mouth slightly agape.

“H-Hey, there, Virgil.” Thomas waved awkwardly. “I was just looking for my-”

“Your ukulele.” Virgil grumbled out. He quickly turned back to Logan, who held out the instrument toward the Anxious Side, and gently took the ukulele from his hands. Virgil turned back to Thomas, peering through his bangs as he apologized. “Sorry we took it. We would’ve made our own, but creativity isn’t our department, you know? Roman could make one, but we didn’t want him to get involved and try to steal the show.” He held out the stringed instrument to Thomas. “Sorry, again. We won’t take it again-”

“No, please do!” Thomas held up his hands, refusing to take the ukulele. “You sounded amazing, Virgil. I had no idea you have such a great voice.”

“Well…I mean, I never said I’m not a singer. I just….don’t like to do it around Sir Sing-A-Lot, you know? That’s kind of his thing, and it’d just be….embarrassing.”

“Well, like I said, I think you have a great voice! And Logan, were you playing the ukulele?”

“Well, though I said I am not much of a singer, that does not mean I am not much of an instrumentalist. There is a lot more than creativity that goes into playing an instrument; certain types of mathematics and precise muscle movements play a large role, as well. It’s a challenge that I quite enjoy, actually.” The Logical Side blushed just a bit while gesturing toward a corner of his room Thomas could not see. “I have tried a few instruments, but the size, shape, and sound of the ukulele are by far the most pleasing to me.”

“I can tell; you sounded amazing from what I could hear. You’re very good at finger picking!”

“As I stated, the precise muscle movements are enjoyable.”

“So I see.” Thomas smiled, looking back to Virgil whose head was still ducked in embarrassment. “So, why were you two practicing in here? I would assume for fun, but you said you didn’t want Roman involved or he’d ‘steal the show.’”

“Right, well….Obviously, you know Patton’s been a little….off lately, what with the whole…break-up and all.” Virgil swallowed. “We’ve been trying to get him to open up to us. When we’re all in sync and working together, things go a lot smoother, from actual thought stuff to every day stuff, but Patton’s still been hiding from us.”

“He’s down in the sitting room right now.” Thomas remarked.

“Right, but if we were to go down there, he’d start acting too happy or try to do something so that we couldn’t ask him if he’s doing alright. He’s still hurting, Thomas, he’s hurting a lot, and we really want him to know that he can open up to us and be honest with us and that we care about him and want to make sure he’s okay, so….”

“During the last couple of days, Virgil and I have been preparing to perform “Fix You” for Patton.” Logan chimed in, giving a worked up Virgil a second to catch his breath.

“Right.” Virgil sighed. “We figured the words were pretty perfect for what’s been going on lately, and we hoped maybe it would….I don’t know, break him in a way? Maybe it’d finally get him to break down and be honest with us for once.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea.” Thomas replied thoughtfully. “Music always makes me really emotional, especially if it’s the right song, and since Patton is my emotional core….this could work. And, if you want, I can teach you a couple of breathing exercises to get you to that high note.” Thomas smiled as Virgil blushed, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “But like I said, you sounded great, Virge. Patton will love it, regardless.”

“I sure hope so.” The Side muttered, turning back to his Logical companion. “Well, we could use all the help we can get, so if you’re willing, I’ll definitely take you up on those breathing exercises.”

“Great.” Thomas walked past Virgil as the Side shut the bedroom door, taking a seat in Logan’s vacant desk chair.

“Alright, Teach.” Virgil sat on Logan’s bed, across from the other Side, and took a deep breath. “Let’s get down to it.”

——-

“Hey, Dad?”

Patton’s head, once again, jerked up when he realized someone else was in the room. “Hey there, Virge, and other kiddos!” The father-figure grinned up at the three standing before him. “What’s up?”

“We, uh….We….Ah, man, guys, this is a stupid idea-”

“We know that you have been struggling as of late.” Logan cut in, placing his empty hand firmly on Virgil’s left forearm. “Made obvious after our last two filming sessions, so Virgil had an idea to try to remedy your emotional condition.” Thomas pulled the ukulele from its hiding place behind his back, handed it to Logan, and moved to take a seat behind Patton on the couch. “Virgil and I have been practicing our own musical rendition of a song we believe might provide a sort of proverbial balm to your…”

“Burned heart.” Virgil finished, breathing deeply before giving Logan a thumbs up.

The Logical Side slowly began picking the opening chords to “Fix You,” and Virgil breathed out and in again, closing his eyes as he softly began singing, “When you try your best, but you don’t succeed…”

Thomas smiled at the pair, his heart picking up a bit when he looked down and realized how Patton had stiffened on the floor, his coloring book fully abandoned. The Moral Side sat stock still, his eyes fixated on the standing pair as they continued to softly serenade him.

“When you love someone, but it goes to waste….”

Thomas chanced a glance down at Patton, but the Moral Side remained resolute, a look of what could almost be described as determination glinting in his eyes. He’d caught on, it seemed, to what their plan could be, and was refusing to give in.

Great. If there was one emotion Thomas didn’t want to be battling right now, it was his own stubbornness.

Still, Virgil and Logan played on, hoping the fruits of their labor would flourish rather than spoil, wasted.

Patton made it through the chorus, and Thomas began to lose hope when the Moral Side remained resolute through the second verse. He really thought one of the two would get to him, but he’d apparently underestimated Patton’s ability to repress unwanted feelings. As they reached the bridge, Thomas sighed, accepting defeat and slumping into himself. Well, maybe they didn’t get Patton to break, but at least the other two had grown, in a way. Virgil was singing his heart out, perfectly using the breathing techniques Thomas had taught him to belt out the high notes in the bridge with all the passion he could muster.

“Tears stream down your face when you lose something you cannot replace-”

Suddenly, Thomas felt something.

Like the first drops of rain falling after the clouds have hung overhead for days, gathering and gathering their darkness and dew. The first sliver of pain, of sadness, of sorrow, cut right through his heart, and he knew the onslaught was to come.

Thomas clenched his jaw, feeling the wave of emotions sweeping through Patton overcome him as the painfully relevant lyrics were, as hoped, the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. Patton’s shoulders shook violently as he drew his hands over his face, choking back gut-wrenching sobs as the other Sides continued on, steeling themselves against responding to the Moral Side’s emotional outpouring. Slowly, and ever so tenderly, Thomas placed a hand on Patton’s back, and the emotionally-wrought Side collapsed under his touch. Thomas was on the floor in an instant, protectively holding his emotions in his arms as they wept together, finally, blessedly, coming to terms with what the Moral Side had been holding back for so long.

Virgil and Logan finished out the song, and Thomas looked up through his tears, smiling gratefully at the other two as the bittersweet release of pent up emotions flooded through him. It hurt. It hurt more than anything Thomas had felt in a long time, but he was so grateful for it. He didn’t want to go back to the facade they’d dealt with for too long, and he knew the others didn’t either. Virgil and Logan came and sat behind Thomas and Patton, placing their own hands on the others backs in a sign of comfort and solidarity, and, looking up into their faces, Thomas realized the other two has flushed, wet cheeks, too.

Patton’s anguished cries must have made it up the stairs and past Roman’s own noise somehow, for the Royal was suddenly at the bottom of the stairs, sword drawn and eyes wide at the scene before him. Slowly, he sheathed his weapon, face crumbling with relief and sorrow at seeing his beloved companions in such a state. He moved to sit beside Virgil, leaning his head on the Anxious Side’s shoulder and allowing himself to break, as well, taking the shaking hand that was offered to him as he wept.

The five remained this way until Patton’s cries subsided, his body slumping against Thomas from exhaustion.

“How you feelin’, buddy?” Thomas asked quietly, rubbing the Side’s back as he followed Virgil’s instruction to breathe.

“Not great, kiddo. Not too good.” Patton sniffed and ran a hand under his nose. “But….better than before. It’s a process, right? Getting better, m-moving f-forward….it’s a p-process.” He sobbed out, still trying to get control of himself by breathing.

“It sure is, Padre, but we’ll be here for you every step of the way.” Roman smiled shakily, patting the Moral Side’s shoulder.

“Definitely.” Logan chimed in, wiping the remnants of moisture from his own eyes. “Whenever you might need us, we are here. We are with you, in solidarity.”

“We wanna help you, Dad.” Virgil mumbled, pulling his hand out of Roman’s death grip to ruffle Patton’s hair as he’d done so many times to the Anxious Side. “So let us. We can take this thing on together. You don’t have to be alone. We got your back.”

The Moral Side breathed in, and whispered, “Thank you all, so much….It’s…it’s been so hard…I just….I didn’t want to bring you all down. I wanted to protect you….from me.”

“Patton.” Thomas released his hold on the Moral Side, prompting him to sit up and look him in the eyes. “You don’t have to protect us. From any part of you. We’re all part of the same unit, and we all have to work together to function at all. We need everyone to be willing to give it all to each other and for each other, and that includes you. Let us help you and work along side you. We’ll get better together. Okay?”

“That….that sounds good.” Patton smiled, wiping a few stray tears from his cheeks.

“Well, I’m beat.” Virgil sighed, trying to wiggle out from between Logan and Roman. “Glad we finally got you back, Dad.” He stood over Patton and reached out a hand which the other Side took gratefully, shocked when the Anxious Side pulled him into a tight hug that was over before he could process it. “Love you, Dad.” Virgil whispered before vanishing into his own room.

“I will have to exit, as well.” Logan declared, carefully laying the ukulele on the couch behind Thomas. “I still have much to get done.” The Logical Side rose, placing his hand on Patton’s shoulder before pulling him into a surprisingly not stiff (and longer than Virgil’s) embrace. “Take care of yourself, Patton.” The Logical Side admonished as he released the other. “We only have one you, and we want you at your best. Because we love you.” Logan threw him a final smile before also disappearing into his own realm of the MindScape.

“Well.” Thomas looked at Roman, still on the couch, and Patton, staring up the stairs toward Virgil and Logan’s rooms.

“I think I’ll stay down here with Padre, here.” Roman replied softly. “I think some….one-on-one time is in order. Sorting things out for good sounds like a grand idea right about now.” He gestured toward the empty space on the couch, smiling when Patton relented and sat across from him.

“Not a bad idea. Considering everything else…we might as well.” The Moral Side sighed, turning to Thomas.

“We’ll be okay here, kiddo. You can go on home now. Glad you managed to find your ukulele.” The emotional Side sniffed and smiled.

“Yeah, me, too, Pat.” Thomas gave the pair a soft smile and a wave as he picked up his ukulele and vanished out of the MindScape, re-materializing on his own living room couch. Sighing deeply, Thomas laid his little instrument on the coffee table, settled back on the couch, and closed his eyes, willing his mind to do as it pleased as his Creativity and Morality worked themselves out.

All of my Sanders Sides fanfics

#Sanders Sides #Thomas Sanders #Sanders Sides Fic #Sanders Sides Fanfic #Thomas sanders fanfic #Patton Sanders #Virgil Sanders #Roman Sanders #Logan Sanders #I'm not sorrryyyyyyyy #but i am a little bit #but mostly not #this was supposed to be so cute and fluffy but i rUINED IT with the ANGST #tsfanfics

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full-course-identity · 6 years

Text

Overview

Queere Theory: a deeper look at Jeremy Heere, by Sebastian Sabra Thomas

While this part is intentionally PG-13, content warnings for later parts of this essay include: NSFW. Frank discussions of mental illness, including psychosis, which could potentially be categorized as fetishistic (that does not mean I believe it is, mind you, but I’m covering my bases here). Graphic descriptions of trauma, including CSA and sexual assault. Internalized queerphobia. Trans sexuality. Kinks and kink culture. Underage sexuality. Polyamory.

This is my first meta, as well as my first essay since… shit, high school. Feedback is greatly appreciated.

Anyway.

This essay will be broken down into 7 Parts (links to be added as they’re completed):

[The Overview (that’s this one!)],

[Characterization],

[Mental Health],

[Interpersonal Relationships],

[His Family],

[The Squip], and

[Final Thoughts and Recommendations]

He’s also insanely pretty. Don’t worry, I’ll be reminding you of that a lot.

Interpersonal relationships will discuss his friends and romantic prospects--as well as his sexuality as a whole. From his identity as queer(e) and bisexual, to his thoughts on being Achellian, to his kinks and latent polyamory and desired hook up habits. Also, all of his identities here reflect ones similar to mine, but with a few important distinctions.

… The Squip will be an interesting topic. If you’re opposed to Squipemy, feel free to skip it, although I will try to segregate the shipping half from the platonic half.

Thank you!

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