#i think i just found another blog who blocked me lmfao

[ilostyou]

.

[lotusarchon]

As I have the app around, I may as well just dive into this before disappearing again. To the people in my post a few days prior and in my dms, I promise I'm not ignoring any of you, but I genuinely can't muster the energy to speak to anyone else currently. I'm only here currently because someone found my unmentioned hetalia account, which I left unmentioned for a reason...you know who you are...you scared me...😭

Ah, okay well. If you're not aware of who I am, hi. I'm a dude that wrote fanfiction for this fandom I got pulled into. A year ago I had a few different accounts but I had to delete every single one just because I kept getting harassed, from one thing to another. I'm hoping I don't have to do it again this time around.

I haven't gone offline as anyone thought. I did attempt to take my life (twice, 2024 is something else) but in the end it didn't work out, so I've been hiding in my secret account to relax in hetalia for a bit. In between that I've also been stalking the account myself since it showed up just to see what it was up to, and...oh wow that's a lot.

This specific account has been on my ass like a tick since..two days ago. Two days of my 'supposed' death.

I've also recently found out that someone else who was pretending to be a friend of my friend's and a concerned citizen happened to be friends with them;

And hence why I chose not to reemerge my head back then yet. It turns out there's a few people who may have been following me who are acquainted with these people and...yeah, I didn't want to take the risk. I'm hoping no one is going to inform them I'm not actually dead―I blocked both accounts to avoid being noticed.

There's a lot of yapping I'm gonna be doing so expect a lot of that, BUT piece of advice to anyone that actually cares: do not engage with either blog. Don't send them hate mail, don't go gloating that I'm not actually dead, and don't fucking yap about anything. These blogs went as far as to harass my friends who have no part in this, and they also wrote nsfw of my adult oc and my friend who is a fucking minor. Do. Not. Engage. With. Them. Please!! Block, block, block. Just block them! They're actively going out of their way to harass and stalk MINORS.

Under the cut, I am rambling more on personal feelings rather than doing this professionally. I'm still pretty moody actually and well yeah...

Trigger Warning for some topics below!

Okay uh. I've never done this before so excuse me while I put this in question format lmfao..

"Why aren't you dead!?"

Joke answer; god doesn't want me.

Long answer: I'm not the type of person who says something like that ...like that. I really was intending to go through with it, but evidently I was too tired from crying and fell asleep. I figured that I couldn't handle people fucking around with me and hid in my secret blog. Hetalia fandom is so nice for a fandom about countries. Point blank sorry to burst many of your bubbles, but I'm not dead yet. Put the birthday canon away, slut. I'll die next season.

"What the fuck did you even do?"

Exist.

No okay, realistically it's a lot. I'm not going to play the victim here's and I'm not going to lie to people and say "oh hey my mental illness/trauma made me do that" because that's bullshit. I'm also not diving too deep into any explanations just because my hands hurt..but also I don't want to remember anything less I have another panic attack.

A year ago I met this girl who became my friend over a fandom. We chatted, but I fucked our friendship up when I lashed out at her and another friend wrongfully because of my own stress. While I did beg one of them to stay, the chick that runs kokomichanstuff, Mariin, I ended the friendship with her just because I knew what I did was bad. There really aren't any excuses for that. I don't think anyone should have to deal with anyone else's bad attitude regardless of mental health or not. I didn't bother to keep Mariin around because I did bad, and no amount of apologies would fix it. She already said she wouldn't forgive me, so I knew it made no sense to keep up a facade. I genuinely had no idea she would've been mad that I begged one person to stay but not her, even though she expressed not wanting to be my friend. I also don't remember truly if what I did was enough to earn THIS type of harassement, but I'll take it as divine punishment. But basically, over and over again Mariin has stalked me and found a way to harass me. According to the posts she made, she's made a new friend I (sadly) hurt who wants..revenge. Hooray.

Mariin's already namedropped them so um, yeah, I hope it's okay to mention them?? . Neveah was someone I also hurt really badly by bullying and lashing out at her out of jealousy over something ridiculously dumb in my old server and account. I confronted her later on apologizing but specifically also adding that she didn't need to forgive me because I messed up. Long story short, she claimed she had forgiven me.... but then went to her friends (Mariin mentioned) Geno, Toga etc to badmouth me, including sharing sensitive information I sent to her. Neveah's friend Geno made a post mocking me which I found and responded poorly too, and then more drama escalated from there because literally every single one of Neveah and Geno's friends came to bombard me, sent me hate mail and surprise, Mariin took the chance to come back. I don't know how the fuck those two (Mariin and Neveah) managed to speak, but sometime later a few accounts appeared that went after people who were once associated with me or used to be associated with me. A few days ago the account made supposedly by Neveah made a post accusing me of being a r*pist, groomer and pedophile and yeah. That went badly.

Uh. Wow this is a mouthful. But. Yeah, I'm...not really a good person, and these things are just embarrassing and..ick. I hate myself for the shit I pull. But, I will say, while I can accept Mariin harassing me like this, the other parties just...genuinely could've handled this better than what they did to me. It really wouldn't have been so hard to ask me instead of listening to one side, but maybe that's me. Regardless, I admit I was wrong. I just..I'm not happy other people are getting involved.

"Why didn't you just say something sooner instead of all that nonsense? Wasn't that too dramatic?"

Sadly it was, but I don't think any of you understand when I say that I CAN'T. I can't say anything because it's just me, me, me. It's just me, and people aren't going to believe me. They never do. When that shitshow happened with Neveah, everyone was blaming me. Even up till recently, someone in my current server told me I was the one who overreacted over getting bullied and harassed. I'm not mentioning them here but holy fuck, that shit hurt. The anons coming in my inboxes telling me "people are offering you advice and you don't want it", it fucking hurts. It genuinely hurts because every single time I try to speak up against anything, or stand up for myself, I'm the one who's in the wrong.

Geno, Neveah, Mariin, fucking Toga and Deja and the entire fucking crew. They're never the ones who get wronged, and they haven't lost anything. Even when Mariin's account gets deleted, she's fine. She has people that actually fucking listens to her, all of them do.

I don't. There's no one aside from the few friends I have who would actually listen to me and not just immediately jump at me, and I'd rather just not have them involved in anymore drama that revolves around me.

Yeah, holy shit, maybe attempting to kill myself from the stress was overbearing but you guys have no fucking idea what it's like. Every time, every time I make a report or say something, I'm the one who's told I'm at fault. It's either, "You're don't look like a child, it's not their fault they want to touch you," or, "You overreacted," or, "Maybe you shouldn't have said anything," or even, "You're so ungrateful, I'm trying to help you."

It. fucking. Sucks. It. SUCKS. Its terrifying that regardless if it's my real life or on the internet, no one listens, no one cares and the one who's left hurting is Ali because who fucking cares. Who gives a shit right?

"....did you try to kill yourself over Nezha?"

Everything started with Nezha, and I'm not even fucking kidding. I don't remember how I met Mariin but I knew for a fact it was something about him. And when we broke our friendship off, I got attacked a LOT about his age. I want to pretend that maybe it was all Mariin, but with how things are, I don't doubt for a second this fucking fandom were jumping me for a character who already has a confirmed age.

I could tell you that I was just stressed about Mariin, but that'd be a lie. Everywhere I go with this fandom, I'm always getting hassled about Nezha's age. From the beginning I was already stressed, because I continuously kept getting anon after anon calling me names and accusations for a fictional fucking character.

I don't deny that Mariin didn't have a part to play. She most definitely made things worst for me with using Nezha to slander me further. It's just my luck that the people in this fandom are idiots that'll listen to anything anyone says.

Think of it this way; the pot was near burning on the stove, it just needed some more fuel.

"Why didn't you just listen to the anons?"

Sighs

Mind you, this was supposedly when I was DEAD. Trust me, I've had far worst flooding my inboxes. Before it was about Nezha's age. Recently, it was to kill myself and the accusations.

I'm not saying the advice was ever bad. But the anons were strangers for all I care who had no idea what the fuck was happening. I've tried blocking anons before, I also went to far lengths to ignore them, but there's only so much I can take. Every day, day in day out on any blog I've made, ever since I started writing for Nezha, I've been receiving dozens and dozens of hate I've had to delete constantly. Not even counting the ones that just randomly told me to die!!

"just ignore them" I'm not a child. I. know. I know, I know, I've been trying, but when people don't respect my boundaries and don't even bother to listen when I say I've done it, how do you think I'm going to feel?

"oh but you should put that as your trigger then it's not their fault" oh yeah, "hey everyone 🥺 when people don't listen to me I cry". How do you think it'll sound? Plus, why should I need to add that when I wasn't expecting anyone to actually act like this on the internet to begin with?!

"Why don't you just move to a different platform then if the hate is that bad?"

Ignoring Mariin for a bit, even if I were to go into another platform to write fanfiction (and I highly doubt there's many I'll feel comfortable in), why should I, and what makes you think the hate will stop there?

AO3 is a place where THE worst people write porn. And you wouldn't believe that I've had to delete quite a number of assholes on there for Nezha's age. Don't mention Twitter where the nonsense started about his age, and don't bring in bluesky because there's a word limit and I'm not limiting myself to that. Even Wattpad has them yelling about Nezha's age. WATTPAD!! Genuinely what makes you think I'll be safe anywhere I go?

I hate Tumblr but this account is my safe space from reality at this point. It used to be the place that made me not want to die. Just because you guys are jerks, why should I need to go?

This also goes back to Mariin and the harassers. Even in my fake death I can't know peace. If I were to move out, wouldn't she get to live her life peacefully while I'm miserable trying to understand a place I don't want to be in?

"Then just leave the LMK fandom!"

Again, why should I? LMK is my comfort show. I genuinely enjoy writing for silly legos, and I also love learning about things I didn't know about before. Why should I have to leave just because the fandom is filled with jerks? Why don't you guys just leave instead if you're butthurt about anyone daring to speak an opinion?

"The accusations-!"

Are lies.

I was r*ped before. Why would I find any pleasure r*ping anyone else? How does one even do that through online?

I was groomed online and assaulted in real life. Why would I think of hurting another human being, most less a child, like that when I still can't even read anything that correlates to it? Why would I find any of those things pleasing?

I turned 18 in 2024. It's not an excuse and I've been doing my best to not interact with minors, or at the very least avoid speaking about topics that are inappropriate for them. Even though I still forget I'm an adult on occasion, I know better than to pull up on my younger friends and start talking about nsfw. I've only ever spoken weirdly to my adult friends.

I recently saw someone comment on the account that I'm Islamphobic/don't support Palestine, so that makes me problematic. I grew up in an Islamic family, I have trauma with that specific religion (inclu. Hinduism and Christianity, long story). I don't interact with anything regarding religion if I can and I also don't judge someone based on their religion. I judge you based on how you speak to me. If you have a weird icon, I don't like you, if you speak weirdly, I don't like you. Additionally, I'm the type of person who feels guilty for making someone upset. I can't support myself, most less for others. No, I don't agree with genocide but it's genuinely too much for me to keep up with.

And finally, how the fuck is liking a character who's an adult make me a proshipper? Jesus Christ again with Nezha. I hate this.

"You have no proof!"

Of course I don't. I don't keep bad memories around. I wouldn't have remembered my own childhood if I didn't get triggered about it. I block bad memories out. Many interactions I've had that are bad, I delete. I don't think about saving, I delete.

Even interactions with friends I usually delete because it's just weird not seeing a blank space. I don't hate them but leaving a spot full feels weird.

I don't have any proof I'm none of the accusations but neither does Mariin, to be frank. So if you chose to believe her because you just genuinely don't like me, good for you, but you look like sheep being led by a drunk shepherd. Either you'll end up in a slaughterhouse and starve, your pick.

I'm not going to say, "Oh ask my minor friends!" Because...they're kids. I feel horrible my friend got roped into this to begin with, the last thing I want is for anyone else be involved when they barely know shit.

Yeah, rambled a bit. I didn't want too but I got carried away, whoops.

This is the only post I want to make about this issue. Don't bring it up, don't uhh, don't mention me to the account, and please just allow me to rest in peace. I just want to write and feel free, not deal with this shit, okay?

Also. Please stop involving my friends into beef you have with me. It's really not their fault they have to deal with someone like me.

Goodbye. I'm deleting the app again until I return. Adios

[shakespearean-dream]

i would adore ur ted ideas he is so interesting 2 me!!!!!!

ask and you shall receive!!!!

ted. teddigan. theodoreigan my boy. i have so many mixed feelings about u💔

this drawing was a pain in the ASS to make for some reason?? my first go at him was way too close to canon for my liking so i threw myself out there n got to a place i liked thankfully, plus halfway through i forgot how to draw hands and almost cried (joking) cause i thought i had them down at this point!!!!— but trust me, even if you have 9 years of art experience (like me unfortunately. someone take me out i’ve had a good life) ur gonna forget the basics sometimes. warm yourself up and try again cause i did and i eventually remembered 😭😭😭

doing these character studies and drawings have seriously improved my way and process of drawing faces which is so nice 🥲 i think i just need to start looking at the bigger picture again so i don’t forget how to draw everything else. like hands. or full bodies. foreshadowing ;)

i wanted my ted to look just a wee bit unsettling because my general consensus of him is that he is totally fucked in the head, lmfao. born a nepotism baby who ended up scamming people more for fun than for actual cash, horribly sexist but dependent on women to validate him, paranoid as all get out, selfish and self centered as all get out, just his canon personality’s all in one and turned up a notch. 🥲

i don’t think he’s totally beyond redemption, especially because he’s been cooped up with ellen, who is a highly decorated in the engineering field black woman, benny who’s gay and gorr “FREEDOM FIGHTIN’ LIBERAL🇺🇸🦅🦅🔥🔥” ister for 109 years. in that time he’s definitely slipped up and they’ve definitely corrected him (along with nimdok too LOL). i think with some intensive therapy, a shower and a trip to the tolerance museum (south park reference) he’ll be a little better.

i’m a mild ted/AM shipper (as seen in the bottom right hand corner) but more in the “ooohehheh they’re flirting!!… oh no. oh this is not going to end well. this is definitely a toxic relationship” way and less the “awh cute maybe they can have mutual redemption arcs!!!” way because i love seeing gay men suffer romantically (don’t cancel me i am a bisexual man suffering romantically i swear😭)

i’m not too partial to any other ships honestly, ted/ellen makes me nauseous (just cause of the way ted talks about/treats her in the franchise, no hate to my tellen shippers i promise) and i can only see gorrister with his wife 🥲 with benny and nimdok i have no clue if either of them rlly have romantic interests but im not a fan of them with anybody so erm… i do love the whole groups found family vibes though :”””] they’re all cute together and the mutual suffering but all the while growth is comforting to me

i think that’s about all my thoughts!!! another thank you for the support on this blog recently i love yall sm. i’ll eventually post on my transformers blog but i am STILL SCARED because robots are hard to draw. stay tuned for it though. 💀

thank you for reading if you did!!! let me know which of the guys yall want me to do next; benny, AM and nimdok are left on the chopping block. ❤️

[monstersinthecosmos]

I have sort of a policy not to publish too much fandom wank but I got an anon I want to address; I hope you know who you are! I just wanna say a couple things about it.

TWO THINGS CAN BOTH BE TRUE AT ONCE:

It is responsible to curate your social media experience, and you should block/mute blogs who make you uncomfortable for your own safety. If anyone wants to block me because they don’t like stuff that I write or ship or post about, please feel free! I don’t care, I’m trying to have a fun time and I want everyone else to have a fun time, and your fun time might mean staying away from me. I respect that 100%! I am an adult, I know that not everyone is going to like me. It is okay!!!!

Fandom antis are notoriously conservatives & radfems/TERFs who are not creative and have nothing to contribute to their fandoms aside from negativity and their own attention seeking. It’s one thing to spread information about a genuinely dangerous person who causes actual harm to real people, and another thing to posture & grandstand about your superior morals while you try to condemn people for thought crimes.

To answer your question: [TLDR] Antis are a cult.

I wrote a post about this last summer too, about the general vibe on Tumblr and how the echochamber of sensitive conservatives and teens trapped unknowingly in the TERF pipeline has contributed really negatively to the fandom experience here, especially after Tumblr banned adult content and effectively drove adults away. (Not to mention heavily queer & sex-positive adults, and sex workers, and NSFW artists, etc). I think some people who stayed saw it as sort of a win for their holy war and it unfortunately made them even more obnoxious. And like if Tumblr wants to be that space for fandom conservatives & respectability politics, cool! Have fun. It’s just also unfortunate that the corporatization of the internet is pushing transgressive independent content to weirder and weirder corners and destroying our communities over and over. Fingers crossed we find a better home soon.

I’ve seen the thing you mentioned and I’m not bothered by it. I think it’s worth questioning the sincerity of these people’s beliefs when you find them in the wild, though, like for example if someone posts that I’m a dangerous creep, I wonder if that person has a history of targeted & vicious harassment and borderline stalking to try to find receipts of my being a dangerous creep. At some point, I gotta ask: Which one of us is actually the fuckign creep here lmfao

 I would also ask how often the fandom police claim to be paragons of empathy and morality whilst simultaneously dogpiling people they don’t like and weaponizing ableism and queerphobia to do it. It might be worth it to ask how often one’s mask slips and how quickly they devolve into making serious real life accusations against people for something as ridiculous as a difference of opinion about a TV show. I’d ask if the most vitriolic, nasty, self-superior antagonists in a fandom realize that their AO3 bookmarks & Twitter likes are public and we know that they like noncon as much as everyone else.

Everyone is welcome to block & mute as needed and everyone SHOULD. It is YOUR responsibility to take care of yourself online, this is extremely basic internet safety and entry level maturity. If an artist or a writer makes something that you don’t like, you can block them. No need to create a campaign against them, especially when it’s founded on absolute horseshit LMAO. It costs nothing to stay in your lane and behave like a fucking human.

But yeah I’ve been in and out of this fandom like FOR MY WHOLE LIFE HAHA and I’ve never seen it as bad as it is now. And that’s such a bummer. I’ve never had to block people in this fandom until very recently and it was all cases of dogpiling & using ableism to pick on people. It’s really nasty and I think it’s just a really unfortunate perfect storm of Tumblr’s downfall and the absolute trashfire that this TV show was LMAO. But we predicted this years ago, when the show was first announced, that Tumblr & Gen Z wouldn’t be able to cope with the dark topics and would try to create a crusade about who’s consuming the content in the most God Honoring way. The show asks a lot of difficult questions (the way the books do!) and I think it’s incompatible with black & white Tumblr Thinking. It makes people uncomfortable and they tend to lash out at others instead of getting their own houses in order.

Having said that, I keep my follow list pretty small and I have the conservatives muted. I have a perfectly pleasant quiet time and I encourage people to do the same. Curate your dash!

My role in this fandom has ALWAYS been as a porn writer. It’s what I showed up here doing. And like, if someone really wants to believe that I’m a predator for writing stories about a 500 year old who does not exist and cannot be victimized, idk man. That’s certainly a position to take and they’re welcome to it. I’m not interested in arguing about it.  It’s just, yknow. Accusing random strangers online of serious real world crime because they don’t like your TV show, or enjoy a gross book, or wrote porn that you don't like, is such unhinged cult victim behavior I just cannot take it seriously.

So idk, it’s fine if they block me or anyone else. I prefer that. I'll block them first if they seem like fascist conservative bullies. You probably don’t want to hang out with people who think that way, anyway. Find your people ! Find rational adults! Find generous creatives! These clowns are definitely NOT that.

[paperstarwriters]

hey i’m the anon who sent in that long critical ask to the queer characters blog; what discord harassment group is that other guy talking about 😭 sorry to use you as a go between, but multiple people can have the same criticisms of a piece of media. hello?? i haven’t interacted with the arcana fandom since i was in high school, i usually just block and move on if random people put it on my dash. if i sounded like i was upset or heated it’s because the arcana is like bordering on being a trigger for me lmfao but i don’t endorse harassment campaigns

anyway, in regards to the bird thing — it harkens back to the historical antisemitic jew nose/hawk nose imagery used prolifically by the nazis. and julian’s normal nose is already drawn rather large and hooked, and i’ve seen jewish arcana fans say that his design in general makes them uncomfortable, especially since this game is written/developed by goyim. red hair, sleepy eyes, hooked nose; all rather stereotypically caricature-esque features. also portia and the mother character whose name i forget fall into antisemitic design/personality stereotypes as well. uh i wish i could link you some academic articles or readings or something but i’m kind of worried tumblr is going to eat this ask if i keep leaving it idling in another tab LMFAO, if i can i really would like to dig up some actual texts about it, but um i’ve mostly just heard personal anecdotal evidence about the bird depictions being linked to antisemitism which is kind of hard to find and link as a credible source. but imo i don’t think it’s hard to link the whole bird motif thing to the antisemitic jew nose stereotype?

and to address the point of engaging with the fandom — i mean do what you want but i personally don’t really see any merit in the actual game when you strip away all the awful stuff, and to build a fandom around that and continue to promote/bring publicity to the game feels. icky. sort of like HP enjoyers, in that you can denounce the problematic aspects of it all you want, but you’re still banding around the dumpster fire and warming your hands on it, you know? maybe the new content brings more to the table, i left right about when the first three routes were ending, but. last i was there, idk what of the game/plot are left when you ignore all the shit.

anyway um finally i don’t mean any of this as like. attacking or harassing anyone. i don’t usually do things like this, usually i just block and move on, but (in regards to the queer character blog i sent the original ask to) my hackles sort of raised when i saw someone mention wanting to promote the game. people deserve to know what they’re getting into and i don’t want any poc/jewish people/abuse survivors/etc getting blindsided by the content in what markets itself to be a pretty fantasy otome game

Hello! thank you very, very much for the information! As for your questions and comments, the discord harassment group, I can only povide anacdodal points to this as I wasn't a part of the discord group, but I belive what happened was that someone had taken the position that shipping two characters was morally wrong—the ship between Asra and Julian specifically I belive, and they started a whole harassment campaign towards an individual who shipped the two of them together, but through an entirely new au exploring the uncertainty of a relatioinship without explicitly accusing one side or the other (again, anecdotal, I haven't exactly read that yet, so I can't exactly conform currently.) And while their point on the toxicity or racist undertones of the ship was likely well-founded, they went too far, accusing the person who shipped Asra and Julian to multiple other bad actions which were eventually revealed as false.

but yeah, 100% two people can have the same two critiques of a media and one can express those critiques in a more harmful way than the other.

As for the points about continuing to engage with the game I do agree that it can feel discomforting to continue to connect to media that has this many problematic issues, and while yes continuing to engage in bad media or bad pieces of work can be discomforting because of it's origin, there are still people who found a lot of worth and comfort certain aspects of the story. Personally I never engaged as much with Julian or Portia or their respective routes so I cannot say for certain, but in Muriel's route, the story is a little different thatn the initial three, and there are some clear gaps that can be explored more or simple traits that can be engaged with in a better light which can foster discussion rather than present a bad steryotype. Again, this may not be as easily applicable to Julian or Portia since they embody steryotypes and thus may require more adjustments in order to move beyond those steryotypes but it is still something to be considered.

Furthermore, at least part of why continuing to engage with fandoms like Harry potter may be discomfroting is that the problematic creators continuet to get revenue for their creation, Nyx hydra has since disbanded and while Dorian has put little effort into considering or developing awareness of these characters and their problems they at the very least were not the one to create the problematic traits of the characters. It is still a little bit of a questionable group but besides vibes, and the possibility of using ai art I cannot say anything for certian.

My arguements are not encouraging you by any means to re-join or re-engage with the fandom, it's mostly just an explanation as to why I'm still here or why other people may still be here too, but I do agree that people should be aware that there are many problems in the game concerning representation when engaging with it, especially since it presents itself as a seemingly inclusive game. If I were younger at the release of Muriel's ending, or if I played through Asra and Julian's route then, the representation of abuse could have been..... let's just say unhelpful for me. More than anything I don't want someone else who may be in an uncomfortable situation attempt to find solace in escapism only to end up feeling worse than before at the bad represetntation, or at the fandom regurgitating this bad representation rather than trying to dismantle or change it.

Anyways, I'm sorry for dragging you back into this discussion about the Arcana for a while, especially since you mentioned that it's triggering for you. I wish you well in enjoying your other fandoms, or other forms of media.

Thank you again though, for providing me this information on the issue of bird imagery and antisemetism, and thanks for also providing the info about Julian, Portia and Mazlinka and their steyrotypical representation I will take care with writing them if I ever chose to do so.

I do belive you were justified in your concern at promoting the game, but I also thank you for emphasizing that you didn't want to attack or harass anyone who does enjoy this content despite it's many problems and flaws.

[firelxdykatara]

not gonna lie I would love to hear more about the drama and infighting that went on in The Vampire Diaries fandom if you have the time (and also want to use that time to give your experience with the fandom, which from the snippets you've told sounds Not Fun so I get it if you don't want to lol)

oh god, there was like, SO MUCH, i just

i really feel like tvd is one of those fandoms that is so hard to describe without a lot of ‘you’d have to have been there’, but it really felt like this huge and all-consuming beast for about five years until the show finally imploded and the fandom basically turned on it en masse. (you ever see that post going around that’s like ‘if you ever want to know what true regret feels like, ask someone who once called tvd their favorite show’? still a mood, all these years later. basically the entire fandom thought the show should have just bowed out with whatever shreds of dignity it had left at the end of season 6, and became more of a hatedom than a fandom for the last two seasons. when you have an entire fandom cheering news of your show’s cancellation, i think that’s a sign you done fucked up, julie.)

first and most infamous, of course, are the ship wars. which are pretty much inevitable in any teen-centered drama, and i really think the CW fucking thrives on them, but it was particularly egregious in TVD’s case because not only was the base premise of the show a love triangle, but the two main romantic leads were brothers that the show constantly pit against one another--in pursuit of elena’s affections, but also because it kept up this insistence on the ‘good brother/bad brother’ dichotomy which stopped making sense after about season 2 (by which time we have found out that the good brother was never as good as he appeared, and the bad brother has been growing and isn’t nearly as bad as he pretends to be)--and the question of which brother ‘deserved’ elena (and no, what elena wanted very rarely factored into these discussions, especially in the team stefan camp because they turned on her when what she wanted was no longer The Good Brother, but i’ll get to that in a bit) was hotly contested.

i’m not kidding when i say the shipping wars were vicious. i started watching tvd shortly after it began to air, which was late 2009, and kept up with it fairly sporadically over the years. i didn’t come onto tumblr until 2011/2012, and by then, the fandom was already pretty much a garbagefire. there were anti ship and anti character blogs, any time something bad happened for one ship the rival ship would invade the tags to gloat about it (seasons 3 and 4 were especially rough, and i’m not gonna pretend delena fans weren’t just as bad about tag invasion and shit, but as that was my side of the road i saw a lot more of the stelena shippers being assholes, which soured my opinion on the ship a long time before i started rewatching and realized the red flags were there from the start), confessions blogs were popular also toxic as fuck (so much fighting happened in the notes of those posts, good gods), and this was right around when twitter’s popularity was on the rise and the line between Celebrity and Fan was thinning, so the fandom was absolutely atrocious to much of the tvd cast and crew.

(some of them deserved a lot of the later backlash, but in the early years a lot of it was ‘how dare you write the story in a way i dont like, you terrible fucking person’, and gods don’t get me started on the dobsley vs nian Thing)

i think what really encapsulates my feelings on the tvd fandom as a whole, though, is the way they (to this DAY) treated elena gilbert, which can be summed up in one meme that gained a lot of traction around season 3 if i remember right: that gif of pam from true blood, with the text altered to read “i’m so OVER elena and her precious doppelganger vagina!”

i swear at one time i had over half the active tvd fan accounts on tumblr blocked, because i got to a point where i would no longer tolerate elena hate, and she was (and still is, in what remains of the fandom; you’ll see a lot of ‘elena was one of the worst things about the show’ takes from ex-fans, too) one of the most widely despised characters in the entire fandom. because she -checks smudged writing on hand- was a traumatized teenage girl who -reads off a crumpled notecard- couldn’t always perfectly sort out her own feelings and -squints at the ceiling- sometimes made mistakes or bad decisions. (except a lot of the fandom also insisted that she was a mary sue who had no character traits or flaws or faults and it was like....make up your fucking minds???? is she a calculating conniving bitch whose somehow manipulating these centuries old vampires to tie them around her little finger or is she a boring flat character with no depth and no flaws??? jfc)

there was this massive double standard, too--like, stefan and damon could fuck whoever they wanted and that was fine, but elena was constantly raked over the coals for the crime of developing romantic feelings for the two men who had become constants in her life and whom she cared for deeply, and oh my GOD the slut shaming that happened when elena slept with damon was fucking wild. (and also happened in canon lmfao. like the show had one of elena’s best friends basically call her diseased on screen for falling in love with someone other than stefan. it was gross and ridiculous and the friend in question was also being a giant hypocrite at the time since she was happily flirting with someone who was directly responsible for the deaths of like four of elena’s loved ones and her own boyfriend’s mother but that’s beside the point) but like elena was called a slut and a bitch and a whore for ‘cheating’ on stefan (she hadn’t, and she had in fact broken up with him on screen the episode earlier) and ‘immediately’ jumping into bed with damon, even though none of them said fucking boo when stefan had one night stands or damon had fuckbuddies or whatever.

shit, caroline didn’t get any of this treatment when she started falling for tyler while dating matt! which isn’t to say i think she should have, just that i think it’s fucking ridiculous that elena was absolutely demonized by the fandom for daring to have feelings for two guys at once and eventually acting on them--despite the fact that the entire premise of the show was a love triangle. it’s not a love triangle if both sides don’t eventually get explored, and the crew had been pretty explicit about the fact that delena was going to happen at some point--but when it did, a huge chunk of the fandom absolutely threw a fit.

and a lot of these elena haters were alleged stelena stans, and i say alleged because they hated her so much for not wanting stefan’s dick anymore that it was clear they were really stefan stans and only wanted stelena to be endgame because they wanted stefan to ‘win’ at the end of the day, because ‘he’s the good brother’ so he deserved elena more.

it was all very gross and very misogynistic and very sex shaming (apparently delena was a ‘shallow’ and ‘superficial’ relationship because they had sex after two years of unrequited feelings slowly becoming requited and then pining for ages on both sides, and because they had a lot of on screen chemistry that the show capitalized on for years so of course they did a lot of making out and shit but it’s not like stelena didn’t have its fair share of making out and sex scenes, stefan was just too much of a coward to let elena top i’d apologize for that joke but i’m really not sorry because it’s true), and when i say it was egged on by the crew, that’s because they refused to let the love triangle die back in season 4 when it should have.

they insisted on stringing stelena fans along, dropping little bread crumbs to keep them invested, like dreams of a future where they were married and revealing that stefan was also a doppelganger and he and elena were descended from a pair of star-crossed lovers (a plot that ultimately went nowhere, to no one’s great surprise), and then fucking like. julie plec turned around and threw nina under the bus after she chose not to extend her contract and pretended that stelena might have happened again if she hadn’t left the show, which....i mean frankly i wouldn’t put it past her, but it would have been shitty writing. then again, she thought having a vampire pregnancy where a uterus was magically transplanted from a witch into a vampire that could somehow......carry the babies to term.... made sense and was a good way to accomodate candice’s RL pregnancy rather than like literally ANYTHING else, soooooo. but anyway julie saying that around like, end of s6 sparked off a new wave of nina hate and elena hate and ship wars bc they SEers took it as ‘confirmation’ that stelena was REALLY meant to be endgame and it was all just a hot fucking mess

another thing is that, while tvd was in its prime before the anti/purity culture shit started picking up any real steam, there was still this pervasive attitude throughout the fandom that if you liked Damon, you were A Bad Person. liking damon was apparently grounds for insults and harassment, and apparently he was The Worst Person on the Show even though literally nothing he does on screen is any worse than shit we know stefan has done (and frankly every other vampire too, but i mention stefan specifically because he was always held up--in the show but especially in the fandom--as the Good Brother while damon was the Bad One, and if you liked damon more then that had to mean your morals were dodgy and you clearly couldn’t appreciate what a heroic and saintly figure dear stefan was and....oops, i’m sorry, my salt keeps leaking -cough-).

meanwhile klaus quickly became a fandom darling despite not even really having much of a redemption arc (on tvd anyway, he just became more ‘affably evil’ as the show went on and more inclined to work with the main characters rather than try to kill them; i have no idea what went on over on his show, though), and like i can 100% appreciate liking villains and not caring that they do dodgy villainous shit, even just liking them bc they’re hot and wanting them to kiss a main character bc they have insanely good chemistry (yes i ship klaroline, no i won’t apologize for it, they could have been Really Great), it’s just really the double standard that gets me.

and all of this, incidentally, required ignoring some truly gross shit stefan was responsible for wrt his relationship with elena, that frankly it has always bothered me never really got addressed in the show. i get why elena herself would never be able to actually call him on it, but the fact is that he stalked her for months after he first saw her and thought she was katherine (meanwhile it only took damon .5 seconds to realize she was someone else entirely, but that’s another topic entirely), and then he deliberately inserted himself into her life because, in his words, ‘i have to know her’. he never gave a thought to how his presence in her life might affect her (or rather, he did, and tormented himself about it in his internal monologue, but never let this actually dissuade him from disrupting her life), and elena would wind up blaming herself for every tragedy that befell her friends and loved ones as a result of getting mixed up in vampire bullshit even though none of it was her fault--she literally blamed herself for existing but most of the fandom didn’t give a fuck about that lmfao--and stefan did shit like find out that she was adopted and then withhold this information from her until she got pissed about another secret he was keeping (her resemblence to katherine) and drop it on her to try and distract her from her very reasonable anger, and like... i should stop before this becomes a whole rant about how much i hate stefan fucking salvatore, but the point is, he did a lot of really sketchy shit he never answered for and elena never really took him to task for, and the fandom just kept eating up his insistence that he was the Good Brother and therefore he deserved to have elena, and if she didn’t want him anymore it was because she was a heinous bitch who didn’t deserve him.

uh.....i think i got off track there. and there’s probably a lot of shit i missed, like i think i was incandescent with rage for most of seasons 5 and 6 so i missed a lot of the interfandom shit cause i was too busy being increasingly pissed off at the show itself, but if nothing else this should give you an idea of how much of a goddamn cesspit the fandom was while the show as in its prime. there’s a reason both the show and the fandom have such a lousy reputation lmfao.

[chanluster]

— check in tag!

tagged by @healinghyunjin and @kookings thank u sm!!! except for sunny go fuck urself 

1) why did you choose your url?

oh my fucking god basically you know like ‘lustre’? like sparkles and shit? i thought chan + lustre would be cool cause chan is a glowing boy but i used the british spelling instead and now i sound like a total horndog 💀💀 its the way i didn’t even realise till my friends pointed it out and now i can’t change it yfm but yeh clearly lacking brain cells

2) any side blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them!

okay so 

gyuluster — my txt account!! ive had it for a while but ive been so dead on there 😭😭 tho i did promise myself that this summer i want to write more content about them so skz im sorry but 💨💨

amorlix — my giffing account!! ive recently gotten into giffing and i love it sm tho i admit it takes up sm of my time 😭 i will try using it more often

i have more but i’m gonna keep them a secret for now 😼😼 most of them are just made to gatekeep usernames LMDOAAO

3) how long have you been on tumblr?

i think it’s defo been more than a year now!! ngl hate it hate tumblr but i love writing too much to let it go so i guess we stuck 😃

4) do you have a queued tag?

no i don’t actually tho i think i should start using it sometime soon

5) why did you start your blog?

i really wanted to get away from wattpad 💀 after writing for bts for so long on there and then completely abandoning them for stray kids it made me realise i needed a fresh start away from there + the writing here is a lot better than i found on wattpad so that’s a huge plus

6) why did you choose your icon?

because felix in that fit is so fine i don’t think i’ll ever recover THE NET THE FUCKING RED NET

7) why did you choose your header?

because jake from enhypen owns me body and soul this man could call me a currymuncher and i’d happily comply ‼️ also him in drunk-dazed studio choom was an 8th wonder of the world

8) what’s your post with most notes?

my 10/10 fic !! my chan fic racked up over 1500 notes and i still haven’t recovered 👁💧👄💧👁 thank you so much for the support guys ❤️❤️

9) how many mutuals do you have?

literally 15 and half of them don’t use tumblr anymore 💀💀 i would love to make friends here but i have major trust issues cause of past experiences LMFAO

10) how many followers do you have?

1750+!! thank you homies omg

11) how many blogs do you follow?

34

12) how often do you use tumblr each day?

way too much fr like i’m genuinely thinking about writing offline, post and fuck off i’m way too addicted to this hellsite 💀💀

13) did you have a fight/ start another argument with a blog once? who won?

LMAO that shit is so childish if i don’t like someone i just block, unfollow, or keep the grudge stewing within me for months cause i fucking hate confrontation

14) how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this post?’

if you mean the “reblog this in 10 seconds or spongebob would make a krabby patty out of you” posts then they’re annoying as hell 11 year old me truly thought my mum would die at one point cause i didn’t like them on facebook

15) do you like tag games?

yes i do! they’re really cute but i’m so shit at responding to them so if you do tag me i love u i’m not ignoring u i promise

16) do you like ask games?

yes yes yes!! don’t hesitate to ask me shit i feel like i’m hella isolated on stayblr 💔💔

17) which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

i mean tumblr fame is a scam but i know my desi degen @tyonfs is well known on nct (and well enough to be slandered on a youtube video!! congrats on ur downfall whore😻‼️)

18) do you have a crush on a mutual?

@mocimori i love u ur art and ur lost boy! skz ramblings please know i enjoy listening to ur ideas and would 100% buy ur lip balm if u pitched it to me also ive never gotten over the paris fanart i love u sm

tagging: anyone who wants to do this!!

[gayregis]

Hi, I am so glad I found your blog!! 🦇 I just finished rereading the books and I need all hansa content I can get! Do you have any tips on how to filter the netflix series out? Even following tags like "witcher books" brings up game/c*vill's geralt :( not to mention anything on ao3 lmao I think I found maybe two fics with book characters but that's another can of worms :\

hi!! i’m so happy you like my blog, welcome!

here’s how i filter (i honestly forgot this feature of tumblr existed until @mlmiorveth reminded me of it, bless) and since i’ve been using it i’ve actually had a much better experience on here. i used to use blacklist from Xkit on desktop because tumblr didn’y used to have this feature, but when i search for posts i usually use the mobile interface, so this is more helpful to me.

here’s how (if anyone reading isn’t familiar with how to do it): go to your blog, then go to settings. then select “general settings” > “filtering”

you can filter BOTH TAGS AND CONTENT. “content” is just anything included in the post, so for example, if the word “apple” is in the post because it’s a post about apples, but OP didn’t tag it as “apples,” you could still get it filtered out.

and anything filtered out is hidden behind just a blocked post, so you can press the button to show the post, if for example you see it’s your mutual who made a post about #jaskier and you know you can trust them to not put some random geraskier porn on your dash.

one thing to consider is duplicates. especially when it comes to ships and alternate spellings. if you block a certain ship like “#yennefer x jaskier,” you will not get this ship blocked if OP only tagged their post “#jaskier x yennefer”. similarly, if a character has multiple names, you might want to block all of the variations of their names, like “#geralt” as well as “#geralt of rivia,” or “#emiel regis” as well as “#regis”. but you can also get all of the posts involving a certain character name blocked if you just simply block for their name in content instead of tags.

my list of categories of keywords that i block:

the witcher netflix, twn: self-explanatory

thewitcheredit, witcherdaily: edits, these are 99% of the time netflix-related (yet not tagged for netflix, because twn fans think they’re the default of the fandom) and 1% tw3-related. sometimes i miss out on tw3 content but then again i’ll usually just trust my mutuals to put good tw3 content on my dash

geraskier, jaskier: it makes me kinda sad to block #jaskier but i gotta do what i gotta do.

geraskier-adjacent random shit that the fandom came up with because there’s literally no fucking actual content for them because they are a horrible relationship in canon, such as stuff like “little lark,” “wolf amongst buttercups,” all of this fanon weird stuff

all of the onceler AU jaskiers: immortal!jaskier, fae!jaskier, inhuman!jaskier, vampire!jaskier, mermaid!jaskier ... yeah self explanatory

all of the full names of the cast and production: henry cavill, joey batey, anya chalotra, lauren s hissrich...

“reader x” ships, mostly “geralt x reader” or “henry cavill x reader,” because frankly its disgusting and always like sooo long of a post awkwardly describing henry cavill up in your puthsy lmfao i will never understand cishet women

random ships i hate: renfri x geralt, yennefer x tissaia, yennefer x jaskier, geralt x cahir, etc etc

this might be vampire oppression but i literally filter out “fangs” because there are so many fucking “geralt with fangs omg so hot” posts and i cannot stand seeing thirst for this mediocre man

“wolf bros” or “wolf lads” or whatever people use to refer to the witchers of kaer morhen, i block this because 99% of the time it’s explicit shipping and not like familial content

so yeah that’s pretty much all i block that is witcher netflix-specific! i don’t go in the tags super often but this has helped me have a better time when i do look through tags or someone’s blog to find content to rb ❤️🦇

also yeah i agree ao3 is a whole other deal, i never really go on there unless im making fun of it hdjdhdkdhdk ... there’s no family-based fics anyways but even if there were, i get secondhand embarrassment and all weirded out reading fanfiction so i just don’t

[jerrylevitch]

And there's also the misogyny apparent on your page, and the thinly-veiled homophobia surrounding Jerry. I was actually quite shocked by the way you laughed about him beating his kids in that one video, and your horrible little "I don't think he acted on it" in the discussion surrounding his possibly being bisexual - 'acted on it' like it's a compulsion, that's so horrible. Plus your confusion about Jerry not doing Some Like It Hot. Maybe he just took drag seriously? Your queerphobia is showing.

LMFAO WHAT???? I’m pretty sure I know who this is. Nerigby96, since I asked why you block me but still reblog my posts. If you have such an issue with Jerry spanking his kids, then why are you still a fan of him or Martin and Lewis. Get outta here. I was spanked as a child much more than Jerry spanked his children, which was literally twice according to Anthony. It was common place in the 1950′s and 60′s. My dad was whipped with a switch from damn tree. My mom was spanked constantly as a child, and that is just the way it is in Hispanic households. In fact if you look at some of the comments from people on that video, there are people who can’t believe Anthony or take him seriously, because in Latino and African American households, children are spanked every day STILL. My mom grew up in all that and it’s commonplace, so are you going to call those communities abusive for discipling their kids in the way that they see fit? Spankings on a child’s bottom, are not abusive. However hitting them elsewhere is definitely abuse. I was not abused and my family members were not abused in reference to what you said in your other ask. I never laughed about Jerry spanking his kids, so wtf? I have always said exactly what I said here. 

I’ll just respond to your other ask here:

“ Why do you act like what Jerry did to his kids was just 'discipline' or 'spanking'? It's either ignorance or willful obfuscation at this point, seeing as in the 1960s he bragged on TV about beating his son with a belt and leaving welts. I'm really sorry that you and your family members experienced abuse too, that's awful. Abuse is not a hierarchy, though, and it's awful to say that because you and others had it 'worse', that other 'varieties' of abuse are okay. I love Jerry but he was an abuser. “

You can just piss off. Stop being a fan if you’re going to be so hateful to Jerry Lewis and lie about him. Patti Lewis was abused as a child, and she would never have married someone who was abusing her children. She didn’t put up with it from her parents and left when she could. Jerry Lewis was practically abandoned by his parents. You’ve got a method of disciplining children from the past which literally everyone did, and you’re trying to think of it in today’s views? Please. And I have no idea what kind of queerphobia bullshit you are trying to accuse me of, but sorry you’re an idiot. Jerry Lewis literally said he didn’t like doing drag and he explained it in an interview from 1963, which is sadly not online anymore, but he literally said he didn’t like doing it. Which of course is odd because he did it in his solo film Three On A Couch, and some Jerry Lewis show specials. So I think Jerry was just contradicting himself when he was saying that, and that he did think it was fun to do in order to be silly or get a laugh. Was he doing it to be a professional drag entertainer, absolutely not. What exact misogyny is on my page? lol I think you’re just trying to throw out every term you can think of to attack me with absolutely nothing to back it up. 

It is my personal opinion that Jerry Lewis did not have sex with another man. I don’t care if you have a problem with that. Just because you want him to have had sex with another man, doesn’t mean it actually occurred. Did he kiss and have crushes on other men, absolutely? But there is literally no evidence to support that he indeed had sex with another man. If you want to show me proof where actually said he did, or someone else besides the FBI said he did, I would be happy to change my opinion. The closest he might have had sex with a man, may have been Tony Curtis since something definitely happened there to make them fall out with each other. I don’t he and Dean had sex with each other. You can still be bisexual and never have sex with either the same or the opposite sex, or not have sex at all for that matter. It doesn’t make you any less of a bisexual. Singer Robbie Williams always claims that he is bisexual, but could never go through with the sex part with a man. Those were his own words! Now I don’t believe him, and there is more evidence of him actually having sex with Gary Barlow and others, than there is of Jerry having sex with men. We just don’t know. Jerry had a compulsion to cheat, so yes “acted on it with men” would be the correct term as would he acted on his cheating instincts with women, would literally be the same thing. Either way he would be a cheater. Some people don’t act on their feelings whatever they may be sexual or non-sexual, and the term literally is not an offense to anyone’s sexuality at any time. But you want to find fault with everything I have to say. Also my friend Audi in the video you are referring to, is himself gay, and he found nothing wrong with my statement. In fact I just showed him, your post, and he thinks you're a nutjob. In fact he doesn't even think Jerry was bisexual at all. I'm the one who brought up that he likely was.

Definition of act on/upon

: to use (something, such as a feeling or suggestion) as a reason or basis for doing something. They never acted on the information they had. It's okay to feel angry or jealous, but you mustn't act on those feelings.

Anyway I really don’t care what you think, because most people aren’t crazy enough to go off on a tangent like this. Most people love what I have to say on Jerry Lewis. So again piss off whoever you are. Do yourself a favor and leave the Martin and Lewis fandom if you’re so easily disgruntled by my opinion, because I’m literally everywhere. I’ve put the most amount of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis content online, and at least half of it wouldn’t be there without my blog or my youtube channels. So remove yourself. You don’t know me at all. 

And I'm sure the only reason you commented here instead of my actual youtube video is because you're an anonymous coward, and you know that Audi and others would come and kick your ass in the comments section. Audi has roasted people before and he will again.

[ilostyou]

.

[cedarmoons]

do you have tips for creating memorable oc's? yours are always great

this ask is perfectly timed because I’ve recently played the mobile game Stellamore by @willowishstudios (available now on iOS and Android!) and I’ve FALLEN IN LOVE. Cipactli babe… call me… (jk i’ll call u 😏😘)

So! Let’s go overboard in answering this ask and create a brand new OC for Stellamore, step-by-step! Under the cut for length. :)

My method of creating OCs is like a toddler fiddling with building blocks. I start with a base and build from there, adding rooms, removing towers, etc., as I see fit, until I have a basic structure that passes as a castle. It should be mentioned that @vide0-nasties has been instrumental in helping me develop my MCs in various ways, and I love her to pieces!

First Step: Inspiration

So before I decide anything about my OC, personality, name, etc, I look at inspirations: what is in the game, and what can I build off of it? The devs have helpfully provided some inspirations for the Stellamore world, so that’s what I’m going to use as a launching pad. Initially, I looked at Halle, who has clear Scandinavian influences, and I was like “nice… viking girl…” but I did further lore delving and I don’t think Halle is human lmfao so THAT was out! Back to the drawing board.

Ooh, okay, so there’s Roman influences, clearly seen in the character Seneca, who is human… okay. Great. Let’s make this MC fantasy Roman! That gives me my foundation of building blocks.

Second Step: Name

So the Oracle, Stellamore’s MC, receives visions from the stars. Knowing this, I was like, “Dope… let’s look at some mythology names, because Roman influence, and try to narrow those down to celestial/sky deity names.”

So I went to good ol’ Wikipedia’s list of names, and here were some of my initial impressions:

Aditi’s a pretty name, but that’s the name of a Hindu goddess, and MC’s fantasy Roman. Questionable decision. Out.

Urania’s the muse of astronomy, so it fits thematically, but there are unfortunate implications within the name. I can name her Ourania to get rid of the unfortunate “ur anus” implications, but that’s a bit of a mouthful? Hmm. No. Next.

Asteria is an old Greek goddess of the stars… nice… wait, I already have like 3 OCs with A names. Let’s diversify. Out.

Phoebe is a Greek Titaness of prophecy and related to Titaness Theia (!!), mother of Asteria. Good placeholder name, but a little too modern for my tastes. We’ll see.

Eventually I settled on Maris, which means “of the sea” and has nothing to do with the stars or astronomy &etc. I don’t know how I jumped to Maris from sky deity names, but it’s pretty and it’s Latin, so Maris is her name! 

Third Step: Faceclaim/Appearance

I always try to find faceclaims for my OCs as a springboard. Back when I was thinking “hhh Viking Gorl” as my baseline, I found pictures of María Valverde as Lucrezia Borgia and I was like “oh,,,, nice,,,” and looked up María outside of that role. María is still not a lock in for Maris, but she’s influenced her looks! Outside of that, I wanted to make some tweaks.

One thing I wanted for sure: black hair and brown eyes (romanticize brown eyes!! every one of my OCs has brown eyes except Ziah and I will regret not giving her brown eyes to my dying day)

Second thing I wanted: thanks to Ms. Valverde, I wanted Maris to have a big beautiful nose and oval face!

Third thing I have just as of right now decided about her appearance, suddenly and without warning: she’s gonna have moles on her face. no freckles, just moles. (bonus: Cipactli counts them and LOVES THEM ALL. My babe…… I’ll call u….)

Rags (@vide0-nasties) was kind enough to let me pick the height for her Oracle, Petra, so she picked Maris’s height, which is now 5′8″.

Fourth Step: Personality and/or Backstory

This is the least fleshed out because I decided to make Maris yesterday (11/12) after replaying Stellamore and trawling through the blog’s Cipactli tag for that sweet sweet lore about my newest love. But here were my initial goals for Maris:

Theia make an OC who’s not an ice queen (at the start) challenge

Theia make an OC who’s not depressed and/or anxious challenge

Theia make an OC who’s not an introvert challenge

Theia make an OC who’s not afraid of her emotions challenge

So that’s fine. Again, I need a springboard for Maris. I’ve decided since she’s an Oracle, and Oracles have connections to the stars for unknown but undoubtedly cool reasons, she will be an Air sign (completing the cycle of Ziah’s Earth, Ariala’s Fire, and Adelaide’s Water) – which limits me to Libra, Aquarius, and Gemini. Okay, well, let’s google some “basic traits” of all of these signs. I want Maris to have sun or star symbolism, because Ziah and Adelaide are my Moon Girls and Ariala’s my Sun Girl, so I can either balance it (making her a Sun symbol) or complete the triad (making her a Star symbol). 

Here was my thought process researching this:

“Libras can be emotionally cold” oof… no… that would fail my non-ice queen challenge, let’s move on to Aquarius (who can also be cold I have discovered through another search with Google Images)

Oh, Aquarius seems extroverted! I like these basic traits, and it makes sense since Mukondi is Maris’s friend and an extrovert. Both succeeds my “non ice queen” and “non introvert” challenges. Depression and/or anxiety… I’m coming for u bitches…

Oh hey what’s Cipactli’s sign

OH HE’S A LIBRA

OH AQUARIUS AND LIBRA ARE COMPATIBLE JACKPOT

I put a lot of stock in astrology even though I know I shouldn’t

Okay I’ve decided to give her Sun iconography to balance it, I can make Star ocs later. This means she will wear a lot of gold/summer tones.

Also hey Cipactli’s religion focuses a lot on the sun

U know what this means………….. religious iconography during sex…… symbolism……..

anyway Cipactli my love i’m so sorry idk if ur religious or not and if u are I apologize for the blasphemy

But if ur not….. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Ms. Valverde’s smile in many pictures is kinda smirk-y, so maybe that’s something to incorporate about Maris: she doesn’t smile, she smirks. What kind of sense of humor would that give her? A wry one? A dry one (which isn’t the same thing necessarily)? What does this phrase – that she doesn’t smile, she smirks – imply about her character? Is she smug? Self-assured? Sarcastic? Detached from others? (NO! She can’t be detached because then I will fail my “don’t make an ice queen” challenge!)

Her personality will still need fleshing out – I will need more to work with than “oh she’s extroverted!” and “oh she’s friendly/sunny!” She will need flaws that are more complex. Since I chose the “bold” option when approaching Cipactli, maybe… HMM… okay, let’s make Maris bold. This makes her unafraid of conflict, but can also make her brash and/or arrogant and/or potentially hot-tempered! She can also be insufferably smug when she’s right, which is often, because of her Oracle abilities (idk!)

Another springboard I’ll use is looking up MBTI types, but those usually come after I’ve made my OC and just need more development.

As for her backstory, here were some things I decided upon, fiddling with my growing castle made out of wooden building blocks:

Okay she’s fantasy Roman… what if… she grew up on a vineyard & winery

And her dad was the vineyard’s owner

A mom? No. Single dad. Who knows where the Mom went. No, that could give her mom issues, let’s not do that. Mom died in childbirth or illness?

So now Maris is the daughter of a vineyard owner, which means she would probably know a fair amount about wine, which means she has excellent (and/or: snobby) taste in wine.

She also loves nature because she grew up in it, which means she would LOVE Huatzintepec. Oh hey, Cipactli’s room is full of plants, another reason for Maris (and me) to love him

I’ve just decided she has an older brother

No, younger

No, she has two brothers, one older and one younger. She’s the middle child. This means Mom died in childbirth to the younger brother and made Dad a Single Roman Dad.

Dad funded her education because if she was educated she could a) help her brothers operate the winery/vineyard after his death; b) make a career in politics and further the family name (haven’t decided a surname yet, let’s google Roman surnames, ooh here’s a list of ancient Roman surnames on Wikipedia – OKAY, I have it, Maris Viridius of the Gens Viridia); c) marry a well-off fantasy Roman businessman??

Instead Maris became a diplomat, which is how she met Mukondi, and since they’re both friendly extroverts they became fast friends

Since she’s a diplomat and educated she probably speaks a bunch of languages,,, oh look here’s a list of how many languages the cast speaks [clicks tongue] noice,,, okay so she would speak at least 3 (three) languages: Latin, Common, Greek, and know some basic Nahuatl

How does her backstory influence her personality, because pasts always have a vast impact on characters’ (and our own) personalities? Well, maybe she’s a little bit elitist because of her upper class upbringing. Maybe her work as a diplomat has allowed her to visit every one of the human kingdoms, and has made her down to earth. Maybe she was so cooped up in her studies that she became sheltered, or a bookworm, or both – which would give her another point of commonality with Cipactli.

All of these are reasonable possibilities, and all of these are little building blocks I can assemble together to shape my OC and develop her further!

So now I have Maris Viridius, of Gens Viridia, who:

has black hair, black eyes, lots of moles, a big beautiful nose and an oval face (thus, rounded features)

is an Aquarius

is unafraid to be bold, even if it comes across as arrogance; is unafraid to challenge authority; is also aware, as a diplomat, when to hold her tongue or when to be polite (her job might also make her a good liar? things to ponder for the future!) 

is an optimist and an extrovert; thrives off of meeting new people and making new friends; has a good, albeit sarcastic, sense of humor

is gonna cash in Cipactli’s v-card, but tenderly, because soft otps are my jam

I have to do more development with Maris, but here is her skeleton, built out of blocks! I might just write some stuff for her and Cipactli in the future because I have seen two (2) Stellamore fics, one on Tumblr and one on Ao3, which is a tragedy.

Anyway, I know I went overboard, but I hope this helps and gives insight into my process as to how I write my OCs! :)

[nathans-tales]

Ok so I was scrolling though your blog (no shame in my game) and the cliché angsty prompts thingy caught my eye! SOOOOO maybe when you have the time you could do a fic about one of them charging into battle after their love is hurt OR maybe the one is mind controlled and the other has to fight them! With Erathan or Aspen and their lovers! ( I tired to give the others some love cause they’re amazing too)

Lmfao it only took me like 2 months to finally write this, but here you go! I chose the first prompt for Erathan & Leliana, because it already tied into a fic idea I had in mind. This fic kind of got away from me while writing it, so it actually only focuses on your prompt for like a hot second and then it just keeps going lmao. Hope you like it though!

Pairing: Leliana x Female Warden (my oc)

“Hey, my cooking isn’t that bad,” Alistair argued, turning back to face the accusing party and nearly stumbling over a tree root.

“First of all, yes it is. Second, please don’t kill yourself before we reach Redcliffe, okay? We’re hardly an hour out of camp and I don’t wanna drag your arse the rest of the way,” Erathan teased. Leliana stifled a laugh as Alistair’s cheeks flooded red.

“Was my stew really that bad last night?” he asked.

“That was supposed to be stew?” Erathan replied, actually starting to feel bad for her companion. She heard a quiet laugh from the dark-haired witch at the back of the group and cracked a smile of her own. Alistair sighed and turned back to walk ahead. “I’m just teasing you, Alistair! It’s not like any of us are any better, except maybe Wynne. I wasn’t so sure of the bread rolls Leliana made the other night either.”

“Hey!” Leliana protested, poking Erathan’s side. The elf laughed and pushed herself onto the tips of her toes to place a kiss to her lover’s cheek before intertwining their hands together. She heard an annoyed groan from behind her and turned to look back at Morrigan.

“Aw don’t be jealous, Morrigan; you can hold my other hand!” Erathan offered with a grin, holding out her hand.

Morrigan scoffed, “I’m quite alright without all the touching, thank you.”

“Suit yourself,” Erathan replied, shrugging.

They walked in silence as the trees passed them by, bird calls and snapping twigs the only disruptions. As her mind wandered to what she hoped to accomplish in Redcliffe and the warmth of Leliana’s palm pressed against her own, Erathan almost missed the sudden loss of the bird calls; almost.

Silence settled around them like a cage.

“Ambush!” she called out, reaching for her daggers just as an arrow flew past her face. She ducked to the side of the small forest opening they found themselves in, scanning the area for unfamiliar faces.

Alistair was already slamming his shield into one of the bandits, sending them backwards into a tree. Morrigan sent a strike of lightning into the chest of a bandit who was rushing towards her, Leliana following with an arrow through the heart of another. Erathan spotted an archer aiming for Alistair’s back and quickly moved to dig her blade into their stomach before they could release the arrow.

She picked off another bandit before she heard a sharp cry from across the opening, the voice painfully familiar. Erathan turned and saw Leliana collapse to the forest floor, clutching her side, a bandit standing behind her with a bloody knife in hand.

Erathan froze, her blood running cold. Her eyes locked onto Leliana’s crumpled form and she suddenly felt a wave of horrified rage flood through her. Seeing red, she rushed towards the bandit.

Before the bandit could move to block her strike, Erathan’s blades were buried deep within their chest. She forced the blades outwards, slicing their chest open. As they fell with a strangled cry, Erathan turned to block a hit from an incoming sword. As she pushed back against the imposing blade with one of her own, she swung the other down to connect with the bandit’s stomach and tear through soft flesh.

When the final bandit fell, Erathan dropped to her knees beside Leliana and gently eased her onto her back from her hunched position. “Leliana how bad is it? Let me check,” Erathan frantically asked, reaching for where blood seeped through Leliana’s fingers.

“I’m okay, it’s fine,” Leliana insisted through clenched teeth, but her eyes closed tightly as her shaking hand was pried from her side. Erathan’s own hands quaked as she tried to gauge the damage. The blade had slipped between the panels of Leliana’s armor, entering just beneath her ribcage and pushing up towards her lungs. Alistair dropped to his knees on the other side of Leliana.

“What happened? What should we do?” he asked, hands hovering over her without purpose. Leliana whimpered and tried to grab for her wound again, but gasped and pulled away at the contact.

“I-I don’t know, Morrigan I need you to heal her!” Erathan cried, turning to find the witch. Morrigan stood apart from the group, looking stunned and uncertain.

“I’m not a healer, I only know a few limited spells. You would need Wynne to—”

“Morrigan please! Wynne’s back at camp and you need to heal this wound enough so Leliana can make it back,” Erathan pleaded, the fear in her voice leaving no room for argument.

Leliana groaned suddenly, sucking in a sharp breath as more blood seeped from her side.

“Leliana hold on, you have to hold on,” Erathan begged. Leliana’s breaths grew weaker and more frantic. “Leliana come on, no, please.” Before she could yell for Morrigan again, the mage was at her side and pushing her away to take her place.

“Alistair, reach over and apply pressure to the wound,” Morrigan commanded, her hands already glowing with magic. Alistair did as he was told; the color drained from his face when Leliana cried out in response.

“Leliana this is going to hurt; are you ready?” Morrigan asked, voice softer. Leliana nodded and clenched her fists.

As Morrigan worked, Erathan knelt by her lover’s head to run her fingers through her red locks, murmuring encouraging words and pressing kisses to her forehead. As the minutes passed Erathan lost herself in her own mantra of comforting words, trying to ignore the pained screams.

“This is all I can do,” Morrigan finally stated, resting back on her heels. The bleeding had stopped and drawn out whimpers had replaced the screaming, but Leliana’s wound was still open and threatening.

“You two start carrying her back to camp, I’ll run ahead and alert Wynne,” Erathan directed, only stopping briefly to take one more look at Leliana before turning and running in the direction they had come.

                                                           * * *

As Erathan forced her legs to go faster, pushing through the fire in her lungs, she couldn’t stop picturing Leliana hunched over, blood covering her side. She could still hear Leliana’s labored breathing and shook her head to push it away. Leliana would be okay. She had to be.

                                                           * * *

Erathan finally arrived at camp, crashing through the tree line just beside Morrigan’s tent. “Wynne!” She cried, still sprinting towards the elderly mage’s tent. “Wynne!”

Wynne emerged from her tent just as Erathan stumbled to a stop in front of it. “What are you doing back here?” she asked, brow furrowed. She looked around and realized Erathan was alone. “Where are the others? Has something happened?”

“Yes,” the elf answered, stopping briefly to catch her breath, “we were ambushed nearly an hour into our journey. Leliana is severely wounded; Alistair and Morrigan are bringing her back right now. I wanted to get here ahead of them so you could prepare. You have to help Leliana!”

“Goodness, that is terrible. Of course I’ll help her; can you describe her wound?”

Time seemed to crawl by as Erathan described where the blade had entered and how much Morrigan had been able to heal it, and helped Wynne prepare her tent for the healing process. Wynne seemed silently surprised that Morrigan had helped Leliana; she knew how cold the other mage often was to the girl. Just when Erathan thought she would go mad with worry, Morrigan entered the camp clearing, Alistair a few steps behind with Leliana in his arms. Leliana’s body hung slack, her head rocking with Alistair’s steps.

“Finally!” Erathan sighed, running over to meet them. She felt ill as she saw that Leliana had fallen unconscious.

“Bring her here, to my tent,” Wynne ordered, opening the flaps of her tent for Alistair. He carried her in and gently laid her onto the bedroll. When he came back out, his whole body was shaking; from exhaustion or nerves, Erathan couldn’t tell—likely both. She rushed past him towards the tent, but Wynne held out a hand to stop her.

“Stay out here,” she directed.

“But—no, I need to help,” Erathan stammered.

“I know you’re concerned, but I need space to work and it won’t help to have you worrying over her the entire time,” Wynne explained. “She’ll be okay,” she said gently. She turned and entered the tent then, leaving Erathan standing outside baffled.

The warden contemplated entering the tent anyways, but knew it would only distract Wynne from helping Leliana. When she finally managed to collect herself she walked over to where Alistair sat, hunched over with his head in his hands, and sat beside him.

Almost immediately, Alistair sat upright and began to apologize. “I tried to move faster, I’m so sorry, she lost consciousness about halfway here, I’m so sorr—”

“Alistair stop,” Erathan interrupted. “I came to thank you; you helped save her.”

Alistair stared back for a moment, as if in disbelief. “You really think so? I just carried her, I couldn’t keep it from hurting her.”

“But you helped, you really did. Thank you so much,” Erathan reassured him, her voice starting to break. She surprised herself and leaned in for a hug, wrapping her arms around his broad frame. Alistair hesitantly returned the embrace, stunned by this act of friendship. They stayed like that for a few moments before Erathan pardoned herself and walked over to the tent her dearest friend kept on the edge of the camp, so far from everyone else.

She found Morrigan sitting inside her tent, frustratedly flipping through one of her many grimoires. She stepped inside to no protest, so she sat beside the witch.

“What’re you doing?” she asked.

Morrigan continued to flip through the book, muttering to herself. When she finally found what she was looking for, she sat back with a sigh. “There, finally. It should be considerably easier to find healing spells, don’t you think?”

Erathan looked at her, confused. “Um, yes, I suppose. Why are you looking up healing spells now? Wynne has Leliana.”

Morrigan rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m well aware. But what happened reminded me that I must broaden my knowledge of healing magic. ‘Twas foolish of me to rely on Wynne to be the sole competent healer, and I won’t make the mistake of being caught off guard again.”

“That’s nice Morrigan, but you don’t have to—” Erathan was cut off by Morrigan’s muttering as she began to read the spells before her. “Morrigan,” she tried again. “Morrigan,” she said once more, reaching forward to still her friend’s hand as it skimmed down the page. Morrigan stopped and looked at her, eyes edging on anger.

“What? What could you possibly need that would require you to interrupt my work? I need to learn this; I need to be able to help you!” the mage snapped.

Erathan hesitated, at a momentary loss for words. “Morrigan, you did help us. I came here to thank you; you saved Leliana.”

When Erathan met Morrigan’s gaze, she saw uncertainty in her eyes.

“Just barely,” Morrigan said. “I could only manage to stop the bleeding, what good will that do us in more dire circumstances? No, I must learn this, I must improve. What if someone else becomes wounded too far from camp and I can’t help them? What if I can’t help you?” Morrigan asked, her voice becoming frantic.

Erathan grew quiet and laid her hand on Morrigan’s arm. “You already can help us. You did help us. You did what you could to heal Leliana, and I would trust you in the field to heal me as well. Yes it would be good to learn more healing spells, but you are already more helpful than you’re giving yourself credit for. I trust you, Morrigan. I owe you more than I can express, for saving Leliana. Please don’t worry about not being able to save us… to save me. I know you could.”

They sat in silence until Erathan realized Morrigan didn’t have a response, so she left her to her studies.

She paced anxiously around the camp, eyes locked on her feet as they sank into the muddy ground. Eventually Wynne emerged from the tent and beckoned her over.

“The wound is healed and I gave her some potions to ease the pain. She’ll make a full recovery,” Wynne stated. Erathan bent over and braced herself against her knees as a wave of relief hit her. She thanked Wynne and entered the tent, quickly making her way to Leliana’s side. She kneeled beside her lover and gently grabbed her hand. Leliana opened her eyes and cracked a smile when she saw who it was.

“Birdie,” Erathan whispered, tears flooding into her voice. “How do you feel?”

“I’ve felt better, but I’ve also felt worse,” Leliana answered with a sigh. “The pain has subsided. Mostly,” she said, grimacing.

Erathan squeezed her hand and leaned down to kiss her forehead. “I was so worried. The wound was so deep.”

Leliana gave a short laugh. “It was, but I’ve been through worse. I need to thank Alistair and Morrigan.”

“I just thanked them; they’re both a bit shaken, I should let them know you’re okay.”

Leliana raised an eyebrow. “Morrigan is shaken? At my expense? That’s quite the twist,” she said with a smirk.

Erathan smiled. “She likes to pretend she doesn’t care, but I know she does. She just has her own ways of showing it.” Leliana hummed her agreement and Erathan ran a hand through her red locks. Leliana leaned into the comforting touch, closing her eyes. Before Erathan realized it, tears were streaming down her cheeks and she had to stifle a sob.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” Leliana asked, opening her eyes.

“Leliana, I… I was so scared,” Erathan whispered. “I thought I might lose you.”

“Oh mon cher,” Leliana started, trying to sit up but falling back onto the bedroll with a pained gasp.

“No, no don’t sit up,” Erathan murmured, wiping her face and moving to lay down beside her lover. “I just, I don’t know what I would do without you, birdie. We’ve come so far, and I never thought—” she stopped and let out a shuddering breath. “I’m so happy you’re okay.”

Leliana reached over and caressed Erathan’s cheek, pressing their foreheads together. “I’m here, love. I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered.

Erathan leaned in and kissed her softly before carefully wrapping her arms around her. She stayed there, focusing on the rise and fall of Leliana’s chest as daylight faded to an end.

[shadesofhue]

Emotionally unavailable, and not afraid to admit it. Here’s why:

Far too often, we spend time putting on a front to be things that we are not. Two things that I’ve learned in my adult life is that I have a great ability to care when I genuinely do, and absolutely no interest in pretending to when I don’t... and to me, that’s okay.  Honestly, it JUST hit me a few seconds ago that I am emotionally unavailable and I don’t have a problem admitting that. Why? Because... it’s honest. In my younger years (a few years ago) I would be limited with my honesty with intentions to save energy in hurting people’s feelings, and that backfired. I would devote myself to men who were emotionally unavailable to me, and the guys who were all about me as I was emotionally unavailable to them. Of course I would tell them the truth about things like, “oh, well... i’m actually talking to someone right now!” or “i’m at a stage in my life where i’m figuring things out and gathering qualities and pieces from connections that I have with other men to decide what I like.” That period of my life in particular was lovely, yet stressful. I dated three guys at once, and they were all different. A CEO, an academic, and a creative. One of them I was head over hills for, the other two... well, they were close friends. I didn’t find out until ONE ended up telling me all of the things that the other was telling him, but he didn’t care because in his mind he was going to end up with me. How did I not know? I would have been a FOOL to just run around telling the guys that I was talking to and hanging out with, the other guys’ names. Like... who does that? I was GREEN, but I wasn’t DUMB. So when shit hit the fan, and i’m having creole cuisine with one and he goes on to tell me how the other is feeling, I have no choice but to laugh and think to myself this city IS really way too small. Anyway, he was super cool about it. He said he gets what he wants, no matter what, and well... that didn’t happen. Why? BECAUSE HE HAD A FUCKING BOYFRIEND that he was trying to leave. An academic who was with another academic, and maybe that just didn’t work out... for what reasons, I didn’t know. But I was the whimsical artist that he stumbled upon in the midst of him making his exit. Albeit, THEY WERE NOT DONE, and when I found out I told him the moment he told me that he was leaving his boyfriend that we were no longer considering that dating, and that we could be friends and shit would be limited. He left the state for a vacation and said he was gonna solidify the termination of his relationship, while away. Not only did I need clarity that I DIDN’T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE FAILURE OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP, but that he shouldn’t use me as motivation to be single... because that’s just so close. I think I had given him until the New Year to make up his mind so that we wouldn’t waste time, but I believe by Thanksgiving, I was already heavily infatuated with someone else (the one I was head over hills for).  LOL so when he came back, the skies were a different shade of grey, I suppose. Anyway, the other (his really good friend) used to vent to him about how I wasn’t intimate or affectionate, and how he’d be lucky if I even held his hand. Something he already knew, because I was neither of those things with him either. The time I let the other one kiss me on the cheek, blew his mind. But he had just took me to dinner, a movie, and a bar for drinks. I guess you can say that peach ciroc and cranberry juice slightly dissolved my guards. Reason for me not being affectionate with him? It was clear... but I felt in my spirit that he was a really really sexual being. I wasn’t (with people I didn’t KNOW) and I just didn’t want that pressure of being awkward at the sound of all of his innuendos ALL OF THE TIME. I was barely getting to know him, yet I already knew what he was about. He genuinely liked me, but I was at a stage in my life where I was holding out for someone special, and he hadn’t become that someone special yet. I wasn’t a virgin, but you can say that I was born again LOL. I was what people would assume to be a prude, but quite honestly I’m freaky af, and was back then too... it just had to be special. Not rose petals and candle light special, but like... a connection... time... something!  He wasn't yet. But again, I was already somewhere else with someone else, and THAT was a blur. A big heart rattling “why don’t you love me?!” blur! 

He was a gypsy. He traveled from time zone to time zone, places where the seasons were opposite, and places my young ass tongue couldn’t even pronounce. He was IT! He was my inspiration. He was everything I talked about to my fraternity brother in college, when we talked about the men we’d settle down with once we settle down lmao. He was every aspect of an artist you can imagine, and I... well, I was his Winona. I was about 10 years younger than him, but our mentalities met each other somewhere in the middle. He had so much youth, so much spark, so much spontaneity... I, fresh out of college, slightly taking the world too seriously, while having a jovial free spirited nature that just flowed. He taught me how to actually BE YOUNG and FREE. He was my 2nd test. After what I [key word] considered my first love (19), before ever experiencing MY [probably another pseudo] FIRST LOVE [but with all possibly due respect, I can’t really call it that because it may have really been love but idk now because it was all just so confusing at the end] at (22) which is another story, and much deeper... but he landed somewhere in the middle and helped me develop a strength I would need to bare the tragedy that could have been (22). Now with him, I was beyond emotionally available. I was an emotional wreck LOL. I treated this man like he was my boyfriend. I had never had a boyfriend before, but I was a hopeless romantic. It was cute though, because I had did things for him, that no one has ever done before. Which was great... then I realized it was all practice, teaching me how to actually be a good boyfriend...because I too, had never done those things before. That’s what dating actually IS, so like... it’s not fucked up to say that right? Imean, not that I should care. I found out he lied to me about not dating anyone else, when we said we were “exclusive” (by this time I had cut the other two off... I was real about it) oooh... lol but then I ended up on some girls instagram who posted the same picture he did... OF HIM... with something that read like “titles are irrelevant, loyalty is all you neeeeed” ... LOYALTY?! GIRL, THE THINGS WE JUST DID... but then, I couldn't blame her. It wasn’t her. She was just as fooled as I was. I just had a stronger intuition lmfao. Instead of pulling some “woman-to-woman” stunt and hitting her up, I just removed myself. Why? because i’m a man... and I had a feeling this shit was happening. Which is kind of reversed, but whatever. I just told myself I wasn’t gonna block my blessings. Instead I blocked him, and ignored him for like 2 years. She... well, she ended up exposing him on a blog because she found out that he was with some other woman. How? ... LMAO I JUST TOLD YOU! Exactly what I said I wasn’t going to do... someone hit her up like “Hello, may I speak to barbara” (he name isn’t really barbara, if you heard the song, you’d get it) and from there came “diary of a mad mixed woman.” That was all she wrote, no pun intended. Apparently she was pregnant, but that ain’t none of my business. Remove, and all shall be revealed. 

ANYWAY.... I took some time to find myself, living happily ever after, getting my life together and going out with friends, turning up, sleepovers with my besties, THE WORKS... and ended up meeting the [pseudo-- but again I can’t really call it that, because if I took the time to actually think about it, I might dig myself into further confusion about the whole thing] “love of my life”. OH, THIS WAS IT!!!!! so I thought. LOL It was picture perfect. Beautiful. We were gorgeous. He was tall, caramel, and handsome. Me, I was short, fit into his arms like a puzzle, and to him... a total package. To me, he was a total package too. We needed a lil work in different ways... one of us more than the other... him in a lot of ways lol not funny, but it’s true. I just had to work on communication. At first, I was really nonchalant. Whenever he had mustered up some issue or something didn’t roll the way he thought it should I would just be like “Okay...” and he’d be like “See, YOU DON’T CARE blah blah blah”. Then I had to let him know, i’m a processor. I have to think and process things. If not, I could be really harsh if I don’t think about ways to address without attack. Anyways, We worshiped the ground we both walked on. Of course, because we walked together LOL. He was my first boyfriend. Whaaaaat?! Somebody finally tied Donnie down?! YUP! My lil feminine wiles attracted him, and he couldn't leave me alone. I thought he was just a lil friend. We started hanging out, having the best days ever and shit. It was cool. He became my best friend. It had finally dawned on me that he liked me one night we went out to a club. I had broke my phone the week before that, and was communicating with him through email. Printing out the directions to his apartment until I memorized the route, etc. I finally got my new phone and texted him. He was going out that night and invited me to join. I threw on my oversized pull-over, some skinny jeans, and my favorite boots and hit it. He was dancing on me and I was like okay this is that friend dance where you getting it because you’re close and they’re playing a jam ... nah, he kissed me on my neck and I was like O_O... oh, you’re drunk. I didn’t think too much about it, but it wasn’t until we left the club to go across the street for nachos when he grabbed my hand to lead me across the street, that I realized I liked him too. When we sat down to eat our food and his friends said their ride was there hurrying him to join, and he stayed I thought to myself “yup... this is the one”. We ended up being everything to one another. Time went on and we shared a life. To fast forward a bunch, that didn’t work out. I ended up learning that I wasn’t the free spirited, whimsical, joyful, light that I had always been. There was a major shift in me, and it had come from a lot of toxicity I experienced within that relationship. Things that I pray I do not experience ever again. My friends even noticed. It was a very dark time. I learned my lesson... and now, I don’t trust anyone...I’m working on it. For so much of that relationship I was accused of cheating, lying, and much more. IT WAS DRAINING. Hell, I almost started not trusting myself, like wtf? My phone would ring or vibrate and i’d be like O_O. Heart racing, and so much more, when I KNEW I WASN’T DOING A DARN THING. Like... you’ve gotta be reeeeally good and persistent to convince someone that they’re doing something they aren’t supposed to be doing. It got so bad, that I didn’t even trust some of my friends hitting me up. Like...”we ain’t talked 80% of this relationship, we ain’t friends no more... because he might think you’re someone new... but i’ve known you my whole life.” It’s kind of.... twisted and dark and sad. DON’T ALLOW YOURSELF TO EVER GET THERE!!!!!!!!!!! Thank God I recovered those friendships from the awkwardness that was “living in the shadows of my partner’s insecurities”. I didn’t understand how I was the best boyfriend I could possibly be, the most loyal, nurturing, and caring person to someone... and still not be good enough. Then one day I paid a bill to nelnet student loan services and said bihhhh... YOU ARE NOT IN THE DEBT FOR NOTHING. With a degree in sociology and psychology, you better ANALYZE FOR YOUR LIFE! Literally... and so I did. I realized... I was caught in the web of a narcissist. With the information gathered through the stories of getting to know someone, I used my sociological imagination to sort out all of the things that he went through when he was a child and how that affected him as an adult... that made me more compassionate though. So, what ended up happening? I had become emotionally unavailable. I had to stop caring as much as I did. Because the more I cared, the more I would stay or ...go back, for that matter. I didn’t stop caring, I just couldn’t do so as MUCH to the point where I would put him and the situation before ME. ALL OF THAT TO SAY...  That was the point where I realized what I needed to do. I needed to water me. I needed to grow. I needed to find my light and my joy. I needed to be selfish. I needed to leave toxic professional and personal relationships alike. I needed to find me and be happy with me. I needed to teach myself how to love me unconditionally again. To be gentle af with myself after being put through so much pressure, because what was mentioned wasn’t even half of it. But it created the diamond, that I knew myself to be. I needed to FOCUS and get myself together for what is truly meant for me in my life. I kid you NOT... I used to be afraid to chase certain dreams in that relationship. Because I knew that being in certain industries would come with a different type of connection and attention that would bring the type of recognition that could make an insecure person shrink... and i’m not talking about me. I couldn’t be the star that I know that I am. There were pop-up shops and set-up times I was late to for my brand, panel discussion call-times that I was almost late to because of inconsideration and my focus being thrown off right before I go up to speak because of the heated tension that came with that. I AM TOO MUCH OF AN EMPATH to be in the wrong relationships. Granted, I learned everything I needed to learn and I appreciate that relationship in its totality because quite honestly, it wasn’t all bad. There were really sweet moments that deserve credit. However, the affects that each and every one of these people had on me, no matter how impactful the relationship we had helped make me into a better person THROUGH ALL OF THE TROUBLES. After being single for a year, and being completely raw with myself and vulnerable yet honest with others... I learned that it’s OKAY. I used to think that your value increases upon relationships. That to be deemed worthy, you have to be attractive and maintain/sustain what you attract. That’s when I was a hopeless romantic, longing for love and companionship, and intimacy/affection from select individuals. NOW, my success and happiness is my priority. To fully enJOY life and myself. I’m selfish. 

I learned that at this moment in my life, I am the most beautiful I have ever been. Naturally. Innately. I see the light, that others see. I see my warmth and tenderness... when just last year, I was almost SO tough and COLD. I had a conversation with one of my best friends who is a strong Black woman, and we decided ... “I don't want to be a savage. I WANT to be a sweetheart!” I am just that. I’m still a sweet heart, but I am just honestly, emotionally unavailable. I almost wrote a Facebook status talking about how guys will be like “I really don’t think you know how beautiful you are!” Like... “Yes I do!” I’m just chill AF. I genuinely receive compliments with grace and express that gratitude with great energy, but I stopped putting so much weight on another man’s ability to see my beauty and vocalize it. I have watched a man cry while telling me how beautiful I was to him, and if he was upset with me... I was absolutely nothing. That’s confusing. Thank God I have a strong sense of self. I worked on this. This comes primarily from the inside. THAT’S GOALS! To work on yourself so diligently from the inside that your beauty is not only internal, but eternal. No matter where looks go, where my body shifts, that I will possess the type of beauty that will not only last my lifetime, but a legendary everlasting beauty that will be remembered by those who knew and knew of me. 

What inspired this long ass story? I had opened up an article that was titled 3 guys share what it means when a man is emotionally unavailable. I believe it’s better to talk about and acknowledge certain things than to gloss over them as if they are not there. Yes, i’ve been through some whirlwinds of relationships... many of us have. No, i’m not afraid to talk about them, because quite frankly WE NEED TO! To be honest, I don’t know what it means that I am emotionally unavailable other than the fact that I am focused on getting to a place in my life where when i’m ready and able to settle down I will be established and have SO MUCH MORE TO GIVE (as a whole). I KNOW THAT I AM AN OUTSTANDING MAN! I also know that I am going to be THE BEST PARTNER/HUSBAND/PARENT etc when the time is come, but now is not the time. No time soon. 

I thank God for blessing me with the strength and awareness of the importance of healing during this time. Break-ups, traumas, heart-ache... all of those things. I’m glad that I didn’t fill a void with other things... instead I took care of myself toward the end of that relationship, post-relationship, before chasing success, and during the climb. In FACT, it is the reason why that relationship ended. I chose myself, and I will continue to do so. Until then... I have to be real. My capacity to share my emotional well-being and my energy with someone else (relationship-wise) is not up to par for anyone to expect anything serious from me. I’ve been on this journey of single success and happiness for a year now. I just so happened to realize that I am emotionally unavailable, and again... to me, that’s okay.  

[chroniclesofamiddlechild]

FEBRUARY FAVOURITES

WELPPP!!! IT HAS BEEN 5EVER SINCE I LAST BLOGGED. BUT I PROMISE, I’LL TRY TO MAKE MORE POSTS!!! so THIS IS A NEW THING THAT IM GOING TO FEATURE ON MY BLOG!!! MONTHLY FAVOURITES and REGULAR STATE OF THE UNIONS!!! if you guys know me, you should all know how OBSESSED I AM WITH YOUTUBE CULTURE AND YOUTUBERS AKA DIGITAL CONTENT CREATORS. i would LOVE to be one, but i value my privacy a lot... and i also dont like to see my face/hear my voice. ^^ #NOTINSECURE #JUSTDONTLIKEIT welp. also, if you dont know what state of the unions are - theyre based off of my 2ND FAV PRE-TEEN BOOK SERIES: THE CLIQUE by LISI HARRISON. its basically about a clique of rich girls and the leader is massie block and every week she journals a STATE OF UNION where she says whats IN and OUT for the week. LOL. if anyone is wondering, my 1st fav pre-teen book series is: THE IT GIRL by CECILY VON ZIEGESAR. WAY BETTER THAN GOSSIP GIRL!!!! but anyways, those books can be talked about in another post. THIS POST IS ALL ABOUT FEBRUARY!! W00T W00T 

so february was a short month, but a lot of things happened that im satisfied with which is great. i bought some new skincare in february, i listened to some new music, read some new things etc. but from all that, these are my some of my favourites from this month

the body shop tea tree anti-imperfection daily solution 

I AM SOOOO OBSESSED WITH THIS PRODUCT!!! its sooo good for my acne prone skin!!! i really feel like after like a few days of using it, MY SKIN HAD IMPROVED. i’ve been using it as a serum instead of my innisfree green tea serum cos that one sucks. i can feel it being absorbed into my skin and i like the smell and i just LOVE IT. i really recommend this product to EVERYONE!!!

nike flyknit racers in volt

yup.. so i have an obsession with nike, but THIS PAIR IS AMAZING FOR RUNNING. well, i dont run more than 5KM these days but theyre sooo good. theyre so light and they make my wide feet look NARROW which is great cos i HATE MY WIDE FEET. (still mad at my dad for giving me wide feet. and still mad at my grandma for giving me these wide feet genes.) but i have another pair of flyknits and they SUCK and gave me blisters. but these ones have some kind of cushion which doesnt KILL me when i walk and run. ^^

music

if you dunno me, then you dont know how OBSESSED I AM WITH MUSIC. i eat, breathe, sleep music. i just am always listening to songs and always low key humming. i really want to be in a rock band before i die. but ANYWAYS. february was an ALRIGHT TIME FOR MUSIC. i had a lot of songs on repeat. 

say you wont let go- james arthur was one of them. SOLID SONG and im really happy for james arthur who is now able to find success after winning x-factor. i used to be obsessed with x-factor back in the day cos IT BROUGHT SUCH GREAT GEMS LIKE ONE DIRECTION, but i found that a lot of the winners could never sustain their success like leona lewis, matt cardle (LIKE WHO??). but anyways, SAY YOU WON’T LET GO is such a nice song but the lyrics are LAME AF. i hate that kind of cheesy crap but the melody and his voice are soo nice. cant hate but HATE THE LYRICS. 

spring day - BTS. i know KPOP song. I LOVE KPOP AND I LIKE WHAT I LIKE. I DONT CARE WHAT ANYONE THINKS. solid song!!!! the thing that i like most about kpop is that their lyrics arent lame like north american music. like omg I CANT WITH LYRICS LIKE “so baby pull me closer in the back seat of your rover that i know you cant afford blah blah blah.” like songs like that are just so dumb to me BUT THEYRE SO CATCHY. but spring day is a nice chill song. when it first came out, there was a huge snow storm in toronto, so i downloaded it on apple music (EVERYONE WITH AN IOS DEVICE - GET ON APPLE MUSIC!!! FK SPOTIFY) and then shovelled the snow for an hour as i listened. 

omg.. this part of my favourites section is SO LONG. BUT I GOTTA GOTTA GOTTA MENTION ONE LAST SONG!!!

someday - BtoB. obvi my FAV KPOP GROUP!!!!!! but legit. such a good song composed by my BTOB BIAS/KPOP BIAS/LIFE BIAS: IM HYUNSIK!!! as i listen more to the song, there are so many layers in the audio. like the strings, the drums, the guitar, the piano. like SUCH ART. i wanna learn how to create music like that. but how does one even hear these and then put it together to create a song?? I WANNA LEARN!! anyways, the lyrics of the song is art too. its a kind of sad but hopeful song about someday meeting a previous love again. and being sorry for how you acted previously. kind of a cheesy concept, but the lyrics are really good. my fav part is ilhoonie’s rap: 

Even when I’m doing well, without much thought The forgotten memories come back as a dilemma Me with you and me without you Are two entirely different people, just know that All these illusions make the musty air thicker First time first love it was really good for the first time But it became a mess, as if we were at war But some day

how can people be so good with words??? how can i put my depth into my writing and not write about such vapid things like february favourites!??!?! I WANNA LEARN!!!! 

one thing that i was kinda obsessed with in february was refinery29′s money diaries . i know.. so weird, but its kinda interesting to see how people live and how much money they make and exactly what they spend it on. because of money diaries, ive been just keeping track of my spending in my journal which is so MATURE of me~~ keke 

inari sushi

ya so i LUV THIS. AND ive recently started to make inari with my sister. so ez to make (cos we buy the seasoned bean curd) (no one got time to fry bean curd and season it). and all you gotta do is cook SHORT GRAIN RICE and make the rice vinegar and sugar seasoning. and then FILL UP DA BEAN CURD. EZ PZ. but SO BOMB. high in calories, but its okay. SOMEDAY, ill be cooler.. (lyrics) ^^ 

welp

OMG. idk why I KEEP ON SAYING THIS. WELPPPPPP. WELPPPPPP. i love it. this is the new SPICY.. but def one of my fav SLANG/MADE UP WORDS. LMFAO. WELPPPPPPP!!! WELPPPP!!! where did it even come from!??!?! i will never know. but WELPPPPP!!!!! 

and this concludes my february favourites. i know.. its a little sporadic, a little too much on the music.. but its me. im still trying to figure out how to make my bloggie a little more organized and trying to format these posts a bit better. but i just type what is on the top of my head. and this is what came out. hopefully march favourites will be BETTA. but bye february! you were nice to me~~~