#ill probably be able to draw some things for the backlog

[daily-riseleo]

[day 18]: Trying something new

this is my first time drawing a pose like this n im pretty happy w/it

[theindiscreetbookworm]

I've had anxiety since before I knew what that was (and it was the 90s so a quiet and careful child was a good child, never mind the reason). I fell in love with stories as a way to escape, at first. I think I probably dissociated for a bunch of my childhood and adolescence.

Stories were my favourite way to experience emotions. When I figured out what being a fan of something was (far later than you'd think), I dove in head first and didn't look back. There's probably more than a decade of evidence of that right here.

Stories climbed into my chest and ached in the most beautiful, wonderful way. Somewhere along the way, though, the edges of the stories got sharper, or maybe the cavity inside my chest got smaller. It started hurting in a bad way, made my head swim and made me dizzy and sick. I started collecting scars, from breakups and failures and letdowns, and they made me afraid to care too much.

2017 may have been the real juncture, although I can't be sure. I used to spend all my time on tumblr and I stopped, really slowly, but surely. I stopped engaging with media I was really interested in; I never watched a bunch of shows that I know I would've liked. I retreated to podcasts and YouTube, and things that were interesting but not fascinating. (Nothing wrong with podcasts and YouTube, I still like them!)

I've been in therapy a long time, the better part of the last decade. It's been great. I've been with my current therapist for 5 years and learned more in long form therapy than I ever thought possible. We got me out of my head, where my anxiety has always lived. (I say that, but I'm still in my head, just less than I was.) I was on the verge of "graduating" therapy. And then new physical symptoms cropped up.

I couldn't breathe. At first, whenever I was a bit anxious. It started happening more and more, culminating in a 10 day period where I couldn't draw a full breath at all. I went to my doctor. Chest x-ray came back clean, as did blood work. We concluded that it must be my anxiety.

I've been afraid of meds for a long time. I can't articulate why exactly very well, but I'm afraid of losing my control of my own body and mind. Of feeling a way I don't want to and not being able to do anything about it. (I am aware of the inconsistencies of that and having a mental illness, yes.) But I didn't know what else to do.

Long story short, I got a psychiatrist for the first time in my life, brand new meds, and a trial period. It's not even a month in, and changes have been gradual. Until I watched Our Flag Means Death.

I'm sure it could've been anything. There's a miles long backlog of shows I will love that I couldn't bear to care about. But I picked OFMD. Watched it in two sessions, the first 4 episodes and then, a week and a half later, the other 6. And my blood is alight.

I thought I'd lost this feeling for good. I want to write, and read (stopped reading books and fanfic too when everything else stopped). I want to engage and ponder and yell all of it from the rooftops. I want to love OFMD, and everything, openly and unabashedly. I care so goddamn much. And it aches. And it feels incredible.

I'm not afraid anymore, of almost anything. I hadn't realized that had happened. This seems small and silly but it feels like my life has been changed. I feel like I've fallen in love. I'm not gonna say I didn't know how bad it had gotten, because I did on some level. I just thought those feelings were over for me. Therapy took away the terror I lived in every day. But I think medication has given me the light back.

[happikattwuzheere]

im being deeply unproductive today, but in my defense i got a set of several complex pictures for the video project done last night, and i still have to actually assemble the files for editing and ill get to that but first let’s bust through some more of this backlog of deer boy au sketches and talk about ronan this time 

this is a LONG one probably, and also, yknow, because its ronan and esp because as you may have noticed he’s not exactly human in this au, there’s gonna be some discussion here of good ole ronan lynch angst-with-regards-to-his-existence-and-religion, so like, heads up there? and. discussion of like. some very sad things, but very very briefly. less discussion and more mention of them. look its ronan idk what to tell you aside from i have at least managed to avoid mentioning kavinsky for now so its not as bad as it could be anyway

(this is probably extremely rambly even for me, im so sorry. i can explain any number of things mentioned here in more detail if anyone would like) 

SO. ronan’s a cambion, at least by dnd terminology, idk how that term gets used in other contexts but the point here is he’s half-human and half-demon, BUT, v important to explain, even tho the characters don’t initially know this and it’s something they work out over time, demons are not necessarily devils; or, more accurately, there’s a category of creature that is not a fey but is somewhat fey-adjacent, follows their own very different set of rules to fey law and are reliant on ley lines in ways similar to a lot of fey beings and spaces, and that category of creatures was granted the name “demons” because that word already exists and this type of creature’s so misunderstood that people mistook them for devils. Whether the biblical demon also exists in this au i havent decided on and dont much plan to because its not super relevant 

BUT. taking inspiration from the horrible bee from canon, demons are, essentially, beings that are created due to a high degree of tragedy on a ley line, and the rules they operate by as well as their motivations are determined by the shape of that tragedy which created them. for example: the hornet demon from the books would be an example of what happens due to violence and bloodshed; it was born of blood shed in anger and life wrongly taken and as a result it exists only to destroy. however, not all demons are evil. example: take, say, a succubus (no stay with me hold on), like the one that niall lynch hooked up with made a deal with over in ireland one day. 

a succubus in this sense is a demon which is born of miscarriage; and they’re Like That because there, the tragedy is not one of destruction, but of lost potential and a life that never came to be. so a succubus is driven to make up for that lost potential in the form of, yknow, making another baby happen, 

and its that power of potential that is also why ronan’s got power over dreams still, it’s aaaall about creation and potential. and his mother, who he never actually met, she hecked off but niall kept the baby, wasn’t evil. just. operating on a different morality system but one which had no interest in hurting anybody. she’s still kicking around in ireland somewhere

RONAN meanwhile still has his two brothers, haven’t figured out yet if matthew’s still a dream thing or not, but. niall never got around to explaining how the demon thing worked before dying because it’s niall he’s terrible at explaining things. but ronan started being able to shapeshift p young--he’s got a fully human form, a fully demonic form, and a form that’s generally called hybrid but really he can shift to anywhere along the spectrum or just pop the wings or the tail out etc etc etc. his brothers both know ronan’s not human, its a family secret, its all chill, except then one day ronan shifts out the wings to help save a baby bird that fell out of a tree and someone outside the family sees that happen and from there things just get real bad and the lynches have to leave ireland in a hurry 

ronan’s demonic form actually ends up being strongly influenced by his own opinion of himself as he grows up; the church has him filled with enough doubt that he grows the horns and becomes more hulking and frightening and all that jazz, and he suspects that he would be burned or expelled from a church’s grounds if he were to shift forms on sacred ground, so he never tries it (he would not, because, as was previously stated, his mother isnt evil, but he doesnt know that) and he just. he hides it real hard. especially after niall gets himself murdered before ronan can finally just ASK about his mother

but! before that happens he meets gansey, who has a lot of interest in the fey and a theory that’s not quite right but is on the right track about demons being some poorly understood class of fey rather than something evil and that gives ronan a lot of hope for a while

yknow until he sees how much iron effs up someone who’s even got a LITTLE fey blood in them when adam gets shot and how when ronan holds that same arrowhead that put adam in so much pain it doesn’t hurt at all, rip 

he tells them that he’s a cambion well before he shows them the alt forms because there’s a point where he feels that they ought to know esp since ronan’s back to existential dread over what exactly he is, it’s kavinsky who ends up forcing him to shift in front of them for the first time, the whole kavinsky thing’s gonna DEFINITELY take at least one post all on its own a lot happens there, but for now: this is why ronan knew that pryderi wasn’t a normal deer (that and also because pryderi is a white tailed deer, which dont exist in england, so ronan was like, thats. thats not a real animal thats gotta be a fey) and also leads to some fun between him and noah because noah, unbeknownst to ronan, has decided that he and ronan are in fact engaged in a game of chicken to see who gets caught/outed for what they really are first. 

(ronan and gansey dont know what kind of fey noah is exactly. ronan assumes he’s something weak like a brownie. noah is definitely not a brownie) 

uhhh any more thoughtsssss 

last picture’s unfinished because idk why ronan’s fully demonic form is so hard for me to DRAW but he’s shaped roughly like beast from the disney movie, except as a big bird monster. also if ur someone he likes and you sleep using him as a pillow it’ll be the best sleep of your life w/ really good dreams and ronan also sleeps v well, its a thing that happens, ronan is in fact the best pillow 

[thewanderingamalgamate]

Return of the Goopman!

[[Hey there everyone! I’m still alive and decided to give this another go. Missed the goopman and getting them into trouble. Of course I missed all of you blessed nerds as well. 

I know I burnt some bridges in a bad way prior to my departure, though I’m unaware of the complete extent of it. Regardless, if you’re uncomfortable seeing me again then please feel free to unfollow or block, I’ll understand.

So, theres been a few changes over here. *The obvious one being the name/url. I lost wanderandward to a squatter, didn’t want to make a fight out of it. Check it out if you like flowers though heh. All the links here should direct you to the proper pages under the new url, but if you find one that doesn’t please let me know. *Again, I fell out with some people, their characters and interactions with them were pretty important too. I’m not going to erase all that history, specifics will just be glossed over if they ever come up. *I made an aesthetics/personal blog over at @shareourwanderings. It should help reduce the clutter and minimize the chance of losing replies in my drafts. I’ll still reblog friends’ art, fanart, and commission posts here. *Made a few small tweaks and additions to the rules/about too and that’s about it.

I’ll leave what I’ve been up to in the past year under a readmore. 

Hope to reconnect with you folks (and make some new connections of course), without any unpleasantness.]]

The TL;DR version: Instead of wallowing in misery, self-pity, self-loathing etc. with this being my only escape, I’ve started the grueling process of unfucking myself and my life. 

There’s been a metric crapton of thinking, reevaluating, reading, realizing, and understanding happening on my end. Turns out fucking up horribly and getting called out on it can be a great impetus for personal growth if you let it. I haven’t miraculously changed and eliminated all that is wrong with me of course, from what I understand such a thing is pretty much impossible. Its an endless process of figuring out how and why you’re wrong, accepting it, and taking steps to be a little less wrong. And I’ve at least started that process.

I’ve confronted the reality of my mental illnesses. The anxiety and depression. How they’ve affected me, how they’ve manifested, the causes, how my behavior has been affected by it. And how I’m still responsible for my actions despite them. I haven’t been to a therapist yet, but its on the agenda and progress has been made towards it. I have been taking medication for them though, learning how to more actively recognize when I’m being affected and how. I’m getting a better grip on my mental faculties. You might not help how you feel, but how you react to it is always up to you. Sounds simple, but ‘simple’ has never excluded something from being hard to do. Been worth trying though.

I finally have prescription glasses. If anyone ever took a close look at my munday pics, my eyes never lined up properly in them. Untreated astigmatism+nearsighted that led to amblyopia. Corrective lenses, eye exercises tailored to the condition, drawing (mostly tracing from a book). Unfortunately I’m long past the age where the condition can be completely fixed, but progress can still be made. Keeping my fingers crossed for advancements in that field though.

I’ve been taking better care of my frail mortal form. Mostly by cramming a handful of supplements down my gullet and putting it through immense stress and pain. The human body is just weird like that. I can understand why others tell the depressed to get some exercise, its actually good advice just poorly worded/explained. But yeah, been exercising, watching my intake, trying that ‘healthy living’ myth people propagate. Those long infrequent walks I took roughly once a week? Twice a day now. I’ve gone swimming for the first time in about 5 or 6 years. Got access to a proper weight room too. I’ve concluded that bodybuilders are masochists. 

I have a new laptop. Fanfuckingtastic considering the old one could barely run discord, its screen is dead, fans dead, deskbound connected to a monitor, and liked to disconnect from the wifi when I most needed it. The new one might not be some $2k alienware powerhouse sure, but it opened a lot of damned doors. Like being able to write here without constant frustrating interruptions. 

I reconnected with my brother somewhat. Always considered him the more successful one and felt like a disappointment to him. We got past that. Just about every saturday since around january, I’ve been hanging out with him, until well past midnight, playing D&D with him and his friends. They’re all a bunch of shameless walking memes and its great. My brother is the DM, and so far my dragonborn sorc is the only group member that hasn’t be downed. Not for lack of trying. My anxious arse has been palling around, in person, with complete strangers, and I’m pretty happy about it heh. Probably going to put up summaries of our crimes adventure on shareourwanderings.

Between all that, I’ve been reading, poking at my backlog of games and shows. I’ve spent some time on Quora, picking up tips from published writers (Mercedes Lackey is surprisingly active over there), and of course checking out the mental health topics over there. The new laptop has made it easier to catch up on shows I’ve been wanting to watch. As in, I binge watched One Punch Man in a few nights, OVAs included. Mob Psycho is next on my list. Add in some new music, Sanderson stories, and the creative juices are flowing again.

I’m making progress. Life feels like its worth living, despite and even because of the fuckups. Its very likely I’m going to fuck up again eventually, hopefully in a less horrible manner. Just something I have to live with and continue to learn from.