#it just feels like it is so hard for me to be allowed to exist sometimes

[genderqueerdykes]

butchness HAS to be allowed to exist outside of masculinity and outside of lesbianism because if it doesn't, the gender binary got re-invented again. butch is not "the queer version of being a man" nor is it being a Masculine Lesbian Woman. butch is not synonymous with dyke. butch is and always has been an inherently gender NON-conforming label. as a very queeny bigender butch it makes me feel so limited in my expression that there are so many expectations for the presentation of a butch identity that don't really accurately represent butchness. just a socially palateable idea of butchness that is easy to understand and internalize because it plays on the gender roles everyone is already conditioned to seeing.

tl;dr: i wish people would just accept that every individual butch is, in fact, the expert on their own butchness.

that's how i've always seen it, too!

butchhood is rooted in gender non conformity above all else. butches should never feel forced to perform or experience gender one way. it's not just for men, it's not just for women. it's for every gender, every experience, every presentation. butches can wear skirts and dresses. butches can have traditionally "feminine" interests. butches can experience our lives however we see fit. we shouldn't try to police someone, especially someone whose identity is rooted in not conforming to any one standard

i've never liked how butch and femme are policed so hard. i believe that butches and femmes should be able to define what it means for them, just like you've said here. every butch is butch differently. every femme is femme differently. this is a good thing, and our communities thrive on this diversity!

take care! thanks for sending this!

[snipdoodle]

reading a book about the horrors of chattel slavery when you're the only black person in the class goes horrible i am actually going to crash the fuck out

black existence in this country is founded on trauma and all the white kids reading this book are like "wow that sucks.." but i have to live with the legacy of this shit daily i am reminded of it every day, every fucking day

It feels like black authors, creatives in general tbqh, are shoeboxed so, so hard. So hard, all the time. We're only alloweed to be X or Y. We're not allowed to move on from trauma. This is what defines blackness, right? the suffering?

and sometimes i just want to scream it at people but it will fall on deaf ears no matter what, they may listen, may sympathize, but can't ever understand. some of the best people i know. i dont expect them to, but it doesnt hurt any less.

ive gone to majority white/not black schools my entire life- im used to this this is how i live and it always has been. but part of me is resentful of it, of the people i go to school with- even if they didnt choose to be born upper middle class and white. its just. ugh.

/end cathy crashout

[not-poignant]

Hi, Pia! A year ago I discovered you through the Mysterious Skin fanfic, which truthfully has helped me in so many emotional layers till this day (and always will). After that read, I jumped on your profile and was blown away by the world you have created with your own hands. You really inspired me to publish my first fic in AO3 recently (for a random fandom), but sadly I've been having a hard time with it.

At the beginning I was relieved that fear didn't stop me anymore, but then it happened again, it came back, in another form, hitting me harder. I don't know how to explain myself, it's just that I think I'm not good enough, that there are better stories with better characterisations and when I read one of those I think: "This is perfect, I could never achieve this level, I don't have this voice, I should just delete mine, I don't have nothing to say, I can't make people feel this way" and I hate to have those feelings because I think it breaks down the true meaning of writing in general (to help people, to connect, to make a tribute, to have an emotional journey), but at this point I have lost my mind. My dream was always to be a writer, but I left it behind for so many reasons, now I thought things were changing inside me, but I guess it's not the case, I can't even deal with a fanfic...

I just wonder if you have ever feel this way before. How did you start writing? How has it been for you? How do you deal with these things? Feel free to answer me only if you're comfortable with that, I don't wanna put pressure on you as if you were my spiritual guide, but, for all the thoughts and things you share here, I think you are a wise person.

Sorry for the long text, I don't have people in real life to talk to about these issues. I'm really grateful to you already because of your story, it's always in my heart, it's part of me. Btw, I hope you are doing well, keep the amazing work. ❤️

PS: Sorry for the mistakes, not a native English speaker here.

Hi anon,

Congrats on posting your first fic! That's really huge. Even if it does open us up to The Insecurities, it's still a massive thing to do in the first place and I'm so happy for you.

As to everything else, oomf, let's get into it.

So the first thing is there is no writer out there who doesn't get assailed - literally assailed - by insecurities and massive feelings of self-doubt or even self-hatred over their writing (if there is, I haven't met them).

There's no point in writing at which they stop, and if you overcome some, new ones come in their place. I think that's just the nature of the beast - both wanting to (ideally) please at least some of our readers, and also offer something decent to read.

It can help to realise this is a normal part of writing and the experience. Obviously at its most severe, it might require therapy support, or professional support of some kind, but getting assailed by The Insecurities is part of being a creative person.

I don't know how to explain myself, it's just that I think I'm not good enough, that there are better stories with better characterisations

So yeah, this is true. Hear me out! This is true for me too. This is true for every writer that exists. Even the ones who win Pulitzers. This is going to sound blunt, but this is true for every story in the world. I know when I post my works that there are better stories with better characterisations out there. And there are stories that I consider perfect to me. But this last part is really important! I don't get to determine what's perfect for everyone. I'm not allowed to make that choice for them. And also people don't read in order to find The Most Perfect Story Ever, they read for many many many reasons, and that one often isn't even on the list! That's just on our list, when we feel beset by The Insecurities.

Like, yes, better stories exist. That's very subjective. They're better to you, they might not be better to some of the readers who read your work, and unless your only goal in writing is to be 'the best ever' (this is not a great goal imho because it's unattainable) sometimes a simple 'oh...yeah I mean it's true there are better stories according to me, but that doesn't mean that people won't enjoy mine, or that people won't think my stories aren't the best, and I'm not even writing to be the best in the world, so I don't know why I'm listening to this because it's not even what my values are in writing.'

But I also need to make it clear that your insecurities will never leave you 100%. They find new ways to come back, and they do keep coming back. We get periods free of the worst of it, often have low-key doubts in the background fairly frequently, and sometimes feel really good about writing. That's...writing. You haven't done anything wrong in your writing or in yourself when you have new insecurities coming in, and you've acknowledged yourself that things have already changed, because these are new or different insecurities. Think of it like an upward spiral, you circle back to feeling insecure, you have to if you want to keep going up.

You won't stay there forever, but the circling is part of the process. It can help to remind yourself of some cognitively true facts - what you think is perfect in writing is someone else's 'worst story ever' if they read it. What you love to read is not necessarily what you end up writing, and that doesn't mean it can't be someone's favourite story. And yeah, someone has already done something better by our standards, because I don't think there's any point on this journey where we go 'that's it, I've done it, I've become the best writer ever, insecurities begone!!!' (It would be nice, but it's not how it works).

So when insecurities come back it's not 'oh god I've failed at writing and/or keeping the insecurities away' it's - this is normal. You can go 'oh I'm being a regular writer right now, in the hard part of it.' I know this. It sucks. It probably means I need a break when it gets really bad, and I need to recharge a bit. I can keep improving, and my writing doesn't have to be anything other than entertaining. I've pretty much struck perfect from my vocabulary. It's too subjective.

I just wonder if you have ever feel this way before.

Anon, about twice a year I feel so bad about my writing I become convinced that the only answer is to delete all of it off my AO3 accounts. And on a regular basis I go between what I consider fairly normal insecurities (is that closing okay / is this arc good / will people like this character / have I pushed this too far / oh god my engagement is down am I terrible at writing), to pretty intense ones (idk why I do this nothing I write is good / how have I convinced these amazing people that this is worth their time / I wish I could write like (insert X author here) instead of this absolute mid shit etc.)

It helps me a lot to know that some of it is mental illness, but most of it is actually just normal. I'm a writer who wants my readers to have a good time and who wants to write something I can be proud of, and sometimes my brain won't let me feel proud of anything I've done because I made it, and sometimes I don't like myself very much. It means I should work on liking myself more. It doesn't mean I should stop writing.

I started writing as a kid, to cope with fairly awful life circumstances at home. So I was lucky that insecurities didn't matter because no one was seeing my writing except for me, I already hated myself (because people who were supposed to care for me, hated me - there's a reason I write the stories I do!) and I was literally trying to survive something that some people don't survive.

When I started sharing my writing, The Insecurities came. And...idk, I learned how to recognise it as a normal part of the process. It took a long, long time. It's normal to feel like there's something unique about how much we suffer over not liking our writing or feeling like it's bad, that the insecurities say something really true about our writing or even our integrity as a person.

Most of the time they say nothing at all except about the state of our mental health and how tired we are. For example, it's more normal for artists and writers to hate what they create during times of government unrest, or increased oppression, or in abusive households, because it's a way to redirect a lot of very unpleasant feelings to something we think we can control.

Sometimes it just happens because we're tired and the wave crashes over the dam we have in place that says 'go away insecurities.' Like you'd be amazed how much food, staying hydrated, getting good sleep / having good sleep hygiene can actually keep the worst of The Insecurities at bay.

Sometimes we need a break! Too much of a good thing in writing can lead to our brain trying to tell us we're terrible at it so we'll just walk away and watch some movies for a bit! The best way to prevent that is to take a break before we get there.

The good news is, you're a writer feeling something very normal for us writers. The bad news is that it feels bad. It can help to step back a bit, and also to join some writer's groups online maybe, ones that focus on support and lifting people up.

I wish I could say you one day hit a point where the insecurities never come back, but if anything, I don't think you can do these sorts of crafts without them. At their extremes they're not good for us, but the extremes of anything aren't good for us. You're not alone, I promise. The worst you've felt about your writing, is the worst many people have felt about their writing. It's just...often such a lonely process and many writers don't talk about it, but it's there, and it won't last. It's part of the spiral. Over time, you might find it easier when you know it's normal, and temporary, but frankly, there are times it's just really, really hard.

You will move past this, and then one day you'll touch on this again, and then you'll move past it again. Sometimes we spend longer in it than we wanted to, sometimes we need to take a longer break than we meant to, sometimes we write more than was good for us with how tired we were at the time.

It's not perfect, it's not supposed to be perfect, but it is part of the journey, it just means you're a writer like the rest of us writers, anon. I hope you can find your way back into writing more soon! And I hope you can be compassionate towards yourself. You put yourself out there, and have been writing, and honestly that's fucking amazing. I think you're awesome.

[mysteriouslyjovialcolor]

Monaco 2015

-I just wanted to see what pre-Red Bull Max looked like

-Carlos and Max teammates!!

-Honestly wasn’t planning on watching any races pre-2016, but I might have to- for Red Bull Seb. Again, any recs?

-“The target is to go as fast as possible and overtake as many cars as possible” *gasp* No way, really??

-This is my first time watching Grand Prix de Monaco as well. That turn (had to look up what it’s called: Nouvelle Chicane?) looks interesting

-Woah Kvyat, I wasn’t aware of your game

-“Nico Hulkenburg in the wall” Aaaaaah whyyyyyyyyyy

-Carlos p16 from the pitlane, in a Toro Rosso!!

-“Hulkenburg with great speed now with his front wing intact again” Small mercies

-“We think Maldonado ahead is struggling, so we need to put pressure on him” Yes Max, let’s go!!

-Oh, they almost made contact!

-“Go for it Max” Yessss, so cleaaan

-“Verstappen is through on Maldando, we expect him to catch up with you soon, but your pace is good” Hehe

-Pretty cool how the circuit is downhill

-Is that Max?! Oh it’s Carlos?!

-“This is Hamilton setting the pace, which as the race leader he’s allowed to do, this is Rosberg trying not to get too close and this is Vettel picking up pace” What do you mean Rosberg is trying not to get too close?

-The only overtakes I’ve seen so far were both done by the Toro Rosso boys

-KR: “Tires are okay, apart from that issue that I just told you. There’s no point in going close to the car ahead” Mans was moving in so much silence, his radio revived me

-The only way any moves are being made right now is through undercuts

-This race is 78 laps long??

-Oooh Sebastian might be able to undercut Nico…or not?

-“The Toro Rosso, going really really well here- starting from the pitlane” Hell yeah babyy

-Did blue flags always exist in f1?

-“Slow pit stop, slow pit stop for Verstappen” Ah no!!! Kill me!!

-“Such a shame for the seventeen year old who was driving nicely in eighth place” 😭😭

-At least he didn’t come out last?

-“Okay we have to close the gap on these guys ahead now, nothing is over yet”

-FA: “Why we had that penalty?” How are you asking this now??

-DR: “Just really struggling with the rears” Woah his voice was deep there

-Those were good stops from Red Bull

-Woahh Kimi Raikkonen just overcut Daniel. That was surprising

-SV: “Oh we didn’t make it”

Mercedes to NR: “ In front of Vettel now, good job”

Sebastian unfortunately was not able to get past Nico

-Fernando?? Oh come on! He was having a good race!

-“First Monaco retirement since 2004” 😮

-“Bottas versus Verstappen, I’ve got a feeling we’ll be saying that for quite a few years” 🙃

-How has Carlos made it to p13?!

-JB: “What happened? What happened?

“Jenson, we don’t think it affects us, we do not think it affects us”

Oh? Now I want to know more about their team dynamics

-“Ricciardo is struggling ahead. He’s struggling ahead. He’s on the same strategy as you” How dare you!

-Please let this be a better stop for Max

-Yay it was good

-Kimi complaining about blue flags will never not be hilarious

-Maxxxxx, you genius!

-“Fancies unlapping himself against the Ferrari”

-MV: “Maybe it’s good I stay behind Vettel, because it’s easier to overtake”

-“Okay the situation is that you have Rosberg and Vettel behind you, and behind them there is Verstappen. You are racing Verstappen. So be careful. He is fast” Don’t you just love radios like this?

-Come on come on come on, Max! You can do thisss! I need him to get that 10th place

-Ah so closeee

-Whyyy is it so hard to overtake hereee

-“Something is going to happen here isn’t it?” Something good I hope

-Whyy are we speculating a safety car?

-Kill me

-I’m done

-Goodbye

-Ohmygod did Nico just take lead of the race??? And Seb p2?!

-Not Lewis going from a 21s lead to p3. How does that even happen??

-Whyyy are you showing me so many replays of that crash? I don’t wanna see it. Leave me alone

-LH: “What’s happening guys?”

-That was so unexpected. I was about to check out on this race

-Are they really about to let 9 cars unl-ap themselves?

-“If you were Rosberg, you pretty much conceded second place about half an hour ago” Life is full of surprises

-Carlos Sainz in points babyyy

-8 laps to go

-Kinda want Seb to keep p2 but also for Lewis to get past and battle it out with Nico

-“Then what do Mercedes do with Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton” You let them race of course

-“Sebastian Vettel like a Tuna, Lewis Hamilton like a shark” ….

-“And Nico Rosberg seems to be handed here, a Grand Prix win in Monaco”

-Okay I must admit, the race got really exciting after that safety car

-KR: “Did you see what that guy did? He just pushed me off very wide. That’s not very nice”

-Daniel?? He made contact but he’s made it past

-Oh Red Bull pulled team orders?!

-LH: “Impossible to pass”

-Daniel did it somehow

-“Okay good, he’s saying that it’s impossible to pass you, that’s good, keep doing like that”

“There are desperate for Ricciardo to get in there, just in case there’s a squabble” That would be really fun

-Both my devices are dying and there are two laps left. I’m hanging on the edge here

-“Okay mate I think you need to get stuck on to this one”

“I think he’s there with a knife, fork, spoon and shovel” Haha

-LH: “Please stop talking to me please” Everyone is on edge right now

-Ohmygod don’t give me hope of Daniel podium

-Okay yeah it’s the last lap, I doubt anyone’s making any other moves now

-“If we don’t overtake any cars, we will be asked to give the position back to Kvyat” Whyyy

-“Once, twice, three times in a row in Monaco!”

-Hello?? What’s up with Lewis’ car?

-Ah so much drama in the Mercedes garage. Meanwhile, a very ecstatic Nico

[moeblob]

[mueritos]

its my bday today so heres a new meet the artist :3

[crownedwille]

.

[otome-dissection]

Finished yakuza 7

Holy shit

Ryo Aoki

[genderqueerdykes]

im really glad your blog exists. im sick of people denying transandrophobia exists.

i really love being trans, i do, but people in the community make me hate it. i really hate myself for being a man/masc but i can't bring myself to detransition. i would be miserable.

but i keep thinking that it would be easier. and people saying "oh it gets better" don't help because its not just that transitioning is hard!!! its transphobia from *inside* the community! im miserable. i hate being trans sometimes. and it feels like i can't say it.

im not allowed to say that being trans is hard, but i also can't say its not, because thats offensive to trans women, right? (/sarc)

cause GOD FORBID i don't love every aspect of being trans all the time or im a sexist, misogynistic pig.

that, or, im just a confused cis girl who wants to feel special

when i dress masc, im trying too hard, but when i dress fem, im a trans trender.

i hate being trans. sometimes i feel like detransitioning would be easier. it would be easier to just say "yeah, i really was just a confused trans trender dyke". it would make everyone happier.

and i could deal with the misery of being a girl again. because im just as miserable now, with everyone denying who i am.

i'm very sorry you're going through this, but you're not alone, so i wanted to share this for other people to see. so many people relate to your experience. people shouldn't have to go through this, this isn't funny or cool, it's affecting real people in real time.

[dykedvonte]

you make really good points, I think I used the term karmic wrong sorry. I think of it more as not how I personally think he deserved all that happened to him (which thinking back os exactly what karma means, I messed up sorry), but as his fate being directly tied/parallel to anyas. I handnt noticed the toxicity of jimmy and curlys relationship, from the first playthrough I watched and the first interactions I had w fandom I saw so many ppl just. dismiss the terror Anya went through and focus too much on him as the "ultimate victim" and that just didn't sit well w me. I really dislike seeing ppl go "oh well nothing could've been done" I think it's much more complex than that. also I forgot to mention in the last ask that I really appreciate you bringing the point that this game isn't just about the harm of patriarchy but also very very critical to capitalism, I haven't seen too many ppl touch on this. I hadn't thought too deeply about how it makes "he deserved to become disabled as punishment" come up and I agree that's really messed up. I'll try watching a playthrough again with all of this in mind. but either way thanks! I really appreciate your answer 🫶🏼

I guess this is just part of being in a fandom like this. I've noticed a lot of people don't actually see posts outside of their curated view. So some people only get like anya posting or jimmy or curly and it can make it seem like that is what is saturating the conversation.

I mainly just follow the general tags and look for anything new because I'm like obsessed but I know some are only looking for what they want or believe to be the case and can get weird about other ideas.

Sorry if I came off mean its just a last few of the asks have been like circular conversations like this and its not draining per say but seeing all the nuance and details get overlooked to fit a straightforward and basic narrative really sucks cause there's a lot to explore character and theme wise.

[moe-broey]

The only thing that's stopping me from making one for Sharena is the fact that I think I hit a limit to how many blogs you can have??? Huh. Whoops! Also paranoid about deleting anything. So I'd just have to strip an existing one and tbh I don't know how committed I am to that. We'll see.

[professionaljester]

love my bad mental health, love being suicidal all the time

[autisticlee]

sometimes people who struggle like to make jokes or find positives about their condition that causes them to struggle so they can escape the constant negative and struggle. sometimes autistic people will say things like "the 'tism" or use the "autism creature" or say their autism helped them have a *positive trait* to feel better about their struggles. because living your life only focusing on the struggles and negatives is depressing and makes it hard to want to live, even if those struggle take up 100% of your life and you can't actually escape them. sometimes any little seemingly positive thing can help a lot.

but there's so many other autistic people that hate when we do that and call it "reducing autism to a cute trendy thing" and say it takes away from *their* struggles and is bad and shouldn't be used. maybe *you* want to only focus on your struggles, but some people can't live in constant negative and need some positive or to find ways to make their condition more positive so they can feel better about living with their struggles. life is hard. I take anything I can get.

I cant get jobs. I can't make and keep friends. I can't get help and support for doing "normal" things so sometimes I go weeks without being able to shower and without eating more than a bowl of cereal a day. most times can't even do things I like. struggle to communicate. have meltdowns. i'll never be able to live independently. I struggle a lot. but instead of sitting here always depressed and having no motivation to live, i'd rather try to joke about "my 'tism is acting up again" when i'm struggling (just an example. don't think I ever actually used the 'tism thing but i saw others use it) or say "i'm just being a creature" when I need to stay in my dark room because everything is too much and I personally find it cute to be a little creature meant in a positive way. i'm not actually downplaying mine or anyone else's struggles. I still acknowledge them and that silly jokes dont make them go away. i'm not trying to be trendy. i'm not doing any of the things people say we do by making silly little jokes. i'm using the silly little jokes to convince myself life can be a little more than pointless, painful garbage all the time.

(continue in tags)

[itspileofgoodthings]

.

[lettersiarrange]

Has time always moved this fast? I'm genuinely asking. In 200 years we went from Bridgerton to AI. The everyday lives of people in each of these eras feel like universes apart. I'm no historian, but it seems like the everyday lives of people between 1500 and 1700 weren't that different.

Have humans throughout time immemorial reflected on life 30 years ago, 100 years ago and commented on how vastly different it was? It feels like we're running at a breakneck pace in the modern era. The It Gets Better project was founded in 2010 because gay people were so universally ostracized that lgbt teen suicide rates were off the charts. And while we're still pretty far from full LGBT equality, openly having a problem with gay people existing is a pretty fringe opinion now that's fairly universally frowned upon, even in the southern US.

I'm pretty sure the first time a woman wore pants in congress was in the 90s.

Culturally, technologically, resource-wise, it feels like every 5 years we leap 5 decades forward. Is it just our own preoccupation with the era we live in that makes this moment feel so significant? Or are we actually moving as quickly as it feels?

I know people have always laughed at the grandpa's who complain "when I was your age...", but has the gap ever been this wide? Or is there truly something special about now.

[invinciblerodent]

if bloodsoaked killer, avatar of wretched villainy, fetid and rotten, a vile creature to the very core.... why kicked puppy??? why cute round eyes??? why sweet scared girl who just wants to be nice and help everyone????

(in other words it's durge time; monk styles)

(my plan is a Karlach romance, but man, if you deliberately RP as someone who is both very confused and deeply scared, there is something extra reassuring about Gale's confidence. Like I'm trying to lean into Karlach's warmth -both literal and metaphorical- being a source of comfort, and the reason for this character to be drawn to her, but the dynamic of a strong woman who knows nothing and the physically frail man with chronic pain who knows everything IS intriguing...)

(then again, that could just be me being not even just thirsty, but parched for the wizard.)