#me when I'm in an intellectual yapping competition and liquid wanderingblindly shows up

[leftneb]

okay well it's time to come out of hiding because you made some points in here that I, a supposed expert on my own life, did not come to think of before but are SO spot on that they've changed how I viewed some things about myself tbh

oh my god,,,, oh my god can I,,,,, can I kiss you on the forehead,,,,,, this is possibly the most beautiful ask I've ever received.

first of all, thank YOU for indulging me in this, and I do take forehead kisses c: I hope you don't mind an even longer essay because boy oh boy do I have Thoughts and Feelings. this is once again going to be way too many words of me talking about myself (really hope I managed to say something that is interesting to you because I enjoyed your essay greatly)

it's not that he can't put himself out there and be loud if he wants to, it's more so that any time he tried to in the past, it didn't... work. It was like everyone was operating on different assumptions than him, or getting different signals. And that repeated experience beat him down to the Lando we see in the fic.

this is such a genius way to phrase this that it made me reevaluate how I view some things about my own life!

even as a wee lad I was incredibly sensitive to any sort of negative feedback (or reactions that weren't explicitly positive tbh) because of the types of interactions I saw at home. I was used to an air of tension and the feeling that a fight (thankfully mostly verbal with the rare appearance of a slammed door) could break out if anyone even looked slightly wrong, or didn't say exactly what the other person wanted them to. I had assumed that all social interaction was a sort of mental game you had to "win" or get an all perfect score on, otherwise there would be consequences. a signal I recieved often was "you got something wrong and I think less of you because of it" even before my bitchass elementary school classmates ACTUALLY started giving me that signal. I didn't know what to do with that apart from feeling intense and frankly irrational amounts of guilt and rejection and fear.

I quite litterally WAS operating on different assumptions and getting different signals. I saw the entire world as a sort of stilted, fucked up, evil version of reality. because of this I was terrified to put myself out there for a long, long time.

I wanted to emphasize the loneliness with this overarching sense of... helplessness. And that's the reason it was so painful to Lando at certain points in his life -- the perceived lack of agency.

this is a really interesting thought to me because I've actually been on both sides of the coin, per se. I've had times where I legitimately had no way to better things for myself, and I later spent a lot of time falsely believing I had no choice and consequently dragging out that period of helplessness. both situations suck majorly

it hurts to know that I did the most I could and yet continued to suffer despite it. at the time (and before I sat down to write this essay tbh like I changed my mind on this matter halfway through writing lmao) I did not believe I had any choice at all, because even though I WAS doing everything in my power, my situation didn't improve considerably. I guess it was a one step forward two steps backward kind of situation (because of factors that were actually entirely out of my control but that's another essay for another day)

and that lack of agency really does hurt, it feels like you're trapped, like there's no conceivable way out, a bit like you're doomed ig. a cycle I frequently (though less so nowadays thankfully) fall back into is thinking it will all happen again, that every time I pick myself back up it's all going to be for nothing, that it's futile, that what I do doesn't actually matter in the long run. I think that's also a perieved lack of agency in a way. like even if I do something it won't change anything, it's like I never tried at all. which is never the reality btw it IS always worth it

(I realised after writing the next paragraph that it is even more tangential than usual and potentially incoherent so read it at your own risk lmao)

the fic didn't cover enough time for Lando (or Oscar) to get to that point but I think it's more than likely they'd have setbacks and, (for the lack of a better word) relapses into their previous mentalities. you mention later on that Lando's realisation that he DOES have agency is a huge switch in his mentality which is honestly maybe more correct than you realise? or at least for me I sometimes notice myself suddenly becoming a lot more pessimistic and just, viewing the world through a different lens. and I suddenly realise that I've slipped back into an old version of myself. one that felt like the world was against him and that he was helpless against it. and that difference between attitudes is huge and palpable, I had to reflect a on a lot things people had said/done to me because at the time their motivations weren't in my emotional vocabulary, like I just didn't have the receptors for them.

I had a lot of reoccurring nightmares about going back to my previous school this time last year. they've stopped since I realised I actually had a choice to change things going forward

apathy as a misrepresentation for acceptance

what a beautiful way to phrase that honestly..... I stuck with people that were largely toxic and horrible to me because I NEEDED acceptance and I needed to be acknowledged. nowadays I think of a lot of my elementary school friendships sort of, distantly. like I could have been any poor sod with catastrophically low self-esteem, and they could've been any other narcissist in development. I wasn't really appreciated as a person but it kept me from feeling like I've disappeared alltogether. Charles and Lando very much fall into that trope I think.

(I'm not sure if you've ever heard of schema therapy but it deals with basically this exact type of pattern. where people who have specific types of "damage" gravitate towards certain types of relationships, usually the dynamics they're used to. apart from finding the concept incredibly interesting it's also helped me a lot. I really recommend you look into it tbh it's top tier for thinking about emotions and more specifically relationship dynamics)

I wanted him to be angry because I wanted him to be grieving. I wanted him to be mad at himself for letting himself get to this point, and I wanted him to feel that ambiguous, hard-to-pinpoint anger that comes with mourning.

god, yeah. ow. spot on. in a situation like this, where you COULD have done something to help yourself but you just, didn't. when you feel like you let yourself down, let it happen, and let yourself suffer you can't help but be angry at yourself. but also the at the world at large. understanding that I did do everything in my power has helped soothe that anger but. right after I'd put into words what I've been feeling in the past.... 10 years of my life, I had a week where I could not be around people without feeling absolutely murderous. I ended up taking a day off school and just sobbing to my heart's content. it really really is a process of grief in all aspects. I'd missed out on a pretty large chunk of my formative years, that is time I am never ever getting back. I had to mourn a childhood I never got to have (also in part because of the aformentioned factors that I will not fit into this essay). which as you yourself have deduced: fucking hurts

What I really loved about the resolution to this dynamic though, is that they didn't actually change -- Lando still gives, and Oscar still takes. But it's the connotation, the feeling behind the behavior, that shifts. They didn't have to change who they were, intrinsically, to find love that leaves them feeling safe.

I cannot find it in me to piece together the words that could possibly even come close to describing how I feel about this. apart from maybe sobbing crying throwing up because what the fuck. you cant just SAY THAT. GIVE A MAN A WARNING???? (also you did understand what I mean by "supersitions"!)

that is to say, what a beautiful mind you have. what I find incredibly special about human relationships is that you can be "damaged" and "broken" and there will inevitably be someone out there, who may be as fucked up as you, that will cherish you for all of what you are. and that despite (or often because) of hardship we'll continue to find connections that matter. the few times I've sat down and wrote something of my own it's been about exactly that. just being heard, and understood, and appreciated even a little matters. so much

in a way I found my own Oscar (god he's gonna laugh at me so hard when he reads that). or Oscars ig, in the sense that I have people around me that I actually care about me as a person and that I care about dearly. and I've found communities (including this one!) where I finally feel appreciated, because of people who aren't afraid to express that.

the concept that I can just be a silly little guy doing my silly little drawings and tippy-tappying away on my puter and people will, like, look at that. and pay attention to it. and they'll remember it. remember ME. is an absolutely wild and still unfathomable concept to me tbh. funnily enough my psychologist has been telling me for YEARS that I should start putting my art out there and I just didn't believe her because I didn't think anyone would notice. so not to repeat myself or anything but, sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

no notes, all of that is just real

This must have been kinda scary to admit, even on anon

I think needless to say your words did very very much matter to me. I thought what better way to show than to be honest, yk? also I need to point out that you basically described my entire life experience by coincidence, just for the sake of thinking about emotion. like I cannot overstate how impressive (and for me personally a little terrifying like I didn't even need to be present to be psychonanlized) that truly is.

I do not have the words to express my appreciation to you (for 1. writing the fic in the first place 2. being absolutely lovely all the damn time 3. indulging me in my impromptu therapy session 4. litterally changing the way I view my life 5. remaining lovely) so I say each word in this PhD thesis of a tumblr post counts for 1 forehead kiss to u!!! (as of writing this paragraph that is about 1900 words)

also I want to acknowledge how objectively funny it is that I did this on anon considering I could have just dm'd you in the first place. altough we've established by now that I have a ✨ crippling fear of rejection✨ so I think you get. why I did this the way I did. still a very funny predicament to have put myself in. no regrets tho

I keep thinking about your portrayal of Lando in Impasse of Biting (and this is going to be very personal and possibly somewhat incorrect so feel free to skip it yk) and I've decided to just write my thesis on it because fuck it why not

the way you describe a scene is always just so. vivid to me. like all the details and the subtleties make it palpable, it all flows so naturally I've never had to think twice about what the scenery is or where/how the characters are physically because it just stays, and this story stuck with me with a level of detail not many have. full disclosure I did not reread the fic before writing this (to preserve sanity) so some details might be off regardless. anyways.

what immediately stands out about Lando is how alone he feels, that he's isolated on a much deeper level than just being introverted would get you. the way I think about this is basically: when you treat/perceive life as if it was happening TO you without having a say in it, in a way you're not living in the same world everyone else is. events in your life, the actions you take, maybe even the things you think or want don't feel like they're in your control, they're not really connected to you. and since you're obviously different than those around you in how you process basically everything you become painfully alone. ("fun" fact I wasn't really able to relate to basically any fictional character for a looooooong time. they had motives and reasons for their actions. I didn't feel I had anything to do with that.) it's like you're an observer of your own life, playing a passive role rather than being alive, you don't feel like a person at all sometimes (which is why I think Charles' proposition has such a grip on him. it's a promise to be seen, wanted, needed. to be a real person with a palpable effect on their surroundings, to fill out a place in the world. to be known)

the way Lando then broke free of that, stood up for himself (because he realised he deserved to and could just do that) meant, like, a lot to me. just seeing my own experience reflected back at me like that, and then seeing Lando overcoming it gave me a lot of,,, not really hope (thankfully I did already battle it out) but more like, reassurance that no matter what I would've gotten away from that mentality (eventually). that I would not have been stuck in my own mind for the rest of my life. we don't really find out in detail why Lando turned out like that, but I know why I did, and for a long time I felt like my life was taken away from me in a sense, I had to mourn that. and it took a lot out of me emotionally, and sometimes I'm still afraid I might slip back or that in some alternate universe I never made it out. seeing someone else go through something very similar and leaving that situation happy meant. more than I can describe tbh

altough Oscar's character had less of an effect on me (tbf there's not really a fair comparison to be made) there is still a lot to be said about his complete refusal to accept himself as he is, that he had to be shown that he CAN and deserves to be loved before he even considered letting himself take what he needs also resonated with me a lot. in my mind they connect through their respective superstitions of being loved (idk if that wording makes sense tbh you might have to read my mind here soz)

it also stood out to me how Lando irl was a very shy (and likely lonely) teenager, who would actually find his confidence and subsequently very lively personality later in life. which I think is less a consciously written parallel and more like a characteristic of him that's naturally adapted into a lot of rpf works (I still find it noteworthy tho). and I don't know how much you, the author, ever experienced that, but admittedly I am curious about it (and completely feel free to not answer that btw) never before in my life have I been able to talk to someone about this very specific type of loneliness and felt like they actually understood. like when I explain it logically everyone can imagine it, but I don't think you can truly get it unless you've been through it yourself, which thankfully not many have.

I'm not usually the type of person to cry reading fics no matter how deeply miserable they make me (ex: Casual by loquarocoeur. that fic ruined my life but I never truly felt like crying about it) EXCEPT for when they resonate with me on a personal level apparently because I quite literally cried myself to sleep after Impasse. like it GOT to me. I needed that I think, so above all thank you (as you can tell I've thought about this a totally normal and healthy amount, I also think it's important to let people know when they've had an impact on you so here we are) (even if I'm too much of a pussy to not do this out of anon lmao)

- anon with the "letting go" answer to the smut poll thing (getting such a positive response to that gave me the motivation to write this so like, keep being lovely c:) (and ps. I'm not gonna say sorry for sending you a literal essay because that would be lying and lying is bad but for the record, I did NOT intend for this to be nearly 1k words long and I completely understand if it was intimidating enough to be skipped or procrastinated)

(impasse of biting)

oh my god,,,, oh my god can I,,,,, can I kiss you on the forehead,,,,,, this is possibly the most beautiful ask I've ever received. And, despite you not having read it a second time, you are SO right on so many fronts. In fact, some of these points are almost word for word lifted from my rambling to the homies on discord during the writing/brainstorming process.

I hope you don't mind a small essay in response, ft. some screenshots (if I can find them).

the way you describe a scene is always just so. vivid to me. like all the details and the subtleties make it palpable

I've said it a million times, but this is always the highest praise imaginable to me. I never believed in settings/scene descriptions as my strongest point, especially considering my aphantasia. I'll go cry now.

when you treat/perceive life as if it was happening TO you without having a say in it, in a way you're not living in the same world everyone else is.

I swear I said nearly this exact thing, word for word, to someone while I was planning this fic. It's the one screenshot I can't find, and I'm pulling my hair out about it, but in short: Y E S. That's exactly the brand of loneliness I wanted to describe. Because Lando's issue isn't introversion, it's not that he can't put himself out there and be loud if he wants to, it's more so that any time he tried to in the past, it didn't... work. It was like everyone was operating on different assumptions than him, or getting different signals. And that repeated experience beat him down to the Lando we see in the fic.

It reminds me of this comment I made:

I wanted to emphasize the loneliness with this overarching sense of... helplessness. And that's the reason it was so painful to Lando at certain points in his life -- the perceived lack of agency.

(which is why I think Charles' proposition has such a grip on him. it's a promise to be seen, wanted, needed. to be a real person with a palpable effect on their surroundings, to fill out a place in the world. to be known)

You get it! You get it!!!!!!!! I was also thinking about why Lando would stay with Charles despite it not really getting better. Like, yes, the urge to be seen and wanted and needed would get him in his grip, but why would Lando stay? And I realized it all came back to the idea of apathy as a misrepresentation for acceptance:

for a long time I felt like my life was taken away from me in a sense, I had to mourn that.

First of all, I'm really really glad that you've gotten yourself to a better place in your life -- and I'm glad that reading this helped you feel seen and understood in your journey. This specific wording really resonated with the way I tried to show Lando's relationship to his lot in life; I wanted him to be angry because I wanted him to be grieving. I wanted him to be mad at himself for letting himself get to this point, and I wanted him to feel that ambiguous, hard-to-pinpoint anger that comes with mourning.

Him being mad at himself felt really key to his character development, because it exemplifies him taking control of his own life. By getting mad, by being ignited from the inside, we see that he realizes it was, to an extent, always in his control -- and he chose to let himself watch life happen. Obviously the reality may not have been that simple, but the mentality switch felt really vital to me.

in my mind they connect through their respective superstitions of being loved

I totally may be misunderstanding you here (sorry!), but I definitely see what you mean here -- and I agree! The fact that they both have equal but opposite... hang ups about love and life is part of what brings them together. Lando believes he's only good for giving and resents that, Oscar believes he's only designed to take, and he would rather die than give in to it. What I really loved about the resolution to this dynamic though, is that they didn't actually change -- Lando still gives, and Oscar still takes. But it's the connotation, the feeling behind the behavior, that shifts. They didn't have to change who they were, intrinsically, to find love that leaves them feeling safe.

I don't know how much you, the author, ever experienced that, but admittedly I am curious about it

Hmmmmm I'm honestly not sure that I've felt this exact brand of loneliness before, but I used to frequently grapple with like... the fear that I was living life correctly, especially when I was younger. I lived a very straight and narrow life in high school, I didn't party in college, I didn't have my first partner until I was 23, etc etc. A lot of the milestones that felt really normal to my peers just... didn't happen to me.

It's all tied pretty intricately to my asexuality, I've realized, but I described my relationship to a lot of the world as feeling like a doll, or maybe a large scale art piece. I was admired a lot, aesthetically, but I didn't really exist in the same way that a lot of "women" (ish) did.

So, no. Probably not what you went through at all, but perhaps a different genre of it :) I just like thinking about emotions hahahaha. Though my DMs are always open if you'd like to talk more about this sort of thing, I contemplate it often <333

I quite literally cried myself to sleep after Impasse. like it GOT to me

This must have been kinda scary to admit, even on anon, but jesus christ THANK YOU. I never imagine any of my works like, resonating with people. Mattering at all, really. I still don't entirely believe that people read the nonsense I put out there. But god, this is like.... it. It's possibly all a casual writer could ever hope to achieve. Thank you again, I don't even have the words <3333333333333333333333

so like, keep being lovely c:

NO U!!!!!!!!!!!! MWUAH!!!!