#my mental health has been shit for months and I barely try to reblog anything | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jbbuckybarnes · 4 years ago

Text

We need to talk...

I knew that this topic of interactions will come up again, because it has never been talked all the way through, so I had this drafted for a while. So much of this old draft still resonated with this permanently unfinished discussion that I just had to edit it and post it, because I feel like it has to be said and put into one post. We can’t keep starting this conversation and then make it so dramatic that there is no conclusion or compromise. The only reason this time is more mellow is because people have better standards for this stuff due to a pandemic going on. This is written for the MCU fandom, but I’ve seen this go down in different fandoms, so here we go:

Things that are NOT at fault for readers not interacting:

The Readers. Should be clear after asking them again and again. And nothing changing. The readers at large are not at fault for a couple people being demanding or hateful. Neither are they at fault for this website and other social medias automatically putting writers at a disadvantage. They do their best with the time they have in their life (just like writers). And after asking them over months to try and reblog more and not much changing, it should be obvious that it isn’t where the problem lies. At least not 95% of it. NOW:

Things that ARE at fault for readers not interacting:

Pushing them, thinking they owe you stuff, while you tear other writers down saying that nobody owes them stuff. That happens time and time again. To me, to friends, to writers I check in with. Don't expect community to come to you when you don't come to them.

Not putting anon asks off when demands and hate get too much. It’s literally THAT easy when people get nasty. It’s sad for the nice anons, but they will understand. Save your mental health! Save the mental health of people reading that hate on their dash. I don’t know how many people constantly answering to hate I have unfollowed and I’m sure people have unfollowed me for doing the same.

Ego and hypocrisy. You can't say numbers aren't a problem and then say they are. In the same post. AND then also deny it later in some of the cases we’ve seen in recent months. Yes, that happened. In several fandoms where this topic comes up semi-regularly. And that might also be the reason people are tired of this stuff and speak out against it.

The fact Tumblr is only used approximately twice a year by most people. And has a shitty tag system. And a shitty algorithm. You are at an automatic disadvantage.

The fact some of you can't understand that 3-5% of your following interacting is a good and normal rate on pretty much all social media. The bigger you get in followers, the bigger the gap gets between followers and interaction (and demand and hate). There are literal statistics on that. 1% interaction at 10k is still good for a platform you have no power over!

The fact some of the people here call anons *haters* for pointing out that you interact w the same 10 people, making that speace seem excluding, when it's literally true what those people say!? Nothing wrong with only support the same 10 people on your blog, but then don't say that you practice what you preach (cause you don’t). You can’t demand more interaction when you don’t interact more yourself. That is how it works, for anyone, not just people of a certain follower count. If I reblog more fics, my blog gets more clout. Logical conclusion. Works for everyone. You have no time for that? Then don’t expect more back. It’s called SOCIAL media for a damn reason.

Telling people asking for Tumblr advice to interact more to make new friends but being the most defensive/indifferent person once they talk to you in DMs. Yes, that keeps happening and I know it from either my own experience or from others sharing their experiences with me. It’s kinda sad. It’s more of a minor factor in people not interacting, but I’ve seen it enough to mention it.

Making shitposts and personal posts all day and then saying you don't have the time in your life to interact w peoples' writings. Like, drabbles exist on almost anyone's masterlist. 5 minute read, easy support for a writer that might be losing motivation. Not every work has to be written like a novel to be great as hell or “quality proven.”

Oh, and there hasn't been a MCU movie in a while, making most of our readership probably currently not care about the fandom as much. Especially after Endgame ended up being a total opinion splitter.

Bonus: The misunderstanding that pushing shy readers to interact does the exact opposite. Not to start about the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic at the moment. That means they may not have time to read and you may not have time to write. Normal. Logical. The same reason lots of people currently don’t publish. Don’t expect anything predictable and controlable out of current times.

Bonus: Check how you connect interactions to self worth and worth/fun of your writing hobby. Define what success means for you in this space, otherwise you will never be satisfied. It won’t matter if a post has 1k reblogs, you’ll always want more, because you chase an infinite metric.

Bonus: Maybe take a month to concentrate on community, getting outside of your bubble that you deny but very likely have (I’m not excluding myself from this), and actually improve interactions. Some people seem to have forgotten that when you interact with other writers, they probably interact back. Surprise! Your followers already know your tried and true fanfic friends, they want some new stuff without searching for it. Basic Marketing knowledge, know what your audience wants. If you do this for the interactions you gotta look at it from a marketing standpoint and not a pure passion standpoint. Oh: And maybe they find you interacting in the notes of someone else’s post and become an active follower. Win-Win-Win situation.

Bonus: Community is a loop, a net of interactions. Some people here have clique behavior, sound defensive and/or simply don't practice what they preach. That is not me or anyone else hating on specific blogs (I’m also no complete exception), it’s people trying to tell you that you can’t ask for shit you don’t practice yourself. Nothing wrong with supporting your friends only, but then don’t go around expecting new people to find your stuff. It’s literally THAT simple. You can’t have both!

Bonus: Ignoring some of the ride or die readers that are already there. Some of the people on here wish they had that and it’s deadass taken it for granted by some. Meanwhile I'm sitting here with Serotonin levels like christmas when someone I know reblogs my stuff and my fic gets some clout. Imma repeat myself: If you do it for the numbers, you gotta look at it more like marketing and less like pure passion.

And again: You are on a social media platform that will always put you at a disatvantage. That is not the readers' fault. It's how social media works at this point. If you want as much interaction as you can without putting in more interaction work yourself, simply share your works on here, AO3 and Wattpad simultaneously. Problem solved.

Bottomline: If you want more love on your work you gotta go beyond what you currently do, since it’s clearly not working for you. Reblog stuff from people you don't know. I don't give a sh*t if it's a 5k or a 100 follower blog. Hell, there is the whole 366 reblog challenge and some of you deadass went on reblogging the same people when that’s not really what this was made for. I, personally, haven't run out of new people to reblog, so this shouldn't be hard. Actually take time to talk to people in DM's, it takes 10 minutes in the evening to write a few people a message asking how they are or sending a cute gif. If you want stuff, you have to give it. Not leave it. People have come to me before, telling me "the community doesn't owe you stuff", no, they don't, but they do owe if they wanna be owed something back or even demand to be owed something back. Community is about back and forth. You give, you get. It's work, cause it's a big hobby. If you don't have time, that's cool, but then don't be sad about lower interaction. It’s logical that low activity from you leads to low activity from others in the long run, unless you do something worldshakingly new. You don't wanna look beyond a circle of friends or your go-to writers much? That's fine, but don't be upset about barely new people interacting cause they feel excluded or simply don’t find your work because of the same people seeing the same people reblogging the same works. What's not fine is not seeing how readers are NOT THE PROBLEM.

I haven’t talked to a single person about this that DIDN’T find the posts surrounding it demanding and completely ignoring the arguments some others had...repeatedly. Every single time it came up. Not just once but time and time again, whenever this topic comes up. You want interaction? Interact. You don’t want hate? Don’t give it a platform. As harsh as that sounds, I’ve never felt better on this platform since I put anon asks off, even when I miss the nice anons. They probably understand. PS: Again, this was written a while ago and edited to fit into a more general context now. I hope people can discuss this in a civil, non-judgmental way, because that is how I tried to write this. This is not again a specific person or group, it’s pinpointing what I see repeating for two years on this platform now, in all corners. I’d also like to mention that we are still in a pandemic and lives have never looked so vastly different, so you can’t demand anything normal in this very not normal time. Even if you do it all right, your interactions dropped in the pandemic cause people likely stay away form this platform for mental health reasons. There is so many layers to look at, these clearly aren’t all, but I hope it makes some people think about what and when they complain. Numbers will never satisfy you, they will always leave you wanting more if you don’t know why you do what you do and for what. Anyway: Be nice to each other and me in the notes in case this gets shared! No drama please! Ignore any grammar and typo mistakes, lol. Love ya!

#mine #rant #reblog discourse #discourse #long post #I didn't put the read more higher up cause it didn't work #Here we go #I already regret posting this but it has to be said in one clear post instead of a bit everywhere #rebecca talks #pls don't blow this out of proportion #I just wanted to create a list with reasons to NOT push stuff onto readers #check your own doing and your own thoughts first #I'll go hide in my blanket fort now

113 notes · View notes

max1461 · 4 years ago

Text

ok uh, kinda depressing-ass post but like, i'm fuckin sad today. this is a personal post so maybe don't reblog but also, if anyone takes the time to read my meandering ramble and ends up having any advice, i'd love to hear it. just gonna put it under a cut cause like.

i haven't seen any of my friends irl since i left college a year and a half ago. they all moved to other parts of the country (or other countries), and my only friend from before college who used to live here moved away years ago.

normally i'm a pretty reliable long distance communicator. i'm kinda the one among my friends who, in the past, has taken a lot of the responsibility for keeping up communication while we're physically apart or whatever. and i don't mind that, idk maybe the way i'm describing it sounds unbalanced but it really isn't, it's just the dynamic that's emerged if that makes sense.

except it's hard for me to do that when my mental health is really bad, and when i'm doing all kinds of ocd shit all day and can't sleep or eat or whatever, then i kinda lose track of things. and unfortunately that's how things have been for like 90% of the pandemic. so i've got friends i've barely talked to for a year, others i've barely talked to for months, and honestly i just fucking really miss them all.

not to mention that during college like, a lot of my socializing was in the context of study groups and things, where people were in that weird area between acquaintances and friends, such that i'd like to talk to them again but feel weird about just sending them a facebook message or something.

anyway this is just a convoluted way of saying i'm lonely as fuck and don't really know how to reach out to anyone. and if i do reach out to my friends, it's a lot of work to stay in contact with them because like, idk it just tends to always fall on my to keep things up. so i've just been siting around for the last couple days, thing "I should message X", and then going to do it and not being able to for some reason. idk.

and on a related but different note, i'm getting increasingly concerned about my ability to make new friends in the future. the thing is like, i feel like i have a very specific kind of social anxiety. like, it's not hard for me to make small talk or get to know people or whatever, i don't really worry about embarrassing myself or anything like that. but it's really hard for me to like... enter into activities that other people are doing. i guess i feel like i'm intruding, or perhaps that i'm not able to tell whether i'm intruding or not, so i play it safe. thus e.g. if i show up at a party and someone starts talking to me, i'll happily make conversation and tell jokes and like that kinda shit, generally it goes fine. but my brain just fucking refuses to allow me to start the conversation.

anyway like, when i was in college i felt like i was in the perfect environment for making friends with my particular skillset. like, there were always tons of people i hadn't met yet, there were always events going on, etc. and so pretty reliably all i had to do was like, show up to things, and by a pure numbers game i would eventually end up in a conversation, after which i was set. it almost worked by osmosis.

but the world outside of a college campus don't quite have that feature. you can show up to public places, but people don't just start talking to each other, they generally mind their own business. given that i didn't get in to grad school, i have at least another year and a half of not being on a college campus, and i have literally zero idea how to make friends outside of that environment.

everybody says "try taking a class in something!" but like, classes where always the part of school where i was least able to meet people.

at least i'm vaccinated now so like, i can actually go places.

anyway, yeah, fuckign sad and lonely.

#personal #don't reblog

13 notes · View notes

alpha0shadow · 4 years ago

Text

Reverse verse idea

Something I really want is a good reverse verse or reverse au of Supernatural. I don’t know how I haven't found one but it seems like no one is writing any hunter!Cas, angel!Dean, or Angel/Demon!Sam in the respective roles they should have in the show.

I hate putting my own shit out for people to see and I haven’t written anything in years so this’ll be absolute garbage but the only way others might see this and hopefully do the REALLY hard work for me is if I get the ball rolling so….

Here’s how I imagine Castiel’s background as a human hunter:

Like most human!Cas fics, I see most of the angels as being his close and distantly related family who all make up the Men of Letters. There are other hunters who maybe come and go and MoL who aren’t related to Cas, but I see this as the “family business.” The Novaks (cause I’m uncreative) are made up of Chuck, Michael, Lucifer, Gabriel, Anna, Balthazar, and Castiel. Distant cousins, aunts, and uncles are made up of the other angels. Growing up, Castiel didn’t have a normal childhood, but it wasn’t filled with the doom and gloom one would probably assume a MoL family to have. He was closer to Gabriel, Balthazar, and Anna than his other family which is great because only they seem to catch his sense of humor and he loves being the secret weapon to most of Gabriel and Balthazar’s antics against the other MoL in the bunker. Castiel was homeschooled, like all of his siblings, and found his days filled with texts on all manner of creatures, folklore, and rituals that were drilled into his head which he picked up much faster than any of his other siblings, much to Michael and Lucifer’s annoyance. He also has his basic education, courtesy of his weird uncle Metatron who runs the MoL archives. MEtatron made sure all of the kids had as much of a “normal” education as possible, especially in the Literature department. The rest of Castiel’s younger years were filled with play fighting and learning the basic skills of caring and preparing for weapons, health kits, vehicles, and items for spells and protection.

Suddenly, the MoL is overrun by demons and other supernatural entities that were easily coerced into attacking the MoL by the demons. It’s a massacre and the MoL that escape are forced into hiding. Castiel’s mother or Chuck (haven’t decided which or who his mom would even be) is killed protecting him as a distraction while Gabriel grabs Cas and runs. With their family in the wind, Cas and Gabriel are forced to fend for themselves for a time where they grow even closer through the trauma of the attack and the hardships of living on their own. Eventually, they are found by Michael who brings them back to a smaller and harsher order of the MoL, of which Michael is in charge. Under Michael's careful and ruthless planning, younger members are sent out on hunts and those that come back are not the same, physically and mentally. Lucifer, the second-in-command, is a loose cannon but prefers to be in charge of combat and weapons training. He is especially hard on his siblings and Cas received the worst of it, under the impression that his older brother only wants him to learn faster to better protect himself.

Castiel’s first kill is a demon. He cries and throws up afterward because he knows that the woman the demon possessed was still in there. It changes something in Cas. He’s not too different in regular circumstances. He still smiles and laughs with his siblings and enjoys new shows with Samandriel and discovering new spells with Metatron but on hunts, as the cases start to pile up and more lives are lost, he becomes more ruthless and cold. The only focus is destroying the ghost, vampire, werewolf, or whatever the fuck is killing people. Gabriel is always there to pull him out.

One day, Castiel and Gabriel are on a case where they meet a man who says that he has had a demon sighting. WIth his help, Cas and Gabriel find a small demon organization and clean up shop. After a thorough background check and several supernatural checks, Sam is welcomed into the MoL and the Novak clan.

It is unfortunate that there are not any checks to identify a King of Hell of Sam’s caliber though.

Having infiltrated their ranks, Sam makes quick work of sowing discord through the MoL leading to unnecessary deaths in easy cases and ambushes of carefully vetted safehouses. To Cas, it’s just another shitty day as a hunter, but the unusual circumstances surrounding these cases puts him off. However, Cas, Gabriel, and Sam have become fast friends and it’s hard to start accusing a man of such diabolical deeds when you see him as your closest friend, after your siblings.

Through some means, Sam shows his hand and the attempt to destroy or subdue him leads to casualties and afterward Gabriel goes missing. Castiel isn’t worried he’s been kidnapped, as Gabriel keeps in the barest amount of contact with only him, but he does start to become concerned when Sam starts appearing around every corner hinting at some horrible fate awaiting him when he sees Gabriel again.

Sam, as it turns out, is not a man, or King of Hell, easy to shake. No matter the time or place, Sam makes his presence known to Castiel in some strange semblance of the man he pretended to be when they were friends. In fact, Sam brings him gifts that are useful and rare for spells that he’ll eventually need for a hunt or a rare item that Cas was researching on a whim one night. And maybe he should be worried about what this means about his safety, but after the last attack against Sam, most of the MoL are uneasy around him so Cas is prone to keeping to himself at a cabin he repurposed for his own use and he isn’t used to being alone for so long.

Things happen….Cas is at his lowest point. Gabriel isn’t answering his calls and the rest of his family, except for Balthazar and Anna who try to stay in contact under the radar, is barely speaking to him. So Sam offers to make a deal with him which Cas obviously rejects. After careful prodding and subtle hints at how lonely his future is looking, Sam offers to make sure that Cas is never alone again and he agrees in a moment of weakness. When they shake on it, Sam burns a mark on Cas (a la the Mark of Cain perhaps) as a sign of their new connection. Horrified and angry, Castiel who is well learned on demon deals, adds a quick alteration to what he assumes is in Sam’s fine print: Castiel will never be alone and while Sam is going to have some part in that, he will not be attached to Sam for his whole life and it won’t be Sam that stays with him. Sam’s miffed about that but as smart as he is thinks of a quick work around.

When Castiel finally sees Gabriel again, it’s the last time they see each other. Gabriel drops off a baby and says all kinds of weird things about angels, nephilim, and some apocalypse that’s coming but it makes no sense. It’s almost as if he isn’t even speaking to Cas in a language he understands or is even present when he looks at him.

“He’s yours now. He’s yours. You have to take care of him. It’s gotta be you, Cas. You're the only one of us with the brains to keep this whole thing under wraps until it's time. They can’t find him. They’ll kill him. They’ll kill him, Cas. You hear me?”

Castiel vaguely understands the small bits of information that make sense out of all of Gabriel’s rantings and can piece together. As Castiel finds a place to stash the baby for a while, Gabriel disappears leaving a notebook full of markings, sigils, and notes about his visions and the baby. His name is Jack and he is the supposed Antichrist. Sam’s baby. And as Cas thinks on it longer, the culmination of their deal.

Understanding the severity of the situation, Cas manages to appeal to his family and the MoL and is let back into the MoL with the story of his son, Jack, whose mother died in an attack against werewolves soon after Jack was born. The only ones who know the truth are Balthazar, Anna.

A few months pass, Castiel raises Jack as any other child and does what he hopes is a decent job of raising a kid when he notices that Jack is much bigger than an eight month old baby should be. The issue of Jack’s rapid aging is momentarily shelved as an attack against a small band of local hunters, not MoL, is attacked by a blinding light and a noise that pierces and bursts eardrums to the point of insanity.

Why did I do this? Who knows. Part 1?

Please don’t hurt me, I usually just reblog shit for fun.

23 notes · View notes

kny111 · 5 years ago

Text

I’m Living Under Government Watchlist for doing ProBlack + BLM work

I’m not sure many of you know this and with what I’ve seen I doubt this will get attention considering how deeply sabotaged tumblr has become. But I’ve been doing activism for about as long as we’ve been yelling things like “HandsOffAssattaShakur“ to protesting what I thought was religious corruption when we did so against scientology to #OccupyWallstreet. I’ve been protesting and doing activism online and offline depending on my mental and physical health which has limited me as time goes by. It’s finally got me burnt out, not from the protesting and activism, but from those whose job in the past and present been to sabotage and destabilize Black lead/ Poc led movements. I’m in a continuation of this. Don’t let my lack of energy in speaking out fool you into thinking I gave up. I have just gotten worn out by them.

The things they’ve done to my mind and body while in this area since moving. They’ve been surveilling me since before I could even remember. Every single day that goes by they’ll have some way of making their presence on my health in a debilitating way. They’ll mess with the internet, phone, my contacts, infiltrate them, infiltrate my family, they’ve messed with the job search process and made difficult for me to enter any job without said job making some offhanded comments showing their solidarity to the corrupted country I protest. They’ve had people I trusted right here on tumblr infiltrated my circles of friends and myself and make it very well known that they feel beyond reproach.

This has all been in coordination with the NYPD and other government agents of defense. They’ll make themselves present in just about any space I try to go. From the forest, parks, to just a simple walks outside. I basically was lead into an area of Manhattan that is mad pro-cop, pro-surveillence capitalism, pro-militarized. Any time I make blog posts or whatever that don’t put em in a good light I get some kind of mental or physical health debilitating action against me like they’ll have mad loud noises at timed intervals like what the agent upstairs does all the time which messes with my breathing due to social anxiety and depression. They’ve had cars roll dangerously close to me, whether im biking or not. They’ll have people walk mad close to me during social distancing measures. I know it be them because they tend to use sensitive information they got through surveillancing me all day and night. Like fam I could be trying to take a piss in peace at like 3am and they’ll still be bumping away and making all types of sound to give the impression that they’re always watching. And they are. And I think the fact that those UFO/UAP objects appeared on my 17th (11/10/2004) birthday added to their obsession with me. The other fact that I ended painting a similar craft under the context of destroying colonialism I believe gave the government more understanding on what they’re really here about. I think that being the end of these oppressive regimes that have made so much out of us. I don’t want to sound superstitious but since then I’ve felt a connection with those UAPs that I only learned to name recently. I no longer think it’s coincidental that about a month or so AFTER I painted those native, queer sisters dancing to bring forth help from their future descendants, the navy posts those videos of the UAP that become well known. They’ve never done that, and yet just a few weeks after I painted this, not only does the gallery I exhibited this in Harlem catches fire unexpectedly, but these things become a topic of discussion in ways we’ve never seen before. I think them UAPs are here for our freedom. But that’s for another post. Too much to unpack into this. I’m just letting yall know what they know of me. So now imagine. This nigga aka me, tied to UFO, fortelling the future (I know what I sound like, but believe me, I can definitely tell the future) AAAND fighting for black lives? Of course they gone be on my ass like a probe. In fact, I think one night they even broke into our apartment (not the first time they do so) and did things against my will as I slept since I woke up feeling violated. Waking up with strange markings and having objects in the crib go missing. But I’ll leave that there. There’s so little ya’ll know about what they’re doing to BLM activists. So much I’ve omitted from here for my own sanity and to process things. This has caused my body a lot of debilitating stress down to my breathing having been shortened. I’m lucky if I have the will power to eat more than 2 meals. I don’t even bike anymore. I can barely run anymore. I can barely speak like I used to anymore. They stole so much more from me than they’ll ever imagine. Even saying all this to yall, whomever listening, feels pointless. Why? because they’re very good at making it seem, even if and when it aint true, that your people don’t fuck with you no more except for those they deem acceptable. As you figured, this would have anyone under 24/7 watch. The government be lookin at me and them UAP and the lands and non government natives as a force they don’t wanna reckon with, so they’ve put a lot out to shrink me as they do to so many of us who choose to fight for the rest who can’t. And this has all been while trying to raises my baby Quinn with my partner. So we’re all dealing with the state and federal terrorists in one way or another. If they not trying physically fuck with me, they’ll be running psych warfare on me, shit thatll have me doubting myself despite the facts. Luckily a nigga still bout that scientific literacy so it’s helped me a lot in spotting them and trying to keep some semblance of a distance. But again because of what I’m tied to: bday 111, UAP/UFO, native resistance and the spirits of the land and those this country murdered for white supremacist ventures, predicting/ESP type of abilities on the daily while telling them how useless their surveillence capitalist tools are knowing we can do this has likely mad them other me, dehumanize me and made me feel less human. Since then I’ve noticed they’ve been limiting my posts and activities on just about any site that has favored white supremacy, neocolonialism and capitalism in some way or another. They’ll mess with my facebook feed, who my posts get seen by, they’ll mess with my IG, they’ll mess with my tumblr especially. Basically any way they can limit who I may say this to and wear me out from even speaking about this and bringing yall hope like that. And remember, the information that they share amongst themselves as surveillance capitalist is the same information hub/database that infiltrated white supremacists and antiblack/antibrown folks in governments tend to us and share with their own hateful ass people. With this in mind, I really think they look at me as some would be leader to those movements since I’m queer and nonbinary so not as easy to trick into the outdated oppresive politics they try to have me on. Since I haven’t shown interest in being with them in any real way and have stuck to my activism and abolishing these systems they’ve continue to in a way torture me. Through sounds, denial of physical services, or when I go out to eat in places that have ties to law enforcement or government agencies, they’ll mess with my food, just about anything you need they’ll fuck with. What would that do to you if you experienced that? Hence why my bloggin changed a bit, not as attached due to energy fatigue and their constant harrassment and obsession with me. Many times, even with the fact that I may be linked to those UAP in some special way I still be feelin like dyin to not be around em anymore.

To add to what I said on how corporate own websites like tumblr have joined them; After having spent a good amount of time blocking my posts and blaming their algorithm. From blocking drawings of normalizing fatness to pro LGBTQ and Black Lives Matter posts like the Eric Garner videos I uploaded. For a few months now I’ve noticed my scinerds blog has been inaccessible, in a way sabotaging my communication with yall. And they would fix my blog posts by limiting who sees my posts, so now most if not all of my posts on this website and few others have been. When I try to use it I’m not allowed, but I’m still able to reblog, so I’ve been reblogging there less science and more activism as a way to protest the racist, white supremacist of tumblr. Be they black or not, they still acting the same. I’m mostly posting this for a future people who understand me and believe me. I get the sense that this post will also be sabotaged or muted in some way. Thanks for reading, in case we don’t link.

#blm #black lives matter

38 notes · View notes

slapshot-to-the-heart · 5 years ago

Text

Flatbush & Atlantic: part iv

And here’s part iv! I’d love it if y’all would reblog, this is a work I’m really proud of and the more people it’s shared with the better! My inbox is always open, and I’d love to hear your thoughts, even if it’s just “AAAAAH.” Enjoy!

part i part ii part iii

part iv

December 12

Cass grimaced, looking over at the tab on her laptop that had the Islanders game open. They were down 3-1 late in the third, and it didn’t look like they were going to be able to pull it off. It was the last game of a ten day roadie, and they had lost all but one against the Red Wings right at the beginning. And the Wings were 10-21, so it wasn’t even a confidence booster. To make matters worse, Mat was on a points drought; he hadn’t gotten an assist, let alone scored, since the first game of the trip, a 4-1 loss to the Blue Jackets. They also were playing a few players down, an MCL sprain and the ever-vague “lower body injury” kept the team from being at full strength.

As the game came to a close, she didn’t even know if Mat wanted to talk to her. His relentless dedication was one of her favorite things about him, but it also led him to take things way too personally and be way too hard on himself even when — especially when — the situation didn’t call for it. He was probably beating himself up as the boys headed back into the locker room, being short with his teammates and trainers and whatever poor sports reporter had been sent to ask “how they planned on snapping this unfortunate streak” in the post-game interviews. He’d never be deliberately mean or unkind to anyone, but just like anyone, her boyfriend got stressed and overwhelmed and didn’t always know how to deal with it. I saw the game, she texted him, I’m proud of you. Call me if you want.

Dec. 15 (wed)

Mat had barely spoken to her since the return from the roadie, and it was starting to get on her nerves. Texts were responded with single words, if they were answered at all. They were supposed to have visited the Met yesterday , but that hadn’t happened either. He had cancelled, saying that “some team thing came up” and he wouldn’t be able to make it. Barely apologized. And what pissed Cass of more than almost anything was that she wanted to help, she wanted so badly for him to just talk to her, she wouldn’t judge him or make him feel like he was a shitty player or a shitty person, but she couldn’t do that if he wasn’t even picking up her damn calls. Who do you talk to when there’s almost nobody in the world who understands the position you’re in?

Maybe that was just it. She’d go to the people who did understand. Paige had added her to the WAGs Whatsapp group the week prior, and from everything she had gathered so far, it was exactly the sort of place to go for advice. Cass pulled up the chat, torn between not wanting to seem like she was oversharing but not really sure what else she could do. Hey, guys, she started. Mat’s been taking the losing streak pretty personally (as I’m sure a lot of your guys are) and seems to be pulling away. Any advice? I don’t want to push him but I know it’ll get worse if he just keeps it all bottled inside. Clicking send, Cass sighed, leaning back in her desk chair and trying desperately to study for her Environmental Law final.

At some point after midnight, she closed her books and laptop with frustration. The test wasn’t until next week, but she wasn’t going to get anywhere trying to study as distracted as she was. She grabbed her phone, heading to the bathroom to brush her teeth and check the group chat. No fewer than six of the women had written back, some of whom she hadn’t even met, with long, sympathetic paragraphs overflowing with advice. She read them all, touched by the time, effort, and care that everyone has put into making her feel just a little less anxious. But the overwhelming message was clear. Find balance, but don’t let him blow you off. Be a support system, but you’re not his therapist. And repeated again and again, Talk to him.

She tapped out a message before she turned her bedside lamp off, hoping that with morning would finally come a proper response from Mat. Can we meet for coffee tomorrow morning? You know as well as I do that we need to talk. I’ll be at Donahue’s at 8.

Read: 12:23 AM

Dec. 16 (thurs)

Her foot tapped nervously, hands clasped tightly around the cup in front of her and beanie pulled over her head, curls poking out from under. He had read the text, but Cass had no clue if Mat was actually going to show up or not. He hadn’t responded. It was ten past eight, and Cass was just about ready to give up and head to school early. She had just put her laptop back in her bag when she caught Mat out of the corner of her eye. He gave her a small smile, equal parts nervous and almost — bothered? “Hey,” he said softly, unzipping his puffer coat and sliding into the chair opposite her. “You said you wanted to talk?”

Suddenly, the whole elaborate speech Cass had prepared, about letting her in and supporting him and communication, left her mind. “Yeah.”

“So, talk,” Mat said, with a slight edge to his voice.

She looked down at her cup. “I get that you’re disappointed about the losing streak. I get it and I’m sorry that you’re not doing as well as you hoped —”

“I don’t think you do get it, Cassidy —”

She cut him off. “Let me finish, Mathew. I’m sorry that you’re not doing as well as you hoped, and I do get how shitty it is when you know you’re putting in the time and effort and practice and it doesn’t seem like anything’s working, but you’ve barely talked to be about any of it.”

“‘Cause I don’t want to,” Mat mumbled.

Cass leaned back in her chair. “And I get that. I get if you don’t want to talk to me. But you’re not talking to anyone. You’re not talking to Tito, I asked him and he said you’ve been just as closed-off with the team. You’re not talking to any of the other guys. And I’d bet you’re not talking to your parents or your sister either.”

No one gets it!” Mat said in frustration, a little louder than was necessary. “I go through so much shit and have so much pressure on me and…” He trailed off for a minute. “I don’t want to disappoint the team, I don’t want to disappoint the fans. I don’t want to disappoint my family. I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“Everyone had their ups and downs,” Cass started.

“And I get that,” Mat said, holding his head in his hands and looking down at her coffee cup. The same white-and-blue one he had gotten her two months earlier. “But it’s hard. It’s hard when I’m feeling like the fans aren’t getting what they deserve when they come to games, and like I’m not worth what they’re paying me right now. I know you want to, but you don’t get it.”

Cass looked away, turning her eyes to the street. The sidewalk was dusted in white, turning to slush every time someone walked past. It was the first snow of the year. “Then help me to.”

He breathed out, finally relaxing a little. “It’s not that easy.”

“I want to help you,” Cass said, leaning over the table and clasping his hands in hers. “But you can’t keep freezing me out like this, chou. It’s not fair to you and it’s not fair to me.”

Mat closed his eyes, leaning into her touch. “I just don’t want this to become your thing too. You shouldn’t have to deal with this. I know right now kind of sucks for me but that’s just how it is sometimes, you know? It’s just how it is and I have to get over it. I have to get over myself.”

“Mat, your well-being and mental health isn’t something you can just ‘get over.’ Or even something you should. I’m not a professional, and if you need one that’s something we can find,” Mat wrinkled his face, and Cass was pointedly reminded how often men’s mental health was ignored, “but I’m here for you to talk to. Whatever you need, I’m here for you.”

He ran his thumb over her hand. “But you didn’t sign up for this.”

Cas shook her head. “Mathew Barzal. This is exactly what I signed up for. I’m pretty smart,” he cracked a smile, “and I knew what I was getting myself into. Dating someone with such an unconventional job and schedule can be stressful, and frustrating, and confusing for everyone involved. But I chose it, Mat. I chose you.”

Dec. 21 (mon)

For once, Cass wasn’t headed straight home after work, or headed to a game, or — God forbid — back to the library to study. Her last final had been that morning, and she was free for three blessed weeks until the New Year. Which meant that she didn’t have to worry about turning in another essay or memorizing another case, which meant that she was more than free to go to the team Christmas party with Mat later that night. He had somehow been coerced into hosting, and Cass had promised to get to his apartment early to help set up. He was mostly done by the time she got there, so “setting up” turned out to mean setting up the bar and putting out snacks, Cass mixing up an enormous pitcher of her favorite sangria, a signature standby from her sorority’s Wine Wednesdays.

Mat had even put up a proper Christmas tree, and Cass smiled at the piney scent as she headed down the hallway, bag in hand. “Cool if I change in your room?” She shouted down the hall at Mat, who was currently engrossed in pouring a bowl full of chocolate-covered pretzels. “Yeah, go for it,” he called back. Cass didn’t have a lot of excuses to dress up, but liked taking advantage when the occasion called for it. Her dress was short, red satin with a slit on one side and silver embellishment on the other. She used his bathroom to touch up her makeup, swiping her burgundy lipstick on and double-checking her brows. Cass shoved her work clothes back into her backpack, tossing it onto the plush armchair in the corner of his room.

She walked down the hallway, which was pretty much bare save for a few pictures of his friends from home and one with his family on the day he was drafted. She was kind of surprised that Mat owned a single picture frame. Cass sat on the couch in his living room, looking at the Christmas tree. There were one or two Islanders ornaments, a paper Santa that she assumed had been a kindergarten art project, a photo of his family around the fireplace that looked like it had been taken a year or two earlier. Mat wrapped his arms around her, hugging her from behind. “Whatcha looking at, babe?”

She smiled. “Your ornaments. They’re really pretty.”

“Not as pretty as you.”

The door rang, Mat kissing her quickly before walking across the room to open it. A group of the younger players piled in, mostly rookies and call-ups from Bridgeport. One of them had brought along a keg of beer, and Cass had to fight back a laugh while showing him to the kitchen and setting it on the counter. He was just out of college, she’d stake her life on it. By the time she’d secured the keg and started getting people set up with drinks, the living room had started to fill up. “What can I get you?” She asked Paige, who had left Tito with the boys by the tree and made her way over to Cass.

“What are my chances of getting a Moscow mule?” Paige asked. “I don’t want to be a difficult guest, but,”

“Very good,” Cass said, turning around and grabbing the vodka and ginger ale. “We don’t have the proper mugs though, so don’t be complaining.” One shot of vodka. Half a can of ginger ale. Squeeze a lime. She had bartended for a little over a year when she first moved to New York, and it was still one of her favorite things to do for friends. Mixing herself a whiskey sour, Cass wandered back over to Mat and Tito.

---

It was well past eleven and the party was nowhere near stopping. While everyone was conscious of the noise level — for the most part, she had seen a few of the guys being reminded to use their inside voices — the conversations were still going and the drinks were still flowing. Cass had passed the tipsy point somewhere around 10:30, though she was nowhere near as hammered as some of the team. Or their dates, for that matter. She was cuddled up against Mat on the couch, heels long having since been abandoned and nursing what she was pretty sure was a vodka sprite with way too much vodka and way too little sprite. Whatever, Cass thought ruefully as she tipped the last of it back. It gets the job done.

Mat was a touchy drunk, Cass had learned, and one hand seemed to have taken up permanent residence at her waist while he sipped a beer with the other. “What do you think Christmas will be like for you?” Cass asked softly, tilting up her head to look at him. “Since you won’t be with your family.” Mat knew it was a possibility, but he was still pretty upset when he looked at the schedule and realized that his family wasn’t going to be able to fly out to spend the holidays with him, and he didn’t have enough time to go back out to Vancouver.

Her parents had extended the invitation for Mat to spend Christmas with them when she had been back up for Thanksgiving; he couldn’t make Christmas Day, but was able to carve out two days to visit. He smiled at her, leaning down and kissing the top of her head. “You’re cute when you’re worried, y’know that?” Cass scrunched up her nose. “It’s not like I’m going to be alone. I’m doing Christmas with Beau, since Paige’ll be out of town too, and some of the guys usually plan a nice dinner thing for anyone who’s not with family.”

“That sounds nice,” Cass noted, still feeling a pang of guilt.

“Hey,” Mat said, noticing her distraction. He sat up, turning her face to look towards him. “I’ll be fine. I’m a grown-ass man.”

Cass cocked an eyebrow. “Sure about that?”

Mat giggled. “Okay, okay, fine. Point taken. But yeah, it would be nice to have my family, but I kind of do, y’know?” He said, nodding around to the guys. Cass could have sworn that in that moment, her heart melted. “And I want you to spend time with yours. I’d be kind of a shitty boyfriend if I didn’t want you to.” Mat leaned in, and his lips brushed against hers so that they were almost touching but not quite, hesitantly. Cass pressed against him, her fingers finding purchase in the baby hairs at the nape of his neck. She loved that he was letting his hair grow out. He tasted like whiskey and tequila and some cheap beer that she was pretty sure was Natty Light, but she couldn’t have cared less, just like she ignored the not-so-subtle wolf-whistles from the teammates.

Everyone started clearing out around midnight, a few staying to help stuff cans and bottles into trash bags that were left unceremoniously in the kitchen to be dealt with the next morning. Cass yawned, rubbing her eyes. She had sobered up some, but was still well past the legal limit. “Whatcha doing?” Mat asked, seeing her about to order an Uber.

“Calling a ride?” Cass questioned.

“Why don’t you just stay?” Mat asked haltingly. “If you want.” Cass had obviously been over to his place before, multiple times, but hadn’t stayed the night yet. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, because she did, but it was something that was a big step for her. That meant a lot to her. But it was late, and she was sleepy, and Mat did make a really good pillow. “Okay,” she conceded.

Mat smiled, taking her hand and leading her back to his bedroom. He rummaged through his dresser, grabbing an old Thunderbirds t-shirt and athletic shorts and handing them to her as she walked into his ensuite. “I don’t have stuff to get your makeup off, but there is soap?” He offered.

Cass laughed. “I brought some wipes, but thank you. That’s really sweet.” She changed and took her makeup off, finding a spare toothbrush in one of the drawers and brushing her teeth. She popped out after a few minutes. Mat was already changed, dressed in pyjama pants and a comfy-looking heathered grey top. “The red toothbrush is mine now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he responded, cracking a smile. A few minutes later, she had claimed the left side of the bed and he had come back from the bathroom. They were lazily kissing, Mat’s hand just barely brushing the skin on her waist from where the shirt had ridden up. Cass was still tipsy and she knew Mat wouldn’t try anything, not like this, but God, it was nice just to feel close to him. After a few minutes he pulled back, brushing a piece of hair behind her ear that had fallen out of the loose messy bun she had thrown together. “What’s running through your head, babe?” He murmured.

Cass looked down, biting her lip. She was usually good with emotions, good with communication, but something about Mat made her heart skip a beat and brain go into overdrive all at once, and somehow she was convinced that it was the best feeling in the world. “I’m just really happy right now,” she breathed. “It’s Christmas, with our friends, and you...It’s everything I could want.”

Mat gave the softest smile. “You, with me, right now? That’s all I could want, Cass.”

Dec 22. (wed)

Cass zipped her suitcase shut, double-checking that she had everything she’d need for her two weeks in Connecticut. It wasn’t a big deal if she forgot something, there was probably some stuff left in her old dresser, and her little sister Eliana was about the same size. Mat had just texted that he was almost there. Cass grabbed her backpack and suitcase, stopping for a moment to pop out the final few chocolates on the Advent calendar her mom had sent down. She closed her bedroom door, wishing a harried goodbye to Ryanne and Stella, and ambled down the stairs as fast as her bags would allow her. She didn’t want Mat to have to double-park and risk getting a ticket.

True to his word, Mat was just pulling up when she came out of the building, waving one hand and double-checking the street was clear before flipping his hazards on and hopping out to help her put her bags in the trunk. Kissing him on the cheek in thanks, Cass slid into the passenger’s side, giving Mat a very pointed look when she saw that the first song on his playlist was Justin Bieber. “Don’t make fun of me,” he mumbled, blushing.

“Who said I’m making fun of you?” Cass said lightly, trying and failing to hide her smile.

They had decided that Mat would make the drive, since he was only staying two nights they had figured it would make more sense. The directions had been plugged into the Bluetooth system, and they had just made it out of the city when Mat looked over at the passenger’s seat, furrowing his brow when he saw Cass’s expression. Something was bothering her. “What’s up, babe?”

She bit her lip. “Nothing.”

“C’mon, we both decided we weren’t going to do this anymore. You don’t have to tell me if you really don’t want to, but I think you want to talk.”

Cass looked down at her lap. “I got a letter from the company that’s handling my student loans.”

“I thought you didn’t have any debt?” Mat asked quizzically.

She let out a single, humorless laugh. “That was for undergrad, and that was only because I was really, really lucky. I got some money from the school and I worked some, but that only covered about half of my costs? A little less?”

“Which leaves you with how much?”

“A hundred and ten thousand dollars, give or take. They were sending me the payment schedule, I have to start paying it back late next year.”

Mat breathed out. He knew that Cass didn’t come from money, but being from Canada and not having gone to college himself, he wasn’t really aware of just how debilitating student debt could get. “Do your parents know?” He asked gently.

Cass picked at a loose thread on her scarf. “Yeah. They helped as much as they could, but there’s three of us and they’re not made of money. “I, uh,” she paused briefly, “I told you I went to private school, yeah?” Mat nodded. “Catholic school doesn’t come cheap, so I was actually on work-study at my high school, which helped a lot. But I hated it.”

“Your school?” He questioned.

She shook her head. “No, I loved my school. It was great. I just hated feeling like a charity case. My school’s in a pretty well-off neighborhood, so most of the families there had money, and some were like proper ‘old money’ New Englanders. I had some great friends and nobody ever really outwardly was an ass about it if they knew, but still…” She trailed off.

“You felt like you never quite fit in.” Mat finished.

She nodded. “It was hard and it sucked sometimes, but that’s just how it is, I guess,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.

Two hours later, Mat pulled into Manchester, following Cass’s directions down the winding roads and corners of her hometown. “Do you think they’ll like me?” He asked nervously, eyes flitting between Cass and the road in front of him.

Her brow furrowed. “Who? My family?” Mat nodded. “My family’s going to love you. You’re kind and you treat me with respect. That’s all they’ve ever wanted for me. And my brother already worships the ground you walk on, practically,” she added with a smile.

“He’s a junior, yeah?”

“Mhm,” she responded. Cass’s younger brother Noah was a junior in high school, and one of the best players on his club hockey team. Hockey didn’t run cheap and he had been lifeguarding the past few summers to pay for it, but it was all starting to pay off and he was having some interest shown by college scouts.

Mat pulled up beside the curb in front of her house, killing the engine and shoving the keys back into his pocket. Cass popped the trunk and took her backpack, while Mat got his duffel and her suitcase. She reached for his hand as they walked up the driveway, giving it a reassuring squeeze as she rang the doorbell.

“Cass!” Eliana squealed, hugging as much of her sister as she could manage around the bags. “Put your bags by the door, Dad’s grilling out back and I think Mom’s making your bed.” Mat had had an afternoon game and the two had left not long after, so it was dinnertime and Cass was ravenous. “Grilling in December?” She questioned.

Eliana shrugged, closing the door behind them. “You know Patrick, you go be the one to tell the man he can’t make burgers in the winter.” She turned to Mat, also greeting him with a hug. “You must be Mat, Cass talks about you a lot.”

Cass swatted her. “El!”

Mat chuckled. “Yeah. Mat Barzal, nice to meet you. Good things, I hope?”

“Only the best,” Eliana said, leading them through to the back porch, where her dad was grilling on the patio while Noah was doing sprints up and down the lawn. He almost fell when he spotted Cass and Mat, causing Mat to have to hide a laugh behind his hand. Her dad turned around, setting the spatula down when he saw them. Mat swallowed, sticking out his hand for a shake. “Mat Barzal, sir.”

“Call me Patrick. Good to meet you Mat, go get settled and we should have dinner ready in a few, okay?” Mat nodded. “Noah, pick your jaw up off the floor and go help them with their things, okay?” Noah ducked his head, brushing the dirt off his shorts before jogging over to where Mat and his sisters were on the porch.

“Do I hear my Cassidy?” Cass could hear her mom inside, walking down the hallway with Noah and Mat before she ran into her by her old bedroom. “It’s me, Mom!” Cass said excitedly, hugging her mom. Mat initially went for another handshake, but she shooed it away, embracing him. “We’re huggers in this family,” she said by way of explanation, pulling away after a moment. “Ysabel Cabrera, so nice to finally meet you, Mat.”

Mat smiled. “It’s great to finally meet you too.”

Ysabel pointed down the hall. “Noah’s got bunk beds, so you’ll be with him in there, it’s the last door on the left. Cass, I trust you still can find your room.”

“Yes, mamá,” Cass said, rolling her eyes. “See you in a few, chou.” He kissed her on the cheek, under the watchful eye of her mom, and followed Noah down the hall.

---

Two hour later, Mat and Cass were cuddled together on the living room couch, his arm slung around her as they half-watched reruns of Parks & Rec. “D’you just want to do presents now?” He asked, looking down at her. “Because I know we’ve got plans tomorrow, and I don’t see how it really matters if we’re not going to be together Christmas Day.”

Cass looked up. “Uh, sure, if you want?”

“Meet you back in a minute,” Mat said, hopping off of the couch and disappearing down the hall. Cass rolled her eyes, walking into her room, grabbing the envelope, and returning to the living room. Mat got up when she entered, proudly handing her a surprisingly well-wrapped present.

“You look very pleased with your work,” Cass noted, laughing.

“I watched a Youtube tutorial,” Mat admitted, “but did you know that there’s so much that goes into folding neat corners? It’s practically an art!”

“I’ll take you word for it,” Cass said, handing him his envelope. “Open yours first.”

Mat sat back down, running his thumb through the flap and pulling out a coupon. He looked at it quizzically for a minute. “Beer delivery?”

“Craft beer delivery,” Cass corrected pointedly. “Because I don’t want you to have to resort to Natty Light ever again. I saw your fridge, it’s actually the worst. You need taste, babe.” Mat snorted. “And they deliver to Canada, so you don’t have to worry about missing out on the offseason.”

“I love it, pretty girl,” Mat said, kissing her. “Now open yours.” Cass carefully popped the corners open, unfolding the wrapping paper. My Beloved World - Sonia Sotomayor. “You said once that you really admire her, and I didn’t see it on your bookshelf, so I thought you’d like it.”

“I do, I love it. I love that you remembered even more,” Cass added.

But Mat wasn’t done. “Open it,” he said expectantly.

Confused though she was, Cass opened the cover of the book. “It’s...signed? She said softly, reverently tracing her fingers over the inscription.

“Yeah.” Mat went on, explaining, “I found it in this little bookstore in Brooklyn, and knew I had to get it for you. Knew what it would mean to you.”

“It’s incredible. You’re incredible. I can’t believe you’d do something like that for me.”

Their foreheads touched. “Why wouldn’t I?” Mat whispered. “It’s for you.”

And in that moment, there was nothing anyone could do to take away how happy that made her feel. How happy he made her feel.

#hockey imagine #hockey writing #nhl imagine #mat barzal imagine #hockey smut #mat barzal #nhl smut #nhl writing #nhl imagines #nhl fluff #hockey imagines #hockey fluff #islanders imagines #islanders writing #new york islanders #islanders

45 notes · View notes

jaypelt · 4 years ago

Text

Cheers for Five Years of Undertale, and its Everlasting Effect on Me

Been a while since I’ve done one of these... I might even be rusty at it! Honestly, what I’ve got right now are more vague thoughts than coherent words in my head. I wasn’t sure if I’d even do this, since I felt it wasn’t entirely necessary. Everybody had so much to say! But spurned on by the display of someone very close to me, the cogs in my head couldn’t help but start turning for me too. So here I am. This isn’t going to be easy, though. Because if you read this, I need you to understand the depth of my feelings. Even if just a little. So I’ll do my best to bare my heart yet again, for the sake of it and everything its done for me. Everything it’ll keep doing for me.

The beginning is usually always one of the hardest parts. A blank space devoid of anything, that you’ve got to somehow miraculously fill with thoughts somebody else could understand. But Undertale is rarely a subject I ever have to struggle so much with. It’s been a long, long five years.

This is re-treading old ground that a number of those who know me are already familiar with, however, I don’t think this would be complete without it. But it will get very, VERY personal. If you’re not comfortable with that, then uh... giving you another warning now. But pushing forward...

Right before UT came out, I hadn’t begun to really unravel quite yet. But I was very close. It was somewhat of a rough transitional period as I moved on from my middle school to high, losing very dear IRL friends and generally continuing to struggle with school, as I had been for years. Untreated ADHD is real nasty. But I’d always had at least some friends, either online, or ones I made throughout the year, to rely on. And I didn’t really think about things. The start of this school year was no different. Even having a... perhaps questionable choice of boyfriend, but, well, he was my first.

I struggled with just about every aspect of school from basically the start, but having a small group, and especially an online partner to come home to everyday, helped me at least get through. In the coming months, however, I’d start to encounter more turbulence. Through aforementioned partner, I met someone who’d come to rely on me far more than he should have. Made even worse by the fact that he was a full grown adult while I was only 14, which will be a recurring trend. And has been for most of my life.

We hit it off pretty quickly, becoming good friends and talking to each other outside of mutual friend spaces. And through that, he started to open up about his problems. Living with a family that treated him poorly, suicidal urges, and particularly, an abusive boyfriend. If you know me well, I’ve probably definitely talked about this at least a little.

My daily routine starting becoming supporting this person through all of his troubles. Sitting in skype calls or exchanging messages for hours at a time on the daily. Rarely did a day go by where I didn’t, slowly sinking into an apathetic pit from overextending myself for the sake of his mental health. I couldn’t even help him improve, all I could do was just try to keep him alive. Which, well, I did. For months.

Everything else fell to the wayside as I was constantly stressed about the life of someone I cared about. Obviously my school life suffered even further. I grew withdrawn from everyone, and kept only to the few online friends I had. However, in the midst of this downward spiral, just before the ball really got rolling, a certain game came out. Exactly a month after it had come out, October 15th, 2015, I’d become interested after all the talk on tumblr about Undertale.

After watching a playthrough on youtube(I didn’t play for myself at first, a pity), It’d personally resonated so strongly and gotten me so hooked that it was something I invested a fair amount of my time into consuming content about. I grew super attached to all these characters that’d made me laugh, smile, cry... just this whole spectrum of emotions. And someone in particular, Alphys, really caught my attention after things had begun to get worse.

She felt so... relatable, though I couldn’t possibly tell you all the reasons. When I think about it, we’re not really the most similar, but something about her just hooked me. Maybe because she had all these things going on that nobody knew about. And that she lied. And felt so anxious interacting with anyone after she’d previously been much warmer and closer. That she was closer to “disappearing” than she seemed.

Whatever the reasons, the months moving further along, consuming content about UT practically became my lifeline. I reblogged heaps and heaps of posts about it, watched videos, listened to the soundtrack, even started drawing because I’d been so inspired. When I was just stuck in this horrible pit of second-hand depression, it was the one thing that still made me happy. I started to really think about why it mattered to me and how. It’s funny, I’d read books obsessively for years before then, but UT was the thing that really got me thinking. It was all downhill from there, I tell you. Now I’m an artist and a writer. Horrific.

But, unfortunately, for all its good... it couldn’t stop what was to come. I was still getting worse and worse, with no end in sight. I’d already been supporting... let’s call him Phil, for a few months. And in December of that year, my boyfriend completely dropped off the grid for a while. I’d see him appear online sometimes and I’d message him, but no response, then right back to offline. Finally, he came back, approaching me with something he obviously was uncomfortable about.

To make a long story short, he’d come to the conclusion that he was straight, and decided to end the relationship. What’s bad is that... honestly? I was already doing so poorly that I had a hard time caring. But we did pretty much stop talking, and I leaned into Undertale all the more. Anyway, time continued to pass. Not without its few ups, and mostly downs. I got used to being called “mature”, usually followed by “especially for your age.” “Phil” told me that if I were legal, he’d date me. I’ve got a crippling fear of screwing up with people that’s stuck with me to this day, after a few occasions involving him. I considered doing some... not so great things to myself. Thankfully, I was always so averse to physical pain that it didn’t become anything extreme.

As for the few ups, there was “Phil” finally managing to leave his abusive relationship, when he’d tried previously and fallen into such a bad depressive episode I had to talk him down. So that was something. He’d even started going to therapy after the second break up.

Not that it did a whole lot. The school year began approaching its end and nothing had really changed. I’d been going through all the same motions for around half a year or more. My sleep was terrible, I was passing almost none of my classes, had practically no friends to speak of, and just felt... tired. All the time. But during this... the minute beginning of a monumental shift started. Another character in UT had begun to clutch me in his grasp. Even more strongly than Alphys. Flowey. Through the posts a singular person on tumblr had made about him and my experience with the geno run, I came to understand the dumb little flower more. Which is also funny, because he was previously my least favorite. Even, yes, after the Asriel reveal.

I’m having a difficult time weaving together this convoluted timeline of events, but it was around... perhaps March or early April that the person whom I’d been supporting for almost a full fucking year completely disappeared. Without a word. The one thing I’d tried to stick to for so long was just. Gone. So I drifted about with, well, no purpose.

By the end of the school year, it probably goes without saying that I was... not doing great. But one those aforementioned acquaintances I’d only just started to become actual friends with came forth to me with a question. That being if there was some way for us to keep contact during the summer. So I gave her my email, which would turn out to be a decision that saved my life. Because things would only get worse before they got better.

This is getting to be way, way, way too long. So to summarize, summertime came around and I’d been in pretty close contact with... I’ll just call her V. She was... well, unlike anyone I’d ever known. Someone who stood out with the intelligence you could just see in their eyes. Outgoing, charismatic, compassionate... all those sorts of things. We were opposites in a lot of ways. Or, at least, it felt like it.

Some things happened, like “Phil” coming back after months of nothing. Me immediately slotting back into my role of being a pillar of support, but then screwing up and hating myself for it. But honestly, that ain’t shit to the rest of the whole shitshow.

For a bit of context, my parents are divorced. So for most of the previous years, I’d been going to my mom’s place during the summer and staying with her the whole time, to make up for how rarely we’d see each other otherwise. That year... she was beginning to run low on money. She lived next to my granny, but still basically alone, compared to how she’d been staying with someone else in hotels for the few prior years.

After learning she didn’t have enough to pay rent and might be kicked out, she tried to appeal to her mom, who said she wouldn’t let her stay. Why? I don’t know. After that, she spiraled into a panic. And, well, the ever faithful little worker bee, I stepped forward to try and console her in any way I could. She seemed to recompose, at least a little. It wasn’t great, and she thought she’d have to do some unsavory things in order to survive, but... I thought that, just maybe, I’d done something.

But... later that night, she started drinking. Which... well, put her in a mood. Exacerbated by the day’s earlier events and the fact that she was taking medication that responded poorly to alcohol. She came over to where I was sitting, my little makeshift desk I’d put together to set up my desktop, with my little sister just in the other room. Just... a warning for this next part, it’s... grim. More grim than anything else in this thread.

She proceeded to tell me she was going to go upstairs and grab the gun my granny kept in her room. And berated me for thinking I’d done anything to help, saying she “wasn’t like my little friends” that I could simply talk to. With that, she walked away, heading upstairs. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so crushed in my entire life, to this day. I broke down crying, sitting in that chair.

Yet, somehow, I managed to stop when I saw her coming back down. She walked back over, pointed the gun at her head, and told me to give her a reason she shouldn’t do it. And also to this day, I.... still don’t know if I said what was right. It was all I could think of. I quietly told her that if she did it, I’d pick that gun up and do it to myself. Same as her. And I asked if she wanted to be responsible for that.

It was true, too. By that point, I didn’t care anymore.

And if there’s one thing I can say about her, it’s that she’s always cared about me. In a horrible, twisted way especially, that night. It was enough to make her silently pull the gun down, go back upstairs, and put it away. One last time... she came down, walked past me to the front door and simply said “I love you.” before going out to sit on the porch.

I’m not sure I’ll ever truly get over the events of that night. I spoke to V afterwards, as I’d been keeping in regular contact, as I said. And even been speaking to her throughout the day about what was happening. I think she was panicking just as much as I had been, and told me to go find the gun and unload it. So I did. Bawling my eyes out the whole damn time. Afterwards, I took the bullets and threw them in the large neighborhood garbage can.

The rest of the night’s a blur. I don’t recall if anything else happened, I just remember waking up tired the next day. My uncle was in the house, as he’d been staying with my granny for a while, but hadn’t been around the night before. I tried to talk to him, but.. couldn’t bring myself to open up. Even though we were pretty close. I went back to my dad’s.

That wasn’t the end of it, either. For the next coming months, I’d get drunken calls and live in fear of being put right back in the same situation. It got so bad that I stopped answering my phone altogether. I broke contact with my mom entirely. I still hate answering or making calls.

Anyway, a few other things happened in the summer, like my applying for online courses. And the subsequent ridicule from my dad’s side of the family for the decision. Tell you what, the stress of taking a test to try and join that online program, then going to golden corral and having to struggle to not cry in front of everyone there was... not the ideal way to spend a birthday. Happy 15 years to me.

So.... that was that. I still went through with online courses and everything kind of... slowed to a crawl. I tried to do school work, but depression and still yet untreated ADHD prevented me from making any substantial progress beyond a few finished classes. For a while I simply... existed in a limbo. All I did was get up, get on my computer, maybe talk to a few people, and play Overwatch. Maybe look at tumblr, as I remained into Undertale. V and I lost contact after school started back up. I never blamed her for it. In fact, I preferred it that way. She didn’t deserve to have such a burden placed on her, and I still... feel guilty for leaning on her so much.

But I’m very thankful. I hope she’s out there living a good life, wherever she is.

And this! Is where we finally get to the not depressing parts! And only... what, 29 paragraphs in? Sheesh... I know I wanted to really illustrate just how shit things were to demonstrate just how much UT did for me, but this is taking it a bit far, isn’t it? Ah well... already made it this far. In for a penny, in for a pound. If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! I’m sorry. Truly. And I love you so very dearly.

Time went by and I kept doing my thing. Playing Overwatch(a practically self-destructive behavior deserving a therapy, frankly), talking to the few friends I had that I kept at an arm’s length, that sort of stuff. “Phil” and I no longer talked, thank goodness. Obviously I was depressed as all hell, not bothering to shower, eat, clean up, or do laundry for days on end. I spent more time asleep than I did awake, on most days. Did I say this was where the not depressing part was? I may have lied a little.

Blah blah “more months go by”, you know the drill. Until... I believe, November of 2016. After cementing my love of Flowey ever deeper, I’d started to follow more blogs putting out content for him on tumblr. In particular, the most important ones being I’lltrytobegood, Flowey-Answers, and later happyflowey and Corruptedflora.

It all started with a stream. I joined an art stream of LLA(Lovelyladyartist) on picarto as he worked on ITTBG. I kept quiet for the first few streams I joined, being too anxious to really out myself in any capacity. But little by little, I was coerced out of my shell. Particularly by one SilverKhaos, who I think at the time went by SilverSlayer or something. Anyway, he got me talking. And through that, I started making friends, bit by bit.

Also through the stream, I was introduced to CC(CuteCatDoodles) of Flowey-Answers. I obsessively read through the entire blog in a single sitting, just... having such a good time with it. And... strangely enough, it... got me feeling oddly better. Like I’d finally started to breath after not being able to for what felt like such a long time. If just a little. The next day, I got out of bed early, cleaned up, took out some garbage, and made breakfast. Just a simple plate of scrambled eggs. A simple, easy morning for most any average person. But for me? It was one of the most special mornings I’ve ever had.

Likewise, I did the same with Ding’s happyflowey, of reading through all of it in a single night. My head hurt like a motherfucker, but I tell you, it was worth it. The effect perhaps not as profound, but still very meaningful to me, as well as sowing the seeds of yet more relationships to form. If far off in the future, as far as this timeline is concerned. I still adore all of those dumb, charming little flowers so much. Mania would come to inspire my first ever OC, in fact. Thinking about that blog makes me miss when the UT fandom was more active here, even though I never participated in the fandom at large. But I’m grateful for the memories and incredible amounts of enjoyment getting to read it all brought me. I have way too many cropped images of Hysteria.

I wasn’t immediately better, but it was all the start of something new. I kept up with the streams, also joining in for CC’s. For hours upon hours a day, I’d just hop into them and spend the day talking away. I had something to really look forward upon waking up, starting to adjust my schedule so that I at least didn’t miss TOO much. I was able to really make friends, it felt like. Even though I wasn’t and still am not the most socially adept.

And as luck would have it, because picarto chat was and probably still is pretty unstable to this day, it just happened to go down and that led to... the creation of the discord server! It started off small, but steadily got more and more joiners from the growing population of the streams. LovelyLadyArtist, CuteCatDoodles, BrySkye, Flowers-Without-Pots, SilverSlayer, KRS, Donut, Mr.Quarter, Dragoler, Stilla, Chara, RotmModdy, Rowdy, Dunal, and probably at least a few others I’m forgetting... all names I encountered there and most of which I still see daily.

Through that server, we started keeping up even when there wasn’t any stream going on. Just goofing off and having a good ‘ol time. Already I was... well, doing a helluva lot better than I had before. All because of the gathering of a small community surrounding this indie gem. And even further centered in a niche specifically about Flowey! Who, and I’d forgotten to mention this before, I’d found a surprising amount to relate in. He’d become a big, BIG hyperfocus. Which is why I’d met everyone at all. Truly, it’s crazy to think how possible it is for me to have never come down this path.

From there on, I continued to meet new people, established new relationships. I even got invited to an RP server, creatively named “Flower RP” :p. At first I was hesitant, perhaps not even initially 100% interested. But as people really got into it, I felt an incredibly strong Fear of Missing Out. Leading to the creation of a character still near and dear to my heart.... Zorch. The result of contributions from many friends, from design ideas, to character concepts, and even his name(thanks for that, Rowdy). And... I began to write. It wasn’t great at first. very short form, and I didn’t know how to approach the roleplaying mindset, or even how to properly characterize him.

But over time... I got better. I became more confident. I really got into the nitty-gritty of character writing and discussion. I joined in on hours long discussions about the characters, lore, and narrative of Undertale. I’d wake up just to be there as soon as chat began to move, all the way to the point where everyone was finally asleep. I started to be able to help people again. For months, participating in this RP, in this chat, in this community was what I lived for. The joy that I felt in being among friends all working towards and talking about a common goal and interest is, well, honestly still somewhat unrivaled.

Paci, Pots, Neue, Castor, Silver, Nightmare, Rowdy. Me. All of us joined together in mutual love for a game, spurred on to feverishly create our own content about it. I kept up for months on end, living by the mostly same routine for probably the longest I’ve ever stuck to anything. Eventually... things happened and the server’s gone quiet. We had problems with management, people feeling excluded, targeted, etc etc. It was a very... consequence heavy RP, most of us were almost complete newbies to the roleplaying game, and many came to care rather deeply about the ongoings of it. Perhaps too much. But, well... I’m not sure it could have been prevented.

Sometimes, I still wish I could go back to that point of my life. I know someone else who does too. Even more than me. But I know not to try and emulate the past, as alluring as it may seem. So I push forward. Leading to yet another server with its own events. Clement, myself, Rowdy, Zielo, Neue, Moddy, Vee, Mini, Nappy, Tia, Silver. Some familiar names, some new. All still with the foundation of Undertale, but it quickly became a thing for us to just... chill and talk about anything. There was real love in that place. It was at this time that I even started going to therapy! After some struggling with the family. It helped a lot.

In time, that server, too, went under. For reasons that have long since been buried and forgiven. It no longer exists, after being deleted entirely, but I’ll always remember it. And we did eventually all(mostly) gather back together someplace new, which is still being talked in. Even gaining some new additions recently! If any of you guys are catching this one, I love you!

And we come to the final and most recent group. One I wasn’t actually a founding member of, instead being a late joiner. Comparatively smaller than all the ones before, but filled with just as much love. Pip, Ding, Kink, and Cola. Remember when I mentioned happyflowey sowing seeds, and then didn’t even expound in further detail about corruptedflora? Well congratulations, you’ve reached the payoff.

It all started after I began interacting with the mun of CF, Kinko, and became mutuals with them. We usually just spam reblogged from each other on occasion for a while. That is, until I got messaged, then sent a friend request through Discord. Which, even still, didn’t immediately go anywhere. But eventually... some things led to another, and we joined up in a particular server. Not one I’ll be naming, but times were... turbulent in there. It went under and we lost contact a bit after that.

That is, until completely out of the blue, I just get invited to a server with them and some pals to just join in on Roblox shenanigans. Imagine me, sweating and anxious as hell after getting asked to join a server with two people behind blogs I adore, considering Ding was there too. Cardiac arrest, I tell you. And obviously more than just them too! But the night turned out to be so fun that I forgot I’d ever been so anxious in the first place.

From there on... the rest was history. There’s been many, MANY ups and downs, but I’ve found yet more people I love very, very dearly. And they’ve gotten me to open up about the way I feel the most. In the past years, I could never tell someone I loved them, no matter how much I really wanted to. The words just couldn’t come out, but they... they brought that out in me. And now I can say it whenever I want! Like now! I love you guys!!! So much!!!! And not just you all, but everyone else too!!! And much love to Kink especially for being a driving force behind me making this, as well as just being a goddamn star.

So... as a final ovation... LLA, CC, Bry, Drago/Paci, Pots, Silver, Donut, Quarter, Stilla, Chara, Moddy, Rowdy, Neue, Castor/Skater, Tia/Nightmare, Clement, Zielo, Vee, Nappy, Ding, Pip, Cola, and Kink. As well as some stragglers like Log, Ingrid, and Jai. I’m probably still forgetting some... but thank you all for being my friends. It’s been a long, long five years. And yet, many of you are still in my life. In at least some form. There aren’t words enough to express my gratitude towards every single one of you for the most incredible years of my life and pulling me from what can be called nothing less than the fucking abyss. You all made and continue to make life worth living.

And thank you, Undertale. The game behind all of these relationships. The game that inspired such strong feelings in me when nothing else could. That made me into an artist and writer. The reason I’m still alive. The game that changed my fucking life and will continue to affect me, I believe, for the duration of it. I really cannot overstate just how important you were and still are. There’ll never be anything else like you.

#this is probably littered with mistakes and things that didn't need to be there #Like the sheer amount of context provided for how poorly I was doing #But too late to change things now!#My brain hurts too much to bother proofreading #So take this raw and unfiltered thing and do what you will with it #Or don't #It's a rough read #Don't push yourself through it if you can't #Or simply don't want to #long post

3 notes · View notes

thirsty-x1 · 5 years ago

Note

a lot of people in twtr are closing/resting, how bout you? are you gonna leave us too?

No. I've been thinking about it, and I don't want to.

In a certain way, I've been contemplating this outcome for the last past few weeks since I'm quite a pessimist, but still had a tiny bit of hope.

It hurts me, saddens me and makes me feel incredibly annoyed and frustrated, but if I'm honest, I want to go on.

Sad story time: writing has always been my outlet for everything since I was young. As I grew up, I got discouraged from it. When I was 12, I got depression. Not weird considering the things that were happening at the time, but it sill lingered. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. I pushed writing aside, since I felt like everything I did was terrible and there was no use in trying.

In September, 2019 a friend of mine introduced me into X1. I was like "ah yes, nice nice" but later I started investigating. I used to be an uniq stan back in 2015 but as I lost contact with them, I kind of drifted off to other groups. I tend to listen to soloists without really knowing who they are and in 2018 I heard Woodz. I fell in love with his music but still wouldn't really look much into it. Rambling through X1 profiles I found out Seungyoun "also known as Woodz". Oh? Oh???? I went bat shit crazy.

I started watching produce and stanning them immediately. Biased and not really a nice, cute typical story but it is how it is. As I watched them and their content, I fell in love a little more with them. Now you see, I stan many groups because I lose interest easily so I go hopping from one to another. Last group that I ulted was iKON in 2016, so imagine my surprise when I felt way too many emotions for X1.

Somehow, I started considering writing. Just for them, because they inspired me. Because they had awaken something. I tried many times to start a blog, delete it, open again, delete it, post and regret so delete again. Still, I felt happy when writing, so I decided to swallow up my fears and continue. I opened a blog, I posted I waited. I posted again and waited. I posted again and waited. Little by little, people started to come, to give a like, sometimes reblog, others comment and even requesting. I felt validated, I thought for the first time that maybe I wasn't that bad, that I should keep trying.

I'm still 20, this blog is barely two months old, I still have mental health problems but everything is so much better. So, so much better. I found something I enjoy doing, that makes me happy, and when you spend ten years wondering why nothing fills you up and everything feels meaningless, it's a big deal.

I don't want this feeling to stop. I don't want to stop supporting them, or to go. This is my own personal story and experience with them and I choose to keep doing it. For now, at least. I don't know what I might feel in a few months, so I can't promise anything, really, but I want to try and go on. For them and for myself, honestly. I want to do it for me too.

Now!!! This is just me!!!!! I'm not discrediting anyone who wants to take a break, or leave, or simply can't continue. Everyone has their own pace and their own way to deal with things. To content creators: don't push yourself. Anything you choose is good. Mental health first, please.

God this is dramatic as fuck, I could have just answered "nah, imma keep going" but wanted to give them credit for awakening my passion again.

I might take a few days but I really want to keep this blog, keep interacting with you and support each other. I don't know. A half-written Seungwoo one-shot is waiting for me but I don't know if I'll finish it today.

Anyway, I'll keep writing and keep supporting the members even if they are not X1 anymore.

#nani #why so dramatic #my leo ass really #nani's opinion

38 notes · View notes

skvaderarts · 5 years ago

Text

Soliloquy Chapter Seven: Abscond

You can check out the Masterlist Here for more links to places to read!

Chapter Seven: Abscond

Note: I just wanted to start by saying that chapter six was an absolute nightmare to write, but I had a great time doing it nonetheless. I’ve spent a few months trying to get myself to write this fic, and that resurrection scene was basically the whole reason. Trying to figure out a way to do that and make it make sense, fit into the existing confines of the series, and be coherent and enjoyable to read made for quite the crippling challenge, so I am thrilled by the reception that that chapter received! I remain humbled by your kind comments and warm words of encouragement! Thank you to every single person who commented, reblogged, gave kudos, and sent me messages about the story. I’d name you all, but in addition to everyone who has ever left me feedback on the previous chapters, almost 200 new people read the last chapter, so I can’t list you all by name. However, I can say thank you. Thank you all so much!

-~-

The overcast that had loomed overhead as they had entered the building was now more prevalent than ever. Be it a result of their current actions, some form of an ominous omen, or simply impeccably timed weather, it alluded to a coming storm of epic proportions. Huge dark clouds that would cause any right-minded pedestrian to check the current time of day spread across the sky in a vast network, chilling the air and absorbing all forms of light. The once gentle breeze was now a harsh wind, hammering against every surface it came across. It had been a glooming day from the very moment that the sun had come up that morning, but this was really kicking things into high gear.

As Magnolia collected what remained of the sparse materials she had brought with her to conduct the ritual, Nero oversaw V’s condition. The newly resurrected young man seemed to be semi-continuous, having still not opened his eyes since being brought back to the realm of the living, but able to react to physical stimuli. While it made sense to Nero on some level that he would not be fully operational out the gate (since he had never really been in the time he had known him) he still found himself unable to shake the feeling of uncertainty that had lodged itself deep into his subconscious.

He was worried about V.

Now that was something he never imagined he’d experience again...

As Dante and Vergil combed the space per Magnolia’s request to make sure there were no overt signs of demonic activity still present in the building, the youngest Descendant of Sparda went over a vague mental checklist in his mind. On the top of that list was the obvious question of where the hell V was going to go for the time being. While the Devil May Cry office was an obvious choice, there was the issue of Vergil’s undeniably recent return to contend with. Nero didn’t even need to ask if Dante knew where Vergil was staying at his office right now. They hadn’t been home long enough to see to that. For all the young white-haired man knew, his father had evolved to no longer require sleep during his time in the underworld. But V was going to be a different story. He just knew it. He had always been a different story; an exception to every rule.

“Hey, Magnolia,” Nero called to the alchemist as she packed up the last of her supplies,” Should I be worried that he looks like he’s in a coma or something?”

The woman in question shook her head as she closed the buckle clasps on her carrying case. “Being in a coma is no laughing matter, little one. Relatively speaking, it’s about as close to passing into Purgatorio as one can possibly get without actually being deceased.”

Nero chuckled to himself, nodding with an amused look on his face. “You don’t have to tell me that. I spent some time that way myself a little while back. Woke up one night to this one,” Nero said as he gestured towards V,” sitting in my window reading a book ready to offer me a job like I wasn’t already half-dead already or something. That’s how we met.”

Magnolia didn’t know what to say to that. While one part of her wanted to know what the hell had happened to him that ended with him comatose in the first place, her mind couldn’t help but find humor in the mental image of a person contracting someone to fight the envoys of the Underworld in their sickbed after seemingly breaking into their home. She decided that she would ask for more details when all parties involved were capable of speaking. “Well, if that’s the case, I’m glad to see that you're faring so well, dear. Hopefully, there will be fewer close calls in your future.”

Nero wasn’t entirely sure if she was being sarcastic or if the Alchemist was genuinely happy for his good health. She just had one of those voices, and the accent wasn’t helping in the slightest. “Thanks, I guess. Anyway, does bringing someone back from the afterlife or whatever come with a manual, because I feel like there’s something I’m missing in all of this.”

It was her turn to laugh now. She pulled the rolling case into an upright position and headed towards the front entrance, presumably heading to the van or some other form of transportation. After all, it was unlikely that she had walked here carrying all of these supplies from nearly twenty miles away up a gradual slope. Nero carefully lifted V bridal style and followed her. Somehow he weighed even less than he had originally estimated, if that was at all possible. Maybe after he had clothing on, his body weight would be more substantial.

As cold as it was starting to get both inside and outside of the building, leaving him laying on bare concrete in -well, nothing- was probably a bad idea. As he followed her, she stopped, snickering to herself at the situation at hand, and decided to answer his question. “He should be more or less fine now. The hard part was relocating his soul to another plane of existence,” She spoke calmly, in a manner reminiscent of a professor giving a lecture,” The poor thing is going to be whether weak for a while though. Any inborn gifts he possessed prior to all this nonsense will trickle back in gradually, though in the meantime he will be effectively human. No passive regeneration, sixth sense, or anything like that for at least a week or so. I’m no doctor, but I’m going to take the initiative here and recommend bed rest. Extensively. What he just endured is taxing on the mind and body in every way conceivable, even for someone young and in good health. Don’t be surprised if he experiences dizzy spells or fainting. Proper nutrition is helpful, but this could still take a while.”

Nero nodded to himself as he took in the information she had just given him. Nothing seemed unreasonable, but it did clarify one thing for him. He needed to talk to Dante and Vergil. He chuckled to himself as he followed Magnolia, garnering a curious glance from her as they exited the building. “I fail to see the humor in this.”

In response to her statement, Nero smirked knowingly. “It’s not funny, it’s ironic,” He said. Her blank repose signaled that he needed to elaborate.” What I mean is you said he might faint and that for someone “in good health” this could be a lot to go to, right?”

She nodded, barely noticing the transition between the indoor and outdoor lighting as they exited the building and stepped out into the parking lot. “Yes. I said that. Why?”

Nero approached the van, using his foot to knock on the side door and signal Nico to open it. “Well, it’s ironic because he’s not “in good health” to start with. He’s walked with a cane the entire time I’ve known him and he’s constantly coughing or tripping over himself. Not to be an asshole or anything, but if I’m magnetically attracted to stairs, then he’s magnetically attracted to the ground ’cause that’s where he spends a lot of his free time.”

Magnolia blinked, her wide eyes filled with a sudden understanding and sympathy that she made no effort of hiding. Suddenly, what little desire she held to know how the young man before her had met his end fled her. It was unusual for someone his age to walk with a cane, especially one with a measurable amount of demon blood coursing through his veins. When he was more stable, she would need to take the time to try and consult with him. Perhaps there was something she could do to help…

As Nico opened the van door, Dante and Vergil exited the building. They arrived just in time to watch Nico’s frankly astounding facial expression at the sight of the presumably deceased demon slayer. “Well fuck,” she said as she stepped back to give the onboarding party room,” Every time you get in this van Nero, some weird shit happens; I swear. How the hell did yall- you know what? I don’t even wanna know! Let’s get outta here. Where are we headed?”

Magnolia pointed across the parking lot to the side of the building. They couldn’t see what she was pointing at, but they could only assume that it was her means of transportation. “I just wanted to see you off. I need to get back to my shop. Come see me later. And call me if you need anything,” She glanced at the oldest Son of Sparda, her eyes narrowing harshly,” Except you, Vergil. Your allowed casual visits at most.”

With that, she handed a slip of folded paper to Nero before hurrying off across the parking lot. Nico snickered briefly before looking at her passengers. She still needed a destination. Nero glanced between the twins and his friend as he laid V down on the couch. The summoner coughed weakly, teasing the possibility of opening his eyes for a moment before exhaling and settling back into his previous state, only this time more asleep than awake. Nero watched him for a moment before nodding to himself, his resolve towards the decision he had been teetering back and forth on now absolute. “... I think me and Nico should take V back to Fortuna with us.”

Dante and Vergil did a double-take, seemingly more surprised at his sudden uptake in initiative than offended by the statement. Dante seemed to consider quietly the statement, while Vergil seemed more apprehensive.

“Why?” The eldest Son of Sparda said bluntly. He was clearly unconvinced.

Nero settled into a sitting position of the floor with his side against the couch, seemingly uninterested in heaving V’s proximity. Whether this was a conscious or subconscious decision or not remained to be seen, but he did so nonetheless. “Because there is a metric shit ton less demonic activity there than there is in Redgrave and Capulet and because I’m the only one here who isn’t going to get in an argument with my brother and literally destroy my own house. Magnolia said he needs bed rest and all that shit, and the only peaceful kinda peaceful place is my house. That, and your extra bedroom is taken, Dante,” Nero tilted his head in his father’s direction,” And I just happen to have an extra room at my place since someone decided to scare my kids back into one room!”

Vergil glanced away at the last statement, still unwilling to think about the mental damage he had probably inflicted upon those wide-eyed, chatty, orphans. “So you actually believe that three actual children can be that well behaved and we can't?”

Nero didn’t hesitate to nod in agreement. “Yea, because when I turn on the tv, they sit down and watch it. You can’t even turn a TV off without unplugging it, and your only means of communication with your own brother is stabbing each other to death. Plus, Dante’s doors get kicked in like every fucking week and he blasts loud ass music all the damn time. That’s literally the opposite or a restful environment!”

Dante shrugged incredulously. As much as he’d like to make some sort of witty comeback, Nero wasn’t exactly incorrect. Vergil closed his eyes as if he were deep in thought for a long moment as Nico tried not to laugh at this whole situation from the driver’s seat. Everyone in this family was a walking disaster and it was amazing that they had survived this long. After a minute that felt like a lifetime, Vergil sighed and leaned back against the window next to Dante who was now sitting down across from the couch and searching for a magazine to pretend to read to avoid this uncomfortable conversation. “... Do not disappoint me, Nero… I do not give my trust light.”

Dante interjected with a quick “no he really doesn’t” before continuing to reread his magazine for the millionth time. Vergil shot him a quick glare before returning his gaze to Nero. There was no humor present in his demeanor. Nero glanced between him and V before nodding slowly in agreement. “I’m not going to.”

-~-

It had taken almost every ounce of daylight to drop Dante and Vergil off and then head back to the pier. And their timing couldn’t have been better as the ferry was stopping with the next round trip. The possibility of a thunderstorm had halted most water traffic, and all water transport between the island and the mainland was due to cease immediately upon the vessel’s return. That left just enough time to sneak one last trip in.

As the ship was docking, Nero called Kyrie to alert her of their arrival and to inform her that they would have another houseguest for a while. As expected, she didn’t protest the idea. In fact, she seemed thrilled, though that could be because Nero hadn’t elaborated on the context of the stay or who was coming over. V and Kyrie had never met one another, despite the fact that V had come to their home once before. But it had been during the middle of the night and the young summoner had been in something of a hurry at the time. There had been no time for pleasantries back then. But that was about to change. Hopefully.

As they pulled up to the onboarding ramp, Nero gave Nico the closest thing he could to a serious look. Before he could ask her not to go flying off the ramp, she disembarked, taking the ramp for perhaps the first time ever. Nero was utterly flabbergasted. “Nico, what the fuck?!”

Nico put her cigarette out in the ashtray she had placed in one of the cup holders. “What is it this time? If I drive carefully, you bitch at me. If I don’t, you bitch at me. Are ya crazy or somethin’? If you think you can do better, then you drive next time and I’ll take a nap in the back with him!”

Nero stared at her incredulously as she pulled around the corner and headed towards their shared residence. Nico absolutely never under any circumstance drove like a normal human being. He wasn’t sure if knowing that she could do that made him feel relieved or upset. She could have just driven the van like this the entire time he had known her? What the absolute fuck?

“So ya gonna keep starin’ at me like that or what?” Nico asked casually. Nero was at a loss for words and it showed.

As the van pulled onto the street that they called home, Nero stood up and walked over to V. Despite the fact that he still hadn’t woken up, he now looked more asleep than unconscious. Or at least that was what Nero thought. When he had first been brought back, he looked distressed, uncomfortable even. Now he seemed more at ease. At the very least, his breathing had been steady and he hadn’t coughed in at least an hour. He seemed stable. Nero couldn’t help but wonder if he was just a very deep sleeper and had been taking a much-needed nap this entire time. He doubted it, but still. Now that he thought about it, this was the first time he had actually seen the summoner sleep. During their time together during the Redgrave city incident, they had taken the occasional break, but V had been so preoccupied with his book that he hadn’t even sat down, always choosing to lean against the stove in the van’s kitchenette instead. Vergil had the book now, perhaps using it as a bargaining tool for later. He wasn’t much of a talker, a fact that had bothered Nero when they had first met. Who would have ever guessed that they’d be in the situation that they were in now, Nero bringing him to stay at his place? Wild shit happened sometimes.

“It’s just good to know that you can actually drive. Though I still don’t understand how you ever got a license.” Nero said as they pulled into the back alley that led to their driveway. For once, the door was open. Kyrie must have let it up after their conversation on the phone earlier. Nico climbed out of her seat and headed over to the side door, opening it and then hoping down to hold it open for Nero.

“Yea, well I wasn’t tryin’ to knock him around too much. He already walks with a cane.” Nico said as she stepped back towards the rear of the van. With the large vehicle inside of the garage, space was at a premium, and carrying someone required more room than normal. Nero fixed his jacket around V and scooped him up, nearly bashing his legs against the kitchen cabinet as he turned. The youngest Descendant of Sparda cringed to himself. That was one thing the two of them seemed to have in common to some degree. They were both clumsy as hell.

Taking a few cues from his close call a moment prior, he descended the stairs carefully and headed towards the inside door. Nico closed the door behind him and squeezed past them, heading to open the door for them. She nearly walked right into Kyrie as she did so. The young red-haired woman was carrying a stack of cardboard boxes and Nico had nearly sent her crashing to the floor as the door caught her in the side. She set the boxes down on the bench behind her and stepped back out of the way, clearly startled.

“My bad Kyrie,” Nico said as she looked her over for injuries,” I couldn’t see you!”

Kyrie smiled brightly and gestured towards the boxes. “You’re just fine, Nico. The children and I were cleaning out the extra room. There wasn’t really much in there, so I was hoping I’d be done before you arrived. These were the last three boxes. All of this was going on the empty shelves in the garage-”

Nico eagerly grabbed the stack of boxes as Nero entered behind her. “Ok, I’ll take care of it for you,” the young dark-haired woman said as she stepped out behind Nero and out into the garage. Kyrie was going to inform her that she could take care of it herself, but Nico disappeared behind the closed door before she could. The young redhead shook her head and giggled to herself as she turned to face Nero. During her time here, she had truly come to enjoy Nico’s extreme personality. She was a joy to be around.

The moment she caught sight of the white-haired young man her domestic partner was carrying, she went wide-eyed, her head crooking to the side in surprise. Who in Sparda’s name was this newcomer? Nero shifted anxiously. Maybe it was better if he just spit it out and got it over with? “Hey so… this is V, the guy I told you about when I came back after everything,” He said cautiously, unsure of how she was taking all of this,” It turns out that being dead is more complicated than everybody thinks, so he’s alive again. And… he’s kinda my brother so…”

Kyrie stared at him blankly. That was a little too much for her to take in all at once. She glanced down at their sleeping guest, leaning over him to get a better look. That made sense. They did have the same color hair, even though his looked a little whiter than Neros did to her. She was totally taken aback at the implications of what Nero had just said. He’d come back from the dead? Nero had told her Vergil had done that at one point, so the idea wasn’t completely foreign to her, but Nero had a brother? In the entire time that she had known him, she would have never guessed that he had siblings. He had always been so… alone. After all, being an orphan made it very difficult to locate your original family. It made her wonder what Nero must be thinking about all of this. As startled as she was, it had to be several times worse for him.

She smiled softly and gestured towards the guest room. It was on the opposite side of the house from the dining room. Being the only room on this floor and having its own small ensuite bathroom, it had been the natural choice for a guest room. She patted Nero gently as he passed her before turning towards the dining room. “It’s okay. I know you did the right thing, Nero. I’ll go get some extra blankets. I put a sheet and some pillows on the bed after I finished dusting, but I didn’t get a chance to do anything else.”

Nero stared at her as she walked off for a moment, relieved that she had taken that so well. She’d have probably told him off for his reaction if she’d been present at the time. Her understanding meant the world to him. “It’s okay, Kyrie. You do enough as it is.”

She waved at him over her shoulder as she rounded the corner into the next room and disappeared. He used his foot to nudge open the door and walked, taking a moment to look around. Aside from the built-in bookcase that had always been in the room near the door and the bed that jutted out into the center of the room, the entire room was spotless. The large window on the far side of the room that overlooked the small side yard where the children normally played was open, likely to let in the fresh air. Nero laid V down and sat at the foot of the bed, only now really registering how unreal this entire situation seemed to him. A moment later, Kyrie returned with a stack of about six blankets. Nero raised an eyebrow at her as she stuffed them into one of the open shelves on the bookcase and then used one to cover him up. It was a plush grey knitted blanket that she had made herself a while back. As soon as he was covered up, Nero unwrapped his jacket from around him and tucked it under his arm, returning his attention to Kyrie. She shrugged at his obvious confusion.

“I didn’t want him to be cold,” She said simply, gesturing towards the oversized stash of warm, thick blankets,”... Why was he wrapped in your coat? Is he okay?”

Nero looked over at V. He had stirred slightly, pulling the soft blanket tighter around himself. Now that Nero thought about it, Kyrie was probably correct. It had been abnormally cold for the last few hours. Having no clothes on had probably been uncomfortable, to say the least. “... I think he’s going to be alright. Supposedly he just needs to rest” Nero glanced over at the pile of blankets again, nodding to himself,” Thanks for the blankets. He doesn’t have any clothes on, so that’s probably going to be good for him. Probably should have said that before...”

Kyrie blushed bright red. “OH. I’m sorry then! I’ll go see if I can find him something!”

Before he could say anything, Kyrie hurried out of the room, closing the door behind her. He shook his head and laughed to himself. Poor kyrie. She probably felt like she had violated V’s personal space. He stood up and pulled an extra cover from the pile, tossing it over him. Better safe than sorry. As he leaned over him to fix the covers, V turned over and brushed his arm over him, exhaling audibly. Nero moved V’s arm off of his hand and continued, paying him little mind. As he sat up to assess his work, V gripped his wrist weakly. Assuming that he was simply shifting in his sleep again, he sat up and moved to step away and towards the door. But as he tried to pull away, V’s grip tightened. Nero turned his attention from the door back to the bed and nearly jumped out of his skin in fright. A familiar set of green eyes was looking back up at him.

V was awake. And he looked absolutely wrecked.

-~-

This chapter was so fun to write that I had to stop here and immediately start working on the next chapter. They will only be a day apart, so don’t worry, I won’t keep you in suspense for very long! Again, thank you so much for your overwhelming support. Hopefully, this chapter wasn’t too slow for you. But the good news is that V is actually awake now, so you know what that means. DIALOGUE! See you guys on May 22nd for chapter Eight! Wow, I can’t believe we’re already on chapter eight...

4 notes · View notes

spnfanficpond · 6 years ago

Text

November 2018 Pond LiveChat Recap

We had a great time chatting with Rhi, @kittenofdoomage!!! Thank you so much for joining us!

We talked about getting readers, interacting with readers, and how Tumblr has made it more and more difficult with their changes for new writers to get noticed. Details from our discussion with Rhi under the cut, as well as notes on what we’re working on in the Pond!

Q: Do you wait until you are done writing a series before you begin posting, or do you post as you write?

I wait until I'm done writing a series. At some point, the idea will catch me and I have to write the entire thing, which will take about three days. Editing for another 1-2 depending on my betas and then it gets released in its entirety on Patreon (my patrons like reading the entire fic in one go, they're paying for it so I'm not gonna make 'em wait) and comes out in chapters on Tumblr about three-four weeks later. I hate feeling like I'm making people wait too long and then shit happens like it did with three of my permanently hiatused fics.

Q: Well, as for why we're here, Rhi, you get so many asks every day. How do you have such involved readers?

A lot of my readers who respond are regulars. I have those who pop up with the odd "this is awesome" and those who will write long involved reviews which I love!

Q: Do you think there's anything in particular that you do that encourages people to interact with you?

Yeah, I'm open with people and pretty approachable. I like discussing things, plot points, characters, anything really. There are very few things that trigger me, too. I have only three specific things that will turn me away from a fic. I think my lack of triggers helps with people who need someone like that to talk to.

Q: Do you ever ask around and try to figure out what people are looking to read to try and help boost your reader count or do you just draw inspiration from your own ideas?

At the moment, I'm mostly working on commissions, so it's other people's ideas. I'm lucky that most of my Patrons and commissioners are very patient with me and know up front that I have no specific time limits. I will write it but I can't force it. And I won't force it because that leaves everyone with a shit story.I never put an idea away forever though. I write them all down. If inspiration hits for something, I write it there and then because I never know if I'll get that mojo back.

Q: Has there ever been an Idea that has caught you by surprise when you start it as one thing but it ends up as something else?

Only about six thousand times.

Over The Hills And Far Away that I'm writing now, was supposed to only be a Dean x reader but my reader decided to go and have chemistry with Sam too.

Q: Have you noticed a bump in followers after you do anything specific?

I always have a bump in followers after Sinful Sunday. Unfortunately, I always end up with a bump in unsolicited dick pics and porn bots, too, so a purge usually follows. When I post new characters or fandoms, too. I've recently picked up a bunch of Marvel followers.

Q: As a big blog, you must also get some hate. How do you deal with that?

They don't like me because I play with them and their insults are like water off a duck's back with me. Unless they bring my kid into it. I shut an entire set of blogs down when that happened. That's also why I no longer post anything to do with my daughter. I will avoid using her name wherever possible. If I'm in a bad mood, I ignore it. If I'm feeling like an utter bitch, I'll tear them a new asshole.

Q: Rhi, it sounds like you have a lot on your plate with family, work, and writing. Is there anything in particular that keeps your creativity flowing so you don't burn out?

I try and do something different every day. Painting, gaming, going for a walk - it's important for me not to spend all my time on one thing. Even if it's just cleaning. I also listen to a lot of music - Classic Rock on Absolute Radio is my fav. Actually, my favorite time to think about fics is when I'm about to go to sleep.

Q: I'm not sure how to even ask this, but I came into the spn fic fandom a little late and so I'm finding it difficult to gather new followers. Do you have any advice? I have a master post with the few pieces I've written but I've gotten a lot of flack for writing OCs...

Tumblr is not helping with regards to gaining new followers lately. Tags aren't working if you're an NSFW blog, no one can search anything. The only thing I can suggest is reblogging, asking other authors if they'll read your work.

[Other suggestions from the chat included submitting fics to @dirtysupernaturalimagines and the Pond, joining other people’s writing challenges (The Pond’s S14 Challenge is here, @thing-you-do-with-that-thing is always running challenges, and @mrswhozeewhatsis has a tag #writing challenge on her blog). Also, “Tumblr loves porn” and the fandom loves Dean, in particular, so writing more Dean smut will get you more readers. Just adding “Dean x Reader” to the tags, even if the relationship is barely mentioned, will get you more readers. Sam will get you the same result, but to a lesser extent. Rhi got bigger writing ABO fics, and carved out a niche for herself with them to the point she’s considered the ABO expert in reader insert fics. Another tip was to strip OC’s of names and defining physical features, since OC’s don’t get a lot of love. Many “Y/N”’s are actually just OC’s without a name. Also, if you’re writing a story that will eventually have smut, list “eventual smut” in the tags.]

Q: Random question: a bunch of us smaller blogs have noticed a drop in reblogs over the last year or so, and I'd be curious to know if, as a bigger blog, you've seen anything like this as well?

Absolutely. A year ago I was getting about 10-20k notes a day. Now, if I hit a thousand, it's a good day and I'm expecting to take a massive hit because of Sinful Sunday, if they don't entirely delete my blog.

Q: Does anyone have any idea why the notes have all dropped so much? Is it a glitch in notes? People being more apprehensive to reblog nsfw things because of all the nsfw fear going on?

Community responses: The posts with outside links not showing up in searches is related to bots and porn blogs that only reblog posts to add a link to a sketchy outside web page. Several months ago, though, Tumblr started the “best stuff first” algorithm (which can be turned off in your dashboard settings, but not everyone knows this), and that pushed posts with few notes to the bottom of the dashboard feed. Since you never really get to the bottom, those posts never get seen. Tags and reblogs to build up note counts are the only way to combat this. Now, messing with the search functions means that there will be no new readers without blogs that just reblog fics, like the Pond and @dirtysupernaturalimagines and such.

[Editor’s Note: Rhi told us she’s working on a UPS Driver!Sam fic!! I’m excited. “What can Brown do for me?” YES, PLEASE!]

What’s coming up in the Pond:

Angel Fish Award nominations are due by the end of the month, so you have less than a week to submit yours and gain an entry for every nomination into the raffle! Win fabulous prizes just for spreading love! HOW COOL IS THAT? (Also, don’t forget to submit your own fics to the Pond so that other Pond members can easily find them and nominate them!)

Note: Please use the submission form to submit nominations. Asks do not allow you to include a link to the fic, and sometimes we can’t find what you’re nominating, especially now that Tumblr searches don’t work.

Design contest to find a Pond graphic! Entries are due by the end of the month, so less than a week away! So far, we have ONE (1) entry! (I mean, it’s a pretty fabulous entry, but still!) Winner gets their choice of swag with their design on it!!

SPNFanFicPond Season 14 Weekly Episode Writing Challenge - Since we didn’t have a new episode this past Thursday, the previous week’s challenge is still collecting submissions. (Honestly, there’s no deadline on any of them. Post a fic using a prompt from any week, and you’ll still be added to the masterpost and reblogged on the Pond blog.)

New Member Spotlight Post coming soon! Check out last month’s post here!

Still accepting additions and discussion about the Warning Tag List (tags to be used to assist folks in avoiding triggers and protect their mental health, not be confused with tags to help people find or avoid preferences). Reply or reblog the post itself, or send an ask to the Pond with suggestions!

Plans are in the works to try and make the blog more app-friendly. Please be patient with us in the meantime!

Plans to expand the beta program to make it easier to find the type of beta you need are also on the to-do list.

Housekeeping Note: If you send an ask to the Pond and do not get a response in a couple of days, please notify one of the admins (Michelle - @mrswhozeewhatsis, Mana - @manawhaat, or Kale - @aprofoundbondwithdean) via IM and let us know!

Thanks to everyone who joined us this month and made it an awesome conversation!! Can’t wait for next month!

Next month’s discussion: Giving feedback to other writers and how a beta reader can help your writing! Joining us will be @littlegreenplasticsoldier!

Be there Dec. 15th at the usual time! (Los Angeles - 2PM, New York - 5PM, London - 10PM, Melbourne - Sunday 9AM)

#spnfanficpond #chat room #spnfanficpond live chat #THE CHAT ROOM #pond chat

16 notes · View notes

tamryisk · 3 years ago

Text

It's at this point where I've realized that Knifetrick had helped me grow as an artist. Genuinely. And me taking a break from it means that I feel like my art and my "popularity" is just going down. Yes, I'm shadowbanned and that is a major factor as to why some of you don't see my art. But some of you do. So my question is, why don't you reblog it ? You don't even have to add tags or anything !! I would just love the support, especially since I can't do much here anymore. I'm barely getting started on here and already this stupid fucking site thinks I'm a threat. I'm not. I never have been.

However, I do want to get back to Knifetrick as the subject because that's why I made this post. Knifetrick is something that has given me inspiration and joy. But with it being inactive all month so far, I've just felt kinda "eh". Which is one of the reasons why I haven't been posting art. I know I'm popular for my Knifetrick and MCYT Sugar Rush AU artwork, and I'm definitely trying to get back into doing art for those two things. But with my declining mental health, I'm afraid that I may not be able to enjoy those two things as much as I used to.

Knifetrick in of itself is something special. And toxic people have ruined it for me, Max and so many others. I don't get why people think it's ok to push fiction over facts, in a sort of sense. Knifetrick isn't about cc! Beeduo or c! Beeduo. It's at the point where Ran and Jackie are Tak's OCs. He's fleshed out these two oneshot characters and made them his own thing. That is what makes knifetrick special.

Plus, why the fuck is Knifetrick suddenly a problem for this fandom !? We have things like fucking DNF where George is so heavily feminized. Let's look at the fic Accelerate. It's a DNF fic, I would imagine. George, in the fic, dresses in a toxic way of how people see teenage girls and women: revealing, sexy outfits. And Dream is a toxic imagine of masculinity: possessive. And seeing as this fandom is mostly female presenting and some are cishets, they will fucking read this fucking fic and be like "omg this is so hot!" Like bitch. No it's not! It never had been! Why isn't DNF, a weird and almost somewhat toxic, ship, a problem but Knifetrick, a fic that is mostly mystery, is a problem !? Y'all need to make some fucking sense, like genuinely! Know you're arguments! Know the facts before you go saying untruthful shit!

This is why no one can fucking take this fandom seriously. This is I, a person who has been in this fandom for a good 6 or so months, can't take this fandom seriously! I'm sick of it! So many fucking people like to ruin shit. And I'm done. I'm actually done. Not only is this the reason why I've been so shit at keeping up with art and making it, but it's also one of the fucking factors that is making my mental health a fucking hellhole! Like, seriously!?

[ can't fix the tags but since some of y'all have it filtered, here: tw irl shipping. it's implied. ]

#ghostly talks.#Knifetrick

0 notes

doctor-anfelo · 7 years ago

Text

Please Help

I don't like to bother and this is a long read, so I apologize a bit in advance, but I'm in a situation where I must do this.

Some of you know my situation and I know some of you really worry about it, but for those who don't I'll try to sum it up: Up until recently I lived in Venezuela, which as many of you know is currently a dictatorship where civil rights are trampled over daily and basic stuff like food, medical attention or even clean water were near impossible to obtain.

During the protests in these few past months I was pointed at with a gun by someone because people were robbing a supermarket near my apartment and I decided I couldn't take it anymore so I took my little savings and went elsewhere. It was hard and I went through some hardships like government refusing to issue passports and highways being blocked because of protests (Nearly missed my flight), but I made it out in the end.

Sadly, now that I'm in another country, things are really looking up.

I chose Chile because of its inmigration laws making the whole process easier than other countries, at least for me as a Venezuelan. My plans were to rent a small place, work and well, survive just like back in Venezuela; I did find a small place with some basic furniture that runs me about $600 a month (Including water, electricity and good it goes up to about $850-$900 a month).

I know it doesn't sound like much for many, but since I haven't found a job yet and my only source of income is Patreon and commissions it's been quite stressful, because Patreon's income tends to fluctuate monthly and I get 2-3 commissions a month if I'm lucky and I'm already cutting down on food and eating twice or sometimes once a day.

Some of you might wonder why I'm not working I bet. Laws here state that I need a permit in order to work or be hired, said permit takes an average of 60 office days in being processed, and I'm still waiting for a response (It should take 1.5-2 more months according to some inmigration officers) because the Inmigration Department is currently saturated with work.

My mental health has deteriorated quite a lot these months, to the point were I suffer anxiety attacks almost daily, constant depression, my apetite has gone down a lot and I have stress bouts that give me strong headaches, all because losing patrons or barely getting any notes on my work.

I have asked openly others for advice regarding how to raise my popularity, which characters would people like to see, if they want me to see me try a new style or something, asking others for publicity, etc. I really don't even know what to do at this point and I'm seriously wondering if my work is so bad that there's nothing to be done about it, being honest I wish I could do anything else but this is all I have and I'm afraid of starving or ending up homeless, I'm in a new place and I don't even have a safety net here or back in Venezuela. I can't even go back to my old country anymore with the current shit going on.

The point of this post is just to ask of you to please share my work in your networks if you can, my Patreon ads or just my page (FB, Tumblr, etc). Tell your friends about it, spread the word, reblog if possible, so people know about my work and hopefully help me out by commissioning me or pledging on Patreon or something. Heck, if you don't want to pledge or want a commission done and still want to help me somehow I could accept some aid via Paypal.

If you really can't help in any way, not even sharing or hitting the reblog button in this or my work, it's okay. I'm not gonna get upset or anything, just know that I'd be infinitely grateful for some help in these dire straits I'm in.

Patreon page here.

#doctor anfelo #venezuela #gay artist #signal boost #mental health #important #artist in tumblr #artist #artist struggles #patreon #digital art #gay art #depression #money problems #commission

2K notes · View notes

scummy-writes · 7 years ago

Text

This blog is only going to be used to post personal fic updates from a much more controlled environment, AO3, and nothing else.

This post has been set to queue post two more times for timezones and then no more after that.

Explanation under the readmore:

This is to the shock of absolutely no one, but I can’t do this anymore.

A lot of you guys have stuck here with me from the beginning, and, unfortunately, got to learn about personal stuff I never intended to share. Some of that came around in discussions, of some events that happened, or back towards the beginning of the year that severely impacted me and still does to this day.

Back before I made this blog, a few months before I had started playing MM. I loved it, thought it was great for an otome, and fell in love with all of the characters. Like a lot of people, I ran into the game when I wasn’t doing too well. Things at home were horrible, I had no job, I had recently gotten out of something life altering and was still struggling with myself. This game helped me out, sparked my creative flow again (I think the last time I had published something that wasn't for a friend was a good four years ago), and inspired me to write and share what I had written.

Then, when my stories got an incredibly large amount of hits, and I saw HC blogs circling around, I made one. This one.

I made it to share stories, ideas, and small headcanons- To share positivity, and maybe a bit of fictional angst. For a couple of months, things were going well. A got such sweet followers, I had great support- But then I brought back a fic people had wanted, originally taken down due to me unable to plan a decent plot, and harassment began.

And, well, a lot of you have been around for that whole debacle.

Then. Just more issues started coming up. Instead of this blog being fun, being something I was so glad that it was making people happy, things just went downhill. Constant negative messages/comments, constant drama- I just shrugged it off for the most part, but then I realized that most of this drama, most of what is starting to wear me down, is just because I didn’t write a character how one person wanted me to.

Just because I apparently wrote a character ooc, for two fics, apparently warranted harassment spanning over months– Like literally absolutely fucking months. Do you know when it started for me? March. February for others. But hey, everyone’s seen this, right? God knows I’ve reblogged it countless times hoping the fucking hateful anons would stop coming in. Except They. Kept Coming. Over and Over Again. I even took a fucking hiatus and stopped writing the fic this person couldn’t stop obsessively hate-reading only to immediately get shit on again.

I’ve had my mental Illness, PTSD, and overly traumatic and sexually abusive events in my life degraded, along with many of my friends and now victims of this who did absolutely nothing wrong, while friends and I were being told we weren’t ‘thinking of the abuse victims’ when being confronted about liking a FICTIONAL CHARACTER, Jumin, who was being deemed abusive by this ‘anon’ . My illnesses and abuse history that I had mentioned before and even directly to this person’s messages.

I’ve had the harassment that my friends and I have went through be deemed to be nothing because “Well this user always likes my posts”, “This user sends me a nice message sometimes”, while those same people ignored the posts of the user even completely opening up and admitting to what the fuck they’ve done.

You connect all this with some personal issues of mine- The issues surrounding my mother’s attempt, the strain with my family, and my own personal mental health namely- and, well. It’s hard to view this blog positively anymore.

I’m just not happy anymore. Namely, my current emotions are probably connected to another depressive episode, but even before today- It’s just been hard.

I made this blog to have fun- Because people enjoyed my stories, enjoyed my headcanons- And now due to all this drama and harrassment I just feel disgusting.

I don’t know where I’m going with this, honestly. I never made this blog to be constantly harassed because some dipshit couldn’t ignore my fanfic, couldn’t block my blog and ignore me, couldn’t just move the absolute fuck on with their life instead of spending nearly a whole year attempting to stalk me, attempting to harass me for every little asinine thing. Of course this had a strain on my writing- I after the haitus I just could barely put out HC’s anymore. I kept saving drafts, getting stressed to fuck and back because I didn’t know if a typo was going to cause me to be blasted with insults to my writing and life, I didn’t know if I expressed Zen having insecurities was going to send another flood of anons like I had received many times before. You think all the messages in the Call Out are bad? All the ones that weren’t in it and I didn’t link in this post? What about all the ones you all didn’t see because I deleted them before I even let myself think about them, because I had no energy just to put up bullshit because all I ever, ever, fucking did was write a Fictional Fucking Character a little fucking different from canon.

And that’s not all- There’s a support group in a discord server my friend set up because I’m not the only person this dipshit has gone after. There’s at least ten god damned people that we know of getting this same treatment- and there’s probably so so so SO many more that are probably feeling the same emotions I did. And FUCK, friends of us are even feeling drained because it’s absolutely sickening that we’re being harassed for liking a genuine love interest in a fucking mobile otome game. In a VIDEO GAME.

You know what I did? I went back into fucking therapy because of all this, because my major depression and anxiety kicked into full gear because I was sharing my writing, something that I made, something that meant so much to me because for once I wasn’t being mocked or laughed at when I wanted to be creative. The harassment got to me so fucking badly I had to go to therapy again.

I’m so blown away by how all this shit I’m dealing with is because someone just couldn’t ignore my blog/ao3 stories. That they think harassment is excusable because I won’t write or stop writing what they want me to.

So now, characters I used to help me cope with a very serious issue of mine, just make me feel empty. My coping mechanisms are failing, and running this blog isn’t becoming worth it anymore, not if I’m even going to be bitched at for trying to show lesser known artists to some newcomer in the fandom.

So. I don’t know. That’s why I hardly post anymore. I feel disgusting and empty, for a game that I used as a coping mechanism. Instead of it making me happy, all this drama and this god damned person just makes me regret even writing in the first place.

So no more hc posts. My writing has declined, we all know it, god knows it won’t stop being pointed out to me, and I shot myself in the foot doing character limits. My Hc posts went from getting so many sweet comments to one once in a blue moon, the majority of the comments I receive on here about my HC’s are just a constant stream of hatred, and I just cannot fucking do this.

I just wanted to have fun.

you guys can find me on my twitter (@Mm_Scummy) and my AO3 (Scummy). I’m not posting anything else to this blog unless it’s fic updates, and even that I’m debating on. I’m just keeping this blog up to keep what writings I did enjoy up, and just because I can’t bring myself to delete anything where I did get support.

If this post makes you angry, or makes you upset that it’s came done to this:

SUPPORT CONTENT CREATORS. Don’t sit around and let them be harassed!! I cannot even begin to tell you how amazing it felt when I would get a message from a random follower just seeing if I was okay. Just saying that they hoped I felt better, or just sending heart emojis. Every little bit of support means so, so, SO much to content creators after they’ve been outright harassed or taken advantage of, because it shows that you care.

REBLOG THESE POSTS:

- THIS one because the word needs to be spread that content creators do not owe you anything.

- And THIS one because the user that keeps harassing me and so many people, so many that we may never know who all they have harassed, uses the Anonymous tool on every single platform they can to hurt people, and she is NOT above making new accounts to continue her harassment over and over again. Because god knows we have blocked her account and have never, ever, fucking unblocked it and she STILL didn’t get the most obvious hint that what she is doing is absolutely, undeniably fucking disgusting and in no way excusable.

111 notes · View notes

trulyhopelessromantic · 4 years ago

Text

There’s a lot going on with me internally so maybe it’ll help if I write it out?

This has to do with some impostor syndrome, some frustration about certain aspects, some feelings of loneliness, some lack of direction in life, and other stuff...

Heavily on my mind recently is the lack of interaction on my writing page on Facebook, my Patreon and anything to do with my advertisements of any pieces of my writing.

I’ve spoken on this before but right now I just feel friggen... angry. I tried to take a bit of a break on the more ‘serious’ work Beauty & the Brit which makes me some money every month on Patreon.com when I release new content for it and instead this month focus on some fun with The Nutcracker Prince story I wrote and finished last year by hosting some livestreams to interact with people about it and about Christmas and I dunno just encourage some escapism as well as get people to read the story and (hopefully) comment on it. All for free, I might add. So all the hours of work I’ve put in advertising this four-part event to the 4 part story is done of my own free will. Unless people read something and then decide to sign up as a patron, I am not getting paid this month for hosting these events on my official Facebook (as that is easiest to livestream from).

But like 1 person has joined in on the ‘fun’ and while I’m grateful for that I’m still upset. If I wanted to hang out with my friend I would just do so on a 2 way video chat. Granted, her boyfriend joined in on the game this week but she had to type his answers in via her profile so there was some delay...

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful or selfish when I complain about things like this. But it’s coming from a place of me just being frustrated and met with this sort of radio silence over and over again when I try to work hard on developing my presence as an author via various social media. It really feeds into me feeling like maybe I need to focus on being a better writer not a better advertiser for my work. Makes me think I am shit at both things, actually. Because no matter how much advertising I do or how much content I release, I see no response towards it.

There’s nothing I hate more (well there are things but go with the phrase) than when I’m talking and you can tell people aren’t listening anymore because they start talking to someone else and/or walk away while I’m in mid-sentence. That’s what this feels like. Feels like I’m talking to myself; feels like I’m a ghost.

Look social media algorithms probably block my stuff from getting through certain places. Ok fine that’s shit but fine. However when I see traffic graphs on various sites I’m posting on going up, I begin to wonder. Coz clearly people are “walking by” but they aren’t stopping to look. Or if they are they aren’t impressed. It’s been said (not by me first) that reblogs and comments are the currency for an audience who consumes media whether a picture, video, piece of writing, you name it. Nobody is paying the price of admission. In fact barely anyone is even hitting ‘like’ on my stuff which frankly when I see that gets me excited for half a second until I realize they hit like but they can’t be bothered to also share what they like. Like throwing some glitter to say “hey pretty” or whatever but then walking away. Like looking at me for a second then moving on.

I have had the rare comment on a piece. But at this point it’s so rare that I just don’t get very excited anymore because the comment that I get rarely feels fulfilling. It’s like “OOOH I LIKE THIS” and then I never hear from the commenter again when I personally go in and thank them. It also doesn’t really feel as fulfilling because those comments are on my one-shots and fan-fics. So like stuff that people already like the characters enough to go and click on my work and then they say “good”. So I am good enough when it comes to a little one-shot about someone else’s character but my original work is left alone with me in my room, in my head, in my word documents and on the pages where I publish it but it’s only appreciated by my eyes. That’s what this silence feels like.

2020 has been hard on everyone in different ways and I could go on for a long time about all the difficulties I’ve faced myself but generally right now I just want to acknowledge the frustration and anger I feel at trying so hard this year to keep myself together enough to post consistently and produce writing content and related content and put my work out there and keep advertising and hosting things to garner interest and then have so little to show for it.

Frankly I feel so sad to the depth of my core at this. I’m trying I’m putting my energy into something out into the universe and am met with thoughts of “you’re not good enough and what you’re doing is not good enough because as you can see there’s so little returning to you for this”. It’s not great.

I feel like I have to reinvent my whole process, my whole routine, my everything to do with writing. I have to stop what I’m doing, I have to just go silent and write and get better at that and then maybe seek out other pastures like trying to hire an agent or something instead of independently trying to gain some interest in what I do. Maybe friggen write short pieces for magazines (gag) or something like that to “prove my worth” as a writer.

I don’t want to give up but I’m running out of steam some nights and some days. I emotionally don’t and I emotionally can’t keep doing this.

So I dunno what to do. Maybe Beauty & the Brit gets put away and I work on novel(s) that I want to traditionally publish and not get money on Patreon anymore because that’s just my friends and sister on there (currently) giving a couple of dollars to me a month and even they aren’t interacting much with the content (1 person is maybe once a month or so). That’s not great. 1 of 5.

And another thing is that I’m too shy to prompt people in their inboxes or personally and individually ask them to take action. Whether friends or whether potential readers; I feel silly going and messaging people and handing them a link. It feels like spamming people or something. I’ve never been good with that sort of thing and I hate conflict I don’t want to alienate people. If I’ve asked you once to check out a piece of my work it’s generally because I felt it was appropriate to do; it wasn’t random and unsolicited.

And anyway this feeling of putting out more than I’m getting back is in a lot more than just my writing/advertising of that. It’s in other relationships in my life and other scenarios that I don’t want to detail here because I could go on for awhile and only upset myself and possibly those people too if they read this. As my counselor told me in the summer (when I had a complete break down and had to call our city’s distress line to find someone to help me out with my stress) I’ve let people cross my boundaries and I know I keep letting this happen because I’m... I’ve never been a person good with conflict. I don’t like also feeling like I’m being selfish or unreasonable or high maintenance or a bother or a burden. I also know that certain things in the lives of people around me would be made easier and/or better if I keep my mouth shut about how I’m actually feeling. Or would be made better if I do something even if I’m not up to it/not up for it. For months now I on again and off again do things I don’t want to because I know it will improve the life/day of someone else. I know in my head I have to stop it for my own sake but I can’t bring myself to acknowledge it to that other person or persons when I know it would *possibly* upset them to hear. So round and round I go. Furthermore a lot of these individuals are dealing with bigger mental health problems than I am or that I ever had. I know it’s not my job to hold them up but it’s hard to put down a boundary that I know will be really difficult for that other person to find in between us.

Also, recently I’ve started to feel lonely again. I try not to think about it or acknowledge it but it keeps popping its head round. I’m getting older and I still have no romantic interests. Yeah 2020 made that real difficult to solve so I get that and for the record NO I will not be joining online dating so don’t suggest or ask. No. But like I just wonder when and where I’m going to find someone I want to date and that wants to date me. At this point it feels weird for me to say that because I feel like I should be in a long term relationship and/or married and/or thinking about marriage. What depresses me is that I know I couldn’t and shouldn’t marry someone after knowing them only a couple years. So, I have this sense of urgency because if I’m going to be with the man I’m going to marry for several years then time was up long ago. I don’t want to start having kids when I’m about to turn 40. And no, I will not be having children before I’m married. It’s probably dumb to others but to me it’s not at all unreasonable to want to have time spent with my future husband before we marry. Coz the thing is my biggest fear is not knowing enough about one another and really being sure enough and then divorcing down the road and heaven forbid I have kids in the divorce. As a child of divorce myself that has always been my biggest fear. Anyway enough with the analysis of all that I just... I’m friggen trulyhopelessromantic for gosh sakes and I have not experienced romance myself yet. It makes me want to sob. So I just don’t think about it other than matter of factly (I don’t have a love interest. Dot, period, the end) and don’t acknowledge it much. But it really, really bothers me.

As does the fact that I have no easily visible career path. Again 2020 botched some ideas I had and I’m sitting here feeling frankly hopeless that I can’t and won’t find something to do for work that I’m going to enjoy doing. Because writing right now is not anywhere close to being an income; it’s like some weekend spending money that I get once a month to cover one weekend a month; it’s quite a low amount. And I have been trying sooo hard to make it work out to be a little more than that. A little. But as said, no. I got a temporary job this winter to work a festival but due to this damned virus we never went through with it. I was REALLY hoping to get that money. That’s another fucking stress is money. I need it; we all do.

My brother gets money monthly for income support (which to my understanding means he has to look for jobs while on it but doesnt...!?!?? yet still receives it) and on top of that the child tax credit for having his daughter in his care. It drives me mental to see him pretty much always buying what he wants when he wants and sitting in our basement not fucking cleaning it up and smoking pot a few times a day and leaving all the fucking weed stems around down there that our basement smells horrible and playing video games (whenever a new one comes out he seems to have it) and watching Netflix and TV and buying Christmas gifts he got a $100 giftcard for my sister with cash without batting an eye as I looked on meanwhile me I was thinking spending $40 on each sibling was a bit much especially in my budget and now I feel like I need to put more because all of them guaranteed are getting me gifts that will be worth more than that. But, they’re all working (minus him) and I’m not. I mean I have my casual contracting work with Apprenticeship but I get paid only $100 and it’s once a month and now they’re fucking taking away the 12.75 I have normally claimed on top of that for travel because “it’s not parking and you’re not coming from out of town so transit fares might not qualify for reimbursement” since the fuck when!? FUck. sorry that’s sometihing from earlier in the week and I’m typing so fast with mistakes coz I’m so mad at that. I barely make anything and now they’re cutting that back too. Anyway back to my brother basically he does nothing all day with so few worries and gets paid by the government meanwhile I feel like I’m in a fucking crisis trying to find a career path and a job path.

I rarely apply for jobs because I can’t bring myself to look, I can’t bring myself to know what to look for, I can’t bring myself to apply for anything that I know will be temporary or anything that I know I do’t want to stay in because I am sick of having a max 3 year turnover when I have a job. I want to go into something with the hope of staying around, growing, and ultimately enjoying what I’m doing too. My jobs in life thus far have all had to end and only a couple of them I even liked in the first place and that makes me sad that I don’t have any idea on what I want to do and can do and should do. I thought hey let me be an EA I didn’t mind that job when I did it in London. Yeah our provincial gov cut funding and reduced jobs in that sector combined with COVID that’s going to be a high supply job with people a lot more experienced than me applying for the limited positions. So fuck. Then teaching is kinda the same thing and I sure as hell cannot start my teaching career during a pandemic; I mentally can’t do it and the schools aren’t hiring me to do it even as a supply teacher. They’ve rejected me a number of times even pre-pandemic. Great.

Oh go back to school then! Yeah ok what money am I using to do this? What program am I taking? Again, I have no clear answers so why take a step into fog?

I want something clear, a fairly clear path that I can confidently take steps on. Or an end-goal that I can plan for. But I don’t have any of that. I feel lost.

I’ve felt lost for awhile in a lot of parts of my life. I’m just floating, just existing, just...being. Just stuck. Just depressed (not diagnosed but some days I do wonder if I have a mild form somehow).

Further to this all I have unresolved grief which my on-going counselor can’t help me with until the new year because she “needs to get permission to do the grief counselling she’s trained in”. I guess I could seek help elsewhere, I realized that as I typed out that last bit. I dunno. I just... miss my nephew and I have put up pictures of him but I don’t actually start to think about him because that grief comes up inside me. I won’t detail all those thoughts and feelings now because I don’t want to process them at 12:22 am and be sobbing in my room here. So I’ll just leave that there and say that I miss him.

I also feel like I have such a short attention span sometimes. And in recent years like there’s something wrong with my brain because I sometimes have bad word recall in the middle of talking or typing. Both of these things bother me and scare me. Not going to go into that because again it’s better for me emotionally not to actually delve into it.

I am doing that a lot with a lot of things: starting to have a thought or emotion and putting it away. Because I can’t process it and/or don’t want to acknowledge it because of how deeply it will upset me.

And there are more things that bother me and weigh on me but I won’t get into them because some of them aren’t actively going on right this moment and no use getting upset about past stuff (that will eventually repeat and/or come back to bother me more at a later date)...

I’m going to keep this post handy for when I talk to my on-going in the new year. We’ve only ever had 2 sessions so I just don’t know much about what to expect and/or talk about but this might help?

I feel like the guy in the summer I spoke to gave me that solid talk about boundaries and that has helped me a lot or at least opened my eyes a lot and now I just need to find the right footing with my on-going counselling. IDK we’ll see.

Well I’ll conclude this late-night blogging; maybe it’s helped to get it all out physically? I hope so; releasing a bit of steam from the bottle as it were.

oh damn and I forgot to mention about feeling so sad and drained about Christmas this year. Ever since I can remember I’ve always gone to my grandparents’ house for our traditional Christmas Eve meal and gone to church then slept over at their place and awoken Christmas Day there. Then of course the 2 yrs I was in London I didn’t get to do that but at least I got to Skype the family as they did it and still felt a part in some small way. Well now this fucking virus and damn assholes not doing their part to slow the curve has made it so that we have to do the entire thing on video chat this year and I honestly might be able to get over the meal bit of it being digital but I can’t wrap my head around waking up Christmas Day in my own bed in my own house. Like I’m about to cry writing that out. So going to file that away like the rest and end here.

Fucking fuck.

#there's a lot here but I just need to type it out for my own self

0 notes