#not a vaguepost this time don't worry lol

[anti-ao3]

if it's just fiction then why do you get so fucking worked up over me not enjoying it?

[iowafashionweekbegins]

like the stuff that has gone down today THAT I CAN REMEMBER:

-i go to eat a snack, mom and grandma both repeatedly question me about how many weight watchers points it is, and don't let me get the snack until i tell them, or until mom gets the chance to look it up herself. they are surprised that i am humiliated by this. i mentioned having a cheat day for my weight watchers and my mom goes like "i thought you said we would be doing this together :/" -i ask my mom to buy leggings because mine have giant holes in the legs, and she buys stuff for my brothers all the time (one of whom is an adult who makes more money than i do). she goes on this rant about how i don't save my christmas presents to get stuff i actually NEED. how my present could be getting Part Of My Credit Card Paid Off. and that i should get useful things and not anything i don't need. and then she rants about how much she HATES getting gifts, and how i want ALL these things, and how SHE doesn't look at items and want them, and how SHE is HAPPY with what she has. -i tell mom to forget it and that i just don't even want anything and i start crying and she says to send her the leggings. i send her the leggings and dad gets them for me, and they're both really really unnervingly quiet for the next hour or so. i ask if this is going to be used against me later. they say no. I Seriously Doubt It LOL. -mom asks me what i think about bluesky, and i try to explain to her that i don't have it because i don't want my dad seeing my account because he syncs his contacts, which i am in. she does not understand the concept of this. i have dad explain it and he starts getting mad that i would be uncomfortable with him seeing my account, despite his (and mom's) track record of obsessively stalking my internet history, social medias, messaging apps, etc. he says in a whiny voice his account name so that i can BLOCK him... if i REALLY WANT to... :((((

-mom says that i can do whatever "awful things" i'm doing and she's not gonna look at it unless i do it on their wifi. and dad said that i don't need to worry about being watched but that i'm "not going to believe them either way, so what's the point". i don't know how to stress enough that I'M NOT DOING ANYTHING "AWFUL", I JUST DON'T WANT MY GENUINELY DELUSIONAL EGOTISTICAL ENMESHED BOUNDARY-LESS PARENTS MONITORING EVERYTHING I DO OR SAY WHEN I AM TWENTY TWO WHOLE ENTIRE YEARS OLD!!!

anyways i posted a vaguepost on facebook to make my mom feel bad. you do not get to yell at me, demean me, accuse me of doing "awful things", and guilt trip me, without other people getting to know about it. i am not going to keel over and die while keeping their gaslighting, manipulation, and emotional abuse a secret.

[protobrieile]

ok i kind went ham on this way more than i was expecting to so um. page break LOL

⬇️wrote all this first, then the above lines afterward

more vagueposting in the same vein but

wow. i dont have the words for how i am feeling and continuing to feel and i keep trying to pretend that it's something like "im losing my mind" but in fact i have literally never felt more sane about this. i have never felt so aware and understanding and like it all makes perfect sense as i do now. i have never been so able to reflect on overcoming a fear that lasted so long but i barely even registered it as such until recently. every time i have tested the waters up until this point i was immediately dealt a strong urge to completely abandon ship and immerse myself in something that i could guarantee not to remind me of it but now all of a sudden even when i expected that to happen it didn't. and then i tried it again two nights later still expecting to wake up in the morning wanting nothing to do with it and i didn't. and again today and i just think that maybe it is actually for real. maybe i actually genuinely might have possibly truly overcome my fear of falling back in and losing myself again which had been gripping me for an entire year without me even truly realizing it. and not only is that part of it weird to recognize but also it is actually entirely unfamiliar to me because i also no longer fear what i dont know. things ended up the way they did last year in part because i was so afraid of not knowing things for sure and i ultimately let that fear take over and by the time i even barely started to realize how much i had lost my sense of self i had already caused so much pain that i couldnt see because i could only focus on my own pain caused by my fears. because prior to that point i could only ever appease the parts of myself that were still insecure by not allowing myself to believe what was actually true all along. i spent years forcing myself to not even consider it and it's not that i regret because past is past and things had to go in the way that they did for reasons i may not be able to directly comprehend and they still do so but it's not about Knowing Why. it's about accepting what you know to be true and trusting in that truth and moving forward with it. i couldnt have ever possibly been healthy about this until i stopped asking Why and always waiting for something outside of myself to determine what the truth was. i had to learn to find my own answers through observation and to trust myself enough to believe that what i was seeing and the sense i was making was valid and real and Enough. and even now that i can do so i still can say there's so much i dont know and so many things that i dont know enough about to explain or define or extrapolate from but the difference is that it doesnt bother me anymore. it doesnt bother me that i dont know what any given person is thinking of me or that i dont have a concrete plan of what my life will look like. and it doesnt bother me that i dont know every single possible factor that is making it so that i can listen to my favorite band again without an immediately following adverse reaction for the first time in a year at surface and honestly the whole fucking time to be completely fucking real with you. it doesnt bother me that my entire belief system revolves around unanswerable questions and imperceivable reasoning because i trust myself. i trust in the fact that i am not and will never be in complete control of everything that makes up the concept of Myself and it doesn't bother me at all because it simply just means i have nothing to worry about. i don't have to be anxious and i don't have to be afraid of the unknown because i know that it's unknown for a reason. and that reason isnt mine to define nor is it anyone elses responsibility to do so. and even though the idea of all this isnt anything new to me, until now i would still not be able to help myself from thinking of the If Only. if only i could somehow make other people see what i see. if only other people knew what i had learned and could see things the way i see them then they wouldn't have to be anxious or afraid anymore either. but that just simply is not

something i can do. that is not something i am meant to do. if it were that easy we'd all be helping each other out in that way but it's not and there is nothing for us as individuals to do other that acknowledge that truth as such and work around it. and god ive always known that this isnt really about the band and it really isnt about him and if i go the entire rest of my life without us ever having another conversation well i would be just fine. i would still do what makes me happy and fulfilled and i would still enjoy my life and it wouldnt bother me because id still be trusting in myself and id know that thats what is meant for me. it's just the thing about it is ive known that for over a year now and ive understood that to be a potential outcome but i just dont think i can say "and ive accepted it as a possible truth" because that just isn't how the truth works. there isnt a "possible" truth, there is simply the truth. there is one string connecting through every single moment of time that can only be described as "this is how it happened" and that is what the truth is. and we as humans don't get to identify the truth until it has passed, yet we spend so much time coming up with possibilities and preparing ourselves for 1000 different outcomes of which we think the truth might look like and all 1000 of them are inaccurate because we just aren't capable of doing that kind of thing. and i could say what i said before to someone and it would be a fairly normal thing to say to anyone because we all make these kinds of claims but when you believe wholeheartedly that you arent in control of the truth it just feels like a sad excuse for a defense mechanism. "oh i'll just say it like this so he can see that im open and accepting of the future regardless of how it turns out" like sorry not sorry but that kind of thinking is what made me fall into a hole in the first place. not only was i focusing on someone else OVER myself but also. I DONT GET TO CONTROL WHAT SOMEONE ELSE THINKS!!! And once again!!! You dont need to feel bad or anxious about what other people think of you. You have to acknowledge the truth - that you can't control them - and WORK!!! WITH!!!! IT!!!!!!!

and at this point the only truth i know is this. This band was put into my life for a reason. That man was dropped in front of me. ok more like i was dropped in front of him but whatever who cares semantics. To impact my life in such a way that facilitated all the growth that got me to this point. It doesnt matter "whether it would have happened if i hadnt met him" because there is only one way things happened. There is only one string of truth threading all of these moments together. I dont need to justify my adherence to the truth with "Even if x thing happens" because literally who cares none of us can do anything about that and pretending that we are somehow capable of completely controlling things is literally the root of all conflict in this world. And there are still plenty of things i dont know. Even about this situation. Even about myself. and there are a lot of things i will never know. but i know what my favorite band is. and I know that for the first time in my entire life i can listen to them and be healthy at the same time. so that's wild

[dirthara-mama]

i'm gonna be honest, this is as broadly worded as possible because a friend of mine saw a post about "just shutting up and moving on if you don't like something in fandom/on tumblr" reblogged by their mutual and discovered the blogger that penned that sentiment to be a nazi apologist.

just a couple weeks before, another friend and i joined a guild in an MMO as we didn't have enough friends on that server to create our own. the guild leader suppressed any talk that wasn't Positive and Fun TM and warned everyone not to get too political or make jokes alluding to anything of a sexual nature (in a game with many mature themes of all kinds). when we asked what they considered "too political" since aspects of our very existences can be considered political, we were basically told, not to mention those things but talking about life experience like being in the military was fine. you can imagine how quickly we left.

this isn't about any one tumblr user. this isn't about any one game, fandom, social media platform, or real life group. this is just a blanket sentiment that i apply to any circle i consider joining. "is someone here allowed to openly hate me, or anyone else, for things that are not demonstrably offensive, for just existing?" if the answer is yes, that's not a group for me. if the leadership (when it comes to groups with an administrative structure, like the guild) or the community as a whole (tumblr fandoms or irl clubs, for instance) can't or won't keep marginalized members safe by silencing violent rhetoric or dismissing dangerous people, then marginalized people won't stay there.

so once again, please do not interpret this to be anything other than a blanket commentary on safe spaces at large based on my own recent experiences. if it resonates, excellent! i'm glad you agree and thank you for working to keep your communities safe! i just don't want the message to be appropriated to fit a narrative i was not even aware of when i wrote it. i don't think that's too much to ask. you'll find no passive aggression here and as always, my inbox and DMs are open to anyone that might have questions/concerns about what i post and why.

when a community is focused on being welcoming to everyone, it will attract everyone – it will attract marginalized folks looking for wholesome interaction; it will attract people searching for belonging, because maybe they don’t quite fit in elsewhere; it will attract bigots and abusers of all types.

this is when the marginalized folks either ask for support from the community or decide to leave it entirely.

no space is ever truly inclusive. total inclusivity would require marginalized people to coexist with people that condescend them at best and hate them at worst. by making your communities comfortable for bigots, often through a culture of rigid positivity and anti-criticism, you tell marginalized people “your pain isn’t as important as the potential pain you might cause them.”

i’m 100% in favor of skipping ship/squick/character drama. racism, transphobia, homophobia, bi/pan and ace exclusion/erasure, misogyny (including that of transwomen), and xenophobia are not drama and they’re not welcome in my community. 

[viscountessevie]

(Villainisation anon here)

[Ohh you have such an efficient way of tagging and maintaining different discussions! I am very much involved in another fandom and receive lots of asks about discourse but I somehow always manage to make a mess of tags, lol]

As for the name, I think I’ll go with 📖 anon or whatever tag you want to use. I am assuming you get a lot of anons regarding discourse so I don’t want to club myself with them.

I can totally understand your frustration regarding the lack of knowledge the general audience may have about The Sharmas. It’s frustrating when you know so much about something but cannot let it all out, especially to strangers on the internet. I have been in similar situations, and I am sorry if my ask ever made you feel that way.

I have definitely seen the word racist be thrown around quite carelessly with unclear implications, with the most recent instance being yesterday. I won’t go into the details of what was said, because maybe the person is your mutual and I don’t wish to involve you in any drama. (You may have, perhaps already seen something about it on your dash). But the words were hurtful and they invalidated my experience as a desi person watching the show. I know people can be quite vitriolic on both sides of the discourse, and it’s sad. But that’s the truth of fandom spaces - discourse is inevitable and I don’t have any ideas on what to do about it, lol.

Anyway, I hope you have a lovely day/night (if you live in India, it must be past midnight for you! It’s dinnertime for me, so I must dash. But thank you for such a healthy and respectful discussion).

Here are Bookie 📖 Anon's previous asks!

Hello again 📖 Anon - I think I shall call you Bookie for short ahahha if you're okay with that! While Villianisation/Villain Anon sounds cool af I didn't want to make you sound like a hater lol. So I dub thee Bookie 📖 Anon!

Anyways thank you for the compliment, it means a lot. Also there's no right or wrong way to tag or run a discourse blog so don't worry about yours - do what feels right for you!

Funny thing is, I never use to tag things AT ALL before I start running this blog. Hell I wouldn't even link previous posts but then I started getting more related asks and it seemed logical to give context. The Emojis started recently though and they are so fun! I think only Jett and Ring Anon have come back to my asks a few times lol. I think its cool to know where they all stand on different topics instead of me assuming every anon is a different person because Uhhh that's like over 140 (I think that's how many asks I've answered since March?) people who have been talking to me and that's a daunting thought oop.

That was a fun tangent but let's get into the meat of this post!

Thank you for being so understanding, Bookie! But I'll survive and stick to my friends' fics for wholesome Sharmas ahahah. And oh, if I could I would scream about the Book Sharmas all day but I'm not that unhinged lmao. Instead I will passive aggressively hype them and their book scenes up (I did it here also wanna make some edits with the book scene quotes tacked onto S2's scenes at some point) Also want to reassure you that you did not make me feel that way at all! It was nice to have people who like flawed Sharmas' fics to be civil and open to discussion - it was a good change from the usual drama on my dash ahahah.

That being said ohmygod Bookie, spill the tea and call them out!! Who was that?? I saw another post vagueposting Mimi and I but they weren't being 'racist', just fucking rude.

But the words were hurtful and they invalidated my experience as a desi person watching the show. I know people can be quite vitriolic on both sides of the discourse, and it’s sad. But that’s the truth of fandom spaces - discourse is inevitable and I don’t have any ideas on what to do about it, lol.

Tell me about it, the invalidation in this fandom is INSANE sometimes, I mean I'll admit sometimes I am a little guilty of it but its in the name of invalidating bigots who should be drowned out because we do not need this energy here. I do hope you're feeling better now and the words didn't get to you <3 I know I said spill the tea but if you don't want to give yourself away and get involved in the drama, I totally understand! That being said if you do want to vent about that situation, my DMs and off anon asks (I can respond to you privately!) are always open if you need them.

Take care Bookie, and yes it was ard 1am (I'm in Asia, GMT+8 btw) when I posted your second ask and fell asleep soon after ahhaha. Hope you had a good dinner and can't wait to hear from you in the future!!