#or even unsupportive

[buckymorelikefuckme]

i have so many conflicting emotions rn and it’s honestly making it hard for me to want to stay on here anymore. i know i’ve left and come back before, like that’s not new for me, but i feel like i’m losing myself.

there’s so much pressure (mostly self-inflicted) to post as often as possible and to make these giant powerhouse fics like other writers do, and i just can’t do either of those things. that’s not where my “talent” lies. i don’t have fics where the characters are fully fleshed out people with personalities and lives and shit. i’m a one-and-done writer and i never used to think that was a bad thing until recently.

and on top of that, there are certain fics i’m not sure i’m comfortable reading anymore and that makes me feel like absolute shit bc i want to show support to my fellow writers, but there are some fics with particular content within them that can be slightly (or fully) triggering for me. i’ve tried to just soldier through them in the name of support, but it’s really taking a toll on me, mentally and emotionally.

all of this along with real life (as in, outside of this app) stresses and anxieties i’m having to deal with and coddle until things get back to normal for me.

it feels like nothing is going well in every aspect of my life right now and i’m really fighting the impulse to disappear off of social media for the umpteenth time. i’ve made too many amazing friends for me to just dip like that again. literally, y’all (friends and followers) are the one reason i haven’t already left this time.

idk what the purpose of this post was tbh. an update??? i guess? and also maybe a little bit of insight or something. i don’t fuckin know. but i do wanna say that i love each and every one of you so much and i wish i was better at being a person.

[seagreenstardust]

No canon ships means post-canon is anyone’s game

[theinnermechanismsofmymindtdp]

None of you understands my plight, how will Soren and Terry interact?

[bruhstation]

What does Mallard think of Spencer? I just wanna see more of your Mallard <3<3

as taken from this post:

"mallard is a special case. he doesn’t care about what hatedom spencer is doing or what he does because mallard believes he deserves better than to pay attention to any of the gresley drama. oftentimes mallard’s the provocator that pushes spencer’s buttons juuust enough to start the hating reaction out of him and then back out to say “see I told you spencer’s a nutjob” to anyone nearby (usually ryan)"

in addition, mallard thinks lowly of spencer. sure, he's the duke and duchess of boxford's special chauffeur who looks untouchable, but mallard knows exactly what to say or do to make spencer's posh, collected persona crumble and paint him as some violent, brash ticking time bomb in front of his peers. why? he's tired of spencer getting everything handed to him on a silver platter and believes he is delivering some kind of retribution to spencer for everything he's said and done (not that mallard cares about how gordon and scott have been hurt by him. it's mostly to satisfy his own boredom)

trying to tell your brother to stop being a huge jerk which always fails again and again isn't fun! however annoying and humiliating him in front of the people he's trying to impress, is.

spencer's heartbeat quickens whenever he spots mallard in a 50 yard range

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

The whole discourse about the privacy/secrecy/support thing has been sitting with me for a few days (I mean other than it always does to a certain degree) thanks to all the excellent discussion happening and I know I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said a million times before, but I think what we're seeing and what we're going to learn (e.g. from TTPD) is that it wasn't just the support issue, but how it was shown/handled.

We've all gone out of our way to show that introversion =/= lack of support. Someone can be shy, reserved, etc. and still show up for their partner, whether in public or at home. To chalk any of the differences up to the clash between introversion and extroversion is unfair to folks who count themselves among either tbh.

@thisisctrying said something the other day that hit the nail on the head about how if that support had been offered in private, there very well may not have been a Joever to begin with, or at least not at this point in time. (Sorry for loosely paraphrasing, and for namedropping you! Long time listener, first time poster.)

If this were a case where the "shy" partner said, "I am really uncomfortable with the spotlight personally and do not want to court it, but I will support you in your ambitions and offer you whatever you need to make them happen and make the glare bearable," I suspect that would have gone a long way to making Taylor feel seen and comfortable in pursuing her goals in the way that she now has. Again, that might have been more akin to the balance that seemed to have been struck around 2019 from what we can see, but even speaking in a general sense, there are lots of couples out there, celebrity or not, that have similar approaches where there are highly driven people and busy careers involved.

(A famous example being Dolly Parton's marriage. Tbh I know next to nothing about her and Carl, but she's always heralded as an example in this regard, because her husband is famously uncomfortable with the spotlight and hasn't accompanied her to public events in decades, but she's said that she never minded that because that was always work to her, and what was important was that he supported her in pursuing all her career goals and basically ensured she had a place to call home to return to at the end of the day.)

We're kind of in a brave new world with her current relationship because it felt like, at least at the start, we were maybe watching her figure out her boundaries in real time as to what she was comfortable with or not and adjust accordingly. Like so many have said, I fully believe the extreme privacy thing was initially driven by herself and her experiences in 2016, and she needed that quiet time to recover from all of the things and figure out how to exist in the world again.

Stating the obvious, it seemed like eventually privacy was equated with secrecy, turning the relationship and the celebrity into the elephant in the room and something to never be spoken of to the outside world. People are free to choose whatever works best for themselves and their relationships, and for some the separate public lives might work, but the “kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath” theme is all over her work and it’s clear that it’s a sore spot for her, because she’s been made to feel shame just for the life she leads so many times in the past.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s pretty obvious something Not Great was happening behind the scenes, which didn’t just amount to “she wanted to be a public celebrity and he wanted to be a private hermit.” (Also, in case anyone forgot, this is a person who also chose a public-facing career who also has to engage in press for it, but I digress.) As her career reached new heights post-folklore, if she had the support at home to do all the things without judgment and with encouragement, and in turn offer the same support to her partner, she may have very well lived just fine with that, not unlike Dolly Parton’s case.

By reading between the lines in all the press since, as well as comments on tour and general ~vibes~ with TTPD teasers, it seems like one of the issues was that that was likely not the case. There was all the stuff that we saw — the reticence to acknowledge each other in the media (particularly on one side), the lack of public support even at events at which they were both in attendance for their respective jobs, the great lengths they went to not to be photographed together at events they attended yet no problem taking pictures with other friends and coworkers, the jobs that separated them, the withdrawing from the public even for work accomplishments, etc. Which could all be manageable if a couple chooses to do so together and are not inherently a sign of trouble in themselves.

But what we’re seeing now I think is a reflection of the things we weren’t seeing then, and it seems to indicate some very deep hurt. (I know, call me Captain Obvious.) And like so many have been saying, it feels likely that that part of that hurt is rooted in that very lack of private support where a person would expect it from their partner. Obviously as a Taylor fan blog I’m going to be more inclined to understand her side of a story, but tbh, it’s also because… this is sooooooo common, and something I’ve experienced in my friend group. (@taylortruther is right when she says most breakups are the same one way or another lol.)

One partner is resentful of the other’s success, or resentful that the other’s priorities begin to evolve as new experiences unlock new goals, or feels the other’s ambitions are not worthy of pursuit, and coupled with perhaps their own struggles in the same domain, it’s easy to see where that can chip away at the other partner’s morale and faith in the relationship. I know I’m just speculating here, but I also don’t think it’s totally unfounded. (Again, because a) I’m picking up what she’s putting down and b) it happens to sooooooo many women even among us dull normals.)

With all the pointed mentions about how much Taylor feels supported in her current relationship and how she in turn loves to offer the same show of support to not only her partner but other loved ones, how she’s stepped out more in the last year to a whole host of events, how she’s mentioned feeling like she locked herself away for years and she’s just proud of her partner and happy she can show up for him even if the chaos around it is unsettling, it paints a picture of what perhaps was happening before last year.

To feel like you’re all alone in carrying the weight of the relationship (or burden of it), of twisting yourself into knots to accommodate the other person’s boundaries (or insecurities) but not feeling reciprocity for your own has to be so painful. (The idea that it may have been even darker and to have a partner not only be unreceptive to your own needs but even perhaps resentful/dismissive/belittling of them is even more painful to think of. I guess we’ll find out when TTPD comes out if that was the case, too.)

At a certain point, that lack of acknowledgement will force your hand to be able to reclaim yourself. And it feels like the further removed Taylor in particular is from it, the more she moves from being sad about the life she felt she gave up by leaving, to angry at the life she felt she was giving up by staying. Especially being in a relationship now where it seems like everything comes much easier, where she can be open about the person she’s with and show up for them, all the stuff that seemed as challenging as climbing Mount Everest in her past is nothing more than a molehill at best in her current life.

TL;DR: I don’t think it’s privacy that inherently spells doom for a celebrity relationship like this; it’s the mutual support and respect that does. If Taylor had felt that in the later years of her previous relationship, I think we could be seeing a different, though not necessarily unfulfilled, person right now in 2024, who’d be happy on tour but whose personal life would look a little different. But it seems like by losing that support she lost parts of herself, and we’ve seen her reclaim that in spades in the last year, and perhaps to degrees she didn’t even realize she could from before all the Bad Stuff started happening in her young adulthood.

I know this was extremely long-winded and unnecessary, especially about total strangers we only know through scraps fed through the media, but I just always bristle at this idea that issues like these boil down to “personality differences,” as though one person wants to live in a city and the other on a remote island, or some shit like that. The whole support (and gender tbh) issue is one that’s just very close to my heart because again, I have seen it play out with so many of my friends in long term relationships and marriages and I just think people in relationships (and women in particular in some circles) deserve better than to feel like they’re being, well, tolerated.

[hello-eeveev]

some highlights of me yelling at ludinus (and cheering for imogen) from last night’s livetweeting:

ludinus you’re still on this ‘feeding’ narrative? literally what are you talking about

okay so he just didn’t listen to silaha at all

YES IMOGEN SASS HIM

ludinus: watch this it will convince you for sure 100% imogen: it didn’t convince me ludinus: okay but if you think about it with MY framing for a few days, then…?

oh piss offffffff

IMOGEN JUST LAUGHED IN HIS FACE I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO STAN

ludinus: most people in power are the worst. yes I am working against the people who are fighting to root out corruption in the government I helped establish. I have to be the one to do it, but not when it’s miiiiine :(

I love you imogen temult read him to filth. tear him to shreds.

MOLAESMYR WAS THE FIRST ATTEMPT TO COMMUNE WITH PREDATHOS AND YOU WANT TO DO IT AGAIN??? TO THE WHOLE WORLD???????

I hate him I hate him sooo much vile vile man

he’s here to be SO HURTFUL TO ORYM??? BITCH????

[firwhorl]

i kinda always found jeremy from aftg similar to gansey, like their appearance and vibe overlapped somewhat in my mind

i'm very vindicated about this after reading tsc >:)

[miiiwu]

.

[bugsbenefit]

re leaks i know i just complained about being annoyed However it's genuinely funny to me that as soon as we get any, and i mean any new set or shot of the actors there's at least 3 "so Byler kiss is happening there?" posts on my dash, like yeah you're having fun sure, that's the kind of engagement with leaks i can ignore and be slightly confused by. i think we should all say more random words

[blujayonthewing]

opening the group chat for the first time today and there's like 200 new messages because everyone's Going Through It today it seems but one of my friends dropped 'I'm separating from [terrible boyfriend she's been living with for like eight years] for real this time, I just moved a bunch of stuff to my parents' and I'm losing my mind because y'all the subject changed almost immediately HEY HI EVERYBODY ELSE SHUT THE FUCK UP I WANNA HEAR ABOUT THAT???

[goatfelons]

not to over analyze a show thats meant to be silly and fun, but sometimes i think about this clip and think that it explains a lot about lacey as a person, in my opinion. that's why she wants everyone to like her.

[monty-glasses-roxy]

@phrogggslayer

I dunno if your guy can even do this but I thought it'd be cute if he could tip his hat to you with his trunk :)

I had more ideas for him, but as you can probably guess from the time these are posted uhhhh I ran out of time :(

[m1d-45]

man red and shade make me Insane because first of all. the age stuff. red is the version of diluc right after the whole shit w his 18th birthday while shade is current-day kaeya, so it'd be reasonable to assume that shade is most likely "older" than red bc of timeline stuff, BUT ALSO. like you cannot tell me that they don't completely ignore that and still go by the older-younger dynamic that both of them remember. you simply cannot. add on how apparently diluc was a Bastard Of A Kid, and boom. full dynamic right there.

so anyways what i'm saying is that if you leave them alone together red will absolutely rope shade into whatever scheme he has. like i imagine that they still have to be led into reconciliation with each other at first, but your god personally asking you to talk out your problems and try to reform your relationship with your (technically kind of) estranged brother is a really good motivator it turns out! it makes it easier to leave them alone together, but give it a week and shade is also glaring at diluc whenever he's nearby and oh no red what did you tell him.

i keep on picturing you coming home after a long day of meetings and walking in on red and shade coming up with an elaborate murder scheme (shade is the one making it elaborate. red would rather just go in and Fuck Shit Up) - teddy anon

you understand my vision

putting shade and red together in a room is. one of the ideas you’ve had.

they’re very different from their base selves, but red still holds a strange animosity. he’s diluc with all the anger and none of the time for it to cool, and shade has a permanent guilt lingering in his chest he never can place. he just feels… off around red, and doesn’t really know why.

it takes quite a bit of work to get red to adjust to shade, but the process only burns shade more. it’s complicated, to put it simply, and takes time.

but that time passes. with enough quiet interactions without you there, with enough trust that the other truly has your best interest in mind.. they can connect. red shares the fire that drives him, shade chipping at the ice digging into his heart. they talk around the ashes of your campfire, slowly coming to a conclusion.

once shade and red fully reconcile, it’s… dangerous. shade’s constant need for your attention mixed with red’s need for your safety and immense distrust of anyone but nikki or the other reflections makes for a startlingly effective team. you’re happy they’ve made up, really, but shade seems to be pulling you away from your obligations more often, and red sticks closer to your side than ever. on one hand it’s nice to see them get along, and you do appreciate the affection, but on the other, it’s more than a little concerning. you just hope that nothing bad comes of it..

(you’re a bit too late for that)

[joelletwo]

thjis is such an insane way for the conversation to progress i do love bansai the more i look at bansai

[iwatcheditbegin]

It’s so frustrating the way my mom legit just tells anyone highly personal and sensitive stuff about me. My personal struggles and mental health are absolutely not her story to tell.

It’s also not fair that I’m now uncomfortable around these people bc folks make the most inappropriate comments about Eds and straight up will ask me really invasive and triggering questions

[just-an-anxious-mess]

I'm glad there is apparently no more conflict between us but I can't help but be bitter. Why couldn't you be there for me, be supportive and listen to me when I was still a kid desperate for attention and praise and approval. I appreciate your support now but I am furious on behalf of that poor child who would do anything to have this kind of parent. As an adult I'm thankful for your help but my inner child will never forgive your absence.

I mourn the person I could have been if this support had been present from the start instead of after I'd been kicked out.