#oversharing on the internet goes hard

[wabunguss]

*appears outside ur door*

so, we gonna ever see more art of cronus in a collar?

yes. yes you all vwill. i cant showv the full drawving because its freaky. like freaky freaky. his dick vwas so long i had to use twvo images to cover it up /j

man my friends followv me and im hornyposting on main this is crazy im sorry friends. but to the rest of you i knowv yall are FREAKY. anywvays cronus the type of guy to wvomit vwhen hes ovwerly horny but not because im like projecting or anything I SWVEAR I SWVEAR. IM NORMAL GOD DAMMIT!!!!!

[pebblysand]

Heyyyy im dying for an update on castles!! Any hope of getting one soon?😭💗

hi anon! thanks for your message! the tl;dr answer to this is: no.

or, i don't know. maybe? sigh. it's just been a lot lately.

it's a funny one, you know? most of you will not remember this, but there used to be a time when i would share (maybe overshare - is that a word? i've always wondered why that is a word when it's your platform and your rules and people can just choose to ignore you) on tumblr. not just about fics and writing and peaky blinders, but also about me. the stuff i felt. the stuff that was going on in my life. lots of things.

i grew up in an era of blogging and livejournal (seeing dreamwidth make a comeback lately is oh-so-bizarre, btw) where people opened up online - sometimes too much. this was before doxxing, before cancel culture, before it became dangerous to do so. people would complain about their jobs, their mates - the internet was an outlet. and, i don't know if it was better or worse, i'm not here to make value judgements and i've always thought people who say "things were better in my day" sound like absolute twats, but it was undoubtedly different. i've had this conversation with someone on discord lately, about the dreamwidth comeback actually, when this person said: 'people get real personal on there, though' and i was like: 'yeah, i suppose it's just the culture of the place.' a place where, unlike tumblr and everything that came after it, most of the content produced was through words, rather than images. when the internet was still made for writers and you weren't afraid of "clogging" someone's dash with posts that were too long to be digested in less than ten seconds.

the thing is: i like writing. it makes it easier to organise thoughts. and, up to 2020 (2021, even) i used to post monthly updates on my writing, but also about my life, for you. remember how i told you when i passed my bar exam? how i quit my job, found another job, and then another one. i told you about the boy and hinted at my break-up. i told you about how one of my best friends sank into a very toxic relationship, from which i couldn't save her. i told you when my dad died. it wasn't even that long ago. and, i explained to you that for these reasons, and maybe others, i didn't have a chapter out as early as i would have liked. and, you understood. you were kept up with what was going on. it was the pandemic and a different time.

but then, gradually (oh-so-quickly and oh-so-slowly), "you" became "many." i like that word - "many" - it's what my hairdresser said the first time she cut my hair: "they are very fine, but there are very, very, many of them." i suppose that between the first chapter of castles and the latest, my follower count grew into the hundreds and i got - well, scared. scared to share: what i thought, why i wasn't posting, how much or how little i was writing, how i was feeling. because there were too many of you. because i started to hold myself up to higher standards, too.

the truth is that no one wants to listen to anyone on the internet complain. it's not fun. and, specifically, no one wants to listen to fanfiction writers complain. why would they? why would they moan about how busy they are? about how creatively drained they might be? about how maintaining a healthy balance between real life, a job, and writing, is hard, if you do it seriously. because it's a hobby. because it's not "real" writing. because it doesn't matter.

well, anon, i'll tell you something. the voice in my head, it goes like this: why are you tired? it's just fanfiction. stop taking yourself and your little stupid story so seriously. stop thinking this is Important because you're writing about something you feel is important. no one cares. and: you only wrote 80,000 words last year, people write full-blown nanos in a month, calm down. it's not that bad, you don't have children. it's not that bad, you don't have dying parents. it's not that bad, you have money. you're a white cis privileged girl who can afford to spend her free time on writing because you don't have to work multiple paying jobs to foot the bills. so many people do. people who are much busier than you write a lot more than you do. shut up, what are you crying about? why are you responding to this poor anon with anything other than "soon, i hope." they weren't even mean about it.

and, i like the word "many" because it encompasses the realness of it, the repetition of it. many, many, many. it's less theoretical than "a lot". you can't say: a lot, a lot, a lot. it's morning as i write this, irish drizzle blown in by the wind against my window, thin droplets like static and i wonder: could i isolate thirty thousand? count up to thirty thousand little drops of rain against glass and imagine what that would look like as people. that's a small stadium, isn't it? and, it's also almost how many people have clicked on castles, in the past three years. it's also how many people, in my head, are telling me to just suck it up and write the next chapter. it's been a month already, hasn't it?

to tell you the truth, i still overshare with some people. there's a very small discord i'm on which is more like a group chat with my best internet friends. it's a lot of fun. and, i'm not going to tag them here for fear that you might come at them with pitchforks, but after i was explaining this to them, how exhausted and drained and lost i've been feeling lately, i had some, last week, tell me i should just give up castles. just stop, recharge, take care of myself. it's just a fic, it doesn't matter. let it go, you know?

so, yeah. you read that right, anon dearest. people who i really love, and trust, told me i should put your beloved on an indefinite hiatus and move on with my life. how's that for an update? and, they didn't say it in a "this is a bad fic and it's not worth continuing" kind of way, but in a "it's not worth working yourself into the ground" kind of way. in a "fanfiction is a hobby" kind of way.

i typically count years from september to august (i'm still in school, in my head, sue me) and this past one has been long and hard. for reasons that i won't explain because of the "very many" issue i mentioned above. for reasons that i also won't explain because as i also mentioned above, i can't help but always compare myself to people who have it worse. but, the fact of the matter is that whilst i'm not really asking for sympathy, i do want to say this, as i hope it will help provide a bit of context to how i'm feeling right now, in terms of writing.

anon dearest, i'm exhausted. i'm bored. i'm turning thirty in 24 days. i'm sick and tired of putting everything in my life on hold "until i finish castles". i would estimate that right now (and for the past three years) castles has eaten up about 75% of my free time. i think the first couple years, i didn't really mind. because it was the pandemic. because there wasn't much else i wanted to do. but now, when i see my friends, i try to schedule it on weekday evenings because i want to keep my weekends for writing. when i travel at the weekends, take holidays, do anything that will take me more than a couple hours, it's a compromise made against writing time. a compromise i often feel guilty about because it delays the next update and because ultimately, it delays the moment when i do finish castles. when i am able to move on to something else. move on with my life and also maybe another story of my own.

these past few months, i wrote almost every day from late march until last week because i knew i'd be going home to france in august and wouldn't be able to write there, so i needed to get ahead. everything in my life is planned around writing and updating and i'm a little bit burnt out, anon. it's typical summer me, nothing to really worry about, i felt the same last year (those who were already here will remember) but it doesn't make it suck less. and, that's why people are telling me to give up. because i keep getting stuck in this cycle of overworking myself, getting burnt out, taking a month off and diving back in again. it's fanfiction and it's a hobby and it's meant to be fun and it's just not fun anymore. it feels endless and draining and like a vampire eating my "good" years. time my mates are spending getting married and having children. and, even if i don't think that's what i want for myself, precisely, i still don't feel like the life i'm currently living is one i want to be living in five years' time.

i don't want to be exhausted. i don't want to be working all the time. this groundhog day of getting up, opening up my (work, or personal) laptop, deliveroo-ing my meals, working until 9:30 pm, and repeat. i have seven chapters left to go to the end, which will take 12 to 18 months, and i don't think i can go on like this for another year. i don't want to. something's gotta give: my IRL life, my job, or this "hobby", and it is logical (oh-so-logical) that it should be the latter.

and, yet. when my pocket friends suggested this, i came at them with pitchforks. i said: no. no, no, no, no. i can't give up. i don't want to give up. i love this story. it's unnerving and draining and exhausting, but haven't touched it for a week and i already miss it - it's crazy. and, it's true: it's not fun, but writing, to me, has never been "fun". it's: fulfilling, exhilarating, meaningful, it gives me the chills and a sense of peace but it's not "fun". i don't know who the fuck writes for "fun". you can enjoy things that aren't "fun", you know? i definitely do.

and, if i had to pick one thing to give up on that list, honestly, it would be my job - 100%. i'd finish castles in six months, if i could give that up. but, i can't, lovely anon. because fanfic doesn't pay. because writing doesn't pay. and whilst i do have a savings account that i intend to use someday to take time off to write, i don't think i could justify using it for anything other than original fiction. because at least, there would be a tiny bit of hope that the book might get picked up and i could make my money back. i can't, like, quit my job to write fanfiction, can i? even if i did set up a patreon, i doubt you all would want to fund me, lol.

so, i don't know. i don't know what to do, anon. i don't want to give up castles. realistically, i probably won't. realistically, i'm probably going to keep ploughing through and overworking myself and feeling like i'm throwing my youth and my free time away into this project that everyone will most likely forget the moment it is finished. right now, to answer your question, i have about 6,000 words on the new chapter. right now, i'm also taking august off writing. to recharge, to sleep, and only write if i feel like it. later? i don't know. i think i'm in a place where i've just got 30,000 words out in three months and i'm too brain-dead to think clearly. i am acutely aware that this issue doesn't have a solution (or at least one that i like) but i might be more willing to compromise my life again after a bit of rest and holidays.

anyway, sorry for being a debbie downer, anon. and sorry i don't have an update for you. i'm dying for one, too.

[edge-oftheworld]

“yknow as a fandom I think we could do a better job of appreciating Sierra Deaton”

No just have less appreciating Sierra cause she’s been anti-black, a creep towards fans, invalidated a 5sos fan’s mental health because they’re a fan, trauma dumped on young fans and overshared, slut shamed Ashton, and so on and so forth

hey anon!! Thanks for this concise little list. But seriously, thanks for making me think and pull together a bunch of ideas in my head; I hope in this essay really you can see some of my thought process. I can’t imagine how hard it’d be to be reaching out with something really hard and expect compassion and get a negative interaction instead—if that was you or whoever it is I hope they’re doing better and finding community and people who care. And I don’t want to pretend she’s perfect or has done everything right, we know that’s not how it is, Sierra knows that, Luke knows that, so does, idk, God.

and I’ll admit I’m a bit old fashioned when it comes to cancelling people and I do like to try and see the good in people where possible—sometimes imo it’s the only way to get any positive change. to look beyond the superficial where someone might lash out—is it in malice, or fear, a momentary impulse they might regret later or maybe realise for some reason were pushed to a point where they couldn’t manage anything better. I know I’ve been to that point and I know how I spiral if I don’t know how to forgive myself. I also know this is a fandom where shit gets real and we’re young and hurting and sometimes that just makes us defenceless against our idols and those around them being human, and the shitty side of human we all have potential to become too. And we live in an era of systemic racism and lack of access to mental health services which both causes and exacerbates so many issues that, was the world not so anti-black; had every mentally ill child and youth a support network in real life (instead of the way many of us often spend years only ever feeling seen by the songs we listen to, 5sos songs easily filling in that need)—we might be a little more able to be like ‘wtf that’s not cool but that’s a her problem’ and move on. and can I say we do deserve a world that doesn’t discriminate. And in order to get what we deserve we have to make it. and in order to make it we have to learn how to do better and let people learn to do better—these people aren’t going anywhere. somehow bad people have to turn into good people and yes in order to do that they have to be made accountable. Repentance is truly a beautiful thing; it’s also something that can’t happen when we feel scared and in our survival brain. When we feel like that we tend to easily get into us vs them and dig deeper into our (often wrong) convictions and that’s actually an evolutionary response to when we have to fight against predators; we don’t have time to think ‘but what if they’re actually in the right’ when we’re fighting for our lives.

and this isn’t the place to psychoanalyse Sierra. I don’t know exactly what goes on in her head, I don’t know if she’s sorry or even remembers these things but I do know the rift between her and fans has been quite heated and even scary at some points over the years. And maybe I have the privilege of never being someone who has been hurt by her to have grace for the fact that ‘gotta be nice to this fan they’re having an experience of a lifetime to be interacting with my partner and I’m gonna give the benefit of the doubt that they’re not one of the individuals in a sea of fans who all look identical to me sending me death threats’ is a hell of a lot to put your brain through every single day. If she (and it’s not if, we know she did) make mistakes. If there was too much trauma to hold and she put it out on the internet to cope in a season of her life. If the insecurity became jealousy of one of the most important people in her s/o’s life which became insults that were thrown around back in high school before everyone realised how uncool they were and tried to stop using them but they were still burned in their brains to come out on impulse (I actually have no idea how that specific event went down, or if there were one or multiple). I hope they sorted that out internally; I don’t know what else I can do but trust that it’s something they’re capable of doing and care for each other enough as a group of friends and songwriters to do.

I wanted to save the lateral racism example for last because I feel like everything above is kind of a metaphor for it, if you follow. I’m coming from a place where I’m southeast asian and part white living in a largely western country, so is Sierra, so I’m automatically going to see her as ‘like me’ (and can I say how rarely I get this kind of representation?) whereas if you’re black, or if you find your experience more relatable to blackness, then you’re going to experience this very differently. I can’t know your experience. I also know that asians can be brutal in this area: it’s the reason my childhood best friend hasn’t told her dad she got engaged to her partner nearly a year ago. Lateral racism isn’t okay. But unfortunately what happens is often when you’re discriminated against in some ways we’re conditioned to take the side of the oppressor against someone who’s discriminated against in other ways. It’s all ‘okay maybe I’m x and I should be y but at least I’m not z’ and again it’s that evolutionary survival instinct to not be at the bottom of the pile; channeled in horrible ways into today’s society. It takes a lot of effort and self awareness to be like ‘we’re united in this experience of being oppressed, together we have the power to make a stand that this is Not Cool’ and most of us fail the first few times. but what’s important is we keep trying. we can all heal together when we do.

so anon I have no idea who you are or your background or how much you’ve had to wrestle with this yourself, if you’ve had to stand up against communities who were hostile, if you’ve had to do this while being discriminated against from outside as well, if you know the experience of not fully being one race but not fully being another etc. and also you’ve got no obligation to like Sierra, this is such unsolicited advice but this whole release period for boy ep I’ve really just been thinking ‘it’s healthy to feel our feelings even when it’s not always pleasant isn’t it’ and wherever that hurt is please love it embrace it bring it into the light whatever you do to realise you’re valuable and you don’t have anything to be ashamed of. even your mistakes and where you’ve hurt people and regret that, you’re gonna grow so much from that and have so many chances to do better. maybe you’re young and you haven’t had the chance to hurt anyone yet. I hope you manage to stay that way but if you do, I hope you can forgive yourself too. I hope you dip your toes in activism for Black Lives Matter, for mental health, for sex positivity, I can see you really value these things and that’s really encouraging to see.

and in the end: sometimes I have to be annoyingly human and come down to the fact that I really enjoy the songs that Sierra writes. I’ve fanned enough about gothic summer on this blog already. I enjoy the things she writes and so I listen to them, and I’m not actively boycotting Sierra specifically, I love the creative outcomes when she works with 5sos as a whole, with Luke, with other artists I love as well. As a result I do care about her as a person, I always do, and hey, I respect her funny little routine donations and the undertones of her UNICEF donation back in October and the random animal sanctuary and the occasional nod to some Australian mental health charity.

I’ve inferred a lot about how much more relaxed and at ease and free to feel things and process life at his own pace Luke seems to be with her than beforehand—and the fan in me who’s so protective of these guys just desperately wants someone to be there for them in ways that really matter and I feel like we have seen that, even despite the often rocky nature of the relationship between Sierra and Luke’s fans. Luke is someone I relate to a lot, and there are some experiences that are really hard to come back from, and I’m really proud of him right now and I do get the impression being with Sierra has really helped him get there. I don’t know for sure, I could be wrong, but I’m always going to be grateful when celebrities get to be human and not have their lives and choices dictated by fans either directly or indirectly. I’ll take the allies I can in my activism and even if there are criticisms around sincerity I do generally see Sierra trying and I want to appreciate that. I don’t want to say she hasn’t hurt anyone ever and I pray for resolution and peace for the fans, for Ashton, for her, for the Black community in general, for everyone who’s been hurt in the wake of colonialism and the generational trauma it breeds. And then I’ll go listen to bloodline and think, maybe in some ways we were born inheriting the sins of our parents before we knew better. But every day I discover ways of choosing better and compassion takes us so far and I hope every day I learn a bit more about how to channel that.

thank you for the ask, it really got me thinking and the opportunity to compile some thoughts I’d had that I didn’t realise formed a neat little mindmap around Sierra as a case study!! Much more fun than regular sociology. And I didn’t even get to delve into the political history of Saigon that I’ve been trying to understand more about!!

[ciaossu-imagines]

Time for the regularly scheduled break and I’m coming at you with the oldie, but always goodie, fandom of Class of the Titans! I used this prompt here and, for this one, I picked a character using a random name picker generator off the internet to figure out who to write about without playing favourites! I hope anyone who likes or knows this show enjoys because I had a blast writing for Neil!

Does your muse prefer to sleep under many layers of blankets or only under a few?

Neil gets warm quite easily while he sleeps so he has either one medium-warm comforter or a few light blankets over him. In the middle of the summer, there’s no blankets period.

Does your muse like to accessorize? What are their favourite pieces of accessories?

Okay, but Neil is a true fashion boy. He loves everything to do with fashion, including accessories. He has jewelry, hats, gloves, various wallets that go with different outfits. He’ll jump aboard the glasses trend and will have a couple either blue-light or no lenses pairs. But his biggest splurge is definitely on shoes, with at least a quarter of his closet being taken up by his shoe collection.

Does your muse like to collect/hoard anything?

Neil collects mirrors. He has his monogrammed one for daily use, but he also has a vast collection of different mirrors and he finds it really hard to pass up a pretty mirror, whether it be a wall-hanging one or a hand mirror. The really ornate, Victorian looking hand mirrors are definitely something he automatically buys whenever he sees them.

Does your muse like to have company over?

So much so. Neil is not a solitary person. An extrovert to the extreme, he is happiest surrounded by people or at the center of a crowd. He lives for parties and events and gets really despondent if left on his own for too long.

Is your muse the “oversharing” type?

Neil can overshare, but it really depends on the topic. There are actually a couple subjects he just won’t discuss because it just isn’t proper in his mind. He won’t talk about anything bathroom related because he feels it tarnishes his beauty and when it comes to sex, he’s surprisingly a gentleman about it. However, all other subjects? Pretty fair game for all the details unless they make him look bad.

Does your muse prefer soft, plush textures or smooth and glossy textures?

Smooth and glossy appeals more to Neil visually, so they tend to be what he goes for because to him, visual appeal is incredibly important. However, soft and plush appeals more to him for feel, with cashmere and velvet being textures that he just can’t keep his hands off of.

Is your muse drawn to things that sparkle?

Yes. Double down so hard on that. YES. If it’s glittery or sparkly, Neil likes it.

Is your muse a daydreamer? What do they tend to think about? Have they ever caught themselves while lost in thought?

Neil does tend to get lost in thought sometimes but it’s not usually in daydreams. He’s not incredibly imaginative, to be fairly honest, and it’s more often that he gets lost in thought about things he’s looking forward to or parties he wants to plan or that gorgeous pair of pants he passed by in the mall that he needs to go buy or the article he’d been reading about some celebrity gossip.

Does your muse like to read the news?

The news depresses Neil so he doesn’t read or watch it if he can help it. He’ll stick to his trashy tabloids, glossy magazines, and celebrity gossip sites.

Is your muse a gossiper?

Neil is one hundred percent that bitch! He lives for the drama and the juicy details. Celebrity gossip, school gossip, gossip about his friends, gossip about people he doesn’t even know – he’s all over it. He needs to know the details, stat!

What does your muse do to occupy themselves when bored?

Neil doesn’t get easily bored, honestly. He can almost always find ways to keep himself entertained, whether it be hanging out with friends, going on dates, spending time on self-care, going shopping…he can always find something to occupy his time.

Does your muse like to explore dangerous places?

No, thank you! Dangerous places often come with dirt or muck or rust or any other number of things that are not good for his skin and clothing, thank you very much.

Has your muse done something stupid and not regretted it?

Yes. Neil routinely does stupid things. He just really doesn’t often have the opportunity to regret things because all too often, they tend to work out well for him in the end.

Does you muse enjoy attending churches they don’t belong to?

Neil isn’t religious. He doesn’t like religion and doesn’t have any interest or desire in attending church. The only interest churches have to him is the fact that they are hallowed ground and a good place to hide in case monsters attack.

Is your muse considered a wanderer?

I think Neil would largely be considered a wanderer. While he does have parents, they’re not close and his parents are away from home a lot. Neil himself doesn’t like to stay put in any one place for overly long as he’s always seeking the next big thing.

Would your muse consider themselves a lone wolf or a social butterfly?

A lone wolf? Please…that’s so last year. Neil is all about the social scene and thrives on the company of others, being very much a social butterfly.

Does your muse forgive others easily?

While Neil can throw temper tantrums and gets annoyed fairly quickly, to be honest, he is always generous with forgiveness. He doesn’t hold grudges and often forgets about whatever slights he feels were given to him long before the other person thinks about apologizing. It takes something really serious for Neil to be still angry when an apology does come his way and even then, when he is apologized to, he will forgive and forget.

What ‘fandoms’ would your muse belong to?

I feel like Neil would definitely be a celebrity addict and huge into reality shows. He’d also, if the show was more modern, be such a huge Game of Thrones fan, along with being really big into Buffy the Vampire Slayer no matter when the show is set. Buffy is his girl and he adores the show.

Does your muse enjoy praise?

Neil doesn’t just enjoy praise but craves it. He needs acceptance and praise and attention to function and remain happy.

Do they like ‘so bad it’s good’ movies?

So bad it’s good horror movies, to be precise. Those are Neil’s favourites and, honestly, the cheesier the better. He’s overall a fan of most horror movies but those are the ones he’ll choose and gravitate towards.

Does your muse like amusement parks/carnivals/festivals?

Neil likes festivals. Coachella and things along those lines would be must-attends to him. Carnivals are not his thing; he finds them slightly creepy. Amusement parks are a hit or miss for him though as he does like the rides but hates the long lines. If there was a way for him to just VIP his way to the front of every line, he’d enjoy them a whole lot more.

Could your muse survive on an uninhabited island all by themselves?

This one was actually so difficult because my first and immediate thought was a solid no, that Neil would die but the fact is, he’s blessed with an insane amount of good luck so I also feel there’s no way he wouldn’t survive.

[beautifulhigh]

20 Questions aka. Oversharing on the Internet version 92840938. Plus one?

Thank you for for tagging me @welcometololaland. Even though I suck at tag games and answering asks...

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

77.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

952,168. Pretty sure the next fic is going to top the million mark when (if) it finally goes up.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

At the moment? 911: Lone Star & Red White and Royal Blue

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Every nation ought to have a right to provide for its own happiness (RWRB). My newest fic and clearly posted at the right time to ride the wave!

Tell all the truth but tell it slant, Success in circuit lies (Lone Star) My post-Sadie fic. I really liked getting to play about with the narrative structure in this one

The tender things are those we fold away (Lone Star) Only Fans fic, my beloved.

But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep (Lone Star) My first Tarlos fic. Written before Gwyn's sudden death and she had a starring role at the start of it. And then I did something similar with Gabriel for my last one. I swear I will never heavily feature any recurring character again.

Want (Emmerdale) Come back to the Dales, Hawley you coward.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I respond to 99% of them - hard to come up with a response to a comment that you know someone just cuts and pastes onto all fics they read. (I am grateful for all comments but still...) You took the time to read and leave me a comment, I'm going to acknowledge that.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I'm going to go with Rumours (Emmerdale) for this. Because while they both die at the end (no reference intended to the book!) there is a whole life for Aaron and Robert before that moment comes.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I think most of them? It's all varying degrees of happiness because it depends what has happened to them in the meantime. But it all comes out in the wash.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I once wrote a fic in which I had characters explain why they couldn't take a particular course of action, and I had comments like "this is stupid, why don't they just do x?" which says more about their lack of reading skills. Other than that, not really.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do, but it's more about the feels than the actions.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I've never written one, simply because it feels a little too much like crossing the streams. Unless they are canonically in the same 'verse my muse refuses to even consider it. She's a sucker for rules like that.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Someone translated a Glee fic of mine into Russian (I think? It was a cyrillic language, I remember that) but I am always open to it!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I did a dual narrative fic once and that was great fun.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Don't make me choose between my babies. I can't.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have a Tarlos WiP and a Firstprince WiP and I want to finish them both.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I plan. I have pages and pages of planning and research and scribbled lines of dialogue and prose. I know exactly where I'm going with my stories and so the ending always pulls together the strands in the story. There are always hints and clues as to where I'm going, you just gotta pay attention.

(It's OK if you don't. It's rare someone comments on what is supposed to be a throwaway line and wonder why it's in there. Hint: it's because it's not throwaway.)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

More of a weakness for me I think - but consistency. I am a feast or famine writer. I knock out a fic in a week (Only Fans) or I have to drag it kicking and screaming from its coccoon of bedsheets (bank fic)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

If I need to do it then I am putting out pleas on Tumblr for a native speaker to translate the line for me

19. First fandom you wrote for?

"...I plead the 5th."

^ what she said

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Don't make me choose between my babies.

I am super later to this so open tag!

[beomiracles]

𝟐𝟏 𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐄 (not really)

— hii, it's a little awkward that I've been posting on here for almost five months but have yet to properly introduce myself...! the thing is I either overshare my full lore OR I don't say anything at all. But I'll try and find a middle ground for this page..

quick facts ⸝⸝ #2006 #she/her #scandinavian #CET

𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐌𝐄 — I have been existing on the internet since I was 5/6 (don't do that), and I have always liked writing. I really really like being creative and I would consider myself a creative person??? Writing is really just another way for me to express myself !

𝐈 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 cats, horror/gore movies, txt, sending 35 incoherent vms, spamming my story, talking nonsense, cigarettes (don't), piercings & tattoos !!!! the color pink, makeup, bows, anything girly (I am a girly girl). 𝐈 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐃𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 people who hate just to hate, negative/short-sighted people, racists/homophobes/sexists, people who don't like cats???

𝐂𝐄𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐄𝐃 𝐘𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐑 I'm a very social person, I love talking (like a lot) so please don't be shy and interact with/talk to me! I love to flirt (or at least try to, I am severely cringe) — my inbox is always open for anyone who wants to talk, send me memes pls I will laugh at ANYTHING. — BULLYING is strictly prohibited on here and I will ignore negatively targeted asks/delete mean comments, this is meant to be a safe space for me and you guys !

I do of course have a few boundaries just like anyone else !

MY BOUNDAIRES These mainly apply to my anons. Do not get me wrong, I love and adore all of you but at the end of the day you are anonymous and I know nothing about you when it comes to age, name or even gender (and that is completely fine, you are not obligated to tell me anything you do not want to!) however it makes me uncomfortable when anons who I know nothing about makes sexual comments about me/my body and or call me somewhat sexual petnames. Innocent flirting is still completely okay! and I will tell you if you end up making me uncomfortable, no hard feelings!

why only anons? well it's kind of simple, as an anon you are choosing to stay anonymous (once again, completely fine!!) but I can't chose to be anonymous on my own blog and it makes me uncomfortable when people who choose not to reveal themselves make such comments about me since I can't really do anything but accept it? this is my own preference, it may not apply to you but this is still my blog and I want to feel good on here :3

MY BOUNDARIES GOES BOTH WAYS ⇆ if I ever do something that makes you uncomfortable/overstep in any way, don't hesitate to tell me, communication is key and I will always listen to my readers!

if you have any questions about this post/or about me don't hesitate to ask, there is never harm in asking and no question is a bad one !

[setsumushou]

Okay, I know I've been nerfing my own works by including my rambling notes, but I've operated under the assumption for a long time that nothing I do will ever be received objectively again, so I've been like, "Welp, this is my only chance to express my feelings, so I might as well take it."

But it is incredibly unfair to my betas - the people who have helped me write these things - that their hard work goes to waste because of my need to overshare my personal feelings. So for that fact - not because I want an arbitrary internet number to go up - I've deigned to remove most of my uncomfortable personal ramblings from my fics. (Thank you for the suggestion, anon.)

My art, however - which I do all by myself and sacrifices no one's effort but my own - is still subject to my personal feelings expelling, lol. I feel like fic speaks for itself (hopefully), but I like to contextualize my thoughts on my drawings.

I am still truly flailing in the wind with all the fandom stuff. But I do put things out there simply because I want them to exist, not for personal reward.

[lightspren]

ok I think I have my thoughts collected enough to Overshare with the Internet

so. annual gyn appt today. she breaks the news that the medication I’m on to treat my endometriosis pain can only be taken for two years straight, because otherwise it’ll cause bone problems - and I’ve been on it two years. This wasn’t a shock to me really, I knew this was a problem with that med and I thought the time was coming.

so. I have to stop the med that prevents me from being in debilitating pain 2-3 weeks of every month. there’s another med we could try, but from what I understood it’s essentially an off label use, so no idea if insurance would cover it. and i’m super not keen on playing medication roulette yet again. I fucking hate medication roulette. but the only other thing that could be done is surgery again. my first surgery for the endo was eight years ago, and they apparently prefer to give it ten before doing surgery again, but a lot of people only make it five.

so the option I decided to go with is to just stop the medicine and see what happens lmao. the Most Likely Scenario is that in two months I’m gonna be telling her I’ve had enough of this bullshit and it’s time to cut me open. luckily because of Reasons she actually thinks it won’t be hard to get a doctor to agree to do a hysterectomy, even though i’m 27 (almost 28) and have no children (my provider is a nurse practitioner so ofc she can’t do surgery, it’d have to be another doctor in the practice). it’d really become a question of, do surgery and only deal with the implants, which is the less extreme option but not a permanent solution. Or just yank the damn offending organ out and be done with it.

so. that’s where I’m at lmao. I have one week left of my med then The Games Begin. and there’s so many other complicating factors. starting with my own self doubt of surely I’m just being a wimp and it isn’t THAT bad (this is wrong. I have my spouse already in agreement to continually remind me that just because i’m “functioning” doesn’t mean i’m actually okay lmao).

then there’s the timing. if I give it three months of Awful before deciding, that puts us at June. it would take probably at least two months to get the surgery scheduled - August. except I have a new doctor starting at work in August. which means account setup, training, shadowing - like, when a new provider starts I spend minimum three days sitting beside them to help while theyre learning the system. So if I had them rush surgery scheduling and MAYBE got it done in July - I would be recovering when I needed to be setting up the doctors accounts and access and doing his training. Or if they scheduled it in August, I’d be there for like a week or two then peace out for 2-4 weeks and he’d just have to struggle. neither is awesome!!! which in all honesty means probably the earliest I can have surgery, just from logistics, is September. which is six months from now. so six months of spending half the month in debilitating pain. GODDDDDDDDDDDD.

anyway I. should probably stop here lmao. all this shits been tumbling thru my head all evening though so I needed to get it down in one place even if there’s no real answers to be found. assuming the NP was right about it being easy to get one of the doctors to do the surgery, the biggest fights are gonna be my own self doubt/minimization of my own suffering and timing. so. we will just have to see how this goes l o l

[warmbloodedzines]

[Image ID: A zine in an 8-page layout. The entire zine has a white background and is written and drawn digitally in a pale purple color.

The title “The Poor Kid You Never Knew” sits at the top of the first page, above a silhouette sketch of a person with medium length hair in a t-shirt. The bottom left corner of the page reads “a zine about poverty."

The second page reads "I don't like talking about my personal life on the internet. mainly to prevent my habit of oversharing. but this is something that needs to be addressed." On the right is a drawing of the same person with a little mushroom hat on, and their hair to right above their shoulders. They have a little speech bubble pointing to the previous text. The text continues: "I was in poverty for most of my childhood. I use "poverty" as a very loose term. My parents had high paying jobs, but were drowning in student loan debt, mortgage payments, the general cost of raising four kids, and the cost of my dwindling health." To the right is a drawing of the same person, this time with hair that's almost to their shoulders on the right and short on the left.

The third page reads "There was a period in time between the ages of 4-8 where every night, I would have an asthma attack, and every night, I would be hooked up to a nebulizer." The following bit of text has the background scribbled out in a slightly lighter purple, seemingly to symbolize smoke. "As my asthma is reactive to smoke, this period only stopped when my father tried to quit that one time. But I digress." It continues with the same plain white background as before. "But why am I telling you this? Well, what I'm trying to say is that poverty looks different for everyone. For me, it resulted in things that were unnoticeable to those who weren't looking, but subconsciously distanced me from my peers." On the right is a drawing of the same person with a mushroom hat on. Their hair is to right above their shoulders.

The fourth page reads "People love to romanticize poverty." There is a list with the title "poor kids in media", and the list items say "- straight As (such a hard worker {pleading face emoji})" "- somehow always clean" "- homeless or living in a ramshackle 1900s tenement or some shit" Then, a clarification underneath that says "(none of these things are bad, it's just a stereotype)." On the left is a drawing of the same person with much shorter hair, not falling past the bottom of their head.

The fifth page is another list, titled "my poor kid experience." the list goes on to say: "- snotty nose from untreated allergies (ew gross. gross child alert)" "- hand me downs and goodwill clothes, ofc" "- poorly taken care of, frizzy 3b hair (they must not care about their hygiene {two eye roll emojis})" "- did well in school through being gifted, was not able to do homework at home (they must hate their teachers)" "- shared a room with two siblings in a three bedroom house in suburbia" "- constantly coughing (how rude of them)" "- holes in my two-year-old Kmart shoes" On the left side of the page is a drawing of the same person, this time with their hair a bit above their shoulders again. Their faces is mostly colored in, except for the eyes.

The sixth page has a drawing of two people with their hands on either side of their faces and shocked looks, their eyes and mouths wide open. The words "How were we supposed to know?" are big and bold across the page, covering a bit of the art.

The seventh page is mostly scribbles, with a space in the middle that says "You weren't."

The eight page reads "You were supposed to not judge me. You were supposed to think, for one second, about why I was like that." Underneath this text is a drawing of the same person, with hair down down their shoulders, and some scribbles surrounding them. Underneath that is the Tumblr logo next to “shroommis-shitfest" and the Youtube logo next to “ShroomiWoomi." /End ID]

decided to convert my comic about being poor into a zine

don't judge people kids. like actually. always assume good faith. unless you shouldn't.

idk if this will fold into a zine I just traced over @/echioceras' zine and. hoped for the best

[idohistorysometimes]

Some important internet advice: Stop Oversharing

I know this is not really a history thing. But since I am kind of a teacher and this is a ‘life lesson’ I feel like this is kind of applicable here since it crosses over with IRL interactions I have. 

I think it should go without saying that kids are just on the internet now. They got phones, they got computers, they got Ipads, they got smart fridges, and there are here to stay. Some of my readers might even fall under this category. And since the new generation seems to be so chronically online I have noticed an issue (both here and on sites like TikTok). That issue is oversharing.

Like, a LOT of oversharing. 

Like, to an unhealthy degree.

I am talking people posting their entire list of traumas (with specifics), medical history including their diagnoses, full name, full birth dates, and a lot of other extremely identifying information just out on the internet either in the form of bios or in the form of an extremely lengthy post catalog where these things are frequently brought up. Now I don't wanna be the guy who is like “Well you should not do that because of internet predators” but I am going to be that guy. It's not fucking safe. Stop doing it.

The internet is not a completely altruistic place. This is not to say that you cannot meet nice genuine people on the internet or have meaningful interactions over the internet with people. But just because you can have these interactions and the fact they are possible DOES NOT MEAN THEY ARE ALWAYS GOING TO HAPPEN. Not every single person you come across with be genuine, kind, or even indifferent to you. There are going to be people who use the anonymity that comes with the internet to do fucked up things to you and with the information you give them.

For example: that trauma dump you just posted can be used as fuel to harass you in a VERY VERY specific and personal way. Just because it is your authentic trauma does not mean people will respect it. As shitty as that is that is just the nature of what anonymity can allow people to do. They can use your traumas and diagnoses as a tool to hurt you. And since they will never see you in person or have to usually face the consequences of their own actions they will lay into you HARD.

I know it can suck not being able to talk about the things bothering you and being able to get support. But this is also why something called “throwaway accounts” exist. They exist so you can vent about something or post something without it being connected back to you and your main account. If you really feel you need to share something like that: use something like that. And if issues are in your life are THAT bad I would heavily recommend seeking actual counseling since the internet cannot help you solve those issues.

Along with that: you do not have to share every detail about yourself and your identity online. 

Identity might be important but so is safety. Random strangers visiting your page do not need to know that you are a 14-year-old living in X state and that has Y set of illnesses or mental issues. Not everybody needs to know those things about you. Not everybody should know these things about you. This all comes back to the weaponization component but also it can make it REALLY easy to Dox you. I am not endorsing Doxxing but with that amount of information, it is extremely easy to find and locate you or your family members based on that information you share. You dont even have to hack anything. All you need is whitepages or sites like it.

If it is not absolutely relevant to what you are doing or the conversation you are having: do not share it.

This even goes for IRL conversations. Does the person you are talking to really need to know your diagnostic history? Do they really need to know all the intricate parts of what makes up your identity? Do they need to know all of the horrible things that happened to you as a child? Do they need to know that horrible thing your friend did last week? Do they need to know any of this to be able to keep participating in conversations with you? You can still share some information that is relevant (like for example pronouns) but do they REALLY need to know everything else about you?

You do not need to be sharing that much information with strangers. You REALLY don't. There is just way too much that can go wrong with doing that and there is very little actual reason to be doing that. It's safer just not to. 

And as a final remark: The internet is NOT a replacement for actual mental health services. It is not a replacement for specialized therapies or medications. It is not a replacement for actual help. The internet CAN help you but it is not a replacement for actual treatments. You are not treating your bipolar disorder by talking to "XenoKittie999" on discord or in your DMs. And that same person CANNOT diagnose you with anything. 

Please stay safe out there. 

[cynical-gamer-media]

On IRL Adult Friends: How Capitalism And Social Media Makes it Almost Impossible to Have:

So many folks speak of having no friends or very few (one or two) in their adult life. Some may have heard of the ‘loneliness epidemic’ (which also effects non-Western countries, like Japan being a huge example). (Of course this depends on whether you live in a city or town, and what country with what values). There are two reasons why maintaining friends as adults or making new ones is almost impossible:

Capitalism and social media.

Due to capitalism it is nearly impossible to maintain friends or make new ones due to people being extremely busy with their schedule or wishing to rest after a long hard day (week, month, etc) of work. If the friend has children or a partner than naturally they will prioritise it over you and friendship. Sure you work in an office or somewhere else many days but you don’t make friends.

(There is a difference between ‘friends’ and ‘acquaintances’. Friends are people whom you have a bond with, whereas acquaintances are people you get along with. You will have many acquaintances but little to no friends.) 

Social media makes people wish to avoid making friends due to mistrust: what if they overshare unintentionally or in a fit of anger share it online? Once on the internet stays on the internet. It seems better to be on your own than to make friends knowing how major the risk is. 

So for the vast majority of adults you fall out of touch with your pre-existing friends, not due to fights but because priorities, mentalities, and goals change. 

Don’t do the whole ‘join a club’: that doesn’t work many times. People in clubs are either a) already have a friend or buddy with them or (b) only focused on the task(s) at hand. Likewise ‘join a course’ doesn’t work for the same reasons. Topped with people being extremely busy in their lives (including you) you will never make friendships because they are too busy or want rest.

Don’t do the whole ‘go to a coffee place’: nobody goes there to make friends or have time even. You would waste money going once a week to see the same people that may or may not come? Again you may make acquaintances but not friends. (You yourself may be extremely busy so why waste time too).

This post isn’t trying to be despairing, but it is extremely telling how many adults talk about lack of friends or losing friends along the way. And not many people talk about how the majority of people will lose friends or have little to none as adults.

[the-expose-on-girls]

Characteristics of Toxic Office Women

The girls who think being a receptionist makes them upper class, the heads of HR who think they rule the world, and everyone in between.

Either goes overboard with her fashion or dresses like a future Karen

There is no in between. On the one hand is the girl who thinks the office is her own personal runway. Probably has one favored aesthetic that she sticks to, which can seem very costume-y at times: like vintage bitch or old money. Or the less common type gets straight to the point by dressing as sexy as she can get away with to manipulate men and intimidate women.

Then on the other hand are the women dressing old while still young, but they don't seem to realize it. They probably buy their clothes for the office at Maurices, Walmart, Kmart, or Ralph Lauren. Most outfits are comprised of unflattering billowy tops in floral print or blah colors, cropped pants like old ladies wear, and flats that only accentuate their stubby legs and make it look like they have duck feet. (Can we make that a new term? "Office Ducks") They think ankle "booties" are SUCH a power move.

EXTREMELY POWER HUNGRY!

Will claw her way to the top of the office ladder, preferrably in a position like HR, marketing, or accounting, then squeeze every last drop of sadistic pleasure out of her authority. Usually makes coworkers miserable in the process. Has bullied at least one woman out of the office (either covertly or openly), yet men in the office will still be shocked then doubtful when women come forward with stories of how awful she is. Relishes every opportunity to correct others, exact punishment, appear more knowledgeable, show off, etc. She has no power in her personal life, so she pursues it at work to make herself feel better.

A legend in her own mind

Thinks her job is SO upper echelon, but all she actually does is answer phones, push around trivial papers that accomplish nothing, and gossip by the copy machine. Genuinely thinks she's a high power business woman of Wall Street or making a positive difference in the world, but she's just another cog in the machine.

Those in a marketing department post way too much and overshare on their personal social media, thinking they are demonstrating their marketing talent by doing so. No ma'am, you're not a high profile influencer or popular blogger; you are just a loud mouth with an Internet connection and narcissism issue. The promotions you design are lackluster at best.

Hypocritical, mediocre, and lacking all self awareness

Likes to make derogatory jokes about how hard work is, how ready she is for "Friyay", and how terrible her boss is (only if she is not the boss, herself). But will turn around and act like her job makes her a class above others, the mere peasants.

Mediocre life goals. Work her way up the office food chain to the end goal of something like HR, have an average-looking husband, drive an ugly SUV, live in a cookie cutter house, and have no more than 3 children, all with the most basic names. Once she achieves this, she thinks she's queen of the world and all must bow low before her. She sits in her little office with her "inspirational" Instagram font wall art and spends all day savoring the little kingdom she has carved out for herself.

Genuinely believes she is a "wine connoisseur" and that she's classy for it. LOVES wine, wine humor, and cheesy wine accessories. Not so subtly drinks wine on work video calls. Drinks heavily over her weekends and it definitely shows on Mondays.

Climbing the corporate ladder

The younger toxics might be promiscuous cheaters. They know full well that their womanly qualities can get them moved up the office food chain. Oh, their poor boyfriends/husbands and the wives of the male coworkers they toy with!

GOSSIP is the top weapon in her arsenal for dealing with "competition" and other girls she is threatened by---other girls who have no ill will toward her and aren't actually trying to compete with her. She takes catty and passive aggressive to a whole new level.

Not all toxic women will exhibit all of these traits at the same time. But even having one of these characteristics can be enough to make everyone else in the office miserable. Be on the lookout!

[zodiactalks]

5 Worst Habits of Leo Zodiac Sign

As a fifth astrological sign of the Zodiac, Leo is one of those who belong to the element of Fire, very much like Sagittarius and Aries. People born under the sign of a Leo are generally very generous, creative, and funny, however, their bad habits can make them seem like pretty arrogant and self-centered people. As a Leo, you are most likely afraid of any big changes, you take things way too personally and because of that you frequently end up having conflicts with people around you.

Here are the five worst habits of Leo Zodiac Sign.

#1. Leo’s Share Way Too Much Information About Their Life Online

We live in the world where sharing your pictures and stories online is a completely normal thing, however, Leo’s need to find their balance. Most people born under the sign of a Leo have a tendency to overshare everything with online communities and social media. Leo usually has a hard time imagining their life without the internet itself.

#2. Leo Is A Very Insecure Zodiac Sign

Just like an actual Leo, Leo Zodiac sign is all about looking good. Their appearance is one of the most important things to them and if they do not manage to look the way they want, they will end up feeling extremely insecure. Leo’s just like to go overboard with many things in their life, but their insecurity is one of the things they have nearly no control over at all.

#3. Leo Goes Overboard With Tanning

While tanning is generally not an awful habit, Leo’s are very likely to overdo it whenever they have a chance. Most Leo’s out there simply love the Sun, which is probably because they are ruled by the Sun themselves. Sadly, spending too much time in the sun can be very rough on your skin, therefore, try to find some middle ground with it.

#4. Leo Always Takes Everything Way Too Personally

If your friend or partner are a Leo, you probably noticed they often take everything to their heart, even when they have no reason to. Even if Leo is supposedly a strong animal with a huge heart, they still get very easily hurt. Leo often ends up having relationship and friendship issues simply because they cannot listen without getting hurt. People do not live to intentionally hurt you, try to stay positive.

#5. Leo Hates And Fears Any Life Changes

Just like Taurus, people born under the sign of a Leo are usually those who will do their best to avoid making any changes in their life. Changes can be scary sometimes, but they are actually necessary if you wish to live a happy life. Sadly, the reason why Leo’s are so afraid of the changes is usually related to their past experiences and feeling of being stuck in one place.

If you are a fellow Leo who wishes to get rid of some of these bad habits, try to take a deeper look at your emotions and figure out which things make you happy as a person.

[clumsyclifford]

(lots and lots and lots of thoughts and tw for mentions of death and suicide and also the atl discourse and also just general defeatism, and, like...oversharing?)

recently i’ve been thinking a lot about loss. sometimes death, and sometimes other forms of loss - like losing a friend when they ghost you for no reason, or losing something you took for granted (like one of your senses, or a band you always loved and thought for sure would never lie to you), or, yeah, losing your own life, or someone else losing theirs, with no advance notice. few people get advance notice, right? and i hear about death a lot, but i’ve been one of the lucky few in that i’ve very rarely known someone who died. i don’t even want to go in detail in case i jinx it, but i’ve been lucky about this. and i just. i keep thinking that i’m not going to be lucky forever.

but it’s hard to live like this. i can’t complain about it really because i can’t imagine having lost someone only to come onto the internet and see someone complaining about the fact that they’ve never lost someone. that’s not really what i’m doing, but i just have to say, the anticipation sucks. ‘cause we all know it’s gonna happen. i. i know. that the chances of me outliving my parents are extremely low. and the odds that. i hate typing this but like face your fears and everything. the odds that my grandparents live another ten years are astronomically low. and that scares the shit out of me. because i missed the opportunity to lose a family member when i was too young to be close to them, and now i’m old enough that i’m close with everyone in my family, and shit, guys, i know they’re gonna fucking die. i know i’m going to fucking lose everyone i love eventually, that’s the way life goes. everything dies, everything ends. everything has its time and everything dies. and every single person on this god damn planet has just kind of agreed to those terms, i guess. and i’m supposed to agree, too, because i don’t have a choice. because none of us has a choice! you either live your life out and come to terms with the fact that you’re going to lose so many people you love to so many different things in so many different ways, or you fucking kill yourself and force the people you love to lose someone. because you were too scared. because you were too weak. because you didn’t like the terms and conditions that got forced on you when you were born. because you decided that the circumstances of life were too much for you.

it’s a classic double-bind. and we value life so much! and for what??? this! shit! sucks! we try to solve problems and all we do is create more problems. and the optimists and the revolutionaries and the activists, they’re all so confident that solving this one problem is going to solve a bunch of other problems, but it doesn’t work like that. you can make life a little better for a lot of people but you can never make life all good for anyone. AND WE DON’T WANT TO ANYWAY. because humans need adversity in order to become interesting, well-rounded, empathetic people! we learn from the mistakes of others and if no one ever fucks up then we never learn! being a human being is a paradox and it’s the worst one there is. it sucks. i can only be a good person because i know of so many bad people. i only have a moral compass because i’ve seen moral compasses go awry. i don’t want to be good at the expense of others being bad. if my morality is learned on the basis of others’ suffering, what fucking morality is that? how good am i, taking advantage of the suffering others experienced to know what not to do? how is anyone good? so how can anyone be bad?

anyway i got way off track there, because my original point was this: the waiting fucking sucks. i feel like i’m getting ripped off here, because no one is dead yet and i’m already mourning them. i’m crying in advance because i know one day i’ll think to myself god, i want to talk to my mom, and i won’t have that option. i’ll wish i’d called my grandparents just one more time. i’ll wish i’d gone home more. that stuff is only supposed to hit me once they’re gone, but it’s hitting me now. and it’s useless to me now. all i can do about it now is wait. just sit and wait. sometimes it feels like i’m talking to ghosts when they call. then they hang up and i start to cry, because maybe that was the last call i ever had with them. and i probably won’t know. that’s the thing. i probably won’t know when i have my very last call with them. i’m not going to know it��s the last call until i don’t have the chance to make another one. i don’t have the words for how much that scares me. i don’t like that i don’t know this. i don’t like that i can’t control it. i don’t like that it doesn’t fucking matter how much mourning i do in advance - how much i grieve the loss before it even happens - because i’m still going to be blindsided and it’s still going to break my goddamn heart and i’m still going to be completely fucking inconsolable when it happens to me. and it’ll happen more than once, and i’ll be heartbroken every time, and i don’t know what i’m going to do. i don’t know how i’ll react. because it’s never happened before.

tonight my friend told me a story about how her grandma passed away this past summer. that’s how she said it. she said, “my grandma passed away,” and i thought, why don’t we just say that she died? but it’s too harsh to say it that way. and when my grandparents die i’ll say they passed away. and we’re so used to hearing about people’s late grandparents that i know when i speak about mine, no one will do any kind of double take. it’s only recently that i started doing a double take when other people talk about theirs. ‘cause when i lose mine it’s going to kill me. and i wish i’d never gotten close enough to them to miss them when they pass away. i could have been a shitty granddaughter. for my own sake i wish i’d been a shitty granddaughter. except i don’t do things for my own sake. if i did things just to spare myself the pain, i’d have killed myself already. ‘cause come on. this shit sucks.

i guess my grandparents are happy that i’m a good granddaughter. and that i call them semi-regularly, that i have tea with them and tell them about my class schedule over and over knowing they won’t remember it the next time we talk. it makes them happy, i guess. but they know i’m going to lose them. so how can they do that to me. and how can i do this to anyone else, knowing eventually everyone will lose me, unless i lose them first? how do any of us do this, all the time forever?

i know i just need to go to sleep. but i’m scared. all the time. and i’m on the verge of tears all the time just thinking about this. there’s no way out. there’s no escaping this. it hurts to wait and when the waiting is over it’ll hurt for a different reason and that pain will make this pain feel like a children’s game but as it stands i can’t believe how much it hurts just knowing that it’s going to hurt in the future. i don’t like it.

and i don’t know what to do when i lose the things i thought i could count on, because music is supposed to be a constant, and i thought i could trust these guys, and now i don’t know. because unfortunately people lie. and that means i can’t trust anyone, i guess. maybe the band is lying. maybe the person making the accusation was lying. i can’t fathom either side. i can’t imagine a person doing that. but nobody wants to admit to doing the bad thing because then they seem irredeemable, and then when they’re exposed for doing the bad thing they don’t want to admit they were lying. liars are stubborn. they’ll insist they never lied because if they admit they lied that’s just one more shitty thing they did to prove that their character is despicable and their morals are in the dirt and therefore that proves that they must be guilty of all the other shitty things they’re being accused of, because i mean, they did lie about it. and they wouldn’t lie if they hadn’t done it.

except that’s not true! because people will lie about ANYTHING! and people will lie just so they don’t make a bad situation worse, even when getting caught in that lie makes the bad situation way worse. i don’t know what to think. genuinely, i don’t. so far i’m at the stage in processing where i don’t trust anyone anymore. that part in the adventure zone, where taako says, “I've updated my list of people I trust and things I believe to no one and nothing!” that’s me right now. i don’t know what else to say about it.

anyway i’ve made like five different unrelated points in this fucking essay of a personal post, which is way too long. sorry if you read it all. i try to be a good, kind, decent, and generally optimistic person, but you should know this stuff is on my mind 100% of the time. last semester i took a positive psychology class, and we took this Values In Action (VIA) survey, to determine which positive character traits we each had the most strength in, and which ones we had the least. i really do consider myself an optimistic person in the immediate sense, and like i said, all this stuff is pretty recent in my line of thinking, and i was thinking it a lot less last semester, so i was definitely more optimistic back then. but on my VIA survey it rated me very low on hope. i know what that means. it means i don’t think things are gonna be good. in the long run, i mean. i could have told you that. i don’t think optimism and hope are the same thing anyway, because i think that in the very short run, immediately around us, things are going to find a way to work out. but in the grand scheme, everyone is totally and irreversibly fucked, and there’s no way out of that. i joke about nuking the earth but i’m not really joking. it would solve all of our problems if we wiped out the human race. right? can anyone say i’m wrong? i mean you can’t say i’m wrong. because we’d all be dead, and then there would be no one to miss us and no one for us to miss, and there’s not really a bigger problem to have than being dead, which eliminates the ability to have problems anyway. 

i don’t............like. let’s not nuke the earth, i guess. but that’s kind of where i’m at, sort of emotionally about the whole thing. i’ve given up on thinking i’m going to feel better about this. so i’m kind of like. we might as well nuke the earth. i don’t think things will get better if we don’t nuke the earth. i’ve mentioned nuking the earth too many times now and i’m sure you’re all very skeptical of me. especially since i sounded like i was wrapping up like two paragraphs ago and i have yet to stop talking.

anyway, i say a lot that everything will be fine, which i kind of believe, because people are resilient and stuff. but yeah, i’m not hopeful. not at all. this shit sucks, and it’s always going to suck, and it’s supposed to suck, it has to suck, or else we turn into shitty people who suck for different reasons. so! it all sucks all the time! it’s all shitty! by definition, we do not become good unless the things we experience are shitty! the most empathetic people are the ones who have gone through it the worst! and how do people go through it unless there are people who don’t care about them? how do people experience pain and suffering unless there are systems in place to disadvantage them? like holy shit, i’m not making excuses for the shitty people or the shitty systems in place, but do you know what i’m saying? everything sucks all the time. we can try and solve A Problem, but it’ll just create Another Problem. there are always going to be problems. and is that what we want? an uphill battle against Problems? we want to always have another hole to plug? i don’t have the energy, man. i cannot sisyphus this shit. sorry, but i just can’t.

so. having said that. it is 3:41am and i can’t tell exactly how controversial this post is, so i’m just gonna post it, because everything sucks and nothing matters anyway and nihilism or defeatism or whatever this is seems to be where i’m at right now, and go to bed. i think we can all agree that i need to get some sleep. pretty sure no one would dispute that. so uh. goodnight? goodnight, i guess.

[lordmomohismomoness]

Here are my top Zutara fanfiction recs.

The biggest factor in my ranking and why I recommend them is because I had a hard time putting them down. Other than that, they are pretty all over the place in terms of content and setting.

  His Majesty Prefers Blue by Shamelessliar

Rated M  212K+ words  Completed 2012

A year after the war's end, the gaang returns to the Fire Nation for a week of diplomatic meetings. There, they hear rumors about a vigilante who wears a blue mask and Katara finds herself digging deeper into his identity and motives. Blue/Zutara Lemons

Trigger warnings: rape, torture (1 scene)

This is my absolute favorite fic. It has a little bit of everything: romance, humor, drama, suspense. There is an actual plot too! It is also one of few fics which show Zuko and Katara being a great team.

  When The Mask Comes Off by Jamie Hasaku

Rated K  73K+ words  Completed 2006

After freeing her and her friends from capture, Zuko has no choice but to care for a gravely injured Katara, who was left behind by accident. The trick? Keeping his face hidden so she doesn’t hurt herself even more by trying to fight him. Zutara Blutara

This is not your average capture fic. Katara is still pretty badass. The scene where she finds out who is behind the mask made my heart melt. Hanae is one of my favorite OCs ever! It does have a sequel which has been abandoned, but that doesn't change the fact that this story is wonderful by itself.

  The Dragon and the Siren (AO3) The Dragon and the Siren (ff.net) by CultofStrawberry

Rated M/T  147K+ words  Completed 2012

Zutara, Hades x Persephone inspired. In a land of gods and spirits, Katara is the daughter of the Sea, and Zuko is the powerful and reclusive God of the Fire Realms. Zuko has been pining for her for too long... so he finally takes action.

Being a huge fan of Greek mythology and A:TLA, I did not think I would enjoy this fic. I was pleasantly surprised as the author combined the two seamlessly. The worldbuilding is amazing and the tale is not an exact replica of the myth. The AO3 link contains smut, but is incomplete. The fanfiction link has the completed story.

  Subterfuge by Smylealong

Rated M  113K+ words  WIP last updated Oct 2020

Thirty years ago, the Fire Nation attacked, throwing the world off balance. Katara entered the Fire Nation war camp at Ba Sing Se as a healer, prepared to do whatever it takes to play her part in stopping the war. Getting kidnapped with the Fire Prince and falling in love with him were not parts of the plan. AU. Zutara.

Trigger Warnings: Sexual Assault, Incest, Graphic Depiction of Violence

This fic is VERY dark. However, the writing is amazing which more than makes up for it.

  Dancing in the Dark by DamageCtrl

Rated T  61K+ words Complete 2006

Post-Season 2 AU: While in Ba Sing Se, Katara and Toph hear a rumor about two tea servers in the lower tiers of Ba Sing Se and sneak away go to investigate only to have their suspicions confirmed. On her personal time, Katara tries to teach herself to dance and fails so badly, a masked man takes pity on her to try to help.

In case you haven't noticed, I LOVE the Blue Spirit. This fic is full of fluff, and awkward Zuko is my favorite Zuko. It does start slow, but once you get into it, it is a pretty cute story. Zuko is the one with multiple suitors for once.

  Twist Me to the Left by Grapefruittwostep

Rated T  91K+ words  Complete 2017

So here Zuko is, with no family, no band, and no more record contract. Just another punker with a guitar who thinks he's got what it takes. Then he meets Avatar, the band breaking all the rules. They've got everything going for them, the rising star, and they're everything Zuko isn't. But maybe, just maybe, they want a new guitarist. As long as the pretty keyboardist with the blue eyes doesn't murder Zuko first.

Warnings: References to Drugs

This is a college age AU with an angsty emo/punk Zuko. A fluffy enemies to lovers trope, but fun nonetheless.

  Don't Stand So Close To Me by Cinemascope08

Rated M  76K+ words  Abandoned 2013

Katara and the Gaang are in full swing at Ba Sing Se University when interactions with a new professor start affecting Katara's life in increasingly complicated ways. Rated M for scenes of a graphic nature.

Trigger Warning: Torture, Murder, BDSM, Incest

Another really dark fic, but it takes a bit to get there. Once it does, you are hooked by the suspense. It is abandoned, but still a good read.

  So let us melt and make no noise by LittleLostStar

Rated M 69K+ words  WIP last updated Jan 2021

When a mission to the South Pole goes awry, Prince Zuko awakens in the home of a healer named Katara and finds his heart is damaged and his bending has vanished. His quest to find the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe is his destiny-- the one chance to regain his honour and return home. But as time passes and Zuko's heart heals, it becomes clear that Katara is protecting an ancient secret of her own, and that both of their destinies are entwined in ways never before thought possible.

We get to see Zuko at the mercy of Katara here. And this fic has an actual plot to it, which is an easy way to get into my good graces. There is a lot of mystery and suspense. It has slow updates, but the author has commented that she intends to complete it.

  Butterflies and Hurricanes by Rerbirth of the Phoenix

Rated T  103K+ words  Complete 2012

"You may find yourself capturing hearts that you are forbidden to keep." She is a servant. He is a Prince. Together they are about to go against everything that keeps the world at peace. Zutara

This one took me a bit to get into, as I was bothered by the ages at the start. Fortunately, it takes place over several years so we see the relationship develop. No spoilers, but wow the ending really got me.

  The Penance Series by delectate

Rated M  39K+ words  Complete 2010

The road to forgiveness is long and arduous...just ask Zuko. Season 3 Zutara, following the episodes past 312. Rated M for Mature.

Warnings: BDSM

Zuko is taken prisoner at the western air temple. As it turns out, Zuko is a masochist and Katara lets her freak flag fly. I like this one because it does such a different take on the characters, and it actually makes sense that Zuko would be a masochist since he has such a messed up family.

  Lotus Lake by Rebirth of the Phoenix

Rated T 65K+ words  Complete 2006

Zutara AU. An orphaned Katara and her brother find themselves at boarding school. Katara's first thoughts are that her life will now be filled with boredom. How wrong she was!

Trigger Warnings: Child Abuse

This is a bonus rec. While not super high on my list, it is still an enjoyable story. Plus, I really like the boarding school premise since I love shows like Rebelde and Het Huis Anubis. I would have liked to see more drama with Jet though. Still a good one if you are looking for fluff.

  I added some more to my top recs!

  Indigo Summer by Serendipitea

Rated T  21K words  Complete 2020

Zuko takes up a life guarding job the summer before going off to university. What he doesn't expect is to be completely distracted by the surfer girl with bright blue eyes.

This one is just so darn cute

  And expectations she won't meet by Gxldentrio

Rated  T  8K words  Completed 2020

Katara’s organic chemistry TA is an asshole ----- or is he?

A texting/social media fic that I reread all the time because it is just that GOOD! I love the way the author uses all the character's interactions to tell a cohesive story.

  (if my wishes came true) it would have been you by TheDecension

Rated  T  34K words  WIP Last updated Mar 2021

Katara overshares on the internet. Zuko makes it a point to only lurk. Good thing there's nothing tying their online adventures to their real lives — right?

Or, Katara and Zuko have something of a history, and when they reconnect after months of silence, there could be more going on behind the scenes than they realize.

If you haven't heard of this one, you should! It is though social media posts and text, and it is just wonderful!

[darcyesque]

2, 7, 10, 13, 21, 28, 31, 32 and 36

sorry there's so many but I'm bored lol

fdjasl no don't apologize this was really fun!!

2. if you could change anything about yourself, what would it be?

um! i wish that i could act on what i want more, or just be more sure of myself and know what's going on(like when i was questioning, that was the worst. the not knowing). i wish i could let go of stuff that happened in the past as well, that shit sucks

7. what song is your aesthetic?

ok there's like 3 that i have but chocolate by the 1975, could have been me by the struts, baby you're a haunted house by gerard way(listen to themmmm?)

10. what do you wish you hated, but actually like?

hmm this one is kind of hard, i wish i hated lame jokes(bc other people think they're lame) but i laugh. oh also bo burnham's early stuff(just bc it's sort of offensive)

13. talk about an au or story you came up with

so. in 7th grade i thought it would be an amazing idea to write a book about this kid who was chosen to be the host of this magical creature thing that would train you to fight this big battle that was going to happen yaknow? and the opposing side's creature would train this other kid and he would be the evil side yaknow? plot twist the kids fall in love and they find out that the whole system of training is corrupt and have to take it down together. the end!

21. is there a song you can’t handle listening to, even though you like it?

for a while i couldn't listen to trees by twenty one pilots(just because it made me think too much about stuff) but now it's nerds by bo burnham(some of the stuff is just like :/ yeeks you wrote that??)

28. do you have someone where you can’t decide if you like them romantically or just as a friend?

yes. :/ if i think too hard about it there's another one too haha this isn't stressful at all/jk. the first one is a guy who goes to my school and i was just in a show with(he's great honestly and he's been there for some of my rough times and i really appreciate it) and i'm not gonna say the other one haha

31. how easy is it for you to be honest?

on the internet or with close friends, it's pretty easy, but with family it's a LOT harder for some reason(hmm oversharing? maybe)

32. do you have any strange interests?

i did a long ASS essay on the science behind aesthetics and i also find it cool explaining why some cheese melts faster than other cheese(dude i got made fun because of that in school:/), other than that not really

36. do you have any impulsive movements? (twitches, ticks, flapping, etc.)

i blink! a lot! but just with one eye(it switches back and forth between them), they'll get dry or smth and i just blink a lot for a minute and then they're fine, i have no idea what it is haha

asks!