#there is lots of other stuff about the book that has dated poorly don't worry

[sixth-light]

I was recently gifted a book for the child written and published in the UK in 1980 and, in the context of everything about children and gender these days, it is extremely notable that the book consistently uses 'it' pronouns for a toddler in a way that was clearly normal at the time. Literally over my lifetime we've gone so far backwards on hyper-gendering small children.

[darkshrimpemotions]

God so far this fic has EVERYTHING.

Endverse!Cas and canon Dean

Time travel/universe hopping

Camp Chitaqua shenanigans

Slowest of slow burns

Fake dating

There was only one bed

And they were roommates

Tooth-rotting fluff and domesticity

Dean and Cas snarking at each other then talking about their feelings

Cas being the badass we know he is

Dean working so hard to undo the damage done by Endverse!Dean

Dean being an amazing leader actually

Angst! Intrigue! Sexual tension!

Hurt/Comfort, soooo much fucking hurt/comfort

Poorly written painstakingly translated trueform!angel porn

Well-developed OCs I actually care about

Cas being appreciated

Cas waxing poetic about Dean in his thoughts

Cas being Not An Angel but Not Quite Human and also a giant nerd and musing about the universe out loud at great length

Cas messing with Dean on a semi-regular basis (Dean so deserves it tho don't worry)

Just a lot of great Cas stuff in this fic in general

Hope and light and faith in the most unexpected places

Weird yet significant dreams and recurring motifs

Deeply intriguing mysteries that I'm dying for answers to

And that's just the first 2.5 books so far!

[marcholasmoth]

OSRR: 2576

i had therapy first thing this morning. it was nice to talk to christine and catch up.

it was also nice to not wake up in excruciating pain. i guess doing those massages worked really well for me. considering it's been hurting less and less, and i can actually shift my jaw and eat things now, it's going pretty well. i'm excited. and, as i write this at 2am, i have almost all of my hearing back. hell yeah. it's still a little tender to the touch, and my jaw is still a little sore and tough to open, but it's way better than it was.

today i helped my mom with her service project. it's not technically her service project, but she was in charge of organizing it and stuff, but she wasn't able to be there in person as people made them. which yielded results that were frustrating and pathetic at best. i'm fixing them. but the issue is they need to be hand stitched, and apparently the women in the peterborough ward don't know how to sew?? isn't that, like, a basic mormon woman skill??? in the merrimack ward it was. ask anyone and they could tell you how to fix something. shit dude, fuckin. backwoods bullshit.

anyway, the end results are honestly sad. 100% frustrating. 100% makes me mad. like?? they're so poorly constructed?? how do you take pride in shitty work???? do you know what a job well done actually is?????

anyway.

i got my mothman dice in the mail!!! they're PERFECT!!!!

i love them so much.

i also finally opened the box of giveaway stuff i was sent by @arrow-guy who (1) is an angel and (2) did a giveaway, the only part of which i could remember was the blind date with a book. and i gotta tell you, i was SO excited to be recommended a book by a friend. i've done the "blind date with a book" before, and it ended up being the first book in the tales from earthsea series by ursula k leguin, which was fuckin awesome. this one that erin sent had the words "post-apocalyptic" and "space colonies" in the description, and i was like "THAT ONE I WANT THAT ONE." and i said i'd open it as a reward after finishing my paper, and i'm all done with my paper, so i saw it today and remembered i hadn't opened it. so i grabbed it and i opened it and oh my GOD was it spectacular. SO MUCH STUFF. HOLY SHIT.

OBSERVE.

SO MUCH GOOD STUFF IM SO EXCITED

and salvation day is a THRILLER and i'm SO EXCITED TO READ IT. i'll probably spend the rest of the week reading. i'm excited. all of this stuff is fuckin awesome. i'm so happy. @arrow-guy you ROCK. FOREVER.

i got a phone call today from someone that i couldn't figure out what they were saying, so i had to listen to the message half a dozen times to figure out the girl was saying "boxlunch at the mall." apparently i had completely forgotten about an order i had placed, and it was in, so eventually today i went and got it. i turned the simple trip into an excursion and i invited hannah and kianna along, but kianna was tired and didn't want to leave the couch (which, yknow, mood), so i picked up the stuff, picked some other stuff out, went to hot topic and picked up other stuff, went to the lindt store for chocolate for mom, and went to get froyo, and after that, we went to hang out with nick and kianna and eat our froyo together.

but look upon my spoils, for they are many.

i also got some other things too. like a t-shirt and chocolate.

overall a pretty good day. spent a lot of money. talked a little bit to joel. talked to myself about my worry over FF, because for all i talk bit about "hey i'm absolutely in love with you" it's not even that. they're just. they're really just my friend. i think they're fascinating and i love talking to them. sure, i fell a little bit in love with them. but it's the same with everybody i meet. i always fall in love with people a little bit. how can i not?

anyway. i'm worried. well, maybe not worried-worried. concerned, i guess? because it's been total radio silence for a few days and that's really out of character from the last few months, but their friend has also been not so active, so i assume it's because school has restarted. and i know i shouldn't worry so much, because i'll give myself ulcers and worry myself into an early grave. but they're my friend! and i give a shit! a big shit!! i care about their mental health and i want them to be okay. i thought about reaching out, and asking them how they're doing, but there's that constant issue of "i've dug myself into a hole because i keep telling you i love you and i've made every interaction awkward from here on out." so i wish for death. but mostly i wish for them to be okay, to be good, to be thriving in their real life. i don't want them to feel like they need to isolate. i just want them to know that we as a group miss them, and that i as an individual miss them, and that it's not because i'm madly in love with them or anything. i actually wish i could start over with that, honestly. if i didn't just fuckin stop functioning when i first saw their face, if i didn't look at everything they do with stars in my eyes, it would've been better. kaiku, i'm sorry. god, i'm a disaster. i need to change my tag.

[secondsofhappiness]

I hope you don't mind me asking but I read your posts about your sexuality today and I wondered when you realised you were ace and what you feel looking back on your teenage years? Did you still do typical teen stuff and realise you were ace later on? What made you realise you were? Sorry I'm just so curious and I hope I haven't offended you. Much love

That’s fine, anon. I don’t mind talking about this stuff at all on here so ask away! Makes a change from my personal life where I have never talked about it :)

I’ll try my best to answer your questions!

First off, when did I realise? When I was 26. I’m 28 now (29 in July). Late, I guess. Or maybe not late as many people my age perhaps never heard of asexuality until later in life so didn’t know there was a word for stuff.

Looking back at my teenage years? Haha I definitely knew I wasn’t like others. I think I started realising I was a little different around age 14-16. I didn’t have friends who were mega into boys or dating or anything so that perhaps delayed any response I had to that stuff but it was mainly my general behaviour. I didn’t talk about boys/girls, I didn’t show any interest, I actually found it difficult when they began talking about celebrity crushes or real life crushes and it’d all make me deeply uncomfortable. So I’d make a few things up and I always referred to myself in my head as a “late bloomer”.

The main thing that made me realise I perhaps had an unusual response to this stuff was when one of my best friends told me he liked me. He’s the only person so far in my life to ever do that and I adored him. He was so funny and I liked him a LOT. It was all swoon crush stuff with 16 year old me smitten with him. I didn’t want anything else, only to be noticed by him and to spend all of my time in his company. The second he told me, I clammed up and told him I wanted to be friends. I liked him an awful lot but I still turned him down. I then couldn’t even bring myself to speak to him. I was a wreck. I left school without speaking to him or saying goodbye. I treated him so poorly and I regret is so much but I didn’t know how to deal with the prospect of dating someone.

I’ll pop the rest under a cut as many people may not be interested in this..!

Then we got back in touch when I was in University… yep! We had been kind of in touch online for years but we messaged a lot and when I was home from Uni I agreed to meet up with him. It took EVERYTHING out of me to meet him after he finished work. He worked in a clothes shop and it took me 8 attempts of walking in to find him. I was a MESS and felt sick. I managed it and we walked around and looked around the shops together and he walked me to the bus stop and I gave him a hug that took all of my nerves. He was incredibly sweet, he was very patient and asked me if I wanted to meet up with him a month later when I was home. He told me he’d had feelings for me since school, had never stopped thinking of me (Christ alive) from time to time etc. I said yes I’d meet him but when that month came, I freaked out and made excuses that I couldn’t go. I have never seen him since. He got a girlfriend soon after and I still have him on social media but we don’t talk and I haven’t heard from him in years.

I learned a lot from that because one singular thing became apparent and that was my reaction to dating, relationships and attraction was different to everyone around me. I had NO frame of reference for it. I had no clue what to do and not just in the fumbly teenage way, but more that I had no natural pull to want to do this stuff. Emotionally - yes - but outside of that it was very difficult for me to want anything. That was such s tough struggle to reconcile and it still is.

It was much more obvious once I hit University. I went through school, college and University without a love interest, boyfriend or any attempt at one. I didn’t even look or consider one outside of a few very short romantic crushes. I made zero attempt to instigate anything.

University was an eye opener because sex was everywhere and it just didn’t factor in my life. I had no interest in it. I didn’t actively pursue anyone because I had no desire to. I did develop feelings for one of my close friends (I wrote about this the other day so see a previous post) and that whole experience confirmed to me that I didn’t have a “normal” reaction to attraction because I remember him giving me a hug once when we were watching a movie and I felt the moment it maybe went from friendshippy to something a little more and I freaked the hell out. I pretty much recoiled in horror but tried to cover it up. I didn’t know how to respond and I didn’t want it to continue despite me liking him an awful lot. Confusing, right?! Haha.

Since I was 21, I have had only one other semi romantic attraction that I now can’t even understand because I know the guy better now and we’d never have gelled in the long run. That’s it. I don’t date, I don’t look, I don’t consider relationships. Now, there’s a common denominator in all of it and that was always the looking to the future. The “well if I find some shred of confidence to try to respond to these advances then that means I’ll eventually have to consider physical stuff because that’s how the world works” and that fact alone was enough to stop me in my tracks and end things with quite a significant amount of finality!

I used to ponder it all the time and never understood what was wrong with me. I used to call myself (secretly) “avoidant”. That was my own word. That I had an avoidant personality. That I was simply unable to share intimacy. I read article after article, tried to work out why I was this way and it wasn’t until I was 26 that I saw a post about asexuality and reading it, I cried my eyes out. I visited AVEN and read everything I could, I bought books and everything just felt so personal and was like reading about myself. It was so comforting and I finally understood that perhaps it did have a name and I wasn’t screwed up or broken.

Looking back, so much made sense. I had never ever felt in any way sexually attracted to anyone I’d liked. The mere thought of that actually put me off. I got NOTHING out of the thought of that. If anything, it made me feel really damn uncomfortable. I always thought people were joking when they said they thought about sex so much. So much teenage media had been lost on me because I didn’t share their experiences or desires. I’d never had any of the thoughts that are associated with teenagers and those in early 20s. Friends with benefits was something I just didn’t get. One night stands were alien concepts because why would people?! What’s the point?! There were so many signs and I just hadn’t realised them all until later in life.

So I didn’t do typical teen stuff. I didn’t have any of the typical firsts or experience any stereotypical teenage experiences and they didn’t happen in college, uni or beyond either. That’s difficult to accept at times because many people who are perhaps late bloomers actively want that stuff. I didn’t.

When I turned 25, I noticed friends became a little more interested in that aspect or non existent aspect of my life and the more they questioned or queried, the more it made me think of how I felt and so much slotted into place. I’ve never “come out” or whatever you want to call it but I am also pushing 30 having never had any relationship or pursued one and my friends definitely just accept this about me. One of my best friends, Hattie, said to me once “I don’t think you’d everyone be with someone unless you were very very close to them or perhaps you may never have those feelings for someone but I’d hope you’d tell me if you wanted to talk about stuff”. That’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to talking about it.

So the future is unknown but nothing has changed since I was 14-16. I am still exactly the same about it all as I was then and so I guess if I’d have known about asexuality I may have been a little less upset about how different I seemed to be from my peers and may have understood myself a little better and spent much less time worrying, stressing and feeling like I was a broken human being! That said, I always focused on friends and have been fiercely independent and happy being alone so I’ve always been pretty well adjusted despite it all :)

So yeah! I hope that answered your questions, anon. Why do you ask? If you’re questioning, I’m always happy to answer any questions etc. Might as well chat about it as it’s so damn unknown in the grand scheme!! 🙂