#there's something to be said for tact and delivery and just generally not being rude about it

[conkers-thecosy]

Hullo to my fellow fandom creators.

How you guys doing? Good? Good.

I just wanted to drop you a little note to say I hope you’re all having fun out here. Because fun is what it’s all about, right? Fun and excitement and hobbies and interests and all that good stuff!

While I’ve been wandering about in my little corner here at tumblr dot com, I gotta tell you, it can be so easy to get discouraged sometimes. Like SO easy. And I dunno folks, I guess I just wanted to remind you (and me!) that when we create stuff for our fandoms, it’s for fun! Because we love it! Because we love making it! We love sharing it! We love the source material and the characters and the world-building and all that other neat stuff!

Sometimes we all need a little reminder, I find. Because sometimes people don’t like what we’re making. Sometimes they’ll be rude or complain and make demands about how fandom "cOnTeNt” (yuck) should be made (double yuck) and act kind of entitled about it. And idk, that gets kind of disheartening. Especially when you’re pouring all your heart and soul into what you’re making, simply for the love of it.

So! Yeah I just wanted to check in with you folks because I’m seeing a lot of that weird entitlement in various fandoms lately, and from one creator to another, I wanted to just say -if I may wax poetic for a moment here- nuts to those people. Nuts to ‘em. NUTS, I TELL YOU.

Not everyone is going to like the stuff you make, and that's okay. The important thing is to remember that their opinions have nothing to do with you or me or anyone else making art or fics or edits or whatever our little hearts desire. Just because what you're making doesn't tick someone else's personal boxes doesn't mean that what you're making is wrong or bad!

If people want specific stuff in fandom, they can make it. If they don’t like what we’re making, they can move on - that's fine. If they want to publicly whine about it and try to make it everyone else's problem, that's their baggage and we don't have to take any of that on board. It’s no reflection on you if someone wants to demand that their own specific tastes be met, rather than actually taking part in the community in a positive way. Because we’re here for fun, aren’t we.

Are you having fun? Good. That’s all that matters.

Go make something cool and fun, and have a great day!

Love you!

[discovering-ellie]

July 26, 2021

Well, well, well... I thought I was SO clever last week when I said "hey, maybe I'll start setting my alarm for 5:30 since that's when I've been waking up."

Yeah, it hasn't quite worked out that way. My body has rejected that idea and is now all "oh, if you want to play that stupid game, we're going to start waking up even earlier, thereby making it difficult for you to fall back asleep and now you'll be up somewhere in the ballpark of 4:30."RUDE, tbh. Nothing really new has gone on since the other day when I made that semi-vagebooking post about earning Airheads because I did a big emotion/big brain thing by approaching someone very dear to me with some carefully-thought out "I" statements.

I further discussed that in my session today and I mentioned how I was still really anxious for about an hour or so after the fact. When asked why, I stated that I hate conflict, but I also have this fear of being forgotten or replaced, so I was scared of how my message would be received. I also informed my therapist that I've known this specific person for a number of years, so they've seen the version of me that would lash out in anger when I was upset, so that added factor made me anxious as well.

This led to "how do you deal with those anxious feelings in those moments?" I acknowledged that worrying won't make the response come any faster, so I tend to distract myself by focusing on my daily work if it's during work hours, talking things out with some trusted friends, or paying attention to one of my many often-ignored hobbies until I either get bored with it or the feeling is resolved.

Through this, I learned of another fun little acronym known as ACCEPTS (more on that here)

or distract with Activities (aka those ignored hobbies/work/etc)

    distract with Contributions (baking/cooking/generally doing something for someone else)

    distract with Comparisons ("at least I'm not where I was x years ago;" "at least I don't live in the Middle Ages;" "at least I'm not on the Titanic.")

    distract with opposite Emotions (listen to upbeat music when sad, watch a comedy when angry, etc. Sadness doesn't exist well with happiness and laughter doesn't exist well with anger)

     distract by Pushing Away (this one is very tricky because it can very easily lead to avoidance. The idea of this one is to compartmentalize it very temporarily because you genuinely can't deal with the issue at the moment because of some other circumstance such as being at work or on an airplane. Essentially, it's putting the problem to the side with the expressed intention to revisit it in the near future)

     distract with other Thoughts (straight up distracting yourself by giving your mind something else to think about. This could include counting objects, doing that 5 4 3 2 1 grounding activity. Just literally thinking about anything and everything else.)

      distract with other Sensations (this could mean snapping a rubber band against your wrist, holding ice in your hand, listening to loud music. Pretty much anything that brings a whole new sensation into your immediate vicinity. I'm actually thinking about looking into those anxiety/fidget rings since I tend to run my thumbs against my ring fingers for some reason).

There might be one potential setback at the moment -- I'm currently looking at only 6 days left in my prescription and I don't have any refills -- but I brought this up to my therapist and she's going to get it sorted out so it *should* be resolved by the end of the week. More on that development later, I suppose.

As it stands, it's looking like I'm looking at more communication exercises next week since a.) I hate/avoid conflict, b.) I have that *wonderful* history of angrily lashing out when I'm in a heightened emotional state and, c.) sometimes my delivery just isn't the best/most tactful when I need it to be.