#today was an ordeal!

[alsikeclovers]

... ^_^

[catadromously]

[ollierachnid]

normal people mountain

[astriiformes]

My current therapist is far more versed in fan culture than many of my previous ones, and also had me make a chart of my fandom special interests since high school as a way of getting me to talk about some of the things that have been meaningful to me over the years. Which was an intuitive call on her part because it does make it easier to talk about certain things. But it does sure mean we have some conversations. Case in point, today:

Her, gently: And does thinking of Marty McFly as ADHD make you like him less?

Me, absolutely sobbing my eyes out: ..........no.

[critter-creature-or-beast]

Image 1 By Qohelet12 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Images 2 By Qohelet12 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

[hopefulqueer]

Lots of good posts about the AO3 situation going around and I just want to add:

If you find that you are distressed about not being able to access the stories that you love, tell the authors of those stories once the archive is up again! Tell them you missed them, tell them you were in the middle of one of their fics when it went down and not being able to click the Next Chapter button was agonizing, tell them all of the things you appreciate about their writing. If you're relying on artists (that includes fanfic writers!) for joy or comfort or pleasure or distraction or any other positive experience, they want to hear about it! That will make them happy, too!

[of-pale]

Just an average day of Nero hanging out with the twins:

> Vergil refuses to go out in the public unless it's necessary like the introvert he is

> Dante wants to go out because that's where pizza and strawberry sundaes are

> Dante messes with no half melted strawberry sundaes from deliveries

> Only the fresh shit at Fredi’s will do or no dice

> How else will Vergil catch up on all the human wonders, if he doesn't go outside?

> Dante suggests going to the cinema, bowling, arcades etc.

> Vergil is only willing to go to calm places with no crowds like library, bookstore or a museum

> Nero tries to find a compromise and contain the situation

> It's going well, obviously

[pebblume]

I never realized how liberating writing fanfiction would be. I hadn’t written creatively in years. It’s been so long that I kind of forgot what it felt like. The childlike rush of pouring your heart out onto a blank page, not caring about the results as long as you were having fun. I’ve tried writing fanfic a couple of times, for different fandoms across the years, but never finished anything I was really happy with, nothing that I felt comfortable sharing with the world. But something just clicked for me this past week. I realized how much fun it was to stretch out my writing muscles, to get inside the heads of my favorite characters. I realized that it didn’t have to be perfect to be worthy of being shared and loved by others. I realized that I had so many stories inside myself - more than I thought possible. 

But perhaps what I’m most in awe of is fanfic readers. The people who read my work and leave kudos and bookmarks and comments - one word comments, sweet comments, silly comments, paragraph-long comments. I love them all. I used to be afraid of leaving comments on AO3, afraid I wouldn’t have enough words, wouldn’t have the right words, to depict how I felt. But when I felt firsthand how much those comments meant to me I started leaving more and more of them, spreading a digital paper trail of love to all my favorite authors. More and more often I recognize the profile names and images in my comment section and think, Hey, I know you! Now I’m not just a guest on AO3, or a passive reader. I belong here. 

I won’t lie and say I don’t miss drawing a bit, my previous creative outlet. There are plenty of drawings inside me too, itching to be realized. I really just don’t have the time for two time extensive hobbies, not when I need to balance school and practicing and little things like sleeping and eating and relaxing. I miss it, but not as much as I thought I would. There’s a level of investment to sharing a story online that feels…special. When I post my art, I get engagement, and it feels nice, but ultimately, most people are only spending about ten seconds looking at the work I spent eight hours on, if that. When someone reads my fics, we’ve now spent time together. You’ve lived inside my head for a bit, made it your home. It’s about feeling seen, I think. Writing makes me feel understood in a way visual art sometimes doesn’t. It makes me feel vulnerable in the same way performing music does, but less exposed too. It’s interesting to me. 

The only downside, if you can call it that, is now that the writing bug has infected me, I’m finding it harder and harder to stop. I’ll have an idea and then suddenly five hours have flown by because I’m on a creative streak and I just want to write one more idea down, which turns into two, and so on and so forth. I dread stopping, because what if I forget something? What if I get into a writing block later? Suddenly I have people who want to read the things I write and I want to provide it, I really do, but I also have responsibilities. I say, as I write this, ignoring my audition tomorrow afternoon. 

I still have a bit of embarrassment attached to fandom works. When I tell acquaintances that I like to draw or write, I rarely tell them I mean fanart and fanfiction. As if loving something that deeply, that sincerely, is inherently shameful in this age of irony and soulless remakes. Especially when my interests usually consist of media marketed towards children, nevermind the fact that it has more emotional maturity than most ‘adult’ works. But I’m trying to get better about it. A lot of my closest friends know about my hobbies, and some I’ve even let see my work. It’s terrifying but also giddying, seeing them like an art post or comment on a fic. After all, to reap the rewards of being loved, one must submit themselves to the mortifying ordeal of being known, or something like that. 

I realized today that I’ve written over 30,000 words in the past two weeks about about two characters who don’t belong to me, but whom I’ve made my own.

And I’ve never felt happier

[agnesandhilda]

proud to announce that I was paid to read comics today

[fivewholeminutes]

Guess who FINALLY has started @a-s-levynn's Series Of Small Offerings!!!

PART ONE Thread the Needle

Just look at where we're lying / An invisible space

It turns out i look at the proposed lyrics and suddenly get a Thought™ and follow it, so prepare for the offerings to be weird. In this case i thought of the invisible space being between Vessel and his mask, at the very beginning, before Vessel, before Him.

You can interpret it any way you want, i don't know what that means either, I just like dark drawings with a single source of light. Prepare to a lot of offerings like this too.

And apologies for the quality, I hate this paper, but I like the size of this notebook, do you see my problem

[i-am-just-a-skeleton]

pathological demand avoidance x gender dysphoria equals crouched halfway up the stairs curling your arms into your chest and mentally screaming "i don't want to! i don't want to do the things i have to do!" and the thing is. the thing is taking a shower.

[rising-phnx]

ah fuck. I massively underestimated the spoons doing $120 worth of laundry would take. I still need to find/make something to eat to take my meds with, figure out which assignments take priority, and get the appropriate part here.

[drunkonschadenfreude]

another day another migraine

[windwardstar]

sometimes taking the bus is an adventure. and sometimes it is an ordeal.

[snzluv3r]

Hi

How are you feeling?

Any better??

thank you so much for asking, honestly not much but a little! i just can’t seem to get this fever to fully break and it’s making me feel pretty awful so i’ve been neglecting tumblr. you’re so sweet for checking in :)

[lemememeringue]

doing it scared today