#well it's because i'm mentally ill

[hetchdrive]

I wish I could articulate my earnest and sincere feelings about the usage of "I'll Be Seeing You" in Deadpool and Wolverine but unfortunately I can't take myself seriously long enough to string my thoughts together.

[writeouswriter]

*banging fists on table* more mentally ill characters in stories that aren't just about them being mentally ill! More mentally ill characters in sci-fi, in fantasy, in romance and fun and high stakes situations and everything in between, as the heroes, as complex individuals, multifaceted and treated with respect, not having their needs and differences ignored or skirted around but, again, not having them be their only trait or plot point/entire premise! Please, I'm begging, on my hands and knees, there's a place for these topics and characters in realistic, reflective and literary fiction, yeah, but there's also a place in those magical, mystical, action packed, mysterious and alien worlds, give them to ME

[bookwyrminspiration]

there's something undiagnosed plaguing me but going and getting evaluated sounds like a hassle so I'm just gonna side eye it suspiciously for now

[sirenium]

stop calling people's triggers stupid. I don't care if someone is triggered by a fucking cloud with a smiley face, you do not get to determine whether or not to respect someone's triggers just because YOU find it silly. fuck off.

[astrolotte]

I love projecting onto fictional characters. I can say "Peri has intrusive thoughts" because I do and I like Peri and someone else out there will agree. And I think that's beautiful.

(and yes I'd say this means that Irep also has intrusive thoughts. His are about 'nice' and 'happy' things, but they distress him all the same, which makes them intrusive. Both make them question whether they're a "valid" Fairy/Anti-Fairy if they have these thoughts.... and both need to get their asses in therapy STAT)

[naivety]

okay i need feedback from the autism mentall illness website um. this is going to read like an AITA post. brother vs half-sister (who are currently my dependents do to their own individual disabilities + ptsd/depression) spat i will skim the details on but i'm worried my sister will discount my take since i'm not autistic myself so. am i crazy to call it ableist to look at an autistic person (23) who is clearly going through it dealing w long term depression, a world that doesn't give a shit abt him, unemployment, very self-isolated and burnt out barely leaving his room because the world is an ableist dumpster fire with zero opportunities for him, and then bring up childhood abuse he's suffered and his diagnosis as reasonable factors on top of this to worry he'll [checks notes] abuse my cat just to hurt me or even worse have a breakdown and kill me and his other sibling in a violent episode, a train of thought i probably wouldn't even be having were he not [checks notes] mad at me for the first time in my life?

like i don't have any other read on this kind of fear-based characterization other than ableism. like those are very real things in his life but she never points out any current violent behavior, of which there are none, only the one (1) instance of him lashing out when he was like 14 and Officially Diagnosed Low Empathy she thinks is a concern and Hateful Looks toward her since he stopped getting along with her, that's it. i tried explaining to her why i, someone who's lived w him his entire life, can vouch for how unlikely he is to do anything like that, especially when it's again not based on anything he's actually currently doing except for isolating in a way that is much more indicative of him potentially being a danger to himself than anyone else, and being cold towards her specifically, and i thought she had let it go, but when i brought it up off-hand in a conversation tangentially related, she continued to defend and justify her Concern about the potential directions his behavior could lead to because [checks notes] other people in similar situations have lashed out and killed their entire families according to. true crime books or videos she's watched on youtube as far as i'm aware. ignoring the fact that her and i have had the same or Worse childhood abuse and have acted similarly isolated in the past, or for her literally just as currently as him, and she's not expressed any worry past or present about either of us doing anything like that, in my opinion obviously because i haven't cut her off due to our differences like he decided to. like am i big sibling biased because this is pissing me off so bad.

[mudstoneabyss]

actually. the specific phrasing that boy Kevin wants to kill older Kevin with "I must disassemble him, piece by piece, so that everything inside of the Old Kevin comes out. Only then can the New Kevin truly begin." is so incredibly the idea that to heal from trauma and "improve" you have to destroy every "wrong" part of yourself, that everything "tainted" by it has to somehow be replaced by something untouched (which isn't possible)

[uncanny-tranny]

In discussions about mental health, I am so tired of the only voices mattering being other people or other people who do not deal with a condition/disorder or a specific situation.

"Here's how I deal with loved ones with [x] condition!"

"If you do [y] because of [x mental health reason], you're selfish and everybody who loves you is having their lives made harder by you!"

"If your symptoms are [z], you're gross, and you deserve no sympathy for struggling"

I understand to an extent why people do this, but holy hell, as somebody who struggles and struggles often, the last thing any of us need to be told is that we're a burden that others have to carry. And it's terrible how everybody else's feelings but ours matter - even if we are the ones most affected by our condition or situation.

If you are dealing with issues surrounding your mental health and well-being, know that everything above isn't true; you are worthy of patience, understanding, kindness, and love. You are worthy of being listened to without judgment. You don't have to apologize or "make up" for who you are or what you struggle with.

[icewindandboringhorror]

I occasionally wish to reach out to old friends/acquaintances I haven't spoken to since high school/some other even earlier time in my life, but I have SOOO little social energy even for required tasks (like making dr phone calls or etc), I never have any leftover for extra ones, and it would be very odd to message someone I haven't spoken to in like 5 years out of the blue but then take 4 entire months to respond back lol.. My natural curiosity with nostalgia/collecting details of the past/etc. (literally if I were born a little earlier I would definitely do scrapbooking or something lol) is very strong, but, alas, not strong enough to beat out the Social Issues Demons apparently

[helmarok]

i'm always thinking about this line

[nixthemagicdragon]

"So neurodivergent means rude? Is that it?" - my mother, 3 minutes ago, in the most condescending tone you could possibly fucking imagine, talking to my dad, assuming I can't hear her, after I was trying to tell her not to touch me without my consent (for the 1000000th fucking time) and asking her not to compare me to other kids my age, ending in yet another full-scale argument/screaming match

[fantasy-elisa]

guys i'ma be honest I'm ridiculously late to the af franchise, like i'm talking november-december of last year. i never played redux and it was only a few weeks ago that i figured out who verfection was.. oh and would you believe me if i said i haven't played super paper roblox yet

sorry guys i'm actually a fake adventure forward fan /j

[the-moogle-of-your-nightmares]

one thing i really deeply wish is that i'd had access as a kid to the plural community and information that are more easily available today, instead of my first experience with plural community which both took it seriously and was nonjudgmental having been 10's era tul/pa.info lmao

[mayhems-cannon]

hey, i know it might not help your fears, and the other asks said some of this, but i just wanted to hop on and ask: does portraying gabriel in the way you do help you? like, does it make you feel happy or comforted in even a little way? because that's what's important. people are always going to pick up different things from media. no matter how "canon accurate" someone tries to be there will always be a twist in it somehow, everyone's perceptions and fulfillment they get from media is different.

yapping ahead so tune out now if you want but:

I don't think it's possible to "portray him wrong" unless you're super strict about canon. even you said it yourself: we don't really know anything overly personal about him.

there's already a piece of media portraying him in the way they want, and it's the game! the fun thing about fanon is it explores different aspects and view and it's new! if people dont like some of the fandom portrayals, they have the option to walk away and just play the game.

i think we all see ourselves in characters we really like. and there is so little representation of people with mental health issues that struggle in the less accepted "cutesy" way in media that sometimes you need to make it yourself. It's treated like this thing to be ashamed of, and that honestly gave me a sour taste when i was reading the original post talking about making him an "overly sensitive crybaby".

characters and people are multifaceted, and they can have a sensitive struggling side and also an angry, protective, fierceness. those things can both exist in the same space, life is not black or white. there shouldnt be shame in trying to show a character in a way that comforts you, makes you feel seen, and not so alone.

people love your art. and it has made ME feel much less alone, undesirable and ashamed in my life of mental health struggles as a trans man, and of my recent bipolar diagnosis.

well, it does help calm my fears a bit, thank you a lot for writing this. i know it's rather silly and extremely childish to fawn and melt myself mentally over how i draw or portray a character, how obsessive and immature it is, but at the same time it's like i owe him so much, it's really odd to try to explain. i am a bit more clearminded now, but i'm still glad you sent this. thank you again so much.

characters and people are multifaceted, of course, but again that raises my fear of flattening him to simply "mentally ill and depressed to the point he cannot function properly alone anymore". admittedly that isn't really... flat saying it like that, but what i mean is simply to say i'd just reduce him to be a piece for suffering, which so far i don't seem to have done seeing people's positive reactions to what i draw of him (something that i'm still not fully used to).

what the original poster might've meant is the way he is written possibly being overly dramatic due to circumstances surrounding the work, stuff like being the usual teenager unable to fully understand emotions and reactions and thus going with extremes as a way to get their message through (i know that because i tried doing it as a 13 year old). but that's only one example, among a sea of possibilities, and even then it doesn't remove that stigma you mentionned, that gave you a sour taste. not everyone is depressed to the point of barely being able to function but at the same time why judge people who do write him with any sort of mental illness? be it as a form or projection or not, be it done "well" or "nor", it's not worth judging it in the end, right? (what does being an "overly sensitive crybaby" mean anyway?)

I write Gabriel like that not only because i want to see myself in him but also partly because, in a way, i do want to "make him my own" while also listening a minimum to the people who enjoy it. i don't know if i'm writing or drawing anything that's all that accurate in the end, but the least i can do as a trans guy who's just projecting is to take note of my surroundings and reactions and while i put them onto Gabriel see if i understand things right, coming from anyone around be it friends, mutuals or anyone. in a way it's serving as a "save state" of the stats and mental state i'm currently in, if that makes sense and isn't too much idiot rpg talk .

i'm gonna try to keep drawing Gabriel the ways that help me before anything though, it's just rather anxiety inducing to see someone you respect agree against something you fear you might be doing do all the time.

again, thank you for telling me this. it's hard to keep on going when you forget what makes you happy but this genuinely helped me quite a bit.

[sprinklethetangerine]

That's it. I'm making my own Relativity Falls AU lorebook.

[not-poignant]

Jesus H Christopher, Pia. Your writing load is insane.

Maybe you should cut back on how many chapters you release for certain stories? Like Stain and Palma (since these stories dont equal income) until UtB the other Underline stories are almost done. Just a thought

Because I feel burnt out just by thinking of writing that much, so I can only imagine how you feel. Please take care of yourself

Hi anon,

TL;DR: My brain is stupid, which is why I can't do this, even though it makes sense and is logical.

Unfortunately the fanfiction is what often makes the original fiction possible, or more enjoyable.

If I lock myself down into too much schedule and rigidity, or if I only focus on writing for money, I actually start to hate writing, even if I love the stories. There is nothing like 'will this earn money, do people like this, would people pay, what if they all decide to stop paying for this, why would they pay for this, would I pay for this, how much would people pay for this, is there any incentive for them to pay for this, actually if I wrote a ton of different tropes maybe I'd make more for this, but that's depressing, but I need the money, shit what do I do, what if I lose my income, what if it all stops tomorrow, I need to write more, I need to write more, I need to write more' that is actually very exhausting and makes writing not much fun at all.

And to deliberately break out of that headspace as much as possible, I write fanfiction. Because that headspace (the one I wrote about above), on its own, even if I'm only writing two stories, can and has led to burnout and depressive episodes. I don't recommend it.

In a way, one of the reasons I can write so many stories right now (ADHD meds aside) is that I am letting myself break out and just have fun with fanfiction, and remember that my original writing is meant to be fun too. But without fanfiction, I lose sight of that very quickly.

Fanfiction means that when an original story chapter does super badly, generally there are still excited comments elsewhere that keep me going. That's how I survived The Ice Plague, and that story would never have been completed without fanfiction, because that was my worst performer of any story I've ever written. It also means if a lot of subscribers leave at once, I don't feel like The Worst Writer In The World. So having fanfiction behind me was like...a literal safety net or my security blanket.

If I have to discard my security blankets or use them less often in order to keep writing the original stuff, I might as well just stop entirely, because my longest hiatuses from Patreon (i.e. one lasted 1.5 years, many have lasted 4-6 months) have been when I'm mostly just writing original fiction, and am not writing much fanfiction, or not deliberately finding time for it, and finally get so stressed out re: money I literally have to stop. I'm on a (partial) Disability Pension.

A long time ago some professional people told me I probably shouldn't be working at all because of my mental illnesses and then paid me money because of the severity of those mental illnesses. My dumbass brain be pretty fragile, actually, and keeps chugging away because I make bad business decisions and write stuff I enjoy instead of writing to market, or doing rapid release, or releasing more novels (or novels). Writing does ironically help when I'm stressed, but not when I'm stressed about making money because of writing.

I will cut at my income before I cut at my love of this job, and unfortunately fanfiction keeps me going in this job, which means I can't really cut at that first.

(Also from a business perspective, it's actually a very good funnel to the original stuff and then subscription. Most of you wouldn't be here if you hadn't read one of my fanfics first and then gave the original stuff a try - I try not to think about that too much because I need fanfic to not be about money, but the fact is, I would not have this career without fanfic).

I do have plans to take two weeks off in January from posting chapters (I can still post rewards in the second half of January) and that's not too far away.

And the reality is that I probably would have kept going okay if real life hadn't imploded on top of everything like the world's worst bukkake party.