#which ik and am fine with bc i respect them and their boundaries

[dinoburger]

But the Moment Just Slipped Through My Hands

submitting to the time honored tradition of Expiration Date fics - slightly Science Party flavoured. I just wanted to put it out there, ik maybe I could stand to sprinkle in more funny speech mannerisms for both Engie and Medic - maybe this will be for another day. I also wanted to illustrate more of it but I could save that for the Ao3 version...

2k words - more focused on Medic and Engie but there's a dash of HeavyMedic in there, not exactly shipping focused

(title is from Gone in an Instant - I hope nobody is keeping track of how many times I reference Black Dresses in various work bc I'm sure it's starting to add up)

-🍞-

The smell of bread had a tendency to float in the air in almost every corner of their current base of operations – fated to be their last, so they assumed – but was even thicker now in the already stuffy laboratory. Slightly more sour than usual too, due to the effects of the teleporter.

After they’d reported their findings to the rest of the team, the resident medic and engineer had hurried back to continue their work, hoping for more answers. It was natural, to both of them, but in the lulls between furiously experimenting, exchanging notes and prompting each other with questions about their respective areas of expertise, Dell found himself staring at the doctor with a pang of guilt.

The medic, as was usual when presented with cataclysmic disaster, confronted it with a mixture of stern determination and delighted morbid curiosity. Regardless, impending doom weighed heavy on the shorter’s shoulders.

“You don’t feel hard-done by, spending your last days cooped up in this here lab?” he scratched his neck, leaning back against the bench’s counter.

“If we had more time, maybe – but this is where I am needed most, ja?” the medic scribbled down several more notes, before he spared the engineer a glance. “What about you?”

“So long as I’m not gettin’ in your way.”

“Oh not at all, not at all.” he shook his head, “Really, it’s unfortunate I could not have gotten to know you better sooner – you have a brilliant mind, Herr Engineer.” the doctor’s lips quirked into a small, earnest smile, which caught Dell off guard.

“Aw shucks, Doc.” he retreated into himself a bit. “Just a shame I weren’t brilliant enough to figure out this whole teleporter mess m’self.”

“Ach, you couldn’t have known” Ludwig waved off, “and besides that, some of the greatest discoveries of our time have come at no small cost. What is it they say…? You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.”

It was true that medical science had it’s share of horrors, but even so, the doctor felt his optimism slip.

“I must confess, I might have been a touch… sloppy. You would think if something was wrong, the team doctor would be first to pick up on it." he scolded himself. "I am so grateful for the freedom of being out on the field, pushing the boundaries of science and medicine but I’m afraid I have gotten ahead of myself.”

“Heck, I’d say you’d done a dang good job keepin’ us alive so far - ‘spite some of our best efforts.” Dell grinned, which got a laugh out of Ludwig.

“M’ just wonderin’ if you didn’t have nobody special you wanted to see before you, y’know. Bit the dust, so to speak. I can keep things tickin’ over here just fine for a while.”

“Someone ‘special’…? Oh, don’t tell me.” Ludwig snorted. “Those silly rumours about my supposed ‘wife’ are still floating around.”

“I was a tad curious.”

“I might as well give the game up now, she’s not real – never was. I have no time for such things, but ach, some of our comrades are very nosy. It started off as a simple joke to keep them off my back, I didn’t think it would stick, so I never bothered to refute it.”

“I getcha, that makes a hell’ve a lot more sense.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” the man tensed, the amused glint in his eyes exchanged for something sharper and wary.

“Well, when the fellas get gossipin’ about the lady-folk, you never have a whole lot t’ say. Figured if you really did have a spouse waitin’ on ya you’d be more eager to brag.” Dell observed casually.

The doctor released a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding. “Ah, is that all?”

“Y’know I’m not one to pry, doc. I respect ya too much.”

“Much appreciated.”

Dell paused, picking his next words more carefully. “More surprised you didn’t wanna say your goodbyes to that big fella – two of you seem mighty companionable.”

“Herr Heavy, I assume? We do work closely together, but... it’s hard to say we’re much more than colleagues.”

“You kiddin’? The man’s crazy ‘bout ya – you should see how he lights up the moment he lays eyes on ya. ‘S really somethin’ else.” Dell risked a smile and a sideways glance, the doctor’s face going soft with fondness.

“Well… I suppose I owe it to him to see if I can work this out in time.”

The engineer’s throat seized, his playful smile fading. He’d almost forgotten what the stakes were here.

For the next few minutes, Dell put his head down and worked in solemn silence, the guilt crushing his lungs and forbidding him to talk. He would only will himself to when the doctor had another question, they needed to deliberate their next course of action or sort out notes between each other.

When they’d worked into another lull in their rhythm, the taller of the two eyed up the other.

“...You didn’t have anyone you wanted to see before we expire?” The doctor returned the question.

The engineer shook his head, still half buried in a toolbox. “Nope. Wouldn’t’ve signed up t’ be a mercenary if I did, all part ‘n parcel." he took a breath, considering just biting his tongue again, but somehow leaving Ludwig in the dark felt worse. "Those Mann brothers found me through m’ grandpa, us Conaghers’ve been workin’ with ‘em for decades.”

“Really now?” Doctor Ludwig’s eyebrows twitched up, this was news to him.

Dell knew deep down he wasn’t supposed to talk about this, as mercenaries they were all on a need-to-know basis, but with how the situation was unfolding he found the words spilling out with ease.

“Uh-huh. Lotta his work was kept under lock and key though, up until I joined their employ. Though I can't say I agree with how they got 'em to begin with... it feels like I get ta take part in my heritage, going over his blueprints, studying his notes – like I’m really steppin’ into his shoes ‘n followin’ his footsteps.” the softer, reverent tone he’d taken petered out into a sigh. “I was hopin’ I’d be able t’ finish what he’d started, put an end to this gravel war. Looks like there’ll have to be another generation of recruits after us.”

“It’s still just a job, mein friend, you make of it what you can – and I would say you have gotten more out of it than most would.” the doctor added.

“It ain’t just a job to me.” Dell’s idle tinkering stopped, head hung. “I got all these ideas in my head that I could make it mean somethin', I'd shake things up, I'd make it count - buncha fanciful nonsense." his words took on a harsher edge as he wound himself up.

Doctor Ludwig found himself pausing too, observing the other’s hunched shoulders and arms stiffly gripping the bench.

“What kinda legacy am I leavin’? Maybe I’m just daydreaming, thinkin’ I’m half the man Radigan was. Would he really’ve made a mistake this darn stupid? Doomed all’a his men like this? The hell do I think I’m doin’ out here?” he spat, cursing himself.

Part of him had always known, every force was met with equal resistance, wins and losses balanced themselves out. The RED and BLU mercenaries were nothing but cogs in a much larger machine, to ends he couldn’t fathom.

He kept glaring down at the counter through his goggles, as if raising his head would reveal a great, dark vortex hanging above, deeper than he could possibly see, filled with terrible, grinding machinery. It would use them all up like fuel and spit them out into the ether.

“To hell with legacy.”

Doctor Ludwig broke the tangible silence that had fallen.

“To hell with the Mann brothers, to hell with your grandfather.”

The Conagher bristled and turned on him, mouth twisted into an offended snarl, posture like a coiled spring. “Beg yer pardon?”

“We cannot dictate what the tides of time will choose to spare.” the doctor’s expression was equally grave. “So I say to hell with them all. Your work is worthy, because your life is worthy.” he clamped his hands over either of the engineer’s shoulders, taking the man by surprise.

“I don’t care what kind of man this Radigan Conagher was, I am honoured to have spent this life with his grandson.”

That sent his head spinning.

Dell choked, not sure if he was about to cry or laugh, a shaky grin spread across his features and a wheeze escaped his teeth.

“’P-preciate it, Doc.” he sniffed, flushed with the threat of tears.

Ludwig gave his shoulders a reassuring squeeze before he released him, the tension melting out of the room. “Of course, let’s get back to it, shall we?”

The engineer nodded, turning from him again to regain composure. He pried the goggles up from his eyes just enough to rub the haze from them before returning them to position.

-

Hours bled into a blur, the self-assurance of being able to power through it to the end was starting to crumble. Dell could hardly see straight, neither man had slept since their initial discovery. He’d been the first to give out, going from using the lab bench to prop himself up to sinking entirely onto the cold, concrete floor in a heap. He peeled back his goggles, feeling the grooves across his nose and cheeks from being stuck to his face for so long – no doubt angry red marks by now, he imagined.

The stink of sour bread was getting to him, suffocating, he wanted nothing more than to lay down and let his senses slip away into unconsciousness.

He vacantly stared up at the doctor, who he wasn’t sure was still engaged in their research or just playing with chunks of bread.

Without thinking, he watched the man bring the piece he was holding to his mouth and bit down. He spluttered and spat it back out at once.

“What was the point o’ that?” the engineer snickered.

Ludwig mumbled incoherently, before shrugging, too bleary to come up with a good excuse.

“Surprised you can even tolerate the stuff at this rate, it reeks in here.”

“Ja, well…” the doctor interrupted himself with a groan as he joined the engineer on the floor, joints protesting his descent. “I have smelt a lot worse – try working with corpses and animals for hours on end. Or animal corpses, for that matter.”

Dell shuddered. “No thanks, partner.”

At least Ludwig found his disgust amusing.

It was strange being able to see the other’s face unobscured, the medic had gotten used to thinking of Dell as something vaguely insectoid with those large dark lenses. There were in fact, some pretty impressive red indents on his skin where the googles had been and a tan line to match.

“I jus… need a moment…” he huffed, letting his lids fall closed.

Doctor Ludwig murmured a faint agreement, tucking his own glasses into the pocket of his coat and slumping back against the bench on his side of the laboratory.

“...Doc?”

“Mm?”

“Y’ain’t… scared of disappearin’? Being forgotten?”

“Terrified. But it’s out of my hands.” his lips stayed parted as he chewed it over, consciousness swaying. “I can’t control what I will be remembered for. I can hope that my work will mean something in the face of humanity… that it will not simply be discarded as madness, but I cannot know. At least I can say I never limited myself, that I always… always sought for answers.”

"'S like y' said... if they can't see what it's worth then maybe humanity don't deserve it."

The doctor only hummed in response.

There was something painfully human in his sprawled out form that Dell had never quite seen before, peering out between heavy eyelids. He traced Doctor Ludwig’s sunken cheekbones in his mind, the dark lashes of closed eyes, brow relaxed – neither forming the serious scowl he was used to nor contorted in manic glee, a view clear of the usual thin frames that adorned his nose. He was used to having to peer up at him, with his line of sight only reaching the doctor’s chest.

He wanted to take that image to the ends of the earth, for what time he had left and what consciousness his exhausted mind would allow him.

Glad that the light in the lab was already dim, the engineer shifted to lie down, hissing when his helmet smacked the concrete – he’d forgotten he’d still been wearing it. He fumbled to get it off, not noticing the doctor too shifting to slide out of his coat.

“Here, support your head with this.”

“Huh? Oh, thank ya kindly.” Dell absently took the folded fabric while propped up on his elbows, shimmying to position himself just right.

He also took the opportunity to unfasten his prosthetic to set aside, along with his belt.

“Hey Doc… lemme return the favour.”

Medic squinted.

“I got a pillow y’ can use.” the engineer patted his belly with his remaining hand. “C’mere.”

He didn’t need any further prompting, the taller crawled over and flopped back against him. “Oof, my back is going to hate me for this.” he grumbled. “If you wake first, wake me up too.”

Comfortable wasn’t the right word. Nothing about how the cold floor seeped through the back of his clothes and the skin of his arms was particularly comfortable, even the way the medic rested his weight on his stomach was a little stifling, but he wouldn’t have dared to move.

He could smell the doctor’s scent in the coat tucked under his head, feel the gentle rhythm of his breath, hear the way it stirred in his chest.

“Let’s just stay like this, until the end. Hold me until it’s all over.” Dell wanted to plead.

“Copy that.”

[itoshi-s]

✧.* this blog posts mainly nsfw and dark content. this includes: incest/stepcest, yandere, cnc/dubcon, coercion, misuse of power, etc. if you’re uncomfortable with any of these, i try to include every possible trigger into the cw so that u know which post to ignore! if you have anything against this kind of content - just block n scroll !

✧.* therefore, DO NOT INTERACT WITH OR FOLLOW THIS BLOG if you’re under the age of 18 !!! previously i did allow 17 year olds to follow/interact so if you joined me out here back then - it’s fine ! but if you’re a new potential follower, please respect this boundary and dni <3

✧.*  the same applies to ageless or blank blogs (blank=no header, pfp, or any posts whatsoever). if you’re not comfortable putting your age out here — i get it, but that doesn’t make me any less uncomfortable to have u follow me. if you’re a blank blog, you are also getting blocked — simply because i cant tell whether you’re a bot or not.

✧.* please don’t spam like - there is a difference between liking up to several posts while reading thru all of my works,, but it is clear when u bookmark without even fully reading the posts :( it might get me shadowbanned and u best believe if it happens, u will not see me on this blog again lol

✧.* don’t direct message me unless we’re mutuals - i’m up to talk with all of u guys but i’d rather do it thru asks than in the dms ! if we’re moots - feel free to hit me up!! beware tho bc i will keep sending u all of ur favs lol

✧.* i don’t take requests as of now, BUT i am always v happy to receive random thoughts/ideas/thirsts !!!

✧.*  don’t send overly detailed thirsts for characters not mentioned in this post ! i usually like to add a few of my own thoughts to your asks and expand on them,, but it is extra challenging with charas that i am not that interested in - and i don’t ever want to give u an half assed reply! the list is updated frequently and reblogged with each change, so be on the look out ! („• ᴗ •„)

✧.* i am very guilty of ask hoarding !!! if your ask/thirst hasn’t been answered yet, there’s a 90% chance i am keeping it in my drafts to elaborate on later :,) it does take me a bit of time though bc i need to get into the right vibe sometimes - but fret not i am not ignoring u ! be on the look out <3

✧.* don’t send me asks/thirsts that you’ve been sending to different content creators as well !! ik sometimes the urge to read something gets unbearable lol but it does make me fairly uncomfy ! ofc it’s ok if it’s a general idea - but sending a v detailed ask word for word to various users will most probably end up w ur ask being deleted on my behalf :( chances are if the other user is a mutual of mine/i follow them and i like the idea,, i will end up reblogging it and expanding it a lil in the tags anyway !

ꜰᴀᴠ ᴋɪɴᴋ ʟɪꜱᴛ / ʜᴀʀᴅ ɴᴏ'ꜱ - a short list of my fav kinks to write and that u will most likely be seeing in loads of my works, and then again, a list of some that i will never get around doing </3

favs; choking/asphyxia/breathplay, incest/stepcest (step siblings mostly but step daddy’s fine as well), cnc/dubcon, spitplay, cumplay !

hard no’s; scat/vomit, gore/hardcore body horror, vore, mommy kink, hardcore ddlg/age regression/abdl !

[moodymeangirl]

a letter to my ex-chosen-sibling that, at least for now, i will not send

need to save this but don't want it my notes app or in drafts where could accidentally send. so it's going here. ik it's dumb to post on tumblr and simeltabeously ask ppl not to read it. i just needed it said and written. i don't mind if moots see it, but pls bare in mind it's for an irl situation that contains lots of deep soul pain, and involves 2 complex and flawed humans, who are no longer going to be friends but who both deserve good and happy life and who are not monoliths of either harm or good.

Letter begins under cut

Hey. I am getting these messages, but as you know I was away camping over the weekend.

This series of communications (following an extended period of being ghosted without explanation or warning) has had a catastrophic effect on my wellbeing and stability.

I have tried my best to be supportive, did what I could, and asked others to check in on you.

The people I asked to check in on you have both informed me that you're telling them you're fine, not in danger; okay.

I can't cope being on my own supporting you through this, while our mutuals friends laugh it off and treat me like im crazy for taking your wellbeing seriously.

I feel that you want and/or need my support but for whatever reason you don't actually like me or want to be my friend anymore. So you're comfortable pretending I'm crazy for taking you seriously, you're comfortable putting me in emotionally torturous positions, and you're comfortable exploiting my love and loyalty to you, to get what you need.

You've chosen - as u have consistently in the last year of our friendship - to put me in an extremely cruel and traumatic position.

In the last year or so you've suddenly started to behave as though you dislike me, while telling me to my face that you love me and everything is normal:

1. Demonising my autism

2. characterising me as a liar & abuser when u don't understand my autism. deciding you can tell how im feeling better than me, refusing to accept my honesty.

3. admitting in therapy to having a bigotry against autistic people, refusing to prove ur doing the work (as Jan requested of u), and continuing to demonise anything you perceive as autistic that i do.

4. simultaneously taking advantage of my autism/blind trust/gullibility to gaslight and convince me im okay with being treated as ur infrior, and as a bomb thats inevitably going to explode.

5. u went out of your way to convince me im inherently abusive and while i went out of my mind trying to fix myself in therapy, you

6. are consistently absent from therapy. i am committed and have been since the start and u dont turn up, refuse to share progress, and have never once apologised for the continuing bigotry you admitted to in the space, soon after which you stopped attending.

7. Crushing any boundary I try to set and using our therapy to reinforce this pattern. Jan asked me to set a boundary. You agreed to my face, in front of Jan and the first time it came up irl you ignored it, ghosted me for a week, and only talked to me again once you had devised a new boundary of your own, which specfically existed to destory mine. You then entered the joint therapy space and somehow convinced Jan (who had asked me to set the boundary in the first plsce) to encourage me to accept that my boundaries are less important than yours. That my respect of you is paramount but your respect for me is immaterial.

8. Most egregiously: leveraging ur very real safety concerns in a largely successful attempt to remove my equality and autonomy ie phone mumbers, chats, email. Telling me to my face and in therapy repeatedly, that I can't be allowed to contact you bc of security whilst simultaneously having me introduce you to and fetch numbers for my best friends, who you immediately created signal chats with right in front of my face.

You gaslit me, insisted everything was normal, you called me 'sister and said that you loved me. All while forcing me to accept being an uneuqal and your inferior, within the structure of our friendship.

I only ever get to speak to you when you need my help, support, or resources. If I need my chosen sibling, my best friend, I have to cry myself to sleep wishing you'd happen to call.

If you felt any kind of negativity towards me during a call you'd hang up and ghost me, knowing how that tortures me - and frankly not caring.

You would ghost me for weeks, months knowing I was worried for you. You would wait till I was begging on email (that u mostly ignored) to finally speak to me again and you would happily listen as I expressed gratitude to hear your voice. You enforced a structural silent treatment, a deliberate emotional abuse, and you never once allowed me to express pain from this, without hanging up and enacting that torture all over again.

These last 2 months while u refused to contact me, give me any explanation, or talk to me directly at all - you knew the last I'd heard from Jan is that you were still medically incapacitated. You knew I'd be caring and worried. You knew all that time I was in contact w C, literally advocating for u in direct contact w police. And u just ghosted me, regardless.

The reason why I finally got too stressed about your wellbeing btw, is that L had an accident from which they should have died. I'd have loved to speak to my best friend when I was sobbing my eyes out waiting to see their mri, but instead I was completely alone.

Having faced their mortality, all I could think about was you. I genuinely believed you were so sick from covid that you couldn't contact me. I thought you, too, might be in an ICU somewhere, dying.

How lovely to find out was right to be worried, that ur life was in danger, and that my instincts that u felt unsaid negative things toward me - were all true.

How lovely to be exploited, bullied, and tortured for months, then ghosted. Then when I reach out, worried sick for your wellbeing: metaphorically tied to a chair while u threaten suicide, not so I can't stop you - but because if I was near you, you'd be in danger.

I plead with you to live and I start to hope you will.

I see familiar faces nearby so I scream to them, I'm screaming to them that you're in danger im begging them to help you.

But you tell them you're fine. You convince them nothing's wrong.

They see an unstable, dangerous MMG.

Why is she so worried lol?

I'm the only one who knows and is trying to help and you've keep me tied up, all I can do is watch and desperately obey whatever u want me to do.

U say Covenant is the only thing that helps, will I help you with it. I help you to the very best of my ability, while crying and losing my mind with worry.

You thank me for my generous choice to be 'thorough'.

Suddenly, after months of complete disinterest in me as a person u wanna laugh together about ppl in ur group.

U wanna know what im writing.

Ur telling me if I'm your friend, you're unsafe. Ur telling me if I be your friend then you'll stay alive. Ur telling anyone I express my care for you to, that you're fine.

9. And now, suddenly , after ghosting me for 60+ days in a row (and hundreds of days combined over the last year), you're in my inbox sarcastically suggesting I might be dead, bc I didn't respond to u for like a day and a half - when u know I'm camping, out of town, likely without reception.

Ftr, it seems obvious to me now but when u sent 'are u ther' I had no idea what you meant, replied within an hour, and waited on tenterhooks to see what u meant.

When u did reply, I couldn't bc we were packing and my phone was dead most of the time. I saw the icon when I did turn it on, but only had minimal internet and already needed to zoom my psychiatrist from the tiny lil shed where there was a wall charger.

I was on less than one bar and one percent.

On Tuesday I slept most of the day, exhausted. And when I saw two emails had appeared from you I had a panic attack. If not for L offering to call, I might have been too scared to read them.

Colour me surprised, to find you being rude and sarcastic bc I didn't get back to you after one solitary day - after u had repeatedly and deliberately ghosted me dozens of times in the last six months.

The most recent email, to which I'm replying here, confirmed all my instincts and fears, and experiences.

10. The whole reason on which you predicated the necessity of my unequal treatment in our friendship is that if I (or anyone) has the ability to contact you, your safety will be compromised.

You had spent months bullying me into accepting this via therapy, via demonising my autism and gaslighting me into thinking I'm an inherently harmful person (something you know my dad used to control and abuse me as a child), via telling me I'm doing DV to you when u don't like my tone, via starving me of affection and attention, via only being warm to me if I was supporting you through something.

You had spent months subjecting me to a structurally enforced silent treatment, only punctuated by indirect news of serious sickness, which began with no warning and ended with no explanation.

While I cried myself to sleep imagining you dying alone in an ICU, too weak to move - you happily operated signal chats with my best friends.

I vouched for you to them using our decade of trust and love, i wlecomed you into my home repeatedly, my community spaces, and went out of my way to help your support network expand.

All the while i did this, you ghosted me, let me think you were ill, and expected that my significant support would continue regardless. At this same time, you were 'excited for the future, planning to visit' S in her home country. These plans we all made together were suddenly something you did quietly on your own, while ignoring my existence and letting me believe u were incapacitated by illness.

I only found out bc I was so unwell these last weeks that S let slip. She couldn't understand why I was acting as though this was an emergency, bc in her world you were actively planning future holidays and being excited.

Ftr, S still doesn't think this was an emergency.

She stopped talking to me after repeatedly assuring me I could confide in her, and eventually explained she felt helpless in the face of my stress. Her boundaries now involve me not expressing the extent of my panic that you're going to die.

I have been screaming myself hoarse trying to get people to take me seriously. But they can't. My friendships with both C and S will never be the same bc they are both certain ur fine. C even said u were completely 'normal'.

And meanwhile, I'm trapped, bound to that chair trying desperately to be supportive, deal with my own hurt and heartbreak at how little you think of or care for me, and find the strength to work on repairing my friendship with S, even tho the wound isn't something I knew about or put there - until it suddenly became my responsibility to fix.

All because you, for some reason, would prefer to torture emotional and social support out of me - while continuing to demonise me - than to like, ask.

Like you could just ask. Me or others. There's doesn't have to be love, friendship, or strings.

You could even just be honest and say you haven't liked me for ages now, but you need my help.

You could respect that both of us are unhappy in the friendship by acknowledging that, and then being clear about what's happening.

You don't need to coerce me into helping u with Covenant and then gaslight me that I chose to.

You don't need to love bomb after i help, you don't need to speak in that whole StatementDemandStatementDemand pattern that is all through the rest of these emails.

You don't need to hide your struggle from the people you do treat with respect (S, C, even J).

11. idk if it was cowardice or you just don't care. But your choice not to tell me how you really feel, while showing me that you hate me in your actions - for at least the last six months, maybe longer tbh - has broken my heart. Fully, probs irreparably.

12. You would've gotten away with it, if L hadn't almost died that week.

If Ba hadn't almost died the next night.

If I hadn't been so scared for you I started to try and find a way for u to hear me, after months of enforced silence.

Idk if u replied bc I talked to C, S, or J, or bc I said I'd come to ur house. Or bc u simply happened to be logged in and have to sit with the fact that I exist for the first time in months.

Idk.

You might even have been thinking of me a lot in that time. Idk. Bc it doesn't matter, bc what you did was:

make and keep me unequal in our friendship, ignore my existence unless u needed to use me, enforced this any time you felt even the slightest negative feeling.

Idk what you thought you were doing, but what you *were* doing was breaking my heart.

13. You havent gotten away with it. Bc of what you chose to do, knowing - years ago having promised to never put me in a position where I'm the only person who knows you're suicidal, ever again - you chose to do so.

Knowing that with our history I would take you extremely seriously.

Knowing that you would cause a serious ptsd episode.

You knowingly broke a boundary you yourself set, to safeguard me, bc you knew if you did I'd take you seriously, go into emergency mode, and offer support.

On its own this is manipulative and deliberately disrespecting my boundaries, but in an emergency, I get it.

I don't forgive u but I understand.

What I don't understand is how cruelly you had treated me up till this point and how you continued to choose the cruellest option as we emailed.

14. Knowing our past, you lied to our other friends that you're okay. Still letting them laugh at me and think I'm crazy, while I'm begging them to help me try to keep you alive.

You knew. And still, you did it.

You chose not simply to break that boundary, but to actively trap me inside that unsafe situation, refusing care from others until those people turned on me for daring to ask.

You chose to do this, while ensuring I know I'm unsafe for you to be friends with.

You scared me, incapacitated me, and when I attempted to gather more supports for you - you lied to them, effectively muzzling me in all three friendships.

You then coerced me into helping you, attempted rather blatantly to gaslight me into thinking it was something I had a choice in, attempted to love bomb me, and then went right back to StatementDemandStatementDemand when it was clear your manipulation wasn't working.

15. I was doing the helping tho. Like that's what I don't get. I was seeing thru the manipulation but I still gave my best attempt at support.

I rly don't understand why, if u don't want to be my friend but u do want to ask for my support as a community member - why you didn't just do that?

You know my values. You know I'd have helped.

16. The emotional torture was completely unnecessary and completely unacceptable.

17. Frankly, the emotional torture tactics you've used on me for long time now are completely unnecessary and completely unacceptable.

18. The ways you have consistently treated me within the last year of our friendship has been flat out wrong.

19. Hypocritical too. Which I guess was just part of the gaslighting, huh:

You had so much anger on my behalf toward F and then went on to do the same thing ten times more often and ten times worse.

You had so much anger on my behalf at ld while simultaneously demonising accusing me, and abusing me in exactly the same ways. You spent 6 months trying to gaslight me into believing I'm inherently harmful, just by existing. Id only did that once.

You've enacted it dozens and dozens of times.

Sadly, both of you did it for the same reason.

I rejected Id sexually and suddenly I had to be shown my place.

I rejected the role you wanted me to play in our friendship (inferior, doesnt have own needs, obedient), so you had to show me my place.

The difference is Id's was an outburst, yours was a plan.

20. But no, you haven't gotten away with any of this because I can see clearly now.

I knew these tortures and manipulations and gaslightings were based on lies.

But now I can prove it.

You leveraged almost the entirety of the issues in our friendship (minus my own flaws which haven't repeated since the first time, and which ive been working hard on in therapy while youve been absent) on the lie that if there was structural equality in our friendship, if I was allowed to be equally free and autonomous, then your safety would be compromised.

Now I knew that was a lie, ever since you had me watch you set up chats with the only other ppl i love, people you'd known two weeks, people I encouraged you to make friends with. But u think so little of me, u made me get the numbers, made me watch, made my heart break, and then gaslit me into accepting the ludicrous lie that was apparently about your past, but suddenly wasnt a necessary safety measure for anyone except me - the one person who knows that shit fr and who u actually can trust not breach it.

Bro, u could literally have just said it was about me, that you felt unsafe.

You would have hurt me, but at least it would have been true.

On the other hand if i knew you didnt like me, want to be my friend, you wouldnt have had access to my ftiends in the first place.

Not thru malice, just youd have had to make those friendships without my vouching for u.

You knew you could abuse me, control me, get me to accept it, and u felt safe I'd never tell - so u just did it.

All the while leveraging ur irl safety issues that r very serious.

It's just like, disgusting of you.

You went out of your way to harm my soul at every opportunity.

You consistently chose to keep my friendship to you, while doing anything you could to get me to accept receiving nothing from you in return.

The easiest way to do that was to make me believe I'm abusing u based solely on my neurotype, ie born this way, and that I was lucky you were even in my life at all.

So you did that.

Did you get what you wanted from me? Was it worth destroying somebody's love for you? Was it worth destroying your closest friend?

21. I'm guessing no, bc it's rly hard to convince someone they're something they're not.

Like you did a good job in terms of me obeying you and never speaking up in therapy and saying the right things.

But in my mind, I knew I didn't deserve to be hurt like this.

Parts of the system started to put ptsd blocks up around you, and eveytime we masked what was rly happening in our friendship w you, we edged closer to telling someone.

By putting us in such a traumatic position

(trapped witnessing ur possible death, being told the mechanisms I would usually use to help, make u unsafe, and u telling everyone willing to reach out to u that you're fine - except me, this person ur treating like u hate)

you exposed us to a level of emergency clarity we wouldn't have had access to otherwise.

22. You predicated all of this, all this shit, on the 'fact' that if I could contact u, you'd be in danger.

And then, I took a day to reply one time and suddenly ur sarcastic abt whether Im alive. Sibling, I cried myself to sleep for months with genuine reason to be concerned for ur health.

U decide u want my attention and bc of extenuating circumstances (that u knew abt in advance) u had to wait a day and a half to use me aaaaand

Suddenly u have a phone.

Suddenly u want me call you on it.

Suddenly ur not in danger if i do, suddenly doing so is good.

You think so fundamentally little of me that after all the pain over this damn phone thing, I'm going to forget and come running desperate for a scrap of affection or gratitide.

Suddenly u want me, an 'unsafe' person, to contact u directly.

Suddenly, suddenly suddenly.

23. None of this was safety shit was true from the moment you asked me for J's number and still wouldn't let us have a signal chat.

You're not over me, not better than me, not my superior.

I was under the impression that after 10+ years of being best friends that you viewed me as (at bare minimum) an equal.

You do not.

You use me, when u need me you say you love me and refer to my being your sister.

When you don't, you abandon me to a silent treatment you designed so that I could not escape.

24. I've showed all ur and my messages to L , S2, and my mum.

They all unprompted and without explanation of the messages from me, said they felt I was being exploited and lied to.

All three of them voiced concerns that you have in fact lied to me about being suicidal, not to S and C about being okay.

25. I don't believe that. For all the harm, I actually know y'all pretty damn well.

I think you're suffering and have been for some time.

I think you want my friendship and support but for a long time now, have not wanted to be my friend yourself.

I think that you don't want to show S or C your vulnerability and mental illness bc you're afraid they'll judge you and leave, as others unfairly have.

I think you felt that respecting me by being honest ie friendship, was too risky that you would hurt my feelings and lose my support.

I think parts of you also feared losing the ease with which you could access the communities I belong to, the people I had introduced you to, and the generosity with which I share my resources with you, almost to a fault.

Not that you'd lose the people, the spaces. Just the ease of access, and my money (of which u know there is very little).

26. But whatever reasons got you there, you decided to break almost every basic tenet of friendship: dishonesty, cruelty, gasligjting, manipulation, bullying, and humiliating.

You kept me around to service you financially and emotionally and you used my vulnerability in therapy, my vulnerability in introducing you to the other people I live, and my vulnerability in having built a decades worth of family level trust.

You abused it and you abused me.

You broke my heart a thousand times and encouraged me to blame myself.

Finally, you were in enough pain to notice my worry for you.

You put me in an emotional saw trap, so that I would help you - with no regard for my wellbeing, or the truth of your wellbeing, so long as you could control me.

27. Finally, you couldn't even live through my phone being out of service for 2 days without ironically cruelly and sarcastically laughing about whether im alive. 60 days u ghosted me without the merest hint of caring how i felt.

28. But 2 days of knowing im away, that i cant be perfectly obedient in how i communicate, and u go mask off.

Tore down the entire paradigm of gaslighting u had used to make me accept being unequal, bc you think so fundamentally little of me, that you think I'll come running begging for scraps of ur attention, begging to destroy my own life, stabity, and health for the privilege of being threatened that if I don't, I'l contribute to ending yours.

29. IF. IF it turns out you are/were not suicidal, as you told me, and are okay as you told C and S. Then you and I both know, that would make you pretty much evil. That'd be like. Idek...

You saw my email, decided to deliberately trigger a severe ptsd episode, while pushing me towards an existential crisis of identity knowing I'm autistically and DID-ly susceptible to suggestion and knowing I'd be in emergency mode bc of the risk of ur death?

If that's what happened. I just. I don't believe you'd do that. To me, to anyone. That can't possibly be true.

30. I don't think you'd do that, tho. Not even L.

I think:

y'all were in pain and generally don't care about me.

But I emailed that day and u happened to be logged in, so u saw an opportunity to receive emergency care, without needing to respect the person giving it.

In the last year, y'all have inexplicably become comfortable emotionally torturing us, to get what you want. Idk why, can't explain it.

And y'all have consistently lied to us, and bullied us into accepting it as normal.

31. Well. Game over. You took it too far and your cruelty towards me is visible now.

I feel like I thought we were friends - best friends - but rly you haven't been my friend for a long time.

Just that nobody told me, so I kept loving and being heartbroken and loving and being broken again.

This feels like when my dad cheated on my mum but then claimed with a straight face that she had ended their relationship by choosing not to accept that behaviour.

33. You ended our friendship the moment you gaslit me into accepting inequality.

34. Again when I was encouraged in therapy to accept that I'm not allowed boundaries.

35. Then, again when you ghosted for 2 months,

36. again when simultaneously you were happily carrying out a social life with my loved ones that I was explicitly excluded from while I was ghosted,

37. again when u broke ur promise and put me back into an identical situation as last time (the difference being u chose this one, last time was chance),

38. again when you lied to other supports who I asked to check in,

39. again when u coerced me to help u live then acted like I was just being a nice person after I complied.

And I wanted to help, btw, I'm glad u asked. But u acted like I hadn't been tied to a chair this whole time.

Like I wasn't losing my entire mind with fear of you passing away, like I wasn't questioning every element of my personhood to figure out if I did help, would I inadvertently kill you just by being me?

40. again when u started facetiously talking about whether im alive bc I didn't get a message that same day,

41. again when u brought the whole castle of lies crumbling down bc u need to use me for something.

42. Broke my heart thinking I'm so stupid and pathetic as to just ignore it, call u on ur phone number, watch as you're not in danger at all.

Watch as being in a signal chat with me doesn't risk the life of u or your child, who all this time you've been ignoring me I had been advocating for on your behalf - not that u ever acknowledged that or the update emails I sent.

43. Idk what you think of me. I don't.

I just know your your actions say:

I'm not worthy of being treated to equal friendship and care.

Worthy of lies, worthy of gasligjting, worthy of enforced isolation, worthy of demonisation, worthy of blatant inequality, blatant, admitted, bigotry and discrimination.

Worthy of being tortured.

Important enough to be abused for my support and my care.

So staggeringly unimportant that the harm that necessitated is unspoken, ignored, lied about, and erased.

44. I don't begrudge you wanting to be supported by me emotionally. I don't begrudge you wanting to share in my resources, and I don't begrudge you not liking me anymore.

45. But you tortured me for months:

You lied about me and to me.

You didn't just check out of our friendship, you started treating me like your enemy and then didn't stop and haven't stopped.

You assured me nothing was wrong.

You gaslit me to high heaven.

You chose to use the same tactics you knew my dad used on me.

You used our therapy to control me in front of authority, who continually joined in for reasons I cannot surmise.

You took evey single opportunity to torture me.

You loved me only immediately after I had been used or helped you.

You hung up when it was my turn to confide. You only returned to me if u could gain something from my begging or if u needed me to do friendship things for you.

46. You designed the last year or so of our friendship this way.

Had me agree, leveraged irl serious safety issues.

And then showed me that it was untrue to my face.

Made me participate in my own exclusion and inferiority, had one rule for people I love and another rule for me.

47. Fundamentally, it all comes down to this:

in order to be your friend, receive care and respect, required me to accept being inferior to you.

It never did before but for some reason, since about this time in 2023, you began treating me as subhuman and disguising feelings of what I think were dislike.

48. I'm very confused by this.

I'd never known y'all to be abusive b4 this, and I've never judged your flaws bc your actions were always loving and moral - at least in our eyes.

I was loyal, respectful, and kind throughout our friendship.

You and I had been thru the ringer together and never sought to abuse, control, or harm one another.

All ik is this: there r people in ur system who don't hate me like y'all hate me rn.

There are people who must be as confused as me.

49. I don't judge y'all.

I'm not going to spend my life wondering about who y'all rly are at ur cores.

50. But I know I can't be friends with somebody who is free to be kind and consistently chooses to harm me.

51. If you ever want to be my friend again, I expect equality:

equal right to choice and freedom,

honesty,

equal right to boundaries and demonstrated willingness to respect them,

freedom from torture,

love,

respect,

and freedom from bigotry.

52. I don't want to be your friend anymore.

I love you sm but ur actions, choices, and words speak for themselves.

53. I don't want a friend who manipulates and bullies me into helping them, instead of asking.

I don't want a friend who only takes, never gives, and isn't even respectful enough to be honest about it.

I don't want anyone in my life who tells me they love me and treats me like shit.

Been there, done that.

We're a grown ass motherfucking woman, and you won't force us to accept it.

54. The reason we have always helped you and been generous is because we love you.

That's it. We still love you now, but we are choosing to break our own heart.

(rn our heart would forgoe being treated like a loved equal respected human being, just to hear a scrap of positive news from you).

55. This whole time you had structural communicative power over me.

At any time, you could have called, texted, or set up a chat.

You know my number, address, mums number, and virtually every way to access me there is.

With this amount of freedom and trusted access, you chose to socialise with me only when u wanted something from me, in therapy where u were engaged in a campaign of gaslighting (when u turned up), or in wider social situations where u could access other people than me.

With this freedom u chose to never check in, ask how im doing, or lmk about your wellbeing.

With this freedom u actively hid ur socialising with my loved ones from me.

With this freedom you chose to demand and recieve my friendship when it suited you.

You chose to neglect and ignore me at all other times.

56. I do love you.

So much.

But you know that, it's how you've been able to treat me poorly for so long.

It's what you're banking on when u sent me ur number, as if u hadn't made my life hell for the last 6 months after I dared to ask for it.

Something which you never acknowledged, accused me of being abusive for bringing up, and for which you have not apologised.

But yeah I'm just going to ignore all reality, show myself zero respect, and run thirsty for love back into ur arms? So you can reveal whatever it is you need me for? So you can tell me you'll die unless I help again? So you can pretend I'm just a rlly good Samaritan? rather than ur broken sister whose terrified of losing you, who would do almost anything to help you, and who almost died helping the first time and almost died this time, too. Rather than the one person who would cop the pain youve been handing me for months on end and only ever think of your wellbeing?

Rather than the one person you know loves u to the moon and back, the one person you have deemed inferior to all others - not in spite of this, but bc of it. Wanna make me into a uncommonly kind person in ur head to avoid sitting with the truth?

That my love for you is why you abused me. It makes me vulnerable and, idk what changed. But suddenly, this time last year, my choice of vulnerability and trust of you, became something you wanted to exploit.

57. I'm not here to be nice, I'm here to love us.

Us as in the people in this friendship.

I'm going to love and respect both of us by standing firm on boundaries, on respect, and on equality.

This friendship, from any perspective, cannot keep existing. It does not allow people in it to be equal, respected, and safe.

58. We, personally, will never accept again in our life, the way y'all treated us in the last throes of our close friendship.

You chose to take a decades worth of love and trust, and you chose to milk it for whatever u could get without you yourself having to participate in your side of relationship.

We are broken.

You had the power to destroy us. And in chasing a slave for emotional labour, you almost succeeded.

But you didn't

and we're done.

Still: with love and warm wishes,

your one-time sister,

MMG

[softly-possessive]

i really am so very sleep deprived

[awfullyaster]

andrew and neil are switches, don’t you forget it

ok hi here for my (probably) daily aftg rant,,,,so i’m seeing that the majority of the fandom (as far as i’ve seen anyway)--or fics/fanart consisting of andreil doing the do--view neil as a power bottom ?

am i incorrect? are my resources false? idk bout u but so far i’ve only seen like one fic where neil is the top/penetrator (!mao is that even a real word idk but it sounds weird haha cute ok anyway)

and honestly, i have to disagree. i do. i’m not trying to push andrew’s boundaries by saying that neil could top, i’m just saying that y’all don’t give neil enough credit.

liek,,,,,bro,,,,,do you not see the amount of top energy neil mf josten radiates ???? like, yes, we know andrew takes the lead but it doesn’t necessarily mean he’d top forever ?????

( just a proposition, ofc but this is just my opinion based on observations--yet again ) 

( and tbh i had difficulty trying to figure who was the top and who was the bottom between them when i encountered the first hint of intimate growth in their relationship--to the point where i had to ask my best friend who hadn’t a clue what aftg was prior to (that’s when the aftg rants officially started/ignited) and it took some time/proper discussion/consideration but he first came up with the conclusion that andrew was a sub top and that neil was a power bottom )

as for yours truly, i came to the conclusion that they are both switches (some time after i finished reading).

i mean,,,,,,can you really just look at neil josten--wholly, like his entire personality, attitude (problem !), traits, &c and decide on the spot that he’s a bottom ??? how ??? how the hell do you come up with that ?????

and hear me out, i have evidence/reasons:

one) The Great Riko Roast™️. need i say more? 

(if elaboration is necessary:

keep in mind that neil (this literal fucking nobody) burned riko (supposedly the king of exy or whatever the fuck, who cares) to ground on the spot (no script, just his attitude problem (mwah i love him) and pure spite)

again, he burned him to the ground on live television, publicly humiliating riko with each and every word

idk bout u but i am so damn sure andrew found out right then n there that this bitch radiates top energy for fucking sure (or, in his words, isn’t spineless)

neil committing arson via verbal attacks is just---splendid. absolutely mesmerizing. flawless. truly inspiring. gamechanging. glorious. 

he’s so rude i love him

anyway )

two) neil can shut up andrew up without having to touch or kiss him. he can leave him speechless. with just his words. 

(yes, we know anybody & everybody knows better than to touch andrew but like i mean he wouldn’t have to fight him or whatever) (and he doesn’t have to kiss him to shut him up--though he definitely can--he doesn’t have to because that’s just how fucking powerful he is)

y’all,,,,,are you ready for one of the most amazing lines i believe we all know and love,,,,,

““You have a problem wherein you only invest your time and energy into worthless pursuits."

“This,” Neil flicked his finger to indicate the two of them, “isn’t worthless.”

“There is no ‘this’. This is nothing.”

“And I am nothing,” Neil prompted. When Andrew gestured confirmation, Neil said, “And as you’ve always said, you want nothing.”

Andrew stared stone-faced back at him.

[...andrew had his hand frozen mid-air...(i forgot the rest)]”

if this does not prove dominance to you, i don’t know what to tell you. (HE WAS MERELY SPEAKING AND ANDREW COULD NOT COME UP WITH ANYTHING-- A N Y T H I N G --TO SAY BACK BC IT’S A PERSONAL ATTACK AND HE DIDN’T SEE IT COMING AND THAT’S WHY HE SEES NEIL AS INTERESTING/WHY HE ‘HATES’ HIM SO MUCH BRO I)

hOweVeR

i know that dom bottoms exist (i think so, anyway) or bottoms that radiate top energy/the position (i.e. bottom,top) energy you radiate can be entirely different from what position you really are/are comfy with and that these are just words but that brings me to my following point,

three) (#1 insitgator, he, oh yes, neil josten, yes indeed) his unexpected (and to be frank, quite thrilling) acts of asserting dominance ?????? um ????

(when they were kith kithing next to the kitchen (next to kitchen) in neil’s dorm room) “[neil felt his phone buzz in his back pocket and against the wall it was obnoxiously loud. he already knew it was his daily countdown, but he already knew how much little time he had left. he didn’t need to reminded, especially now...andrew took it out of his back pocket and offered it to neil, pulling away from his mouth. neil took the phone from andrew’s hand and threw it across the living room, not taking his eyes off andrew. andrew watched as the phone bounced off the couch and onto the carpet. neil kissed his neck in attempt to distract him and was rewarded by a startled jolt which was enough reason to do it again. and even though andrew pushed his face away, they were close enough for neil to not miss how andrew shivered.]” 

b r o ,,,,,,,,,,,, bro,,,,,,it just--

(when they were alone in the bus otw to that one away game--belmonte, i think?) “[“i wonder when coach found out about this,” neil prompted. 

“there is no ‘this’.”

“i wonder when coach found out you only want to kill me ninety-three percent of the time.”

neil retraced his steps and had a moment of realization. before andrew left for easthaven, neil had told andrew to trust him and not ‘neil’. 

“it was before you left,” neil started... 

“coach doesn’t believe what other people want him to believe, he believes what he sees,” andrew replied...

“are you going to tell them?” neil was referring to the rest of the team, and this was up to him, whether they’ll be out or not. 

“i won’t have to. renee says the upperclassmen are betting on your sexuality.”

neil knew that matt mentioned that there were bets on about him, but he didn’t know it was about this.

“it’s a waste of time and money. they’ll all lose. i’ve said all year that i don’t swing and i meant it. kissing you doesn’t make me look any of them differently. the only one i’m interested in is you.”

“don’t say stupid things.”

“make me.” and with that, neil grabbed a fistful of andrew’s hair and pulled him in.]” 

dude,,,,,,,,,he can take control,,,,,he can,,,,he can lead, too, but he follows andrew’s because he’s a good boy and he knows how important it is. he improvises and uses what he has and takes control from there. dude. dude. 

three) honestly? i think andrew likes it. neil’s unexpected acts of confidence,,,kinda leaves him on the edge of his seat yk,, like doesn’t it increase his percentage? it does, right? cuz ik it did when andrew guided neil to touch his chest and neil emulated andrew’s words, “i won’t be like them. i won’t let you let me be.” (i love them bye) but liek,,,,yeah idk andrew liking neil’s neck kisses/fetish kinda tells me he likes it so maybe this isn’t concrete evidence particularly but i’m still including it because andrew’s a switch, idc what anyone says, 

four) i lost my train of thought but i ran out of reasons--on the spot, anyway--so i might come back to this if i do but just to make it clear:

andrew minyard is a switch. (it just takes time, like a lot, but it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily impossible/never gonna happen.)

neil josten is a switch. (he respects andrew’s boundaries and doesn’t push him, he’s fine being guided, but it doesn’t mean he can’t take the initiative himself (and i forgot to mention it but re: when he asked andrew if he doesn’t like to be touched in general or if it’s a trust thing + many more times, before & after their first kiss, i believe, my brain is just empty rn) and i just think that deserves more recognition)

so !! 

(this post is a mess, (i always am but today’s just worse) i know, and i’m sorry)

in conclusion,

let neil top andrew !! they deserve it !! 

(not that vice versa is bad, but this isn’t either, yk, just saying. also, i hope this isn’t too late to say in the post, but i do not, i repeat, i do not, intend to pressure any content creator--fic writers, fan artists, editors, &c--to create content this particular way only,,,,okay,,,gotta make that unequivocally clear. and i’m not saying andrew topping neil is bad or overrated, because i know that when it comes to them, sex in general would take some time, especially neil topping andrew, but i think they deserve that freedom, yk. again,,,,this is just my personal opinion. no insisting statements here, just wish for freedom to speak my mind, that is all. also feel free to interact if you agree/disagree or both !! i’m willing to hear anyone’s comments or thoughts or whatever !! i hope i’m talking to a brick wall here ahah) 

bro brain poop rn

anyway

tl/dr: bro let neil top (not necessarily on top, but that works, too--either/or--or both, if y’all dare ;DD (kill me) (but like srsly) (let neil top) (plz) :))

(also somewhat off topic but might anyone have access to some fics in which consist of neil first getting andrew off ??? i randomly remember it from ms. sakavic’s extra content page and i would like to see what the fandom offers, if y’all don’t mind)

im so mean and insistent on my aftg-related opinions now that i think about it

whoops

[herotheshiro]

i didn’t know where to post this -- here or on my other blog where i’ve moved my fandom ramblings but i’ve decided to put it here since it kind of touches on more personal topics/feelings. jk i wrote it all out and i didn’t really touch too much on personal stuff so into the fandom blog it goes. also putting it under a read more bc it ended up being pretty damn long wow

recently had a sort of issue/not-issue on twitter where i kind of openly expressed my dislike for this one character. no essay backing up why i dislike them, but i do have my (valid) reasons and i tend to be kind of semi-serious w my hate so i didn’t think too much abt swinging my opinions around. and also since this twitter is a recent development, i’m more used to tumblr where even if you openly express an opinion, you have a ton of character space to utilize to explain your opinion so you tend to explain yourself anyway unlike twitter’s limited character tweets where you basically just express your opinion and that’s it. anyway i might have gotten a little carried away since i don’t really interact w anyone in fandoms anymore and only w my fam member who we enable each others’ opinions and put my opinion on my bio and i think that along w my tweet trail led to potentially being vagued abt by a twitter account that mostly posts abt that fandom. i still have reason to suspect that /i/ wasn’t the sole target of the vagueing (if even) bc they said some stuff abt this character’s negative opinion that apparently someone expressed that /i/ never overtly said (like he’s evil and bad simply bc of how he treats this one person but i never said that, just implied that he’s a general asshole and maybe his relationship w this one person isn’t as good as i’ve seen previously from the fandom which is what i’ve deduced from reading canon content). since they never mentioned names or twitter handles explicitly, i purposely made some tweets (still being open, no censoring on purpose) to try to get a direct response and also low-key targeting the vaguers (out of my paranoia that they were indeed talking abt me which honestly prob not but also it’s a relatively small eng-speaking fandom involved w this character so they have to have stumbled upon me at one point). i did get a response (not from the vaguer(s)) from someone calling me out for not censoring my open dislike of this one character. but i also suspect they knew abt my dislike of this one character stemming from their interactions w another character bc they started talking abt shipping even though i never mentioned a ship in those tweets (but i did mention the latter character though not in conjunction w the former). anyway i felt the familiar heat of embarrassment upon seeing that notif of their callout but i almost immediately felt better abt the entire situation bc i finally got the direct callout i was waiting for and i knew what i needed to take down. direct and clear action

in hindsight after i made a series of vagueing tweets last night lol i feel like this entire situation is just me creating unnecessary drama and wildly hitting even ppl not even involved at all (as noted by the callout which was supposedly having non-involved randos in mind) just to make myself feel better or something which isn’t really respectful in any way (and i was totally open abt me just swinging wildly after the callout and my ensuing taking down of posts. this isn’t even a private twitter where ig it’s apparently socially acceptable to talk abt shit like that). and also makes me think maybe i never really learned anything from being online for almost my entire life. a weird part of me has always wanted to become fandom-famous online but i’ve never succeeded in doing so nor have i made an online group of friends i can bounce my opinions and headcanons off of. so i’ve never really developed an online community, i’ve always just been on the fringes and yelling into the mass without getting much attention. now ik that apparently twitter does indeed chuck your opinions well into that mass (good and bad i suppose), it’s a bit surprising to actually get “attention” ... i also mentioned this in my tweets last night but i really really dislike getting vagued abt which my psychoanalyzing brain was like “that’s bc you don’t like not knowing what others think abt you irl” and yeah if you got an issue w me i’d prefer you to tell it directly to my face rather than pretend you like me (which is totally hypocritical bc i do the latter to others but also i tend to just swerve ppl i dislike so it’s not like i go out of my way to pretend to be nice to them).

idk where i was trying to go w this bc now that i’m writing it out i’m like wow yeah i’m still in the wrong huh. sometimes i am in the wrong like years ago when i got called out for grossly shipping irl ppl (which yes i will admit i did do once upon a time but now i no longer do it or am ok w it) but i don’t feel like i was in the wrong this time so i just feel a little frustrated abt the vagueing bc if i was part of the group they were vagueing abt then i was definitely painted as someone w no critical thinking skills which i do, i just don’t share their opinion which they think is right (and tbh i wonder if THEY have critical thinking skills bc they said some things in defense of their opinion which i don’t agree with esp if you’re interpreting canon content like that. are we even reading the same content). i do genuinely feel better abt the series now bc before i was literally anxiety whenever i thought of or even saw the related characters. my fam member was trying to talk abt the series to me and they weren’t even talking abt the related characters but i just wasn’t feeling it bc of this whole situation which i literally made abt me even though there was no indication whatsoever it was abt me. this all make me think that i really should take a good fucking long break from fandoms and social media bc it just gives me unneeded stress and anxiety abt cancel culture, trying to be likeable enough to become fandom-famous, seeing hot takes, etc etc. i’ve already been winding down in terms of strongly interacting w fandoms but my mental health has not been doing so hot recently bc of irl things and fandoms are not ameliorating it at all. ik for some fandoms do indeed make ppl feel better but that’s when ppl actually interact w them and they’re not stuck in a bubble of no response whatsoever while ppl may potentially gab abt them outside of that bubble. my issue is that i always feel the need to create when i really get into a fandom and when you create you want ppl to respond to your creations! so you need to interact w the fandom. but then i then want to actually interact w the fandom fr instead of just posting from time to time and staying out of it and you know where that gets me sometimes. i think it’s bc i had a good time in the pjo and warriors fandoms and i want something like that again in new fandoms i’m in but for whatever reason that’s not how it is now.

i didn’t jump into the vagueing tweet mess bc as i said i wasn’t directly called out and also better to just ignore it but i couldn’t get it out of my head. and that’s making me really consider leaving fandom social media and just create fanworks solely for myself without even posting them online. my works don’t really get much response anyway which is fine tbh even having 1 like these days is good enough so it’s not like i’d be losing out. but idk man ... sometimes you just want to share stuff w others. maybe i should just make my own website and put stuff on there w no expectation for likes or whatever. this has also made me re-evaluate whether or not i really do want to go into art professionally. ik this one situation is inevitable w putting your opinion out on the internet and i wasn’t even in the wrong i feel bc it’s not like i have a problematic opinion (racism, sexism, incest, etc) but it has put a damper on creating content to put online even if the content i eventually want to create is original and is in no way associated w fandoms. even as i write that out i realize it’s kind of stupid to have such a damper put on me. i should watch spiderverse again bc that was the film that really inspired me to create my own creative visual content again and also i’ve been feeling really uninspired lately. ik i shouldn’t let this kind of stuff get me down if i really want to create art in the future but it’s hard to deal w sometimes. honestly i really should be seeing a therapist but also wow now it’s delving into more personal territory so i’ll end it here.

tl;dr i need to learn how to chill on the internet and i think i need to create boundaries for fandoms fr and stick w those boundaries for the benefit of my mental health. maybe i shouldn’t have gotten a twitter in the first place lol even if all i made it for originally was just so i could message a proxy on twitter and not to actually get involved in fandom twitter. i didn’t even get the proxied good in the end anyway bc i was forced to cancel the payment by a third party bc the proxy had not sent me the good in months despite them updating relatively regularly on how busy they were as a student. hah that just how it be

also side note i was like to myself “ok you need to chill bc these series’ characters aren’t real. there’s no need to get so worked up over them��� but then i realized even that opinion is “problematic” bc there are ppl out there who really use the characters as like idk a therapy object and i’m genuinely not trying to be an asshole i just forgot the specific wording you use. so even if i’m like ‘they’re fake’ there are others who are like ‘no they make me feel better so don’t hate !!’ which idk is a mentality which i think ppl should shift away from bc you can’t be in fandoms forever unless you’re a professional fictional content creator which is also an opinion i think a good number of ppl would disagree w (“they’re not bothering anyone and it’s their life so what are you to say what they should do??”). idk this is my hot take for the day i guess but it’s fine to be a fan of stuff as you grow up but i think it should become less of a focus/active part in your life as you grow older. i mean maybe that’s a cynical way of seeing things bc maybe creating fanwork is a good de-stressor for ppl but i think i feel that way bc i’m not going into creative content professionally career-wise but ... idk what i’m trying to say here. i guess i just have complicated thoughts on fandoms in general.