#why am i even saying all this here. idk. its tumblr. my journal is at the apartment snd im drinking so i cant drive 2 go get it lmao

[rat-tomago]

i had a rly nice heart 2 heart w my friend last nighy abt my horrible awful mental state and im gna be real it was the first time in like a decade anyone has ever said anything/gave me advice abt mental health that i truly resonated with. it was very nice

[the-sneep-snoop]

i have said it once i have said it a thousand times there is no greater hell for me than experiencing bad ux design.

partly because autism and i will cry if something is too confusing or doesnt work how its supposed to and partly because i did ux design for a job a few years although at a very basic level and that lets me give myself the false belief that i have any authority here

but this is seriously on my mind a lot like if i was better at writing and / or into journalism? trust that i would have already published a more refined version of this post on medium or something. unfortunately i will be addressing you today from the humble uncapitalised unpunctuated tumblr post.

anyways i just like to complain so, here are some things i hate about websites (and some badly formatted pdfs) featuring varying levels of explanation

A SECTION FOR LONG ANSWER RESPONSE BUT EVERY LINE IS A SEPARATE FIELD AND ALSO YOU CAN'T DELETE YOUR TEXT

idk if i can explain this in a way that justifies the horrors. imagine you are trying to apply for scholarships via a fillable pdf and you must answer a prompt with a paragraph length response. but alas, upon reaching the end of the line, you can no longer type. hitting return does nothing to advance to the next line. oh well, maybe try again, select what you have and delete it. but alas again! hitting delete does nothing to delete your text. fortunately you discover that you can still copy and paste, even if it pasts a row above the one you had selected. well, it is what it is, and with a burst of resolve you type out your whole paragraph in google docs, and painstakingly copy and paste excerpts whose length is dictated only by trial and error due to different font sizes. you definitely did not cry for three hours over this ordeal

WEBSITE MAIN PAGE THAT'S JUST A LOT OF BUTTONS

my lovely university's student services website which is used for silly little things like paying tuition and selecting courses. it has lots of helpful webpages and helpful redirects / shortcuts to helpful external webpages. lots of them! around a hundred if you count. how is it arranged? how does navigation work? well, each and every one of them is a small square button. and it's all just arranged in one massive grid. hundreds of them. not in any particular order.

WHITE TEXT ON A WHITE BACKGROUND

nothing else to say about it

DROP DOWN MENUS ON A PDF THAT IS MEANT TO BE PRINTED

let me paint you a picture. a form that is printed and given to all students in the school for them to fill out. a field where something must be rated on a numerical scale from one to five. every student receives a form that has the number five already printed in that field. why? why, you ask, asks everyone unfortunate enough to be tasked with filling this form. well, one trailblazer who did it digitally via fillable pdf has discovered the elusive solution to this mystery. it was supposed to be a dropdown menu. a dropdown menu that has been flattened and killed like a fly in a papercopier.

A JOB APPLICATION THAT ASKS TOO MUCH INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

idk if it's even allowed to ask that but they did. and in the goofiest way possible. it asks 'have you ever used a website or social media. enter the url here' . there is only one field and it is required to proceed. oh man, i'll have to think really hard about which website (out of all the websites i have used in my life) i should respond with...!

A FORM DISGUISED AS A CHATBOT

i am very passionate about this one. i think it is evil. i think disguising forms as chatbots is useless and inefficient. i don't see much appeal in an illusion, a poor mimicry of human-to-human customer service, for the sake of a marginal amount of vague approximations of 'social connections' and 'friendliness' and 'approachability'. at the very least, it's not worth the sacrifice of usability. it is conversational, and that tricks you (including less digitally literate older people, the kind who type please and thank you into their google searches) into thinking you should respond conversationally. what if it says

"hi! my name is linda and i am your virtual assistant! do you have a postal code you can provide"

and the user replies

"hi linda! thanks so much! i do have a postal code, I just have to double check that I have the right one, could you hold on a minute?"

and the chatbot is expecting something more along the lines of "A9A 9A9". i should also mention at this point that i am not at all educated on how chatbots work and for all i know i am dead wrong and i am tilting at windmills. in which case i probably deserve to be shamed but also please be nice to me please don't be mean thank you

AN INFAMOUSLY INTRUSIVE PERSONALITY TEST THAT HAS A NEW FEATURE (CONFUSING IMAGES)

okay so certain well known fast food company recruitment process includes a 'personality test' that is more like a job interview because it asks you questions that often have wildly obvious correct and incorrect answers (despite its disguise as a 'there are no right and wrong answers here' type of personality quiz). this has been criticised for having questions about things like if you would choose to cheat on a test , if you would defend the company against your friends discussing 'negative and unfair press', if you would yell at your neighbour, if you would break the dress code. the criticism comes from it being unrealistic and silly, but it also ties into how many neurodivergent people struggle with honesty vs. the 'right answer' in job interviews.

now, that's bad enough, but someone decided it needed some visual aids to help explain the scenarios depicted - granted, that's a nice idea, but not executed super well. for one thing, the computer generated mascots who live in a futuristic science fiction world with the brand logo all over everything is not the most appealing thing to think about. for another, i found that sometimes the scenarios just didn't match up or make sense with the questions, and made me feel incompetent at reading what was going on in the scene. which is very stressful and not super fun.

RACIAL DEMOGRAPHIC QUESTIONS ON JOB APPLICATION

yes i understand that collecting statistics on prospective job seekers can be useful. yes i acknowledge that most forms with these questions are nice and allow multiple checkboxes to be ticked. but in this day and age i keep finding dropdown menus or mutually exclusive radio buttons to indicate race. that's right, you can only choose one option. which is awkward for some people. like me for example. at least sometimes i am allowed to choose the option of 'other' :)

-

and that's it for today. i may very likely be able to think of more but i'd rather not tbh. turns out there is a lot of negativity brewing in my mushy little mind after spending an hour and a half typing out my every grievance with every poorly designed website and form. who knew? and on top of that i lowkey hate how comedically challenged / tryhard / quirkly my writing voice turned out. it wasn't meant to be this way. trust me, i hate it too. this is an incoherent ramble written in the most mysterious hours of the night / morning in the midst of illness and fueled by nothing but my brain juice. which is not always the most pleasant juice out there if you know what i mean. so if you read this and you hate me please keep in mind that i am not the pretentious individual person i come off as. i am not usually like this. it's like i have been possessed. sorry

[dzpenumbra]

4/30/23

Last night was difficult.

I don't think I mentioned it in my journal, maybe I did and I don't remember, idk, I'm going to tell the story anyway. I was watching a Red Dead stream last night and a girl who had been a subscriber in that channel for 7 consecutive years accidentally wrote a private message into the Twitch chat. And I mean really private.

(side note - ctrl+b, which is used for bold is right between ctrl+v [paste] and ctrl+n [new window in chrome]. And the undo on Tumblr is fucked. So... just... gonna point out how frustrating and inconvenient that is if you just slightly miss the b key and suddenly you either have a new window pop up or a paragraph of text just appears.)

This chick posted about like... really bad medical news. Like organ disease news. That she got that day. And she immediately asked mods to delete it, because she couldn't. And no one did. And there were like over 1000 people in there. And then these assholes started copying and pasting her message. At first just one. Then one who spent "channel points" to actually highlight the copied message. Then like 5 more. It... was really disturbing. Like... I struggle to see any humor in it, and I have a pretty open mind about humor. It really felt like someone saying "haha look, this chick has cancer!" As though... anyone is going to laugh about that...

Now... I know a thing or two about humor. Humor used to be my primary coping mechanism. And most humor is just that, it's a way of diffusing something incredibly uncomfortable or painful, and transforming it into something funny, something palatable. Something positive, even. And sometimes that can be a... compulsion for some people, a reflex, that they're not even really conscious of. But there's a skill to doing that. It takes effort, it takes practice, it takes skill. And there is nothing... buckle the fuck up, I'm going loud here... THERE IS NOTHING FUCKING LAZIER THAN COPYING AND PASTING SOMETHING AND CALLING IT FUNNY. <catches breath> Okay, just had to get that out. People man, I just don't understand. Do these fucking imbeciles really lack the brain cells to understand that making a joke about a serious medical condition should... I dunno... maybe be handled a little more tactfully than treating it like retweeting a fucking meme or something?

Again, I am not against jokes that test the line, and even outright cross it. At all. Pushing those boundaries is important, in its own way. But there's a goddamn reason why we only had one Don Rickles. There's a reason we had one South Park. One Jackass. There is an art to pushing boundaries, and it requires skill, charisma and confidence. And these people had none of the above. They were just... schoolyard bullies, trying to impress other schoolyard bullies. They were literally grown-ass schoolyard bullies, likely piss drunk at 4AM, watching a 38 year old man pretend to be a cowboy in a video game, and stumbled across what was pretty obviously a private message between a long-standing paying community member and likely a family member... and they decided they wanted to pants her in front of class. Like... this is a fucking cartoon of schoolyard bully behavior. And people were fucking laughing! People were like... chuckling and going along with it

I... I pulled up a private message to her. And I typed out "hey, what they're doing is really not cool and I'm really sorry all this is happening to you. It's really fucked up." And... I didn't send it. Any other lifetime, I would have sent it. But I didn't. And I don't even know why I don't anymore. I definitely didn't stand up for her in chat. I didn't even support her behind closed doors. But when she put a message in chat saying it was fucked up? I immediately tagged her and sent a heart emoji, like... lightning speed, to show she has my support. I just... I feel bad. It's self preservation, it has to be. Like... I don't want this mob turning on me... So I don't stick up for the grown adult that's being bullied by grown adults. Because there are people there whose job it's supposed to be to moderate that, and they were asleep at the wheel, and... I didn't want to overstep, and they sure as shit won't respect my opinion if I don't have a sword icon next to my name.

And the streamer, when he noticed? He chuckled. And was like, "come on guys, knock it off..." Like... it was a bunch of kids playing in the backyard by throwing knives at the dog or something, and that's his response. It made me super uncomfortable. That and the shit that went down in his Discord? Blatantly saying "we're mob-mentality around here, okay?" And the Native American character he made, and how... really insensitive he was with it... and how he pretty obviously got reported several times on it but straight up lied to his audience about it and has doubled-down so many times I can't even count. "Nah nah nah, Moondance isn't going anywhere guys, I'll play him whenever I want, I just don't feel like it tonight..." RIIIGHHHTTT... I just... I'm really turned off by it.

Fuck the internet, man. The internet is very blatantly advertising directly to children, who are the most profitable demographic on the internet, if you weren't aware... and Twitch specifically has developed a wagering system with fake internet points that you accumulate by spending time watching a streamer (more time = more ads = more $$ for Twitch = more fake points for the kids). And they call them. Get this. Tell me this isn't disgustingly corporate Amazon cliché. They call them "Predictions". It's not gambling marketed towards children to keep them on a website that makes money off of feeding them ads, no no no, it's placing a wager on a "Prediction". I'm not gambling on what the outcome is, with a payout ratio identical to a fucking horse track, nope, I'm just predicting what the outcome is going to be and if I get it right I get a neat prize! They specifically market their site to children. How have they not gotten this shut down yet?!

Okay, got a bit of that out of my system. Why the fuck am I telling this story from last night? Well... I had a night terror. I got about 4-5 hours of sleep, and I had a super intense nightmare. It was very vivid, but I didn't remember much except for the last bit. And... it took me a bit of journaling (I did dream journal, so yay on that) to really start to understand what it was about. I might as well paint a picture for you, it was super vivid and deeply meaningful for me.

I was in a location that represented my parents' basement. I grew up in that house from the ages of 11-18, very formative years. My parents are closeted hoarders, they hide it well. The basement was where everything went. I was down there with someone else, I don't remember who it was. I had found a book that was for me, that I felt bad I hadn't read because, when I was down there and started reading it, it was really interesting. It was part of a series, and it was an exploration and interpretation of the Bible through historical record, plausible science and comparison with other cultural ideologies/mythologies. It was... really cool, and right up my alley. Almost like something I would write, if I felt qualified. I read the part about Genesis I and as I was reading... I got that thing I get sometimes where the mental imagery gets really vivid. And this moment was really disorienting in a dream, and is even disorienting just trying to process how it even happened, because I was... dreaming... which is my imagination, my subconscious mind... and then within that dream I was reading a text and... my subconscious in the dream was conceptualizing the text visually. It was like a Russian Nesting Doll of subconscious visualization, it's absolutely mind-boggling that that's even possible. And this visualization was... essentially an early proto-Earth colliding with a very water-dense celestial object. My brain interpreted this very metaphorically, like big blob of water. And then the combination of these two qualities ended up nurturing an environment like hydrated and nutrient enriched soil. Again, a metaphor, like... water and collision were huge components in setting off the chain reaction that resulted in... life. And... there was some part in the text that was referring... where either that water-dense body or the proto-Earth likely came from. I don't really remember the details on that.

And then... after that... I remember the person I was with upsetting the streamer (who was there with a bunch of his friends in-character), and they left. And after I read and visualized all of that, as though I had read it out loud... he kinda knew. Honestly, I'm struggling to remember it, I'm going to get the journal real quick to refresh.

Okay, it looks like even in the journal right after I woke up I wasn't sure what had upset the streamer and the people he was with. I was reading that passage in the book in the moments leading up to him getting upset and leaving. The book had this section in it that was like MadLibs... like a simple mini-test to sorta... jog and concretize your memory of what the previous passage was about, so you could sorta... use your own brain to make the connections rather than just reading his wording. So, like... I wasn't sure if I upset him, or he witnessed the surreal visual experience I had and it upset him (because it was super vivid, like panic attack vivid, and very emotional), or maybe he knew what I read and that upset him? Maybe I accidentally read out loud and didn't realize? Or... maybe the person I was with upset him... Which, with this much time between me and the dream, seems like the most likely factor... But, either way, he got upset and left. Then... I could sorta... sense through the ceiling and walls in an almost x-ray kinda way that he was like... glaring at me. In a... judgmental, suspicious, skeptical way. In a "I'm on to you..." way. In a witch-hunty Inquisition kinda way. And that set off a massive panic response that immediately woke me up.

You know what? I reflected on this when I woke up, and it's actually really well put for 4 hours of sleep coming out of a panic attack. <pats self on back> So I'm just gonna transcribe it. Fuck it.

"I felt like I needed to impress him, and like I fucked up... which was embarrassing but passed quickly... but that turned into... genuine concern that I was in danger. Like lynching kinda danger, mob violence danger. And that's because I witnessed that last night. And the chick who was being bullied? She was like me. This crowd? These streamers? I keep gravitating towards confident bullies. Andrew Santino types. They're very talented, but their skill is a coping mechanism developed through trauma and conflict. Unprocessed trauma, typically. Because the coping mechanism is their greatest gift, and really their whole life and identity are built on it. I gravitate towards that talent. Being this aware of how these people think (because I was one of them) and how much influence they have, how followers will blindly obey them and they have thousands, made me scared of... as that guy so poetically said in my Twitch chat "(being) thrown in a river with a mill stone tied to (me)." For learning, and exploring ideas that they may consider heretical. But, more specifically, sharing them and being associated with them."

So... you can imagine how hard writing a journal entry like this can be sometimes. It feels really serious and risky, and really silly at the same time. It's not like the context I'm referring to is even... heretical, really... if anything it's trying to prove the Bible's validity! But... I've just seen a lot of dark shit in my study of humanity. A lot of dark, ignorant, zealous things that people do. And seeing that mob mentality last night? It just brought me back to that same old familiar fear. And that shit sticks, and can be hard to shake.

I'm getting really tired, so I want to kinda wrap up, so let me get to the crux of all of this.

Besides the obvious, this journal and this post, why would I be so anxious about sharing my personal beliefs publicly? 1). Family-induced trauma, let's just get that out of the way, so that explains the life-shattering severity. But the focus - I made my desire path project public today. I posted it. It was my only goal for the day. And I did it.

I put it on YouTube. It currently has 3 views and no one has watched it all the way through. I fucking hate analytics and I don't want to watch them anymore. So fucking stupid, as though you have any control over whether people give a fuck about your work. Yikes.

Then, I went into this whole pros and cons list of posting the full project on Instagram. Insta won't let you link shit, and I wanted to keep my videos all on YT because... habit, I guess? Maybe because my Rimworld series is still over there and I was hoping someone might actually give a fuck about that again someday. But after a long time going over it, I decided instead of trying to direct people to go to my profile, then go to my YT link... fuck that. I'm just going to post it there in full, too. And I did. And the grand reception? I got 2 likes. And a comment from my former "best friend", my former goddaughter's mother. And I do appreciate the sentiment. It's just been hard to process those memories.

I always wanted to be a dad. And in my 20's, I got to be her nanny for most of the week when she was around 1 year old. I was working nights and inverting my sleep schedule to drive up an hour each way to watch her during the week. I still have a picture from when I got there one day and comedically, melodramatically collapsed onto the couch in exhaustion and actually fell asleep with my legs hanging in the air off the couch and shit, right next to my goddaughter who was also passed out. And she fired me. Because I didn't "take her outside enough", which she never instructed me to do or taught me how to do. Not to mention the fact that she never paid me once, and I just... didn't ask for money? Because I was trying to be nice? Because both her and her husband were like... not parenting their infant child and just going and working jobs instead, while I watched their kid for them.

Meh, enough about that. See what it does to my head though? Nostalgia is nice... sometimes... but it can be bitter, and if you have an especially dicey past, it can turn sour real quick. So... I do appreciate her sentiment, she left a really kind compliment that seems sincere. And the emotional processing from the past? That's my job, I gotta just remember... that's in the past. I just... I feel bad for my goddaughter, and I miss her. She was the closest thing to a daughter I've ever had, besides my dog and cat, of course. The closest thing to a human daughter I've ever had. And she may not have a great role model for like... healthy emotional regulation. And I worry about her. And I do kinda feel like... that's kinda part of the godfather thing, to step up and like... be there. But at this point? I was envisioning this when I was making dinner. I feel like if I ever even do that, I'm going to be the uncle or aunt figure at the family dinner that they haven't seen in 10 years and pulls the teenage kid aside and goes "you know, I used to change your diapers, do you remember me? No? It's okay, well... if you ever need to like... talk or anything, I'm always here for you." And they'll wince through the awkwardness and then go off and play something on their phone and sigh and mutter "weirdo". But like... is it worse to not even try?

That's a quandary for another day, I just went down that line of thought because I was kinda imaginatively strategizing what might happen if my former friend messaged me. To... prepare myself.

So yeah, lots of ups and downs today. Sleep deprivation, panic, nap, social media strategy, posted the video, made dinner, watched streams, Risk of Rain, journal, and off to bed we go.

Gonna try to sneak a quick shower in before bed, screw it, see if that helps with more relaxing sleep.

To end on a more uplifted note... The Path was one of the more ambitious projects I've taken on. It was very new, super conceptual, very "risky" regarding whether anyone would "get it", also very tedious and demanding. I did the 100 runs in Minecraft, with 3 screenshots per run. I hand-drew each path, twice. I animated each path individually. I composed, played and recorded 12 minutes of original music for 4 guitars, bass and drums. I wrote the script, I recorded the voiceover (on Easter day!). I hand-drew and animated the parts of the voiceover that I couldn't really figure out what to put under, as though they were being drawn on a whiteboard. I shot cinematic B-roll in Minecraft, Google StreetView and a real life National Park. I edited it all together.

And now... it's done.

Fuck crowd reception, this was months in the making. I am goddamn proud of myself.

[d13b1tch]

ive been thinking abt my transition sm lately bc im working 8 hours a week now and am severely depressed but smth that has rly upset me  is the fact that ive been on t for 2 years now and you would never be able to tell. ive changed if you know me well but i dont even come remotely close to passing in any capacity. and its been 2 years, so i probably never will. ive been told by my dr and other trans ppls xps that 2 years is kind of where you start to see changes slow down or totally stop. meaning i will probably never be happy in my body, that i have to accept what i have regardless of how su1c1d4l it makes me . this is just what i have. my voice will never get deeper ill never get hairier my face wont broaden anymore im just stuck with a beard that only grows on my chin and an excessive amt of weight on my gut and thinning hair. ive thot abt stopping t totally bc the neg effects weigh more on me than the positive effects benefit me. i hate needles an i have to inject every week, and theres sm medical issues that come w hrt. im just upset when u start hrt everyone will tell u that u might have effects that u dont want but no one warns u that its possible youll barely change. idk . rly debating going off t. idk why im posting this here. mayb someone will read this and say yeah i have had the same xp . or have qs abt transitioning that they havent been able to have answered . idk . if u read all of this bs u can dm me. idk . i try not to talk abt personal things on tumblr but i dont use twt for social anymore and i hate keeping a journal so idk . womp womp

[pass-the-awksauce]

Hey There...Welcome Back

Um wow

I don't even know how to start this post or what to put here. I guess I'll just start by saying I used to be on here religiously until about 2018 and then I stopped. A lot has happened to me since my last tenure, and I am very broken and lost. So what I usually do when I get this lost is try to return to things that brought me joy and thats how I somehow remember my password to log into my Tumblr account.

I spent hours reading back on posts and all the favorites I had and just being caught up in all the nostalgia of my previous happiness. And in reading those old posts, I realized its time to get back to my roots, and remember who the fuck I am - so I am bringing back my tumblr account as a shout into the void/journal thing. No one is going to see this but there is something very freeing about just shouting into nothingness. Plus tumblr with forever be my chaotic little paradise of people like me and I think that's what I need right now: community.

So let's set the scene: I graduated college 4 years ago and college for various reasons fucked me up bad, so I've just spent the last 4 years trying to recover from those horrible experiences. I have crippling depression that prevents me from doing anything, even my job sometimes and that might get me in trouble in the near future. I was always a "bigger" girl but i was always fit and healthy looking, then I put on a fuckton of weight post college which has cause a lot of trauma as well. I'm also a 25 year old virgin - which idk what that means or if its super important, but I know that it puts me in about the 95th percentile and I really don't know why or how to go about fixing that.

All I know is I'm the captain of the island of misfit toys and I take great pride in that but I am also very lonely. I have a wonderful and blessed life on paper but its not the life I would choose for myself and it just brings me constant melancholy that I am living a life that isn't really for me. I want to change that - I want to be happy, and have connections with people, and not feel so alone. So I'm going to be journaling here and maybe keeping tabs on my everyday thoughts will help - idk more to come.

[meruz]

Aforementioned long ask post please excuse me while i try to figure out tumblr's new text editor. I’ll get into the art meme questions first and then the rest at the end.

Ok first of all thank you all for sending in questions! Giving me an excuse to talk hehe. I’ll address these in number order. Here’s a link to the ask meme for reference but also I’ll restate the question for ease of reading.

1. When did you get into art?

Super cliche answer but I don’t remember a time where I WASN’T the weird art kid! I started keeping a dedicated sketchbook when I was about 12? But here’s a page from my kindergarten journal about what I want to be when I grow up.

2. What art-related sites have you ever signed up for? 

LOL this is a weird question. Not sure why so many people want to know. Anyways I definitely had a dA. more than one dA account. I used to browse oekakis when I was a kid but I think I was only signed up to some small ones that internet friends owned. What else...? Mangabullet,Tegakie, Paintberri, iscribble back when that was a thing, instagram if that COUNTs, I used to post art on livejournal and dreamwidth too. Patreon, I guess. Gumroad, inprnt, bigcartel, storenvy all for selling stuff.

In terms of resources.. I have a schoolism account that I’m sharing with friends. Used to take classes on coursera for free. I signed up to textures.com for work recently haha. I can’t remember if I ever had an account on posemaniacs. Did they have accounts...? I definitely used to visit all the time.

3. Show us your oldest piece of art you have on hand.

Alright here’s me actually logging into my old deviantart account. These are from September 2008 So I was 13 years old. I don’t have a deviantart account from before then because 13 was the required age for having an account and I didn’t want to lie about my age because I wanted people to be impressed by how young yet clearly incredible at art I was LOL.

4. What defines your artistic style?

You guys are probably more equipped to answer this than me but uh... I wanna say... Focus on colors. And... a slightly heavy hand? Like confident... not always well-considered mark making HAH...

Also I think I have a pretty healthy mix of american comics/manga influences. I feel like people who are into american comics always think my art is too manga and people who are into anime/manga always think my art is too american. And I’m taking that as a good sign.

5. Do you practice other styles/have you tried other styles in the past?

I like to think I switch it up a bunch! I mean, these are pretty different, right?

I think I’ve mentioned this before but one thing I really took away from art school is that, for an illustrator at least, art style shouldn’t be consistent. Your greatest weapon is changing the aspects of your style based on the task, the emotions and message you want to illustrate etc. So depending on the project I’m working on, the fandom I’m drawing for, whether I want something to be funny or serious or dramatic, I’ll change things about my style all the time.

One thing I don’t rly post on here is really tight polished work and that’s because I do that for my day job haha. If you’re not paying me... I’m probably not gonna color in the lines.

6. What levels of artistic education have you had?

I have a whole ass diploma LOL. Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration. from the Rhode Island School of Design. And I had a great college experience tbh. Besides the student loans. If any of you guys are thinking about art school feel free to e-mail or message me questions or concerns, I’ll be happy to help. Be as honest as I can be.

7. Show us at least one picture you drew or sketched recently that you did not put on a public site.

heres the wandavision kids. Uhh what else do I have...I feel like I’m rummaging for loose change here...

assorted valentines prep doodles

8. What is your favourite piece that you have done?

Well, obviously this is gonna change all the time and generally it’s gonna be my most recent piece LOL. So yeah, why the hell not. I’ll say it’s this one. I have a pretty short memory which I count as a blessing for an artist. I don’t dwell that long on older work and it keeps me moving forward.

10. What do you like most about your art?

I like that it’s something that only I would make! I had this thought fairly recently and I wrote it down in my sketchbook, it’s pretty cheesy and rambling but it felt revolutionary at the time:

So yeah. I like my art best when it’s the most me and for me. And I like it least when it feels like I’m just making something for social media or for other people’s expectations or whatever.

14. What do you like drawing the most?

Kids in baggy clothing are like my go-to LOL idk if that’s obvious. but also I like being challenged so lately I’ve really loved drawing multi-character compositions, environments, weird angles, etc.

oh i LOVE drawing the underside of shoes lol. And bandages. People that are kinda beat up.. I think it comes from getting a bunch of cuts all the time. I’m always patching myself up and I want to patch characters up too.

15. What do you like drawing the least?

mmm I try to find something to like in every drawing but lets see... I don’t like doing commissions of people’s dogs. Just because it’s normally like... a family friend and my mom volunteered me without my consent and I don’t even really know what they’re expecting me to draw and I don’t even get to meet the dog. Also I’m not that great at dog anatomy. Trying to learn though.

18. What is your purpose for drawing?

This could have a million answers! Uhhh to GIT GOOD??? But also to express myself... and also to make money... I mean it depends on what the drawing IS. I draw fanart mostly to connect to people in the fandom so if you ever see me drawing fanart please take it as like an open invitation to talk to me about the character haha. 

20. How would you rank your art? (poor, mediocre, good, etc.)

Good!!! I have a lot of self-confidence primarily born out of ignorance and a short attention span. If I don’t think too hard about how many other artists are mindblowingly unfathombly good... its easy to think I’m good too! LOL

In all seriousness though, I think the opinion a person has of their art is like a crazy balancing act, right? Like you have to think you suck enough to want to get better but also you have to think you’re good enough to not want to give up. I think we’re all walking that line, I know I am! But also I’m a glass half-full type of person so. Most of the time I feel good about it.

22. List at least one of your “artspirations.”

This is a good question because I’ve been trying and failing to put together one of those “influence map” memes for like a full month now. What’s giving me a hard time is I feel like none of these are actually really obvious “““influences”““ in my art? Like it’s hard to see a lot of them in the work I make...? But idk maybe you guys’ll see what I can’t.

And these are just a couple! God there’s so many more. I could talk about other artists for ages, from all different genres of art. Daumier, Rockwell like every illustrator out there, Dana Gibson, Alex Toth, Hiroshi Yoshida, a lot of the Brandywine School. Lots of current working artists too, Karl Kerschl, frikkin Masashi Kishimoto lol, Jake Wyatt, Richie Pope, Edouard Caplain, Matt Cook, Sachin Teng, - lots of big internet artists, Sophie Li, Freddy Carrasco, Milliofish, Angela Sung... like all my friends from art school too. I could just keep going but I’ll stop for now lol.

24. Do you have a shameful art past? (recolour sprite comics, tracing art, etc.)

I mean if that’s how we’re defining shameful?? sure LOL. It’s not sprite comics but I used to do pokemon sprite recolors all the time. And I used to trace manga panels and color them... Granted this was all when I was like under 12 yrs old so it’s not even embarrassing. Can you really call it shameful when a 7 year old wets the bed or whatever? Not really. In fact some of these are cool as fuck. Look

25. Draw a picture!

Man I’m so tired now but here.

I used to get a lot of compliments for drawing people smiling lol but I don’t think I’ve drawn a lot of smiling lately.. here’s proof I’ve still got it.

OK MEME DONE. onto the rest.

I read this ask first thing when i opened my computer in the morning and it made me really emotional.. I’m so glad my sketches could help you!!

I think a lot of artists on social media talk about the struggle of making art but imo not enough people talk about the joy! Like I know it’s corny but. I really meant what I said at the beginning of that sketchbook about re-contextualizing art around process and progress > product and perfection. I think its super important..! The strength of messy, unfinished, and energetic art! For the feeling of it, for the love it!

That's crazy!!! I hope you like 'em. The whole line of x-books is really good rn imo.

Hi! I totally have the answer for digital stuff on my faq lol. But in terms of drawing on paper.. it varies! I tend to use sketchbooking and any on-paper doodling I do as a way to loosen up/warm-up or experiment. But right now my go-to aresenal is:

from top > bottom

- kuretake no.55 doublesided brush pen

- tombow fudenosuke

- muji 0.38 ballpoint

- medium size poscas

- grey tombow double brush pens

- good ol bic mechanical pencil

not EXACTly sure which inking you referring to from my sketchbook but if I had to take a guess it'd probably be the kuretake no55. That's been my main inker, lately. Great for sketching with the thin end too.

You can print out and eat my art if you like. Just please don't mass produce or re-sell. <3

Thanks! I've come to accept that my art is always gonna be sort of gestural and painty naturally. It's getting it to tighten up enough to be legible that's hard lol...

uh yeah lol I agree actually. I think yolei is great.

I assume these asks are related? LOL

1) Yeah totally true. I love David.

2) I don’t take requests, sorry! But if you want to commission me to draw Legion i would be MORE than happy to. Just e-mail me at isellhotdogs@gmail.com.

<33333333333333333333333333

[soft4gguk]

Tessa ure back and it made me saur happy <3 i always wanna leave a good review but i always struggled a lot hwever this is my fav chapter so ill try!! first i miss yuuu so much. i cant deny i hav my fave writers before tbah came to me. apparantly theyre mia but then i saw ur blog. like the fic itself, u build a home in this hidden world of tumblr. u rebuild a safe space for me xx

i engulfed myself w some bad boy jk fics while waiting to ur update and god my hopes in men almost drowning and thank u for saving it!! secondly,,, despite tbah jaykay not sayying the L word idk i still trust him?? (or maybe bc i trust u) most fics i read were always one sided so it's like walking on an iceberg.. but u gave us assurance by showing his pov so maybe thats why and thank u for that!!

next,,how could u make simple interaction between them so meaningful?! i cant word this right opposing to how u wrote it. but i could really feel the strong emotions they hav between the lines?? gosh i cant thank u enough. im always in awe to ur writing its so smart and every line gave resonance (imagine me putting highlights to all sentencs lmao) aaand! the smut was IMMACULATE..i never visioned "making love" this perfect. very clear, full of romance, u nailed it!

alsoo :(( while reading the fic i hav this thought oc's personality is a reflection of u in rl. i feel guilty for being smitten but i think ure a really sweet person! just like someone i could easily trust my whole life the first time i met them. i hope everything works your way n wishing u always the best <33

anyways.. the journal scene is absolutely my favorite! so lemme leave this scene here-------

“Write about me.” He winks, sending a troop of butterflies straight to your chest, spreading like wildfire all through you – ever so weak for him. You hand him the bag you were previously holding – the one that stores the journal you’d originally bought. “Here.” He grabs it, confused but soft as he smiles. “I don’t know what to write about, though.” You smile, taking one step towards him, closing the distance as you look up at him, eyes indecisive as they scan his own before traveling down to his lips.

You shrug, your gaze growing so sweet. “Me.”

hiiii 🥺 first off, I want to say that this ask felt like a big, warm hug from u to me and I can't even begin to express my gratitude for it. it put such a big smile on my face that I'm unsure ill be able to shake off for the remainder of the day, so thank you so much. I hope you know I'm sending that love right back to you and multiplied.

I love your feedback so much and your name is one I look forward to receiving on my inbox so even if its one sentence or a bunch of paragraphs, please send them if it strikes you <3 thank you. I trust him too!!! I think that something very beautiful happens when we take people out of pedestals and simply accept them as flawed humans - in a way, that's what I want to portray with both jungkook and oc in this story. and even with his parents and anyone that might strike controversy in the storyline at times. a couple of chapters back oc said it herself beautifully, "love is understanding."

its so sweet of you to find me in her - I guess in a way, there's a little bit of me in all of the characters to some extent, whether big or small and oc is one I enjoy writing a lot so it flatters me that you'd say that <3 thank uuuu.

oh man, oh man... that chapter bit really got me too 🥺 I love him so much for that. imagine someone doing that for u!!!! it'd fall in love right then and there hehe.

im so glad u enjoyed!!!! and I truly am sending you so much love and life and a million kisses paired with a million hugs!!!! I love you. I hope you're able to keep finding a safe space in this little corner of the internet. xx

[mxrcayong]

tag game; the interview

Tagged by: @lucas-wongs

Tagging: @pastelsicheng @kopikokun @stayinzencity  @urlocalnctstan @sunflowerhae 

n. 1 | Why did you chose your URL?

I kind of combined all the NCT members who got me really involved with NCT in the first place. So namely, the person who peeked my interest in NCT was Taeyong after my friend showed me his solo stuff and black-on-black but my first ultimate bias was Mark and then my friend’s bias (who showed me Taeyong) was Lucas (and he later became one of my major biases) So it was mxr for Mark, ca for Lucas, and yong for Taeyong (so I pronounce it mark-ah-yong) And then I was debating changing it now that I’m basically biased for all 23 members (some to different extents to others but I’m always tied with like 7 people for ultimates) but then it just felt catchy and I didn’t think I could come up with a better name than that that isn’t taken already.

n. 2 | Any side blogs? If you have them, name them and why you have them?

Initially no. Technically this is my side blog. I had a private personal blog I used to treat as a journal but then after too long with my focus on NCT and way too many “I am following you, just in a personal blog”, I basically wiped it and turned it into a random blog where I repost content that excites me / stories I like to read / whatever I want thats less personal and depressing as it was before haha… It’s @mxrcayong-main. TBH the main reason was to build better relationships with my mutuals - like they never see if I read their posts or like their stuff because my personal blog was just strange and I didnt want people to really see it. 

n. 3 | How long have you been on Tumblr?

Honestly…very long. This blog hasn’t been too long though. This started as an NCT blog March 2020, but my first ever post was about Sehun in February 2020 (which was supposed to be a one off post haha). I once had a 5SOS blog, and then a Tom Holland one, and then now this haha. I have deleted the 5SOS one, unable to delete the Tom Holland one bc I lost access to it, and now I am on this :) I low key wanted to regain access to my Tom Holland one because I’m simping again but I lost details to the email I signed it up to.  

n. 4 | Do you have a queue tag?

I have a queue post? Does this count? 

n. 5 | Why did you start your blog in the first place?

Honestly, it was the first lockdown and I was bored. 

n. 6 | Why did you choose your icon / pfp?

For the Lucas one; I liked the aesthetic. My favorite kind of aesthetic is this vintage, faded, film kind of look. For me, I think one of the most profound and important things we have as humans are these vivid memories so any photo that kind of mimics this feel is super gorgeous to me. Also Lucas is stunning.

I used to have a Haechan matching aesthetic to the Lucas one, but I recently decided to turn it blue. I chose Mark because I’m the biggest simp for him (alongside with Jeno and Haechan mostly). This is purely because blue is one of my favorite colors; it always calms me down, and I just thought the aesthetic and composition of this photo really pleases me. Like, it also fits my vibe a bit more of the ‘softie’ and my friend even says I fit the ‘blue vibe’ more idk haha. I just come onto Tumblr for escapism and write for escapism, and blue helps calm me down so I wanted this escapism to be calming y’know haha 

n. 7 | Why did you chose your header?

I don’t have one!

n. 8 | What’s your post with the most notes?

My post with the most notes….honestly isn’t one im the happiest with but someone requested it so I tried to do it justice but idk I dont like writing fics too far in the future yk?? but the one with the second most notes that I really love is called “Come Home To Me” 

n. 9 | How many mutuals do you have?

I can probably count on one hand haha I want to get to know people, but I’m really scared to. I gotta say tho, I’m so grateful for all the mutuals I have - but especially @pastelsicheng and @kopikokun because they really stuck with me through some bad times I’ve had. also, tons of love for @sunflowersora for being my first supporter on this app and low key motivation to keep staying on the app <3 

n. 10 | How many followers do you have?

Just around 200, so not too much compared to others, but I still can’t believe that there’s 200 people who like my stuff. 

n. 11 | How many people do you follow?

A lot! 

n. 12 | Have you ever made a shit post?

…probably? 

n. 13 | How often do you use tumblr each day?

When I don’t have exams, I use it everyday. Just because I’m in a somewhat bad headspace right now, I check it maybe every second day or just have shorter use sessions. But when I have exams, maybe once a week or two weeks. 

n. 14 | Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? Who won?

Not really? 

n. 15 | How do you feel about “you need to compare this” posts?

I’ve never seen these posts but the title suggests that I’d dislike them. Especially with the words “you need to”. Like, let people live how they want to; don’t compare to others. 

n. 16 | Do you like tag games?

I really do! Honestly, I have to say I still don’t feel like I belong on the Tumblr community? Like I feel like I’m a newbie still finding their place. Theres a lot of times where I question that if I just leave, no one would be excited to see my posts anyway / no one will notice. So having tag games just kind of reminds me of the moots I’ve made who are a big part in making me feel like I have a place here <3 

n. 17 | Do you like ask games?

I haven’t done one yet!! I want to do it but I’m just nervous I won’t get any responses? 

n. 18 | Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

…All of them lol. I think @pastelsicheng is hella known for the murder replay story she did and I was a huge fan of a lot of them before they followed me back

n. 19 | Do you have a crush on a mutual?

Not a crush-crush but a platonic crush? Idk if its a common idea but basically like “holy shit I wanna get to know them” but i have social anxiety lol

[purplesurveys]

1157

survey by hxcsingingsk8r

Phone Scavenger Hunt

First off, what phone do you have? I have an iPhone 8.

And what provider do you use? It’s a local one you wouldn’t know about, called Globe.

How long have you had your current phone? I can’t remember if it would be 3 or 4 years this 2021. Either way, it’s definitely been a while and I’ve been itching to upgrade. It’s too early to make such a big purchase, though.

Do you have any cases for it? Describe them. I have a clear case that I bought last year. Before that, I had a pink Otterbox case that I managed to destroy even though Otterbox is normally known for its durability. I just have a very unique ability to wreck everything I’ve ever owned lol.

How old were you when you got your first cellphone? I was technically 6, but it was meant to be a present for my 7th birthday. We threw a birthday party a month in advance because my dad had to fly back abroad for work before my actual birthday, but we wanted him to be present at the celebration so we decided throwing a party early was the best route.

What about your first smartphone? [If the answer is different] It was an iPhone 5S.

How old are you now? Dunno what this has to do with the theme of the survey but I am now 22.

Okay, move onto the scavenger hunt part

What is your lock screen picture of? It’s of Kim Seon Ho at a restaurant, lmao.

Home screen? It’s one of the shots from a recent promotional photoshoot Hayley did for Good Dye Young.

How many pictures are thre currently on your phone? This question just made me so anxious hahaha. I have way too many photos; and upon checking, it turns out I currently have 6,266. My god do I need to clean up my camera roll this weekend.

How many videos? I have 227. I have no idea it’s gotten to be this many; I barely use my phone to take videos. I’ll go ahead and delete some of them right now, just to give my phone (and its storage) space to breathe.

What is your most recent picture of? It’s a work thing...I guess I’ll explain it so it can make more sense. So one of our clients has got this Lent campaign going on, and to spread word about it we’ve tapped a handful of food bloggers to try out the offers themselves and post about their experience on social media. Now that we’re in the middle of Holy Week they’ve gone ahead and uploaded their own posts, and I’m in charge of taking screenshots so I can show to the client that the execution had been successful.

And the most recent video? It’s a private vlog. Every Sunday, or at least every other Sunday I take a few minutes to sit down and do a weekly video thing where I talk about my ~mental~ and ~emotional~ status, and it’s basically a way to be in touch with myself and keep track of my progress. Who knows, maybe I’ll actually get to uploading them one day.

Do you have any albums? If so, of what? Yeah. I have one for Cooper, one for Kimi, and a bunch of tiny albums I’ve made where I compiled 4–5 photos of friends to post on their birthdays.

What pictures have you favorited? I have a lot of favorited photos. There’s no required category for me to label them as such.

Do you have any shared albums with friends or family or work? No. I’m not sure if I can do that, or how to do it if it is allowed.

Do you have any alarms set? For what time and for what occasions? I have a bunch of alarms but only because they’re archived into the Clock app and I just haven’t gotten around to deleting them. When I was still new at my work, I used to have alarms set for certain work tasks I have to take note of every week – but now that I’ve gotten into the groove of things, I don’t need the alarms to be reminded about them anymore.

Check your weather app, what is the weather and temperature where you live? It says ‘Mostly Clear’ and shows a temperature of 26ºC.

Do you have the YouTube app? Do you have your own channel? I do have the app and my own account, but I never use it to post videos. It’s nice to have my own channel so that my homepage can be tailored to my interests.

Do you have an email app? Which one do you use? I just have the default Email app that comes with iOS, but I never use it because it’s so wonky. It doesn’t refresh new emails and it takes forever when it does, and it doesn’t always show the full thread of email conversations. If I absolutely need to check my email for something I usually have to pull out my laptop.

Does it say that there is an update available on your phone or any apps? Yes, it reminds me everyday hahaha. I don’t update unless Apple has been planning a big revamp with new features, though; and if the updates are just to address bugs, I disregard the reminders.

Go into your contacts, how many contacts do you have total? It says I have 178.

Name all of your contacts under the letter M: Feels a tad bit invasive, so I’ll just name five people I have under M: Lui, Kim, Patrice, Danika, and Andi.

Name all of your contacts under the letter U: I don’t have anyone under U.

Do you have any contacts that are businesses rather than people? Which ones? No, I don’t really use text to contact businesses. If I wanted to inquire or order from one, I usually head to their social media page.

Go into your notes, how many notes do you have saved? This is another one I have a hoarding problem with lol. My phone says I currently have 561 notes, though I’m fairly certain the biggest chunk of it comes from minutes I’ve taken down from work meetings. It was a whole lot less when I was still in school.

What kinds of things do you save in your notes? Like I said, I use Notes for taking down minutes from meetings. There are also a few surveys on there, from times I didn’t have internet and couldn’t post them on here.

Do you have any voice memos saved? What of? Yep. Some of them were recordings I had to do for journalism classes I was assigned to do voiceovers; some are interviews, also from my journ class; and the rest are of me rambling.

Do you ever use the calculator app? Pretty frequently for work.

Do you ever use the Maps app? Not really. If I needed directions, I would check out Waze for that.

Do you have any health/fitness apps? Which ones? I still have the Nike Training app from the very brief time I wanted to start working out earlier this year.

Do you have the Instacart app? The what now? I’ve never even heard of that.

What about a delivery service like Postmates, Uber Eats, Grubhub, Doordash? I have the McDelivery app for McDonald’s, but I also have other general delivery apps like Grab, Lalamove, and Transportify.

Do you have something like Venmo, Cashapp, or Paypal? I have the Paypal app but I never use it. I also have a couple of e-wallet apps just in case I’d have to use them as a payment method, since some businesses  I purchase from prefer certain ones. Ultimately, though, I use Grab’s mobile wallet the most often.

Do you use Bitmoji? I think I did before? I never used it all that regularly though. Didn’t see the point.

What other keyboards do you use besides English? Any? Filipino, Korean, and Emoji.

Which social media network apps do you have? Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, TikTok, and Snapchat. So I guess I have all the main ones?

If you have Instagram, what is your handle and how many followers? I have a very private one I only use for work. I didn’t want it to have any followers but at present there’s Angela (because she asked to follow it this week) and Bea (idk why).

What do you typically post on the various social media platforms? The only ones I regularly post on are Twitter and Facebook, and on either I share life updates (if there are any) and memes; though on Facebook I have to watch out what kind of memes I share and make sure they aren’t too offensive because I’m friends with relatives, workmates, and media on there lmao. But on Twitter, I basically have no filter.

Do you make TikTok videos? I don’t make any myself, but I do enjoy going through the app.

Do you only add people you know on Facebook? Yes, for the most part. I’ve taken to adding people as long as they’re from UP or my high school even though I’ve never met them as well, but if I sense that they only added me to try and sell me insurance OR try to get me into MLM, then it’s an instant unfriend for me.

Do you have an app that tracks Instagram followers? No, because I don’t need to track my Instagram followers. I’m off the radar as off the radar gets.

Do you have a Snapchat? Yeah, it’s still on my phone just because but I literally never touch it anymore.

Do you ever take selfies with filters? What app's filters do you use? Eh, just before. I don’t really take selfies anymore, period.

Do you use any apps like Depop or Poshmark or Etsy? No. Out of these three I’ve only ever heard of Etsy, too.

What messengers do you use to talk to people? Any besides just texting? I have Messenger to stay in touch with family and friends; Whatsapp and Viber for work; and Telegram just in case my friends want to play games.

Do you have any photo editing apps? Which ones? I have this app called Foodie that has some pretty filters. Otherwise, since I’m not on Instagram anyway I’m never on the lookout for photo editing apps; no one ever filters their photos on Facebook and Twitter lol.

Do you have any games? Which ones? I do have a ton of games on my phone. I never play any of them, but I keep them just in case I get bored enough to start revisiting them. I have word games, drinking games, games similar to Heads Up! where one person will have to guess the word on the screen while the phone is on their forehead, and gimmicky games like 1010! and Candy Crush haha.

Do you have any rideshare apps like Lyft or Uber? I have Grab, which is a rideshare, parcel delivery, food delivery, and online grocery app all in one.

Now go to the actual phone app, whose phone numbers are saved as favorites? I don’t tag any of my contacts as favorites.

Who was your most recent outgoing call to? I can’t recognize the number, so it was probably a Transportify driver that I called to give him directions to my house.

Who was your most recent incoming call from? I also can’t recognize the number, but this time he was most likely a Grab driver.

Who was your most recent missed call from? Again, can’t recognize the number HAHAA

Why did you miss that call? On purpose? Were you sleeping? Busy? My phone is on silent 24/7, so I must have missed it while I was working.

Who is your most recent voicemail from and what's it regarding? We don’t have voicemail in the Philippines.

What was the last thing you Googled or searched on your phone? Candle tunneling and how to fix it.

What music app do you use? Apple Music? Spotify? Something else? I use Spotify, but I also availed of a 3-month trial on Apple Music earlier this year just because. I think it’s supposed to end soon but I have no plans to shift.

What playlists have you made on there? I have playlists called, “robyn discovers kpop,” “winding down,” “angst,” “not my loss,” and my personal favorite, “paramore but fuck you.”

Lastly, what is the most recent song/album you've added to your collection? What Type of X - Jessi.

[theboardwalkbody]

That’s me (in my nursing cap because it’s my most recent photo and capping ceremony was cancelled so I took pics in my house to send to nursing school buddies instead): Amanda - meme - Manda 28 NJ Tired AF And bored so I am answering this Ask Meme I found by @myautisticjournal​

What music have you discovered or listened to lately?

I’ve been listening to my Recently Added playlist on iTunes. Only “recently added” has been adjusted to include the last 28 months. lol But I did discover Blinding Lights by The Weeknd and that song’s been making me happy. Hurricane (Reimagined) by I Prevail has hit me in the Depress and next week The Used’s new album comes out so I’m waiting for that.

Have you made any new playlists since quarantine times? If they’re on Spotify, maybe drop a link?

I haven’t made any Quarantine Playlists because ALL my music is about being isolated and depressed anyway that like... what’s the difference? 

Make a three-song-minimum playlist of songs that make you happy!

Blinding Lights // The Weeknd (also makes me think of Data because I discovered it around the same time I started watching TNG so now they Go Together) Paradise Lost // The Used Dance Monkey // Tones and I

What’s your go-to show that you like to binge watch? Why do you like that show?

Currently its Star Trek TNG - because Data And One Day at a Time because that shit hits real. 

Are there any shows that you‘ve been planning to start watching? Why do they interest you?

It was just Star Trek and I did start watching. Interested because I wanted originally to watch ST Picard because Harry Treadaway but having never seen any ST before it didnt make sense (obvs) so I went back and started watching TNG. I didn’t want to start with the original series because honestly my attention span is garbage and I just was always curious about Data and so I started with him.

What movie(s) always comforts you?

Twister, Forrest Gump, The Lion King (1994). I’m currently wearing Lion King pjs lol. Pirate Radio is a relaxing feel good movie, too. 

Are you an arts-and-crafts person? If so, what types of art/craft do you enjoy?

I try SO HARD to be lol. So far during quarantine I’ve tried crochet, I’ve tried making string bracelets as if it was 2005 and I was in 8th grade again but I forgot how to make them and my brain refuses to re-learn its too full of music, nursing school, and data now. I tried coloring and lost patience. I have been working on a Quarantine Photo-Journal. Every day I post a tiny update and a few pictures (mostly memes since i cant leave the house and several Data photos lolololol) but my printer isn’t working right all of a sudden so I can’t print out any new pictures which I guess that one project I was really enjoying is out the window.

Do you have any planned projects to work on during self-isolation? If you’ve started any and you’re willing, share a photo of what you’re working on!

Here’s a pic of page like 3 or something lol

If you had to recommend an art or craft for people to get into, what would you recommend and why?

Man. Just do what makes you happy. I saw someone on TikTok making GIANT ass Worms on Strings and honestly. Pure genius. 

What are your favorite YouTube channels? Why do you like them?

Achievement Hunter. Rooster Teeth. Markiplier. They make the funny. Various ASMR channels. They make the sleep.

What is the weirdest YouTube video you’ve ever watched?

Conspiracy Theory videos probably. I don’t really know. 

Recommend a book or book series to read!

Across the Universe trilogy by Beth Revis read it and fangirl with me I am so alone.

Are there any books that you’ve read multiple times? If you could re-read a book that you loved as if it were the very first time, what book would you choose?

The Islander by Cynthia Rylant. I don’t know why but the first time I read it it just transported me into the middle of it and it was amazing (I was like 11) and it was so mysterious and everything. I’d like to read that one like the first time. Also Living Hell by Catherine Jinks did a similar thing 

What’s your favorite book genre? Why do you enjoy it?

Science Fiction. Because I like science. and Fiction and space and robots and things. 

If you were to write a fanfiction about your own life, how would it go?

LOL The tags would be like : #depression #anxiety #ptsd #childhood abuse #adulthood abuse #i miss having sex but at least i dont wanna die #except i still do #twsuicideideation #badluck #dontread lol

What’s the best fanfiction that you’ve ever read (or the top three if you can’t choose just one )? What about it made an impression on you?

My brain hurts too much to pick a top three but I will say I am currently reading May I by @ladyfogg​ and it’s been giving me the squishy feels and I am loving it and ya’ll should read it. Her OC is relatable and also inspiring and I think at this point I don’t need to mention Data anymore. (But I did). 

Do you listen to podcasts? What kind of podcasts do you listen to?

Off Topic podcast and used to listen to RT podcast when Burnie was still on. IDK what kind of podcast that is other than ‘usually wild’ 

If you could make your own podcast, what would it be about and who would you invite to make a guest appearance?

It would be about anything and everything. I’d invite anyone for an appearance lol

Are you addicted to Animal Crossing: New Horizons? If yes, what’s your favorite thing about it so far?

Yes. My favorite thing has to be CUBE. CUBE I LOVE CUBE. I WOULD DIE FOR CUBE.

If you had to recommend ONE video game, what would it be and why?

Cube. I mean, Animal Crossing. 

Have you tried any new recipes lately? If yes (and if they were good), share it with the class! I’m sure everyone is as bored with the same old foods as I am by this point.

I am too lazy to cook even when I want to so I always end up getting take out or delivery. 

What is your favorite website to waste time on? (Is it, perhaps, tumblr?)

Tumbebells. (Tumblr yes)

How are you finding ways to stay connected with your friends and family? From video calling to playing online games, what would you say has worked the best for you?

Nothing. I’m sitting here wallowing in deep loneliness and it’s killing me. It’s just my grandma and my cat and that’s why I can’t go out or work (I am a Patient Care Associate and I know the hospitals could use help but my grandma is 83 years old and it’s too high of a risk for her for me to be working in a hospital and coming home from there). 

If you have pets, first of all share some photos! Second, how have you been spending your time with them?

LOLA. L-O-L-A LOLA. LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LOLA She doesn’t leave me alone. Her new trick has been LAUNCHING her 7lb body on to my back while I’m standing and pretending she’s my goddamn backpack. And earlier today she decided to pull the socks out of my sock drawer. Because she loves me. 

Share your general quarantine experience so far. How are you handling it?

Bad. I often forget to take my meds, we’ve been on “spring break” from nursing school this week so I have 0 sense of time and no routine and I’ve sometimes been going to bed at 4am, sometimes 4pm, sleeping until like 9-11 regardless and I spend 95% of the day in bed. I can’t be bothered to change, sometimes can’t be bothered to really eat, and I care 0% about showering and Doing Anything. lol 

I mean it’s been great guys. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba I’m lovin’ it!

I did somehow loose 2lbs without trying tho. That’s a total of 7.8lbs lost since March. Only 125 more to go BUT THE GYM IS CLOSED AND IT HAS BEEN COLD AND RAINING.

I’ll shut up.

I tag @lyrslair​, @ladyfogg​ @datalaur​ and anyone else who sees this and wants to do it even tho its really long and I fucked up the layout so instead of 25 questions they’re ALL NUMBER 1. lol 

[jtargaryen18]

I know this isn't one of your usual asks and I hope this doesn't make you uncomfortable, but I've been struggling a lot lately with my mental health. I feel absolutely alone and like nobody cares. I have no one to talk to and my insurance no longer covers therapy, so I haven't been there in a while. Do you have any advice? I hate feeling like this, its like there's just a black hole where my emotions are. Idk, sorry.

Hey, there. First, you don’t have anything to apologize for and there’s nothing about mental health issues that are going to make me uncomfortable. I had a schizophrenic parent with violent tendencies and I had no siblings. Not telling you that to make anything about me. Just saying I understand what it’s like to feel overwhelmed, confused, and worse, isolated. When you’re wounded and alone, your own mind can be your worst enemy.

I don’t know your situation or what support you have, but you have yourself and you are not powerless. You are also not alone. If you’re here in our corner of Tumblr, I’ll bet you’re a reader. Maybe even a writer. When you can, find stories that make you happy, revisit favorite books, check out new books. If you write, work on something you’d love to read yourself. What hobbies do you have that you enjoy? Painting, cooking, playing music, knitting, anything. It’s important to keep your mind focused on other things besides the negative self-talk going on in your head. Just because it’s there, and that’s true for ALL of us, doesn’t mean we have to listen to it.

And while we’re talking about writing... One thing that can help when you’re feeling held down by your mind is journaling. Even if it is just pulling out every single thing you’re worried, anxious or down about out of your head and writing it down, it helps. I’ve always felt like it gave me a way to corral everything bad in my head in one place instead of leaving it to run wild in there. It can make you feel like you have a measure of control. Once you figure out ways to control the bad thoughts in there, you figure out how to take back control period. 

At the end of the day, it’s all about managing your thoughts. No, it’s not easy but it can be done and the how is different for each of us. The mind governs your thoughts, your body governs your emotions. So when the negative self-talk in your mind evokes unhappy emotions, you can make yourself physically ill too. That’s why it’s so important.

There are some great videos on dealing with depression, anxiety, negative thoughts out there too and it's free. Lately, I’ve been into Dr. Joe Dispenza. He has several videos on YouTube and what I like most about him is that he scientifically explains the hows and whys. There are a lot of gurus out there with beliefs and rituals and all that. But to have someone break it down in scientific terms is helpful. His videos got me into meditation (I would have rolled my eyes at anyone who suggested that to me five years ago). That works very well for me.

Just remember - you’re not powerless. You have some control here. And you also have positive thoughts which are far more powerful than the negative ones. And any time, you could have a positive thought or idea come along that can transform your life instead of leaving you in the dark. It’s true.

Anyway, I’m glad you reached out to me. I’m not sure how qualified I am to give anyone advice but I do care. HUGS There’s a lot of really great folks on here and I’m glad you’re part of our little corner. I want you to be happy. And I’m here. I’m slow sometimes to get back because of work sometimes. But I will get back to you. 💖💖💖  

[fictionalabyss]

Do 'em all 🤣🤣

You jerk rofl. Okay, this is gonna take a while..

also under a readmore cuz long.

1. describe yourself.- Mel, 32, mom of two, mental health issues, and no idea of who I am or ever was.. lover, fighter, spiteful, friendlier than I’d care to admit. I think that about does it?

2. if you could go anywhere for a week all expenses paid where would it be? I’d be willing to go to a lot of places, honestly. Scotland is top of the list if I can count a wedding as an expense haha.

3. do you have siblings? On my mothers side, no, I’m an only child. On my fathers side, I have a half brother, and two step brothers.  I haven’t seen them since I was 11 though, but they’ve been added to my fb and now ignore my existence there.

4. what is your favorite constellation, why? Don’t think I have a favourite.

5. favorite color. Don’t have one. I like different colours for different things, and even that can change with my mood.

6. what kind of music do you listen to? Pretty much everything. My workout music (basically the only time i have time for music) ranges from the 50′s cowboy and love songs all the way to more current EDM and some metal. You introduced me to Mongolian metal, and I’ve come across and Indian metal band that has a song about fighting depression, and I love them so much. I’m still sad to have missed both Babymetal and Alestorm (Scottish pirate metal) when they came to town. Alestorm actually offered me free tickets if they could name Matrim when I was pregnant rofl.

7. favorite flower. (you can name as many as you want cause flowers are awesome)  Wild flowers. I have violets that grow wild in my back yard and I love them.

8. if you could do magic, what is the first spell you would learn? I think at most, I’d like to learn minor healing, or something that would attract goodness to people.

9. favorite childhood memory.The memory of Pat getting in the baby swing and yelling “push me on the swing, mommy!” and me pushing him as high as I could and leaving him there when he got stuck roflrofl. We were 9, and it’s basically how this relationship started. I was annoyed, he was in love. I’m still annoyed but now we’re both in love.

10. have you ever been cheated on? Not that I’m aware of, but that might not have been for a lack of trying. WORD ON THE STREET WAS one of my ex’s was trying to get with someone else while with me and was turned down.

11. if you could describe your perfect room, what would it be? Big and spacious. Super comfy bed, plenty of pillows. But also a little corner with a fort that I can be little in. Close proximity to both bathroom and kitchen for obvious reasons. Big window with cute curtains. and all the thing my current room has, but less unfolded laundry rofl.

12. favorite animal. Don’t have one, but it for sure isn’t a fkin slug I’ll tell you that. Pete the peeper ruined that for all slugs.

13. what was the last photo you took of? Luke’s new pokemon cards so I could show Pat while he was at work.

14. do you believe in soul mates? I do. I believe that soulmates aren’t just lovers, but that you can have many people that your soul resonates with. I had one, or thought I did, until I was dropped like hot garbage and shit was said behind my back like I’d never find out. The fucked up part, if I got an apology, I’d probably believe them and let them back into my life like I did last time. Because I’m a fucking sucker and a slave to my heart. But the more you hurt me, the harder you have to work for my trust so I’ll probably never get one. Too much work.

15. do you hang toilet paper over or under? I have a toddler, so under so he can’t just unravel the whole fucking thing into the toilet by slapping his hand on it.

16. your go to place to eat & your favorite thing to get there. Greenstop and Poutine. They have this killer brown gravy omg.

17. do you believe everything happens for a reason? yeah. Everything is either a consequence to our actions, or a lesson to be learned. Karma, my friend. And sometimes, bad shit just happens so you have room in your life for better things. That’s how I got you and Kay.

18. guilty pressures? You mean other than 80′s and 90′s one hit wonders?

19. favorite mythical creature, why? Dragon. Cuz...dragon?

20. something most people don’t know about you. Uh.. not everyone knows me to be as friendly as you tumblr peeps do. Truth is, I’m kind of known as a bitch in person. I don’t socialize well because of my crippling anxiety, and have RBF, so people just assume. Others know it as fact because I treat people the way they treat me.

21. where did you grow up, what was it like? at 8, I moved across the street from where I live now. Before that, I lived in ‘The Point’ but most of my childhood memories are of here. A lot of my neighbours are the same people. I grew up in the 90′s, so we use to play in the street day and night and there were no worries. I’d go from park to park, house to house, just wandering from place to place with my friends. No parents, just us, as long as I got everyone back out front by the time the street lights came on, and then it was hide and seek in the dark while all the parents drank on one of the balconies and watched. It’s not like that here anymore.

22. do you believe aliens exist? You’d be an idiot to think that we are the only lifeforms anywhere.

23. what was your last google search? Big Iron by Marty Robbins.

24. what did your last relationship teach you? You really wanna get into that? It taught me that no matter what I know about a person, I don’t know them. If they talk shit about other people to me, they are talking shit about me to other people. It taught me that just because they earned my trust once, doesn’t mean they should get a free pass on it for life, that I should make them keep earning it. And finally, than when they say “I’ll understand if it doesn’t work out” it’s bullshit. I’ll end up tossed aside and forgotten while I break. And when I realize I deserve better and move on, everything becomes my fault.

25. would you relocate for love? depends where. Example : I love Kay, but I ain’t moving to Florida roflrofl.

26. do you hold grudges or forgive easy? Forgive far too easily the first few times. After that, fuck you.

27. favorite book. uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

28. do you consider yourself an extrovert or introvert? Introvert.

29. have you ever kept a journal, do you now? I have attempted to a few times. Didn’t work out. so no.

30. top 5 favorite movies. Porky’s trilogy. Ginger Snaps trilogy. uhhhhhhm.. fuck.. idk, why do you do this to me, I can’t pick favourites.

31. do you believe that everything happens for a reason? We already went over this.

32. what is your greatest fear? Falling.

33. favorite alcoholic beverage. Jack, disarono, Fluffed marshmallow vodka. UPPERCUT. legit, go into a bar and order an uppercut.

34. most embarrassing thing you’ve done. If i could think of something, I wouldn’t tell you guys muahahha.

35. do you believe in ghosts? not sure.

36. what is the best and worst part of your personality? That I’m nicer than I’d like to be. I’m mush. I’m forgiving and kind, and loving and sometimes I hate it.

37. should you split the dinner bill? Who am I at dinner with?

38. are you a good liar? Fuck no roflroflrofl. I’m the worst at it.

39. what keeps you up at night? these days, story ideas.

40. would you rather go without your phone or music? bye bye music.

41. do you believe in god? Nope.

42. how do you relax when frustrated? Mindless game on my phone, nap, or binge something.

43. what’s something that offends you? people. People offend me.

44. favorite food I’m a sucker for a good lasagne. but also cheesecake. I can never have too much cheesecake. I mean, I can, I’m lactose intolerant, but shush. Something are worth it.

45. if you were on a 10 hour flight and could sit and talk to any person the entire time, who would it be? If there’s booze on the flight, anyone. if not, literally no one. I’ll just pound back some Oxazepam and nap. wake me up when we get there.

46. when do you feel the most confident? never. ROFL.

47. what do you do on your free time? What is free time?

48. is there anyone who has completely lost your respect Oh yeah. If you’ve read this far, you might have an idea.

49. have you ever broken someone’s heart? Probably not, no.

50. did/do you play sports in school? In gym class. Oh, and I did that one summer to Tball and hated it.

51. when are you happiest? when I'm asleep.

52. coffee or tea? Tea. fuck your coffee.

53. what is one possession you own you wouldn’t want to live without? internet.

54. what is the first thing you notice about a person? Height.

55. what is your favorite season, why? I love winter, because I love everything looking so white and clean when the snow is fresh. But I also love spring because of the rain, and summer for storms and fall for colors and good weather.

56. what makes you laugh? What doesn’t.

57. are you a clean or messy person? I was given the nickname ‘Messy’ at 10 for a reason. It still applies.

58. what is important for a successful relationship? Be it friendship or romantic relationship, my answer is the same. Trust and Honesty.

59. what was your upcoming like? Do you mean upbringing? I had a single mom who worked all the time. I was pretty independent.

60. favorite holiday? Christmas.

61. what is the first thing you’d do if you won the lottery? pay off debts.

62. what’s the best pizza topping combination? Bacon crumble and cheese. Not bacon bits, fuck that shit. Bacon fucking crumble. its like, little balls of bacon or something and not many places have it anymore *sad panda*

63. favorite outdoor activity. meditation. Does that count? I just like to be barefoot outside.

64. how are you? honestly. It’s 9 am, and I’m already getting frustrated with kids. And I have a soccer game and medal ceremony coming up soooooooooooo.

65. would you rather go camping in the woods or stay at a beach resort? how about cabin in the woods, ooooor a beach resort with woods backing it. yeah.

66. what is the most beautiful thing in nature? everything.

67. favorite type of candy? Don’t got one.

68. if your life was a book, what would be the title? something super depressing, I’m sure.

69. what movie quotes do you use of a regular bases? “Later masturbater” (The Pest)

70. what was cool when you were young but not cool now? Frosted tips, mesh shirts, and snap away track pants on men HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA,. Oh, them early 00′s. I legit saw someone wearing them a few years ago and almost died.

71. what’s the craziest conversation you have ever eves dropped on? dunno hombre.

72. what’s the most interesting documentary you’ve ever watched? uhhhhhhh

73. what’s the worst hairstyle you’ve had? again, 90′s. Mushroom cut with a nike check saved in the back HAHAHAHAHA. Oh man, everyone had that way back when.

74. what do you like to cook? most things.

75. what’s the coolest animal you’ve seen in the wild? wild beavers make me happy.

76. what’s the funniest tv show you’ve ever seen? Japanese game shows. nothing is as funny as japanese games shows. Human Tetris for example is fucking hilarious.

77. do you usually follow your heart or your head? Heart. Unfortunately.

78. what is your favorite quote? I’m not sure these days.

79. what’s the weirdest crush you have ever had? I’m not sure..

80. what’s your love language? I dunno. I legit just had to google what they were, and I’m not sure which.

81. do you ever feel alone? Always.

82. ever been bullied? Far too many times.

83. are you usually early or late? Early, thanks anxiety.

84. what kind of art do you enjoy most? these days, written. But I love paintings the most, i think.

85. what do you wish you knew more about? Everything. If I could, I’d go to school and learn everything that interests me even the slightest.

[arkadiaschancellor]

How to fix the Timeless Finale:

Look if they wanted Garcia to die or something, then they should have atleast made it make sense. Like he died/committed suicide because... he didn’t have a future with Lucy? Because... he wanted to look through a window for 5 seconds at his family?

Makes no sense.

If they wanted to kill him, then just kill him. Don’t make him OOC by committing suicide, over a mission that he didn’t even have to do?

Here is how I would fix it (if for some reason I needed to kill Garcia in the finale - maybe like what the “writer” said, they could only get Goran on set for a short while): (BEWARE THIS IS PRETTY LONG)

Have, instead of there only being “symptoms” as a result of traveling to your own time, make it also have a time limit. Maybe you are only allowed, say, 5/10 minutes. That way one can only change something slightly minor and not something completely catastrophic in their own timeline. That is why Future Lucy and Wyatt left very quickly. They had to get in, tell the team what to do (i.e. hand over the notebook), and leave. Have Future Lucy and Wyatt that they can travel back to their own time during their time with the team (maybe take a note from the lovely season 3 writers, here on Tumblr, and maybe the ability to travel to our own time has to be manually imputed on a flash drive and only works twice). I know it seems really convenient, but whatever.

Another fix is why Gacia was the one who made the jump. Perhaps Wyatt was injured, or perhaps they (Lucy and Garcia) were about to send Wyatt back to 2012 when they were attacked by Rittenhouse. Wyatt was knocked out in the fight (good riddance, make him shut up for once) and Lucy and Jiya are struggling. Rittenhouse was making a move on taking the team’s time machine (the one they got from the Future counterparts, I will keep that) and Garcia knew that the only way to save the team and the time machine is to use it himself and get back Rufus. So he gets into the time machine, looks back once more at Lucy (at this point she is captured), they exchange a sad goodbye (both tearful, the only word being spoke is each other's names- similar to when they embraced in 2x10). The machine’s door closes, and Lucy, Wyatt, and Jiya are taken as prisoners.

Cut to 2012.

Garcia quickly takes out the Rittenhouse agent and is twiddling his fingers, anxiously checking his watch. He only has a couple of minutes left. Eventually, Jessica shows up, but he is already running out of time. The fight doesn’t help. It takes a long while to kill her, she puts up a good fight. After loading a couple of bullets into her (just to be sure), he sprints for the ship. But as he approaches, he knows it is already too late. The ship begins to whir, flash its lights, and before he can even reach it, it is gone. He was left behind. He is sad, but he is atleast happy that he did his job. It is then, that he starts to feel symptoms.

Yadda yadda yadda, he visits his family. Sad. BUT, he also does something else before he dies. You know how back in season 1, Wyatt sent that telegram to Jessica from the 60′s? Well, Garcia is going to do the same thing to Lucy. When they arrive back to 2018 and they realize he died, they are sad (sadder in this version, as they did not seem even bothered in the real finale), when Denise comes over to a grieving Lucy and hands her a letter.

This letter is Garcia’s letter. As Lucy read’s it, they can splice in footage of his writing it. Perhaps he is in some dingy hotel (no sad beach) and obviously sick. He writes that he wished he had a chance to work with her one day as she promised, side by side like Bonnie and Clyde. He wishes they could have had that stolen kiss on the Titanic and many more. NO MENTION OF WYATT, JUST NO. He says, that maybe he was right in not believing that they would ever be a couple, as after all, it never came to pass. Maybe before his last line, he is like, who could be with someone who wasn’t a hero? And then he famously ends with “see you on Christmas...” (you know it already). She cries, maybe glances at the journal thinks to open it up. However Wyatt stands in the doorway, he asks if she is okay. Maybe he gets a little redemption and opens up about his wife and how he loved her. They kind of bond over the fact that they both lost someone. (NOT MAKE GARCIA’s DEATH ABOUT LY@TT THOUGH, NO, SIMPLY AS FRIENDS.) Wyatt acknowledges that he hurt her, he chose his wife, and he loved Jessica (he would always love Jessica. No matter what, and he acknowledges that a part of Lucy will always have feelings for Garcia). And he is sorry that his stupidity led to Garcia’s death. Perhaps Lucy doesn’t forgive him just yet, but she says that perhaps sometime they could start over. But before Wyatt can say anything, Rittenhouse has jumped again. 

OKAY, I hated the whole second part of the finale, I didn’t think they should have gone to Korea. Like what was the point of that set? Made no sense. Perhaps they go on another mission but just remove the baby thing. 

ALSO in no way do I think Lucy and Wyatt should be married with kids in the flash forward. I think that at the end of the second mission, it is warranted that they could simply turn to one another (as they are alone in the ship) and say like “Ma’am I am Wyatt Logan” and “Lucy Preston” and shake hands or some shit IDK. But basically, they start their relationship from scratch. She finally forgave him and is ready to be friends again. 

So 5 years later and it is time to go to Brazil. She is simply living her best life, no romantic relationship but perhaps she and Wyatt are a little close. We see her before she leaves for the bunker, hurriedly writing something in a diary before throwing it into her briefcase. She and the gang meet up in the bunker, Wyatt hints at a date later. She smiles. They are pretty casual. Wyatt and Rufus ask if they can join and she says “nope, this is just something I have to do on my own”. She travels to 2014 Garcia, and she rushes her talk a little (remember, she has a time limit). But in the end, she is sad and tells him that “they will work together one day” and “he will get a family” (not being specific whether or not it is his old one or not) and she kisses him on the cheek. What we don’t know is that once she leaves, he opens it and there is a note for him. We don’t clearly see what it says, but he is intrigued. 

Lucy straps herself into the ship, hits the date and coordinates, wipes a few tears and sits back. A montage starts, going over both season 1 and 2. Then, Lucy arrives back in the bunker, she steps out and sees a smiling Wyatt, Rufus, Jiya, Denise, and Mason. She smiles back at them all, but then something catches her eyes. Stepping out from the shadows, behind all of them, is Garcia. He steps in line with the others and smiles up at her. The last shot is of her face, she is happy. Maybe say’s a one-liner, I have no clue. Boom, out. 

I left it kind of ambiguous as to who she gets with. So I guess it would appease both Garcys and Ly@tts. 

Sorry, it is sooo long, I just had to put all my thoughts on the page. 

[alitoowell]

One year—365 days—and still I cannot find the words to do justice to the magnitude of gratitude that I feel, and will forever feel, for the magic that was October 22, 2017.  It’s funny because meeting Taylor was always in my mind as a possibility.  In that people DO meet her, so it’s possible.  But I always viewed it as possible, yet unachievable.  People would meet her, but they wouldn’t be ME.  Simply because the odds were too great of being noticed or picked from a crowd.  So I never planned out how it would go, or where, or what I would say, which left me even more absolutely floored when it happened.  Even a year later my brain cannot quite wrap around the fact that the woman who I’ve looked up to since I was 15, who’s music has been the soundtrack to my life for an entire decade, had me over at her house?  I got to hug her?  Dance with her?  And listen to her entire unreleased album and the stories behind it?  That seems unbelievable.  And it will always seem unbelievable because people. don’t. do. that.  But Taylor does.  My friends have been encouraging me for a whole year straight to type everything out, and I never quite got there.  The task seemed too great, I didn’t know where to start, or what words to choose to capture those memories adequately.  In one of those moments of frustration I realized I actually already had written nearly everything—in the no less than 63 messages I sent to my best friend Shaina less than 24 hours later on October 23, 2017.  Though it’s jumbled and not perfect in any way and contains the misspellings and keyboard smashes and all, here’s my Taylor story, a year later, as told the day after it happened—in message form.

~

I MET TAYLOR SWIFT SHDJEKJDKROF

I CANNOT BELIEVE MY LIFE

I HAVEN’T CRIED YET BUT ITS 4 AM AND I THINK ITS FINALLY HITTINGME

photo of wristband

SHE FUCKING DANCED WITH ME DURING LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO LIKE GRABBED MY HAND AND JAMMED WITH ME AS I WAS SHOUTING THE LYRICS GOODBYEEEEEEE

photo of merch

GOODBYEEEEEEEEE

Shaina: You’re lying

IM NOY IM NOT OH MY FOD OH MY FREAKINF GOD

PARKER THOUGHT I WAS DRUNK OF SOMETHING CUZ I WAS SHOUTING VIA TEXT ASKING IF HE WAS UP HOLT SHIT

Shaina: Ok. Spill. I’m shook.

Okay okay so I’m literally about ready to pass out I haven’t slept well since finding out last week and legit got two hours of afterwards last night, well this morning ahhh

And about to board my flight but I’ll try to type quick

So basically her team DMed me last Tuesday saying they’ve noticed what an amazing fan I am and asked for my information

And people have been making fake TN accounts and sending fake messages to be awful, and I thought it was fake because I never expected to ever be contacted

So I’m like in the gym parking lot thank god I didn’t see it while I was still at work

And I realize it has a blue verified check and that it’s legitimate and the last questions was have you ever met Taylor and I LOSE MY SHIT IM IN HYSTERICS IN THE CAR AND CALL MY MOM AND SHE THINKS I GOT IN AN ACCIDENT

So basically I’m a freaking ass mess because I’m 99% it’s for a secret session since at that point one had happened and we all assumed that there would be more cities, and I was almost positive they would NOT send that message to someone and not follow through and call and tell them SOMETHING

So I can’t sleep I leave my phone on cuz I don’t want to miss a call

It of course doesn’t come til the next day while I’m AT WORK

And they freaking ass knew my twitter and tumblr and asked for all my socials and I now know the people I talked to weren’t asked that so that’s weirddddd

Anyway so sure as hell it’s a ‘very special event’ and it’s all too secret and I can’t tell anyone except a parent for safety

And once I confirm I can get myself to LA she gives some instructions and said final details will be emailed  

And so that was Wednesday and I’m crying at work and their dinner was late lol

And I called my mom and was like this weekend Sunday book flights nowwwww

And then the quick version is for the next two days I was practically puking every day so nervous and the email wasn’t coming and I was like shitttttt

So finally on Friday I straight up call Taylor Nation back and get straight through and say my name and she’s like what’s up?! And she says they’re coming out later that day

And so I flew down Saturday and I rented my very first car and took my first legit solo trip in the name of Taylor freaking swift honestly I’m not surprised

And bless Briana’s fam’s heart they were out of town but let me stay in their guest apartment while they were away with no explanation so that was very nice and less stress for me

And then I had to sit from 3:30 Saturday until 5:15 Sunday in LA by myself unable to tell anyone and it was wilddddddd

Like I was like sweeeeeet I can get caught up in my journal!!!  Noooo I deadass sat there and felt like I was dying and about threw up hourly like how the freaking hell do you just casually chill when you know your damn outlandish never thought it would occur dream is about to happen and not only that but like on a times 100 scale?!?!

So basically I went to her damn house and we hung out by the pool and ate food and the weirdest part is I’ve been unable to eat and have been panicking all week but the second I got to the first check point and to her house even more I was just like chillllll like ayeeeee this is gonna be fun omg I’m so hungry and let’s eat all this food

And so basically it’s a listening session for the new album and we obviously can’t say anything about it or what she said about it besides like probs that it’s AWESOME OUTSTANDING IS GONNA SLAY THE WORLD AND SHES SO LROUD OF IT AND MY BABY DID THAT AND IM REAL PROUD

Okay okay but she like explained each song in-depth and was the cutest cupcake singing along fully jamming to everything and like looking at everyone the entire time and locking eyes as she’s singing ya feel

My flight is about to leave but I will continue later!!!!!

Shaina: This is insane I can’t believe it I’m beyond stoked for you safe travels and talk soon

Okay we not leaving quite yet sooooo I’m missing parts. So we are told we’re gonna go inside and sit down and I book it fast to get a spot on the ground like only two people sitting in front of me and there’s a red plush chair not even 10 feet away that she’ll obviously be sitting in and we’re all like sjedjekkdir

And I was wondering who all I would know there right!?? And was bummed there’s one girl I talk to frequently who loves Shawn Mendes and we know each other cuz she saw my Shawn poster on twitter and she’s from LA but I hadn’t seen her

And then someone pokes me and is like ALIIIIIIII AND ITS HER AND WE FLIP AND SXREAM SO LOUD THE WHOLE ROOM THOUGHT IT WAS TAY AND WAS PISSSSSSED AND SHUSHING US AND SOMEONES LIKE THEY KNOW EACH OTHER!!!!! HAHAHAHA

Shaina: This just keeps getting better and better. How did you keep this a secret?!?!?!?

Shaina: How many people were there

AND SO ANYWAY WE ALL THOUGHT TAYLOR WAS GONNA COME IN FROM THE FRONT AND SIT RIGHT DOWN??? AND ON THE BUS SOMEONE WAS LIKE YOOOOO WHAT IF SINCE TONIGHT IT’S IN LA SHE BRINGS FRIENDS????? AND SO SHE OF COURSE INSTEAD COMES FROM THE BACL AND THE DAMN ROOM EXPLODES AND SHE LOOKS LIKE A DAMN GODWESS AND SHE’S LIKE HIIIIIIIII AND GRINNING AND ALSO COMES IN JACK ANTANOF (SPELLING IDK IM CURRENTLY OFFLINE SO I CANT CHECK), TWO OF THE HAIM GIRLS, AND RUBY ROSE AND THE ROOM IS LIKE SHATTERING

AND SO SINCE SHE IN THE BACK SHE STARTS MAKING HER WAY THROUGHHHHHH US AND IS GRABBING PEOPLE AND PEOPLE ARE STANDING UP AND HUGGING HER AND HOLY CRAP

Okay lololol shoot I just woke up and didn’t realize the rest of this story was notttt in constant caps like I’ve been using all day my bad my bad

And so she’s playing the songs in order off the album and I think it’s okay to say that her and jack are losing their minds because they’ve never gotten to experience our reaction to new stuff they’ve worked on when they’re together, and definitely not together and in person, so she kept being like this is so cool for us you have no idea and he’s in the back confirming lololol

And so anyway she gets to Look What You Made me Do and she’s like soooo how do we want to do this??? Do we want to keep sitting do we want to dance…??? And we’re all like DANCEEEEEE SHDHIEOKRKR and shes like okayyyy we’re dancing and Shaina this is deadass like straight out of a dream.  Actually wait no I couldn’t have imagined this, but she starts and I was anticipating part of this but not the whole thing…

So she obviously doesn’t just have us bopping along and staying and dancing on her own up front… she starts making her way into our basically tiny crowd and we’re so packed together that she’s grabbing people’s hands so she doesn’t fall as she goes. And she’s stopping and dancing with people and stops and stays dancing like staring at one guy and he’s going for it and not afraid and singing the lyrics dramatically right back to her….

And then she makes her way towards and wait for it

GRABS MY DAMN HAND AS SHE’S TRYING TO GET FARTHER INTO THE MIDDLE AND I’M LIKE OKAY OKAY JUST CHILL SHE JUST GRABBED MY HAND NO BIGGIE AND IM LIKE SHES GONNA KEEP WALKING LIKE THAT WAS MY MOMENT RIGBT?!?!

NOOOOOOOOOOO SHE STOPS THERE ONCE SHES BY ME AND IS DANCING WITH THE PEOPLE THAT ARE AROUND HER BUT HER BACK IS TO ME AT THIS POINT BUT IM STILL LIKE HOLY SHIT WHAT IS LIFE AND THEN SHE FREAKING ASS TURNS THE HELL AROUND AND IS DANCING! WITH! ME! LIKE! SHES! LOOKING! AT! ME! AND IM LIKE JAMMING OF COURSE AND SCREAMING THE LYRICS AND I LITERALLT DIED AND WENT TO HEAVEN

And then Vanessa (my Shawn buddy) at this point has scooted up to me cuz everyone’s shifted and the people around me are like dude holy shit SHE DANCED WITH YOUUUUU

BYEEEEEEEEEEEE

Okay okay so after the whole album was played she gave us like the lowdown on the meet and greet portion and she passed out the target exclusive magazines for us to see while we waited and talked a bit about the making of them and why and things and she’s really pumped about them and they worked really hard to have them be affordable as possible and cut down the pages and things

And meanwhile like the whole night she’s so close that people would make comments and she’d hear and respond and it was so cute and amazing

Also I don’t think I’ve mentioned her outfit yet???  She’s been looking bomb at all of the other sessions and holy helllll she looked bomb like damnnnnnnnn she had on a black crop top and these high waisted and slightly folded down camouflage pants and these black boots and her hairrrrrrr this era is like natural curls and soooo damn cute

Okay okay so anyway we thought it was a greattttt idea to wait towards the end so we could stay longer and not go first and be done and sent home… yeah well it ended up being a not great idea because we ended up waiting two hours but I’m obviously not complaining one freaking bit

And she’s doing pictures in the other room so we can’t really see much for most of it but every so often we can see people talking to her and taking photos and it’s so cute it’d melt your hearttttttt

And so those of us that have bonded together at this point are like um shoooooot what pose and what the hell do I say to her??????? Like all week to my parents I was like ummmmm soooooo I’ve imagined this happening but like never thought it’d actually happen so unlike some people I had nottttt planned like a monologue of what I’d want her to know if I ever met her???? Like with Vance I was lost too but with my posters it was easier and I’ve seen him recently and yada yada but this is TAYLOR FREAKING SWIFT WHO IVE LOVED WITH MY WHOLE DAMN HEART SINCE I WAS FIFTEEN AND SHIT IM TEARING UP ON THE PLANE WHAT THE HELL DO YOU SAY TO HER WHAT DO YOU WANT HER TO KNOW YOU’VE GOT LIKE TWO MINUTES WITH HER GOOOOO

And so we were all really curious if she’d somehow recognize us because people have been saying that they walk in and she shouted their name! And I’m like idk if that’s gonna happen but might as well see if not just ask if she’s seen anything idk idk???

So okay buckle up for like the greatest time of my entire damn life

So I walk in and hug herrrrrrrrrrrrr

And I wish to god I can remember everything she said but I was focusing so hard on keeping it together and saying my bit that I know for sure what I said and can put together mostly something the general sentiment of what she said if not it exactly. So we’re huggingggg and I say I think hiiiii it’s so nice to finally meet you thank you for having me I’m so excited to be here or something and she’s like awww thank you for coming!! And I’m like I have to know how did we all get picked, was it by you or your team or how did it happen?? And I don’t know what the first part of her answer was but she says so the people from LA have been picked for about a year, and the people from elsewhere (I’m guessing with exceptions) have been picked more recently like within the past few months so like now I know it has nothingggg to do with whatever we’ve been doing online recently…. It’s from at least when she first came back if not before and they realized we were active while she was away….

And so I’m like okay ali say something else so I’m like so I really like making concert posters and the first ones I ever made were for you and shes like aw thank you!! And I’m like I realized other people were making posters and I’d been a RA and I was like hey I can make some really bomb posters tooooo. And so I’m like the fist ones said ‘Taylor someday we’ll meet you even if it’s just in our wildest dreams’ and she grabs me and is like AND NOW WE’RE MAKING IT HAPPEN!!! And so I say after I got the phone call I was in my car listening to Ready For It and started bawling when she sings ‘in my dreams, I know I’m gonna be with you’ cuz I knew it was actually happening and shes like awwwwwww or something you get the idea

And so then I straight up start talking about my dad???

I’m like so my dad loves you and she’s like omg and I’m like no he adoresss youuu and is so sad he couldn’t come and she’s like awww tell him hi!!! And I’m like he loves your Out of the Woods piano Grammy performance and I say how I’d found him listening to it repeatedly and he wanted it on his phone. And she’s like he sounds amazing! And I’m like he is he’s awesome lol and I’m like actually and so him and I went and saw you at F1 last year and of course I’m like and I made signs for there too and so I describe them IN DETAIL like what they said, I realized later I told her I was from Oregon, because I said they were the states and the dotted line and the paper airplane and I think she really liked that??? And as if that all isn’t already insane enough at some point in there I mentioned how this month has been insane and how I’d met Vance Joy and it was my birthday and now this and she said something excitedly about that like ahhh so much excitement or idk something about it. And so she’s like so what pose would you like to do? And I’m like I’ve really been going back and forth between just hugging or doing something sort of funny (low key said that hoping she’d be like girl let’s do both but lololol it’s okay) so she’s like it’s completely up to you!! And I’m like um um okay let’s just hug so she grabs me and we take the freaking photo and ahhhhhhhh

And so Vanessa and I had it planned out and she had me go first and at this point I was like would it be okay if my friend and I got a photo with you together and she’s like of course!! So V comes in and hugs her and we take one photo together and she squeezes us together tight and then I hug her one last time and thank her and say I love you so much (lol I had to throw it in other people forgot it and have been upset) and then I walk out and they hand me my merch bag and are directing me to the bus but I’m like can I wait for my friend and they’re like sure. So she comes out and she’s like SHE KNEW MY NAME SHSJEKOFN and she’s like yelling and I’m like shut up and I grab her and I’m like shhh shhhhh hahahaha and so we walk to the bus and it’s the funniest thing cuz they’re just waiting for it to be full so anytime someone new walks on everyone’s like SPILLLLLLLLL

And then once it was full we went back got our things, exchanged details with people on that bus and took photos and whatnot and turned our phones on to the madness anddddddd so well thats the story of the best damn day of my life

~

Taylor, thank you thank you thank for giving me such incredible memories that I’ve blown up the phones of every person I know, and have talked every person’s ears off that I’ve met during these past 365 days, about how special they are to me.  Thank you for making it happen, thank you for holding my gaze so intently and being so genuine every second I was talking to you, thank you for bringing me some of the best friends I’ve ever had, thank you for being so prominent in the highlights of not only this past year, but this past decade.  I love you forever, babe.  Long, long live October 22, 2017.

[jackednephi]

Hello! Apologies for sending in an ask so late. I just wanted to reach out because I'm not in such a great place right now. I was wondering, if you found out about your being queer at a fairly young age, how you managed to stay in the closet?? (And, you know, remaining alright, mentally) my parents are extremely homophobic, and it's tearing me apart, especially because I really care about them. Any advice would be great, even if it's not much. Best of luck in everything, and thank you so much ♥️

so tumblr doesn’t always let me know when i have messages >(

that said, i’ll do my best to respond but like it’s going to be long and convoluted so imma include a cut to save dash space. PLEASE KEEP IN MIND i am polyamorous, agender/trans, pansexual, and demiromantic. so like there are various facets of my queerness and they all played into my life differently

feel free to skip close to the end for like “how to stealth” if you don’t have the spoons for like a 20 page autobiography with annotated bibliography

so finding out about being queer is a question that has both a yes and a no answer. it’s more like i was experiencing queerness but didn’t have words for it, then repressed it, then dealt with it. so it’s less “i knew ever since i could form words to describe it” and more my journey was in no way linear

see when i was little, like really little yknow when you start getting your first crushes right around prek and stuff, i had all kinds of crushes. i had crushes on multiple people at once and this has continued straight into adulthood. so, like, sign one of being poly. my friends would have one person they would hardcore crush on whereas i was crushing on people around me, characters in fiction, just like so many people. i remember listing crushes in my journals every now and then and i’d have lists of upwards and over like 20. :/ so i am in no way surprised i’m poly

so far as my sexuality, i didn’t realize i was feeling for certain female friends what i was feeling for boys. partly because i’d be like “oh i want to hold his hand” and because i saw m/f couples holding hands all the time i was like ah! yes! obviously romantic! but i never saw any f/f relationships so i didn’t make the connection that the hand holding wasn’t a friend feeling. i had INTENSE crushes on girls too, just as intense as on boys. but i was used to the media portraying rival nonsense like hannah montana and whatnot so i was like “oh. this is my situation”

there was also a lot of repressing going on because i just didn’t see that reflected around me from media to adults. all i saw were m/f relationships. i knew gay people existed but i thought they were all gay men. when i was somewhere around like 10 or so, give or take, i realized i was crushing on my best friend at the time (a girl) and was like “no. absolutely not” shoved that as far back as possible and ignored it

my demiromanticism is more born of trauma than me being born that way and that’s ok. one of my close friends found out about one of my crushes in the second grade and i was RELENTLESSLY bullied for it. every time i got a crush on somebody, i would end up HARDCORE bullied or they would get weird and things would be awful. i also had boys shove their crushes onto me and not take no for an answer. like i’d have my bra snapped painfully, bugs shoved down my shirt, my stuff vandalized, hair pulled just because i wasn’t interested

like when i was 12, somebody started a rumor that i was pregnant :/ and that’s not even covering my abusive ex or the sexual assaults so like everything kind of came together for that

then there’s my gender. which is its own bucket of worms and kind of played in with my sexuality in certain ways

my parents are boomers, born in 50 and 58. “but vann,” you say, confused “you were born at the end of 94″ and you are correct! i inherited pcos from my mother so i’ll let you put 2 and 3 together as to why i was born in 94 and my brother in 96. i say that because, unlike their peers, they raised my brothers and i radically different from the accepted cultural norms

if i wanted to wear baggy shorts, that was cool. pretty dresses? whatever. same (kind of) went for my brothers. if they wanted to spend a lot of time on their appearance, that was fine and not shamed at all. in fact, it was encouraged because it made them feel good. i played with army men, barbie dolls, cars, a train set, tools, swords, sports stuff, had tea parties with stuffed animals, drew and crafted, etc etc. my younger brother played house with me (and often suggested it himself) and would play with my baby dolls. like had my younger brother wanted a doll, they would’ve gotten it for him. but i had them so he didn’t bother asking for one cause he could borrow mine

so like there was no gender segregation of toys or activities. and that sounds kind of like the bare minimum of parenting but you have to remember that both of my parents grew up in the rural south as boomers. gender roles were violently enforced for them. but they didn’t think about enforcing them for us so far as play and, to a certain extent, dress/grooming was concerned. this created a safe environment for us to be our true selves

so for a very long time, i was comfy saying i was a girl. i played basketball after school and then afterwards would find my prettiest dress and watch scooby doo. gender expression was fast and loose in my house

i contribute that a lot to the fact that my father was too disabled to work. even before then, he had been a nurse and a damn good one. my father has ALWAYS been the go to for when we were sick, injured, etc. my mother had this disconnect with how much concern to show. it was either too much or not enough and was pretty much never helpful. even after retiring, when my nephews came around he was the go to caretaker for them. even now at 70, he frequently goes back to where the children are during family gatherings and keeps watch. much like a mother hen

so he stayed home and did the cleaning and other “wifely” duties. not cooking though because his brain just cannot. my mother worked as a high school teacher so typical roles were entirely reversed. when i was tiny and wanted nothing more than to be a parent? you go, sweetie! when i was older and wanted to be a scientist? achieve your dreams, kiddo! like they were very supportive of my goals no matter what they were

so i just??? didn’t realize????? until i hit puberty somewhere around 9

talk about body dysphoria. i went from looking like my brother and every other kid my age to wow ok there’s hair now??? and my face is all weird???? and oh no why does my tummy feel funny?????????? (sexual arousal was a TRIP to discover as a third grader that i would not wish on any child ever) oh my god WHAT IS ON MY CHEST!? and grown men are hitting on me now??? oh no i’m in fourth grade and bleeding!?

it was not a fun time by a long shot. i started wearing the baggiest tshirts i could possibly find. anything to hide my freakish body, really. so many hoodies. i would swing wildly between hyper feminine expression with tight clothes and heels and hiding everything as much as possible. part of me was smug about being ahead of my peers, for adults to be treating me as more than a kid. but a LOT of me felt like a freak

maturing (mentally) into an adult was a wild experience. i was 13 and looked like i was 21 except for my face. i did everything possible to find comfort with myself from goth/emo expression ro masculine stuff people threw “dyke” at me for and then finally, weaponized femininity. tight tops, tight pants, shortest skirts i could get away with, eyeliner so sharp it could cut god, heels as often as i could including uniform days, perfect hair. i made myself look like a hot, unapproachable goddess

finally, people were too intimidated to approach me and comment on my appearance. i wore makeup like a mask and people who had known me for YEARS were surprised to find out just how big my chest really was. but i walked with murder in my eyes and i was finally treated the same was i was before puberty - completely unapproachable

ALL THAT IN MIND, here’s how i figured my shit out

i was on facebook seeing “gay, straight, black or white, marriage is a civil right” and being typically “it’s a sacred ordinance shyaddap” about it. i ended up on tumblr about idk 15 or so? note, i’d already discovered porn by this time so i was aware that lesbians existed. like just to throw that out there that i wasn’t like totally in the dark when i made my tumblr account. i did it for school to blog about shakespeare for an english assignment. and that’s when my world expanded

bisexual? wow ok! that was a thing! and oh. oh no

there were pretty girls

and pretty boys and pretty people whose gender i had no idea. cosplayers cosplaying as the opposite gender, trans people, and a whole rainbow of people i was suddenly finding attractive. and i had a HARDCORE identity crisis

i liked girls? but was it the same as boys? was i bisexual? that didn’t seem to fit. there was more than two genders right? and trans people existed? bi? was i bi? bi?

bi. probably

but it didn’t feel comfortable like at all. but i discovered a fanfic writer who talked about being pansexual and i looked it up and everything just clicked?? into place????

not to be overdramatic or anything but it was like the stars finally aligned. it felt SO good! so many genders! and it meant all and aliens are a thing, right? who was i to say no to the possibility? but, more than anything, it felt comfortable. like a hug from my grandma. like home

i wanted to scream from the rooftops that i’d figured it out! i found myself! pansexual! I WAS PANSEXUAL! THAT WAS ME! HOME!

and then the reality of living in our society crashed down on me. i continued to talk about the guys i liked around my family but never EVER the girls. i hid my relationship with the person who eventually became my wife. to be fair, i’d hidden all my relationships prior cause i was an IDIOT and had been dating before 16. so that wasn’t hard. but what was was the breakup

previously, i’d been like “you remember that guy i like? he’s a jerk” or some other excuse to cry to my mother. but i couldn’t about cake. so i cried to my bff/twin/sister like i had everything else and moved on. and i just kind of shut up about it to everybody except those closest to me

except that hurt. here i was knowing i was queer and happy about it but people were being homophobic. i don’t know how often i cried myself to sleep after hearing about “those dirty f*gs” cause of the marriage thing. i ended up quietly coming out to my favorite teacher and she dismissed it as trauma response to my then recent sexual assault. she had seemed safe but that was her reaction so i shut up about it

up until, ironically, coming out day october 2011 just before turning 17 that next month. my mother and i were at chilis, she was being homophobic, and i screamed for the whole restaurant to hear that i was queer and the whole base found out. hard to stay closeted after that

i was pretty much out until college when i started going to church in a new place. i just didn’t talk about my sexuality. ever. period. and it was “easy” because i was dating guys. and pretty sure i was a cis woman. so i was stealth passing. and that was ok with me because i was out on campus, vocally and unapologetically

in high school, i dated a trans guy. he introduced me like in a personal way to transness, to binding. i knew i wasn’t a man but it intrigued me. and in college where nobody knew me, nobody knew me as femme fatale black widow i had a chance to explore my gender. i discovered that loose tshirts made me feel really good. as did other comfy things like shorts and sweats. sometimes i wanted to look fancy or felt like wearing a dress. really, i kind of reverted back to who i was in childhood

i felt weird when i heard my birth name. i’d gone by a nickname for so long, i just chopped off the y (vanny) to vann so it sounded more adult. it felt good. so i identified, tentatively, as nonbinary. it was around this time the trans dude i dated and i fell out with each other because he thought me playing around with my gender was like mocking his transness. or something. idk dude was toxic trash

so i wasn’t male or female then? nah that didn’t feel right. i wasn’t some third androgynous gender. but sometimes binding and passing as a man felt good and sometimes passing as a woman felt good. genderfluid then? was i a man who liked to wear dresses? no. didn’t feel right. made me uncomfortable

eventually, things clicked for me with agender the way they had with pansexual the fall of my third year of undergrad. stars aligned, the universe smiled upon me, and i was THRILLED. like gender euphoria is REAL and never before had i felt so comfortable in my own skin. i remember literally weeping with joy. like i’d been going with they/them/their for a couple years at that point

i came out to my parents about that one pretty shortly after realizing it because i was OVERJOYED. they’d been working on calling me vann for awhile at that point and the pronouns. i’ve since learned that so long as soebody has my name, 90% of the time i legit do not care what pronouns somebody uses. im aware that people perceive me differently and it’s fine. i mean neutral pronouns fill me with euphoria but like it’s fine. so long as somebody doesn’t mistake me for cis

my parents are like so great about it now. they correct people who deadname me (except my grandma cause she’s like 85 and i gave her permission years ago) and my mother straight cut contact with family members who refuse to respect me. except my brothers but like she makes it clear whenever they’re going to be awful that she WILL NOT tolerate it. like they don’t dare trash me in front of our father. he’s old now but he will backhand one of my brothers for that and they know it. so they try it with our mom and she’s like “try it again and you won’t hear from me until you apologize for trashing your sister”

i realized i was poly when cake came back into my life. that was a serious mess involving their abusive ex girlfriend but we clicked and it ended up working so yknow. that was my easiest coming out actually. my parents were like “yknow, you always seemed to love people when you were a kid. and you had SO many crushes. makes sense” which was awesome. it was the most difficult emotionally but  the easiest because i’d already come out twice before so it was whatever

the demi thing was discovered in therapy. and like it doesn’t have much in the way of impact like the other things do. so i never really came out about that? there wasn’t really a point? like i talk about it when it comes up but it’s just whatever. i honestly have no idea if i ever told my family?????

WITH THAT NONSENSE IN MIND, HERE’S HOW TO STEALTH AND BE OK MENTALLY

you said homophobic so im gonna assume you’re not straight. no idea about gender and, honestly, so far as gender goes i’ve seen it’s safer to lean into masculinity than it is femininity. so if you’re amab, i don’t really have tips or tricks for that as i’m afab. with being afab, lean into the tomboy aesthetic so you seem acceptably (safely) your assigned gender. i recommend fun lipstick and nail polish colors. sparkly nails did wonders for me honestly

but for like not straightness. that’s a tightrope that is but a gossamer thread to balance. like there are ways to stealth gender expression and feel affirmed but queerness is a different animal or it was for me

so i had AT LEAST one space in my life where i was 100%, unapologetically, loudly out. like i’m here, i’m queer and flying my rainbow flag and not at all sorry about it OUT. for awhile, it was just my very closest friends in the whole world. then it was tumblr. then i made a facebook for people irl i could trust. 0 family and 0 people who couldn’t be chill about it

like having a carved space for you to just be the authentic you, whatever that is. for me, that’s all this queer mess, the polycule that is my family, my faith, my absolutely foul mouth, my mental illnesses, my love of good coffee or a glass of wine every now and then as a rare treat, the good and the bad the ugly and the uncategorizable all together. the struggle with the word of wisdom AND the love of my spouses. all of that

it’s affirming to have this space where you’re yourself and people accept you for who you are rather than what gets your engine revving. but you’ve also got to try and stealth that into wherever you can. you want a dyke spike? go for it and say it’s a pixie cut. plaids are in right now which is a lowkey signal to other queers you’re a queer too no matter your gender. just depends on what shoe you pair it with and other queers will take notice while non queers will just think you’re trendy

it was also fun for me to get that pan flag aesthetic wherever i could. like blue/pink galaxy type eyeshadow that wasn’t too peacock flashy so it looked Hot without being Obvious and a pink lipstick and yellow nails. like it was subtle but i knew what was going on and it felt good. i did the same with rainbows but i had more to work with there. like i’d have an inconspicuous notebook where i’d paint/paste a rainbow on the inside cover so that it was Normal from the outside and BAM! GAY! on the inside. did that with highlighting my notes too

i just kind of stuck it everywhere i could possibly get away with. people were excited to see me go from emo to bring colors becuase “oh wow! you’re finally not sad!” lol no i’m just stealth queer over here

i also wrote SO MUCH queer fanfiction. i didn’t publish any of it just in case but i have notebooks full of stuff. i also rped with people as a way to live vicariously through characters. i also READ a lot of queer fanfiction actually. i saved all kinds of fanart and photo manipulations of certain pairings together. like i couldn’t be out so i could have fiction where others were

i also poured myself into hobbies. i fenced, did karate, learned japanese, participated in drama club, played in a band, took piano lessons, taught myself to draw, journaled, learned to cook, read amazing books, played video games, learned to sing. like i’m sure there are other things i’m forgetting? basically, if it was EVER covered in a young women’s activity pretty much anywhere in the world, i learned at least those basic skills. like i can embroider now even

so like that’s how i stealthed and stayed sane. i was also in therapy where i was out to whatever therapist i was seeing at the time which ABSOLUTELY helped. i also made like queer playlists i would listen to. like same love, i kissed a girl, born this way, etc that i would listen to when i needed to just sink into it. music in general is super cathartic and i’ve gotta say green day, acdc, evanescence, bon jovi, etc got me through some tough shit

i also yelled at god. i yelled at god a LOT actually. like i know we get told “pray for comfort” but sometimes you need to bawl your eyes out and just SCREAM at the almighty. dude can take it. he’s god after all. he can handle our anger. it isn’t disrespectful. like if you ever do cross a line, he’ll let you know. like your thoughts will hard stop. you’ll know

but empty your lungs screaming in pain. let him know it isn’t fair, you’re not happy. beg for relief from the nightmares you’re living. demand to know if or when it’ll ever get better. burn yourself out yelling and crying and fall asleep drenched in tears. then wake up the next day and live your life and you know what?

you’ll feel better. maybe not a lot sometimes and maybe everything is cool for once in forever. but it definitely helped me a lot. like dude listens and you WILL feel better even if the things around you dont get better. you get some strength to get through and be ok and it’s super helpful

but that’s what i got. also bear in mind that i came out to thousands of people by yelling at my mother in a restaurant when all the ships were in because everybody in said restaurant texted everybody they knew and my texts were flooded in like an hour of “DON’T TELL ME YOU CAME OUT TO YOUR MOM LIKE THAT OMG” and “you’re queer!?” so like

i’m not the best when it comes to stealth queering so take my advice with a grain of salt

[lifewithlala]

How I survived academical suicide

(or I did 2 semesters in 1. Twice. It was hell. pt 2)

As I said in my previous article, I took probably one of the worst choices a student could take: I did 2 semesters at the same time. Twice. If you wanna check why on earth I did that and how it went, you can check that here.

The first semester was the hardest. I had to look for a way to accomplish everything and somehow, I managed. However, the second time I did it, I prepared myself for my inevitable future. Thankfully, it went smoother than I thought. This is how I did it.

Plan ahead

Before starting the second time, I had about a month of vacations. That was the key to my success. I got and read all the syllabus I had for the next semester. I would mark down which ones had regular tests, presentations, essays or research. Presentations, essays and research are usually explained in the syllabus, unlike the theory which is mostly from the books. This way I could see which subjects required the most attention of me beforehand. Usually, this is how I did it:

Brainstorm presentations. Can you choose what you are going to talk about or is it a fixed subject? Can you make a plan on the topics you want to talk about the subject? What can you say there? Why is it relevant? Is there any research that supports what you are going to say?

Look for information about the essays and research. When it comes down to these 2, it is absolutely important to know a little in advance. For occasions like these, I love using Evernote's web clipper. You can neatly organise all the web clips in different formats such as an article, full page, screenshot, bookmark or save an entire pdf. The more you have there the better and more useful Evernote will be. And you can always come back to them easily. I'm not exaggerating, Evernote helped a ton! Here's a link if you're interested in using it:

https://evernote.com/products/webclipper

Look for summaries!! This is probably my number 1 tip. Downloading a summary can make your life so. much. easier. If you're too lazy to read the book before a lecture, try reading the summary so you still get the idea. Most of my professors give classes at the speed of light and it's in the lectures where I saw the power of having a summary at hand. Sometimes I would get lost, searching for what my professors were talking about in the books. A good summary only discusses the highlights, what is most important and most professors do just that. Some books come with a summary already, so try following the lectures with its help. If you still would like a little more detail, you can search online for more. I use the following websites:

https://www.studeersnel.nl/

https://www.stuvia.nl/

If you live in the Netherlands or are studying in Dutch, you can check those websites. For some documents you have to pay for premium but if you upload one of your documents you get 2 weeks free premium. I've never paid and I've always been able to download all the summaries I needed.

If you get classes in English, you can check out these sites (although idk how effective they are):

https://www.studocu.com/

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/

When classes start, then you can plan more specifically. Sometimes the schedule changes, some professors change some deadlines, anything can happen. So it's important to have a little agenda or bullet journal to keep track of the daily tasks you must do in order to get shit done.

Stick to your method of studying.

I love experimenting with new study methods but when you have so little time, I recommend to keep the experimenting at a minimum. I stuck to what worked best for me at that time with some tweaks here and there. If you completely change your study habits and fail completely, then you can't make up for the lost time. So I decided to be better safe than sorry. This is how I study best. 

Share with others.

Even though I tried my best to keep up with everything, there were times I simply overlooked something. In times like these, it is good to have a classmate that can help you with this. Now, I didn't want to be the sort of classmate that only talked to others when I needed something. So when I ask my classmates for something that I don't have, I make sure that I can give them something in return. Just like me, they are likely to have overlooked something else. So I try to figure it out by asking questions such as "Hey, have you start learning X?" or "Do you have all the answers for Y?" It's a very simple way to start a conversation and figure out what they need. And that's basically how I started to befriend others at college and now we are good friends. My others classmates ask me for help regularly and are very thankful. We even organise mini classes so I can explain certain subjects to them. I don't mind because I'm practising the stuff at the same time too and my classmates ask a lot of questions so they also make me think. Professors are also likely to see how responsible you are, and that's also part of the reason I became a TA, even though I'm still at Bachelors. (I don't give classes tho).

Find out when you are the most productive.

I really needed to use my time mindfully and effectively, so I worked when I was the most productive. Which was at 03.00 AM. It sounds crazy but for a college student pulling out an almost impossible feat for most people, it isn't. Where there's a will, there's a way. I'm not telling you to do the same because I don't want you to fall asleep on classes or somewhere else. Maybe you're a night owl. Which is fine. Work at midnight! Just make sure what you're doing is productive!

I realised after doing all of this I had more time than the first time I tried to do it. It was also a lot more manageable for me and I got used to it. It taught me to be more disciplined and to learn smarter and a lot of opportunities came my way. I was offered internships, I was able to work as a TA, and I am very glad that I am at the top of my class. If I hadn't work my ass off I wouldn't be able to have accomplished any of this, so I am happy that I went through all that hardship.

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Shirou.