#wow you remind me of my friend :)

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

so many three-quarters of one moon ago, @asexualbookbird tagged me to do the "random things in your room" poll, and i have FINALLY gotten my ducks linear enough to participate! therefore, without further ado:

tagging: @alloreli, @six-of-ravens, @e-b-reads, and anyone else who wants to play!!

[westywallowing]

it has always baffled me that ASL isn't taught as a second language in American schooling. or as a requirement for certain jobs that work with, well, people. the HLAA says that around 48 million Americans have hearing loss!! 1 in 5 teenagers!! 1 in 3 people over the age of 60!!! it's crazy to me that sign isn't more widely taught and used considering that you probably DO or WILL know someone who has hearing loss at some point in their life

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

The whole discourse about the privacy/secrecy/support thing has been sitting with me for a few days (I mean other than it always does to a certain degree) thanks to all the excellent discussion happening and I know I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said a million times before, but I think what we're seeing and what we're going to learn (e.g. from TTPD) is that it wasn't just the support issue, but how it was shown/handled.

We've all gone out of our way to show that introversion =/= lack of support. Someone can be shy, reserved, etc. and still show up for their partner, whether in public or at home. To chalk any of the differences up to the clash between introversion and extroversion is unfair to folks who count themselves among either tbh.

@thisisctrying said something the other day that hit the nail on the head about how if that support had been offered in private, there very well may not have been a Joever to begin with, or at least not at this point in time. (Sorry for loosely paraphrasing, and for namedropping you! Long time listener, first time poster.)

If this were a case where the "shy" partner said, "I am really uncomfortable with the spotlight personally and do not want to court it, but I will support you in your ambitions and offer you whatever you need to make them happen and make the glare bearable," I suspect that would have gone a long way to making Taylor feel seen and comfortable in pursuing her goals in the way that she now has. Again, that might have been more akin to the balance that seemed to have been struck around 2019 from what we can see, but even speaking in a general sense, there are lots of couples out there, celebrity or not, that have similar approaches where there are highly driven people and busy careers involved.

(A famous example being Dolly Parton's marriage. Tbh I know next to nothing about her and Carl, but she's always heralded as an example in this regard, because her husband is famously uncomfortable with the spotlight and hasn't accompanied her to public events in decades, but she's said that she never minded that because that was always work to her, and what was important was that he supported her in pursuing all her career goals and basically ensured she had a place to call home to return to at the end of the day.)

We're kind of in a brave new world with her current relationship because it felt like, at least at the start, we were maybe watching her figure out her boundaries in real time as to what she was comfortable with or not and adjust accordingly. Like so many have said, I fully believe the extreme privacy thing was initially driven by herself and her experiences in 2016, and she needed that quiet time to recover from all of the things and figure out how to exist in the world again.

Stating the obvious, it seemed like eventually privacy was equated with secrecy, turning the relationship and the celebrity into the elephant in the room and something to never be spoken of to the outside world. People are free to choose whatever works best for themselves and their relationships, and for some the separate public lives might work, but the “kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath” theme is all over her work and it’s clear that it’s a sore spot for her, because she’s been made to feel shame just for the life she leads so many times in the past.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s pretty obvious something Not Great was happening behind the scenes, which didn’t just amount to “she wanted to be a public celebrity and he wanted to be a private hermit.” (Also, in case anyone forgot, this is a person who also chose a public-facing career who also has to engage in press for it, but I digress.) As her career reached new heights post-folklore, if she had the support at home to do all the things without judgment and with encouragement, and in turn offer the same support to her partner, she may have very well lived just fine with that, not unlike Dolly Parton’s case.

By reading between the lines in all the press since, as well as comments on tour and general ~vibes~ with TTPD teasers, it seems like one of the issues was that that was likely not the case. There was all the stuff that we saw — the reticence to acknowledge each other in the media (particularly on one side), the lack of public support even at events at which they were both in attendance for their respective jobs, the great lengths they went to not to be photographed together at events they attended yet no problem taking pictures with other friends and coworkers, the jobs that separated them, the withdrawing from the public even for work accomplishments, etc. Which could all be manageable if a couple chooses to do so together and are not inherently a sign of trouble in themselves.

But what we’re seeing now I think is a reflection of the things we weren’t seeing then, and it seems to indicate some very deep hurt. (I know, call me Captain Obvious.) And like so many have been saying, it feels likely that that part of that hurt is rooted in that very lack of private support where a person would expect it from their partner. Obviously as a Taylor fan blog I’m going to be more inclined to understand her side of a story, but tbh, it’s also because… this is sooooooo common, and something I’ve experienced in my friend group. (@taylortruther is right when she says most breakups are the same one way or another lol.)

One partner is resentful of the other’s success, or resentful that the other’s priorities begin to evolve as new experiences unlock new goals, or feels the other’s ambitions are not worthy of pursuit, and coupled with perhaps their own struggles in the same domain, it’s easy to see where that can chip away at the other partner’s morale and faith in the relationship. I know I’m just speculating here, but I also don’t think it’s totally unfounded. (Again, because a) I’m picking up what she’s putting down and b) it happens to sooooooo many women even among us dull normals.)

With all the pointed mentions about how much Taylor feels supported in her current relationship and how she in turn loves to offer the same show of support to not only her partner but other loved ones, how she’s stepped out more in the last year to a whole host of events, how she’s mentioned feeling like she locked herself away for years and she’s just proud of her partner and happy she can show up for him even if the chaos around it is unsettling, it paints a picture of what perhaps was happening before last year.

To feel like you’re all alone in carrying the weight of the relationship (or burden of it), of twisting yourself into knots to accommodate the other person’s boundaries (or insecurities) but not feeling reciprocity for your own has to be so painful. (The idea that it may have been even darker and to have a partner not only be unreceptive to your own needs but even perhaps resentful/dismissive/belittling of them is even more painful to think of. I guess we’ll find out when TTPD comes out if that was the case, too.)

At a certain point, that lack of acknowledgement will force your hand to be able to reclaim yourself. And it feels like the further removed Taylor in particular is from it, the more she moves from being sad about the life she felt she gave up by leaving, to angry at the life she felt she was giving up by staying. Especially being in a relationship now where it seems like everything comes much easier, where she can be open about the person she’s with and show up for them, all the stuff that seemed as challenging as climbing Mount Everest in her past is nothing more than a molehill at best in her current life.

TL;DR: I don’t think it’s privacy that inherently spells doom for a celebrity relationship like this; it’s the mutual support and respect that does. If Taylor had felt that in the later years of her previous relationship, I think we could be seeing a different, though not necessarily unfulfilled, person right now in 2024, who’d be happy on tour but whose personal life would look a little different. But it seems like by losing that support she lost parts of herself, and we’ve seen her reclaim that in spades in the last year, and perhaps to degrees she didn’t even realize she could from before all the Bad Stuff started happening in her young adulthood.

I know this was extremely long-winded and unnecessary, especially about total strangers we only know through scraps fed through the media, but I just always bristle at this idea that issues like these boil down to “personality differences,” as though one person wants to live in a city and the other on a remote island, or some shit like that. The whole support (and gender tbh) issue is one that’s just very close to my heart because again, I have seen it play out with so many of my friends in long term relationships and marriages and I just think people in relationships (and women in particular in some circles) deserve better than to feel like they’re being, well, tolerated.

[jichanxo]

sooooo... *twirls her hair* how many asks should i send until kuwagami art. jk as well. the real question will be: does it happen often that someone else’s art inspires you? in fandom spaces specifically

well you see it’s like a loyalty card program, every 10 asks or so you get a complimentary kuwagami

just kidding you can just breathe in my direction and I’ll be tempted to draw them. kuwagami blast! (you've caught me on a... just okay art day lol)

(people still like kabedons, right?)

anyway for my actual answer: in terms of direct inspiration, it doesn't really happen much? the last two times i did art directly based on someone else's work is probably this one from this fic, and also that time i drew art of someone else's judgment au. oh! and there's that moriohpsycho art based on this comic! (filthyguts' work is so very. hgngngghh. very good.) nothing else really comes to mind, and when i think of the other things i've been into recently there hasn't been as much opportunity for that to happen...

flex and herds = strong fixation but lmao. almost nobody else made stuff about them. nobody is surprised umineko = surprisingly i don't read much umineko fanfiction? and in terms of illustration, i certainly picked up imagery and indirect inspiration but nothing concrete enough for me to give an example... now that i think about it, i did once draw andromalius from redaction/sunny, but that was years ago, and also mostly because i was acquainted with the writer. ...i don't have that artwork on hand right now death note = didn't really get involved with the fandom + i enjoyed my own ideas well enough! ...i can't recall if i drew long-hair-L art before or after seeing other artists do it. and as for everything else the same kind of reasoning applies. didn't really get involved with the fandom or wasn't really compelled to make art in response to stuff i saw, or i just don't remember anymore.

buuuuuuut if we're opening this up to just... pulling ideas from other people? then yeah, all the time, though that kind of goes without saying when you have a creative hobby. ...it's probably going to be hard to come up with examples of this since it's more ambiguous.

there's uhhhhhh... kuwana listens to nickelback which was a @/four-white-trees invention, wasn't it? (EDIT: and @/overdevelopedglasses!) (not tagging in this post so he doesn't feel obligated to read my big ass ask responses 💀) as of writing this, it's not posted but i did end up making kuwagami art based on a nickelback song so. yknow. there's that LMAO

for sawashiro and arakawa, i do sometimes go reference @/todayisafridaynight 's art to help me with my own. ("how did he draw this part of the suit? oh, like that huh? hmm" <- this kind of thing)

and um. i'm not trying to pander to you (at least not this time), but genuinely it's one of the few examples that come to mind at this moment. but when i was writing my first kuwagami fic, i could feel the influence of the ever-changing on my brain... was turning over some of your ideas there...

you remember this? (you even pointed it out in your comment on my fic, and i should've said something then, but whatever i'm saying it now)

that was absolutely because of this

(obligatory poke at anybody else reading this post that you can read passthroughtime's fic here.)

so, um. yeah. not really sure what else to add to that. pretty self evident i think. (i'm always talking about the ever-changing but i don't think i can overstate the impression it left on me at the time)

anyhow there aren't really any other examples off the top of my head! these are all recent examples so they're not so difficult to recall, but there are probably others i've forgotten...

[pickled-flowers]

Every time I go to a party I'm reminded that it's not that I can't interact with people, it's just not a desire I have :(

[ziggy0-o]

i just had a dream that nick and roger were playing around during rehearsal with gongs and then when rick tried to start playing around with them, nick just did this fluoride stare and roger just side eyed the hell out of rick

[phagodyke]

dating an art student was so crazy I'm just thinking abt that one birthday I had where my ex got me stickers from the etsy of the person they were cheating on me with....

[spacespore]

HI TUMBLRR it’s me

[mushroommortem]

I think as an aro-spec person, what I've been enjoying the most so far about Buddy Daddies is that it's so casual when it comes to Rei and Kazuki's dynamic.

The times I think they would lean more into romantic coded reactions, because of certain scenarios that would normally be seen as such- they didnt.

Like when Kazuki refers to Mirir as their kid or when she starts calling Rei her papa as well, the amount of times they tease each other or make remarks, seemingly knowing each other's little habits, stuff like that would normally be shown for romantic hijinks especially in the childcare genre. And they didnt do that.

It just blatantly shows two roommates/coworkers trying to raise a kid together despite neither being prepared for it. But they try their best nonetheless even with the circumstances they face and grow from it.

Like- their relationship is so inherently queer yet not explicit, but it seems like they're aware of how unconventional it is themselves, and therefore not mind or care about how it gets perceived, especially as the story progresses. If that makes sense? I'm not sure how else to describe but it just makes me so incredibly happy with how it's portrayed currently.

Cause I'll look at them and think 'oh! that's like what I have with me and my Starfriend!" And it's great. I dont know how the rest of the series will go but I'm enjoying it so far and think it's neat regardless :)

[todayisafridaynight]

Hey so Snap this is going to be so fucking weird, but honestly don’t care. So I was watching a clip of Drag Race Philippines and it was the make over episode and I think they were making over family members and this father was all about getting into drag. So, I just wanted to tell you never forget how much of a lovely loving kind and caring father you have, who loves you and protects you and makes you feel heard. That’s all.

i'd have to die before i forget how great my dad is thank you for the opportunity to brag about him again anon

[nomairuins]

accidentally grabbed the wholewheat bread instead of white bread for my hotdogs. my life is hell

[vamptoll]

Saw a random post about Marx's concept of Value and oh boy if that didn't just teleport me back to first year of my Theory Class. And Like I have complicated feelings about the education system and how it operates But, I do have a solid grasp of Marx's theory of Value and how to apply it in my own work (Don't ask me to define Marx's theory of Value, it's not that great a grasp)

[custom-whats]

At this point I’m less excited for the next tes game because it’s a tes game and more excited for the potential for cool followers/super indulgent references to old ones

[superfluouskeys]

AO3 fic stats meme!

tagged by @thevikingwoman !

rules: give us the links to your fics with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and fic with the fewest words.

Most Hits: The Prisoner | Sleeping Beauty (1959) | Maleficent/Aurora | should technically probably be M rated but idk it's a very high T | 250k words

Did not need to check LOL

Second Most Kudos: THE PRISONER LOL

Songbird actually has more kudos than Prisoner! This is extremely funny, do not read the prisoner it is not fit for human consumption

Third Most Comments: luminescence | Final Fantasy XIV | Various ships, various ratings, written for FFXIVWrite | 72.6k words total

Absolutely bless the ppl who read my slow descent into madness when I did FFXIVWrite--that's one of those times where I can really see a huge improvement in my writing after that month!

Fourth Most Bookmarks: IM SCREAMING. IT'S THE PRISONER [DRAFT 2]

DO NOT READ THE PRISONER.

Fifth Most Words: Songbird | Sleeping Beauty (1959) | Maleficent/Aurora | T | 39.5k words

This is a much saner fic than the Prisoner, and I'm extremely proud of the ending especially. It has some style issues in the beginning and middle just bc it took a long time to write.

Fewest Words: never meant to fall | Once Upon A Time | Ursula/Cruella, referenced Regina/Emma | rated G for whatever reason | 536 words

I forgot about this one LOL, I was thinking it would be one of my short Dragon Age fills that's around 700 words. I also don't know why this has so many hits I sincerely doubt it's very good.

please i am so serious if you're like hm ik she writes fic i wonder if i should try reading any of it, PLEASE, do not start with the prisoner it is literally just 250k words of trauma processing sdknjfnjkkjnfknjf

Tagging: @thepapernautilus @eemamminy-art @yourlocaldisneyvillain @quinnthebard @delirious-comfort if you want to! i cannot think of anyone else I know who writes fic off the top of my head pls feel free to do the thing and pretend I tagged you!

[skitskatdacat63]

Dune fan seeing a desert in anything: wow this kinda reminds me of Dune

[exoexid]

okay i'm breaking my silence: i don't like the delivery of the she a beauty and a beast line even tho it's perfect for the song :( however i must give it to wayv they saved the situation (see: the chorus) perfectly like the first time i listened to it i was like noooo this song is going to be another bad by infinite/crash landing by 127 (see: an incredible first minute as introduction with an insane pre chorus -xiaoten...... don't make me TALK- followed by the worst chorus they could find) but even tho i don't like how they decided to deliver that line the rest was so good bc of how well their voices blend together <3