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wednak · 1 year

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Weddud Wednesday #5: A void we all try to avoid

Lol first things first, I wish I could claim the copyrights to that hilarious title but unfortunately it was a joke that I read a few weeks ago in the book that I’m reading. When I saw it, it immediately sparked the idea for this type of post so here I am, venturing into the void we all try so hard to avoid venturing into.

I’ve had a really long and somewhat stressful day, and I’m exhausted, so today, I don’t really feel like being teachy explainer Nn, I kind of feel like being genuine and vulnerable Nn. So I thought I’d just try to share without thinking too much about what I’m writing.

I can remember several different conversations that you and I have had about “the void” and all the different strategies we use to fill up the feeling of that void with things/people/activities, etc.

Before I read that joke about the void we all try to avoid, I’d never really thought to connect this idea of the “void” that you and I have talked about to other psychological concepts or ideas that I know of.

Cuz what is that void actually? Is it memories of past experiences and trauma? Is it negative emotions we don’t want to feel? Is it insecurities and parts of ourselves that we want to hide from others? Is it all of the above and more? Or is it something else entirely?

I don’t actually know the correct answer to this and somewhat doubt that there even could be one. But there are a few different ideas that have popped into my mind while I’ve been thinking about this for the past few weeks.

As humans, I think we all probably have the same foundational void that comes along with being a conscious being in this marvelously beautiful and tragic universe that we find ourselves in. It seems like a rather unlikely phenomenon that humans would respond to human consciousness, the knowledge of good and evil and the awareness of our coming death with anything other than complete and utter overwhelm and existential dread.

Life is fucking weird man. It just is. There is so much happiness and so much suffering and the knowledge of all of it is a handful to deal with on an everyday basis.

I don’t know if this has any scientific basis but to me it makes a whole lot of sense that once humans realized what the fuck their consciousness had just unlocked for them, our minds and bodies would work really hard to be like oooook, if we can’t unlearn this shit anymore let’s at least just suppress that knowledge back down as far as it can go so we don’t have to think about that fucking mess and become completely debilitated from functioning as a living organism.

So I think in a way, we all probably have a collective void that we really don’t like to think about. All of these things that cause discomfort, anxiety, fear, sadness or whatever reaction we might want to lump into “existential dread”. That sort of meaninglessness that we know deep down is at the root of our very existence.

Religion exists across culture because it provides us with a meaning, a WHY and a way out of the meaninglessness. That makes sense to me. And it also makes sense that everyone these days is losing their goddamn minds because we have nothing else to replace that anchor with.

Responsibility for children, a project, a job, a community or group of people is probably also a really good tool to help anchor us to something that resembles “stability”. Good luck bringing that one up today lol.

Marriage is probably also up there. Being shackled into a commitment that you can’t escape from, no matter how badly you want to or how badly you screw up. And yet we dish out divorces like they’re candy. Ahhhhh 2018 me.

We’ve pretty much eradicated all of the “effective” strategies that humans have used for thousands if not millions of years to cope with innocent Eve eating that apple in the garden. No fucking wonder that everyone is turning to fucked up coping mechanisms to deal with the void.

All of that is the collective part of the void that I’ve been thinking about. The part that we all kind of have in common.

But then people also have their individual voids that they are trying to avoid, don’t they?

The shit I’m running from, that is different from what you’re running from, that is different from what my mom is running from, that is different from what your dad is running from.

That part of the void is probably more like the personal shit we experience and suppress because we don’t know how to deal with it and so the only strategy we know is to stuff it somewhere where it is outside of our conscious awareness.

This is literally when I had the idea that the void could be what Jung called the Shadow.

Should not have been a surprise lol.

You have the collective aspect which is part of what he called the Collective Unconscious. And then you have the personal aspect which is part of what he called the Personal Unconscious.

Shadow is such a good word for it too imo. Because it really fucking feels like a Shadow doesn’t it?

It’s always there and creeping right behind you but it’s never quite with you either and it isn’t “real” enough for you to grab or get a hold of. You can feel it but at the same time it also just feels empty and numb.

This murky thing that always follows us no matter where we go.

Sure, if we face away from it, we can’t really see it. And if we try hard enough we might momentarily forget that it’s right behind us. But at the end of the day, it never actually goes away.

I think the thing I love about psychology so much is probably that it gives you at least some tools to deal with all the personal things you’re running from. They’re so different for everybody but on average, people can usually find something that helps them face whatever trauma or insecurity they might have suppressed out of conscious awareness. And thus reduce that feeling of emptiness and numbness that happens as a result.

Now the existential void is a whole other can of worms. I don’t know if that one will ever go away, even with religion, responsibility, marriage, children or whatever else humans cook up to try to deal with it.

“There is a burden that comes with this level of power. The burden of knowing. Or maybe the burden of knowing that you can never know. That at the end of everything, the only thing that is certain is you and your relationship with god or the universe or whatever it is you want to call it. Nothing really matters, and that’s why everything matters. Despite all the burdens, it’s the greatest freedom I’ve ever known and the greatest that life has to offer.”

I’ve tried so many times of the years but I’ve never really been able to put into words exactly what my life used to feel like before I reached that level of insight.

I think the thing that inspired me about the void is that it comes pretty close.

It was like I was numb and empty in a place in my mind and my heart where there should have been some sort of feeling. That a part of my experience of life had to be made unconscious for otherwise I couldn’t have functioned in the way a normal child or teenager is expected to function. But I had absolutely zero awareness that it was happening. I had so freaking little self-awareness in general because if I had had more of it, I would have been aware of how miserable I was and I don’t know if I could have figured out how to deal with that.This part of myself that felt unheard and abandoned, that should have felt shattered by the pain, rejection and inauthenticity I was experiencing.

But what did I do, instead I projected all of that anxiety, fear and sadness onto intense insecurities about things that the universe provided as an excuse and that I had a vague sense of control over.. having bad hair or skin, being too tall, being too skinny, … Looking back on it now, I can see that sure, I might have been a bit of a lanky, awkward kid with frizzy hair and bad teenage skin and those things might have fueled my negative self-image as I was growing up. But that deep-rooted self-hatred that bubbled up from the void every time I looked at myself in the mirror or in a photograph didn’t really have anything to do with my hair or my skin or my boobs. That came from a place so much deeper where there was an endless source of anxiety, anger, fear, grief and sadness.

Is it weird that thinking about the void in the way I talked about it today kind of just makes me feel better about all of that?

I guess it’s the realization that while we all have our personal shit that we run from and that stuff can be rough, there’s always an element of just having normal human existential dread to deal with as we grow up. And damn if you’re not given the proper tools to learn to deal with that, then that alone is already enough to make people run to the shittiest of coping mechanisms in an attempt to erase that void.

Pretty sure I was somewhat all over the place today and my thoughts weren’t structured as smoothly as usual but sometimes that’s just life and I’m rolling with it.

Maybe next time when it’s 2 am and I’m only half a human, I’ll do a Nn deep dive into what it felt like to finally open that void and realize all the shit that came pouring out. I always talk about how important it is to face all the repressed trauma and all the usual stuff but I don’t think I usually admit how thin the line is between getting a hold on that wave in order to ride it out and being pulled under in the flood of negative emotions.

There are days when I realize how easily I could have been completely drowned by it all. And then I’m not 100% certain as to what it was that helped me stay afloat.

People who are close to me always tell me that I’m too self-righteous. That I make people feel judged or shamed when I push them to become the best version of themselves because it makes them feel like they are falling short of some bar that I have deemed worthy.

There is so much to unpack in that which has nothing to do with what I was writing about and which I am also entirely too tired to do right now. But I guess maybe the unexpected place that this post has carried me today is this:

I hope you know that judgement is never my intention. This path of self-healing is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done in my life but it is also the most painful and the most difficult thing and while I personally think it is worth it, I understand that there are real dangers to people opening up that door. I understand why people don’t want to or can’t do it.

And I think in today’s culture where personal development and working on yourself has become such a trendy thing to do, it’s really important to remember that a person’s worth doesn’t depend on any of it.

Alrighti, sappy Nn needs to post this and go to bed now before she changes her mind about being too sappy. Or at least more sappy than usual. Which of course she then followed by…

Non refert ubi es, ego semper tecum.

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aveerage · 2 years

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6/10/22

As I undergo one of the major depressive episodes I’ve had in months, allow me to express this in words using the most basic platform in existence - Tumblr.

I woke up this morning with a message from my best friend showing me a sweet gesture from her boyfriend - it was him randomly asking a Tiktok OP about her workout clothes for her. I don’t know but it suddenly made me rush into a bunch of thoughts and before I knew it, everything felt so heavy.

Ever since I had to leave for college back in 2013, I started fending off for myself. That was the year my sister was born as well. My parents’ are preoccupied with her and that’s perfectly fine with me. I had to look out for myself. Living in a dorm in UP for five years really taught me a lot of things especially when it comes to standing on my own. Growing up with the majority of my life as an only child, it’s not that surprising. We were a not-so-privileged family (to scale: my parents won’t even be able to send me to college if not for UP) so knowing that I have a baby sister on board, I didn’t want to add to my parents’ problems.

That’s a recurring thing that I have to unlearn, I guess. I am extremely hyper aware of myself to the point that I don’t want to rely on anyone and be a burden. Funny how we self-brand ourselves with a lot of things - my branding (it makes me cringe using this word in this context) is someone who has her shit together, well holistic, involved in a lot of stuff, CONFIDENT and basically happy. But of course, I’m not that good as I appear on the outside.

The most “help” I’ve asked so far is calling my friends, crying. It only happened once and it made me feel bad. I know everybody has weight on their shoulders and I don’t want to burden people with what I have.

So going back to what I think triggered me this morning, I missed someone looking out for me. When my Daddy died in 2018, I didn’t oblige my family to look out for me. Don’t think of me. Take care of yourselves first.

For three months now, I’ve been living with my boyfriend. Sometimes, I feel like I’m investing much in this relationship. Not that it’s a bad thing but it scares me how it might backfire on me. I woke up feeling heavy this morning. I cried while on the bed but since it’s a weekday, I had to force myself to cook lunch for him. That’s okay. It made me feel productive. I succumbed to the bed. It really does feel heavy to the point that my heart feels tight and I can’t breathe. He prepares for work, asks me what’s wrong, I told him I felt heavy this morning. Asked me if it’s about him. Told me he’s going to leave. And left just like that. I don’t even know if I have the energy to. He didn’t even ask about that.

Our own happiness is our responsibility but wouldn’t it be nice to have someone looking out for you as well? When my boyfriend was unemployed, I was actively looking for a job for him and I got him one (and now, I’m not sure if he’s even thinking of me. I don’t know but somehow, I feel used.) I always consider other people in my decisions. Even just the small things.

I feel like I’m contradicting myself sometimes. I want people to help me but I don’t want help. Or maybe I just want help from certain people.

Now, I’m here - juggling the heavy weight of a breadwinner, looking for a job (it makes me sad din na I helped my boyfriend find a job and he didn’t even tell me good luck sa job interviews ko. I don’t even know if it’s a petty reason but idk, fearing the uncertain future, wanting to do a lot of things but walang time and/or resources and/or kasama. Also, my ex wants his cat back.

I don’t even know if it’s self-sabotage, asking for what I deserve, and just being okay with whatever the universe throws at me. I’ve been giving and giving and giving in all aspects of my life and all I get are crumbs in return.

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SMALL WINS FOR TODAY

✅ cooked my boyfriend some breakfast despite the breaking down

✅ made it to my 1-on-1 session today.

✅ deactivated Messenger

Next in queue: Stop crying ‘cause my contacts will shrivel up, my face will get puffy and magiging panget ako.

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boredfanwrites · 3 years

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Buddie #1

There is not a bone in my body that can accept that in any other universe they wouldn't be perfect together. Post 4x14 so SPOILERS for that. This got so much longer than I thought it would be. Sorry in advance, there's much more under the cut.

· Eddie tells him about the will. Chris goes to Buck if anything happens to Eddie. Which it very nearly did.

· It causes Buck to actually stop and think things through before rushing into danger.

· The rest of the team question it while Eddie's recovering but he just says there's someone relying on him now.

· They take it to mean Taylor - well Chimney and Albert do, Hen and Bobby are more clued in.

· Buck talks about Eddie and Chris like he did when they quarantined together - like they're living together again.

· They are.

· Buck moved in to help Eddie and his recovery, with Ana stepping in when he was on shifts - even if she tended to undo everything Buck had done.

· He tells himself it's because she's not used to the way he and Eddie do things - yes that one singular bowl and plate live in the lower cupboard, it's so Eddie can reach them easily. Chris always picks the movie on movie nights, Eddie and Buck alternate when he's gone to bed.

· Eddie is stubborn as always, but has managed to allow Buck to help him dress and shower - Ana is very much not allowed, despite her protests they're barely in a relationship.

· Eddie explains to Buck that yes, they've been together for six months but they've not really been togetherand he quietly admits that he regrets telling Chris so soon.

· Buck calms him and says that it was right to introduce Chris to the idea of Eddie dating, but yeah, maybe it wasn't smart to spring Ana on him so early - especially because she decided she had to be a bigger part of his life now he was aware.

· Chris manages to get to the station once while Buck is on shift.

· Buck comes back to Albert making him pancakes and Chris scribbling with the things they keep for the school trips.

· 'What are you doing here, bud? Does your dad know?'

· 'Kinda.'

· 'What does kinda mean here?'

· 'He knows I wanted to see you. I don't think he knows that I came here.'

· Albert quickly jumps in saying he's texted Eddie and he and Carla are on their way, it just happens that the rig got back before they got there.

· Buck sits down with Chris, leaning his head on his arms and looks at the picture. It's him, Eddie and Buck with Carla and her husband in the background.

· 'What's wrong, Chris?'

· 'Ana.'

· 'Ok, what did she do?'

· 'Tried to get me to bath before I ate and then said I had to do my homework before TV time.'

· 'Buddy, you always have to do your homework before TV time.'

· 'But she tried to help me.'

· 'Your dad and I try our best to help you. She's a teacher, she's better use than us.'

· 'No that's not it.'

· Chris has tears in his eyes and a death grip on his crayon.

· 'She told the poor boy his handwriting was ineligible and took his pencil, tried to get him to tell her the answers and that she would write them for him.' Carla sighs.

· She stands with her arms open and Chris runs into them. Eddie looms behind them, looking sad.

· Well, neutral really, but Buck knows his micro expressions well enough.

· After that Ana is banned from the house in the afternoons/evenings and Carla steps back in. The new problem is Ana turning up when Buck has days off - their schedule was she was here when Buck wasn't, for multiple reasons.

· Ana's great, there's just something about her that Buck doesn't like and she definitely doesn't like Buck. Maybe it's because they're just opposites.

· Eddie tries to gently tell her that he barely gets to see Buck anymore and he needs it for his mental health. Ana starts pestering about the fact that he should want to see his girlfriend more than his best friend.

· It's one of their biggest fights and turns into a screaming match one night (Chris is at Hen's with Denny but Buck is hiding away in the guest room) where Eddie shouts that she had decided that she was his girlfriend without asking Eddie if that was what he wanted and she was suffocating.

· She leaves pretty quickly after that and Buck is incredibly happy as their paths never cross again.

· There's an emptiness settling in his chest when he finds out that the two are still together and are treating the relationship as though they're just dating again. He hates that he really doesn't like the idea that it's working out now that they're on even footing.

· He decides to push it away and starts getting reckless again. Taylor's hanging around the station more like she wants more from Buck, but he'd given up. She liked being chased and now that he's tired of it, she wants him. He knows she'll get bored if he shows interest again.

· It's interest he doesn't have. Eddie had called him Evan and told him he deserved more. How was he supposed to go back to normal after that?

· Why doesn't Eddie see how life changing that was?

· Eddie does. But in typical Eddie fashion, he pushes it deep down and replaces it with his content being with Ana. She makes his parents happy, which makes him happy. She gets along with Pepa and Isabel and his sisters, but they act a lot more familial with Buck.

· It makes sense, he tells himself - they've had years with Buck.

· Nothing really changes for Buck until TK and Judd find themselves in LA. Buck hastily explains to TK that he wasn't asking him out back in Austin, he just wanted a friend and really he wasn't attracted to guys.

· TK just straight up laughs at Buck.

· 'Buckley, you checked me, Carlos, and the barista out in the span of like five minutes. You're a little attracted to guys.'

· 'Wait, you mean you and Diaz ain't datin'?'

· Judd's question throws Buck through a loop.

· 'What? No...we're just...we're friends. Best friends.'

· TK laughs again, patting Buck on the shoulder.

· Once they're on their last day, TK takes Buck out for a drink like he'd promised. Buck tries to ignore the fact he's brought him to a gay bar.

· He gets hit on at least three times in an hour, not to mention the building collection of beers for both him and TK and he decides he doesn't actually mind it.

· 'Ok, I want you to do something for me. Scan the crowd and pick a guy, any guy, and tell me what you find attractive about him.'

· Buck picks out a shorter man, tanned skin and dark hair.

· 'He's got a cute smile.'

· 'Oh boy, you have a type.'

· 'Huh?'

· 'He looks like Eddie.'

· And he does. Like a Walmart version of Eddie though. He didn't laugh like Eddie, didn't have the same laugh lines. Or frown lines. His eyes weren't as warm when he met Buck's nor did he smile as fondly. And...

· 'Fuck.'

· 'You just now realizing your feelings for him?'

· 'Yeah. How did I not know?'

· 'Honestly, it was probably such a subtle shift. From what you've told me you've basically been a couple for a year and a half, so you didn't realize anything had changed for you.'

· 'I've never denied it.'

· 'I mean you clearly must have.'

· 'No. I meant that there have been so many times people assumed Eddie and I were a couple and I never denied it, I went along with it all.'

· 'Shit man, you had it bad before you even realized.'

· Buck groans as TK throws an arm around him, leaning against his shoulder.

· Things change after that. Buck is hesitant with physical touch with Eddie - it's his main love language and he needs to make sure he's not overdoing it and making Eddie uncomfortable.

· Eddie notices because of course, he does. Buck has pulled away from him for seemingly no reason. The second Eddie can dress, shower, and reach the high cabinets himself Buck is talking about going home.

· He is home.

· Eddie doesn't say it, he just hums, not really agreeing. He's gotten used to Buck being around and so has Chris. They'd easily fallen back into their quarantine routine and now Buck would be leaving again.

· A quick thought of getting shot again fills Eddie's head. Though this time it's nothing to do with his PTSD and more so that he doesn't want Buck to leave. So he exaggerates just a little.

· 'You know, my PTSD is still acting up. Maybe, you could stay until it balances out a little?'

· 'You'd want me to?'

· 'Yeah, you're great at getting me out and calming me and Christopher down.'

· 'You don't think Ana should start taking up some night shifts?'

· 'I don't really want her to deal with that side of me yet.'

· 'Okay.'

· 'Okay?'

· 'Yeah, I'll stay.'

· Eddie keeps an eye on Buck just as much as he keeps an eye on Eddie. He quickly realizes that Buck is holding in his own troubles. He knows from experience that Buck does not think his problems are anywhere near as bad as everyone else's. He has a lot of unlearning to do.

· Subtly, Eddie starts talking to him about his mental state, his worries, trying to let Buck know it's ok to do the same.

· When he and Ana inevitably break up not even a month later, it's Buck that he tells first.

· Buck, who has his back.

· Buck, who loves Christopher as his own.

· Buck, who is insecure about everything he does except saving people.

· Buck, who thinks he is unworthy and undeserving of love.

· Buck, who shows his love through acts of kindness and physical affection.

· Buck, who Eddie is so unapologetically in love with and probably has been for years.

· The revelation doesn't shock him like he thought it would. More so, it was a natural progression of their relationship.

· Friends. Best friends. Co-parents. Co-habiting. Partners. Partners.

· Eddie sees a future with Buck, a future he'd only ever seen with Shannon but it's so much brighter.

· He comes home from his first shift back - Buck wasn't working and offered to look after Christopher so Eddie knew he was safe - to find Buck on the couch, staring into an empty beer bottle.

· 'Hey?' it's broken and Eddie drops his things to rush over to him.

· 'You good?'

· 'No. I'm not.'

· Buck looks up, tears in his eyes, cheeks red and puffy.

· 'What's going on, Evan?'

· That's all it takes. He breaks. He babbles about watching Eddie die over and over in his dreams. How sometimes the shower will splash his face just so and he's thrown back with Eddie's blood on his face. How he was trying to get through it with Dr. Copeland but it wasn't helping.

· Nothing was helping.

· 'It's ok. I'm here, I'm okay.'

· 'You weren't. You died, Eds. You died on me.'

· 'You saved me.'

· 'What if I hadn't? I don't know a life without you anymore. I can't lose another person I love.'

· 'You love me?'

· 'Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?'

· Buck registers his words, quickly backing away from Eddie and tries to make a break for the open door. Eddie isn't letting him run away anymore. His wrist snakes around Buck's.

· 'Evan. I told you there wasn't anyone else I'd want to look after Christ. I told you you weren't expendable. I said that because I love you and you needed to hear it. You had to learn you deserved love. Love that Chris shows you. Love that I can show you. I love you so much, Evan Buckley.'

· Buck crumples in Eddie's arms, Eddie rocks him gently until the sobs subside.

· It's not an immediate or obvious change. There are still things the two need to work through.

· It's different but the same. There's more contact now; hugs, tactile hands on waists, and backs at work. Kisses in the bunk, soft and slow.

· It's new and exciting. Especially when they finally get together, officially and exclusively.

· Chris loves telling everyone about his two dads.

· Eddie and Buck are happier, closer.

· Buck had always been a Diaz. He'd always had a family who loved him. The big change was he got to love them both endlessly in return.

#buddie #911 #911 headcanons #buddie headcanons #evan buck buckely #911 fox #firefam #buckley diaz family #buddie fic #buddie drabble #christopher diaz #edmundo diaz #eddie diaz #eddie x buck #christopher diaz is an absolute angel #slow burn #oblivious idiots #oblivious buddie

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corpsentry · 3 years

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january: an art retrospective

i did some stuff last month (but it’s a lot of stuff and there’s a photodump + some Serious Fucking Reflection, so it’s all below the cut)

so ok, let’s start with this. here are some heads. each head has a red arrow. that red arrow is what i call the red line of the devil. it’s the slope of the face from the side of the eye to the cheekbone and then down towards the chin. up until like 2 weeks ago, i couldn’t draw it. i couldn’t fucking draw it. i would edit over that part of the face over and over again until i was frustrated and tired and i had a raging homosexual headache and it still never looked right. notice that each head is different. notice that each head looks wrong.

at the start of 2021 i finally admitted to myself, as per the image above, that i was deeply, deeply unhappy with my art. what was the problem? i dunno. but i decided i was going to fix it and i was going to do so via another one scribble a day event wherein for every day of january i would find a photo of a human head, and i would draw it.

january 1st, 2021. i was embarrassed to tweet this even on my private account where like 5 friends and a rock would see it. in retrospect, you can also see all of my bad habits emerging like dicks from a hole in the ground. it’s disproportionate. the brows look flat. the eyes are slanting upwards. the entire drawing looks flat, like this isn’t a 3d person but a caricature of one.

january 2nd, 3rd, 4th:

on the 2nd i decided to start a separate thread for doodles and applied learning. here’s the first set of tests

the rest of the week is kind of uneventful so we’re going to skip those. fast forward to january 11th

this one is especially bad. i am acutely aware, suddenly, that i am not changing anything at all. i’m stressed and miserable about it because i’m still trying to see people as people and trying to draw people that look attractive and proportionate and hot. my friend, leny, reminds me that i need to think about faces in terms of planes. i have a moment. my other friend masha sends me some links to anatomy tutorials. i have another moment.

january 11th. applied sketch

january 13th is when i start the troubleshooting process. the link above drives me mad because i’m pretty happy with the face but then i realize that there’s something very fucking wrong with the shape of the head LOL and then i realize that i’ve never had any idea what the proportion of the face to the rest of the skull is so i grit my teeth and i open a new canvas and i

bald studies. it seemed like the right thing to do. can’t draw heads? ok draw some heads. look at some photographs. i traced each photo but tried to stick to straight lines so that i could replicate the shapes more easily. i broke each face down into shapes. i thought about airplanes

i got really excited. i started doing studies, then applied studies, then stylized studies.

sketches. i’m not sure what’s going on (as always) and it’s very rough, but they look different from the sketches i did on january 2nd. that’s a start

january 16th’s daily study. looks more like a person now. juuuuuust a bit

more applied studies

on the 18th i take a break and go stare at some lips because i don’t understand how the fuck they work. again, i focus on shapes, on volume, on the fact that these things exist in 3d. holy fuck lips exist in 3d. holy fuck we are real

january 19th. i’m working on it.

january 22nd. some sketches + a daily study. it has finally occurred to me that heads can tilt up and down and that things look different accordingly. yes i was not aware of this before. yes i have been drawing for over a decade.

january 23rd. by this point after doing my daily sketch i almost always go back and do an applied study which is basically to say i drew a lot of fucking links. this one looks kind of okay. i’m kind of proud

january 25th. links. trying to make sense of everything i’ve learned

26th, 27th, 28th. daily studies

january 1st. january 31st

The End Of The Photo Dump (dab)

ok NOW i get to talk about what i discovered while studying the shit out of human beings

FIRST OF ALL, there is something precious and magical about drawing shit without the explicit knowledge that you’re going to tweet that shit out to 45 people later. it takes the burden of perception off your shoulders and that does something to you, or at least that’s my theory. i told myself i wouldn’t post any of this stuff until the end of the month (if i wanted to post it at all) and kept everything off my public social media accounts and that meant i could draw ugly as hell without worrying about who would point and laugh, which i absolutely fucking did. a lot of these are fucking trainwrecks. most of these are fucking trainwrecks. why do they look like that?? why??? this doesn’t look like the work of someone who’s allegedly been drawing since they were in kindergarten, does it?????

here’s why: because that person took a huge motherfucking swing at everything they’d ever known about art and spent a month building something new in its place. the abstract explanation is that i grew up on shoujo and weird old anime and my understanding of anatomy was unironically kamichama karin and while i love kamichama karin, when kamichama karin is your rule even if you try to break it, you’re going to end up going nowhere. “you have to know the rules to break them”, yeah? well i didn’t know shit. the abstract explanation is i’ve been miserable about my art for a few years now because i saw other people doing things effortlessly which i couldn’t and instead of going back to the basics, i tried to do what they did (not plagiarism, mind you, i mean i literally tried to copy the red line of the devil i mentioned above because i couldn’t even make that happen) and then i fucking failed.

the simple explanation is this. i had to unlearn everything, and relearn it again (like some kind of new renaissance clown, what the fuck is this?)

take this for example. all my life i’ve drawn faces in the order: eyes, nose, mouth, face shape, head. this works for some people, im aware, but it was something central to how i had always drawn, so i decentralized it. i said fuck you to the old me and changed the order up. now i start with the nose, then the eyes, mouth, the chin line, and the sides of the face. now i force myself to think about the human head as a series of parts interacting with each other instead of a bunch of disparate features which i want to look pretty.

or let’s use this zelda from last year. something about this looked wrong last october, the way something about all of my drawings looked wrong, but i couldn’t pinpoint it for hell the way i couldn’t articulate Any of my feelings about the visual arts. now, looking back, here’s what i see. that nose is sticking out far too much given how she’s not really facing very far away from the camera. that ear at the back shouldn’t be there. her forehead is too big. she doesn’t have a forehead. what the fuck is up with the shape of her head?

so apparently reject modernity embrace tradition has its roots in alt-right terminology and i’m not very horny for the alt-right (you understand), but the spirit survives here. you know sometimes you have to admit that you have no idea what the fuck you’re doing and draw people for 31 days. i’ve spent my whole life drawing stylized people and while again there are artists who have no issue with this, i veered off the track of the Good and the Holy and couldn’t get back on. i had no point of reference because i’d never thought about what an actual human being looks like, so i had no way to fix what i knew in my gut looked wrong but wouldn’t come out better.

this was hard. this was like oikawa tooru swallowing his worthless pride and admitting that ushijima wakatoshi had gotten the best of him for the last time in his high school career, but in haikyuu!! by furudate haruichi oikawa tooru fucks off to argentina and then joins the argentinean national team, and you know what, i think i’ve made it to argentina (not the team just the country). as per the golden rule of dont fucking move until you’re at least two thirds of the way through the month, i only started trying to draw Shit shit on like the 22nd or something, but i was happy with that i created. i am happy with what i’ve done. i’ve posted like 2 things this month that involve people with what i now call ~applied Knowledge~~ and they’re, like, not perfect obviously (perfection is an unattainable ideal), but i’m fucking proud of them. i didn’t spend 5 hours hunched over my laptop adjusting the red line of the devil because it’s not a devil’s line anymore. because i finally sorta get how people work. because i sat down and i said ‘we are not going to fuck with this misery shit anymore’ and then i did that. it’s just a line now.

here are 2 collages tracking my painstakingly carved out progress from january 2nd to february 2nd because i’m a slut for collages

and here’s what i’ve done to my art! the same person drew these but also Not Really! you know! for the first time in a year i don’t immediately hate what i’ve drawn. you know what guys? art is fucking fun. zelda’s forehead doesn’t scare me anymore because i know how foreheads fucking work now, and i don’t know everything, and i’m going to keep troubleshooting stuff as i go (i want to draw a skeleton. like a. i want to draw a goddamn skeleton guys) but i’m honestly and genuinely proud of what i’ve done in the span of a month, and i’m also in disbelief. i started this month-long challenge out as a last ditch effort to make peace with my art because i’ve been tired for a long time and i was ready to kick the bucket on drawing people altogether. i didn’t think anything would happen. nothing’s happened for years. i’ve been miserable for years.

this was the caption for january 1st, 2021. i was super, super fucking embarrassed and it looks like super fucking shit, but you know what, i think i did in fact triumph over the bullshit. surprisingly enough, when you put in consistent effort into something, You Will See Results. didn’t see that coming, did you? i know i didn’t.

this isn’t a success story. it’s a happiness story. i never gave a shit damn about the institute of art or whatever, i was just mad at myself because what i saw in my head didn’t match up with what was on the canvas. and now it’s getting better. now i’m calibrating the compass. now drawing not just backgrounds but also people is exciting to me, and i can stick my links in your face and tell you ‘they hot’. i’m going to keep doing that. i’m going to keep going until i drop off the side of the earth and then spiral towards mars like some kind of fairy, and then i’m going to create something beautiful.

thanks for reading. here’s a pr department link for sticking around until the end

#my stuff

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freddiekluger · 3 years

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Why Cap Being Internally Closeted Is Not Only Possible, But Valid Representation

i wrote this to a lot of mitski and onsind, so you can’t blame me for any feelings that bleed through

now i don’t know if it actually exists, but i’ve heard of there being a lot of discourse surrounding the captains story arc regarding his sexuality- i believe the general gist is that having a queer character that remains closeted to themselves is either unrealistic or ‘bad’ representation, and as someone who really treasures the captain and relates to his story so far a lot, i thought i might break this down a bit.

i’ve divded up every complaint i’ve heard about this into four main questions which i’ll be covering below the ‘keep reading’, because this is gonna be pretty comprehensive. full disclaimer i reference my experiences as an ex-evangelical non binary butch lesbian a couple times, and i spent a year studying repression and the psychological impacts of high demand sexual ethics for my graduating sociology paper, so this is coming with some background to it i swear

the big questions:

can you EVEN be gay and not know it????

but isn't this just ANOTHER coming out arc, and aren't we supposed to be moving beyond those?

but if cap can't have a relationship with a man because he's a ghost, what's the point?

since cap's dead, isn't this technically bury your gays, and isn't that bad?

1. "but is it really possible to not know? Isn't that bad representation?"

short answer: no and no.

before i get into the validity of the captain's ignorance about his own orientation as 21st century rep, let's break down how the hell the captain can be so clearly attracted to men and still not even consider the possibility that he might be gay, as brought to you by someone who literally experienced this shit.

the captain's particular situation is both a direct result of the lack of information around human sexuality he would have had (aka clear messaging that it's actually possible for him to be attracted to men. i don't mean acceptable or allowed, i mean physically capable of happening- the idea that orientations other than heterosexual exist and are available to him, a man), and a subconscious survival mechanism. the environment in which he lives is outright hostile to gay people, while the military man identity he has constructed for himself doesn't allow for any form of deviation from societal norms, let alone one so base level and major. as a result of this killer combo of information and environment, instincts take over and the mind does it's best to repress the ‘deviant’ feelings until a. one of these two things changes, or b. the act of repression becomes so destructive and/or exhuasting that it becomes impossible to maintain. the key to maintaining a long-term state of repression of desire is diverting that energy elsewhere, and a high-demand group such as the military is the perfect place for the captain to do this (this technqiue is frequented by religions and extremist ideologies worldwide, but that’s not really what we’re here to focus on).

while the brain is actively repressing ‘deviant’ feelings (aka gay shit), this doesn't mean you don't experience the feelings at all. when performed as a subconscious act of survival, the aim of repression is to minimise/transform the feelings into a state where they can no longer cause immediate danger, and something as big as sexual/romantic orientation is going to keep popping up, but as long as the individual in question never understands what they’re feeling, they’ll be able to continue relatively undisturbed. you know how in heist movies, the leader of the group will only tell each team member part of the plan so they can’t screw things up for everyone else if they get caught? it’s kind of like that.

this is how the captain appears to have operated in life AND in death, and it’s a relatively common experience for lgbtq people who’ve grown up in similar circumstances (aka with a lack of information and in an unfriendly-to-hostile environment), and accounts for how some people can even go on to get married and have children before realising that they’re gay and/or trans.

personally, while i can now identify what were strong homo crushes all the way back to childhood, at the time i genuinely had no idea. there was the underlying sense that i probably shouldn't tell people how attached i was to these girls because i would seem weird, and that my feelings were stronger than the ones other people used to describe friendships, but like-like them in the way that other girls like-liked boys? no way! actually scratch that, it wasn't even a no way, because i had no idea that i even could. i even had my own havers, at least in terms of the emotional hold and devotion she got from me, except she treated me way less well than cap’s beau. snatches of the existence of lgbt people made it through the cone of silence, i definitely heard the words gay and lesbian, but my levels of informations mirrored those that the captain would have had: virtually none, beyond the idea that these words exist, some people are them, and that's not something that we support or think is okay, so let's just not speak about it. despite only attending religious schools for the first couple years of primary, until i got my own technology and social media accounts to explore lgbtq content on my own- option a out of the two catalysts for change- the possibility of me being gay was not at all on my radar. don’t even get me started on how long it took me to explore butchness and my overall gender, two things which now feel glaringly obvious.

when shit starts to break down, you can also make the conscious choice to repress which can delay the eventual smashing down of the mental closet door for a time (essentially when the closet door starts to open, you just say ‘no thanks’ and shut it again by pointedly Not Thinking About It). in the abscence of identifying yourself by your attractions, it becomes quite common to identify with a lack- in my case, this meant becoming proud of how sensible and not boy crazy i was, and in the captain’s case, this means becoming proud of how sensible and not sensuous/wild (aka woman crazy) he was, identifying with his LACK of desire for women and partying (which, even in the 40s, involved the expectation of opposite sex romances and hook ups). i’m not saying that’s the only reason he’s a rule follower, but i think the contrast between About Last Night and Perfect Day pretty much support this. (the captain getting on his high horse about general party antics that he inherently felt excluded from because of underlying awareness of his difference & his tendency to project his regimented expectations of himself onto others, vs. joining in the reception party, awareness of how the environment supports difference in the form of clare and sam, and relaxing his own rules by dancing with men- the captain doesn’t mind a party when feels like he has a place there.)

so the captain was operating in a high demand, highly regulated environment (primarily the military, but also early 20th century England itself), with regimented roles, rules, and expectations. working on the assumption that he wouldn't have had out/disclosing lgbt friends, he would have had little to no exposure to lgbt identities, and what information he did receive would have been hushed and negatively geared. while my world started to open up when i started high school was allowed to have my own phone + instagram account, resulting in me realising something wasn't quite 'right' within a few years (making me a relatively early realiser compared to those who don't come out to themselves until adulthood), in life the captain never had that experience. he didn't receive the information he needed, his environment didn't grow less hostile. with the near-exception of havers related heartbreak, his well disciplined and lifelong method of repression never became destructive/exhaustive enough to permanently override the danger signals in his mind and allow him to put his feelings into words. neither of the most common catalysts for change happened for him, so he continued as usual, even after his death.

BUT, and here’s where we come to why this is actually great representation, arrival of mike and Alison represents the opening up of new world. for the first time, the captain is actively made aware of the fact that his environment is no longer hostile, and better than that, it’s affirming. he’s also getting access to positively geared information about lgbtq people and identities, so option a of the two catalysts for change is absolutely present, and resoundingly positive.

the captain’s arc is also relatively unique as it acknowledges the oppressive nature of his environment, but actually focuses on the internal consequences, and the way that systems like those that the captain lived in succeed because they turn us into our own oppressors. for whatever reason, we repress ourseslves, and often can’t help it, and i find that the significance of the journey to overcome that is often overlooked in more mainstream queer media. perhaps it’s just not very cinematic, or it remains too confronting for cishet audiences, but ghosts manages to touch on it with a lovely amount of humour and hope. Jamie Babbit’s But I’m A Cheerleader is another favourite piece of queer media for the same reasons.

not only does it show this, but as the captain continues to get gayer and lean into some of his less conventional traits (like an interest in fashion and the wedding planning), it shows lgbt people who have been or are going through this that there CAN be a positive outcome. it takes a lot to unlearn all the things that have painted you as wrong, especially when a massive institution is desperate to continue doing so, but you can do it, you can be happy, and it's never too late. (i've been meaning to say that last point for ages for ages, but a mutual beat me to it here)

2. not just another coming out arc

i absolutely support the demand for queer stories that don’t center around coming out (it’s like shrodinger’s queer: if you’re not coming out on screen, do you really even exist?), but i don’t align with the criticisms that the captain should already be out. for the reasons mentioned above, the captain’s particular story is fairly different to the ‘young white teenager who mostly knows gay is fine, it’s just everyone else that’s got the problem, but have a unremarkably straight sounding soundtrack, a trauma porn romance, and a cishet saviour’ that we keep seeing. the captain’s ongoing journey with his sexuality emphasises the overaching theme of the show: recovering from trauma and humanity’s endless capacity for growth, and i think that’s worth showing over and over again until it stops being true.

additionally, while the captain’s journey regarding his gayness is a big part of his character and story, ghosts makes it clear that it’s not the ONLY part, and being gay is far from his ONLY characteristic or dramatic/comedic engine. the fact that i’m even having to congratulate ghosts for doing that really shows how much film and television is struggling huh.

while all queer media is, and should be, subject to criticism, i think if it helps even one person then it absolutely deserves to exist, and i can say i’ve found the captain’s journey to be the lgbt story i’ve found that’s closest to my own, which says a lot considering he’s a dead world war 2 soldier who hangs out with other ghosts including a slutty Tory, a georgian noblewoman, and a literal caveman.

3. if captain gay, why he no have boyfriend????

another complaint that’s been circulating is that since the captain doesn’t, and likely won’t, have a boyfriend, that makes him Bad Representation because it follows the sad single gay trope. i kind of get the logic from this one, and a lot of it is up to personal interpretation, but part of me really enjoys the fact that the captain’s journey towards accepting himself is separated from having a relationship.

coming out is often paired with having romantic/sexual relationships (either as the reason or reward for doing so). my own struggle with repression didn't end the second that came out, and i still struggle with letting myself develop & acknowledge romantic feelings as a result of actively shutting them (and most other feelings in general) down for years, and statistics show that lgbtq youth in particular tend not to live out their 'teen years' until their twenties. by not giving cap a relationship straight away, ghosts separates the act of claiming identity and sexual orientation from finding a partner (two things which are, more often than not, separate), and also provides some very nice validation to folks who have yet to have the relationship they want, especially when lots of mainstream queer media is now jumping on the cishet media bandwagon of acting as if every person loses their virginity and has a life defining relationship at sixteen. it’s essentially a continuation of the earlier theme of “it’s never too late”, and who’s to say the captain won’t get a gay bear ghost boyfriend to go haunt nazis with??? people die all the time, it could happen.

(also, i think him and julian will have definitely shagged at least once. it was a low moment for both of them and they refuse to speak of it.)

lots of asexual/ace spectrum fans have come out to say how much they’ve loved being able to headcanon cap as ace, and while that’s not a headcanon i personally have, i think it’s brilliant that ace fans feel seen by his character- we’re all in this soup together babey (and sorry for cursing everyone still reading this with that cap/julian headcanon. i’m just a vessel)

4. “okay, but cap’s a GHOST- doesn’t that make this Bury Your Gays?”

this is a bit of a complex one, but i’m going to say no as a result of the following break down.

Bury Your Gays (BYG), aka the trope where lgbtq characters are consistently killed off (and often with a heavy dose of trauma, while cishet characters survive) is probably one of my least favourite lgbt media tropes. BYG has two main points:

1. the lgbt character is killed, thus removing them from story entirely- hence the use of the phrase ‘killed OFF’ (killed off of the show/film)

2. the character’s death reinforces the perception that lgbtq people’s lives must end in tragedy, instead of being long and fulfilling, or are inherently less valuable. bonus points if the character is killed in a hate crime or confesses same-gender love right before they die (that one implies that queer love genuinely has no future!)

not every death of an lgbtq character is bury your gays, and i personally feel that the captain is an example of an lgbt death that isn’t.

first of all, while the captain is dead, so are the vast majority of characters in ghosts. the premise of the show means that death is not the end of the line for its characters- for most of them, it’s the only reason we get to see them on screen at all. as such, the captain being dead doesn’t remove him from the story, so point one is irrelevant.

at the time of posting, we don’t know how or why the captain died, but we've had nothing to suggest his death was in any way related to his latent sexuality, so his mysterious death doesn’t actively play into the supposedly inherent tragedy of queer lives, nor the supposedly lesser value. that’s as of right now- since we don’t know the circumstances of his death it’s a little tough to analyse properly. while the captain’s life absolutely features missed opportunities and it’s fair share of tragedy, hope and growth (which seems to be the theme of this post) abounds in equal measure. the captain may not be alive, but we DO get to see him growing and having a relatively happy existence, that for the most part seems to be getting even better as he learns to open up and be himself unapologetically- that doesn’t feel like BYG to me.

while writng this, it’s just occured to me that death really is a second chance for most of the ghosts, especially with the introduction of alison. from mary learning to read, to thomas finding modern music, they’ve all been given the chance explore things they never could have while they were alive, and hopefully grow enough to one day be sucked off move on.

in conclusion,

i love the captain very much and i hope his arc lives up to the standards it’s set so far. i don’t know where to put this in this post, but i’d alo like to say i LOVE how in Perfect Day, the captain wasn’t used as an educational experienced for fanny at all. i am very tired of people expecting me to be the walking talking homophobe educator and rehabilitator, so the fact that it’s alison and the other ghosts that call fanny out while the captain just gets to have fun with the wedding organisation made me very happy.

here’s a few other cap posts that i’ve done:

the captain’s arc if adam and the film crew stayed

a possible cap coming out

the captain backstory headcanon

if you’ve read this far,

thank you!

also check out @alex-ghosts-corner , this post inspired me very much to write this

#i subluxed all my fingers and wrists doing this but worth it #bbc ghosts #bbc ghosts headcanon #bbc ghosts analysis #the captain #caphavers #the captain x havers #ben willbond #lgbt representation #lgbt rep #queer media #lgbt media

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im-the-punk-who · 3 years

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Hi! I read your dog training post and firstly - so sorry people are idiots. I’ve been wanting a dog (not puppy) and everyone tells me I have to stay home with it 24/7 and if I work outside the house I shouldn’t get one but your post kinda seems to me that that’s what I SHOULDNT do since my dog won’t be properly socialized if I’m with it constantly like that. I’m interpreting that correctly right? If so then a lot of the dog owners I know are idiots too lol

Hey! So - yes and no. Lol. It really depends on the age of the dog you get and their particular behavioral needs but in general, no please do not do that lmao.

If you get a true puppy - like under 6 months - yes, you should plan to spend at least 6 months not being out of the house for more than 3-4 hours at a time. (The younger the dog, the less time you can have it be alone, and the longer you'll need to do that.)

This is for two reasons, but really the biggest is that puppy bladders are tiny and their attention spans are even tinier. I never actually consider a dog 'housetrained' until it is 14 months or older because that's when they pass through their adolescence. The time from 9-14 months is a REALLY BAD TIME TM for both dogs and owners, lmao. It's when most behavioral issues crop up, and also when the dog goes through a lot of biological changes(whether or not the dog is fixed, but particularly if it isn't) and this can crop up in a lot of weird gastrointestinal shit and a recurrence of potty issues. Just liek when you're stressed and your stomach acts up, dogs get the same. And if you're home you can make sure this doesn't turn into a longer term potty training issue.

The second reason you need to be home with a puppy is that otherwise they are *alone* - which is where the socialization problem comes in. If you have other dogs, animals, or people in your home this is less of an issue. But honestly either way, people should be bringing their dogs to get structured socialization from the time they are 16 weeks old. From birth until 18 months is when dogs do the bulk of their social learning. (I know that 'experts' like to say that you only have until the dog is 16 weeks and experts are dumb as shit. This *is* when they do their best learning, but a dog can *learn* to be social at any age. I have worked with dogs as old as 10 who learned proper social behaviors.) Any learning done before adolescence is finished is going to be the best learning because a) the dog does it while it's in 'baby' mode and is *seeking* biologically to learn, and also because they don't have to unlearn any bad behaviors. And frankly, humans are not equipped to teach dogs dog behaviors(unless you're like me and have been trained in behavioral work).

This is because when humans interact with dogs, we're frankly shit at teaching boundaries. Which is one of the biggest and most important lessons a dog is ever gonna learn. If Fido learns when he's a puppy that a dog growling at him means back the fuck off, he is gonna be a lot smarter about trying to approach a growling dog as an adult and also, that growling dog is gonna be a lot less threatened by a dumb little puppy than a full grown dog. (Now, obviously, do not bring your puppy up to a truly aggressive dog to learn. But even well natured dogs will growl when a puppy is annoying them. And a REALLY well trained dog will give them a small nip or bite if they truly cross a line. This is IMPORTANT. and GOOD. because that tiny bit feels a lot bigger to a tiny puppy, and they're going to remember that boundary without having ever been in true danger. And, they'll have learned BODY LANGUAGE OF DOGS. Which is another thing dogs are GREAT at teaching that humans aren't. And the more of this stuff you can have your dog learn by observation (whether that's on a pack walk, at a structured play group, or by even watching other dogs play at the park, the better that dog's brain is gonna be growing up.)

However most of this doesn't apply to older or adult dogs who have already been socialized. Now, if you're specifically looking for a rescue dog who has anxiety, or has been under socialized, yes I would say you need to be prepared to spend time with the dog when you first get it training it, teaching it that it's okay to be alone, etc.

But if you're just looking to get a well adjusted adult dog, then no, after the first few days your dog *should* have already learned these skills, and should able to be left alone for at least 6 hours. If that's not true, your dog needs a trainer to address whatever fear or anxiety it is having about being left. Now, you should probably plan on taking a long weekend when you first bring your pup home to really make sure the dog settles in, bond a bit, and make sure there aren't any surprise behavioral issues and *get the dog a dog walker if you're going to be out*. Even if later you realize it isn't needed, I always recommend getting a dog walker if your dog is gonna be alone for more than 5 hours. Dogs need socialization even when they're adults and not only does this mean they get exercise and attention during the day, it also takes the pressure off you to rush home and deal with your very bored attention starved pup who is probably crossing their legs.

But - to sort of answer the question - no, you should absolutely not pamper your dog when you first get it by spending every second with it because then when you *do* go back to work or heck, if something happens and you want to spend the night out with friends, family, or go away etc, your dog is going to have A Mental Breakdown TM. In my mind a big part of having a dog is building both 'alone time' and 'structured play' into their day. Even if I'm home all day, I will leave for 1-2 hours and my dogs go in their crates. And also every day they get either their 2 hour walk when I take my client's dogs, or if i'm off we go for a 45 minute bike pull so they get their mental stimulation.

It's just like people - socialization is not JUST for socialization, it's for mental stimulation and being around the same person day in and day out is a little like asking the same person 'how's the weather' every day and calling it mental enrichment. And I really just want to shake people who went through an entire pandemic being locked in a house 24/7(even with roommates or family) and were complaining about all the mental stress that caused and then turn around and think their dog could possibly be happy never seeing anyone but them. Like?????? Please. PLEASE lmao.

Anyway you should absolutely get a dog even if you cant spend every second with it, as long as the type of dog you get is conducive to your living situation and you are prepared to spend at least 3-4 hours a week purposely letting your dog interact with other dogs *or* getting a dog care professional to do it for you. <3 <3 <3

#i am sorry i hope this made any kind of sense lmaooo #dogs #dog training #milo answers #i can never give succinct advice because im always like 'okay well what are the EXACT SPECIFICS of your situation lmao'#(THAT SAID IF YOU WANT TO ASK A FOLLOW UP FEEL FREE)#long post

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redinkofshame · 3 years

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Some late night ramblings Re: gender and toddlers bc I can't sleep.

I mentioned a while back that my kid's pediatrician asked if he could tell boys from girls and how much it upset me, like, can you?? (<-- I regret not saying it. I should have.) At the time I said no, he thinks everyone is a boy.

I soon realized I was wrong; he doesn't think everyone is a boy, he just only knows/uses he/him pronouns. Boys are he/him, girls are he/him, inanimate objects are he/him. I've been working on it with him every time he gets it wrong (but it's not working at all)

Ignoring for a minute that I don't particularly like that my 3yo can correctly (or as correctly as anyone else) say 'that boy won't play with me' or 'that girl took the ball'... (Like, how can he tell? They’re just kids...) Even though he can't grasp pronouns I'm glad that he's exposed to gender neutral on a regular basis thanks to the librarian that does toddler time at the library, Mx. Jude. I feel like it's scary to tell parents your proper pronouns because so many people are shitty but I'm glad they did. I guess I should write a comment card or something? Or is that patronizing?

I've been working on my own pronoun use, too. I try to remember not to assume and to use neutral terms unless I know otherwise. Kinda hard to unlearn a lifetime of cis stuff but I try. Sometimes I mess up in my head at work -- hard not to make assumptions when speaking with a nurse named Angela -- but I (think) I always remember when leaving a note saying who I spoke to be neuter about it.

It’s already paid off. Kiddo is in swimming lessons and his teachers rotate all the time so I was introducing him to the week’s teacher. I don’t know if I would have caught myself if it wasn’t easy to see that the teacher was wearing clothes that came from a different department than their AGAB but it slowed me down enough that I remembered to use a they/them, despite my brain telling me I could just assume their gender and sexual preferences based on a glance. I’m really glad I did bc when I tell you their eyes just LIT UP and being called they/them by a new parent.

So much so even my mom saw it, I think. Or maybe she picked up on me continuing to use those pronouns when talking about them later? I don’t think I ever mentioned them again though. I do know that I saw mom use the correct pronouns weeks later when we saw them again, in that way where she had to slow down before she said it to remind herself to use they/them. I know it’s a struggle for her. It’s hard to re-learn! She’s very good about Mx. Jude in front of kiddo but sometimes will slip when talking to be about them.

I probably slow down the same way, though I try not to. It doesn’t come naturally yet. But I’m glad that I’m working on it. And I’m glad people from my mom’s generation are too.

I grew up with Fox News playing like 24/7, except when we were in the car: then it was Rush Limbaugh. I believed all the rhetoric. But occasionally something someone said would seem Too Unfair to me, and if was coming from my mom I would say so. One time a butch woman (I think. Who knows.) was spending, like, a long time primping her hair in the Target bathroom. Mom muttered something like ‘she’s spending an awfully long time on how she looks for someone who doesn’t care how they look.’ and I was like ‘who says she doesn’t care?? Just because YOU don’t like women with short hair doesn’t mean SHE doesn’t like it. You don’t know she cut it just to say ‘fuck you’ society.’ (though, now that I’m older and wiser, more power to them if they did. I also like to imagine they were getting ready for a date or talking to a cute cashier.)

She used to say It’s okay to be gay but they shouldn’t be *married* they can just have ‘civil unions’. It took me YEARS to stop believing that, but when I did I found an excuse to bring it up again so I could say something about it.

And folks? It worked?? Like I didn’t notice at the time. I don’t think she really responded either time and the subject moved on. But even she still remembers that time in the Target bathroom because it left such a ‘o shit the kid’s right’ imprint on her, and it’s made her think about some things more critically.

But now we’re at a point that my mom will text me about how my kiddo loved playing with Mx. Jude today, just casually in a text. I didn’t even know where she learned that Mx. was a thing. She didn’t learn it from me. (I’ve since gathered she probably learned it from the teacher.) I’ve never really talked her much about gender outside explaining why some people go with bi and some pan and some other ones out there.

Which! Side note. When her teenaged nephew came out as bi to her sister, and then the sister talked to mom about it, mom was able to explain ‘just because someone’s attracted to multiple genders doesn’t mean it’s always all genders equally; sometimes it is, or sometimes people will still have some preference to girls or boys but are still bi’ because apparently of all the things I said to her about it that one was like a lightbulb for her. I have no idea why it mattered in the conversation tbh, only that she later said she was happy that she understood that now, thanks to me.

I hope this isn’t patronizing to mom, and I don’t want anyone to think ill of her bc she’s super amazing and caring and works so stupid hard for this family. But it’s just great to see that other former Fox-News watchers can just learn to teach themselves to be progressive.

(Dad’s changed a lot too but not in an anecdote-able way, not as socially, so idk how to describe it. Definitely thinks more critically though.)

One more before I resort to sleep meds I guess. My cishet BFF just informed me that her spouse is a transwoman. She’s wanted to tell me forever (like 6 month I think) but they weren’t out about it yet and it wasn’t her place to tell, all I knew was that her and spouse were in therapy about something she couldn’t talk to me about yet.

I focused more on her reaction to it when I was talking to her, because I know how much she hates secrets and has wanted to talk to me about it and I wanted her to tell me all the things she’s been holding back. And also their family’s reactions because they suck. (The reaction is that everyone thinks her wife is going to hell, even the wife’s mother.) But the first thing I asked was how to spell her wife’s new name.

When the conversation was over and I had her permission to tell others I informed my spouse and mom, because they also know my BFF and might talk about her spouse and I didn’t want them to accidentally misgender/deadname her.

My mom’s first question was how to spell her wife’s new name 😂 (and then if she was using she/her pronouns or smth else).

Idk. It’s exciting. I’m happy for all you funky little queer folk. I’m sorry my ass is taking so long to catch up. I’ll make sure my kiddo is better than me. Forgive him for misgendering over half the population currently (and most inanimate objects).

#now that i've written it all it's like way too personal to post right #but also #I've already written it all...#it's a good thing my posts only get like 4 notes #Also for the record my kid will know that we use he/him only for convenience #but not to assume we're correct #and they can correct us at any time with our full support #anyway I saw a kid at his swim lessons in head-to-toe-to-towel spider man merch from the boy department and I assumed girl #just because he had long hair???#wtf me #I knew not to say anything out loud so that's good #my husband has long hair. He got a lot of shit growing up because of it #(utah sucks)#what's wrong with me #hope mom doesn't see this but I've got too many followers on my side blog

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prinxlyart · 4 years

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How do you think some of the other parents would react to the blight parents journey to redemption/being fully redeemed? I think it would certainly be shoking at first and they'd be skeptical because of how much of a reputation the blights have built

Ooooo this is a good one I like it okay let’s see

Willow’s Dads

I think Willow’s dads have an especially sour attitude towards the Blight parents just because of Willow’s personal history with Amity and those 7 years of non-stop depression their daughter suffered because of Alador and Odalia’s actions. They’re extremely skeptical of the Blights trying to “turn over a new leaf” and are convinced they’re only saying so because they want to get something out of it. They’re also both especially protective of the Blight children after they’d originally escaped the manor simply because what the ever loving fuck did those two sorry excuses for witches think they were doing to these kids???????

After Willow explains why Amity stopped being her friend all those years ago, her dads sort of. Accidentally adopt? Amity? Sort of? They legit tell her that she’s welcome to stay with them any time and for as long as she needs if she ever has any trouble, etc etc, and no joke they offered their little 2-bedroom flat to the blight kids when they were first discussing their escape plans. They wanted to be absolutely certain these kids would have a safe place to go the moment they flew the coop.

They love Luz. No question. Okay, maybe one question: why is she so insistent that she try to make those good for nothing Blight Socialites see the error of their ways? Their heads are so far up their own vain asses; they consider Luz’s newest quest to be an impossible one. They’re rather surprised when Luz reports back that her talk with the Blight parents actually went in her favor. They still won’t believe it until they see it though, which Luz concedes is fair. It’s not until Camila (who they also love) also reports back weeks later that she made them cry and that they bound themselves in an everlasting oath to Luz that they were going to do better that they finally believe it.

They defo still don’t like it, but yknow. They’re trying? Which is more than they could say of most of their childrens’ lives? And it’s extremely tense; even though all of the Blight children are adults now, these two Very Good Dads (still with no names; please Dana I’m begging you) find themselves acting as chaperones occasionally to the Blight kids when they meet up with their parents. Usually when it involves Amity (as she’s the future daughter in law), but they also don’t hesitate when Edric or Emira ask for their backup as well.

Viney’s Parent(s)

I’ve seen a lot of fanfics where Viney only has one parent and I don’t know why that’s so common. Regardless, Viney’s parent(s) would be fucking livid at the Blight parents. Not only did they openly criticize their daughter (viney) to her face, but also just the years of shitty parenting they inflicted upon their daughter in law and her siblings??? Super not okay. In fact, they were so spiteful, it was a common theme muttered under their breath at Viney and Emira’s wedding. Viney’s parent(s) could almost constantly be heard whispering something about how glad they were that Odalia and Alador weren’t there or how disapproving they would’ve been at any display of affection the newlyweds would share. Long story short, they fucking hate the Blight parents. Where Willow’s dads are much like Willow in that they would let their anger simply simmer and fester like a dark storm on the horizon, Viney’s parent(s) would be the vicious winds of the storm fast-approaching.

Similarly to Willow’s parents, they offer the Blight kids their home if they ever need it. I’m not sure if Viney has siblings or not but regardless, they’d figure out at least three different bedroom solutions for the Blight kids if they ever needed their help with anything.

As much as Viney’s parent(s) love the Blight kids and want to protect them, they actually find planning Viney and Emira’s wedding as the only parent(s) rather difficult. Although that lasts for all of five minutes before the doors are blown off their hinges and Willow and Luz’s parents (and parental figures) burst in like a super hero squad. These adults all want to make sure all of the Blight kids are happy, not just the one that associates with their respective daughters. It just adds fuel to the fire when all of these parental figures show up and the Blight parents don’t.

When they do show up while they’re all trying to plan out our girls’ triad wedding, Viney’s parent(s) have nothing but cold, venomous hatred in their heart(s). How dare they try to reinsert themselves into Amity’s life at a time like this???? It actually takes everyone in attendance of this wedding planning meeting to keep them from just ripping the Blights to shreds where they stood.

Everyone Loves and Respects Camila Noceda. It’s like an unspoken law in the Boiling Isles (and probably also in the human realm, but we’re not there rn). As soon as Camila explains why the Blight parents are even allowed to be at the meeting is because of their willingness to change and the effort they’ve already put in to making amends with their children, Viney’s parent(s) back down. But they don’t stop seething.

I don’t think they truly believe the Blights are in it for their family and not for some other ulterior motive until the day of the wedding. Like, it literally takes Alador walking his daughter down the aisle and taking his seat and just dissolving into tears for them to actually believe they’re here for their daughter. They see Odalia holding his hand tightly and dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief which is more emotion than they’ve ever seen from Odalia Blight ever. They’re only finally convinced that the Blight parents are capable of changing during the wedding itself. After that point they go much easier on them.

Luz’s Family

I think Eda and Lilith have more personal ties with the Blight parents. We know they all at least went to school together and likely have interacted in the past. Lilith much more recently as the Ex-Head of the Emperor’s Coven and likely actively checking in with other coven heads and their immediate subordinates while also attending to her coven leader duties. I think if they hadn’t been witnesses to Camila ripping them to shreds, they would find it hard to believe too.

Whether or not they believe it, they have very little faith in Alador and Odalia’s ability to actually change much. Or at least, Lilith has the least amount of faith. Eda’s got faith in the Nocedas wedgie-ing those stuck-up Blights into acting like civil witches. And if anyone can melt some ice-cold hearts, it’s the Nocedas. Eda trusts her girls.

Lilith doesn’t not trust them, she’s just worked professionally with them in essentially the same office as them (probably different departments) for the last 20-30 years and hasn’t seen them change once. They seemed somewhat happier in the workplace after their children were first born, but they kept themselves strictly professional at all times. Unless, of course, they were bragging about what new accomplishment their children had achieved. All this to say, the Blight were not so easily swayed.

I think between the Bligjt parents and Lilith there’s a lot of like? Reciprocal Validation in their progress to be Better? Like, Alador and Odalia look to Lilith as a sort of example for someone that used to be in their position thats spent the last several years working hard to change all of that and be worthy of Luz and Eda’s time and attention (and respect. Sometimes Luz still struggles with that one). Lilith sees the Blights’ progress from the view point of someone that’s gone through those same struggles of unlearning everything you thought you knew and building it back up into something more healthy, and she lets them know that they’re doing well, at least compared to her when she was in that same place however many years ago. Idk if the Blights and the Clawthornes were ever friends during school but I like to believe that at least during the hard parts of the Blights redeeming themselves, they do make a real friend in Lilith as someone that understands exactly the mental place they’re coming out of and trying so hard to fix.

Eda generally keeps to herself when it comes to the Blight parents. She loves the Blight kids, of course, one of them is head over heels for her own kid and she’s been a proud bystander watching their relationship flourish over the years. She’s fiercely protective of the Blight kids; any time any of them show up at the Owl house with distressed looks, she immediately puts a kettle to boil and starts prepping some tea before they can even start hashing out what new complicated BS they’ve got stirring in their noggins. She started doing this as a way to not have to deal with teenage hormones because when did her house become a teenager safe-haven??????? But then continued it over the years because all the kids found comfort in the small act of love and care. Even though Emira and Viney are married by the time the Blight parents begin their Redemption Journey, Emira will still stop by the Owl House from time to time and just sit and have tea with Eda (as a fellow trouble-maker, Eda feels a special kinship with the twins. She never minded the Twins’ presence in the Owl House despite all her complaining that her House had turned into a teenage clubhouse).

Any time the subject of Alador and Odalia comes up in conversation, Eda just sits back and crosses her arms and shockingly, remains silent. She knows it means a lot to so many of them; Luz and Camila seem especially invested and she cares for those Blight kids more than she’d ever admit out loud, but she’s not here to get involved. She’ll quietly support her kid’s noble efforts and be on standby in case shit hits the fan, but otherwise she wants nothing to do with the Blight parents.

King is surprisingly observant when he wants to be. He can see just how much this means to Luz and to Amity and knows that while teasing here and there might be okay, he would respect their wishes to continue trying to make the Blight parents decent people again. But that doesn’t mean he likes Alador or Odalia. He, just like Eda, had been among the ones the Blight kids had turned to when they were at their lowest points and seeking comfort over the years. He’s acted as those kids’ teddy bear for years. He only wants them to be happy (he insists it’s so he can stop being the Family Snot Rag but everyone knows it’s because he loves them). So he, like eda, remains silent whenever the topic of the Blight Parents comes up in conversation.

King and Eda defo talk shit about the Blight parents when it’s just the two of them. They will rant for hours about how shitty the Blight parents are and how undeserving they are of this second chance that Luz is giving to them. Whenever other people bring them up, Eda and King will exchange glances and eye rolls. King will often go to Eda’s lap (if she’s sitting) and pretend to nap on her. He’s actually listening and gripping Eda’s dress in his claws as a reminder to Eda to not say anything. Eda does the same under the guise of petting him; she’ll run her fingers through his fur and just grip tightly whenever she feels him starting to grow agitated under her hand. They don’t like the situation, but they also don’t need to be part of it.

Camila’s so fucking tired you guys. She’s long since accepted that her daughter lives in the Demon Realm and that the demons living here tend to only be different in physiology compared to humans or witches. Otherwise, they’re exactly the same as any other person.

No, the true demons, Camila’s discovered, are those like the Blight parents. Those that neglect their children in favor of something so frivolous as social standing and at the same time, thrust ridiculous expectations on their children to behave in the same way such a social standing would require. Withholding affection as something to be earned rather than giving it as the basic need children require. As if their love was something to work for like Luz doing all of her chores (and not forgetting them) for a month to earn a new book. She’s disgusted to say the least. But! Luz is her whole world. And the Blight children are a part of her world. Putting in the work to change the Blight parents for the better rather than just writing them off as a lost cause is something that means a lot to Luz (and by extension, the Blight kids who Camila’s adopted in her mind. She adores Amity and loves watching Eda interact with the twins). So she’s ready to put in that effort. If only so she can scream at them to their faces about the million ways they’ve fucked up and get away with it.

Camila doesn’t....like Alador and Odalia, just sort of on principle. If anything, she pities them. What sort of lives have they led where they think treating their children so horribly was even an option? As she helps guide them into being decent people, she does get to witness their actual personalities break through the tough exteriors they’d crafted for themselves. Alador is a dork. Odalia is quite smart despite her dumb life choices. Both are extremely talented in the magic paths they’ve pursued. Alador is like every man ever and cracks dad jokes that literally only Luz (and sometimes Edric) finds funny. Odalia has a quick-witted kind of humor that you have to stop and think about before it sinks in what she’s said.

It takes a long time for Camila to actually be able to stand their presence, but I think she tolerates them by the time their daughters’ wedding takes place. After that point it’s a matter of chipping away at those stony exteriors they made decades ago to get their real personalities out into the sunshine. By the time those masks are gone, Camila finds she actually doesn’t mind them being around. She’s okay with them being in-laws. I’m not sure if they ever become like. Friends? But they certainly come to a point of mutual respect. Eventually.

Thank you so much anon!! This was a super cool thought exercise :0

#prinxly inquiries #anonymous #the owl house #toh headcanons #oh boy hang on here we go #luz noceda #camila noceda #edalyn clawthorne #lilith clawthorne #toh king #willow park #willow’s dads #toh viney #Viney’s parent(s)#this took me all week to write #mostly because I’ve been tired as hell lately #but also because I’m making up characters whole cloth because they don’t exist in canon yet

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snxwboarder · 3 years

Photo

^^^^ I LIVE HERE NOW????

//Lil (happy) life updates on the blog that I sorta abandoned after well.... the incident.

So yeah holy SHIT that’s the view from my new kitchen???? Honestly the pictures don’t do the view justice, the rocky mountains in the background look a lot bigger in person and it’s so fucking breathtaking. We (aka me and my parents) moved in on Thursday and I saw the house for the first time. While I was walking the property line I just burst into tears because I was so full of love and happiness and hope for the future.

Anyway, before we get into that:

Things have been really fucking good. Amazingly good. It’s been exactly a month since I left my ex. The first two weeks were some of the two of the hardest weeks I’ve ever experienced. After 7 years of conditioning to put his needs and feelings before my own, I spent the majority of those two weeks having to force myself not to think about him. It was hard, considering he was calling my work and constantly emailing me to tell me how selfish and heartless I was for leaving him. I got a new phone number after he left 17 voicemails and over 20 texts one night (none of which I listened to or read). Because of the calls to my work, I unfortunately had to tell my coworkers a bit about what was going on so that they could say I wasn’t in when he called. It’s something I didn’t want do because I had been using my work as a safe haven where everything was supposed to be normal, but thankfully all of my coworkers were super supportive and kind.

Last week I was at the doctors again so he could assess how the medication he gave me has been working and, no shock to me, it’s been doing amazing things! Not only am I having a much easier time focusing, but it’s improving my mood so much and alleviating a lot of my anxiety and depression.

My mom has been my fucking rock. She continues to be such an amazing woman who supports me and checks in with me every single day to make sure I’m alright. Last week I had a bit of a two steps back sort of day where I was just... really down (which I know is natural, so I didn’t beat myself up over it) and she stayed home from work just to be with me so I didn’t have to be alone. I love her so much and every single day I’m so thankful to have her (and my step dad) by my side.

It feels amazing to be living somewhere where he doesn’t know where I am. I feel safe and free and home. We’re in the middle of nowhere with the woods to our back and the mountains to our front. Every night I fall asleep to the sound of frogs in the pond next to us, and every morning I hear the cows across the valley. It’s breath taking. That’s quite literally the only word I can use to describe it.

I haven’t felt the “wave of relief” that I keep talking about, and honestly I don’t know that for me it will be a wave. I get little bits of relief with every day that passes, every box I unpack, every time I look in the mirror and I feel a real and legitimate love for myself that I haven’t felt in.... honestly I don’t think I’ve ever felt it.

The night I left, my ex told me that I wasn’t being myself. He told me I wasn’t brave and that I was just pretending to be brave to prove some weird point. I think that’s the thing that sticks out most to me about the night I left. Not the way he grabbed me, not the way he threatened me, not the way he yelled; it was that line about me being “fake”.

Because the thing is: I wasn’t.

I am brave. I am strong. I am worth every ounce of love that is given to me and I give in return. I am happy. I am hopeful. I am recovering.

I know I’m not out of the woods yet. I have a lot of unhealthy mindsets and tendencies to unlearn, I have a lot of self love to still find, I have a lot of relationships to mend, friends to drop, and recovery to do. I still think about him and my heart breaks all over again. I loved him for 7 years, that feeling doesn’t go away in a month.

But... in 6 months? In a year? In 5 years?

I used to be the type to plan my future down to the last insignificant detail, and if it wasn’t perfectly planned I was beyond stressed. Right now, I have no idea what the future holds and oddly enough, that doesn’t stress me out. It’s actually sort of... exciting. Like every time I run errands, or go to work, or take a walk around our property line something could happen that sets me on a new and exciting path that I didn’t see before. I’m not going to waste my time stressing anymore.

And that thought brings me another tiny spark of relief.

#mun does mun things #tw: relationship abuse #tw: anxiety #tw: depression #tw: medication

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bisluthq · 3 years

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The truth is nobody will feel happy for being disrespected.

This take is kind of problematic. Yeah, we can’t have everyone likes and respects us. And the people who disrespect you and say shitty things about you are just morons most of the time. So why care about their opinions. Don’t ever let shitty persons’ words affect you. That’s what I struggled a lot when I was a teenager. I think Joe’s BDE take on this issue is what makes me like him most.

I mean that’s something I learned from my brief stint in student politics lol at a major university during a national student uprising. Like I’m someone who had extremely small dick energy if I’m honest for like the bulk of my life, from being embarrassed about the comment about my little Photoshopped project covers with models and celebs to changing my background when someone was like “hahah you’re so obsessed with Olivia Wilde” and I was like “do they know???”

I was so desperate to make everyone like me all through high school and uni and people did and I felt like they didn’t. Then I was invited to run for student government (pre the uprising like fuck if I’d known Fees Must Fall would happen my dick wouldn’t have been big enough) and I did and like… it felt nice because everyone loved me. I came like third overall, like literally thousands of people liked me.

And then like Fees Must Fall started happening and here was this foreign white girl who felt like everyone loved her trying to like help people and like FMF antis hated me and brown/Black FMF activists hated me because I was speaking over them and like I learned a very hard but important lesson and realized that I have lanes and shit.

Then I was so desperate to make “the right people” - “woke” people - like me.

And then I’ve spent years unlearning that need to be liked and admired and be called clever. Like when I went to Cannes Lions I was dying to tell people I did have like “serious” stuff I’m doing with the academia, that this is just like a gig but I have “real” ambitions. I did one of the coolest things in my life thus far while embarrassed of it. And I just don’t want to feel that way anymore or ever again, though I still have my moments because - much like with my comphet - a part of me wants to be a super serious academic and like reading theory for fun.

The thing is, you need to just be you. As Lola says in Kinky Boots, everyone else is already taken.

And if you’re gonna care about what people say about you, you’re gonna be miserable.

You can laugh about it - the name of my blog comes from my anti right - but fundamentally if you care you’re being anti’d you need to work through that and ask yourself the following things: 1) am I being me? Answer should be yes, if it’s no, take the anti’ing on board 2) is this person trying to teach me something? If the answer is no, fuck them, if it’s yes, take the anti’ing on board 3) do I care what this person thinks? Is it someone I like? If the answer is no, remember what my high school history teacher said and repeat: “the tallest trees get the most wind.”

#nat talks nat

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ablednt · 4 years

Text

The Oof Side of having RSD

Long post I know but this stuff is important cause sometimes being ND and mentally ill cam be ugly and hard too and that needs to be talked about too.

Most of this I think is more prevalent in people who don't know they're ND so if anyone is relating to this even if NT then you're fully encouraged to reblog

Fixating on individual people as the Valid Person in your life. They are the Authority. You Have to please THIS one person at any time. You probably won't realize that you're idolizing them cause normally it's a friend or mutual so you think oh it's just that they're so much cooler than me. You start to try and find excuses to talk to them more because you Just. Need to talk to them (about anything! You just need to be in their presence!) for reasons you don't really understand yourself. This causes you to become hyperaware of their behavior and words so you can fine tune yourself to fit this persons standards for a good person. (This, as far as I know, can also be a bpd experience but I don't have bpd so I don't know where the overlap ends) This can also be multiple people but usually it boils down to one or two people. You start to base your self worth on their mannerisms and ability to validate you and so you feel bad talking to them now but you keep doing it til they eventually can't cope with it and leave and you don't know what to do from there and you feel sick and betrayed somehow.

Lashing out at others to "get back at them" for perceived rejection. This is a sentiment I think ties into how passive aggression is glorified in our current society and seen as really cool or whatever. Anyway I'm talking about (as an example from my intrusive thoughts recently I ignored) stuff like "No one responded to me on my discord so I'm deleting this channel/the message" and shit like that. It's like. Instead of self care you think you will feel better or be standing up for yourself if you do something to "punish" whoever made you upset. Not only is this a bad mindset to have in general but a lot of the time people haven't done anything seriously wrong but rsd is making you feel like shit so you think it must be their fault cause it's not like you know you have rsd.

Feeling like you always have to be on the defense or offense. Now this one is a bit tricky cause on one hand, personally, when people have accused me of this they were also incredibly toxic and attempting to shut me up entirely but on the other I have gotten into these unhealthy behaviors before so try and think individual situations through thoroughly to try and examine whether or not your reactions were reasonable given the context and your current state of being. But with this kinda stuff I'm talking about when you think someone might be mad at you over a disagreement or some other reason and you feel the urge to make yourself pityable to avoid any perceived rejection (as an example from my past "Sorry if that was argumentative, my dad always made every thing into a debate and I don't know how to act normally"). Or to lash out by going on the offense. Normally this isn't an intentional behavior it's instinctual because those are two survival responses to feeling like you're about to be hurt. The problem comes in when you have rsd because perceived rejection is everywhere so you will constantly be in that flight or fight mindset unless you learn to keep these reactions in check.

Self depreciation. This one ties into the last one in that it's a type of survival response. If you beat anyone to demeaning yourself then maybe they'll accept you. This is also something that's glorified currently as it's seen as funny and cool. While it's good to recognize imperfections and embrace them I'm talking about mindsets of "lol I'm trash! I'm ugly lmao! I'm a bitch ik lmao" and for unknowingly hyperverbal or adhd folks it tends to be "I know I talk too much when will I shut up lmao" and varients. Basically, its a mindset of "well everyone wants to hurt me, if I want to hurt myself then we have something in common, everyone's happy." That's a subconscious mindset but it leads to toxic friendships (sometimes on both sides sometimes just on the other persons) and a lot of hurt in the long run for others too but especially for you.

What all of these behaviors boil down to is this: When you're ND and/or mentally ill you grow up feeling less than everyone else, feeling broken and undesirable. That's no way to live so to survive your brain starts looking for validation anywhere and everywhere with all the desperation of looking for water in the middle of a desert. But the problem is that the wounds from this stuff are now so deep and fundemental to your development that while support can and will help you, you first have to work on unlearning the ableism and self hate. The only person who you're really trying to prove anything to is yourself.

When I was 17 a friend expressed that I might be autistic and around the same time I learned about my ADHD and I had been exhibiting all these behaviors. I felt relieved because I was realizing that these things were survival instincts, that I wasn't simply a failure or unable to hold relationships. I absolutely hated myself that time of my life and I have had my ups and downs since then but because I knew now it was a result of being marginalized and not my own worth I began to work on self love and now these behaviors are just intrusive thoughts I deal with normally.

It CAN get better, you aren't undeserving of healing or forgiveness, and you deserve to be able to look back one day and realize that you love yourself and You're imperfect and messy but you at least feel in control of yourself. Leaving that fight and flight mode and learning to regulate your emotions is hard but it's one of the most freeing things I've experienced thus far in my life.

Anyway that was long sorry but hopefully it's helpful and if anyone needs help or wants to talk my inbox is always open <3

#rejection sensitivity #rejection sensitive dysphoria #adhd #actuallyautistic #actuallyadhd #actually autistic #actually adhd #actually anxious #anxiety #depression #(if you reblog please tag anything you feel is relevant)#long post

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bymyblood · 3 years

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spending four years of my life in abusive relationships really fucked me up. while it’s true that i learned some important lessons from the shit i went through, i also became very deeply damaged, and that damage heavily overshadows whatever positives i gained from all the suffering. i have so much anger toward my exes for what they did to me. i am trying to navigate a dating relationship again and the moment things start to feel uneasy i turn into a fucking crazy person. i’m hypersensitive to even normal and nontoxic things. tiny details about the way a person treats me will have my brain catastrophizing and sending me into a spiral of panic. my anxious attachment issues have increased dramatically and i honestly don’t know if i am even capable of healthy connection anymore. maybe i just need to find the right kind of person… but then, even with the best possible person, those issues would still be present. my trauma is very deep-rooted. it’s important that i work through my trauma bc i want healthy and fulfilling relationships. and i absolutely do not want to perpetuate any harm or dysfunction onto others. i’ve spent the last year rebuilding my relationship with myself and learning how to be happy alone again. i’ve come a long way and am proud of the progress that i’ve made. but humans are social creatures, we are meant for relationship with others. and a major aspect that i hadn’t put any thought into is the fact that i need to learn how to exist not just by myself but also in healthy relationships. because honestly? i have never been in a genuinely healthy romantic relationship. i am so used to being hurt, deceived, taken advantage of, gaslit, strung along, lied to, and confused. i’ve built up a hell of a defense system against that abuse, to the point where i have extreme attachment issues and lack of trust toward both my partner and my own perception of reality. i need to figure out how to unlearn the trauma responses that are hard-wired into my brain. i think i need more intensive and trauma-informed therapy. i’m spending some time today looking into a DBT + RO DBT program near me. i’ve been thinking for years that i would benefit a lot from that therapy style, but i’ve never done anything serious to get started with it. i want to get better… actually, genuinely better. i owe it both to myself and to the people i want to love. i’m sick of the dysfunctional people that have been in my life, but even more sick of the resulting dysfunction that exists in myself. i need to be better.

#my life #emotional processing #text #k

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katzirra · 3 years

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Waiting for the place to give me my file list from my hand drive recovery. Made an omelet with asparagus and bacon, and gave the boys a tiny bit for being good this morning and letting me sleep in past 8:06...

Hannibal woke me up with very loudly aggressively loving face rubs which is new, and has been demanding attention all morning by soft paw grabbing and holding my hand while cooking, also new. Usually he's very independent and wants nothing to do with us.

Still concerned with his audible breathing when he's SLIGHTLY distressed, for a cat with obvious anxiety, and when he's picked up or sitting/laying weird. It's very noticeable, and I'm wondering if it has to do with his nasal bridge being a tad flat.

Trying to manifest a good mood. I'm having a big existential crisis about being alive.

Which, I'll just throw that under a cut and pair it with an apology. 🤙✨

I feel like I have no purpose or meaning. Having a lot of those "why bother/what's the point" moments about a lot of things which...the depth of those feelings isn't just apathetic like most people experience? For me it's very much a red flag, so that's been fun. Usually it's doing something as simple as doing something nice for myself, thinking why bother, and having to ARGUE with myself why it matters. Like...having to validate EVERYTHING I do these days is exhausting. Honestly, it's been a low simmer scary JUST KEEP SWIMMING the last few months. But everything I feel is too much to talk to anyone about, and it doesn't HELP me to. It's me. It's my brain. It's scary and I don't like looking the beast directly in the face when people want me to open up. My demon, my problem, trust me when I say I'm trying and that I'm sincere when I say sorry I'm not all here or present.

I'm, like torn between wanting to message my friend first to talk about shit, but I'm also refusing because I was hurt and the comment about shit being too much to read just resonates in my brain yelling "you're not worth their time and effort, you dumb bitch!" because my brain has a FIELD day with that shit. Its.... Kicking a dead horse, repeating myself anyway probably. It hasn't seemed to stick after the last year of me apologizing monthly because I'm just a shit friend who is too busy working and trying to not kill myself. Suicide ideation is a thing, and it SUCKS when it's as invasive as it is for intruding thoughts. But I'll keep apologizing because I feel guilty for not being good enough. Present enough. Engaging enough. Because maybe that time it'll stick??

They'll probably be better off without me making them feel bad because I don't put in enough effort I guess? Which also just hurts because I know online I'm standoffish these days, so I put the extra effort into being a good host I thought and I hoped that mattered. I just feel like no matter what I'm doomed to disappoint them? So I don't mean they'd be better off in a dismissive way, it's a legit...way I think. Like I'm obviously causing distress, and yelling at me won't fix it because it makes me recoil emotionally. So maybe I'm just a bad friend in reality and it is what it is. I'm sorry so many people have fucked me up about inter personal relationships?? I don't know what to do this time because that stupid fight cut me very deep in core values in myself.

It...Fucked me up. And whether that's important to them or not, or whether it has an repercussive weight, whatever. We've both been hurt by people, and been there as much as we'd let eachother. I've tried to be crazy supportive in the last bout of shit they went through. Because I love a bitch, and they matter immensely to me, and I know I suffered alone through a LOT of things like that and know it sucks. I offered my home, attention and time any time I could give it.. Being told i don't give as much as them set weird on my heart in light of that. It hurt.

Idk...And maybe I'm just some dramatic bitch or whatever I guess. Doesn't matter. I matter, my feelings matter. I'm mentally ill and I fucking bust my ass to deal with it, AND be a loving and supportive fixture in people's lives. I suck, sure. But I'm ALWAYS there for people.

I mention I'm depressed or angry at life, sure, but the layers of distress aren't...on display? It's my shit to deal with, if I bring it up, it's for benefit of people knowing why I'm withdrawn usually. I don't talk about myself much anymore because everything is too much and I just start venting. And people don't care that deeply about how fucked up my head is. Or I over share too much. Or yeah, it's a lot to read and I start babbling because the cork is off and I HURT inside just being alive anymore. I don't feel like I'm living my life for me these days. I don't feel alive. I feel stagnant. I'm biding time for SOMETHING to happen??

Yet I'm constantly apologizing to people for not being able to do basic shit, that I'm upfront about being difficult for some dumb reason. I'm always having to explain myself to people. I am in this bubble so often of feeling like I was made wrong, a mistake, missing something important.

Or that I'm a bad person. I'm too open, too closed, withdrawn, outgoing - I can never seem to get the ratio right. And its the kind of discussion I feel leans into self pity and attention grabbing but it's...something I internally struggle with every week and keep to myself.

Oh Kat, get a psychiatrist - I dont know that it would help, honestly. I know 90% of my thoughts and fears are irrational, and pointless. But I know they have valid backing in trauma that I have mostly dealt with, and am unlearning. But I also know I see through people, can identify those markers, and understand outcomes way too easy and that ALSO makes people mad. So. What the fuck is a shrink gonna do for me? My depression is a background white noise to this stuff, and it's honestly just bullshit I deal with. I'm not keen on medication, I'm sure it would help quiet my brain, but I've been dealing with this shit almost 20 years now, ita just the added drama and bullshit from people that exacerbates the emotional brain rash, for lack of a better phrasing. My issues are all behavioral and some depression and anxiety in the mix that I manage.

For all I'm told people understand ahit wrong with me, it sure is something I repeatedly get bitched at over, honestly. And I partially get it, I also find it frustrating. But I've been battling depression since I was 12/13 and learning to stop thinking certain things only since 21, and that's the harder part. I'm not the person people think I am, I wish I was anymore. That bitch died in 2011/2012. That fissure in my foundation fucked me UP. The shaking I had one or two years ago, didn't help.

To be transparently honest the whole shitstorm two weeks ago really hit some raw nerves I'm trying to deal with, and not doing well. Because the more times that nerve is hit the more I don't feel like a valuable person and that I'm wasting people's time. But the reason I'm yelled at is that I am a valuable person, and they want more of my time in a way?? I don't know what people want from me.

Waves hand dismissively - they're being sweethearts by the back door for now.

I'm in a weird place emotionally and mentally. I don't feel alive. I don't feel real. I don't feel valid or... I don't know. Nothing I say or so actually matters in my own life or experiences. I can be an amazing person with communication and intention but it doesn't matter if the other person doesn't care, it's like arguing online.

You can have a valid discussion and someone can just say "you're a fucking moron, I'm not listening to this" and you can't do anything.

I just wasted two hours organizing my thoughts qnd emotions into a post that I'll delete in a week. What a great use of my time. I'm juat exhausted.

I turn 31 tomorrow and is rather be dead lmao. I'm so tired of the weight of being alive and aware of the world and people around me. About being considerate and kind to everyone and it's never god damn enough. I bleed myself dry emotionally for everyone and run my mental battery into the ground qnd it's never enough. It's never going to BE enough. I don't want mental.break downs and emotional roller-coasters. I want friends that understand I'm scatterbrained and severely damaged and abused and I'm TRYING. I'm sorry it's never good enough.

I'm so fucking tired these days. I just want to disappear. I want to have an actual breakdown and cry

I haven't actually cried in years. I.... Mm. I feel like.im a shell. I'm so tired. I'm trying AO hard to be a good person and functional and I'm just constantly having more dished and I'm just...what is my purpose qnd point these days. I can't even make people happy.

Tomorrow I'll turn 31. It'll be like any other day. 👍✨

#kat life #ignore me

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satoruvt · 3 years

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fanfic writer tag game <3

helloooo <3 thank u for tagging me @hannie-dul-set this is so cute lol

ummmm! i think i will tag. @leejuyeeon and @seokmingiggles !! and as always anyone else who wants to <33

peum ~

1. what fandoms have you written for (but do not currently)?

omg lets see if i can do this in order. i think the first fandom i ever wrote fanfic for was creepypasta LMAOO and then... fairy tail? then 5 seconds of summer, then maybe it 2017?? voltron legendary defender, detroit become human, monster prom and mystic messenger kind of overlapped, the arcana !!! then my hero academia, haikyuu, a Little bit of demon slayer... i think thats it lol

2. what fandoms are you currently writing for?

seventeen is all for rn, but i’m thinking of also writing for mha again and adding jjk!!

3. how long have you been writing?

oh wow for like... probably around 6 years? maybe 6 and a half

4. on which platforms do you post your stories?

rn just tumblr, i used to post more actively on ao3 but i havent since i started writing for kpop

5. what is your favourite genre to write?

ahhh like !!! comfort fics!!! i think theres something really sweet in those unspoken feelings during moments you think you’ll never forget... the idea of being with someone and you’re just so sure they’re your favorite person, and then warmth that comes with that realization... wahh

6. are you a pantser or a planner?

oh it depends i think. for longer fics i like to plan them out, but i really wing it with like timestamps or shorter ones

7. one shot or multi-chapter?

ONE SHOTS. my god i fucking suck at multi-chapter shit LMAOO ive only done 1 series like that and it was so rough for me lol

8. what is the perfect chapter length in your opinion?

hm how do i explain this... anything that makes sense? however long it takes for it to feel like the chapter/fic is summed up or completed. i used to worry about word counts a lot but now i rarely pay attention to them, both in reading and writing

9. what is your longest published story? is it complete?

if we’re talking about multi-chaptered, then the color of you wins at 17k !! in terms of one shots, it’s for now; forever at 9k!

10. which story did you enjoy working on the most?

oh boy. i think... anything from the last like. 8 months? my svt stuff for sure!! i went a while without writing in between like january-late november 2020, and i was worried that my writing would suffer a lot... it took a sec for me to get back into the groove of things but i’m feeling happier than ever with the stuff i write now. i feel like ive matured about the way i approach my own writing and ideas, and how i do everything, and my fics make me really proud. ive started writing within different aus that i hadnt touched before, or talking about different feelings or ideas, etc... i really feel like ive grown with this most recent burst lol, and i love working on them! i get so hyped up when im in the middle of writing or even planning, im just so excited to share all of it hehe

11. favorite request you've have written and why (if any?)

ah its been so long since ive worked with requests that i cant remember anything LOL

12. are there reoccurring themes in your stories?

yes. it is comfort and content. it is the feeling of love. it is holding hands on a walk in the middle of spring and smelling flowers. it is the sound of leaves when a gust of wind blows past. it is looking into ur lovers eyes and feeling nothing but pure fondness

13. current number of wips?

fuck like somewhere around 20 probably

14. three things you have noticed about your own writing?

i really like repetition (specifically in sentences if that makes sense??), LOTS of unspoken things (even if i picture a fic with an established relationship, i dont say it within the fic; and especially concerning romantic feelings, i love when things go unsaid and are FELT full force), i think a lot of detailed rambling... i really like to try and describe emotions and stuff in the most abstract and obscure ways lol i feel like it makes things a little more palpable and honest

15. a quote you like from a published story

im gonna do a few. Lol. firstly this long one from pretend people can unlearn:

“Are you…” Jeonghan starts, and when you look at him, his eyes are still on the city in front of you. “Are you ever afraid that we’ll fall out of love?”

It never occurred to you that this was love. It’s not like the love you’ve experienced in the past, not even close. But maybe… maybe that’s why you never leave, why you hold yourself back from certain arguments like it might fix everything. Maybe love is the reason why Jeonghan still seems to believe in you. Why he promises he’ll be the best thing for you despite always breaking that promise.

(Is it love, a voice in your head questions, or is it longing?)

It takes you a while to respond. “I don’t know,” you end up saying, because you really don’t. Jeonghan turns his head and looks at you, and you half expect him to start an argument in the middle of night, out on the street like this. It wouldn’t be the first time. “Would that… be okay?”

“I don’t know,” Jeonghan answers, just like you. His voice is soft. You want to reach for his hand just to hold it. “You’re still…”

He pauses, like he’s trying to find the right word. You let him take his time, for once, instead of accusing him of the worst. “I’m still?”

“Everything,” he tells you. He looks so sad and you reach out for him because it’s the only thing you can offer. You think the worst thing about your relationship with Jeonghan is that you will always believe him when he gets like this, just like you’ll believe him when he takes it back in the heat of a fight.

next is from like there isn’t something missing <3

But you’re crying into his chest because it’s not you, and it’s not him. Seungcheol wonders if it was always meant to be like this, if the two of you were always meant to part or if something… if something just went wrong, somewhere. A bump that did a bit more damage than either of you thought.

He tries not to think about it now. Tears fill his own eyes as he presses a kiss to your hair because he loved you. He truly did.

“I was so lucky to love you,” he murmurs, voice a cracked whisper. “I’m so happy I got the chance.”

When Seungcheol wakes up the next morning in an empty bed, he’s not surprised. But the Post-It note that’s dressed in your handwriting…

Well. It’s over.

and this last one from only for you, i will dance !!

“This will always be our own time,” he says. “We’ll meet here.”

You know. He says it every time. It never fails to make your heart soar.

“Our thirteenth month,” you say, just like every time. Chan smiles.

He kisses you so strong you feel yourself falling.

16. a quote from an unpublished story

ahh ok ill do a few here too!!! one is something ive begun writing, the other is one that i’ve just been working on planning out <3

Smoke blows past somebody else’s lips and partially obstructs Wonwoo’s view of you.

He hasn’t been to a party like this in a long time. It’s elegant, more of a gala than anything. He can’t remember who threw it or for what reason. It doesn’t really matter, he supposes, watching you make conversation with the partygoers. They all have old money to throw around, the symbolism stitched into their suit jackets and red-rimmed heels; remnants of it left on tables and in the contents of expensive cigars.

You play them like you are one of them, tell them the right things with a silver tongue. Wonwoo always watches, plays the part of an observer. It’s impressive, the way you float around the room like it’s nothing.

Wonwoo observes; Wonwoo knows things.

and the second one...

"you don't know me," you respond. your voice carries no bite, just a fact, and joshua knows this

"i want to," he says after a second. "if you'll let me."

and he's asking permission to be your friend, to be close to you, something so tender and strangely polite

it makes you feel almost sad

"don't expect too much," you say, a little teasing. joshua only smiles

17. space for you to say something to your readers

wahhh thank you all so much!!! when i first got into writing for kpop it was a lot different mostly because i think... i was writing stuff for different anime before, and i had built up a big following because of that and my works always did like, really exceptional in terms of notes and feedback and such, and getting into kpop... has been rough on that end 💀 but i appreciate your support thus far, even if it’s small... i’m still working towards a standard that i have for myself!!! so please be patient with me, thank you for the support !!

also please find it in yourself to leave lil comments or any sort of feedback... please..... PLEASE... any creator ever understands this struggle please always try to do this!!! for me and for any other creator you follow and enjoy content from <333

#wah these things r so fun. cries #tag games #adi speaks

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siebenschoen · 3 years

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OC rambling: Diana

Okay, so, Diana is one of my twc detectives, who is still way more in “development” than my other detective, Janosch. (And that says something, considering that I wouldn’t exactly call Janosch’s character fully fleshed out... sometimes I think I don’t have the ability to really do that.)

Nevertheless, I wanna ramble about her for a bit. Mostly about her history, how she came to be and want I want her to be.

(It’s long... and I didn’t check the spelling...)

Diana started as one of my first OCs ever, back when I was 14 and still up to my neck in the pjo fandom. I came up with a whole bunch of OCs at that time, I’d say a new one every few weeks. Mostly for MMFF, which stands for Mitmach-FanFiktion (participation fanfiction) and was a huge thing in German fandoms (especially pjo, Naruto, etc.) back in the early 2010s. I don’t know if it still is (100% of my fandom activity is in English now) and I don’t know if it ever was in English fandom places, but the basic idea is that you submit filled out character sheets to an author and they write a fic featuring the submitted characters. I loved these.

So, Diana started out as a submitted character for a MMFF. I still really like the concept I came up with for her. (She was a daughter of Dionysus, the god of wine and madness and I really leaned into the madness there. I also gave her trauma times 10 and a lot of anger.) Some elements of her original story are a tad bit... questionable? But hey, I was 14, so that’s to be expected.

I haven’t touched the original character sheet in years - I’m not even sure it exists anymore - but the idea of her character stayed with me.

At her heart Diana was an angry, traumatised teenager with an absent father and a neglecting mother. And she still kind of is in a twc context, except the fact that the teenager grew up and is now an adult.

I like to think that she grew more stoic instead of angry the older she got. When you’re angry you’re unhappy with circumstances and want to change them. Diana came to except that she is unable to do so. I wouldn’t say that her anger is gone, but that it became cold. A kind of untouched resource that is still there, somewhere deep down.

I see her with a kind of cynical exception of the status quo, that can turn into furry when provoked. She has wrongly learned that she is not powerful enough to change anything, but she ist still (underlyingly) too angry about it to be satisfied with this. She is fundemantally unhappy with who she has become, but has turned to cynical to realise that she doesn’t have to be this way, that she can be different.

In a more specific twc context: living in Wayhaven is not good for her. I think it would have been good for her to go away (at least) for a while, to have the oppurtunity to explore herself and to meet people, who have no set image of her. But she didn’t, because she grew up so full of anger that it was nearly all that she was and then as she came to think of her anger less as a tool and more as something useless, she didn’t know what else to do. She didn’t move on (or out of Wayhaven), because she didn’t know where else to go, what else to do.

That’s also the reason why I can see her joining the police force, because her father had worked there. Not out of some sense of sentimentality for Rook, but because she quite literally didn’t know what else to do.

I also don’t think she’s happy in her work as a detective. I don’t think she can be truly happy, unless she works through all her pent up stuff and unlearns some of the things she wrongly taught herself. For now it’s just more responsibility she is not capable of properly dealing with.

As for the Bobby vs. Douglas route... I mean, I do love the Bobby drama and it really is tempting, but I can’t see Diana commiting to a relationship with Bobby in college. Maybe a casual thing, but not a commited relationship. So, I tend more towards the Douglas route and I like the idea of Diana helping someone and being the kind of mentor she had needed when she was younger, but also... I don’t headcanon her as reflected enough (yet) to be able to do so.

And last but not least: romance. Diana started out on the M route - more specifically Morgan, since she’s a lesbian. And I still really like the idea of both of them not fully realising what is happening. Both of them falling in love unaware that this is happening (because Diana would do a du Mortain and repress the shit out of that). She’d probably be even more “dense” than Morgan.

... but lately I’ve been thinking “but what about Farah?”. I’m gonna be completely honest, it feels mean, because F deserves the world and Diana is in no position where she can give them that. But Diana working through her issues, unlearning what holds her back, because there is someone who adores her, who thinks her capable of so much- that’s also some really good shit.

#I very quickly lost control over this #but it was fun!!#writing things down always helps me to figure them out #and I feel like I have a better understanding of her now #so that's great!#my ocs: diana

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