#but i'm so sick of seeing artists put all their self-esteem and happiness in the hands of a blogging website

[golyadkin]

I cannot express enough that if your reaction, as a hobby artist, to not getting that many notes on your art is to say "maybe I should just stop doing art altogether" you need to stop posting art to tumblr

not necessarily forever, not even for long, but just stop putting your art on here and start doing it for you again, remember why you enjoyed doing art in the first place and stop relying on the attention of faceless people on the internet for your enjoyment of your hard work

believe me, I get it, nothing crushes the artistic soul quite like labouring for hours on a piece only for it to get like 10 notes, so you need to find your own source of joy in the act of creation and a lot of the time that means making art and not showing it to anybody

[artificialqueens]

I'm so happy you found love (Trixya) - Lily

Turns out when you come to terms with loving someone, that doesn’t mean you are near your happy ending. It doesn’t mean your whole life crumbles, specially when you are in such a prosperous place professionally. Sometimes it hits you in the most inconvenient time for both of you. Turns out when you can make yourself say those words out loud, really mean them this time, the other person is tired of waiting. So he doesn’t say them. And for the first time ever, Brian does what’s best for Katya, and keeps it to himself.

A/N: hi! second fic is here because I was in an angsty place last week because of all the Trixya rollercoaster new information. Don’t trust the title referencing the glorious Miss Fame moment, and have in mind that this goes to an angsty, kind of self deprecating place and that I was experimenting with a new narrative format. Nevertheless I hope you enjoy it!  He/him pronouns and Brian for Trixie and Katya for Katya because to make matters worse these dorks in love are named the same.

He thought he was done with wanting to be different. He thought that as his life got together, the feelings of inadequacy and low worth would be over. He took all the crap he had been through and made it his best armor. He fucking built a brand around it. Daddy issues jokes, reject from ex boyfriends, people in his own community telling him he wasn’t ever going to make it. He propped himself up from it. He had not been titled America’s Next Drag Superstar and he had even turned that around in his favor.

He used to dated a lot and at some extent even consider himself a romantic, but he had slowly become unfazed by that as well. He regularly found it harder and harder to trust and care about someone, and most of the time was just tired and unbothered to put himself out there. He always either said I love you too soon, or not at all. And even when he did, he didn’t know if he believed it. Sometimes he felt he just said it to make the other guys happy, to reassure his friends that he cared about them, to be more approachable to fans. He was a jerk, he knew it. He had made peace with that truth as well. He lacked a quality of warmth that couldn’t be learned, but even that somehow made him content.

He wasn’t oblivious to the walls he built up. He was there, cement and bricks in hand, building the tallest most impenetrable barrier he could manage, fully aware of it. He didn’t tell people he was closed and distant, and that made him an even worse human. He often wondered if he had borderline delusional friends because they never saw these flaws in him, or they acted like they didn’t. He wanted to keep them off but he was selfish, he couldn’t function as a complete loner, so his life was constantly a tug and pull. Maybe his redeemable quality was that he could make himself be nice to his friends, even when he didn’t deserve their company. He could, by some strike of luck, connect with people when they showed they cared about him. He let go a bit when this happened. Perhaps this was the defining difference when it came to them. Maybe the problem was that they had blurred the lines of friendship and something else from the beginning, maybe the lines weren’t there in the first place. Maybe he had literally tricked everyone into liking him, Katya specially. He tried to swallow through the lump in his throat. How had he convinced the most adored person to care for him? Maybe he was just a really really good liar.

He felt sick to the stomach. He felt like a successful con artist who had gotten away with the biggest heist without even sweating. He looked at the bounty at hand, at all the marvelous things happening for him like it was a bag full of stolen cash that shouldn’t belong to him. Like all the good stuff he got going on was undeserving. He had learn to struggle and work his way around obstacles. He knew how to be in his daily life, exactly what to say, the faces he should put on to get his way. That he knew. That was rehearsed, memorized; that he could deal with. It was easier that way. If the routine were to change he would have to learn a new set of skills, something that terrified him. He needed the order and the balance, he needed a plan and not the unexpected. And if Katya was anything but, was expected and predictable. Just like the way Brian felt when he looked into his eyes and felt all of his world veer.

He thought that at this point in his life he wouldn’t want to be different anymore. That he wouldn’t  second think everything when he went to bed, he wouldn’t lay there going over arguments, feeling like shit for being so good at being fake that people would believe him so easily. Because that’s what he did, daily. He lied to everyone, even to those who could say they knew Brian well. Could he change? Probably, and for the better. He just didn’t deserve it. It wasn’t a matter of self esteem because he had worked hard to build that up. He stood his ground, he held his own, he was driven. Same way he’d been since fifteen.

The question was if he had been so delusional to believe this day wouldn’t come. Was he so blind and naive to think he was really all that great to have someone wait around for him for three years? He laughed at the irony of the joke, remembering all the times friends and even strangers had told him the day that attention and that chase would go away, it would lit a fire so strong under his ass that he would rush and propose himself. Open himself up entirely. Succumb to the advances, give in to the pleading, melt in all the demonstrations of affection. He was dumb enough to believe that would be the case. That he would get over his doubts and excuses when the actual fear of losing Katya would materialize.

He was close a couple of time, whenever Katya played it a bit distant, but then Brian would hear about the trade in UK not being that good after all, he would find out about yet another two-months failed affair, he would see penetrating blue eyes staring at him from across a table and he would bask in his comfort, in his power, in the knowledge that nothing would change after all. They would be back to seeing each other daily, to hanging around and eating take out, and the balance would have been restored and he would be safe enough to push the gumption to the back of his head, the momentum passed, the necessity to speak his mind long gone. He was such a good liar that he had deceived himself into the delusion that he would always have Katya for himself, willing, unapologetic, so very comfortably close.

Turns out the day had come and the phone calls hadn’t become less frequent, the jokes less funny or the air tense. It hadn’t changed over night but it also hadn’t been a process long enough for him to see it coming. Perhaps the month they’ve been away had been the last straw. He would never know. He could ask, and he would get an answer, but that would only put Katya in a terrible place, and would make Brian force himself to hear a lot of things that he’d been avoiding to confront in the last months. Turns out when you come to terms with loving someone, that doesn’t mean you are near your happy ending. It doesn’t mean your whole life crumbles, specially when you are in such a prosperous place professionally. Sometimes it hits you in the most inconvenient time for both of you. Turns out when you can make yourself say those words out loud, really mean them this time, the other person is tired of waiting. So he doesn’t say them. And for the first time ever, Brian does what’s best for Katya, and keeps it to himself.

He’s always been the best liar. He could lie to anyone tweeting him if it mean gearing up publicity for their show. He could lie to any reporter asking him about AllStars and dodge questions. He could lie to his friends back in Chicago about not being able to go visit. He could lie to himself and believe hearing Katya say he wanted to date him in a video didn’t affect him anymore. He could go back to that night and with an earnest face say he didn’t want to go any further after that kiss. He could trick himself and everyone into thinking that where there was really fear at what he felt, there was nothing but a joke. He could lie and say that learning that Katya loved someone else didn’t disturbed him either. He couldn’t face him and lie to his face just yet. But he was going to, soon. He had been for the last years. He could continue the jest, he could keep his epiphany to himself, he could choose to act like he hadn’t finally gotten his shit together and admitted to have feelings for his friend. He could lie and say that he was happy for Katya. He could. He was going to.

He knows he shouldn’t want to change himself. All the accepting-himself-crap and the progress he had made be damned. He wanted to turn into someone more open and brave. He shouldn’t want to be different, but he desperately needs it. Because only a terrible person like him would think about himself the moment he heard his friend declare proudly that he was finally happy. He shouldn’t have thought “I don’t want you to be in love with someone else”.

Could he change? Probably not. But he was a liar and he was going to do what he did best. And so he comes back from what feels like two hours of internal rambling but what could easily had been a minute and just stares at Katya, who is expectantly waiting for his answer and just says “I’m so happy for you”.