#i realise you already know now

[buried-in-stardust]

This dance is so beautiful! What's the song name? 😍

Hi! The song is 對酒 by 淺影阿! See here:

[yrsonpurpose]

"such a mouth on you!" 👀👄

[hella1975]

hiiii haha. hello. exceptionally awkward introduction bc idrk how to start something like this so let's just jump right in. im taking a break from this account for a bit. i know i said i wanted taob out before halloween and currently im fine sticking with that deadline, but if i decide i need longer away then i will take longer away. every time ive reassured people that id never abandon a fic and updates will always come eventually i never once considered that my writing and ability to feel safe and comfortable on this site would be actively taken from me, so im not even going to apologise. i dont want this either and more importantly i dont fucking deserve it. i dont know what it is in the past year, if ive hit a certain amount of followers or 'popularity' that's made it so the natural ratio of positive to negative interactions must in turn go up, but there's been a serious uptick in weird asks for me. the annoying part is that a very small amount of them are actually objectively mean and hateful, the rest are just weird and invasive from people who seemingly dont realise that's what they're being. ive reached a point where i dont care if the intentions are good. it's not my job as a 20 year old tumblr user of all things to defend the morality of someone who couldnt even bother to come off anon. unfortunately, after blocking only one or two anons, the weird asks have decreased substantially, which says all you need to know about the fascinating and exhilarating lives led by these people, but ive also gone on to turn anon asks off entirely. this is something i actively fought against doing and had to be pushed into by my mutuals (who have been the coolest people on planet earth during this entire thing). turning off anon was a big deal to me even if it sounds silly. i felt betrayed and like id been backed into a corner because it was so vehmently something i DIDNT WANT that to feel like i had to do it anyway for my own mental health??? that sucks. so even though ive 'fixed' the problem, im still kind of reeling and uncomfortable every time i come on tumblr. i hope it's just something i need time to ease because i'll truly be devastated if this becomes 'ruined' for me. tumblr exists as the only place in the world where i am honestly every facet of myself without shame or hesitation; losing that would be insanely harmful to me. and to the people who cant appeal to the actual human behind the post, let me put that in words you can understand: we wouldn't get any more writing 😦😦😦 riots and fires and sirens, i know. so yeah. to anyone who has sent me an anon ask and you're now wondering if you were part of the problem, im firmly of the belief that you'll know if you are. when i say 'weird asks' i dont mean 'you sent me a para about your personal life just to vent or ask for advice' or 'you sent me a really deep emotional compliment about the impact me and/or my writing has had on you' - i love asks like that, so much that i put off taking a break and turning off anon solely for the joy they bring me. im sorry that it might feel like you're being punished too bc of the actions of what in reality is a HANDFUL of weird people, but this is what i feel like i have to do to feel safe and not go insane every time i log in. love you guys, hopefully ill see you soon x

[manglam-marfach]

dyke!Chilaios has me understanding breeding kink all of a sudden

[ladyofthelake]

Who wants fresh Diamond of the Day pain? So I'm editing a little video of merthur and I noticed that after Merlin showed Arthur his magic with the dragon he made and Arthur looked like he wanted to get away from him, Merlin reaches out for Arthur to touch him again (and then Arthur pushes him away) Like its over a decade later I never noticed that Merlin tries to reach for him again, reassure him and I am honestly and totally and utterly broken by this :)

[mwagneto]

any time i remember time lord victorious arc i start shaking like a sick fucking dog

[glitterarygetsit]

Goodbye, Fawn

My brilliant friend Fawn (@esterbrook) died on Friday.

Fawn and I met when I was about 24 and she was about 43, and at the time, foolishly, I thought I was the cool one. I very quickly realised that I was wrong, and that Fawn was who I wanted to be when I grew up. 

She was independent, funny, smart, and passionate. If there was anything she didn’t like, she would do something about it—she campaigned for abortion rights and did phone banking for US elections. She was sharp and kind and pragmatic and gave amazing advice.

Fawn loved stories and history—we met on an archaeological training dig in York, and later bonded over fic in the Sherlock fandom—and was forever turning up old letters and pens and other things that she breathed new life into. She found a pen at a flea market and tracked down its original owner; she chronicled a WWII romance from a box of photographs (https://www.tumblr.com/a-certain-party-i-love).

For the past twenty years, Fawn kept a diary that will now be donated to a women’s history library. I hope one day someone devotes as much care to her memory as she did to other people’s.

I find it hard to think of many people who are leaving as big a legacy as Fawn. Her activism, writing (also wrote the first book on surviving at work when you have depression), and (towards the end of her life) participation in a clinical trial have helped so many people directly, and will continue to reverberate. 

And she’s still not done: even before she was diagnosed with ALS, she arranged to donate her body to forensic science (and wrote about it here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/well/live/my-afterlife-on-the-body-farm.html).

I’m so lucky to have been able to make wonderful memories with Fawn. We went on a road trip in Northumberland and laughed at all the dicks in Chesters Roman fort with her friend Martin, who I would eventually move to Berlin with; she visited us there and baked a derby pie full of bourbon for Friendsgiving. We went to Brittany and got emotional about the Neolithic standing stones at Carnac. We walked all over London and she showed me spots I didn’t even know about despite living there for three years.

In May, I got to visit her in her beloved San Francisco, where she introduced me to tamales, giant redwoods, and her cat Cosmo, successor of Rupert, the fluffiest and most handsome gentleman who accompanied her for most of her last ten years. 

We went over and under the Golden Gate bridge, drank many cups of coffee, roamed around the Castro and Haight-Ashbury, waved across the Pacific, browsed bookshops and made sourdough and did laundry and talked until late into the night.

She was diagnosed with ALS less than a year and a half ago, which was the cruellest fucking thing not only because she deserved so much more time on this earth, but because it made talking, eating and living independently—all things she adored—so much more difficult and eventually impossible. She chose to take advantage of California’s aid in dying law and leave on her own terms, because nobody was ever the boss of Fawn, not even death.

Fawn, I miss you already. I always imagined we would one day be old ladies cackling at dirty jokes together, and it’s a crying shame that the world has been robbed of the wicked glint in your eye at least thirty years too early. You changed my life for the better in so many ways, and I still want to be you when I grow up. I love you. Sleep well.

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia! You said that you need another vacation after this vacation, so I am not sure, how puppy situation, even if it partual custudy, affecting you ( may be you in panic when he is there and then recovering when he is not, and then round and round? ), but really, If you need another vacation, I hope you know we will be here to support you for it!

It's been nearly 4 weeks now since we got Toby so I feel like I can talk about this with a bit of a clear head.

(Talk of like an actual PTSD meltdown beneath the read-more, including self-harm mention - nothing graphic. There's zero obligation for anyone to read this, especially for folks who don't think authors should ever be honest about being people with issues):

So, I've been kind of quiet about aspects of this, but I have like severe treatment-resistant PTSD and C-PTSD, and puppies specifically are one of my triggers (especially if I'm responsible for them). The reason for that is kind of awful, and I don't really want to talk about some of the things I've experienced/been through that led to that, so let's just move onto the next part. You're kind of right anon, there has been panic while he is here lol.

As a result, I had a severe meltdown the first time I tried to adopt a dog many years ago now. Could not last 24 hours, needed weeks/months to recover.

But I've always wanted to share my life with a dog and I've been in a somewhat better space over the past year or so, and I thought I could maybe handle it better. I told myself 'if I can just get through that 24 hours I'll realise it's okay and it will all work out.' Anon I cannot tell you where this thinking came from, but it was wrong. Idk why past me was kind of naive enough to think this way but here we are.

No, after that 24 hours, it got temporarily better, and then I slammed into consecutive meltdowns, each one worse than the next, until the people around me were afraid for my life. I am still recovering from some of the harm I inflicted on myself during the last three weeks and likely will be for some time to come. The combination of a really intense PTSD relapse, as well as not being able to handle (as an AuDHD person) intense changes to my schedule basically compounded and I broke.

I made the decision to rehome Toby, and first contacted the people around me. Glen's mum said she wanted a dog, and had been specifically looking into dogs like Toby anyway, and so we decided this would be best because then I could still be involved (I love Toby to pieces).

After getting some space, I finally started to adjust, and have gone back to having Toby about 4~ days a week, with a view to going to about 6 days, with one day spent with my mum, or Glen's mum.

Today is the first day I was able to handle having him on my own for around 9.5 hours. And I'm here and able to write about it, so that's progress. He'll be here all day Sunday, and then Tues-Weds-Thurs-Friday. And from there a decision will be made as to where I'm at with my mental health etc.

I'm a bit more hopeful now that I might be able to keep him, but my PTSD is still very very bad. I'm having some nights where I'm simply not sleeping until 7.30am (even if he's not here), and my hypervigilance is crazy. Like, I am having so many auditory flashbacks it's stupid. So this is why I've been saying this break hasn't been very restful or productive. Because my mental health tanked like I detonated a landmine inside myself.

I didn't actually plan the two week break for Toby! That was just a coincidence honestly.

Unfortunately I have a lot of health conditions that respond very poorly to stress, so I'm dealing with those now too. And then additionally, in all of this, I had a breast scan / mammogram / ultrasound that has confirmed a suspicious lump I found a couple of months ago (breast cancer runs in the family), and I suspect I'm going to need a biopsy. I'll find out on Monday if that's the case. That's been in the background and hasn't been helping.

There's some other stuff going on that's not really worth talking about because these are the main things, but that's a good picture I think. It turns out 'just getting through the first 24 hours' doesn't magically make a severe PTSD trigger go away. And that forced exposure is not 'exposure therapy' - that's just reinforcing a trigger.

Anyway! I feel like I'm through the worst of it, and I am seeing glimpses of how my life could be richer if I keep getting through this. But...that's why I think another break. *smiles tiredly.* I have to wait a bit now for the PTSD / C-PTSD symptoms to settle down, and I also need to see what's kind of worsened after this. Realistically, with a relapse to this degree, it could take between 3-6 months to really start recovering, or to at least get back to where I was before December.

I hope with all my heart I can get there with Toby by my side. I love him so much.

(I want to add that Toby has never ever been in a position of harm at any point, and in fact I probably put myself in harm's way for his sake, because I wanted to provide solid continuity of care - in case anyone was worried about that).

Er so yeah! But I've picked up my writing again this week and have been able to do some like...things I'd been neglecting, and I feel more human again, I just hope I get some sleep tonight

[ghoulbats]

watched the livestream 👍🏼 cried 👍🏼 see you all at the next one 👍🏼

[aroandawkward]

It feels kind of magical to happen across other aspecs in the wild. Once I heard a friend of a friend talk about aesthetic attraction so I tentatively asked if she was aspec and her face lit up with a "Yes!" Another time I was chatting with someone that I'd sat next to in the first lecture of a new course and (because they were talking about queer stuff) I mentioned that I was aroace and they exclaimed "No way - me too! I've never met another one!" and we were both so excited. Even just learning through the grapevine that an acquaintance (e.g. a family friend I played with when we were kids, and a girl I was in a writing group with six years ago) is ace and/or aro makes me feel so warm and happy. It reminds me I'm not alone. It reminds me that other aspecs don't just live on the internet. They are out there in the world, living their own full and rich lives.

[always-a-joyful-note]

I think the reason I like the 5 Eccentrics so much is that it's just such a good depiction of the….variety of friendship. Because it was a group literally created to be destroyed. It was, in other words, a forced union of 5 people who might have never or barely interacted. Yet even with that, even knowing that, they all chose to have a meaningful friendship with each other - they chose to be friends and remain friends even if their union was forced, even if the very reason that they met was to be taken down. It's almost the arranged marriage trope but it wouldn't work as well like marriage because it really isn't that. It's like the family system (brought together by chance and a common identity) but it's still different. Because they didn't HAVE to be friends even if sharing the same label, because they didn't have to keep sticking around each other and become a real family. They chose to be friends in spite of all odds, chose to be grateful even amidst their destruction, and forged a precious bond that not even their predetermined fall could break and in this essay I will -

[theogony]

just speed watched the entirety of alien stage!!! some notes on my experience

what the fuck

[jeanmoreaux]

in ur tags you wrote the unstoppable force post was andreil coded…. well do you know sakavic herself reglogged that post too…. bc eyes are wide open rn

OMGDJJFHDHFJDHDJJDJFJD no i did not know that i did not clock that. makes me feel weirdly validated tho. highlight of my day because yes. YES. it just screamed andreil to me and to have nora go ‘same’ does feel like a win to me. thank you so much for telling me you made my week <3

i mean. yeah eyes wide open. (neil the unstoppable force always on the run, changing, adjusting, moving things along for others as well etc, andrew the immovable object not just in his ethics/morals/approach but also as a source of stability to lean on etc… and their colliding is not just what the want but what the NEED as individuals to grow!!! andrew providing stability for neil to grow roots and have a home and have a place to belong, neil bringing with him a revitalising force, a forward momentum that presents andrew with a future that is more than just an empty existence or a waiting for death but a Life. that’s why they work. like. they wanted to collide, the needed to collide, THEY WERE MEANT TO COLLIDE))

[hella1975]

ive never felt more rural than i have in the past few weeks since hanging out with a lad who has only ever lived in cities. what do you MEAN YOU'VE NEVER DONE A MORRIS DANCE

[aroanthy]

being gay and aromantic is wild because people will accuse you of hating gay people because you (checks notes) wish people would be a little more critical of romance as a patriarchal structure. the thing is that rgu literally does this, it examines and interrogates how romance is a patriarchal structure. every time i talk about aromanticism in rgu people get very upset about that, as though aromanticism impedes queerness— i did not realise we were still doing exclusionism so bare faced. every time i talk about aromanticism, people get upset. im not even talking about it in relation to the show, instead making a general throwaway post about the weight that people afford anything that deals in Romance, and i get told that rgu is a romance and i should cry about it. like. what? rgu made me realise i was aromantic. i was already gay and that gave me the final piece of the puzzle.

to be gay and aromantic does not mean you Just Have Friends (? what does this even mean, let’s unpack this statement at a later date): to be gay and aromantic means myriad things for myriad people. it means queer sex, it means queer connections that aren’t defined as ‘romantic’, it means queer attraction, it means queer understanding. nothing about this devalues romantic queerness, though i must say that every time i post about aromanticism someone has to qualify my words with a statement about how romance is cool too. and sure, it is, but you can maybe understand how that’s exhausting when you actually want a meaningful conversation about your identity. anyway aromantic people i love you aromantic people and gay people i love you gay people (i am both. godbless goodnight)

[oatbugs]

contrast on 100% sharpness on 100%