#if any irls see this ignore me im over it just reflecting

[heartunderthefloorboards]

i have a headache and cant sleep so im like overthinking some moments from college and like. i am so torn on if i am genuinely not a great person or if other people are just crazy

[ambrosialdesire]

idk if you’re comfortable with nsfw so you could ignore this if you want…

but what kinks do you think the aot men have as yanderes… 😏

lmfao anon, most of my fics are straight nsfw or have implications of nsfw in them, it's alright to send in nsfw reqs/messages haha (this is not me being mean, im saying this in a joking tone hehe) and sorry this took so dang long to post, i decided to make this my blog's anniversary post LOL

since you didn't mention anyone specific, imma do reiner, eren, levi, zeke, and jean. you already know i'm always gonna put reiner in LMAO eren and levi and jean cause i kinda already have a feel for them in yandere writings, and zeke cause idk why not lol

i'm kinda doing main kinks? 4-5 of them for each of them but idk, i'm just writing whatever works for them in my perspective even though any of the kinks can work for either one of them in certain situations lol and i'm terrible at making long headcanon lists so it's just me blabbering and trying my best to describe the scenarios 💀

NGL THIS IS PROBABLY A REALLY UNPOPULAR OPINION but i don't really like when headcanon lists are like one sentence long and they never go in depth about it or when they make each bullet point a sentence that correlates to the previous point IDK WHY IT IRKS ME SO BAD AND SOME PEOPLE MIGHT LIKE IT THAT WAY AND THAT'S FINE LOL

‘•.¸♡ ♡¸.•’'•.¸♡ ♡¸.•’'•.¸♡ ♡¸.•’

YANDERE AOT MEN'S KINKS

18+ DARK CONTENT BELOW, MINORS AND BLANK BLOGS DNI

pairing(s) : reiner x fem!reader, eren x fem!reader, levi x fem!reader, jean x fem!reader, zeke x fem!reader tags + warnings: general yandere and obsessive themes, unhealthy relationships, explicit sexual content, violent themes, dubcon/noncon implications, breeding, size kink, praise, dom/sub/switch dynamics, rough sex, edging, dacryphilia, marking, blood mention, cannibalism mention, muzzling, exhibition, voyeurism, quickies, pussy worship, forced feminization, knife kink, choking, slapping, collar/leash use, cockwarming, wax-play, forced domestication, humiliation note: please keep in mind of the tags above and do not proceed if triggering or uncomfortable, especially if you are a minor!! do not read my or any other writers' dark content if you are underaged. this is a fictional work and does not reflect irl morals, do not believe this is how a real romance works or functions.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ.───

REINER

YOU ALREADY KNOW THE BUSINESS WITH HIM reiner's kinks are definitely anything associated with breeding. mating presses, creampies, lactation, etc. he just loves claiming that way, pushing his cum in and leaving himself plugged inside to ensure that pregnancy is in the future. you belong to him and what more to show it than giving you a child. literally whenever he has sex, it's like he goes into a rut and his mind locks in that he must breed you. then when your milk starts coming in, seeing you leak unlocks something in him that makes him absolutely feral. he finds it so attractive and will spend hours sucking on your tits, esp if you're in pain and in need to help get it sorted out. ain't that kind of him? size kink. since reiner's pretty massive (hehe), he would always adores how much smaller you are. if you're shorter than him, it gives him the feeling that he has to protect you and it gets him so hard seeing you struggle to take him all in, cockhead bulging out of your lower stomach. if you're taller than him or roughly the same height, he does anything to make you feel smaller than him, pushing you down into the bed or making you go on your hands and knees to take in his dick in your mouth. reiner wants you to be weaker than him, to be completely dependable on him and him alone. he's not completely a dom though in my eyes tbh, he's more of a switch with dom-leaning tendencies (bc he first gotta set the control he has over you as a yandere). sometimes he wants to be dominated, wants to be the one begging to put his cock inside of you, and brought to tears from how good you're using him. he's vocal as fuck too, whimpering and moaning so loudly whenever you ride him and play with his tits (CAUSE OMFG I WILL CONTINUE TO SPREAD THE IDEA EVEN MORE THAT HIS TITTIES ARE SENSITIVE AND SO SQUISHY AND PLAYABLE BRUH). he'll always have a limit to how much control you have over him during sex so don't get too cocky cause he'll take over in a snap of a finger. it doesn't matter if he was a breathless mess that had been edged for hours and just came all over his stomach, he's gonna pound you until you're the one whimpering in overstim. HUGE PRAISE KINK, he loves giving praise and receiving it. he's complete putty in your hands if you praise him, makes him feel super good about himself when you say that he's fucking you so good and he loves to feel you clench around him when he says that you look so pretty for him or that you're taking him in so well. even out of sex, he whispers sweet little compliments in your ear just to see you get all flustered about it.

his yandere tendencies come out when he catches you with other men (cacoëthes you'll always be famous TO ME), even if you don't intended to be involved with them, and bro FUCKS like he's trying to prove a point. he's pushing deep into you until his tip is pressed flushed into your cervix and biting at your neck, leaving dark marks that'll last for days to come. he's growling into your ear about how no one and i mean no one can compare to his cock and the way he fucks you. he's literally carving the shape of his dick into you so you'll never forget it. if you try and run off with another man, he wouldn't and never will amount to reiner. that's even if you can ever escape him in the first place.

‘•.¸♡ ♡¸.•’'•.¸♡ ♡¸.•’'•.¸♡ ♡¸.•’

EREN

this mf is into edging. eren loves to build you up and never let you get there, mostly because it makes you become desperate and so delirious to cum that you'd literally do anything to get there. even he goes CRAZY if he got edged for hours and he cums hard, like the shooting kind of cumming all over you. he's into that shit too, covering every inch of your skin in his warm stickiness. it's like a mark that you can't quite get rid of.

eren's a dacryphiliac, nothing gets him harder than seeing your tears stream down your face. crying because it's so good? stiff as a rock. crying because it's too much? oh my god, he's going to keep fucking you until you're a blabbering mess. he's also into that predator-prey thing, where you're desperately trying to get away from him but your stifled sobs always make it easy to find you and sooner than not, he's pounding you into the nearest surface while licking your tears off your face.

bites, hickeys, bruises, anything of the marking sort, he's into it. eren's known for being a biter, so any chance he gets and for him to be able to cum sometimes, he's sinking his teeth into your flesh. the taste of your blood makes him a little delirious (if this was the actual aot-verse, i think that he's and any other titan user that consumed a lot of human/titan blood is used to the taste (not armin cause he's only eaten bertolt i think) and it's like any other usual meal (they just have a hint of cannibalistic tendencies and you cannot take this idea away from me)). sometimes you'll have to take physical action to make him stop biting down so hard, you elbowed him hard one time when he literally wasn't letting go of your shoulder. the absolute terror that you felt when you looked into his eyes when he finally released you, your blood dripping down his mouth. it was like staring at a starving wolf in the middle of his meal.

because of this, sometimes you muzzle him. eren hates it since he likes biting you, but he's starting to like it a little more every day he gets to fuck you. bro's like a feral dog with it on, the cool metal pressing against your neck, and you could feel his drool drip down from how much he wants to sink his teeth in or because of how much your cunt is making him all hot and delirious. eren's probably the most vocal out of all of them, so you're going to be hearing every whine and groan that's coming out of him.

‘•.¸♡ ♡¸.•’'•.¸♡ ♡¸.•’'•.¸♡ ♡¸.•’

JEAN

I FEEL OUT OF ALL OF THEM, JEAN'S THE LEAST FREAKIEST 😭😭

that being said, he's into exhibition/voyeurism LMFAO like mutual masturbation kind of shit or he's in the closest watching you touch yourself while he's beating it. something about the thrill of it all gets him going, especially when he fucks you in places where you're definitely going to get caught if you don't stay quiet. the closet thing was an accident at first, he was in your room to ask you something but you weren't there and he started snooping a little too much, getting absolutely distracted that he almost barely heard you start to unlock your door. he hid in the closet, waiting for you to fall asleep but instead you started playing with yourself before you went to bed and that was the start of it all lmao AND you still don't know he keeps doing it.

quickies are jean's fucking passion, bro can fuck you in a short amount of time to make you both cum multiple times and he's a little too good at hiding the fact that the two of you just had sex from around the corner. slicking his hair back smugly while adjusting his clothes back to normal, watching your legs quiver and shake as both of your fluids drip down your thighs, it takes all his might not to fuck you once more.

pussy worshipping, he's definitely into that. he can spend hours knelt underneath you and eating you out, not caring whether his dick is begging for any sort of needed attention. i feel like out of all five of them rn, he has the number one spot of giving more to his partner than receiving it like he's absolutely locked in to please you (reiner is second bc i said so and it's totally not a biased choice 😈). even if you're crying from overstimulation, he's not gonna stop until he says he's finished eating you out.

domestication kink + forced feminization, even if you're the independent type who has a distaste for wearing skirts and dresses, he imagines there's a world where he could make you completely submissive and a dependent housewife. jean does things subtlety so he might slowly incorporate more feminine items in your routine or say something that may have you second-guess yourself, and without you even realizing, you're slowly becoming the woman he dreams of in his head. delusional king!

‘•.¸♡ ♡¸.•’'•.¸♡ ♡¸.•’'•.¸♡ ♡¸.•’

LEVI

for levi, i think isayama said one time that levi's kinda subby or sumn like that so fuck yeah i'm gonna incorporate that in a bit.

knife kink ofc, his handiwork has always been surrounding these sharp pieces of metals so how could i not add this. it's not the threatening aspect that he's into, he already knows that you know that you're always going to below him. it's the fact that he can carve his name into your fragile skin whenever he wants and you can't do anything about it, and watching the small rivulets of blood seep through makes him absolutely feral even though he doesn't admit it. idk how to really describe it until i actually write it in a fic lol

levi's definitely into choking, especially because it gives him absolute control of when you're allowed to breathe, giving up something so important just for him. he never goes pass the line where you pass out because he wants to watch you cum while you're breathless, gasping for air as you clench around him in shudders. he's seen a lot of people get choked out to death, he's even done it a few times, but he likes seeing it done the most on you. especially because you struggle to beg for him to stop, scratch up his arms like a poor little kitty cat and wriggle around in fear. levi swears nothing looks so much prettier than that.

slapping and he's damn good at it. he's slapped your face a few times to get your attention back, but he loves slapping your ass. he hits hard enough to leave his handprints, keeping you sore for days that you can't lay down or sit down right. levi bends you over his lap if you're being a brat and SMACKS until you're sobbing for him to stop but even so, he keeps on going until he feels like the punishment is enough. for being a good girl and taking his punishment so generously, he'll finger you afterwards, running his lithe fingers in-between your clit and into your dripping hole. you may say you hate it, but your pussy is saying otherwise. if you slap him, you are not walking for a week LMFAO

okay now im gonna go into subby levi hehe sometimes he doesn't want to be the one in control because his job is all about control and demanding others, so he'll let you fuck him (with limitations as well). like he'll lay in your lap and let you jerk him off as he sucks on your tits, letting you decide if you want to edge him or overstimulate him. it's a little strange at first being able to control your captain like this but you get used to it, letting him thigh-fuck you but never letting him enter your sopping pussy. sometimes he gets so irritated by being denied so often that he'll break the deal off and start taking back the reins.

levi's a collar and leash man, something about tugging it to direct your attention and getting tugged gets him going. he likes the way his name glimmers in the name tag, how pathetic you look as he sharply pulls it to make you look at him. he usually will only put it on when he's the sub, letting you pull it towards your pussy so he can eat you out. he doesn't force you to act like a dog, it's just the ownership of you that he likes.

‘•.¸♡ ♡¸.•’'•.¸♡ ♡¸.•’'•.¸♡ ♡¸.•’

ZEKE

cockwarming, cockwarming, cockwarming. this man loves to keep you plugged up whenever he's reading or smoking a few cigarettes outside. he usually cockwarms you when he wants another way for relaxing and what more than to sink into your warm and tight pussy. zeke's so fucking nonchalantly mean about it too. if you try moving off him or trying to finally cum, he smacks your thigh hard or pulls your hair back to look at him, taunting you about how you're being naughty and naughty girls don't get to cum. so he'll make you stay on him for another few hours or so, then cumming on your ass or stomach and sometimes never making you cum either as punishment.

ZEKE'S ALSO INTO BREEDING BUT LIKE A TWISTED VERSION OF IT, LET ME EXPLAIN. of course, it's canonically known that he doesn't like the reproduction of eldians and wanted the extinction of them through genetic neutering (which was fucking insane btw how he thought his plan would be able to be possible when it was eren's world to control is so funny to me 💀💀). so basically what i'm thinking is that he is so disgusted with the idea so much that he's into it. like the idea of cumming into you and filling your womb gets him so unreasonably hard and he doesn't really know himself why it does. it always happens when he sees you treating a kid so kindly that they may as well be yours and then he starts fantasizing about a homely, domestic life with you with yours and his kids running amok. he never goes through with it of course but he gets close a couple of times, so very very close.

idk ig he kinda gives wax-play vibes. seeing you blindfolded and pouring hot drips of wax on your skin or nipples, twitching in shock from the suddenness of the vague burn amuses him. sometimes he'll tie you up and leave a candle to drip all over you for a few hours and see how many times you cum over it.

zeke's definitely into humiliating you because why would you ever have any sort of pride when your place is in his bed and being his obedient fuck toy? like he makes you roleplay as his subservient maid, buying the skimpiest outfits ever in existence, taking away your underwear and making you wear a skirt that you have constantly tug down, literally anything that makes you feel shameful of yourself. but he reinforces you into liking it by praising you while he fucks you in those fits, talking about how pretty you look with your pussy out just for him and how his stupid little maid is so good at pleasing him.

[khodorkovskaya]

05.01.23

my parents are coming to my place tonight and im gonna surprise them with a three course fancy dinner! 😈 i love surprising people with gifts and nice things. it's the same feeling of mischief you would get if you were planning to prank someone but with better consequences. ive been chuckling to myself throughout the day like "heheheh they don't know what awaits them! mwahaha!"

i got two avocados on sale today and i have celery and left over lumpfish caviar. so for starters im gonna make some kind of fancy toasts i think. for the main dish im gonna make stir fried noodles with beef and vegetables bc my stepdad complains about not ever eating enough vegetables so he's gonna be v happy. i even bought wood ear mushrooms, his favourite! ahhh i just can't wait too see the look on his face when he's gonna see it! and for desert i got us strawberry swiss roll, my mum's gonna love it! im so excited!!!

anyway, isolating myself has been v fulfilling so far. ive been super burned out after the past couple of months. i have so many unopened messages on whatsapp and instagram and ive been ignoring all of my friends bc im just so tired... the only people i talk to are my bestie from france (who's taking a break from social media so i send her emails), my cousin and occasionally my zurich friend over messages and my parents irl. it's made me realise that the last time that i was alone with my own thoughts was when i was like what 13? enough of touching grass! i need to be alone and self reflect! bc all this time i was just so distracted by everything and everyone. and i really needed to stop letting things just happen to me and take a step back and think. and now is the perfect time to do that bc im working from home (and next month im gonna be working at the shop), i don't have to worry about B's needs and i don't have uni until mid february.

so i was thinking about why some people are obsessive and some aren't. maybe it has something to do with morals and values again. for example my london bestie has such a strong moral compass, i don't think ive ever met anyone else like that. ever since we were kids she'd always say things like "you don't do that" or "that's not how it's supposed to be". and ive always wondered how she knew these things. id pretend to be like her and also say "you don't do that" and pretend to be outraged at certain people's behaviours, but id never understand the why of any of it. she on the other hand always instinctively knew what was right and wrong, what should be done and what you "don't do". and i think that's why she fits in so well anywhere she goes. that's why she feels comfortable at her office job and can make friends. because it's what "you do". but i always feel like i need an explanation. and if im not given one then i do the things you're supposed to do but don't see any meaning in them and become unhappy.

it reminded me of how whenever we'd go for walks with B my mum and my bestie would often shake their heads in disapproval bc it's something "you don't do". my mum would often say "you can't just drop what you're doing and run to see him, you should value yourself". and i never understood what it meant. in my head it would be clear: B asks me to go for a walk and im not particularly busy and i enjoy walks with him => i say yes and join him.

this really stood out to me when we had a falling out with nik. we were in the middle of an argument in our groupchat and my bestie said something along the lines of "you don't do that" to him and he replied with "ok, i know you know what's right and what's wrong. it's just that in my mind, there's also what's logical and what's not.". and yeah, screw nik, but i think this message really shows the way people function. some instinctively know what's right and what's wrong, what you should and shouldn't do. and some need an explanation.

and back to the topic of obsession, my bestie is a very balanced person. she just instinctively knows things and with this knowledge she's never been drawn into any extremes. she's never been a hardcore die-hard fan of anything, she's never liked anything to the point of obsession. i, on the other hand, have been through i don't know how many obsessive phases. i always need to have a favourite thing in every single category of things. my notes app consists of endless lists of my favourite things: top 5 favourite foods (do i like chocolate better than cheese??), top 10 friends, list of my favourite family members etc etc. every single thing i engage with needs to be ranked and i can't just be chill about anything. i need to be consumed by what i consume, otherwise i don't feel it. and that includes love. i didn't just like B, i was obsessed. i was convinced that it was written in the stars, that every little coincidence we had was so much more than it was. id look at him and my head would start spinning.

maybe it's because some people are born empty and some are born full (born or brought up idk). ive always felt like an empty vessel that life just flows through. ive never had thoughts of my own or ideas i came up with by myself and didn't just steal from a book or a youtube video or while trying to act like someone else. and maybe that's why i become obsessed and feel the need to fill my natural emptiness with things i interact with. and others like my bestie, who are full with a natural understanding of life, don't have that much empty space in them to fill.

anyway, im finally in the process of developing thoughts of my own and trying to find my values. hopefully one day i'll be able to say "you don't do that" and really mean it and understand it. and make more valuable friends. and become a complete person.

[agirldying]

*Possible Tw for mentions of abuse and Sa, adding a warning just in case*

Hey Bun,

I wanted to talk to you or I guess maybe ask for your opinion on this. Do you think it's possible I'm actually going backwards in my healing?

It's a weird question but I will give you some background. I know you're probably familiar with my situation and a few weeks ago we had like a big response as to what my abuse actually was. After that I felt like I could really start accepting it because you gave me a name for it and that helped honestly to realize how serious what happened to me was.

For a few weeks I felt like I was dealing with the grief well and like actually addressing my feelings about it. I really felt like I was healing like a little bit. But now over the last two weeks I've been starting to like avoid it if that makes any sense.

Like I recently got a new job and im moving this week into a new apartment and I've just been like ignoring any thoughts I have about it. It's almost like I'm pretending it didn't happen. Like I don't want to call myself a survivor now. I don't want to admit I was abused. I don't want to think about getting hit. I don't want to call it trafficking. I don't want to think about what happened.

It's almost like when Ive been having flashbacks since I started working two weeks ago I see them and my brain is like "that's not me" like they aren't my memories and it didn't happen to me. It's like I'm trying to tell myself that it happened to someone else and that's not me. What is this?

I guess I'm just asking like is this regression in my healing? Is my personality splitting? Could I be dissociating from it because it's just too much for me to function normally? Honestly and truly I'm not sure what is happening.

It's just so strange because sometimes I will feel the anger or the pain or feel upset when I have the flashbacks and it's like I acknowledge the feeling and my brain just turns it off immediately, then I have those " it's not me" thoughts.

Sorry if this is a lot or if it's very confusing but I feel like something strange is going on and I don't really understand it so I was just wondering what you think about it.

Thank you so much for reading and as always I appreciate you so much Bun.

- DW 🍂

Hi DW 🍂,

Healing isn't linear, so it's expected to have some backwards steps.

It makes sense why you may be avoiding confronting your trauma and current situation because they're quite daunting and come with a lot of emotional... I don't want to use the word baggage but maybe weight? They're hard things to come to terms with so it's understandable why it can be hard to constantly accept.

It sounds like there are various changes in your life that perhaps make it easier to feel like you can put your experiences in the past and store it away like it didn't happen, even though it hasn't been completely processed.

Personally I feel this connecting with the year after I'd gotten out of my abusive situation - I went from long hair to short (cut off 10 inches of hair or so) and donated it. I remember the new look being this sort of pathway to feeling like I could pretend to be an entirely new person, free of trauma, unburdened (that being said I also remember having like 10 anxiety attacks in that month alone).

I also need to just say that I completely relate to almost othering yourself and being like "the person who endured that is not me". Personally I recognize that to be a dissociative symptom as I actively believe that I am a completely separate person from the girl who once inhabited this body (see my username). I have actually changed my name irl to reflect the fact that I am someone else now, and my deadname is triggering knowing what happened to her. Basically I'm saying all of this to kind of just show that this is just another way that dissociation can present, and this is one of the many elements of dissociative identity. Like, I will use first person when talking about the trauma, but that's more for convenience than actually identifying with those memories.

So yeah ultimately this sounds like some dissociation is coming up for you surrounding your sense of self and identity as you're navigating recovery.

I hope I could help and provide some insight. As you know, please feel free to send more asks my way if you need to chat or if you want to add onto this.

[aegialia]

self-indulgent reflection on being on tumblr

so i recently hit 1000 followers on here and this blog has existed for almost exactly 8 years, so i wanted to ramble about tumblr and my experience of it for awhile. under the cut so definitely feel free to ignore this.

i started this blog right around when i was fourteen and had just started high school. at that point, i was out to my parents (and no one else) as bi, i had an inkling i was Struggling with something but i had no idea what and felt like i couldnt actually acknowledge it, and i had left leaning but very vague politics. tumblr definitely has shaped my journey around sexuality/gender/mental health/politics, both for good and for ill. 

for good: 

seeing other ppl talk about being lesbians helped me realize i could be a lesbian w/o being a traitor to the concept of bisexuality. hearing trans ppl talk about their experiences and explaining non-binary stuff and dysphoria helped me understand what i was going through 

i don’t like talking about my mental health stuff in detail on here, but suffice to say, i was Going Through it in high school. i’m still going through it now, but i am in a much better place (thank you medication and 7 years of therapy!). seeing ppl talk about the weird, dumb, awful parts of mental illness let me acknowledge that i was going through those things too, that i wasnt like evil for feeling like that, that i could change. people talking about adhd/autism was particularly helpful---being able to identify why i’d always felt like my brain just didn’t work right is the first step in the (ongoing) process of not hating myself for the way my brain works

politics is definitely the area where i think tumblr was the best for me. i got exposed to so many opinions i definitely wasn’t hearing in school, from intelligent, well-read people who could articulate theory in ways i could understand. tumblr didn’t give me my politics and i didn’t learn everything i know about theory from it, but the communities of people i was around pointed me in the right directions. tumblr was also a good place to learn how to react to criticism. this doesn’t seem to be most people’s experience, but getting called out over minor things on tumblr genuinely helped me learn how to take a step back, look at my behavior, apologize, and try to change, which, as it turns out, is a helpful skill irl as well

for ill:

wrt sexuality and gender, it’s probably pretty obvious someone who’s journey is ‘cis bi girl -> cis with a million different microlabels -> nb w a million different microlabels for both sexuality and gender -> nb butch lesbian who’s not super into romance’ would have some bad times on tumblr. the bi circles i was in made being a lesbian seem like an immoral choice, the ‘’’mogai’’’ (or whatever u wanna call them) circles made me feel like i had to divy up and perfectly label every aspect of myself in a way that really wasn’t helpful for me, the lesbian circles i was in made me feel like being a lesbian was about ending up in a monogamous butch/femme cottagecore relationship and that there was something wrong with me for not really wanting that. to be clear i think microlabels can be very helpful for people/a monogamous butch/femme relationship is a perfectly fine thing to want, they just didn’t work for me. im very very glad ive reached a point in my life where i dont feel the need to stay up to date on the latest discourse and am more focused on finding a way to exist that is comfortable for me and supporting my community irl. 10/10 would recommend to everyone

not going to get deep into it, but social media is. not good for my brain in general. i still enjoy using tumblr, but these days im pretty careful to step back from it frequently and treat it as an occasional hobby. 

the cons of political stuff on tumblr are probably also very obvious. there are some just awful discussions on here and the culture surrounding the way we handle bad behavior and justice and accountability and working to become a better person and make up for the harm you’ve caused has historically been fucking awful and trying to unlearn it and find new ways to engage with this stuff is exhausting. 

for all that i’ve changed over the course of having this blog, this blog has stayed pretty fucking static. i started out being super into diana wynne jones and the iliad and those are still two of my biggest interests and things i talk about the most on here. there are definitely specific things that have petered away (i started this blog almost entirely to keep up with good omens fan stuff and i pretty much haven’t touched it since the miniseries came out, i haven’t sought out pacific rim/supernatural/elementary/mcu content in years), but im still pretty much interested in the same things. i like relatively small fandoms, i like weird side characters, i like to be a grumpy child playing with my toys in the corner. when a fandom im in gets popular, i tend to stop engaging with it entirely (hello rqg/tma/good omens/enola holmes!). i dont think its a pretentious ‘i liked it before it was cool’ thing so much as a ‘people get Weird and awful when a fandom hits a certain level of popularity and there’s too much content and i really, really hate the bad faith arguments larger fandoms tend to spawn’ thing. i’ll consume content from big fandoms, but i pretty much refuse to actually engage with them at this point.

one of the stranger parts of my experience of tumblr is the social side. i’ve never really known how people make friends online---how do you go from liking each other’s posts and occasionally replying to them to actually being friends who communicate off social media? i’ve had conversations with ppl on tumblr and i’ve had sort-of friendships that are contained to tumblr where i’d like to get to know them better, but i’ve never figured out how to do that. my best friend’s job is pretty much to make friends/connections on the internet (she’s an activist and artist), my dad knows people everywhere in the world from twitter, and i’m just sitting here like a little old grandpa who doesn’t understand how you can have internet friends. 

at this point in my life, i’m fine with this, but this has made me feel real fucking bad in the past---like, if everyone online, even the ppl who say they’re weird and brainbad in a similar way to me, can make friends on the internet, what’s wrong with me? particularly in high school and my first year of college, when i was just horribly lonely all the time, it made me feel super disconnected and like there was something fundamentally bad about me. these days, i’m a lot chiller about it. i use social media to engage with stuff i enjoy and share my thoughts about it. it’s okay that my social difficulties extend to me not knowing how to use the internet to socialize.

on a somewhat related topic, it’s wild that i have 1000 followers. obviously, that’s not an actually super large number and a huge number of them are probably bots or inactive. if you post consistently for eight years and follow lots of people, like i do, it’s not a surprise to end up with this many followers. it is also, thankfully, the sort of followers that are not fans. probably most ppl following this blog dont remember why they followed and dont know anything about me or my interests. this sounds like its meant to be depressing but it’s not. i like that my way of engaging w the internet lets me do pretty much whatever i want and no one will care. the mere concept of being. like. tumblr famous in any capacity, even just in one community/fandom, is viscerally horrifying to me. 

i really enjoy the space i’ve created for myself on here. on one hand, going back through my blog is obviously embarrassing and full of hating my past self. on the other hand, i now have a very nice collection of things i enjoy in this blog. i like seeing what i’ve been interested in and (when i’m in a good mental health place) i like to be able to remember how i thought and talked about the things i loved when i was younger. im not at the place in my life where i can love a younger version of myself, but sometimes i can laugh at zir with a level of fondness. 

i’ve always been paranoid about sharing details about my life on here (and the fact that my parents have always been able to see it certainly contributed), so the version of jack on here is a carefully curated version, who’s super enthusiastic about the things they love, was very conscientious about apologizing and trying to do better when ze messed up, and tried to be polite to others. that’s a younger version of myself that i’m closer to being able to have compassion for than the version i find in essays and poems and memories. 

i’m starting grad school in ten days and i’m still using the blog i started when i began high school. tumblr has helped me in a lot of ways and hurt me in a lot of ways, but i still have to admit that it’s been a significant factor in shaping me. i’d be incredibly embarrassed to admit that irl, but it’s true. other than my family and like one friend, this blog is one of the only things that’s ‘known’ me since i started high school. i’ve changed so much in that time and im glad to have this weird little record of myself throughout those changes, even if i’d probably warn my younger self away from tumblr if i could go back in time.

tl;dr i have had a mixed experience on tumblr and i have mixed feelings about that experience. no idea if anyone read any of this very long, very rambling internet memoir

p.s. fun facts about this blog:

i’ve never changed my icon or blog title

i recently got a second version of the poster i got my blog title from. i chose my blog title by looking at what was hanging on the wall directly in front of me. 

my original url was gloomthkin. this was not, as you’d probably assume, an otherkin thing. i had literally no idea what otherkin was at that point. i’d just learned the word gloomth from a bill bryson book and thought it would be cool n edgy to be the child of the quality of gloom. i changed my url after i learned what otherkin was and realized everyone probably assumed something about me that wasn’t true which i hated (not bc i had an issue w otherkin, just bc i don’t like ppl thinking untrue things about me)

during my good omens days, i once sent a tumblr ask to nail guyman which, in retrospect, was kinda rude. i stand by the content but id never send an ask like that now. he replied to it privately in a way that so deeply embarrassed and shamed 15 year old me that i’ve never gotten over it. i still get nervous and embarrassed when i see anything about him or his books

[thedreadvampy]

this is kind of a Hot Take (and rlly long) so don't feel pressured to post this

also no one cancel thedreadvampy over posting this ask if she does these are my beliefs and not necessarily hers kthx

I'm honestly really uncertain why people are so militant about aphobia on this site. like obviously aphobes are Not Nice People and it's good to be against their shitty beliefs. But I've been on this site for ~5 years and I have never, in my memory, seen an aphobe (with the few exception of like. literal nazis but their main label isn't aphobe). I have seen a lot of people who were then harassed/cancelled being called aphobes in addition to a lot of other things like (homophobic, racist, abusive, etc) but as far as I bothered to figure out, the label of aphobe came from one specific phrase they used or one post they reblogged (though I can't be bothered to Deep Research so I genuinely don't know on this one).

(I have seen casual acephobia in my own personal life. however, that is not Tumblr.)

I have seen scores of posts along the lines of "aphobes are bad" "aphobes dni" etc etc.

Maybe it's just who I follow, but it seems like there's a lot more anti-aphobe sentiment than aphobes. Which is good! It's the goal! However, I think it's possible that that anti-aphobe sentiment has not become "look how few aphobes there are! yay!" it's "there are hidden aphobes all around us and you have to interrogate everyone to know who to ostracize"

You're a fairly popular figure in the mechs/tma fandoms and the thing about Tumblr is that it hates popular figures. And more than that, you're visible, so a) people will see if you answer a bunch of questions about ace things, and b) you exist in everyone's brains more than little blogs.

to be clear. to be absolutely crystal 100% clear: I am not saying that people got together and went "let's interrogate all the popular blogs so we can pretend theyre acephobic and have fun bullying people," I'm saying it's possible that what was once a positive emotion, "we don't tolerate intolerant people" has possibly, in some people, morphed into a fear that intolerant people are hiding all around them. And frankly, that fear can be understandable (not right, not kind, but understandable), especially if they face hate irl and their only outlet for emotion is tumblr. shit, Tumblr is one of my emotional outlets.

I don't think it's bad to engage with these people in good faith, or to answer questions, but I think it's possible that some of them are coming from the "intolerant people are hiding all around us and must be ferreted out" kind of perspective instead of a "hey I wanna check that this person isn't an intolerant asshole before following/supporting them" or "I want to engage with a person who may be ignorant" (I'm not attempting to imply that you're ignorant). Im not saying "not answer their questions" this is just, like, my opinion. I'm not making a lot of actionable statements here.

that's my whole Hot Take, hopefully I made some kind of sense, I just honestly feel kind of mad on your behalf that you have to go thru an interrogation to be Not Tumblr Cancelled. If people were generally having a nuanced discussion then that would be fine but you've already stated several times that ace/aspec people are valid and deserve love and respect etc etc. which as an aspec person makes me feel that your blog is safe for me, and I don't feel the need to play 20 Questions Are You Sure You Aren't An Aphobe

I don't know how much of this I entirely agree with and I refuse to think

(not about this. just in general. today I refuse to think)

my main response to this is:

a) I think my confusion is I have less than 1500 followers I think I always assumed the You Are Now A Public Figure People Have Opinions On mark had to be higher than that but this appears to have been a totally incorrect assumption

b) I don't feel like. a threat of Cancellation except inasmuch as I don't want Kofi to eventually get any kind of kickback if I turn out to be or people understand me to be a shitty person. I didn't ask for a platform or do anything to deserve it, if I get distressed it's largely just that I don't want to be a shitty person! and I have a whole thing about. I don't ever feel secure in my ability to say I'm NOT being shitty so like if enough people start saying AH RUTH THEDREADVAMPY IS A GARBAGE PERSON I definitely do stay wondering if they're right even if I think my position is morally defensible. like I'm very easy to get into a spiral of I think that's highly defensible but maybe I'm just in denial/trying to cover my ass/self-justifying so I can avoid accountability/etc. like this is a thing and it's why I'm very uncomfortable with absolutism, a lot of my family in my experience have a phenomenal capacity for denial and for rewriting reality into something they Fully Believe despite all the evidence, and so I'm really conscious of the possibility that I'm doing that and I wouldn't. know about it. it's a really really powerful subconscious force and that's been like. a big fear point for me my whole life. that I could be being a cunt and be obviously being a cunt and be so deep in denial that it just doesn't register at all. this is like. the thing I fear most. So I DO want people to tell me if I'm being a dick because the only way I can 100% know I'm not just in denial is if I can trust people to call me in, but I really, really, really struggle with when people say I'm being a dick and I disagree, not because they're harassing me necessarily but just because it really sends me into a spiral of doubting my own ability to be sure about like, anything. at all. it's a whole unreality thing which is, uh, it's MINE to deal with, it's not something I would want to put on other people, but it very much does affect my responses and I didn't mean to write this but hey, no therapy last week and it shows.

oh also c) on reflection I don't agree that there's very little aphobia on Tumblr (although as I've said I'm not ace or aro so my opinion should hold little weight) but I do think that there's a lack of give and take, not just in aphobia stuff but also in general, in these kinds of conversations, like sometimes yeah people are actively hateful but I don't think there's any room for misunderstanding, poor phrasing, or questioning, and I understand that that's coming from a really genuine place of pain and devaluation of aro/ace experiences but I also think people jump straight to assuming active malice very fast, and often explicitly consider "actively not stating an opinion" to be an offence on the level of "actively staying a harmful opinion," which I think is unhelpful. like. we learn by listening, there are times in my life where I would have been lying at the time to agree unconditionally with something like "I think we should believe survivors" (I was a 2000s teen who hung out with 4channers) but I also was conscious of the harm that it would do to publicly debate from the perspective that No We Shouldn't Believe Survivors, so you know I waited and I listened and I thought about it and ultimately I came to a position I could say with my chest. but like. The online social more that you Have to have an opinion and I Have to hear it to prove that you have the Right opinion is. uncomfortable to me to say the least. I don't think it gives you much room to learn and improve, especially given that everything on the internet is permanent and often treated as if it forever reflects your current beliefs. like I have changed my opinions So Much since I was 16 and if someone went back through a tag on my blog to Prove My Bad Opinions they could paint pretty much any picture they wanted with 12 years of changing opinions.

anyway yeah like. no I don't fully agree with this ask but I appreciate the alternate perspective. I also did not mean to write another wall of text I'm just very much In A Brain Hole today and sometimes words Just Happen.

[tangerinegod]

How do you feel about people who are straight but only ship exclusively gay ships

uuuh i guess ill answer my surface level thoughts and then put a read more for a longer answer? 

short answer: im gay+trans and i simply do not think or care about cishets. if a cishet only ships gay things im deff side eyeing and wouldnt interact cus of how much there is to unpack with that LMAO 

long answer below the cut because the way this is phrased leaves a lot open ended + ik this is definitely an issue that needs to be talked about. ie here is what there is to unpack

long answer: in this context, straight/gay is a loose way to put it because trans people exist so boiling things down to if something is just like gay or not is kinda eh if you’re going into representation with the LGBT+ community and how people participate with/within it. i’ll make sure to define if im talking explicitly about a cishet person or someone within the LGBT+ community with this q. 

if you mean someone who is cishet and only ships exclusively gay ships id probably say theyre fetishizing it to some extent considering there can be healthy relationships between anyone? my point with trans people above is made to say that trans people can be/are in straight relationships or are straight; so there are also most likely trans people who are straight and only ship gay ships. people in the LGBT+ community can participate in whatever way they want and if theyre not hurting others in the process i really dont have anything to say on it. this isn’t to say i’m like dividing things but people within the community have been forced to see straight and cis relationships in media all the time so honestly its our option on if we wanna ship straight or not. i feel like this was worded poorly so feel free to correct me, i just dont wanna brush over the fact that consuming only gay content can lead to the erasure of trans people and transphobia in general. i know this question didnt directly involve trans people with the mix but its important to include, especially with another point made down below. 

if someone is cishet and exclusively ships gay ships esp if they’re diff gender like example cishet man only consuming wlw or a cishet woman only consuming mlm then they should probably reflect on the following

1. why they are so focused on consuming only one type of sexuality/gender related media and what community are they in that resulted in that; are they in a space where they are overstepping their bounds?

2. would they be ok with it irl and not just in fictional settings?

3. if a character within that relationship was trans would their view on it change? ie are they tying gender to genitals/are they transphobic and view trans people as not who they are?

4. is the context is Always nsfw ie consumed to fetishize, stereotype, and sexualize gay people’s lifestyles and relationships?

depending on how these are answered it can become obvious that the cishet person is actually homophobic/transphobic and views gay relationships as some hot jerk off material or some sacred infallible concept, erasing the fact that we exist as normal people in everyday spaces same as everyone else. on the other hand maybe the cishet person genuinely just doesnt have any straight ships LOL i think its a slim chance but a possibility

there is more i could go into because being LGBT+ is like all things, a very intersectional conversation tied together with many other issues esp in modern day society. if anything i said is completely off again feel free to correct me!! this is just my 2 cents as someone who’s participated in fandom spaces as an LGBT+ poc for.... a while....  i really couldn’t care less about a cishet person in the same way i couldnt care less about a white person, they are completely off my radar esp when it comes to content i make or wanna consume/talk about. but i do want to acknowledge that their consumption and participation in LGBT+ media can be very harmful and its important to know why.

i feel like i still have more thoughts on this but it’s a topic that is very discussion based so..... ya

i think it really varies case to case but on the surface level they’re at best ignorant but harmful and at worst homophobic,transphobic, and perpetuating stereotypes that dehumanize and delegitimize us. 

[lukeyhughes]

so the other day i reblogged a post and vagued about my issues with gk’s framing of iraqi tragedies in the tags, which was then replied to and that reply was circulated. while the reply was awesome/insightful/interesting i feel like my original point sorta got lost in the shuffle. i wasnt going to make a post about this for a bit but i feel like its been consuming my thoughts all day so i’ll elaborate what i meant under the cut! 

gen kill is david simon show, so like all david simon shows the thesis is “people exist in inside of a broken system.” in this case, the broken system is the marine corps chain of command and the people are the marines who have to carry out senseless orders. this is shown in many ways, including pointless dangerous missions (see: the bridge, danger close, etc.), how capable enlisted men are vs. most officers, how the “only good officer” nate is punished for rational choices, and how the marines have their spirits crushed because they are forced to senselessly kill iraqi civilians.

when i was in first year of undergrad i took an african studies class that in one seminar problematicized coverage of the Rwandan Genocide: how many times have you heard/read a Romeo Dallaire interview/account? how many times have you read/heard an interview from a genocide survivor? how many times have you seen pictures of bodies/skulls of genocide victims? the answer for the average person is a lot, hardly ever, a lot. with the iraq invasion, the questions would be: how many times have you heard the accounts of coalition soldiers about the iraq war across media types? how many times have you heard accounts of it from the iraqi civilian perspective? how many times have you seen statistics regarding the amount of iraqi civilian casualties? a lot, hardly ever, a lot.

that is all to say that in western media/society we are very comfortable listening to white narratives and just seeing brown bodies, which translates into only hearing white narratives of the tragedies of the deaths of others in foreign countries. in generation kill, iraqi civilian casualties/fatalities/tragedies are framed so that we feel sympathy for the marines that caused them as opposed to those suffering. that is not to say that we as the audience do not feel sympathy (i certainly do!) but it is because of our own internal empathy, not the narrative framing of the show.

let’s take a look at three of the biggest cases of iraqi civilian tragedy and how they’re framed in the show:

first, when rudy goes up to the roadblock and sees the dead little girl in episode 4. we get quite a few shots of the father’s shell-shocked face, but just as many are shots of rudy’s horror/sadness; we watch him walk away from behind from rudy’s perspective and we see that rudy is unable to look away from them. rudy didn’t actually have anything to do with it (aside from abetting i suppose), but even when he gets back to camp the show makes sure to illustrate how affected by it he is, ignoring brad and ray who call out to him. this one is actually surprisingly gk’s best example of eliciting sympathy for iraqi casualties; however, the focus of the scene is still on rudy and the father’s reaction is still mostly used to contribute to rudy’s guilt/horror.

the next scene is the little shepherd boys who were shot by trombley while out with their camels. we see the mom crying over her son, but its basically background noise and is if anything used to further the marines’ (particularly brad and doc bryan to a lesser extent) guilt at causing the situation. we know this because her actions don’t exist independently: they are used for the marines to react to. we also get considerably more shots of marines looking on in horror than her crying about her son. brad’s guilt/sadness about the subject is dwelled on for about twenty minutes over the next two episodes, longer than any of the actual victims’ screen-time dedicated to their feelings combined.

the worst scene is the man in the white car, which sets off the main drama for the next episode. we get why walt did it- the show goes out of its way to make sure that we do- but at the end of the day a man is still dead, likely for no reason. in the aftermath we get about a hundred heartbreaking shots of walt’s shocked face, with a few of brad thrown in as well. on the other hand, we get no shots of the people in the car being horrified at seeing someone they know lobotomized. we just see them run away, no sadness no horror no nothing: from the show’s narrative perspective, this man’s death has no impact on anybody except for walt and the other marines. to make matters worse the man’s face is only shown when the marines notice how horrifyingly disfigured his body is; to me this is robbing the real man of his dignity even in death. 

let’s take a step back and look at gen kill’s general portrayal of iraqis. we don’t really get to see the marines interact with civilians until they reach baghdad when they go into rundown neighbourhoods. here, the iraqi men are portrayed as greedy and dumb, cutting in front of children and not understanding that there are other types of government. that’s not to say that that didn’t happen in real life- i’m sure it did- but it’s essentially the ONLY view of iraq civilians we get: ignorant, greedy, backwards, etc. deadass the only sympathetic iraqi characters in episode 7 are children, where we get a couple of UNICEF-esque shots of doc bryan holding crying kids to drive home that guilt factor. i bring this up because it means that the iraqi characters are not written so that you feel bad for them or empathize with their terrible situation. instead, the narrative wants you to empathize with the marines (in this case, particularly nate) who feel guilty for causing this chaos that they can’t do anything to fix it. 

the only other time iraqi civilians even have lines is when a refugee women tells brad about how he is destroying her home, but even then the point of that isn’t really her pain but how brad feels guilty/ashamed about what the usmc (an institution that is part of identity more than anyone else) is doing that; also she’s attacking brad who really had nothing to do with the baghdad situation and already feels guilty about other things, so its just creating more material for brad’s identity/guilt crisis and our sympathies for it.

all of this to say is that in basically every single case civilian tragedies don’t exist in the narrative on their own: they are used for the marine main characters to react to: the village. the truck crew. the men at the roadside. even the syrian student.

also @sunnygreys replied to some tags i made alluding to this issue. you should read what they wrote bc it’s a really interesting counterweight to what i’m saying and offers a different perspective. but anyway basically they mention certain lines where people are like “no ones forcing us to be here.” particularly notable was when godfather says that no one is forced to be here because they’re all volunteers in episode 3. my view of this has always been that saying that is ignorance on his part and another symptom of the broken command system. godfather chose to be career military,  he chose to accept the mission, he chose to change the ROE, etc: there was no gun to his head. for the enlisted men, the ones on the bottom who actually carried out the mission that injured the boys, they are pretty much being forced to be there by their circumstances. out of all the marines we interact with in the series, im pretty sure brad is the only enlisted man who comes from wealth and by extension had other options, while most others either implicitly or explicitly grew up in impoverished/unstable households: poverty is the new draft. thats sorta between the lines, but i imagine david simon knows that because of his previous work on poverty. what isnt between the lines is that the command system DOES force men in lower ranks to “be there” and carry out order: they can get NJPed for disobeying, they sign contracts that they’ll be dishonourably discharged and lose their benefits if they break, etc. there’s no gun to their head physically but metaphorically its pretty close. to me at least, those lines are not narratively placed to make us sympathize less with the marine main characters but instead to make us sympathize with them even more, because it shows how disconnected command really is. david simon is a huge dick irl but he’s a really clever writer.

again, i reiterate that we as the audience likely feel sympathy for the iraqi population because for most people its naturally sad when people die/get injured/etc. i think a lot of points i made and ones made by @sunnygreys can be mutually true, but the main difference being that i really don’t believe that gk’s intention was to make us step back and reflect on our sympathy with the “oppressors:” i really do think that’s who the show intends for us to sympathize with most based on their choices in camera shots, who says what, etc. that doesn’t mean we can’t step back and reflect, as i hope many of us have, i just think that was an unintended consequence. (if i’m misconstruing what you said please lmk and ill edit!)

that being said, can’t think of a way that generation kill could have done better in this regard based on the book/characters it had. the marines ARE the main characters and by conventional standards its their narrative/feelings/growth that matters. but just because there may have been no other way doesn’t make it unproblematic. its another example of western media using violence against nameless, distant foreigners for their own horror. 

there are people wandering this earth who are dealing with the loss of the man in the white car, the little girl at the roadblock, an entire village. those little boys, if they’re still alive, probably have to deal with the severe injuries they got when they were shot by marines. those slums of baghdad may still be in unstable today and have likely lost community members due to sanitation/hunger/violence. imagine knowing that there is a show out there where you or your loved ones are being used as a plot device to make viewers feel sympathy for the ones who put you in those positions. i sympathize deeply with the marines of GK, but i can imagine how hard it would be to be in the iraqi population’s place watching yourself and your experiences interpreted in a way dissociated from your own suffering so that the primary victimhood can be placed on the ones who did it to you. 

in conclusion, i love gen kill a lot. i love the story and the characters, and i think its an effective story in terms of achieving what it seeks to achieve. i think it’s okay to love something and be critical of it. also if western media companies weren’t cowards and weren’t scared of losing american military financial contributions they would make a miniseries about the iraqi people who were terrorized by american invaders, including the ones we love in gk!

[illfoandillfie]

hi i hope you don’t mind me being nosey but i was wondering if i could ask a few things about u being aro? i kinda just wanted to know how u figured it out? and also do u still get feelings for people but choose not to pursue it? sorry if i’m kinda intruding i don’t mean to, just curious

i dont mind at all darl! (actually...lowkey i love when people are curious about it lmao so feel free to ask more questions) also this is going under a cut cause it got longer than i meant it to lmao

figuring it out wasnt easy and it took a lot of self reflection and like months of questioning and doing research and then worrying i was getting it wrong. Basically i first considered the idea that i could be aro when i was approaching my 25th birthday. A friend of mine (the only guy i’ve had any sort of a fling with) had announced he was engaged and i was completely down on myself wondering why i couldnt get a single date when he was off getting engaged (not that i even Wanted to get married i just would have liked some attention). I figured there had to be something wrong with me or something about me that was broken. And then i saw someone i followed at the time reblog a post about being aro. I’d seen the phrase a little before but never really considered it as fitting me but i’d also never really paid attention to what it actually meant. 

I don’t remember what the post was exactly, it’s probably somewhere in the thousands and thousands of posts i’ve liked over the years but there’s no easy way to check so . Whatever it said it felt relatable enough that I went and googled aromanticism to try and figure out what it was and if it fit me. Because I was already in a headspace where I’d been thinking about my lack of a romantic history already, a lot of the stuff that i read had been stuff i’d been thinking about anyway. Like Reader said in Platonic when she was talking about how she figured it out, I’ve never had a proper crush. I spent months thinking about it after my friend told me he’d proposed. I have very vivid memories of literally deciding to have a crush on a boy in primary school because it seemed like i should (again, i included that directly in Platonic lmao down to the boys name and everything). And every guy I’ve had an interest in since has been either a brief physical attraction that i forgot about as soon as I wasn’t seeing him regularly or something that I deliberately manufactured either in an attempt to fit in with the people around me or because i was kind of bored. Even the cute music teacher at work last year like he was hot and i wouldnt have said no to a kiss or whatever but i just didn’t have any feelings about him beyond that. 

While I was trying to figure out if I was aro I read a lot of websites. The AVENwiki has a page on aromanticism and I think also has pages on some of the aro-spec identities like greyromantic and demiromantic so that was a good starting point for definitions. Google also gave me a few different forums and stuff where aro people were talking about being aro. A lot of aromantic resources are tied up in the asexual community though because that’s where the language and everything was first suggested and what it evolved from. I don’t think that necessarily helped me feel comfortable using the term aro to describe myself because i’m pretty confident i’m not ace but the more I looked into it the more stuff I found from people who were allosexual but aromantic. Anyway, I spent weeks just googling “aromantic” and seeing what came up  and rereading what i’d already read and resisting the fact that a lot of it fit me. Then I spent a while trying to find like a quiz or something that would just give me an answer. I found a few quizzes but all of them assumed at least one previous relationship so none of them were any use to me. But gradually I started feeling okay with calling myself aro. I think part of my hesitation was probably also because knowing I was aro didn’t feel like a solution it just felt my damage had a name. The other part is that romantic attraction is not easy to define which makes it hard to identify if you feel it or not so the part of me that wanted to be Normal kept being like ‘well if you dont know you cant call yourself aro’. But I thought about it a lot and I read any aro related post that crossed by dash and then ventured into the tumblr tag and found some helpful discussion stuff in there and then I started calling myself aro just quietly, only in my own head. It took a long time before I felt okay admitting that I was aro on my own blog but obviously i got there in the end lmao. That friend, the one who got engaged, he’s the only person i’ve told irl though. 

as to your second question....

I don’t think I feel romantic attraction. Truthfully, as i said before, it’s hard to know for certain and there is a possibility that i could form a romantic attraction to someone one day but i think it’s very unlikely. Other forms of attraction are different though. I can be attracted to people physically and sexually. And I think I could possibly be attracted to people in a platonic “man i’d really like to be their friend” kind of way though it doesnt come up very much because im not really one to like meet people. I like my own company. 

But i’ve never really acted on any sort of attraction or feelings for others. I was definitely attracted to CMT but I never acted on it because it seemed like too much work. The was a guy who worked at a pop culture collectables shop a few years ago who i thought was very cute and I did contemplate asking him out but it just never felt like a real option and I sort of just ignored it until he left the job. So yeah I guess I do get some sorts of feelings and then choose not to do anything with them, but they aren’t romantic feelings. But like right now I’ve got no interest in anyone (apart from ben and roger but i guess they dont really count lmao). None of the teachers at work interest me and i havent met anyone else recently and it really isnt bothering me. Theres a guy in IT who i could possibly see myself fawning over a bit cause he’s handsome and has an unusual accent but he’s got the same name as my brother so i’ve already ruled him out as a no go lmao. 

Anyway, hopefully that answered your questions! If there’s anything else you want to know or you’d like me to try and explain something more fully my inbox is always open!

[shattered-catalyst]

So this  isnt for anything other than just to say what happened just so I feel heard and I can explain why I cant be as energetic and socially active on here. Its not a callout post or to be reblogged/shared by people. Its not to get anyone in trouble or to cause any reaction. It’s just for me to let it out and reclaim this space again. Its been a year since it happened and I guess I’m just still noticing how badly it has impacted my PTSD. How much its changed me as a person both online and off, and this isnt a woe as me thing either this is just me feeling a need to be heard and explain my own behavior over the year and also to make one simple request of you guys: no matter what you do, always treat your rp partners as people first and writers second.

Because I feel myself becoming bitter and that isnt who I am and I dont want to be someone like that. Or like this. I want to be me again

The person who did this wont be named mainly because they dont deserve it and yall dont need to know. Their behavior when I confronted them more than cements the impression that they dont see any harm in what they said and how they reacted. And again this isnt about them though In A Way I suppose it is? it takes two to tango but it takes one to encourage someone to kill themselves.

This is going to be long because I need to inform on the activity that lead up to this  because it didnt just happen over night- though in a way it did. But you need a better picture of this person because apparently they present a really great face that only a few of us see the manipulative and toxic side of.

This person was always very judgemental and hyper critical. I witnessed a lot of very negative and toxic behavior from them but I was naive and just hoped they would mature as they grew older and gained more independence. I thought it was just a toxic friend group and that perhaps she would recognize her self destructive and immature behavior and grow from it. 

My first red flag should have been when they accused me of being their ex girlfriend SOLELY because I was living in PA. I hate to break it to yall, but PA is a big ass state and has a lot of comic book loving ladies. Thankfully I have never met this person IRL and I hope I never do.

They tried to pull me into making fun of other muns on discord, including mocking sensitive pictures from a mun’s personal blog. I blatantly said it wasnt okay and made me uncomfortable and she continued laughing and making jokes about it with her friend group on discord. She kept trying to pull me into it no matter how often I tried to change the subject.

Her group of friends also did this thing where one of them would go interact with a mun an they would take screenshots of the convo and share it with the group and mock the mun they were interacting with. Whether it be their presentation of character/grahics/writing style/ etc.

The other red flags I ignored? How much she complained and mocked other muns and compared them to me; if anyone did anything or said anything she disagreed with it was an instant blow up. She took EVERYTHING personally including other people writing the same characters she did, having differing headcanons, not knowng obscure details about canon, etc.

She once tried to make fun of a new writing partner I had who was writing the same character, and I had to break it to her that this new person could write in her first language if she wanted to; im being very vague but let me just say if you and your character have the same first language and you want to write in it then its completely WRONG for a white mun to try and make fun of you for it.

She once suggested I had stolen pictures off her pinterest when she sent me a moodboard request for my character. Jokes on her I didnt even know she HAD a pinterest and I had gotten all my pictures from the ‘green aesthetic’ tag on tumblr. Which I told her but she kept pushing the idea on me I had stolen them. I of course dismissed this and put it on the back burner despite the alarm bells going off.

This hyper critical and paranoid behavior continues with everything from other canon blogs making similar head canons/ vaguely similar graphics/ to fanfiction authors having similar head canons/plot ideas.

My penname Citrus? I didnt want one. I didnt want it. She demanded I have a pen name and if not she was going to call me Cat. Now as yall know I dont like being enmeshed with my muse so I keep myself separate from them. I didnt like being called Cat and I told her that explicitly. She kept doing it. So I had to make a pen name because she refused to respect my boundaries.

When the Deadpool movie came out she DEMANDED I change my FC to reflect the movie Despite Not Changing Hers to reflect her own characters new look - which might i add is fat erasure. It was clear then that the rules and standards she held other people to didnt apply to herself. I was labeled problematic for not giving into her demands to change FCs (which I have a literal logical reason for not changing and im not explaining that here)

So I shouldve left. Long story short I didnt because every friendship I’d been in until around this time had been abusive and toxic. I thought this was all normal behavior for people to have and I was convinced I was just being critical of someone elses opinions/ insensitive etc. Thanks to my colleagues in graduate school and to several of you on here I learned that ‘hey dumbass friends dont treat your ass like this’.

Im leaving a lot out about the shit she did/said to me but those snippets give you an idea of things.

Leading up she decided to leave fandom and asked we didnt talk about marvel I said cool okay and didnt talk about marvel with her. If I did I would ask first if she was okay if we talked about one small aspect I thought might excite her/ she would like to know about but it wasnt often that happened because she began ghosting me. Hard. She stopped replying to me at all over discord when I would try and talk to her how we used to about our lives. She didnt answer any asks for munday or character development, in fact she blatantly ignored me.

I checked in a couple times with her to make sure I hadnt done anything to make her uncomfortable and she said no. May I emphasize she said no here. Im emphasizing it right now. She said no. She said everything was fine. So when I was like hey dude this is super triggering for me can you send me like a hi every once in awhile just so I can know we’re okay because its super triggering for me. Yall know what she did? She ‘lmao’-ed. she thought that was hecka funny. Yeah triggering ‘Citrus’ is hilarious isnt it? No it isnt and I shouldve cut her ass off right then and there.

Heres where shit gets confusing: she kept fucking talking about marvel to me. Id get messages at random times about marvel and then silence for weeks. I vividly remember during this period I was cleaning the museum vault and she kept messaging me about her marvel fc’s and how she wouldnt get a plotline and how characters were wrong etc.

I remember being REALLY confused because she had said NO MARVEL. But here she was bitching at me about marvel. In fact thats all she did when she did talk to me. Which was only like three or four times during the ghosting time period. She’d bitch about marvel and then vanish.

Shed make claims about not watching her dash and thats why she never responded to me/ interacted with me. She’d say she wasnt talkng to anyone while I see her on the dash TALKING TO PEOPLE and Id like to point out Ive told her I would be fine ending anything as long as she let me know.

but she followed me on every blog and throughout this time period she made and followed me on numerous ones. She kept reaching out sporadically to bitch about her fcs/how horrible marvel was/ and thats it. 

It was extremely confusing because if someone doesnt want to talk to me I assume they will; 1. unfollow 2. block 3. say goodbye 4. ghost and stay ghosted.

Not cycle through behavior rapidly. I asked her a few times if we were good and that I was confused and I got another ‘lmao’ reaction so I assumed we were good. At this point I still have no idea what was going on/ what message I was supposed to be receiving other than confusion.

So following this is heavily suicide tw and I encourage you not to read this part and to scroll down until the suicide tw is over which is highlighted in bold- if you’re triggered by that because I care about those who follow my blog.

So thats when this shit happened. I had tried reaching out to her on a different fandom platform to try and maintain the friendship. Because she said numerous times that we were friends. So like I reached out thinking maybe she just didnt want a marvel blog period.  It wasnt too long after that that she suicide baited me.

I was in a really bad place and had been for awhile and when I posted about how the only thing holding me on was the new comic coming out and specifically said “im seriously suicidal and this comic is the only thing giving me hope #idk what to do anymore ”. I was surprised when she liked the post.

I was three steps into a four step plan. I had everything but the method planned out and was just waffling along with that. Because yknow its complicated and you do it you make it count amiright. Right. I was in a fucked up place. I had just realized I was gay, I was horrendously depressed, I was in considerable physical pain, I was working 70 hours a week, my OCD was at an all time high and the only thing that kept me on this earth was a fucking comic book. You hold onto what you need to yknow?

WELL APPARENTLY NOT

Because this person who doesnt read her dash? This person who doesnt want to talk about anything? Liked that post where I specifically stated I was suicidal and sent me a discord message saying “dont have hope”.

Thats all it said “dont have hope”

Now I know what youre thinking but hold on because it gets worse.

I said something about being confused I dont really remember because I was pretty out of it. I do remember she kept going on about how horrible the comic would be and that it would be a piece of trash. I remember telling her I was really numb and in a bad place and couldnt feel anything. I remember her sending me screencaps and continuing to go ON AND ON about how it wasn’t worth reading.

I remember with gross intensity how someone who said they were my friend was taking away the only thing that was keeping me alive.

I dont remember how the conversation ends. I called out of work for the next three days. I was catatonically depressed and unable to really move. I didnt eat either. I went to internship, work, and school in a state of dissociation.

 I took screencaps of everything and set them aside for later. IDK what I was going to use them for but I set them in a folder on my desktop, looking back I regret what I did next; because I deleted them. I deleted them because I thought maybe she had been manic or drunk and hadn’t realized the scope of what was happening. I wanted to talk to her about it and clear things up because I believed in her. I believed there was no way she would be so callous as to do that on purpose. No way would someone try and get someone they called a friend to kill themselves. So I deleted the screencaps and my post on tumblr. I deleted all evidence to protect her and I encourage you all never to fucking do that even if you think that person misunderstood the gravity of your situation. Because if you’re wrong no ones going to believe you.

I remember shifting between intense depression and total denial.

I spent the rest of that month in and out of intense dissociative states when I wasnt in class or working with my clients.  During the middle of October my sister sent me pictures of a litter of puppies and I was like ‘well, i really need to either kill myself or make sure i dont’. I spent a few days continuing to waffle with that decision but then i remembered my mom cosigned my loans and I cant leave her with that debt because fuck we cant even afford my funeral to begin with. So I adopted a dog, I named him Julio to remind me to keep living and he finally came to me on halloween.

He was the only reason I left bed on my days off. I tried not to think about it but I did.  

I continued to spiral with heavier dissociative episodes and vivid nightmares about it.

SUICIDE TW OVER

I waited until Christmas to ask her to clarify the situation and let her know I no longer felt comfortable writing with her. I reminded her what happened and told her to check her discord if she wanted to see for herself etc.

She sent two long asks of combative, emotionally abusive, and gaslighting accusations. The first thing she did was say I needed to provide evidence if I went around making accusations like that. Then she cascaded into how I always talked about marvel *points up to where i explained what happened earlier*.  She tried gaslighting me like a champion and tried turning me into a horrible person the only problem is everything she was accusing me of doing was the shit she was doing to me. Everything. 

Even if I was bad at any time I had given her numerous chances to tell me I was overstepping a boundary- she always said no. I gave her numerous times to unfollow me if she wasnt interested in interacting with me- she never did. In fact I had unfollowed her that month because of her behavior towards me and she hadnt even noticed.

I let her know I could tell she was angry,  and that I didnt take receipts of private conversations because I believed in settling things like adults, and that if she ever wanted any proof it was all in her discord anyway. I let her know she could contact me to apologize but otherwise I didnt want her on any of my blogs and I told her the first thing she should have done wasnt demand receipts but she should have asked if I was okay. Its a real reflection of where her priorities were when she demands evidence rather than checks to see if a writing partner is okay.

Even if I did something horrible it doesnt warrant someone trying to get me to end my life. 

I was notified she put a post on her blog apologizing to her followers for being a bad friend and that she was a horrible person and ofc everyone was like ‘noooo youre perfect’ and its like ya thats not for me who hasnt followed her in months- thats to save face.

Her friends blogs kept visiting my profile and going through the month where this happened.

Everything she did and said was to save face. Her blog and her reputation are the only thing she cared about. She has never approached me to apologize or anything of the sort and I doubt she ever will. I would hope she would never do this again and I hope she has grown as a person since. That her life is better and her mother is okay, that shes happy and learning. 

 I know by posting this I will never receive an apology- then again i never expected one to begin with. I could go through all the trouble of restoring the deleted files but to be honest it isnt worth it because theres no room in my life for that type of toxicity.

Since this happened I:

I have stronger episodes of depression and dissociation since.

My PTSD has increased and I have week long spikes in anxiety attacks, depression and decreased self worth if I even see her around the rpc despite being blocked, blacklisted on xkit etc.

Have more difficulty completing basic self care tasks due to an increase in depression and a decrease in self worth.

I have nightmares about this event and her to this day a year later.

I cannot interact with the RPC how I once did as I fear seeing her on my dash or any sort of information getting back to her about me.

It took me half a year to see the character she wrote as as safe again and for awhile I couldnt even look at him without experiencing an anxiety attack.

I keep having nightmares. Its been a year and I still have nightmares about this.

I find myself having more difficulties connecting with people online especially on this blog. I’m constantly on edge when interacting with people and I feel spikes of anxiety at the merest thought of someone talking about me to her.

I find myself unable to have confidence as a writer or creator online because I have been reminder of the cement wall between oc characters and their canon counterparts.

I cannot go out and just follow anyone and be friendly and trusting with them anymore, even with people I already know. In the back of my mind is a constant reminder of how she and her friends used to check up on people and pretend to write with them/ interact with them just to take screenshots of conversations to share with the group. I have become a paranoid little bitch in the past year is what Im saying. like theres 0 need for that shit.

I blocked most of the people she interacted with simply to save myself from being triggered by her blogs/ mentions of her and that isnt fair to those people.

I remember the photo incident and how people derived such joy from mocking someones body. I can think of so many incidents of them making fun of others and I remember how that could be happening about me rn, and I wonder if anyone would stick up for me like I did for the other mun.

 I hope by posting this I can try and return to the person I was before this happened. I can try and not be so bitter and reach out again to others. That somehow I can continue working on making tumblr a safe place for me again and not a PTSD laced minefield.

I would like to remind this isnt a callout and I request if you know who this is about you dont say anything to them. This isnt for them. They have NEVER reached out to apologize for their actions. They have NEVER checked to see if I was okay after that. They have NEVER shown any remorse for encouraging me to kill myself and while I hope they’ve grown from the situation and will never do it again I doubt I will ever get closure from such an event. But i DO hope by writing this I can take this place back.

Consider this my first step towards bringing this up to a therapist.

 Consider this another step to me taking this blog back and feeling safer here; and maybe just maybe Ill make up a cool pen name for myself and own that shit.

If you’ve read this far thank you for your patience with me, and I request you always treat your writing partners like the people that they are. 

This post is not intended or written to leave this blog and therefore I request you not reblog it or share segments of it with ANYONE. If I find you have shared anything on here without my explicit permission I will block you.

‘Citrus’

[lizzizzie-blog]

Remember that time when society made you think you were straight?

So, it’s been more than a month since I posted anything. As my 30th birthday looms (3 days and counting), I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about who I am. I’ve been reflecting nostalgically on my youth (i.e., listening to early 2000′s emo). I’ve had so many threads of ideas for post topics floating around my brain, and I’ve wanted to sit down and get into all of them, but... I’ve been utterly stuck on this one idea, and I’ve been stalling. I’ve been going back and forth in my head over whether it’s important enough to write about this. Questioning the validity of something I know to be true about me.

I’m afraid to say (write) these things. I’m afraid that people won’t understand. That’s one reason not to write this. Also, this feels self-indulgent. Nobody asked. I’m not sure anybody cares. I feel silly shouting “me too!” when friends of mine have been out - have had to be out - for years now. It’s moot as far as others are because I’m married. I've already “settled down,” so why does it matter? Those are additional reasons not to write this. But, it does matter.

Because I’ve learned that research shows learning the story of someone who’s a member of an oppressed group can help change people’s minds. And I know that sometimes people change their minds when they realize someone they know is LGBTetc. And maybe I can be that person.

Because bi erasure is real and harmful and I don’t want to implicitly contribute to it.

Because it’s not fair that, because I am married to a man, I shouldn’t have to be open about my sexuality as a prerequisite to living my authentic life, when so many LGBTetc people that I love don’t have that option.

Because every moment that passes that I don’t share this, I feel less authentic. And it hurts to be inauthentic.

Because self-love and self-acceptance are my main goals for my 30th year.

Because maybe I can help young people.

Because it’s true. (And the truth is always a gift). 

Those are all my reasons to write this. And today they outweigh the reasons not to.

In early December of 2016, I went out with some girlfriends. We ended up huddled around somebody’s kitchen island, wine tipsy, chatty, giggly… all wearing incredibly immature “ugly Christmas sweaters.” I had a warm glowy feeling going. We were discussing our husbands when the conversation took a stereotypical turn in the “men - can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em” direction, and then we were on the subject of kissing women. Someone said, “I could definitely kiss a girl,” to which I shrugged “I mean, course!” in agreement. Then they qualified with, “but that’s probably it - I could never go down on a girl,” to which the rest of the girls agreed with varying degrees of enthusiasm. I shrugged and let the subject naturally change. This is the most recent in a series of conversations throughout my life, where I’ve found myself realizing that the way I feel is not the way the majority of straight women I know feel. This was the first time I noticed it in real time, though, rather than in hindsight.

It’s taken the better part of 30 years, and the happy accident of discovering Skam - and the incredible Skam fandom (Skam Fam - more on that later) - but I am finally in a place where I consciously know what I am: bisexual. Or possibly-probably pansexual. I’m not sure. Labels are tricky, as we’ve discussed. Anyway...

Growing up godless, I didn’t have any religiously rooted shame to overcome. I’ve always been emphatically pro-LGBT rights, ever since learning the meaning of the word “gay” and the concept of “same-sex marriage.” That’s always felt intensely personal to me. I’ve always felt a connection to LGBT stories in (pop) culture. They’re always the stories I latch onto and obsess over. I’ve always felt attracted to girls/women. I’ve always flirted with boys/men and girls/women, and I’ve always meant it. And yet… somehow, at the same time, I had no idea that meant I wasn’t straight. I didn’t know that what I was feeling for girls and women was different from what my straight friends were feeling. I assumed that everyone must be feeling what I was feeling, and since I was attracted to boys and men, too, I ignored that part of me. I received no messages that it was a valid option, and so I didn’t even consider it. I had trouble distinguishing between friendship feelings and romantic/sexual feelings, with girls and boys, so the confusing jumbled mess all felt normal to me. I dated boys by default, and nobody ever really asked, so I never really thought much about it.

When I was 18 and 19, I did the stereotypical “drunkenly make out with other girls at parties to get guys’ attention” thing. Only, it was mostly just one girl. And I’ve never been an attention-seeker. Looking back, I just really enjoyed making out with my best friend. And so I was happy to play along with the default narrative. ...I didn’t understand any of this at the time.

During the summer before my senior year of college, I developed real - or at least closer to conscious - feelings for a girl for the first time. We met working a nerdy biology summer job together. I knew I thought she was beautiful and elegant and stylish. I knew I thought she was smart and funny. I knew I thought she was incredibly pretentious and kind of irritating, and my straight male roommate who also worked with us couldn’t really stand her. I knew that, objectively, she was not someone I’d be expected to befriend. I knew I couldn’t get enough of her anyway. I knew that when we roomed together at a hotel during a work trip, I enjoyed the intimacy of it more than she did. And I knew that when we each slipped pantless into the sheets of our respective beds, and talked until the middle of the night, I felt fizzy. I knew that she annoyed the shit out of me, but I missed her when we were apart. I knew all these things, and yet at the same time, I didn’t totally know why I felt all these things. I chalked it up to quick, intense friendship. I didn’t think much about it, because we both had boyfriends at the time. (Not to mention, I was also developing an increasingly flirtatious texting relationship with her male roommate, and harboring a secret identify as my university’s mascot. I had a lot going on at the time.)

The summer ended and I didn’t see her any longer. I broke up with the boyfriend and jumped quickly into a circumstantially intense relationship with a new guy. My year as a mascot, my senior year of college, was a total whirlwind of mascotting and one incredibly unexpected, devastating, formative experience that I shared with the new guy (a topic for another time). The point is, I had no time for self-reflection with regard to sexuality.

Fast forward to the following fall, I met and fell in love with my now husband, quickly and completely. I was 22. Since then, I haven’t really had much cause to consider or think about my sexual and romantic orientations. Fast forward to age 29, and here I am.

I’ve never been particularly secretive about my crushes and attraction to women. I talk about my crushes on women with my husband, my gay girl friends, and my guy friends regularly. It’s something I’ve never felt any shame about. Shame is not what’s taken me so long to get to this point. It’s repression. It’s socialization. It’s a lack of representation in the media. I assumed I was straight, that my feelings for women were “phases,” outliers in my otherwise straight existence, just like everyone else had, because that’s the default option. Sexuality is fluid, and experimentation is totally normal, but eventually most people choose a “side.” That’s the story we’re told.

My story picks up in late December of 2016, a few weeks after the “I could never go down on a girl” incident during which I’d clammed up (and no one noticed). I was sick with the flu over the holidays. I was looking for something to distract me from my nausea and my incapability to spend time with family in my gross state, and I discovered Skam. In a matter of days, I binged through all three seasons, and it became my favorite show ever. I became more attached to fictional characters than I’ve ever been (which is saying something for those of you who know my heart). The show’s target audience is Norwegian teenagers, but its themes of self-acceptance, internalized homophobia, mental illness, feminism, and friendship (plus many more) are universal. The most recent season follows the story of closeted Isak, who meets and falls in love with a bisexual (presumably), bipolar Even. As they learn to love and accept one another, they learn to love and accept themselves. It’s a portrayal of a realistic, soft, healthy relationship between Isak and Even. It’s something I’ve never seen before, and it was so... refreshing, clarifying, to see. It is incredibly realistic, beautiful, and moving, and it touched me. I became obsessed with this show and these boys.

As a total fangirl, I needed an outlet for this new love. Unsurprisingly, I couldn’t convince any of my IRL friends/family to watch a Norwegian show about teenagers accessible only through fan-made subtitled files on Google Drive. My husband got tired of me blathering on about the amazing editing, clever and moving soundtrack choices, and witty, subversive dialogue. So, I took to the internet. I found my way into the fandom on Tumblr. I met a bunch of young, gay (a catch-all term) as hell Skam fans, and I began talking to them. Each new person I met, I felt immediately connected to them. I felt at home among this group. They are incredibly kind and accepting. They are so far ahead of where I was at their age, in terms of knowing and accepting who they are. It makes me so proud and thrilled for them, and so glad they have each other. And at the same time, it makes me sad for myself when I was their age, and jealous that I didn’t have a similar outlet.

In the last few months, I’ve learned so much from Skam and them. I’ve made impactful, real friendships with people all over the world. They feel like my people, and I’ve come to realize, it’s because they are. Their struggles, and their futures, are a big part of the reason I feel compelled to put this out there.

So, here I am. Validating myself. Accepting myself. Taking my own advice - that I don’t have to be able to explain this to people who won’t understand in order for it to be true. I am Not Straight in 2017. I am Not Straight at age 30. I guess it doesn’t really matter. Then again, it really does matter.

[beefybrit-blog]

Day 1

As I sit here lying on my sofa, waiting for the fast food to come, the events of the past few days have affected me greatly. Last night I went and saw a music school perform as my girlfriend was in it with a group of people. She is a great drummer, having come from nothing to being able to keep a beat for half a dozen songs from memory in about 6 months. Between the ages of 12 and 15 I was an avid Drama enthusiast, my love for music, drama and public performing has never really left me. I always get a tingle before they roll out on stage to do their thing.

As I sat there watching in-between sets, I saw the stage floor. It’s a soft rubber matting that doesn’t reflect light and is extremely grippy. I remember what it felt like to be on that, especially in just socks. You felt glued to the ground, your every step slightly cushioned by the rubber absorbing your energy. Felt good.

Food just came, my Mrs is off to see her family this weekend so we had a ‘goodbye’ meal of ‘Tost’ which, since I’m in Turkey right now, means ‘Toast’. It’s basically a toastie with extra shit inside like Salad and stuff, well see for yourself.

Not good for you, but tasty. Anyway, I decided last night that once my girlfriend had left that I would fly right. Before I came down from 160kg to 100kg. I then put back on 25kg, since I hit my goal, I lost the track. I was so focused and disciplined, I even lost weight on a 10-day holiday. But I lost it all. I want that back. I figure the best way to do that is to set myself another goal.

I originally set 100kg as a goal, because at 160kg I thought to myself ‘No Fucking Way Can I Ever Get there’ I went past it and got to about 98kg. It’s weird, I’ve never actually written it down, seeing it go from 3 digits into 2 is a strange thing.

So I’m starting at 125kg and here is me. Anon. I am going to sign myself up for a bodybuilding physique competition next year (2018) so I have a goal. Having a structure, like I did before, will enable me to remain focused and concentrate. I believe I have what it takes this time. I’m ready to make a go of it.

I’d managed to Vlog most of my transformation, but keeping up with a daily vlog, I realised that my life as it was, was way too boring to vlog about once a week. I would set myself unrealistic goals and ambitions. And never ever keep to them. I figured that writing my thoughts down and just spilling onto a keyboard might be a better way of tracking it, including photos of highlights, rather than trying to maintain a ‘WHATS UP GUYS THIS IS JOEY SALADS’ kind of personality that YouTube content is driven by.

I can’t blame YouTube, but I do feel as though I’m not ready to continue my Vlogs, since I’m down in the dumps about this whole weight gain thing. Once I’m back on track, I’ll try to transition into doing both. I’m sure at least 100 Blogs a day are started about ‘This is my first day’ and I’d wager that 90% of them fail in the first few weeks. I’m going to try to succeed in keeping up with these entries once or twice a week, some might be shorter and some might be longer.

I’d say that my knowledge of Diet, Fitness and Nutrition rivals about 80% of the publics, that’s not to say I know everything, it’s to say the public are massively ill-informed about both, I’ve read the books, watched the videos and asked the right questions. So I will be making the correct choices in that respect. One of my friends, who I met at the gym, offered me the advise of not eating carbohydrates after 5 o’clock. He is very lean and looks great, but I didn’t even bother explaining the logic flaw to him.

Him, like many others, look for that ‘1 Method’ of doing something. If I stop eating this I’ll lose weight, if I don’t drink that I’ll lose weight. And sometimes it works, but not for the reasons they think. These methods/theories/techniques often work because these people radically change several things at once and they see results, however, they tend to glorify the catalyst that started it all i.e. not eating carbs after 5.

The best diet is one you will stick to, the body responds to consistent changes over time and doesn’t like flip-flopping between extremes. Moderation is the key, no matter what you say or see, moderation is the key. Sooner or later, those who don’t moderate (like me the first time) eventually burn out.

My first massive weight loss, I completely cut dietary fat out of my diet for a whole year, all I got was the bear minimum from chicken breast and a few eggs and nuts. Not even close to the RDA. You know what happened? My Testosterone, a hormone that uses saturated fat to synthesise crashed. I’m not sure the exact science about what happened, but my body shut down producing testosterone.

I noticed it when I felt so incredibly weak, wasn’t making any gym gains, ZERO sex drive, tired, moody and just feeling off colour. One of my co-workers at the time said I looked anaemic, so pale, weak with bags under my eyes. I knew I wasn’t, since I give blood regularly and they test for iron levels before they take the blood. I ordered a ‘Full body blood test’ off the internet. Why would I do that? Because if you go to the NHS and say, ‘I feel rough’ they will make sure you don’t have anything deadly, which is fine, and then begin a very long process of finding out the rest, sometimes not even doing that. I know a little bit about cars. I spent years fixing up my land rover, I can diagnose what’s wrong with my car these days to a close margin. When I go to the mechanic, I can tell them pretty much exactly what is wrong and what needs replacing. Then, them being the experts, will tell me if there is anything more. I took the same approach with my doctor, I went there with a professional private medical blood test result and showed them.

To their surprise my testosterone, which an acceptable tolerance is between 10nmol/L – 31nmol/L, mine was 1.8nmol/L. The NHS use a different tolerance than this company whose limit is lower, but as you can see below. I was half way to losing my manhood!

After a whole YEAR of tests including an MRI, Ultrasound and several blood tests, they couldn’t find a reason. Doctors can be very ignorant when their patient suggests something like diet. But that’s by-the-by in the end I went for treatment privately since a whole host of NHS incompetence’s left me massively under dosed for 6 months, causing me to feel worse not better. I am now on 500mg of Sustanon a month which I inject into my quad once a week. Lesson for every man, don’t neglect dietary fat.

It took about 6 more months to feel the effect. So a 2 year payment for a stupid mistake. But I started getting my old self back eventually and made gains etc, I even went on to compete in strongman competitions and training. Although I was seriously bad!

So other than that, that’s been my life. Now it’s time to change. Now it’s time to set another goal and stick with it. A goal has to be SMART

Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic Time based

So my smart goal is this:

I want to compete in a bodybuilding physique competition in 2018, although not officially released, the dates tend to stay fairly similar each year. May 26th is my date . I will measure my progress with 3 steps, short term goal, medium and long, the latter being to compete. It is attainable based upon the large timeframe I have given myself and it is also realistic because of that. Time based, meaning I will track myself weekly to gauge my aesthetic appearance and my weight.

I will start with a 16 week ‘Cutting Period’ During this time I will lose 30kg at a rate of 1.8kg per week following a strict diet. I will measure if my progress IRL is matching with my predicted progress and adjust as needed, I will be setting my goal to what I know is safely attainable, through personal experience and research recommendations. Once this 16-week cutting period is over, I have left myself 4 weeks to pick up any slack and make any corrections to the diet, meaning, if I arrive at my goal weight/physique of 90kg and I am still not happy, I have time to continue before moving onto the next step, this should bring me to October 2017.

If I am on course I will begin ‘Lean Bulking’ on a small caloric deficit each day. Until a physique which I believe is presentable has been attained. Since the competition is on May 26th that will give me 6 ½ Months before cutting down 8 – 12  weeks prior to the competition date.

I am aware of the emotional problems, since a member of my family has terminal cancer, they will likely die during this period, I am prepared and won’t let this affect my progress.

I am determined. I am ready for it. I’m not ready to share my social media or anything yet, nor will I be posting pictures on my social media until I am confident enough, this is, after all a mind-game.

Wish me luck buddies.

Love you Bye.