#it's just. so....... there's not real affection.... we've known each other for 20 years but we never truly understood each other

[grlfriends]

not gonna explain but damn being alive rn is like being in a sitcom but every episode is the most depressing episode ever

[icemankazansky]

🕯️

🕯️was there a fic that was really hard on you to write, or took you to a place you didn't think it would take you?

Well, I mean, the answer to that is yes. I don't want to give a non-answer to this question, but a lot of stories are hard in a lot of different ways, and a lot of them go their own way. As a writer, I rarely plan ahead much; I don't make outlines, and while I have a general idea of the shape of most stories when I begin writing them, the writing process for me and the way the story becomes is very fluid. I've spoken before about certain challenge stories that were written from requests that made me uncomfortable and that I knew would have to go someplace I didn't want to spend time, but I think honestly the stories that I have struggled with the most in both these ways are stories I have been working on for a long time but have not been able to finish. I've been working on the Top Gun Age of Sail AU for over a decade, and it's not finished, and I don't know that it ever will be. I really want to finish Vox, but it's been almost a year, and I still don't really, fully understand the shape of it and how it has to be built from here, and it's incredibly frustrating.

🕯️how do you think engaging with each other through tumblr, twitter, comments, kudos, creates healthy fandom experiences? How do you deal with that if you're not a social person/experience social anxiety?

The social aspect of fandom is absolutely crucial. I mean, I love fanfiction, reading and writing it both, and creating art and gifs and other things from the media I love, and seeing the art and gifs and things other people create ... but honestly, if I was experiencing all of that in a vacuum, I think it would not be nearly as engaging or rewarding an experience as it is. I have friends I have met through fandom who are among the best friends I've ever had, people I've known for decades and are still there, still ride or die, still make me so happy every time I see their name on a post or a text message. A couple years ago, I attended the wedding reception of one of a girl I met when she left a comment on a fic I wrote. She is one of my dearest friends, and I've known her for ... shit, like 15 years now. We talk often. I know I can count on her if I need anything. She's slept on my couch and we've been to the ocean and to hug baby goats and shopping for leather goods and to eat catfish and hush puppies. When I found a lump in my breast, I called a dear friend I have known for 20-some years and met when I left a comment on a story she wrote. I was there for her when she had breast cancer, and when I was afraid I did, too, she checked in on me and reassured me and told me what to expect, and texted back and forth with me the entire time I was at the imaging center. I have movie night every week with a friend I have known for 20-some years; we have been each other's dedicated beta readers not just on fanfiction but on anything we've written for over a decade. She's in The Kilmer Cure. She is the person I usually turn to when I'm having serious mental health issues, because she has bipolar disorder, too, and she understands. We're planning to get tattoos together.

And even people I haven't known as long ... sometimes they're the only real social interaction I have all day, because I am chronically ill and I am mentally ill and because I am an introvert and all the other reasons it's so hard to get together with people in real life often when you're an adult. And speaking to them, about fandom, about anything, is a huge source of enrichment and comfort and joy to me. And I am not a social person. I do have social anxiety. (Although it's gotten better as I've gotten older and as I've gotten treatment for PTSD, which affects that way more than I thought it did.) But I think one of the great things about fandom relationships via the internet is that you can do things at your own pace. You're not on the spot. If you don't have the spoons for interaction one day, you don't have to reply to that comment right now. You can do it tomorrow. You can watch the conversation in Discord, but you don't have to join in if you're not up to it. And everyone's in different time zones and on different schedules, so everyone's kind of just coming in and participating how and when they can.

[just-antithings]

https://just-antithings.tumblr.com/post/680810896384212992/heard-someone-today-saying-that-a-three-year-age

my fiancé and i have a four year gap, and we've known each other for 8 years (i'm 22). we've been Officially together for 2+ years but we were ldr when we were younger (not saying ldr isn't official it just wasn't for us). my mom Hated it but my grandma who's now 80 was like. "i don't see the big deal, that's what grandpa and i were" (when grandma was 18-19). anyway my grandma would think antis are ridiculous send tweet

My husband is 4 years older than me I've known him since I was 12 so 11 years. We've been together since early 2019 (3 years exactly this month actually) we had a mutual crush when I was 16 but due to extenuating circumstances never confessed, lost touch, and only met eachother again after I had turned 20. Our relationship has been praised to hell and back by both of our parents for how cute we are (not to brag) and our parents are aware this affection started when I was initially a minor and see no problem with that. We would have been 16/20 at the time as well. He in part didn't confess because he was worried about me being a minor and thought that made him a creep, at no point dating or prior has he ever crossed my boundaries and out of all the relationships I've been in he's the only person to show me real respect instead of just surface level. Before I dated him I dated someone 9 years my senior at 19. Age gaps quite literally will never matter as much as antis think they do, it will always be about how the people in the relationship treat eachother. You can be the same age younger older but that will not matter if you treat your partner like shit. Also it's no one's business how big the age gap is except, parents and involved parties and parents only matter until you're and adult.

[piccolina-mina]

Okay @michaelmaria they flagged my response to you stating it violated community policies and couldn't be appealed.

So, now it's about the principle.

Haha. I don't do it THAT often. I usually get me thoughts out there eventually. The last one was what regarding Maria's lifelong fear of her own mind, right? 

I think one of the things that happens, especially in a fandom that sort of gets off on focusing on some character's respective traumas and fears and all of that is that if it doesn't look a certain way, most people don't consider or think about it at all.

There are very real elements of all of these characters. Liz, for example, not wanting to be a runner like her mother but ... she IS a runner. Every day, she's actively choosing NOT to run, and that's important, that's huge for her.  Rosa's very real fear of her own mind. 

Maria has that too. And it's something that I don't think anyone considered much, and I love that they're addressing that more this season. Her mother isn't even 50 and already has a degenerative brain disorder that science can't fix. That's terrifying. And it's something that affected her grandmother too. 

So the likelihood of it reaching her is greater, and that's freaking scary. It's so scary, and so it puts so much into perspective.

She's "the fun friend" for many reasons, but one of them being she has to live her life and have fun before it's too late. She's 28. That means she's preparing herself for not being HERSELF in the next 20 years. 

But she's also stuck, because she's stuck having to take care of her mother and run this bar and make money, so that hinders her being able to live her life fully the way that she may want before her own decline. It's like your working to exist and not getting to live.

And she's also determined to find some solution for her mother because it would also save her too. Because if and when Maria's health declines, is it safe to say she didn't anticipate anyone being there to take care of her or her mother? She doesn't want to burden her friends runs so much deeper than not wanting to talk to them about Mimi.

But this, this makes her anger at Liz just so ... heavy. Because yeah, there were layers to it, and the fact that she never felt safe as is as a WOC is a huge component. But she's terrified of becoming like her mother. And it wasn't that she didn't think it was going to happen, it was scary to think it was happening that soon. 

She thought she had more time. And Liz, who has a mother and a sister with Bipolar and who knew about Mimi's mental health decline and probably knew about Maria's grandmother too just didn't consider any of that. 

Maria has spent years battling this, preparing for this, having this fear of her own mind. And it explains the little things, like maybe why she hasn't fully processed what happened to her when Noah possessed her.

 She just... moved on, which is scary to think about, isn't it? She woke up with Michael telling her that I guess her drink had been spiked, and she could have been laying there thinking that whole time that she was showing signs of an episode. 

And man does that 'i never want you to leave' sentiment hit different when you consider that. As does her breaking down and crying into him ... because she's just exhausted and scared. Putting Mimi in that facility felt finite for her mother, yes, but also for her. 

There is discourse about Michael being a Product of the system he came up within and how that affects him. And discourse about Alex not wanting to be like his father and redefining what it means to be a Manes man, and Kyle's image of his father being shattered as he had to recognize that his father was a flawed man. And Liz and Rosa not wanting to be their mother.

But this with Maria, it's heavy too. 

And so, since of course you are a miluca shipper and mentioned it, this also puts some things in perspective about their relationship too and what Michael represents for Maria because with this discussion so often it's only spoken through Michael's lens of what she represents for him with their romantic relationship and for Maria most of the discussion focuses on her friendship with Alex and how dating Michael affects that. But not what Michael does and represents for her.

But if you consider that Maria has spent most of her life with a deadline, believing that she would succumb to the same fate of her mom before she's even middle-aged, that she doesn't have time,well, her conflicting feelings about Michael and Alex make more sense. 

She was already sacrificing a lot.  And Michael came in like a lifeline. And he was taking care of her, without a second thought. And that's so unexpected but also made her potential fate less scary. Not because she thought he specifically could be the one who took care of her if and when that happened, but there was a reminder that maybe someone actually could. 

She was attracted to him, no doubt, but she actually started to care about him when she saw that he was caring and softer than imagined. 

And she falls him a little more because... he keeps showing up for her. Even when things look bad. 

So yeah, by putting herself first, by I guess being selfish, it wasn't really about Alex at all. And it was something different than "being a terrible friend." 

She lives in the now. Because the future just isn't guaranteed the same way. And I don't think she wanted to give up on that feeling, of comfort, and safety, and stability and being in a relationship with someone she cares about who cares about her while she still can. 

And even with Michael, when it looked like he was descending down a dark path and he kept pushing her away. She basically let know... she just doesn't have the time for his sh!t. 

But yeah, he's someone she could bring her fears to even if she didn't have to speak about them. He didn't ask questions. He was just ... there. But we've also noticed that they talk a lot. We don't always see it onscreen, but it's implied often enough.

They actually communicate with each other. They tell each other things now. And she has really opened herself up and allowed herself to be vulnerable in a way that she doesn't for most other people.

She's allowing herself to be known. As herself. While she still is herself.

But yeah, knowing that she has lived her life accepting that she will just most likely fade away before she's even 50 just really explains a lot about her character, her relationships, and how she carries on....

[animeraider]

I get a lot of flack from anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, and other fuckwits about my words on the COVID-19 Pandemic and in particular the response to it in the US. I pull no punches about it, I believe firmly that the previous administration and ANYONE who enables them and their policies are complicit in the deaths of all of these people. They belong in prison.

I'm not going to fucking apologize for believing that. The fault for all of this belongs directly in the laps of the Republican Party. If you believe otherwise, you're WRONG. I can bring the receipts.

I've been pretty isolated during all of this. I went into lockdown on March 11, 2020 and I'm technically still there. I now work from home, and even though I've been fully vaccinated for two months now I still go out masked. I may never eat at a buffet again. Sorry Sizzler, but I've learned how to make your cheese bread.

I ripped a tendon in my left knee in May of 2020. I had to go to the hospital, but I was out in a few hours with crutches. I would joke with people that I'm now out of hinged joints to break.

But in July my cough returned with an attitude, and I picked up an infection. Not Covid, but it all made me pretty sick. So that you understand, I have what's called "Chronic Cough Syndrome". I've had it since I was 8. No one knows the cause or the cure. Believe me, we've looked. I just start coughing, and after a few months, I stop. It can be treated but I just have to live with it until someone comes up with something we haven't tried before.

Doctors have gotten into fistfights over whether or not I have Asthma. I don't, but sometimes Asthma medications work for a bit. To be honest, I've had this for so long that sometimes I don't even notice when I cough. It's just part of the wonder of being me.

I took the Pandemic seriously. I stayed home, I socially distanced, I got real familiar with teams, bluejeans, and zoom. I did a LOT of cooking. Started making bread. Watched the country fall apart at the seams and commented on it from my own little pocket of safety. I contributed a new song to a fund-raising effort for nurses. I did my part to stay safe, but my cough had other ideas.

Anyway, this time my coughing got pretty severe and I finally agreed to go to the hospital. As stated above, turns out I had picked up an infection. Combine that with my cough and I showed all of the symptoms of a severe case of COVID-19.

I'd been careful, but the hospital staff were all very cross with me. If I had COVID, I just exposed all of them, and the main nurse who tended to me had already been quarantined that same month for a different exposure. When the test came back negative the tension in the emergency ward calmed down immensely and everyone treated me kindly and professionally - I was a patient with something they knew what to do with and didn't bring plague into their house.

I spent 4 days in the hospital but the worst part, scariest part, was the wait to move from the Emergency Room to a private room. I came to the hospital in the late afternoon. I finally got my bed nearly 12 hours later, a good 8 hours after my test for COVID had come back negative.

I needed to be hospitalized, and needed a bed, and there weren't any. I had to wait for someone to either be discharged or to die.

I got my bed at 4 in the morning. Someone had died. Musical chairs was played and I was finally moved out of the Emergency Room.

It's really hard to understand how sobering that is without experiencing it. Many years ago, before we even knew about AIDS, I had the honor of donating blood and seeing it get used in a surgery mere minutes later. I became a regular blood donor at that moment - I felt so happy and alive that my blood had been used to save a life mere minutes after I had donated it (I'm O Negative) that I became a life-long believer. I donated every time I was eligible from that moment forward until a blood infection disqualified me from ever donating again 20 years later.

This was just the opposite. The guy with a cough and a treatable infection had to wait for someone on a ventilator to stop breathing. Someone with COVID died so that I could get a bed. They never knew this had happened, and I never learned who they were. Some random person died so that I could get better.

Try sleeping after that realization hits you. I couldn't. I barely slept the entire time I was there.

Despite the fact that I wasn't in the "COVID Ward" I got to see the effects first-hand. The newly disinfected bed and room I had was previously occupied by someone moved up to the Covid Ward. They in turn had moved up there after a ventilator was taken away from a patient who died. Staff rotated through different wards on different shifts. My first nurse was rotated into the Covid Ward. My next day nurse had just rotated out. I have never in my life seen a group of people look so haunted by their day to day lives.

A well-liked member of their staff was on a ventilator. So was a priest who worked in the hospital. I had never seen in person a "Code Blue". There were six of them my first day. There is also a "Code Black". It's much worse.

My wife and daughters weren't allowed to visit me. When your daily soundtrack is nothing but medical staff talking about the good and the bad, terrible television and the moaning/screaming of your new neighbors getting that visit from family is a huge stress relief. It wasn't available this time. I didn't see my family again until I was discharged. There was no outside world.

I admit that being in hospital during all of this, even though I myself didn't have COVID, shook me. When you're in hospital mostly what you deal with is yourself and your own condition, and getting the hell out of there as soon as you can. This time I was not only aware of the people around me, their conditions, their suffering and their recoveries, but I was also aware that a whole section of the building was dedicated to people who were going to die, and that the people who were treating me were also treating them.

This was as close as I got to the Pandemic. When I got home I fucking STAYED THERE. I went to the grocery store and the pharmacy and that was it. That was life for MONTHS.

Our grocery store was fantastic - they enforced social distancing and masks with gusto. They cleaned EVERYTHING. It had been a 24 hour store but converted to shorter hours so that the down time could be spent cleaning. Aisles were made one-way.

The first time I saw someone in the parking lot without a mask I have to admit that I lost it. I screamed at them (a white couple about my age), "PUT YOUR FUCKING MASKS ON YOU FUCKING MORONS!" Understand, I'm a fairly large man with a deep voice and have been a professional singer for decades and have played sax even longer. I'm loud and imposing. Everyone within 50 feet turned and stared at the couple. Okay, me first then the couple.

It's possible they didn't speak English. They exchanged a few words in Russian to each other and then masked up.

I've been known to let my temper show. I try not to because I know it's there and I know it's terrible. I've worked for decades to keep it in check and I just let it all out, screaming at a couple of rando Karens 20 feet away from anyone else who hadn't put their masks on yet. I had to acknowledge that this affected me profoundly. I'm dealing with that.

I've lost friends to COVID. One of my neighbors spent almost 3 months on a ventilator and survived it. Some of my friends have lost family. It hurts. It all hurts. It has changed me.

Some of you have noticed that I've been pretty productive in 2021 in terms of music, after not releasing material for over a decade. This whole experience has changed me, changed my perspective. I was already an angry liberal but I'm far angrier and much more liberal now than I was. The album I worked on forever essentially no longer exists. The person I am now couldn't make that album. I am excising demons and allowing the new to come in and take its place.

And you know what, so far, I'm okay. I'm still here. I intend to stay. In fact, what I intend to be the first song from my next album in its own way deals with the fact that I don't understand depression - I've never experienced it.

But I have to admit that I'm grateful to have family and friends in my life who accept me as I am, who provide unconditional love and support and I hope I do for them. I have the occasional doubt that I'm as good a friend/family member as I can be. I can be an ass sometimes.

(A couple of my long-time friends have just done spit-takes. "Sometimes????")

Because the scariest thing about what we've all been through - what I've been through - is that we have changed so much that I'm not sure that the people who know me best would be my friends if they met me as the person I am now. I am changed.

And the odds are pretty good that you have too. This is something we're all going to need to deal with, or we're lost.

Please, don't be lost.

And because it still needs doing, because the pandemic is still going strong as ever among the anti-vaxxers, the science deniers and the Republicans, please support our nurses. Here's the album I'm on that is still to this day, long after falling off the charts, raising money for them:

[jaskanetic]

Little Tribute To A Good Boi, and Good People (might get kinda sad)

Ever since Waffles passed away, I've started letting my lil brother's dog into my room to chill and sleep.

His name is Zeus, we've had him since I was about... 7 or 8. and I'm gonna be 20 this August. He's a very, very old boi.

He is a mix of Border Collie, and some sort of terrior. Like Irish/Scottish terrior, something like that. And we also think there's a bit Chihuahua in there- he's a mix boi.

He has some scars, bumbs, and all, and is a pretty wild boi.

He has a nice underbite, and always looks grumpy, but is actually a very very sweet boi when he gets to know you.

He got an injury in his right eye about a year or two ago, and so he had surgery to have his eye removed. His left one still works really well, and when you look in it, you can see just how happy he is to see you.

Did you also know he catches birds? He has some pretty strong bird hunting instincts. He can jump SUPER high in the air and catch birds as they fly by. He's really old so he doesn't do it as often anymore, but now and then you can catch a glimpse of him trying to catch a bird that flies by.

Zeus is a very good boi and I love him.

He isn't Waffles.... And I know I won't feel as connected to him as I was with Waffles...

To be honest, I cried the first night I let him into my room to sleep. Some part of my mind tried to believe "it'll be just like if Waffles was here" but it wasn't.

You can't replace a person's life, and you can't replace your companion's life either. A life, is a life, and not a single life, not a single person, is ever replaceable. You can meet someone amazing, whether it be a person or dog or lizard or what have you- but once they are gone, you won't find anyone else like them.

I lost a lot of people in the span of just ... 3 or 4 years. Too many people.

And I'm glad, I was with Waffles in his final moments.

But, watching the process of death... Watching something writhe until it's last breath exists it's body...?

To be honest, I'm quite traumatized.

And it's something I've been mulling over for the past entire month since he's been gone. Not just him, but other people I've lost too.

Not every person I've lost has died; but I would welcome each and every person back into my life, even the ones not quite on earth anymore if I could.

Because each and every life is irreplaceable.

Even I have days where I think no one would notice if I'm gone, or that my existence is pretty meaningless. That no one cares, and I'm not unique in any way.

But it isn't true. You are unique. You are important. You exist for a reason- and I can PROMISE when someone loses you, their life is never the same after that.

A life is a life, and a life cannot be replaced.

What gets me the most is that, I often wonder if I even have much impact on people at all. I constantly wonder how much affect my actions really have.

The long week spent, watching Waffles slowly get worse and worse... He was in terrible condition. Vomiting despite not eating or drinking. Limping everywhere, falling on the floor a lot. Hardly able to move at all, nothing but bones ... It was borderline traumatic, heartbreaking. I cried everyday for that entire week, I cried the week before that too.

The day he died, he went to lay on the complete opposite side of the house, down a single step into another room.

He spent the entire morning walking around, looking for a place to die.

And in his final moments? He got up and ran as best as he could across the house- and into my bedroom.

I got up to check on him. He was sitting in my room in front of my door. And I leaned down to pet him and comfort him, because I thought he was going to puke again.

Instead, when I pulled away, he tried to get up, but fell over on his side behind my fan.

I can't even begin to tell you what the process of dying looks like. The best way I can describe it is: horrifying. Just.... Horrifying.

But what's got me thinking about this is... He, in his final moments, went to the excruciating effort to go to my room. He wanted, to be in my room, in his final moments. He wanted to be near me.

And it's really kinda pathetic that it's taken this much, and so much more on top of it, for me to understand "what I do does matter to people".

That I, matter to people.

Don't get me wrong, I still battle anxiety a lot. I still have bad days.

But in the course of almost 6 months I went from having a breakdown everyday and thinking "I mean nothing at all" to: "I matter to people, and everyone is important to me." And having pretty much no real break downs. Like. At all.

Just like my Papa. My Nana. Like all my old friends. Like Harley, like Waffles.... Zeus matters.

He can never be Waffles, because he is Zeus. He can't replace any old friend because... He just isn't them. He's him.

And you matter. And I matter.

You could drive me up the wall, absolutely insane, and even if you are someone that constantly grinds my gears- you are irreplaceable.

I might get a tortoise tomorrow- will it replace Zeus? Nope.

I make new friends now and then- do they replace my old friends? Nope.

My old friends make new friends- do those new friends replace me? Nope.

Coinciding with this: please don't tell someone "X is going to make you choose over me and them" or "you care more about X than me"

I'm not exempt of feeling this kind of envy, but for someone who isn't even 20 yet, I grew up faster than most older adults I know who have used these lines. In only just 6 months.

It's taken a lot of pain, drama, trauma, death, and struggles... But my brain has finally matured and wrapped over the genuine fact that: each and every living being is unique, unreplaceable, and matters to the world. Including myself. Including you.

So if you ever wonder, if you even matter. If you ask yourself: what's the point anymore? If you consider destroying yourself to try an be someone you're not. Or you get jealous, envious, hung up over "I might be replaced"....

Please remember Waffles.

Please remember Zeus.

Remember each and every person you've met.

You're unique. You're cared for. And you matter.

And to end this, I will show some pictures, of my very bestest boy.

I love you Waffles, you were my bestest boy and I miss you lots. 💜

And to anyone I've ever known, whether we barely talk or don't talk at all, regardless of the reason?

I love you too, and goodluck.

[underwhelmingalchemist]

Just give me one quick moment real fast to brag about my relationships.

I'm dating the two cutest people in the world (no, I'm not cheating, they are aware of each other and also really good friends)

They both have curly blonde hair and have bad senses of humor and gorgeous smiles and when they look at me with that look of adoration I just melt.

They're both soft and awkward and love cuddling and physical affection and words of affirmation, and pet names and holding hands and collecting stuffed animals.

She has little dimples around her eyes when she smiles, and he gets these deep lines around his mouth when he laughs

They borrow books from me and help me with things I struggle to do on my own and I try to help them.

I kissed her for the first time today, and we were both giggling and excited and exploding with happiness despite how awkward and unsure it was.

I kissed him for the first time over six years ago, in the school library when we were both teenagers, and it was awkward and neither of us knew what we were doing, but it was both of our first kisses ever, and how can you beat that?

I sit in the parking lot of In-and-Out with her, talking about relationships and healthy communication and politics.

I sit outside a restaurant with him, talking about life and college and plans for the future.

They both love when I wear platforms, love when I'm just that little bit taller than them. They've developed their own senses of style over the years just as I've developed mine. She dresses in pastels and he dresses in warm colors and thrifted jackets.

We've all known each other since we were teenagers. Now she's 20, I'm 22, he's 24. We've grown up together, watched each other grow and develop, been there for each other since we were kids.

With her it's queerplatonic, a romantic friendship. With him it's a comfortable, worn-in love that comes with six years of dating, a romantic love that pairs well with a friendship that's grown alongside it.

With both of them, it's a deep, genuine, pure love. The kind that makes you ache when you look at them and want to spend all your time with them.

I'm so lucky to be dating my best friends.