#its hard to not feel like theres something very deeply wrong with me that is impossible to change. i dont feel like im worth anything

[hecksupremechips]

The way akishinji and ashbella both have dramatic coma scenes and dramatic shot through the heart scenes like we’ve gotta stop meeting like this 😩

[be-good-to-bugs]

it actually kinda sucks that nobody in my life has any idea the loneliness ive been feeling for the past 8 years. im glad they havent experienced this but it sucks to not have anyone to relate this to.

[cycle-hit]

mahiru and autism (because i am insane)

Common signs of autism in adults include:

finding it hard to understand what others are thinking or feeling

finding it hard to say how you feel

having a very keen interest in certain subjects or activities

suki

have learned to hide signs of autism to 'fit in' - by copying people who do not have autism

often talking at length about a favorite subject without noticing that others are not interested or without giving others a chance to respond

repeating certain behaviors or having unusual behaviors, such as repeating words or phrases (a behavior called echolalia)

theres also this type of echolalia! from here

mahiru seems to talk a lot in love magazine/novel/drama/opera dialogue or quotes! she even gives fuuta a quiz above in that timeline like those quizzes you see in magazines

something else interesting in this article is this section

compared to what mahiru says here! (shes repeating herself from earlier on in the vd, when she said the same thing)

she does the same thing in t2!

the bullet points onwards are personal experience/from other peoples experiences

enjoyment of simple, repetitive tasks

difficulty making friends

you dont see this a lot in MILGRAM, specifically, with mahiru- but whats interesting about mahiru is that she doesn't mention having friends pre-milgram. or anyone else outside of her boyfriend and "love guru". at all! she doesnt even mention there being anyone she'd leave behind if she died! nor is she ever shown to be interacting with "friends" in any of her mvs- the wedding she's invited to is one from her relative. its very interesting to me that the prisoner known SPECIFICALLY for talking to people and socialising...never once mentions a friend pre-milgram. why? (AUTISM)

feeling, inherently, that there is something "wrong" with you that you can't understand, but it seems everyone else can sense it.

theres also the fact everyone repeatedly tells mahiru that she's too carefree, or an airhead, or not taking things seriously, or that she "isn't suited for milgram". there is something deeply autistic about that i think. personally. that everyone can tell shes "different" or "not behaving as she should" but to mahiru its perfectly alright behaviour.

anyways. thank u for coming to my mahiru autism tedtalk

sources:

1 2 3 and also meeeee :3 (<- autistic)

[shesmore-shoebill]

since you mentioned an angel in neon blue as one of your faves…..your top 5 amangela fics perhaps? some honorary mentions too if there’s too many? 👀

Sorry for the delay on this, life got busy and then more busy instead of less busy and I wanted to give this ask its deserved amount of consideration.

anyway. Five is HARD. I will do my best. Order is not indicative of anything bc I've agonized long enough as it is. I've tagged folks + linked directly to their posts where I could find their associated tumblr post, and links to AO3 where I couldn't.

Also I cheated and made a separate list for NSFW ones. Partly because I know some people don't want to read NSFW. and to cheat a little on the 5 restriction.

As always, RPF with F as in fiction. From what I recall, none of these are attempting to speculate or make any actual statements about real people, they're all just works of fiction I like.

if anyone wants me to remove a link to their fic or a tag for any reason, let me know.

close my eyes (and fantasize) by @baflegacy

listen. I am a fucking sucker for well intentioned and realistic miscommunication that stems from care and then goes wrong. I love a thing where someone cares about someone and thats why they're worried and the worry also means they are a little mad and a little hurt bc fuck, i want to help you, why arent you talking to me about this, did i do something, crossed with the other person doing everything in their power to do the exact thing driving them up the wall, because they genuinely care so much about the other person that its skewing their judgement. People who care and people who fuck up. I'll eat it up every time, and this one is written in a way that feels so real. 👌👌👌👌

the devil is in the details by @skiespeaches

this is a newer fic and its still in progress atm and so theres a chance it gets bumped into NSFW territory 😅 but im really enjoying it!!! The dynamic between Amanda and Angela takes the competitive edge we can see in videos and makes it into something phenomenal. Its got such strong tension and pacing, and its also got. REALLY GOOD COMMUNICATION. People react realistically and have reasonable fears and doubts but everyone also talks about them and trusts each other and its just so satisfying to read as a result. And it STILL does the tension and the 👀👀👀👀👀 so well. Guess its kind of funny to put this and the prior recc right next to each other but I genuinely love both of these. Communication and humans are weird.

not strong enough by @moviemandy

i love a disaster angela fic as much as anyone but because I feel like that trope is established among smosh rpf, I love having that get subverted even more. More Amanda getting comforted!!! yeah!!!!!And the way the dynamic and emotions are written in this one is especially satisfying to me, they all feel very real, and sweet. :') Also, Im always a sucker for the trope where someone tries to deflect from their issues by taking care of someone else and then gets CALLED OUT FOR IT. also, double bonus, this fic can be read completely platonically. :]

a field of yellow flowers by @unknownteapot

gah this one has so many layers and elements to it, its such a damn delight to reread. the bittersweetness of it all really 👌👌👌👌. Grudging respect and admiration in an awful space, magnetism of people who both deeply want to love each other and really don't (but they do). The world feels very realized and that's so important bc the fic clearly sets up the interplay as like. The two of them and also the world they are in as a distinct three players in the story. This fic has so many emotions!!! gut punch of an end! you feel for both of them so deeply by the end.

i've been having revelations by @poppyfamily

slight cheating bc this is courtmangela but it should still count imo!!! It contains another classic trope of people who care about each other deeply and it being percieved by other people before they clock it themselves. Its something I like specifically as a writing trope and only executed in specific ways- caring deeply and being affectionate does not HAVE to mean you want to sleep with or are in love with someone, and IRL assumptions about that can be. Infuriating. But love how this fic does it. :) Also its funny and it feels very genuine and the voices all sound. right. I love fics with lots of cuts where so much is said in tiny details and tiny moments, it makes the world feel very fleshed out. Also, Courtmangela as a band is just a blessed concept.

NSFW fics:

lets make this bed get squeaky by baflegacy

This rewrote my goddamn brain chemistry actually. Like yes, this one is hot, but the parts that really hooked into my brain are not exclusively the spicy bits. Pining RPF Amanda is SO important to my brain, and that dynamic of an Amanda silently losing her mind and Angela also silently losing her mind but slightly more at peace about it, combined with their very genuine friendship keeping things fine and then. and THEN. well.

personal leisure by unknownteapot

hey this fic is hot as hell. Its extremely well written. But also besides the nsfw parts the banter and the sort of instant connection all feel very real and unforced and i love that the end of the fic feels so open ended but also so light and hopeful and sweet. choosing to believe they meet for coffee the next day and it all goes swimmingly.

like she wants to try me on by baflegacy

this fic is about amanda in the submissive and breedable outfit and angela. It accomplishes eveeything you could want from that. Its Very nsfw. its VERY good. Writing smut is difficult on multiple levels- keeping it logistically and emotionally sound while keeping it spicy. It does all three really well. also the aftercare moment is really sweet. :]

bonus: its the subject of this ask so i didnt include it but shout out to an angel in neon blue- the tension is INCREDIBLE and the way the ending recontextualizes everything and leaves you unsure who was really in control the whole time is like. really impressive. The characterization is SO strong and feels so true to the Sarah Christ we know and creates an equally strong Creekside Killer characterization to juxtapose it. 👌

[hms-no-fun]

Currently struggling a lot with getting very excited about a project, writing a lot, editing that writing until it's way more polished than what I can come up with off the cuff, and then being too intimidated to add to the document anymore since the previous good writing still gives off this looming intimidation if that makes sense? The more I write the greater the fear is I'll crash the story into a ditch that reveals the premise can't work. have you had that "its not all coming together shit theres a snag thats really important that i missed" moment? I realize it's pretty inevitable for that to happen, but whenever I write myself out of a moment like that I always second guess that I'm still overlooking something important or taking the easy way out. I know it's probably just all about pushing through but I worry that by pushing im just further diluting the original spirit of the project? Sorry for the all over the place ask, hope you have a good day :3

this is always a tough situation to navigate as a writer. happens to me often, and it has taken me a very long time to come even remotely close to being able to deal with it productively. believe it or not, i actually have quite a lot to say about this, so prepare for that below the break.

first of all, no, it's absolutely NOT all about pushing through. i find "pushing through" can just as often make the problem worse. keep in mind that i can only speak to my own experience and process, so any advice i might give here should only be taken insofar as you personally find it useful.

this is a form of writer's block. there are many different types of blocks, each with their own causes and hypothetical treatments. a big part of becoming A Writer as such is learning the difference between them, and developing methods for dealing with them on a case by case basis that don't involve substance abuse. don't do cocaine. that's step one.

most of my blocks are in the vein you describe. i'll be writing a scene that feels good, until i cross a threshold somewhere and suddenly the whole thing feels dead in the water. the first thing i do when this happens is stop writing. it's hard to stop when you're on a roll, i know. life is short and it's hard enough to write even on a good day, but sometimes you can just tell that you're on the wrong track and at that point you're probably not gonna be able to write your way back on.

once stopped, i check the basics. have i eaten recently? am i hydrated? have i taken my medications? these are rarely my problem (i keep a big water bottle with me at all times and my gf makes sure i'm fed), though you never know how useful a snack break can be. most of the time if the problem isn't with the text, it's that i've been writing for too fucking long and i need to clock out. learning to clock out is SO hard. but as i've been getting into the habit these last couple months, while i generally write less per day i ultimately end up writing more over time. i can feel my brain cooking when i've been writing too long. it's a muscle like anything else. if you did a bunch of overtime shifts at a more physical job, you'd need time to recover too. your body isn't a machine, your brain isn't a computer, and living things are inconsistent. it sucks but you'll have a better time all around when you learn to work with your body instead of against it.

another question is, have i showered recently? i find showers tedious and boring. also i still have depression even though my life is a lot better than it used to be. i lived on my own for a very long time as a deeply closeted self-hating trans woman, so my hygiene habits are not always up to sniff. as much as i hate to admit it, showers help. i can't tell you how many times i've sat at a godfeels chapter or video script and just felt fucking miserable, only to come back forty minutes later from a shower, full of creative energy. i despise self-help shit. just not a fan of the culture of positive attitude wellness check stuff because you can't self examine your way out of your class position. sometimes the problem is that you're broke. sometimes life fucking sucks and you just don't have the art in you, and that's okay. there's a common misconception that if something bad happens to you, at least you can make an art to get through it. but in my experience it's actually a lot harder to make art about bad times when you're still in them. most of the time it takes months if not years of safety and recovery before you can really face it head on artistically. so like, be nice to yourself. it's not your fault that you live in a society.

but also sometimes literally you just need a shower or to eat some leftovers or to go to fucking bed. i hate it every time that is true because i want my problems to be real and philosophical and not just some dumb body thing that happens to everyone. alas, no one can escape the quotidian obligations of simple mortality.

THAT SAID! this stuff isn't usually my problem, and often i find that what's solving the problem when i do step away to eat/drink/shower isn't even the specific activity, but the act of stepping away at all. getting my mind off it for a sec. when i hit a block that doesn't feel completely insurmountable, i like to back away from my computer and pace around a bit. then i'll stare at my big whiteboard with a marker in hand and just let my mind wander. i don't even write anything half the time! but the mere act of trying to compartmentalize the problem into something brief enough for shorthand helps me spot the pain points.

one of my favorite books is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which despite what you might assume from its title is NOT a self-help book but instead a work of philosophy from 1974 taking the form of a travelogue. what Robert Pirsig explores in this book is what he calls the Metaphysics of Quality. basically he's trying to understand the split-second judgments we make of things we like and things we don't. i absolutely do not have time to go into the specifics, just know that his Quality refers to the abstract certainty you have when something is Good or Right or Correct or Qualitatively True. like how you pull your hand away unconsciously when you touch a hot stove, but for ideas. you just Know.

a scene that really sticks with me from that book (probably the most famous scene) is when Pirsig describes needing to fix a mechanical problem with his motorcycle only to be stopped dead in his tracks by a stripped screw keeping him from removing the engine cover. he talks about being so focused on the obvious solution to the primary complex problem that, on encountering a smaller, simpler problem that has to be dealt with first, he finds himself completely stuck, calling this "a zero of consciousness." it's a problem so annoying and minuscule and stubbornly unsolvable that you just want to hit the thing with a wrench and throw it in a river. addressing this new problem, this block, requires an adjustment in thinking. and here i'm going to quote a pretty lengthy passage, but don't worry, i'm typing it out by hand with the book in front of me so there's no time saved on my end:

Consider, for a change, that this is a moment to be not feared but cultivated. If your mind is truly, profoundly stuck, then you may be much better off than when it was loaded with ideas. The solution to the problem often at first seems unimportant or undesirable, but the state of stuckness allows it, in time, to assume its true importance. It seemed small because your previous rigid evaluation which led to the stuckness made it small. But now consider the fact that no matter how hard you try to hang on to it, this stuckness is bound to disappear. Your mind will naturally and freely move toward a solution. Unless you are a real master at staying stuck you can't prevent this. The fear of stuckness is needless because the longer you stay stuck the more you see the Quality-reality that gets you unstuck every time. What's really been getting you stuck is the running from the stuckness [. . .] Stuckness shouldn't be avoided. It's the psychic predecessor of all real understanding. An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an understanding of all Quality, in mechanical work as in other endeavors. It's this understanding of Quality as revealed by stuckness which so often makes self-taught mechanics so superior to institute-trained men who have learned how to handle everything except a new situation. Normally screws are so cheap and small and simple you think of them as unimportant. But now, as your Quality awareness becomes stronger, you realize that this one, individual, particular screw is neither cheap nor small nor unimportant. Right now this screw is worth exactly the selling price of the whole motorcycle, because the motorcycle is actually valueless until you get the screw out. With this re-evaluation of the screw comes a willingness to expand your knowledge of it. [. . .] What your actual solution is is unimportant as long as it has Quality. Thoughts about the screw as combined rigidness and adhesiveness and about its special helical interlock might lead naturally to solutions of impaction and use of solvents. That is one kind of Quality track. Another track may be to go to the library and look through a catalog of mechanic's tools, in which you might come across a screw extractor that would do the job. Or to call a friend who knows something about mechanical work. Or just to drill the screw out, or just burn it out with a torch. Or you might just, as a result of your meditative attention to the screw, come up with some new way of extracting it that has never been thought of before that beats all the rest and is patentable and makes you a millionaire five years from now. There's no predicting what's on that Quality track. The solutions all are simple-- after you have arrived at them. But they're simple only when you know already what they are.

this is, in brief, my entire creative philosophy when it comes to writer's block. i share such a lengthy passage because i think it's useful to underline that we're not talking about a problem that is necessarily unique to the labor of writing. this process is a human process. it's just that with writing, the nature of the block itself is often much more difficult to identify than a stripped screw.

there's a couple things i do to try to identify what's got me stuck. a lot of times what happens is that everything in a scene felt good until it didn't, and then everything after that moment fell flat. so i'll go back and read the whole thing and just try to feel the scene. is everyone in character? is their dialogue too quippy, or too aggressive, too expository? are we in the midst of a conversation that has simply gone on way too fucking long? i know it can be torturous to reread your own stuff but idk what else to say except get used to it. especially when you're still early in the drafting phase! like if you know you're not gonna release this thing imminently, there's no reason to be precious about the stuff that's good or to beat yourself up over the stuff that's bad. i know that compulsion to try to Get Everything Right The First Time is strong, but it's completely unsustainable.

sometimes the block is that i just don't feel like writing narration. i've always sucked at grounding a scene with descriptions of the place. lately i'm trying to get away from relying solely on descriptions of staging/blocking, but it's hard for a bitch like me who mostly prefers writing dialogue. i've gotten a lot more comfortable with putting notes between dialogue exchanges like [character moves, looks at picture, has a dramatic thought, other character fiddles with object]. it can feel like cheating sometimes but it's not. there's no such thing. no one will know the route you took to get to the end. they will only see what you show them, when you decide to show it to them.

sometimes the block is in some minor or major betrayal of the story's spirit. the (Terezi) & Jade scene i talked about in this ask is a good example. i hit a point where nothing was working anymore. no one would talk to me. the light was gone. i can always tell when i made the wrong choice. it's such a particular sensation. as though i'm walking and i realize i no longer recognize the road i'm on and must've made a wrong turn somewhere. the solution to this particular block is introspection, retracing my steps, because the wrong turn isn't always obvious. maybe it's that someone in the scene is being too mean, or that i've failed to accomplish what the scene exists to do in some way, or that someone's made an uncharacteristic choice that now everyone in the scene is arguing about and it's like, man, this is taking too long, i'm not enjoying this anymore.

another example from A1 is the second half of the solo. i'd had most of the jasprose scene, the karkat-calliope-roxy scenes, and the vrisrezi-jade scenes written since i posted the A1 chorus. where i ran into trouble was that i needed to get jane, jake, and (terezi) to show up. my original plan was to have them arrive one by one, thus allowing their individual dramas a moment in the spotlight before being subsumed into the group. not a bad idea in theory but in practice it was fucking tedious. here we have a bunch of characters already immersed in the scene captured by the intrigue of Jade being enigmatic, and then some unawares jagoff wanders in and suddenly everyone has to stop what they're doing and be like "hey hello how are you what's up" and then they explain how they got there and then they ask what's up and it's such a DRAG. honestly i would say the majority of my creative blocks by volume are moments when the story really wants me to just cut to black for a smoke break and come back when somebody gets mad enough to throw a punch. i mean that's the the development of A1 in a nutshell. originally everyone was gonna start the track locked up in space-jail on the hopebringer, jade would show up all apologetic and say what she expects padua's deliberation to be, then the whole cast would see her throw a fit over a decision she knew was coming, they'd all be absolved of guilt and let free, then they'd all argue about who's staying or going with Jade in the morning, they'd split up to go pack their stuff and then...

well that was exactly the problem. i wanted to get all the pertinent things out of the way. jade's code switching, voidthought, some EWL teases. give the whole cast a chance to react to it. i thought that would be expedient, because it got the Plot out of the way and gave time to characters for Feelings. if that version of the scene had come at the end of chapter 8, it might have worked. but i realized that as soon as jade's audience was no longer captive, i had no fucking clue what to do with them anymore. we already knew who would go with jade, so acting like that's some kind of mystery is just lame. i started writing A1 from a place of desiring informational density & a quick pace, because we've got places to go and things to do. but if the real purpose of A1 is to explore why these characters choose to go with Jade, then that needed to be done with a lot more care and precision. that's when i decided to let Jade spend two days underground making the earth right again, so that she has to come to everyone individually rather than the other way around. and it muddies her motivations, if you don't mind the pun. it puts her at an appropriate remove from the others. i ultimately wound up conveying all the same information as in the original version, but i did it in a way that was more appropriate thematically and artistically. it wound up being longer road than i anticipated, but this is a long story and in this case the longer road was better for the journey.

take the chapter where Jade visits Roxy. i needed some time with Roxy alone to set the scene, since she's the first person Jade decides to visit and i like writing about the insides of trailer homes. i wanted to get some politics from Jane in this chapter, so hey, why not throw in a televised speech? oh, and then i can have some tucker carlson types remind us that Earth C is a fucking mess. i wrote all that, and it was good, but it was just Roxy watching tv. i tried to get into Jade's arrival and couldn't. so i went back and realized, oh, Roxy should be yelling at the tv the whole time! now we get Jane's politics, Roxy's reactions to those politics, as well as bits and pieces of context re: Jane's relationships with Karkat and Roxy. now when Jade arrives, we can play with the question of whether she heard the speech from outside Roxy's door, and why neither of them was physically at the speech in the first place. there's tension and imbalance in Roxy's state of mind when Jade does arrive, so we're more inside her perspective than we usually are, which in turn helps us identify with her when Jade starts infodumping about antimemes.

so often for me, working through a block is a matter of doing a better job utilizing what's available to you. going back to the A1 solo and trying to bring Jake, Jane, and (Terezi) into the scene. i finally returned to it after a couple months of being sick and dealing with life problems. i was frustrated because i'd hoped to be several tracks in to 3.2 by now, and instead i was confronted with just how much more of this thing is left and how long that might take if i couldn't pick up the pace. this thing NEEDED to get done.

and then i remembered that Jasprose is literally right there.

and that was it! problem fucking solved! i had jasprose drop all three of them into the scene completely unceremoniously using manic teleportation through a fenestrated plane, and from there the entire rest of the chapter erupted out of me in a single go. it's such an obvious solution to the problem that you as reader probably assumed it was the plan from the very beginning. but it's like Pirsig says: the solutions all are obvious-- after you've arrived at them.

then there's the problem of overwriting. i actually did i think four different versions of the opening to the A1 solo. the first person narration was a late addition. i tweaked that scene so so so many times. it kept feeling close but not quite. when i did the thing where i reread to find where the block happened, instead of actually reading the thing i just kept finding spots where i could write more. i can extend this anecdote. this line could be better. maybe a comma here would work better than an ellipsis...

this can be good because sometimes what's blocking you is that you skipped over something that needed more time. maybe some information or a dramatic emphasis that gives the stuff you can't yet write the momentum it needs to get going again. but i've gotta be real careful doing this, because i can do it forever. and then, as you describe (hey look, i'm actually talking about your specific problem now!), that hyper-polished section sets everything else up to fail by comparison.

i think the trick is knowing the difference between when a scene needs an editing pass vs when a scene just straight up isn't working. when it's not working, sometimes you do just have to throw it all out and start over. but if it's good enough that you feel like all it's missing is better dialogue and some more description, then you can hold off on that polish until the rest of the thing is done. this conundrum is most common at the beginning of a chapter or story in my experience, precisely as a result of the process i've been describing this whole time. when you hit a block and retrace your steps, you can always find things to fix. so it's sort of natural that any given chapter becomes less polished the further along you get in to it. that's why it's so important to understand the differences between all these different types of blocks, and to remind yourself that literally nothing you've written is finished until the moment you've made it public.

a big part of getting the A1 solo out the door was me swallowing my desire for perfection in every exchange and saying, no, this is good enough. it's not 100% what i want, but it's close enough that it just isn't worth the effort it would take to get there. sometimes there are scenes that are worth that effort, but they are always rarer than you think and they're never the ones you'd expect. i will freely admit that there are a lot of characters expositing their motivations in this chapter. i tried to embed as much of that in humor or drama as i could, but sometimes you just have to shrug your shoulders and walk away and hope your readers will be nice to you.

of course the funny thing is, once i finished the chapter and had all the panels sketched out and wiped my hands clean of the whole affair, janet needed two weeks to make the images. so i ended up having time to polish up a couple of those things that i felt were lacking after all. but those additions were radically small and intuitive, because i'd divorced myself from the raw production and had committed to so many directions that i *couldn't* change much. i'm so used to writing for release that i don't know what to do with myself when my part of the job is done before i can kick it out the door. i've come to find that waiting, taking breaks, walking away and coming back, do wonders for your ability to egolessly examine your work and identify what's wrong. sometimes you just need a day or two to sleep on it.

and sometimes you realize that you've really just over-written a scene, out of preciousness or insecurity or whatever else, and the result is so much bigger than everything else you want to do that it's more expedient to just scrap it. i hate when this happens, man. i did this with an early version of the A1 chorus, when Jade is stuck in space alone and shouting about how unfair her life has been. you know sometimes there's an emotion in a scene that's addictive. some bit of pathos that you just feel down to your bones, fuck me man, this is so GOOD, this is so JUICY, this shit has QUALITY. it's so good you don't want it to be finished. so you keep writing it, and writing it, and you rewrite it, and you add to it, because you really want to squeeze every drop of emotion you can from the thing. and then you wind up with a bloated melodramatic mess that's so overplayed you've annihilated everything that compelled you to write it in the first place.

i want to be clear that this isn't wasted work. nothing you ever put to the page, no matter how ultimately useless it might prove to be, is wasted work. the way i see this whole process, top to bottom, is that there's this thing. i don't know what it is, but it's there. maybe it starts with an image, or a line of dialogue, or a relationship, or a natural vista, whatever. it can be anything. what matters is it's a sign pointing you in a direction. it's something that has Quality that you can feel with such potent immediacy that you have no choice but to write it. the act of writing is something of an expedition, because the real magic of it comes when those disparate signs start colliding with one another. an image becomes a scene, a house, a world, a universe. sometimes these signs lead to dead ends, but with experience you learn to tell the dead ends from the rough patches. you learn how to make your own way. you do this by listening to what this thing is telling you. every story i've ever written has known better than me what it wants. i can impose so much onto it, i control 90% of the process at least. but that other 10% cannot, should not be quantified or controlled but simply understood. if you try to bottle the flame, you'll just end up snuffing it out.

no artist really knows why they do what they do or how they're able to pull it off. they can tell you their methods, their process, their coping mechanisms, they can write ludicrously lengthy diatribes on tumblr in response to an innocuous ask, but you can't pin down the soul of the thing. Quality is ephemeral, because it's first. it happens before you've had time to think, like putting your hand on a hot stove. you just know. and you have to trust that knowledge to carry you forward, not second guess it too much, not try to wrangle the thing into a shape it doesn't want to assume. sometimes this requires writing scenes that you don't love, because it's easier to build a messy bridge between the moments that drive you than it is to perfect every single moment out of an artificial commitment to like, Being A Good Writer or whatever.

a lot of this is just practice. you get better at communicating with your creative impulses. but also i think it helps to internalize that nobody sees the rough drafts, nobody sees the duct tape. and nobody knows the perfect vision you'll be convinced you failed to meet. nobody has ever made a perfect thing, and no one ever will. who wants to be perfect, anyway? godfeels wouldn't be what it is if i wasn't willing to let it be messy. if i'd tried to do it better, it never would have gotten done, and nothing i'm doing now would have even conceptually gotten to exist.

also, it's okay to abandon shit when it stops feeling good. i have so many unfinished books kicking around from my 20s, dude. i feel bad about some of them, but ten years not finishing books is still ten years spent writing. it's actually quite rare for good ideas to result in finished works, because good ideas are cheap and they're not all for you. but you gotta keep trying anyway because sooner or later you'll catch a spark that has real gas, and if you've done the work you'll be ready for it. it'll feel like destiny. it'll feel like magic, how matched that idea is to your skill level. but it won't be magic, it'll be skill. if you hadn't put the work in to know how to follow that intuition, it'd be just as dead an end as everything else you never finished. you do the work so that when you get lucky you can take advantage of it. so in that context, writing is quite low stakes. if it's not good enough, fuck it, try something else!

anyway i hope there's some decent insight buried in here somewhere. thanks for such a good question!

[stateswscarlet]

Not really an accusation, but I think that there isnt enough attention paid in the loa community for lonely people.

I read so many advice to live a life etc but I am honestly so lonely. I only have 2 friends (who have a very busy social life so I don't see them often) and no sp (broke up with me for another girl, while I'm still in love). I try to do hobbies like art, doing a new class, to distract myself a bit and because it's something that interests me, I have dating apps etc, but every time going to something alone or doing activities alone makes me so deeply unhappy, especially now that summer is coming and I see everyone doing things together.

If I had something to do it would make manifestation so much easier, but because I'm just so lonely it's hard not to put my desires on a pedestal

i used to feel like this for the longest time!! I literally remember feeling so mad whenever I would see “go live your life!” early on when i was newer bc as an introvert who has a small circle and is kind of a homebody, i felt awkward forcing myself to do things for the sake of manifestation.

i completely understand how you feel, its super nerve wracking to do things alone especially when all our friends have other friends or have plans/live far. but i promise you, you taking small steps toward doing stuff even once in two weeks will help SO SO much. yes its uncomfortable but if we always stay in our comfort zone we will never get anywhere, both manifesting wise and life-actions wise.

ask yourself why u feel unhappy, is it bc you feel left out? is it bc ur comparing urself to others? is it bc in the past u unconsciously relied on others company? whatever comes up, it is your responsibility to dismantle and shift away from that. theres nothing wrong with liking being with others or preferring it, but theres a difference between that and being upset when theyre not with you. im telling you rn, your friends and sp even if they surrounded you and showered you with love all the time, its never going to stop you from feeling empty or lonely, it may distract you temporarily but it will never fill your cup if youre not already whole and complete without others.

please see your desires as normal and something you can live without and more importantly be HAPPY without. you dont need it, you choosing to be fulfilled is smth youre choosing for yourself, it wont come in and save you and make you any less lonely.

[emmetofthestars]

king is egotistical as hell right. its hard to say. he is, but im always thinking about things besides his ego. from the very first moments that i played we love katamari reroll, he felt so much more different from katamari damacy reroll. yes, they added a replay mechanic, and they incorporated it by king asking if you want to try again - but he asks. he asks if you want to go home now or if you want to try again. its something so miniscule but means alot to me. everything of his attitude changes in we love, like hes really thinking things over now (he himself says hes, well, busy thinking about the future.) and its very strange. in my head theres still a great disconnect between katamari damacy king, and we love katamari king. from the outfit to how he talks to what he tells the prince. egotistical sure. but why in we love is he suddenly "softer"? the game over screen is in no way less violent or hurtful in either game, but in katamari he outright disowns prince, or atleast refuses to acknowledge him any more. in we love he insists, he shouldve been better. he shouldve tried harder, shouldnt have been a let down. look what youve done to the fans (our admirers! our source of validation!). the whole thing about katamari in general is how hard it is to dance around that whole line of the games tone. you cant take any of the games completely seriously, but there is also merit in what happens and what king says, and it seriously kind of hurts my brain to think about it.

what im saying is- its hard for me to even take we love katamaris cutscenes seriously. with kings occasional fourth wall breaks, it makes me think he doesnt take it seriously either, which is extremely hard to process for me. when i got papas mask present, he hands it to me without another word, which seems to be clear he has unresolved feelings about him, but also, this is katamari damacy, so does it actually MATTER? in the game where king and queen met because they had a meet cute (bumped into eachother and fell in love)? a game depicting physical emotional abuse in what are honestly very melodramatic cutscenes, next to king popping and saying "he cant wait for the next episode"? you cant exactly say they wanted people to actually take them seriously- instead its more like a sort of story thats supposed to inspire emotion on purpose, with intent, in the sense that its MEANT to be cheesy and overly emotional. its fucked up when king cries and kneels to papa in a literal tone, but in the story its meant to be their honest reconciliation, given the cutscene right after is papa, king and queen reunited. SERIOUSLY it makes my brain hurt. i love stories but i know that to convert something like that into an actual deep narrative seems like it would betray author intent, and would also just make me feel in the wrong.

at the same time... if im going to make comics and writing, how the hell do i translate this? king is abusive. but its clearly a result of generational trauma, nevermind being in the royal family. he has no idea how to live like an adult because he was never taught that. what with his pondering in we love, it makes me think hes starting to regret some things, but its hard to tell whats going on in his head at any point. its no wonder hes so opaque, of course. not just his upbringing influences him, but the tone of the game, because theyre not going to have king ever be 100% honest about his deep feelings- itd betray the tone of the game in a way that feels silly. like, if he would break down talking about papa, itd probably happen in a way that you ALSO cant take it seriously. theres always some element of ridiculousness in anything katamari, right? alot of things i think about. of course, i can never see something like this and not start thinking about it deeply regardless. dont even get me started on my opinions about kings outfits and his style, which i consider way too important.

im excluding any game past we love btw. only katamari and we love were directed by keita, which makes them the only accurate representations of king, in my opinion. the "king beats the shit out of prince" game over from me & my katamari is also really fucked up, but ultimately worthless, because seriously, i doubt any of the games gets kings character right after we love- when they cant even get his style of clothing right.

[moss-sprouted]

not to be anything like a demon phannie(i never was thank god) and talk extensively about dan and phil's personal life but it makes me feel too much to think about how even though dan seemed comfortable in his sexuality before he was out (always talking about gay celebrities that were attractive and queer movies and media and making vaguely gay jokes) he was struggling very hard with being gay and thats one thing to deal with but an extremely large group of teenagers constantly speculated about his relationship and tried to "prove it" and hell he even explicitly said in his coming out video that his relationship with phil "wasnt just romantic" and that theyre soulmates, and yet people still speculate and talk about their relationship and try to get more information

it sounds deeply traumatizing to have your sexuality speculated about by a big chunk of the internet for an insanely long time, and of course it would make you want to be private so that your relationship however it developed or changed wouldnt be scrutinized, and sometimes ive speculated myself about the nature of their relationship but the extremes people go and how they make every thing they post about their relationship is hard to watch,like dont get me wrong i love seeing how open the guys are now but im still terrified it wont last long because of how awful the internet is

and yeah i know, im speculating way too much about the feelings and motivations of real life people which is something other people did at an alarming and damaging rate,but i've been watching their content for more than a decade and this new wave of content has really meant the world to me and it saddens me that we lost it for so long, and i know that era of the internet was a different time but fans are STILL like this, hell its worse because real human people get accused of queerbaiting, can you imagine if that happened to dan or phil? i dont know if dan would have ever came back or came out

the "phandom" is one of the biggest examples ive seen of fans being more focused on a possible relationship of content creators to a very scary and invasive degree, rather than their content themselves and dont get me wrong i shipped them too, but theres a certain threshold that you just shouldnt cross when it comes to real human people, they arent characters, theyre People

i think we need to just make peace with the fact that we know some very important things: they have a house together, theyre still best friends, theyre soulmates and they seem happy and thats all we Need to know and if they never share any more thats okay

i dont want the "phandom" to jeopardize that again, i want them to make content as long as theyre happy, not risk pushing them away

[sidesteppostinghours]

4 + 5 + 8 + 40 + 34 and I) G) F) for Cyrus Becker my beloved 🧡

afternoon idle!! oh my god questions galore *cracks knuckles* cyrus get your ass over here youre up

4. How easy is it to earn their trust?

Very difficult, and at the same time easier than youd think. he definitely doesnt entertain everybody, but hes not unreasonable. hell hear you out if you give him enough reason to (or if he thinks its beneficial to get to know you. do you see why he gets attached to people hes supposed to be manipulating so often). ortega and mortum required him to establish a relationship, which is how they got so close to eachother so quickly. herald got by because cyrus thought hed be a useful contact in the rangers. chen couldve earned his trust a long time ago, they had to work with eachother a lot back when he still ran with the rangers, but chen squandered it on his suspicions and its been too long for cyrus to have any interest in patching up their relationship. argent has largely flown under his radar, she hasnt piqued his interest more than the passing curiosity of why she wanted the regenerator.

5. How easy is it to earn their mistrust?

the default is mistrust. sorry yall, hes not taking any more chances than necessary. hes a telepath, he knows all too well what secrets other people hide, and hes not interested in giving people a chance to prove his suspicions wrong. but after hes grown to trust somebody? its... embarrassing how difficult it is to lose it. even though his trust is much shakier nowadays, you still need to have fucked up Majorly to get him back to mistrusting you. if you somehow manage to do that,,, uhhhh. what do you want on your tombstone? (ig its technically its possible to not die and even earn that trust back??? ortega managed, but thats ortega and hes statistically more likely to kill you or ruin your life. depends on how badly you fucked up. id say theres a good 5% chance youll survive the experience without the need for intense psychotherapy)

8. What were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child

listen. follow orders. be exactly who we need you to be. cyrus was a deeply rebellious regene, but he wasnt stupid about it. hed go against the mission in secret, and just enough that nobody wouldve been able to trace any problems back to him. that doesnt mean he was never caught, but he was too competent of a regene to be scrapped, which saved him multiple times before. those few times did cause handlers to keep a closer eye on him though, just in case. handlers would usually keep a harder grip on cyrus, hold him to stricter standards. it contributed a lot to his own self talk. SPEAKING OF WHICH:

40. How sensitive are they to their own flaws?

you must imagine me holding him and looking lovingly into his eyes while i dump a gallon of insecurity and perfectionism on him. hes a proud man, he thinks hes better than what other people are capable of, but that arguably makes things worse when he does make a mistake. he of all people shouldnt be like this. add the puppetmaster scar on him and its a hefty load of 'i need to make sure every single step of my plan goes exactly right Or Else." the worst thing about him is that a lot of the petty flaws he thinks apply to him arent correct. AND HE CANT EVEN NAME HIS ACTUAL FLAWS. cyrus you are so smart and walking around with zero self awareness, its the best. please consider stepping into acid.

34. How hard is it for them to shake a sense of guilt? 

hohohohoho. well. the first step is to get him to feel guilty in the first place. traditionally immoral actions arent going to get to him, obviously. the thing that springs up guilt for him most often is themmys death. he has. a Lot of survivors guilt about that. especially because hes convinced himself he couldve done something and *gestures to the ask above*. guilt will haunt him for life if it doesnt get resolved in a healthy way, but hes gotten good at burying his emotions a long time ago. even when he feels like that, he reserves a specific time to think about it, otherwise itll impede on his plans in the long run. that designated time is. usually when hes supposed to be sleeping. his sleep schedule is just a little bit messed.

I) Do you prefer to keep them in their canon universe?

oh dude i Love putting cyrus in aus. its so fun to poke him with a stick and see what happens. the first one i put him in was a band au, it helped me figure out how he would interact with herald. basically cyrus was a masked guitarist (for backstory reasons) for a band daniel happened to be a fan of, except the two of them managed to meet at just regular old work, with cyrus not realizing daniel was a fan and daniel not realizing cyrus was from one of his favourite bands. it led to fun, mlb-esque shenanigans between the two lmfao. the second one i put him in was the becker siblings au, which i still have thoughts and emotionsTM about. that au let me indulge in the 'cyrus is an older sibling' headcanon and i will forever be in debt to it for the amount of protective cyrus i got. third and current au im obsessing over is a 'cyrus survives hb' scenario, where ortega managed to stop him before he jumped out the window. i am getting! so much ortega x cyrus content out of that au! and so much survivors guilt cyrus. cyrus 'using' ortega to forget about heartbreak my beloveddddd. he also says 'i love you' to ortega in this au and canon ortega is SO jealous. also x2, hes an alcohol vice step in this au. heartbreak hit hard and the tequila hits different.

aaaand i still like his canon version better. its just so very much him. out of every step ive got, hes the one i get to stay closest to how i envision based on the choices the game offers. plus he caught me completely by surprise suckerpunching me with an obsession over him and i cant Not respect that.

G) What trait of theirs bothers you the most?

not sure whether this means on a character creation level or as a person, but ill answer for 'as a person' because im overall pretty satisfied with how he turned out! but like. god what is there to not be bothered about. my manipulative little shit of a son. ig the trait that frustrates me the most is his self destructive tendencies. like. Sir. are you at all aware of the fact that people care for you and want you safe? and that you can respond to that concern with something other than "i can use this", "sucks to be them", or, "no theyre not"? sir. sir answer the question. hes so empathetic and also literally a telepath but somehow cant compute genuine concern at him. as frustrating as it is though, i cannot deny that it is deeply funny to watch him fumble so badly.

F) What do you feel when you think of your OC (pride, excitement, frustration, etc)?

normal. the ones where people look at me and think "wow, that is a person who is having (a) regular thought(s) about their character! very cool!" you will never see a person who is more normal about their guy than i am (i am grabbing him by the teeth and shaking him like a dog with a very strong kill instinct).

truly though, thinking of him gets me buzzing. hes like a puzzle, i keep breaking him apart and putting him back together again to see how everything works. i have this thing where ill often think about showing character analysis to the characters themeselves, just to see how they would react, and i undeniably do this the most with cyrus. i want to explain step by step (hah) why he is the way that he is now, like the whole timeline is plotted inside my head and its so!!!!! i am!!!!! chewing on him!!!!!

questions from here!

[radiovisual]

are you going to come back?

((I keep telling myself im going to, but im not sure. Im especially unhappy with how this blog was written and how it looks at the moment, bc theres a lot of things id Want to change before getting back into rp here, but I have no energy or motivation to do so 😔 my art block from last year is Still ongoing, im still deeply fixated on other fandoms, and VERY recently I had an epiphany of some kind and haven't been able to stop paying attention to the news, bc anxieties about what's happening in Gaza/the West Bank, Sudan, and Chile, and not to mention this next American presidential election, have me reassessing my priorities in life, ykwim?))

((Im still around technically, i wont be deleting this blog or anything, im just in kind of a tough spot, mentally+emotionally+physically, and that makes it hard to get reinvested in something like this.))

((There's also the factor of... feeling rather restricted in this community. It's not any particular person or group of ppls fault, people are entitled to feel however they want around fictional subjects and themes, but i know that the types of things that i like to write and rp are dark and mature, and this fandom [despite the Nature of the show itself and the topics it covers] tends to attract a lot of very aggressive, very judgemental people -- as im sure youre all aware 😂 i found some friends here, but even still, a lot of the time i know i Can't get into the kind of stuff i ACTUALLY want to write, because most of the ppl in this community would [at least, way back when,] assume that That kind of writing means I'm a bad, dangerous person who wants to engage with those themes in real life 🙃. Which isn't to say anyone is Wrong for avoiding me if darker themes trigger them, by all means PLEASE block me for your sanity if thats what you have to do!! but when most all of those Exact Themes are LITERALLY, graphically present in the show, now, it's like. Idk man whats going on! Why are you here! if sexually abusive relationships bother these fans so much, then Why are they in THIS fandom of all places instead of somewhere tangibly Safer for their sanity, yk???))

(( i don't know. Maybe im just a brat, but ive always felt a little put out by the Hazbin community online. Its extremely self policing and isolating trying to find people i can feel comfortable talk to about my ideas, so ive kind of... given up and moved on, found a nice group of Freaks to be perverted about the Avatar sequel instead lmao))

((So... idk. I guess we'll see. But im very sorry it may have been wishful thinking when i said id come back. I really, truly meant it at the time -- things just changed 💔, both in me And in the community. And maybe theyll change again, idk!but i Do know there's people in this overarching Hazbin Tumblr RP community who don't like me very much (which is Okay), and I don't want to force myself to walk on eggshells anymore -- so I'm won't💪😎))

((I adored my time here while i was active, whuch it why i wont delete it -- i go back to re read threads all the time! -- but unless there's a group of sexual weirdos developing that i could fall in with AND I can find a way to balance this with the rest of my life, im still gonna be on this indefinite hiatus 💀👍 sorry))

((Btw -- Palestinians are in desperate need of e-SIMs to keep in touch with their loved ones and to organize humanitarian aid within the Gaza strip itself -- if any of you have a few spare dollars, please consider getting involved. I know the news is very quiet rn, especially if you're in America like me, but let me make this very clear; We are. kind of sort of Already IN World War Three. Russia and China and the global south are finally starting to hold the west accountable and the west is failing a shitting its pants about it Spectacularly. The world order is literally shifting. There's not one, but SEVERAL major international conflicts brewing right now, as America is sliding into fascism at break neck speed bc Genocide Joe is finally realizing he's probably not going to get re-elected [on account of all the genocide] on TOP of finally seeing the tangible effects of climate change. South America and Australia are on FIRE. Like NEVER before.))

((Never Again is Now. We could be going over the temperature "tipping point" of the planet BY 2030. now is NOT the time to be wallowing in escapism, no matter how much we desperately need/want it. If there is EVER a time to get involved with the real world and to take a step back from the internet and high stress fandom bullshit, it is NOW. No matter what Side of these issues you stand on, EVERYONE needs to be voting, everyone needs to be paying attention.))

(( if you can't afford esims [no shame, i often can't either, money is tight everywhere], then at the very least get This website open in your tabs. It generates revenue with free Daily clicks, the proceeds of which are all sent to UN organizations -- particularly UNRWA, which is VITAL to maintain not only getting aid INTO Gaza, but also retaining Palestinians legal right to return to their land -- without UNRWA, Isreal can begin to LEGALLY, haphazardly "deport" Palestinians, which would take YEARS to reverse through future court proceedings. Do your part, it only takes a few seconds a day 💪🌱))

((Alright, thats all! Sorry if you wanted a short sweet answer, but ive actually been ruminating on all of this, so thank you for this ask, for giving me a chance to talk about it all. Im happy to see this community thriving in the wake of Season 1, even if im not joining in myself -- you all keep up the great work, and keep having fun with it ❤ let it empower you to explore the value of Charlie's message and think of ways to impliment it in your daily life And on the world at large‼))

[antiv3nom]

You know, I'm only ever gonna ask about Bachira...

Tell me why he's the best

LMAO YOURE VALID THERE! IM HAPPY TO TALK ABOUT HIM <3 okay so disclaimer but i sort of answered a slightly different question? instead of why hes the best i felt i could better talk about why i personally love bachira so much and think hes fantastic, so please enjoy this fuckin essay of a post

okay, we have to start with the basics here. the very first thing that drew me to bachira was for SURE his character design. i mean. once again i will mention that i'm growing my hair out to look like his. and hes soooo androgynous!!! and as a nonbinary person who leans towards masc/androgynous styles im HERE FOR IT!!!! plus the yellow was already cool, even before i knew the bee fact about his name :D

and ofc there's also his personality!!! as my friend grin has. accurately read off me. my favorite characters are typically those that are surprisingly competent, and those that embody the :3 face (and thus also the >:3 face), and like. bachira is introduced as a sleepy little guy and then kicks someone in the face so he IMMEDIATELY checks both of those boxes and he really fits my character type

also, elaborating on the surprisingly competent piece—bachira is DECIDEDLY competent, but its not in a like...power sort of way? its all about his technique and his ✨ style ✨ and i really enjoy characters who are great at what they do in a more unconventional way or not having to do with their physicality (coming from a weak little bitch) and i dont know. really anything about soccer irl. but its easy enough to see that bachiras good at this shit!!!!

okay so now we get into the meaty shit, starting with his backstory <3 immediately his being an outcast...really fit, honestly, it tracks a lot for him. but it hit me HARD as someone who was/is kinda an outcast and never really had a solid group of friends until relatively recently? and just...his loneliness resonates with me, a lot. but ANYWAYS im not here to vent or anything, the other thing abt his backstory is the monster metaphor and its beginnings, because it is SO easily read as an allegory for neurodivergence (and without too much stretching, queerness as well). being set apart and left out and seen as weird because of honest, genuine passion and this undeniable part of you and just feeling like something is WRONG with you even if you love it is...such an experience that ive had. and its so so easier to see that in bachira!!!! moral of the story, bachira is bisexual and nonbinary and autistic because i am and i say so <3

anyways anyways straying away from headcanons, bachira's development arc? WRECKS ME. it's so very well done, that evolution of the prior loneliness and the desire to both be independent and to not be left behind are...gorgeous. amazing. i can and will write an essay about it. it really builds well on his backstory and what he's done in blue lock prior to that game and seeing him evolve past his monster and his need for someone to play with but not fully abandon either? it means a lot that he still values companionship even if he feels like he doesnt need it <3

moving onwards, i really adore bachiras interactions with other characters!!! the most obvious example is him and isagi, and we all know at this point how big of a bachisagi fan i am (i just think theyre neat <3 <3 <3) but a genuine FRIENDLY rivalry, emphasis on the friends, doesnt seem to pop up that often in blue lock, and its really nice to see with isagi :D and just!!!! they make each other want to be better!!! its good stuff

theres also bachira and rin, which...that shit is COMPLICATED but it's really really interesting how rin like, almost sees bachira as a rival (and thus an equal) but is the first one to really recognize the idea that bachira is still deeply lonely and dependent on having someone with him? rin is the one who kickstarts bachiras development with the line, "[your soccer] is a soccer that is looking for someone," which i will NEVER forget. i like that bachira still tries to interact with rin and crack his shell despite rins cold behavior towards him, it makes for some fun fun interactions <3

AND I HAVE TO TALK ABOUT LAVINHO. LAVINHO IS AWFUL AT BEING A RESPONSIBLE ADULT AND THAT MEANS THAT HE IS THE PERFECT MENTOR FOR BACHIRA!!!! because bachira still cares about having FUN!!!! AND WHAT HE NEEDS IS THAT SENSE OF EXCITEMENT AND CREATIVITY THAT LAVINHI BRINGS HIM!!!!!!!!! LORD THEYRE SO PERFECT TOGETHER (IN THE MENTOR/MENTEE SENSE OFC) AND I LOVE THEM

okay finally, and ik we've talked about this before, but bachira's motivations are the perfect blend of being individual enough to survive in the environment of blue lock, while still not being completely disconnected from the idea of teamwork and companionship, you know? it means a lot to me that a lot of these characters arent wholely self-centered because. well. many reasons. i could make a whole other post about egoism in bllk and why it Worries Me A Little but i wont get into it here lmao, the important part is that bachira has enough of a goal on his own that he can keep himself going without anyone else, but he WANTS to play with isagi and make friends and have that companionship that he didnt have when he was young and that just.....it resonates and means a lot <3 <3 <3

anyways, this was the definitive why i love bachira post <3 hope you enjoyed!!!!

[ankhisms]

rambling under the cut im fine dw

me: i need to stop always being so deeply afraid of people hating me or annoyed with me. people are allowed to dislike me for whatever reason, people are allowed to be annoyed by me, people are allowed to feel whatever they feel towards me and theres nothing i can do to control their feelings, nor should i want to control their feelings. i should just allow myself to exist and whoever likes me likes me and whoever doesnt doesnt and thats fine. i have to stop being so worried its tearing me apart.

me five minutes later: gotta go back to my job in the worried about if people hate me mines

my paranoia really frustrates me and i know the source of a lot of this is from a lifetime of being abused and neglected and harrassed and it doesnt help that i know its not just my paranoia when it comes to my abuser- i know for a fact that he does in fact want me dead and regularly would stalk my old blog and either send me himself or have his friends send very specific threats with details only he would know. so its the kind of thing where its hard to dismiss the paranoia by saying its not grounded in reality because i know he very much does want to finish what he started.

but besides that it can be really easy for me to fall into obsessive spiraling when i try to calmly talk to myself about this, like i tell myself that i should stop worrying about if people hate me and should just focus on being myself and being kind to others and doing whatever i can to help people and learn about the world and the people in it and listen to other people and be compassionate while not tolerating bigotry, but when my brain simpilifies this by saying "we should just try to be a good person" it starts to do morality spiraling like ok what does it mean to be a good person?

i cant just say well im a good person/i want to be a good person and pat myself on the back and call it a day thats not how it works, just like how kindness is a choice and is one we must continue to choose every day. i dont want to hurt anyone but i also dont want to fall apart and make everything about me/victimize myself if i did somehow hurt someone or did something wrong. but then theres also the fact that ive been punished all my life for just existing and have been painfully forced into masking and trying to seem ""normal"" and punished even further when im unable to mask or when i need help or have a meltdown etc etc so its very difficult to tell myself that i need to just allow myself to exist and be myself because im used to 25 years of being punished for that yknow.

my mind is getting fuzzy now but being a person is so weird and difficult and every day i feel more like im some kind of creature whos trying and failing to seem human. in the end i just want everyone to be okay and safe and to live comfortably and to be able to thrive and be respected and supported but at the same time i never apply that same thinking to myself, i still internally agree with my abuser and all the adults/my peers who told me i deserved pain and to be mistreated and could never have anything good and could never want anything. im working hard on challenging that thinking but its hard. anyway thanks if you read all this im fine i promise i just need to ignore my brain spiraling and distraxt myself

[bubblegumknuckles]

I don't mean to overstep so feel free to ignore this ask but do you really have narcolepsy. Could you tell me more about narcolepsy and how it affects you?

From and ignoramus anon

Hi you arent over stepping, no worries. Sorry for the delay, I have a hard time answering back anybody, and ive been sleeping a ton.

So, when I wrote that I had Narcolepsy in my bio, it was a few months ago & for different health reasons I wasnt able to get the final results of my final sleep study test (4th one.) Narcolepsy was what was most likely, especially since my primary doctor said her mom has narcolepsy & I wasnt even taking about sleeping problems to her, but fatigue was mentioned because I was explaining my symptoms that point towards a few autoimmune disorders….and she asked a few questions & said I sounded exactly like her mom who has Narcolepsy & it took her like 20 years to get diagnosed…. At first i was like nahhhh because the only knowledge I had of it was from tv. She gave me a referral to a sleep doctor but I ignored it for a few months, before doing research because my sleep keeps getting worse.

Then actually going, they dont really believe you at first. Insurance also makes you jump through hoops & i had to wait months each time, &the day of a sleep study, my insurance would finally say Not approved…so id have to reschedule. Its been a huge headache and hassle. I had to prove to the doctor and insurance basically how i dont have sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome or anything else before they will consider Narcolepsy. and even then the test for Narcolepsy is so difficult to pass, if you fail else, then they will diagnose you as Idiopathic Hypersomnia meaning they dont know whats wrong with you. but something is off. thats the official diagnosis, but Narcolepsy and IH are both treated very similar. Oh and theres two types of Narcolepsy, one being the more known one with cataplexy (like fainting and dropping out of nowhere at all times sleeping) & there is N2 that is basically without cataplexy (I dont drop out of nowhere and sleep)

So yeah, the results that finally came out said on some of my naps I fell asleep in 9 minutes & basically the criteria for narcolepsy is so strict it has to be under 8 minutes. i was like….thats pretty close. But nah they wanna use math and average it out and blah blah I dont qualify as technically narcolepy. I got diagnosed with Idiopathic Hypersomnia instead. I would be more irritated but at least its treated similar or the same. It was noted i have 0% sleep apnea & he said it is very strange that for an adult, I sleep so deeply, like I hit the deepest parts of sleep that usually just babies and children get to. Soooo I tried to get him to think on that….like bro im telling you I sleep that deeply and that much AND still have to continue napping thru the day. I sleep so much. Its impacting my life. And its weirdly gotten worse over the pandemic, altho I have always been like this.

Um sorry Idk if that answered your question bc I wouldve gotten more specific how narcolepsy affects me n stuff. But since I just finally got the official diagnosis of IH instead & its technically not Narcolepsy, i didnt know if u wanted to know more. In my every day life, im probably going to still call it Narcolepsy tbh bc thats what people know a little more about. Theyll be like “oh she really does have a sleeping disorder” does that make sense?

Anyway you can ask more questions if you want:)

[tryhardgwen]

rs archive 02/12/2024:

hello! reader with intense ‘all my love’ universe brainrot, I’m pretty sure your work actually changed my life lowkey HAHA I explored the music that you put into it and I can now say I’m listening to more 80s’ rock/alt and the song from the title was my top Spotify song for the last few weeks! (along with the 80s’ stuff heh) I literally made a playlist dedicated to this fic and I even was able to sorta reconnect a little with my older brother over the music which.. has shaped aspects of our siblingship..? (lol) now but I can’t thank you even more, I feel like the title itself reflects the amount of care and love you yourself put into this, anyways (sorry about the rambling LOL) I just wanted to reach out with a lowkey very angsty headcanon I had LMAO basically, and maybe because it was like semi recent idk I’m terrible with time HAHA, I was wondering/exploring how wooje’s birthdays were celebrated while he was still in his no-contact era away from home. I thought that it would be a day everyone would always remember and it would be this unspoken heavy weight that intensified the almost-family’s longing for their baby, I was like maybe minseok would bake his favorite flavor of cake or whatever and just have it sit on their dining table untouched, staring at it and spacing out till minhyung brought him back, or maybe all of them would meet up and just do something as a collective that reminded them of wooje without saying anything but would kinda wait to see who would be the first to say his name out loud. at the same time wooje celebrating with jojo, the idea of jojo just failing to attempt to bake smth for wooje and somehow trying to incorporate mayonnaise into it (ew I’m sorry HAHA) always makes me smile (cause I don’t wanna dump too much angst LOL) but anyways those were just some thoughts I had circulating my head along with ones just regarding more deeply on what the almost family had experienced and felt during this distance (ofc feel free to give your input), as always I’m so thankful for your amazing writing and I’m always supporting and heavily admiring your work, take care of yourself! <3

okay i think you blew my mind with this submit um. thank you. you're welcome? im so happy you loved the music and i am so. SO happy/glad/astonished that you managed to reconnect with your older brother. bonding over music>>> (also um wow.)

as for the headcanon ih my GOD just stab me through the heart will you?? THATS SO ANGSTY... HELP MEEE... tho minseok in aml universe is such an interesting character because like... while wooje is no functioning/low functioning depression, minseok is definitely high functioning depression. he pretends nothings wrong but he's still falling apart on the inside. during the four years he mainly focuses on starting his business and working every day. hes a people pleaser. i think really the only person he would ever open up to would be minhyung, really. everything he does is unspoken from caring for woojes grandpa to cleaning woojes house when it became vacant. he'll do things and not talk about the reasoning or emotions behind them. he bottles stuff up until he explodes. while this headcanon is so good and sad i honestly think they wouldnt do anything in particular..? i mean, itd be a harder day for them. they miss him, so any time of year wooje would typically be in--birthdays, halloween, christmas--would be hard. rather than an outward display of their heartache i think it'd be more internal. they feel lonelier than usual, so minhyung and minseok would have each other, and hyunjoon would probably go to sanghyeok's and seongwoong's for dinner. they just cant be alone, because theres a wooje-shaped hole there. but all that being sad, four years is a long time. it gets a little easier each year. it hurts a little more each milestone. i think, when woojes gone, they do talk about him in passing, though its a tough subject at times. you know, sometimes its cheery and "i wonder how woojes doing!" and other times its.. "i wonder how hes doing." back and forth. some have healed more from it than others. i think its a partly healed scar until he arrives back home, and he sort of rips them open again (but thats sort of necessary to properly patch it back up. like they were wonky and badly fitted stitches that didnt allow for proper healing.) whew that was an accidental paragraph im so sorry.

as for jojo he is so low effort he probably buys a safeway cake and they eat it with their hands. cutie pies :> i love them

again, thank you soo much for the comment and the headcanon i loved them so much and brainrotted and though abt it bc... i never really thought about how they would treat woojes birthdays before this!! im so glad and so touched you like this fic so much. i hope you have an amazing day <3

[kiisuuumii]

Things will get better. Know your worth. Sometimes it’s hard to see, especially when you feel let down or unnoticed. Sometimes the best way to get what you want is to be open to it, no matter what form it comes in. You catch more fish with a net than a rod and line. Your talent and way with words does not go unnoticed, and your sensitivity is not a weakness. As a sensitive person, I too struggle with overwhelming emotions. It does however mean that when something feels good, it’s a deeper feeling than others will feel, and it also means your empathy is so strong that you will always be openly compassionate which will encourage others to do the same. You are capable of influencing others to do good deeds as well, and when you are able, the good you feel is incomparable. Focus on your light, what makes you happy by being you. Follow your bliss in yourself, then the need for another to make you happy will become less important. There are ways to create the love you so desire through writing. If you really see yourself in it and feel it for the thing you are writing of, no one can take that away.

-Sky Anon

its a bit of a curse, isnt it?—feeling so much, i mean. youre right though that that means we feel the good just as deeply. i know that things will get better, i'm not one to be so much of a pessimist that i start to really believe that things wont; i very much cling tightly to the probability, no matter how small, that ill one day live the life that i want, in the love that i want, with even more people who love and care about me for who i am, just like i want. one day the things i feel now (and maybe the things you feel now) will be just a memory; we wont remember how we felt, only that we did

i think that might be why i am the way i am in this moment, and lately (i promise im not usually so openly self-deprecating, this is just a particularly rougher patch lmao); i want to hold onto some of the feelings i have right now, for a little while longer, just to really feel them, until im spent. esp when it comes to trying to be open to other forms of the things i want. ive been trying to stay optimistic ofc, but i think if youre stuck on something, theres a reason for it; it wouldnt be smart for me at least to force myself open rn when there are things this closedness is probably trying to teach me

certainly doesnt mean im not trying to move forward tho ! if you can picture it, im always walking on a path forward, only looking back occasionally, while crying my heart out lol

also, one thing you might have a bit wrong about me is that i don't want someone to make me happy. id done a lot of looking for that in other people when i was younger, and as i separated myself from that version of me over the years, ive come to learn how to find and make happiness for myself (even if its not perfect, the way i do it, and even if it takes me a hot minute sometimes); i guess you could say im more looking for someone(s) to be happy with, to live life with, the good and the bad (even when i cant see past the bad at times), and that im trying to put aside some of my own feelings to make room for that

i feel like i sound condescending or dismissive, and im sorry if i do come across that way, but lowkey this helped me kinda see why i still havent let some things go despite my saying so; so thank you, sky anon, for taking the time to write such a heartfelt message !! i might not understand everything yet, but youve given me a piece of clarity thatll at least help me start

[medievalcellphone]

virgo sun & moon, cap rising <3 ☆

if you have mostly positive aspects and houses this a great three for actually getting things done and going after what you want in life and what brings you a genuine sense of emotional contentment. capricorn risings are hard for me to understand bc its such a learn by knowing placement. and i don't know any closely. slow to warm up types, maybe a little reserved but not at all rude. very the suite of pentacles. your material safety is so so so important to your overall well being. this is also maybe a bit virgo-y, but you might be overly concerned about being perceived as odd or doing things wrong professionally and/or just in a greater societal context. even if that great societal perception is within a subculture or specific community. or maybe you are the literal opposite of this. either way you portray yourself with focused intention. combined with your sun sign, ur realllllyy out here projecting an air of confidence and self control. u might not feel like ur pulling it off but. you are.. almost always. idk u but. you want to be seen as someone who can deal with "it." and u can.

presumably you are one of the most loyal, loving friends anyone can have, someone that others can count on, the type to be actually helpful in solving problems in addition to being a good listener. you want to understand others and learn from them, but you might have little to no patience for people that act in a way you can't make sense of. like maybe people that keep getting themselves stuck in the same bad patterns. its important to remember for all you know ur doing the same thing. i think virgos are incredibly astute at seeing when someone else is acting badly/hurting themselves and others, but sometimes forget they can be doing the same thing, just in a different way. i have no way of knowing this and am v probably wrong. but i bet you are soooo good at cooking or baking. something domestically charming. connecting with others over shared interests is hugely fulfilling to your life, you are the type to end up hours deep in a sprawling conversation without noticing time ever passed. like, i'm sure wherever you dwell is beautifully decorated and tailored to your personality. i would guess u are tidy because like every virgo moon i've met is but even if ur naturally messy, its like, the whole ~don't touch my pen its on the floor i meant it to be there~ thing.

ahhhh virgo moons. you are prone to anxiety, you really like to be in control, quite possibly very perfectionist.. that is just how it is. you're verrryyyyy curious, intelligent, creative and specifically artistic, deeply self aware. when upset, or extra stressed you might have trouble being able to articulate yourself or open up right away. it's vitally important to your sense of emotional well being that you have enough time to process emotions without having to be seen or like, perceived by others.

you cant help but fall into the things that interest you, you want to know and figure out every detail and aspect. this includes people. i assume you are very gentle, caring, will go the extra mile for your friends and loved ones... you would probably be happiest in a relationship where you know the other person is 100% able to be counted on. not to like start giving ppl romantic advice. its just my sense.

i feel like virgos see things coming from a mile away. psychics of the earth sign trio. there is a need to do things correctly. it is important 4 u to learn that people are allowed to do things in a way you don't understand.. when upset you might be a little too critical of others. that being said, this can also invert and do a little bit of a martyr act. you tend to endure things you don't have to. like go take that advil theres no need to have a headache even if its not that bad. take that statement literally or metaphorically. never quite satisfied with yourself and others. i said this already.. virgo moons, virgos in general, there is this underlying anxiety that makes it hard to believe things are going to be okay, that you can relax, that others love you unconditionally. but. u can. and people do.

my favorite book on astrology ever calls virgos 'the discriminators', and i really agree with that definition. curatorial.

a movie rec, and another