#like ???? it really feels like a post covid thing. my mother has been having a lot of the same issues too since we were last sick

[ouroboobos]

If you test too late can you get a false negative for covid even if you recently had it? I was like 100% sure we had covid again a couple months ago but my brother and i both tested negative. But ever since then I've barely been able to stay awake during the day. I'm used to fatigue but actually struggling to stay awake is really unusual for me. And it's BAD, like i've almost fallen asleep standing at the register. I'm wondering if it's a post covid thing because it's really fucking weird

[sirfrogsworth]

The Pretty Average Trump Trauma

I really picked the wrong week to have a controversial post go viral.

The appeal deadline for my disability case is very soon and we just recently got the last of the medical records. My lawyer can get very busy and hard to reach. And I have been freaking out trying to get a hold of him to make sure everything is ready to be submitted. Thankfully he just emailed and said everything is on track and will be sent in for the appeal.

But having this weighing on me behind the scenes while also dealing with the blowback from my "vote for Biden" post caused me to enter into some unhealthy arguments and lose my temper on several occasions.

I didn't actually think about what would happen if that post went viral. Sometimes I write things and a hundred people see it, and it serves as a catharsis because I was able to get my thoughts and fears out of my brain.

And sometimes it gets reblogged 6000 times and I can forget I have a platform where that happens from time to time.

I wish I had written a better initial post. I think my thoughts in subsequent posts, along with the inclusion of what I think is a better strategy, would have gone a long way to help people understand my point of view. Looking back, that original post feels incomplete.

The post that ended up going viral was not inspired by reason or logic and it was never really meant to convince anyone of anything.

I thought I was preaching to the choir.

It was a representation of my fears. It was the result of two years of panic and trauma from the pandemic which ended in my mother's horrible death.

Let me explain...

On November 9th, Shaun, a YouTuber I respect, posted this.

And it scared the hell out of me.

A very popular leftist with a huge platform wrote this to 5 million people and I freaked out.

Shaun wasn't necessarily saying not to vote for Biden at the time. But he thinks people should all say they won't vote for him unless he calls for a ceasefire. I get the strategy. But I feared that nuance would be lost on many people and they would only see it as "don't vote for Biden... no matter what." Which was an accurate prediction on my part. The guy from Eve 6 has been going nuance-free for weeks now.

The one thing I greatly disagree with Shaun about is this...

Before the pandemic, I might have understood his argument. For the first two years, Trump was mostly an ineffectual goof. He had trouble getting a lot of his worst ideas to manifest. Most of the border wall he built ended up being repairs of existing barriers. And Obama droned civilians and kept kids in cages too—though Trump kept them in cages indefinitely and made up a rule that we can't actually know how many civilians he was droning.

So, a lot of the same, but turned up to 11.

But nothing about the pandemic response was pretty average.

There is something I have been choosing not to say during all of these discussions. I felt like saying it would be poor timing. I was worried people wouldn't actually agree with me. I worried it would make people think I was turning suffering into a competition. I didn't want to make it look like I valued certain lives over others. But then people accused me of all of that anyway. I was called evil and a collaborator and a supporter of genocide.

So I'm going to talk about it. Because the fact that few have mentioned it in these discussions has been bothering me. And the fact that the majority of society does not mention it makes me feel very alone in this belief.

I have long believed Trump and the majority of US conservatives committed a genocide of the disabled and elderly. I was never really comfortable calling it that word. I wasn't really sure how a genocide got classified as such. So I would just say things like, "40% of people who died during COVID should still be alive" and "Trump is responsible for hundreds of thousands of COVID deaths" and "Trump killed my mom" and hoping people would make the connection or at least see it as mass murder. I mean, this country judges everything by how many "9/11s" something is, but not the pandemic?

Donald Trump was the leader of the Republican party. When he refused to wear a mask due to vanity, his followers looked for something to excuse him. And I feel that directly birthed the "masks don't work" movement among conservatives. Donald Trump, having enormous influence among his acolytes, refused to correct this dangerous rhetoric. And he probably welcomed the cover so he could continue going maskless and not smear his makeup—even after he nearly died.

It is my belief this was the beginning of a genocide of apathy, deliberate and accidental incompetence, and non-compliance. And the reason for that non-compliance was not freedom as many claimed.

Conservatives did not like being inconvenienced.

They didn't like having to consider others.

And if competence requires effort and vigilance, they'd prefer doing the bare minimum.

Trump was famous for not filling vital administrative positions in the executive branch. Not only that, his turnover rate was 5 times higher than previous administrations. People were asked to do the job of several people because they didn't staff properly, and so those people quit. Thus creating a cycle of inexperienced new-hires that were out of their depth and asked to do much more than they bargained for. There is no way they could succeed in their jobs.

I think people forget that part of the role of the executive is the day-to-day boring administrative shit that is required to run a country. And when this day-to-day work isn't valued, it creates a crisis of incompetence. Which then creates things like not enough tests, not enough testing, Trump saying "if you don't test, it doesn't count", botched vaccine rollouts, rampant misinformation, poor education of the populace, and abysmal improvised press conferences where the President does a quick riff on injecting bleach.

This competence aspect is one of the hugest reliefs I had with the Biden administration. Not Biden. Not his policies. I'm talking about the regular workers getting shit done. This is the reason I am desperate to get my shit worked out with Social Security before the election. I once called Social Security during the pandemic and I literally got a recording saying to try calling back the next month.

Trump didn't care. People criticized him for not hiring people. He was aware of the problem. He just did nothing about it. And many conservatives praised him for "trimming the fat" or whatever. This idea that all of these government workers were useless burdens on the taxpayer fell apart during the pandemic.

There is incompetence caused by ignorance but it can also be a deliberate act. Trump was extraordinary in all forms of incompetence. He wasn't qualified to manage a pandemic. But he could have easily appointed experts and then gotten out of the way. But his narcissism would not let him cede power to anyone. He has always been convinced "only Trump can save you" and so his ego helped kill nearly half a million people.

Once the incompetence ball got rolling, that's when malicious apathy reared its ugly head. It was time to choose who they cared least about dying—who they felt was most useless. Conservatives decided it was time to devalue lives and start making sacrifices to save politicians' money laundering fronts small businesses.

Popular conservatives were going on TV and saying it was okay if Grandma died. It would be a worthy sacrifice to protect our freedoms.

The Lt. Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, basically offered up the elderly for sacrifice all while claiming that he spoke for them and was also willing to die. Though I don't take his personal willingness very seriously, since he has the money and resources to get the best medical care and probably had no expectation he was in any danger.

“No one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’ But if they had? If that is the exchange, I’m all in. So my message is let’s get back to work. Those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves.”

But you cannot just sacrifice the elderly. You may justify it by saying they have lived a long life, but many of the same health risks were shared by the disabled. Many of whom still had normal lifespans, but just needed extra care and protection.

There are countless elderly who cannot "take care of themselves" but they are still of value to our society. They are still loved. They watch and teach their grandchildren. They are the keepers of the family stories. They bake cookies and give you two dollar bills. They have random bowls of butterscotch all throughout their house.

But some need help. Some are sick. Some can't drive. Some can't walk. I guarantee not all of them were prepared to die for the cause.

And none deserved to die for a sports bar.

Oh, didn't I mention?

Dan Patrick owned a chain of sports bars that were losing money from the lockdowns. Did you really think he was sacrificing old folks "for the children"?

Thankfully Dan's sports bars are gonna be okay. He ended up receiving a $179,000 PPP loan... that was forgiven.

Then they started saying COVID deaths weren't COVID deaths.

"Well, they had a bad heart." "They were obese." "They had cancer."

They dropped the elderly excuse and began to openly devalue the disabled as well. If you were sick, what good were you? They considered us the next sacrifices for their convenience. If we wanted to survive, we shouldn't have gotten sick. It didn't matter that we could survive for years or even have a normal lifespan as long as we were protected by our communities.

And then began the non-compliance.

Trump's followers ignored masks and lockdowns and eventually vaccines. They were unwilling to protect the vulnerable and so many of us just... died.

Again, 40% of the US COVID deaths could have been prevented. Hundreds of thousands of people should still be here. Malicious apathy, incompetence, and non-compliance were the direct cause of this genocide.

The United Nations Genocide Convention identified 5 acts that typically constitute genocide. Only one act is required and in the pandemic 3 of the 5 acts happened.

Killing members of a group. Causing members of a group serious bodily harm. Imposing living conditions on that group that would destroy them.

I'm looking at that third one just now and realizing why we have advocates to remind us of vulnerable groups that need protection. I was thinking about how the elderly and disabled were trapped in hyper-contagious nursing homes and care facilities, but I completely forgot about prisons and the concentration camps at the borders.

I am not trying to diminish the awful things happening in Palestine right now. This is not a comparison of suffering—but a reminder. When a current terrible thing is happening, it can be hard to focus on anything else. But I do wish more people recognized what happened as a genocide and that the leader of that genocide, the one with the power to stop it, was Donald Trump. If we are going to base this voting decision entirely on acts of genocide, why is this not part of the consideration?

It is an awful moral calculus we have to figure out. One president is supporting and asking for funding for a genocide and I feel the other was the direct cause of another genocide. That's why I said both choices sucked. And the only way I could resolve this moral calculation was by asking what path would cause the least harm for everyone involved.

And the most disappointing aspect of all of these debates was the ableism. People told me if Trump was elected and I lost my benefits I should grow my own food and learn about medicine. They said I valued disabled lives above those in Gaza. They told me to imagine myself in Nazi Germany as a collaborator despite the fact I would have been euthanized.

But I felt like they weren't considering the disabled at all.

I am a disability advocate. So of course I am going to remind people to consider us in their voting decisions. But I'm tired of hearing I value lives differently just because I speak on behalf of a vulnerable group more often. I'm tired of continually having to justify my existence. And I'm tired of people dismissing the very real trauma caused by Trump.

It was not pretty average.

I'd like to tell you the full story of my mother's passing. All of the details. Even the ones I can't bear to type. But this isn't just my story. This is the story of countless others who had to watch their loved ones slowly die behind glass or over the phone or on an iPad.

I spent two years in constant anxiety trying to protect my two very sick parents. It was always assumed that my father was the most at risk. And that he was probably going to die long before my mother. But she had started a treatment for her psoriatic arthritis that turned the volume down on her immune system. Something that would normally not be a huge risk... but a pandemic changed that. A vaccine needs a functioning immune system to protect someone.

She could either accept the agony of stopping treatment or risk getting COVID. If people would have been willing to protect her, it would have been an easier choice. And she would still be around today. And I wouldn't have to worry about being homeless right now.

I don't know for sure when she was infected. I kept her inside as much as possible. But she needed those treatments and we had to pile into a crowded waiting room every time. And I remember a man in his fifties who seemed preoccupied with having to wear a mask. And when he thought no one was looking, he'd pull it down below his nose. A few days later she was being taken away in an ambulance.

A few weeks before my mother died, she called me on the phone. She was heavily medicated and they had two different breathing devices assisting her. The nurse was holding the phone up to her ear and she was trying to speak over the volume of the air rushing into her face from the masks. I could not hear her no matter how loud she yelled. So she asked the nurse to take the masks off for just a second so we could talk.

Her only concern was for my father. We all contracted COVID and she was so worried he would end up just like her. Thankfully the vaccine worked for him and he was okay at that moment. But she kept yelling, "Is Dad okay? Is Dad okay?" And I kept trying to tell her he was fine, but she was hard of hearing and the phone could not be held very close to her ear.

Unfortunately, the yelling made it harder and harder for her to breathe. She started gasping for air. The nurse kept insisting she put the breathing equipment back on, but my mom refused. "I want to talk to my son! I need to talk to my son!"

I knew there wasn't much we could do to communicate. And so I kept trying to yell "I love you, Mom. Everyone is fine. I love you!" I then asked the nurse to tell her that. And when she finally understood what I was saying, she burst into tears.

Her oxygen levels were getting dangerously low and she was fighting the nurse. And she just yelled out, "I'm so scared! I think I'm going to die! Tell Dad I'm sorry I can't take care of him! I don't want to die!" She kept repeating that over and over. The nurse had no choice and had to put the masks back on. My mom screamed and shouted "No! Please no! That's my son!"

And those were the last words I ever heard from my mother.

Gasping for air. Scared of dying. Worried about her family.

This moment has intrusively popped into my brain on a regular basis since it happened. It happens when I'm awake. It happens in my dreams. I have no control over it. I just have to keep experiencing it like it is happening for the first time.

After I saw that tweet from Shaun and then many others expressing the same thing (without the strategic aspect), my dread and trauma resurfaced with a vengeance. I've been reliving my mom's final words in my dreams. That moment keeps popping into my head. I feared the man I feel is most responsible for my mother's death may regain power and kill me and the last of the family I have left.

I keep asking myself the same questions over and over. What if there is another public health emergency? What happens to my trans friends if he turns the US into Florida and Texas? What will happen to the migrants at the border?

All I have is my two best friends. Katrina is gay and Delling is trans and disabled. All of us are vulnerable.

I wrote that post to help deal with the nightmares. Writing is part of my coping process. I didn't really expect it to go super viral. I just needed to get that out of my brain. But when people pushed back and started calling me evil and a collaborator and that I was valuing my life above those in Palestine, all with a huge heap of ableism, I found myself unable to let it go and not respond. I couldn't choose the healthy thing and step away.

While I feel I made some good arguments and put forth some solid ideas for other ways to handle this, I also got angry and lost my temper and stayed in arguments for way too long—all to my mental detriment.

My little world felt like it was collapsing and the world at large also felt like it was collapsing. I had personal horrors in my mind mixing with the horrors of this global conflict.

It was too much.

I don't regret what I posted. Many felt the same as I do. And I think my subsequent posts did a good job of expanding on my thoughts while also offering hope for alternate solutions.

But I do regret the timing and I wish I hadn't lost my temper. Especially in a reply I left with a lot of cussing.

People might disagree but I am hoping that people can understand the fear and trauma that influences my point of view.

I am actually willing to risk quite a lot to protect other people. Even people in faraway lands I don't know.

But I refuse to offer up the vulnerable to be sacrificed if it won't actually help anyone. That's what a Texas Lt. Governor would do.

[cressthebest]

i want to start this out by saying that if this ask is something that you are not comfortable answering or talking about please don’t answer it bc some of this might be a little personal.

i saw in one of your posts about you being ex-catholic and i was curious about that. i’m a catholic person that goes to a catholic school, in a catholic town, with a catholic family. i’ve been really thinking about being catholic recently and my problems with it. i was wondering if you could share a little of your experience with me? again if this is too personal please ignore i don’t want to pry into your life.

i promise i wasn’t ignoring this, i just suck at answering asks 😔 which is unfortunate because i love receiving asks and talking about myself

and i have no concept of person space/personal questions, so honestly it’s all chill

but my experience honestly only got worse with time. when i was little, things were more fun, as things typically are when you’re young. i was always bored in church, but i liked wearing pretty dresses and singing the songs. this post will go over a lot of uncomfortable topics and will be quite personal. you’ve been warned. blep. 👁️👅👁️

the first step, which is ignored for a long time was drumroll …. masturbation. i didn’t learn about it from books or fanfic or porn or anything. i was just a kid (maybe 13) and figuring out my body, which included being curious about why touching down there in certain ways felt good. once i realized what it was and that it was a sin, i started to struggle a lot. 1. it felt good and i didn’t want to stop feeling good in that way. 2. but it’s a sin and god did not approve.

for non-catholics reading, in catholicism we do something called confession. it’s where we go to a priest and tell him all our sins. the priest acts as god, and when you tell him this, it’s basically telling god. he then forgives you and gives you a penance, which is typically just a set of prayers to say. and they’re NOT ALLOWED to tell anyone else your sins.

well i was a regular confession attendee, but i could never bear to tell the priest that i had masturbated. lots of times i would cry after masturbating and was worried about going to hell, because i wasn’t stopping. i couldn’t figure out how to abstain from this habit (that quite frankly i didn’t even indulge in very much). lots of tears and fear associated with something that is supposed to feel good.

i can’t remember if i eventually resolved that i wouldn’t stop even tho it was a sin, or if i struggled with this up until i stopped believing in general.

it honestly started to go downhill the most once covid hit. (i was about 14) school closed, and so my mother decided that her kids (all six of us) would be homeschooled from now on. the homeschooling was the second step. she decided it would be best for our family to be catholic homeschooled. all of our books were Seton Homeschooling. any catholic homeschooler has probably heard of this program, even if they never used it. this program taught me a hella lot more about the faith. and me being autistic, this definitely became a hyperfixation. i learned a lot tbh. i probably know more about catholicism than the average practicing catholic.

knowing a lot about the faith caused me to find lots of weird “plot holes” and lots of contradictions. my faith was beginning to waiver, but i was learning everything i could about the faith, trying to answer my questions. honestly, i was starting to lose my grip on the faith.

covid being covid, this was the time i started to discover my sexuality. asexuality came first. it was a struggle to come to terms with, but i found out that there were gay people who were still catholic and i found temporary comfort in that community. i determined that my asexuality was actually a blessing from god. (he gave it to me because if i wasn’t asexual, i probably would have had sex before marriage because i love so fiercely and fully. so he gave asexuality to me so i could prevent myself from the sin of premarital sex. looking back, i think that’s a load of bullshit considering i’m actually demisexual lmao)

but then i had a ✨bi awakening✨which coincidentally took place in a church. a very pretty girl passed me in church and i forgot how to breathe lol. anyways, i left that church knowing something new about me. by the end of the week, i was thinking of myself as bi. i actually started dating this girl a few months later. funny enough, i felt like god had blessed our relationship and didn’t condemn it, simply because he allowed me to meet a girl named MARY in his CHURCH. so u felt like our relationship wasn’t a sin. she was catholic as well. we were quite the pair.

at this point, i was grasping at threads trying to find a reason to still be catholic. the next big incident snapped the thread. my best freind (catholic) told me that my relationship with mary was a sin and she couldn’t support it. i hung up with her lol. she called back and i said i’d only stay on the phone if she wasn’t mean. she proceeded to pull out a script she wrote to tell me how this was a sin and the guilty feelings i was having was because deep down i knew it was a sin. (it was just internalized homophobia). i hung up again. she texted me a long script and said i was going to hell. i blocked her.

here’s the part where the issue unfolds. she told her mom the situation, and her mom called my mom. she outed me to my mother. that night, not only did i lose my best friend and my girlfriend, but also any sense of comfort i felt in my house for about three years. (don’t worry for my safety. mother took away lots of my privileges such as internet, friends coming over, me being able to text most of my friends, going to my friend’s places, sleepovers, etc. but it was never unsafe for me) but that incident was probably the final drop that made the bucket overflow. i stopped believing in god sometime after that.

my loss of faith and discovery of sexuality are tied together and i cannot separate those journeys. however, i do believe that even without a sexuality discovery, i would have realized i didn’t believe in catholicism any more.

knowing as much as i did about catholicism, combined with my firm-proof-needing autism, and my sexuality discovery, all led me to lose the faith. after leaving it, i began to despise it, while also feeling guilty. it took many years to become okay with no longer being catholic.

though i would also like to note that even the catholic institution is quite corrupt and i hate organized church, i don’t hate people for being catholic. it makes me wary at first, but catholicism and god are not the issues. i don’t hate on people for being catholic or believing, nor do i want to belittle their faith. however, i feel like the catholic community is corrupt.

i don’t want to encourage you in either direction. do what’s best for you and what would help you be the best person and most happy in your life. i encourage you to question things and be curious about the faith. it might make your faith stronger, and you will be happy you did it, or you will realize this isn’t something you want to spend time on anymore. it’s up to you. and it may take YEARS to figure out. be kind to yourself and to others, and i guarantee it will be okay. no matter what you discover, you’ll have a community waiting for you.

as an end note, i’d like to add that you can ask any follow up questions you please. i’m willing to answer anything. if you require clarification on anything, just shoot an ask. i am aware that i wrote this while very sick with strep and honestly some of this might not make sense.

[xxsp3llb0undxx]

The Cullens as song's // HC

Song's I think the Cullens would be, based off of their personalities and their backstories. I couldn't find a song to fit Emmett, I've been searching for the last hour :/ Sorry to all Emmett lovers, he shall not be in this little HC. I hope you enjoy reading the rest though, please do let me know what you think the Cullen's would be as songs <3

MASTERLIST CULLENS

Rosalie - Black Dahlia // Hollywood Undead

I think this song fits Rose the best because of everything she went through prior to being turned.

Like the apparent love of her life, future husband, using and manipulating her ??

He took everything from her, let others do things to her.

He's a lil bitch :)

The lyrics "and I've been abused, I feel so used because of you."

"The future that we both drew and all the shit we've been through. Obsessed with the thought of you, the pain just grew and grew."

Really sound's like something Edward would hear Rose think to herself whenever he would listen to her thoughts.

Her revenge was worth it though, she finally got to take something from him, like he had done to her.

"You just lay without a sound, seems like all we had is over now, you left to rest."

Major 'Lol I killed my stupid husband' vibes

Edward - Parasite Eve // Bring Me The Horizon

Okay not to be one of those people, but considering Eddie boy over here was around during the Spanish influenza and almost dying from it; I kinda found this song fitting ??

'Parasite Eve' is about Covid, and both illnesses are similar; too similar in fact.

The lyrics "I've got a fever, don't breathe on me." and "Leave your flowers and grieve." Really scream Edward for me ??

We were all scared of big man Covid but imagine how terrified he must've been when he had the Spanish influenza.

Like he's just vibing one minute and then, boom, he's literally lying on his death bed.

Edward would probably really relate to this song, even if he's into classical; 'Parasite Eve' would be an exception.

Jasper - Forest // Twenty One Pilots

Okay, I know what you're thinking but hear me out.

Lyrics "I don't know why I feed on emotion, there's a stomach inside my brain."

Signifies Jasper's gift of empathy and control of emotions.

"My brain has given up, white flags are hoisted."

White Flags were used during the Civil War to end it, a way to show they have surrendered.

Not only does those lyrics signify the Civil War, it could also be a metaphor for Jasper; he's given up that part of his life.

He doesn't want to let it corrupt him any further because he's guilty for playing a part in taking so many lives.

So, in turn, he's put up white flags to surrender and hope to start over; become a better person, vampire.

Alice - Can You Feel My Heart // Bring Me The Horizon

Sweet little fairy.

Didn't deserve to be locked away in an asylum.

I think, in some way, this song is fitting for Alice.

Lyrics "Forgive me father, I love you Mother."

Make me feel like she would've said this a lot, thinking she was a disappointment to her parents for her gift.

"I'm scared to get close, and I hate being alone."

Definitely was something Alice had felt prior and post-vampirism, scared if she got too close to someone she could predict their fate.

But also being scared she would end up alone because people would be so weirded out by her gift.

Carlisle - Put Your Head On My Shoulder // Paul Anka

Absolute sweetheart !

This song is just Carlisle to Esme, 100%

He's such a gentleman, even though his father was like a BIG priest dude who killed the supernatural and he caused Carlisle to turn ??

He's just full of love, no one can tell me different !!

Secretly, Carlisle is Paul Anka and wrote this song for Esme

So sorry it's short, Dr. Cullen is just an angel and didn't really have much corruption in his life ngl.

Esme - Brick By Boring Brick // Paramore

For some reason I feel like this song definitely reminds me of Esme because of the meaning behind the song.

"The song Brick by Boring Brick is a story about a girl who escaped reality through pictures and fairy tales and anything that wasn’t the real story. This way, she’d look perfect to everyone else and we’d all think that she’s got it together. But being that it was all for show, it couldn’t last"

"Esme was born in 1895 in Columbus, Ohio, where she was treated at the age of 16 by Carlisle after breaking her leg when climbing a tree. She married Charles Evenson, but he abused her. After finding out she was pregnant, she ran away and gave birth to a son, who subsequently died a few days later."

Brick By Boring Brick resembles Esme's tough life from a young age, she was still only a child when she was to be married to Evenson, she didn't want to continue with the abuse she suffered.

So, she ran, she created a life where she would be happy, even though; if you looked a bit closer, there were cracks in her reality.

All she wanted was to be happy, but she also ended up losing her son in the process of freeing herself from the shackles of her abusive husband.

The lyrics "Well, you built up a world of magic, because your real life is tragic." Truly speaks on so many different levels how Esme presents herself to the world and everyone around, even though how she want's to be perceived is fake and in reality Esme has suffered a lot.

Not only with losing her baby but also she will never be able to have those years of her life back, it'll forever remind her of how badly she was treated. Just like Rose.

[gemgirl28]

How do you make friends in zutara fandom? It’s been really hard for me because I seem to find myself in bigger discords where it feels like everyone is in a clique and it’s hard to connect, and they talk so badly about people they don’t like to the point I’m afraid to say anything because I don’t want them to do that to me too. I don’t know if it’s gotten worse lately or if I’m just looking in the wrong place

Hello anon! First off I'm sorry you've struggled to connect with other people in the fandom. It definitely can be difficult when we are all interacting with each other online, but I hope you do make some genuine connections 🫂

I will say, making fandom friends in 2023 feels VERY different from 2020/2021 when I first got into fandom, and that is very much due to shutdown vs things opening back up. When I started engaging with the zutara fandom in August/September 2020 I was working full time from home doing a job that was often dead (read: I was online during working hours) and a part time job on the weekends that was soooo slow it allowed the brainrot to really sink in as I daydreamed about zk while working. Now I work in office a minimum of 3 days a week and while we are in our slower season, we still have a ton of work to do to prep for our busy season.

And that's just me! I know people who are engaging in other fandoms, have also had work ramp back up, have had family stuff that pulls them offline, etc. It's a different space than it was when I was first making connections with people (and I would be curious to see if anyone who was already online pre-Covid has written a dissertation about the waves of online engagement due to shutdown).

Also, I do struggle to make connections in larger servers, mostly because I get overwhelmed at the nonstop activity and end up muting them. I do think they are great places to keep up with fandom activity, like events, fanart, fanfics, etc, but for initially making friends I find it tough.

So all that to say, here is my personal method for making fandom friends (results may vary):

Engage with the same person over and over. Like their posts, comment on them, reblog with commentary/additional tags, just over and over engage with them.

They slowly start to engage back (liking your posts, responding to comments, reblogging your reblogs, etc.).

Slide into their dms and ask them how they are doing, then tell them what about them made you slide into their dms (I legit messaged someone that their vibes seemed nice and it worked).

Talk about fandom stuff but also about your interests outside of fandom (IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: DON'T SHARE IDENTIFYING INFO. I'm talking about things like fave foods and music, not where you live or your mother's maiden name).

Be friends forever.

Now that I'm reading that back it sort of reads like instructions for getting to know someone on a dating app. But also, if you aren't trying to fall a little in love with all your mutuals, what's the point?

tl;dr: It can be tricky making friends now that real life has ramped back up, but if you give it a little time and effort, you can make some great connections in fandom.

[kkbardd]

hello! i haven’t sent an ask in a while because schoolwork has been piling up infinitely :[ , but your recent posts have been really interesting to me! i really liked the room sketch one, I can’t exactly explain why but there’s something so indescribably human about it. i love spaces that looked lived in, that have personality, and I think that your room (current one? made up? old one?) has done a great job of showing that. and I’m not very good at giving advice— I can hardly follow it myself, but if you don’t know something, don’t know what you want to do, try things. it’s okay if you don’t like them. i recently found out I’m more competent in languages than I thought! i can already read and understand simple sentences in german.

there’s always more to yourself than you’ll know, I think, but the world is kinder than people think. If anything, everyone is still very new at this. we’ve never lived before. do the things you like, branch out, don’t become less of yourself for other people. everything has a place, and my best advice is to treat life as you would a vacation. do all the things you can while you’re here. build a life that makes it worth it. (sorry for the long ask and my rambling, or if this is overstepping in any way. i just read what you wrote and kind of related to it in a way. thank you for continuing to create art, it brings me a lot of joy! :] )

hey isopod!!! thanks for the ask & I wish u good luck with ur school work!

Thank u so much for the compliments, im really glad the vibe of my room was conveyed in those doodles. i absolutely looove drawing my room! It’s extremely small (a renovated utility closet) and just barely fits a bed + my desk but its packed full of the things i love. It’s very lived in and I feel like it reflects my character well.

when i drew that page I was in my senior year of high school and pressures to decide my future were overwhelming. I never thought much about it until then and I didn’t have any idea of what I was going to do. The only thing I felt I had going for me was art but I didn’t want to turn my only hobby into a job I hated. I remember going through a master list of majors on random college websites and one-by-one asking myself if I’d be okay doing it. In the end I had nothing. I was really crushed about it and felt stuck. This was right after the covid quarantine too so focusing in school was difficult & I couldn’t bring myself to apply for scholarships. I started skipping classes, smoking weed, and pushing off my assignments. All of this only made me feel more miserable, of course, so everything seemed pretty bleak at the time.

But luckily I had the support of my family and especially my mother. She would always remind me that “we have option”, “we always have options”. Because I did! This was a fresh start to try my hand at a totally different experience than what I’ve done so far. I ended up choosing my major on a complete whim after hearing my aunt had a job in an adjacent field. I was pretty sure I’d drop out after a semester, yet here I am about to graduate soon & I’m having a ton of fun!! (Hell, I’m 10 hours out in the middle of nowhere right now for my Field Methods class!) It’s not that I had a knack for Geology that I just never tapped into, or that i secretly had a passion for rocks this entire time; I just found something that seemed like an okay fit and grew interest from there. I think that a small level of commitment like that is more than enough to get you going. I had a ton of ideas in my head about how I needed to have a perfect fit major that would connect every dot I’ve laid out in my life thus far, but that’s not true at all. Life is much more messy and unpredictable than that.

But enough of my rambling!! That time of my life may have been stressful but I’m very grateful that I went through it! It changed how I viewed problems and it taught me to always look for other options when everything seems helpless.

Thank u so much for ur encouragement, I really appreciate it <33 I completely agree with everything u said!! Life is an ever changing experience & often leads u in unpredictable directions!

[drdemonprince]

hey!! i've been watching your amazing top surgery recovery on insta and i'm wondering if you have any tips/secrets to recovering so quickly??! i've been looking into top surgery but have been so intimidated because everything i've read about the recovery process makes it seem like it'll take months and that's something that's not realistic for me with my limited support system + limited time off work but goddamn i would love to get my tits chopped off asap. i read something about how you gotta b

continued: be prepared to not physically be able walk around or lift more than a jug of apple juice for like two months post-op and that's been scaring me off top surgery cuz that's just not sustainable for me!!

Yeah, so I do think some people are really really overstating how incapacitating the procedure has to be, and that some of that is a holdover of doctor's historical approaches to treating patients.

Like historically, wealthy pregnant women were sometimes in bed nearly the full duration of their pregnancies, and just in general medicine used to believe that the best way for a patient to heal was for them to be lying down doing as little as possible (and being as compliant and inobtrusive as possible), and I believe that might still color some surgeon's recommendations today. Even though we know that gentle movement and maintaining function where one can is good for healing!

Now, my experience with surgery has been far and away better than that of anyone I've heard of so far for a couple of reasons, some that are within a patient's control, some that are not.

The first thing is that I have a high pain tolerance and love moving around, I need to move around to feel good, it's just very helpful for my mental health and sensory regulation. Even when I have the flu or COVID, I still tend to lift weights and take walks -- maybe at a slightly diminished capacity, maybe taking a day off if I feel incapable, but I generally want to move and find it easy to start moving quickly even when I'm sick or in pain.

2. The second piece is, you guessed it, my activity level. Before surgery, I was lifting weights for a half hour each day, five days per week. I'd been doing roughly that amount for a couple of years. I also live in a city and don't have a car so I walk a lot, take the stairs when I can, go out dancing sometimes, and just generally stay pretty active. We could chalk this up as a "choice" but that would be to ignore the fact that I'm capable of doing that much activity and I enjoy it. If I had kids, a 9-5 office job, physical disabilities that impacted my ability to exercise, elder care responsibilities, or anything else, I couldn't work out five days per week. But I personally can. And that has either been good for my health, or is just a signal of the fact that I am in good health.

3. That brings us to the third piece: I don't really have any health issues that get in the way of healing. I get over colds relatively quickly, and aside from a bout of anemia and severe burnout in my mid 20s and some knee pain that I gave myself from using a standing desk for two long that seems to never go away, I've made it to 35 without too many scratches on the vehicle.

Right now I'm probably in the best health of my life, both because of my activity levels and just really finally getting on top of cooking myself meals most days of the week, lots of like fish and veggies and rice and quinoa and shit (I used to survive on power bars far too often. they're still nice. but cooking dinner regularly has made me feel more nourished and strong). Again a lot of that is being lucky enough to have time to do the things that help me feel good.

4. Before surgery, I was hydrating and fibering like a mother fucker, up until midnight the night before my operation, when I was supposed to begin fasting. I also went two weeks without any alcohol, weed, cigarettes, delta 8, or any other substances, and no medications other than my testosterone. I also quit caffeine several months ago which has had a DRAMATIC impact on my mental health and improved my eating and hydration as well. Three hours before surgery I took a prescribed anti-nausea pill, and a celebrex (a prescribed anti-inflammatory, basically it dulls nerve pain a bit) as advised by my doctor.

5. I chose to work with a surgeon who does not use narcotics -- this is a huge one. Opioid pain medications pack a whallop, and if you need them, you need them, there's no shame in that -- but I think the American medical system is still skewed towards using them too willy nilly compared to most other parts of the world. They make you groggy, slow down your digestion, can make you depressed, make you nauseated, and just generally keep you from moving around and eating, and you really do want your physical system to be moving and metabolizing so it can heal you.

I would not have been up and walking around the day of my surgery if I was on opioids. The day after surgery I was able to stream for three hours, ride the train to my post-op appointment, and walk to a restaurant a few blocks away for dinner because I wasn't loopy or medicated at all. And I truly did not need them. Because I wasn't on opioids I was also able to shit the same day I had surgery instead of battling bloating and constipation for days, which most guys describe having.

Rather than giving any hard core pain meds to me, my doctor used numbing injections during surgery, which blunted the pain for the first 48 hours post-op, which is the worst period healing wise. Beyond that, he put me on antibiotics and a celebrex in the morning and at night. I've never felt much pain at all.

At this point, my pain is like.. less than a period cramp? Similar to muscle soreness from working out? I feel fragile because my skin is stitched together, so it's not like I could run a marathon or climb a rock wall, and I can't cook or carry anything over a milk jug. but I can walk around, shower, take the train, open light doors, get dressed, feed my chinchilla, stuff like that.

6. My surgeon encouraged movement. Many surgeons tell you not to lift your arms above your head for weeks, but this can result in you needing physical therapy afterward and losing mobility in general. Now if that's what your doctor tells you to do, you should listen to them, but my doctor told me he wanted me to maintain range of motion. I am allowed to open cabinets, shampoo my hair, and reach above my head to grab things -- GENTLY and SLOWLY -- and i do very very light stretches. In the weeks to come I'll need to weigh two competing concerns against one another: the desire to maintain mobility, and the desire to have thin scar lines. I'm still being very delicate but I am using my arms all day and sometimes raising them.

Now, I can't promise you that any of this will happen for you. And since you mentioned wanting to be as independent as possible, let me tell you: do not push it! you will need help! Not getting enough help will dramatically increase your risk of complications! I have someone with me to lift heavy objects, cook, wash the dishes, help me shower, open heavy doors, and to tell me to slow down when i'm going too hard.

The people i know who did have complications got to that point because they didn't ask for enough help. You will need to take time off of any labor intensive job, and you wont be able to move furniture, make your bed, do your laundry, cook a meal, carry groceries, or do other intensive things for a while. I understand the motivation to get back to 'independence' as quickly as possible, but you can't guarantee that will happen.

This week, I will be doing some light work (grading and reading copy edits) because I am able to, and because I'm high energy enough to be getting bored. But I couldn't count on that. I told my boss and my editor I'd be offline for at least two weeks, more if I had complications. Since I didn't, I'm bouncing back way sooner, but it would not have been healthy for me to set out with that as the expectation. I needed to mentally offload the stress of having a job or I wouldnt have healed as well as I have.

[themarydragon]

Trouble the Water Continuation

It will be AWHILE before I have anything written, as I am still working to finish my first playthrough, I have a lot of things happening in my life, I am 75% done with the first draft of the first book of my own original world, and my only coherent thought about TOTK right now is SUFFERING 

but

Issues and contemplations below the cut. Some reference to TotK in the fifth paragraph that is spoilery. I tried not to make it explicit, but you have been warned.

First, IDK if you caught it, but the very last chunk of Chapter 2 in Born a Storm talked about sages. Let the record show, I posted that in June of 2020. I have a lot more I had planned for Born a Storm, and stopped writing it due to completely unrelated (cough cough Covid cough cough Loved and Lost) issues. Also, I realized if I was going to turn it into a complete work, like I kinda wanted to, I was either going to have to take it down, or somehow move chapters around as I went and I never actually decided how I wanted to manage that. I am still undecided, and I have to make that decision before my brain will allow me to work on totk in that universe. THE POINT, though, is I thought of a way to tie in sages (just a hundred years too early) that would be satisfying for me to write and not contradict TotK.

Second, SO FAR nothing I’ve found in TotK has completely screwed up my Trouble the Water [TtK] storyline. I’m not FINISHED yet, so that might change, but it really looks like the TotK worldstate is more or less compatible with where I left off in The Quiet River Rages [tQRR] with just a very little bit of handwaving.

Third, YOU CAN’T JUST GIVE ME THIS ANGST AND EXPECT ME NOT TO RUN WITH IT. 

Fourth, I feel like I have all the jumping-off points already loaded into the existing work. For example, tQRR, Chapter 5:  “I would have waited millennia if that’s what it took to get you back. Link, I chose-” Or Zelda’s gentle commune with the sword from Chapter 12 of CWRD.

Fifth, I want to write two parts. One is [spoilers] Zelda’s POV from-then-until-now just like Remember the Spring, and with the same flavor (and for the same reason). Again, I haven’t FINISHED it, but the Master Sword IS sentient and DOES talk to her, canonically, so it’s NOT EXACTLY ALONE and I don’t think forgetting was allowed, not entirely. The final Tear, which is NOT ancient, but rather we witness being shed, indicates possession of Sense of Self or at least Memory that I am definitely going to run with because angst. The other part is Our Boy desperately searching, finding Tears, and reflecting on how F’d up it is, given Zelda’s canonical parental history (her mother, then Rhoam). I don’t know yet exactly what I will include or exclude, but I’ve been in this place before and I know I have to write about it eventually. 

Last, if anybody expected me - ME - to see an amputee kilted tattoo’d protagonist and leave that shit alone, you got another thought coming. My husband has had some REALLY great insight into some of the cinematic moments (Link’s pause before taking Zelda’s hand for the Reverse Time ability) that I think deserve some love.

[kaiannae]

Life update (in lack of Starling update)

So, I think I would like to avoid another "going dark" episode like the one from the last two-three months. That one was because of war, and war is still very much present, but at the moment, my lack of writing is mostly due to other matters. CW Cat Medical Stuff: I have a cat. My mother is his human, but I take care of him and I love him very much. Unfortunately, he started feeling unwell two weeks ago on monday morning. He hid all sunday night, he wouldn't eat all day, he was not moving from his hidey hole, I was worried. I called the vet monday evening after confirming he was feeling worse and worse, and was instructed to give first aid painkillers and bring him the next morning. Since then, its been an ordeal of unclear diagnosis. Obvious infection without a source. My vet is very professional, but even after hospitalizing him for close care, going through multiple in-depth tests and giving him broad antibiotics, he wouldn't eat, while the tests were showing nothing but a sourceeless infection. Eventually I was sent with him to a vet hospital to do a specialized ultrasound. That too showed inconclusive results but there were enough findings to make my vet press for an abdominal operation. Its very lucky that they did, and very lucky that they insisted on doing it that same eveing. Turns out the poor thing had a gall bladder infection, which did not show in blood tests or ultrasound, and somewhere in the few hours between the last ultrasound and the operation the gall ate a hole in his stomach and it was leaking into his abdoman. The operation saved him in the nick of time, though it was touch and go for a couple of days. It is now the third day of him being back at home, he has a feeding tube and has to be tube fed 6 times a day. He also gets 9 types of meds, some of which need to be taken with food, some away from food, so I am his home nurse for the next two weeks at least, that assuming he'll keep improving. END CW Cat Medical Stuff. And as if to add insult to injury, I've been feeling ill since the begining of this week, and after testing negative at first, I am now positive for COVID and feeling it heavily. In fact, my mother now has COVID too and she needs care as well. So to summarise, I hardly have time to sleep, so investing myself in the angsty Bren and Fairy PoV enough to write is not really working right now. I must focus on taking care of parent and cat, and though I don't know how much the vet bill is yet (still pending on that) I do know its going to be in the several thousands, so I must focus on that as well. (Sadly, if you don't have pet insurance, any intensive care or test costs a fortune here.) So, please stay tuned as I try to restore some order to my life and calm things down a bit. The wizards are still very much on my mind, in fact, they are one of the things keeping me sane at the moment. If you like my writing and would like to tip me on Ko-fi, there's a link in the header of my page, or you can just search Kaiannae. (sadly I hardly uderstand Kofi, but I know the page works. I intended to make an actual content page there but never got the time with everything that's happened in the last few months.) It would all go towards bills and would be very much appreciated. Also, if you'd like to see or have an idea for a short oneshot you always wanted to see with the wizards, Starling AU or just Shadowgast, feel free to toss them in my direction. I might not be able to invest myself in my main writing right now, but I might be able to do a short thing as I wait for feeding times to post seperately for ya'll, especially night feeding times... Again, I apologize for the wait. Please stay tuned.

[lordelmelloi2]

I feel like if I had just gotten over myself in the first place and started selfshipping openly with Waver I would've maybe been a happier person but without the takeoff of the mastersona community here I wouldn't have had the confidence or like... playing field? to do it in. Idk. It's kind of funny how like. Denying myself that connection like that. Really did impact my life in an insane way. When I look at my old posts from this blog's beginning and from shitpostsaber it doesn't even feel like the same person anymore. Or like. I can't... remember the depth of suffering and aimlessness I was experiencing back then. I had dropped out of college and was struggling with depression and ptsd and chronic illness so bad that I couldn't get myself out of bed most days, and I had no skills or talents I could make a decent living off of. And I was broke. And living with a parent who denied I was mentally ill in the first place, and HIS solution to my disability was to LITERALLY put me back into the cage that caused the brunt of it. He said, and I quote, "Sometimes it only feels like you progress when your back is up against the wall."

And I fucking hate that he was right. The last time I showed any prerogative towards my self survival and progress as a human being was when I had come to ask to live with him in highschool, back when I lived with my mother, and it was like -- something about seeing her flub the act of parenting or caring or being a real person so hard enraged me to the point of taking care of both me and my sibling and then eventually myself. It made me start looking for options to survive and carve a path out for myself. And then he essentially exiled me here, to live with her again, and when I called him and asked for help, he said that; and said Money is Freedom. it was fucking heights of covid lockdown then of course so that wasn't going to happen for another year. But the year after that everything changed rapidly. One by one I started being an adult who put his life together and was able to get his shit together tangibly enough that I could (...most of the time) afford an apartment, a car, utilities, a phone, etc... this was not the kind of person that the person running shitpostsaber could've imagined.

And I don't know what Salter thought either. Salter wasn't capable of thinking about these things. Maybe Salter thought an eternity of self harm based ironic humor was the answer. You can live by being funny, and likable, and hurting yourself for jokes while the secret only being visible to you; the spectacle of online media performance. It's why I'll always have a sort of visceral hatred for the vtuber phenomenon, for the act of separating your Self for performance, for an online audience of in particular People Into Anime And Manga And Games. And Otaku Shit. Right before I ended the blog I was working on putting together a model w/FaceRig for streaming. I'm glad I didn't finish, like many of my projects I had started.

I had to continually deny my self's existence and to overlay it with that presumed Artificiality in order to justify my existence. Because reality isn't desirable, isn't marketable, isn't cute or attractive. My sona now is fat like I am. Has roots coming in. I draw the nose a little crooked in some images, I draw the fat under his chin. I draw thick scratchy eyebrows, fat thighs and belly. He's me now. He is finally me. That representation of me, for all fantasy's worth, is still me. SPSB couldn't comprehend removing that lense of Anime Girl Funny Relatability. Or maybe couldn't imagine claiming this all as their own. Whatever the case may be, I'm freer now. I'm less possessed by trying to be something I'm not -- because I am what I am, and because I acknowledge how I've grown and what principles I operate on. I just am who I am. And all of that that exists with me is me. All the dissociative stuff, all the fatigue, all the frustration, all the issues, the spontaneity, everything. It belongs to me now. Not to the lense.

[silalcarin]

What Regina King said about grief and mental health

Regina King's interview on Good Morning America has really stuck with me in the last two months. I am not a mother yet, and at this rate, I may never become a mother (I will not discuss why on here; it's too personal). So, I admit, I don't know what it's like to lose a child. I don't understand what that feels like. And I will never pretend to understand what that feels like.

But, I do know grief. And, I also do know depression.

The grief that I feel the most for is one of my friends, who died by suicide a few years ago — much like Regina's son, Ian, unfortunately, had. They were the same age as me; I was a few months older than them. I only really knew them for a little while, but when I heard about their death, I still cried for a month. I still dreamt about them for a month. I still grieved for them for a month. The thought that someone who I knew and was exactly my age had ended their life was a complete shock to me. Up until that point, I had never known anybody my age who died. Their death changed me, profoundly — much like how Regina losing Ian completely changed her. Afterwards, I started holding on to my friends tighter, learning to care more sincerely about their problems, doing anything I could to ensure that I wouldn't lose anymore friends. Essentially, I learned how to become a better friend from this loss.

I have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder three times in my life, since I became an adult. Depression is absolutely horrible. Depression is a bitch. I have contemplated dying by suicide a few times — once it was due to a horrible break-up with an abusive boyfriend; twice it was due to losing my job post-COVID.

I love how, in this interview, Regina talks about the importance of understanding mental health and depression, and points out that people expect depression to look a certain way. Mental health is something that still needs to be de-stigmatized. Sadly, quite a few people still don't take mental health seriously. Quite a few people still don't think that therapy, even just considering therapy, is worth it. Yet, Regina makes it clear that when she saw Ian struggle with his mental health, she tried to help him. She went to therapy with him. She saw psychiatrists with him. Regina is so much better than my own parents, who refuse to acknowledge that mental health is a real and serious thing, who refuse to believe that I have depression.

Even through her grief, even through her sadness, Regina is so articulate in this interview. I hope that she, and anyone else who's experienced the tragedy of losing a child, remains okay and surrounds herself with support and love as she and her family continue to navigate through their journey without Ian.

"Grief is a journey"

"Grief is love that has no place to go"

[destinyc1020]

Sunday Confessions:

Sum of these kaustin fans/fan r very weird about Vanessa. Near fathers day (nt even on the actual day) Vanessa posted with Darla n somehow sum of the Kaustin fans made it seem lik it was somehow it was "shading" Austin... how? Lmao V dnt seem the brightest and she obviously can b shady bt i dnt think she she is so evil as to taunt Austin with his deceased mothers dog or let him nt hav the dog (esp since its been yrs and it was prob just a case where he was working more at the time and she got the dog full time). Idk i just found it to b reaching and very odd.

Thnx for your confession Anon. 😊

You know, I too have heard of the rumors that supposedly after Austin and Vanessa broke up, he wanted his deceased mother's dog (Darla) back, but that Vanessa refused to give him back his mom's dog, and he was crushed about it. 😔

Now, Idk how true that is... So I'm not even going to really entertain that. I just go by logic/what I'm able to actually see.

IF I were you Anon, I wouldn't take what some fans/shippers online on Twitter or blogs say too much to heart, because my first thought would be, how on earth would THEY know?? 😒

If Austin (or Vanessa) hasn't said anything about that, then I wouldn't believe it too much Anon.

I also go by what Austin himself has said about Vanessa, and he's never said anything but nice things about her...even AFTER their breakup. His recent Esquire interview said a bit about their relationship and how he feels towards her. If he really was holding a grudge or something, then he could have just said something cordial and kept it simple. I don't think he would have said all of the things he did in that interview if he was somehow upset with her about her keeping his mom's dog.

What probably REALLY happened was that the dog (which had lived with them as a couple after his mom died) had grown accustomed to living with him and Vanessa, and Austin knew that with his crazy filming and traveling schedule, he probably wouldn't be able to care for the dog as well as he wanted to. Vanessa was probably already attached to the dog after all these years, so Austin probably just told her that she could keep the dog.

I am not a big fan of Vanessa... mainly due to some of the stuff she said during covid, and her damaging a national park with her inscriptions (things which she has long since apologized for, so I'm over that), but I don't hate her at all. I actually liked her with Zac AND with Austin... 🤷🏾‍♀️ I will always view her with nostalgia due to HSM. 😊

I just think that for Shippers who heavily ship Austin and Kaia together and who want her to be "his forever woman", I sometimes get the feeling that some of them HAVE to hate Vanessa, because it's so obvious that Austin was with her the longest, and that their relationship seemed way different from his current relationship with Kaia.

Maybe it's a way of coping?? Kind of like how Jacdaya shippers hated on Tom so BADLY because he was probably a threat lol. 😅 I'm just saying... Sometimes shippers hate on the "old" boyfriend or girlfriend because parts of them feel threatened on some level with their ship I guess lol.

I wouldn't take what shippers say too seriously anon.

[thatdesklamp]

WAIT OMG-

been reading intrinsic warmth for a WHILE and your writing is top tier!! i always wondered to myself every time i’d read a chapter why the writing just STICKS, yk? i’m a MAJOR book girlie, i read 24/7.

AND THEN IMAGINE MY SURPRISE WHEN I READ ONE OF YOUR TAGS THAT YOU PUT UP ON ONE OF YOUR POSTS WHERE YOU WERE ANSWERING A QUESTION FROM ANOTHER LOVELY READER AND I SEE THAT YOU TOOK AN ENGLISH A LEVEL?

first of all (not 100% sure on this) but i’m pretty sure only british ppl take gcses, a levels, etc. YOU’RE BRITISH?

i feel like i’ve met my other half rn over something so tiny but yeah. IT LITERALLY EXPLAINS WHY YOUR WRITING IS SO GOOD:

i could point out the NUMBER of times i’ve seen juxtaposition, symbolism, foreshadowing in your fic to someone if they’d asked me to point it out for them. at first i thought you might’ve done it unknowingly, and then i decided that nope, bc foreshadowing is such a BIG writing technique that it simply couldn’t have been by accident.

it’s one thing to know about a writing technique and another to actually be able to SUCCESSFULLY incorporate it into your writing. if it isn’t clear enough, i’m saying that you did it AMAZINGLY. you’ve got a natural talent and i’m envioussss (in a supporting way ofc 😭).

you should really look into making your own book, and i think you EXCEL at the supernatural aspect of plot in stories. your writing is so unique and different yet so warm, it reminds me of autumn (my favourite season).

idk how to end such a long message, ultimately i don’t have a reason for typing this up and shit. ik you have tons of people probably saying the same thing and it might just get repetitive for you, but i wouldn’t feel comfortable not being part of said bunch-of-ppl-probably-saying-the-same-thing.

oh! and take your SWEET TIME updating. it’s your story, your fic, your writing. the ONLY thing we readers can give you as a payback and thanks is time, patience, and understanding <3333

RAHHH BRITTANIA 💪💪💪💪

Agh. Yes—I’m British (English to be precise, sweet sweet caroline etc), hence the use of ‘u’s in words like ‘colour’ and ‘humour’, and also why everyone’s parents are their ‘father’ or ‘mother’ and not mum/dad. ‘Mom’ feels too American but ‘mum’ feels too rah engerland, yk? I’ve mentioned previously that I’m looking forward to writing fics where the characters are actually from England and where I’m actually allowed to write them the way I talk, mostly. Good lord am I excited.

And yes lol I took English for an A-Level. Bloody smashed it too, if I get to brag, mwahaha. Didn’t take it any further (I’ve also previously said that I’m a # woman in stem uni student, which is true), but I still write a killer essay imo. Give me 10 minutes to do a refresher on ‘Othello’ (it’s been a while okay) and I can talk for donkeys about his tragic fall and how much of a wanker he is. Which he is! I’m a Desdemona defender for life.

You say ‘natural talent’. PLS. No!! God no. Not at all. I wish—that would’ve made it a lot easier, but whatever I can do rn is down to bloody years of toiling away on my shitty little laptop, I promise. I’ve got another anon ask that asked about some writing tips so I’ll do the bulk of them there but my number 1 will always and forever be to practise. Whatever skill I have now has been earned over the many years. You don’t even want to see some of the stuff that will never grace my ao3 page (atla had me in a chokehold through covid and I have never been the same).

But you are genuinely so complimentary: this is so so lovely of you. Thank you?? It’s really weird being someone who writes and also someone who enjoys analysing literature; you’re right, half of the ‘techniques’ are intentional (the number of times I’ve flicked through some chapters’ drafts and thought, ‘fucks sake none of this makes sense, I need to add some decent foreshadowing or none of this will make sense in two chapters’), but also so much of my writing is just thinking, ‘hmm, this doesn’t really feel right. No no, I don’t like the vibe of this. I want this to feel more GRAAHHH and less lalalala. Lemme change this up a bit’. Whether that leads to the whole, short sentences->speeds up the pace of the reader when reading the section->increased tension, mimics actual fight encounter, etc etc (all the stuff you blag on about in eng lit), then maybe that counts as intentional? And maybe not.

Making my own book? That’s lovely of you to say but I also really don’t have any ideas for anything non-fanfic’y! Lol. I love a good bit of canon compliance, that’s my issue. That being said—hey, another eng a level reference—I’ve made multiple references here to being the world’s #1 ‘Atonement’ hater. Unfortunately, it also lives damn rent free in my head and I’ve got the bare bones of a WW2-era, perhaps epistolary, longform fic buzzing around. (Fandom: Marauders. I’m a disgrace but here we go). I’ve written nothing for it and maybe I never will, but that’s one of the only things I can see as being more standalone from original canon. Anyway: it’s the fanfic life for me. Ali Hazelwood’s life is but a distant dream.

But anyway! Thank you again for your lovely words. The next IW chapter will take a very long time, I have to be frank, so thank you for the reassurance that that’s not absolutely disgraceful lmao T_T Thanks again!! <3

[starlightfae]

hey I was wondering if/how you managed to get a cfs diagnosis? its smth i've always suspected I have but everyone tries to convince me it's just a lifestyle issue or a depression side effect :/ also if theres any resources you've found helpful for managing it? thanks in advance !

(also not time sensitive so no pressure to answer quick or at all, trust me, I Get It)

I did manage to get an official CFS diagnosis, but it was more like I kept saying 'I have CFS' until finally, a doctor said 'okay' and put it on my diagnosis list. that's an oversimplification but what I mean is, don't count on the doctors to know shit about fuck about cfs lmao

This going to be a long, complicated answer, so heads up for that lol

I am extremely lucky that I have a mother who supports me. She helped me every step of the way, including standing up for me when I was dismissed and/or ridiculed by medical professionals. This isn't to say it's impossible to get your diagnosis without support, but it certainly helps and I'm not going to pretend her support didn't factor into things.

The first thing you have to do is get any other issues managed. For me, this meant trying out a few different antidepressants until I found one that helped my depression but ~somehow~ didn't affect my fatigue. I was able to point out that my depression symptoms didn't line up with my fatigue. depression and CFS symptoms both fluctuate, so if the fatigue was a part of the depression, it would line up- ie, more depressed, more fatigued (and vice versa)

this also means the doctors have to rule out everything that can cause fatigue. medication side effects, thyroid levels, sleep apnea, anemia, Lymes disease, etc.

something that will be VERY helpful in getting diagnosed is knowing CFS, because most doctors won't know shit about it. Although, with more people getting Long Covid, more doctors are realizing CFS is a real thing. This is because Long Covid is CFS. CFS is a post-viral condition, so if you can point out when you got a really bad virus and then started getting CFS symptoms, that will also be SUPER helpful.

More than likely, at least one doctor will try to shut you down for 'looking up your symptoms on Google and diagnosing yourself'. No shame if that's how you first heard of CFS, but I found it very satisfying to tell the doctor that I checked out library books and took notes lmao! The book I found that was super helpful was "Hope and Help for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia" by Alison C. Bested, Alan C. Logan, and Russell Howe.

as for other resources that may help, the r/cfs subreddit has been quite helpful! mostly in regards to support, but they also have some good links and advice

if you have any more questions or need me to clarify something, feel free to come back and ask! there is a lot more I can say about diagnosis criteria, symptoms besides fatigue, etc but I've already wrote an obscene amount, sorry lol

OH also I kept my notes from when I checked out the book I mentioned above, so if you are interested I can also share that info and save you the effort of reading the book yourself lol

[blindedbythedarkness]

My mind is so full right now. I feel more emotions than I can name thoughts, but there's just so much going on. When I was younger, my dad used to tell me that anxiety is just intolerance of uncertainty. Well, I have a hell of a lot of uncertainty right now and I get why people don't tolerate it, it's fucking uncomfortable.

At university, I have to make a decision which could mean giving up my dreams of being a doctor. Either that, or say nothing about being caused likely permanent harm by the institutions that were supposed to protect me. The real kicker is, I daren't even say more than that in case I post the wrong thing and fuck it all up both ways. Who can I even speak to about it? No one in my life has any useful advice for me because people just don't have to make massive fucking decisions like this on the regular. It all feels so heavy and maybe I'm an adult now, but I still feel like a kid with no clue what to do.

I also feel like I'm losing my parents. Both, at the same time. Though actually I think I've already lost my dad. He gave into the crowds last year and dropped all Covid precautions to "live his life". He's always been fixated on living at least to the age of his mother, which gives him 8 more years. His current lifestyle means if nothing changes, I doubt he'll make it there, at least without serious health issues. He wouldn't give a fuck if I told him though. It's all too hypothetical and he's too cynical that he doesn't want to live longer anyway. I don't think he can even conceive of how it is to live with serious chronic illness, he probably thinks he's built different and could just push through. I'm a living, breathing example of the damage Covid could do, but despite sharing half my genes, it could never happen to him. Even if it did, he'd just try harder than me.

I lie awake for hours at night, my mind involuntarily churning out essays and letters to the people in my life who's life choices are breaking my heart fragment by fragment. I beg my brain to shut up and let me rest, knowing I'll never bother to send them, but I just can't sleep again until its down on paper.

To my dad, I imagine writing him letters explaining how I know he's never prioritized me in his life, but perhaps he could reconsider. I want to tell him how he's killing me on the inside more each day with his decisions. I want to beg him to reconsider, because I want him to last long enough to see me married and meet my children; they'll already be lacking two grandparents, please don't make it one more. I want to threaten him, tell him when his brain is bursting with the fucked up proteins that mean he can't think or remember who I am anymore, all because he gave up and gave in to SARS2, it will be me who chooses his care home. Care homes which will lack even more staff, and will be even more expensive as the early onset dementia epidemic explodes a decade from now. I want to ask him if it was all for nothing, me rebuilding our relationship? Because if he carries on like this, I'll have no choice but to build walls to protect myself from the anticipatory grief. Do I really mean so little to him? He's choosing a few short years of the old-normal instead of me having a future with him in it.

I've shared similar thoughts with my mum and she seemed to understand my point of view, yet I'm still afraid she'll follow him down the same path. She says she's trying to balance being safe and living her life, and I understand no one can be perfect. But the world is growing more hostile and she's faced opposition to masking at work. She's never had as many balls as me, so I worry eventually she'll crack. She went on holiday recently, and there's not a single mask in her pictures. I know she likes to take it off for photos, but how can I know she ever wore it at all. If I question her, she scolds me for not trusting her, as if I haven't had an endless conveyor of friends and family willing to trade my life for brunch these past 4 years- of course I have trust issues. It also seems that she made a new friend on holiday, a friend that could become more. I have no issue with that, it'd be good for her. But what if they don't understand Covid? What if she caves to keep them in her life and trades safety for companionship?

I just feel so lost, and I have so many questions with answers I'm afraid to find out. But without them, I'm in some sort of emotional purgatory. I do have friends who I know would care. But one would never understand. Another is busy seeing family. Another is too new for me to drop all this on. And the one who would understand it most has her own horrors to contend with right now and I don't want to add to her stress. Meanwhile, my therapist is on holiday for a month.

Plus, and its small by comparison, I've spent the last two months in new-pet limbo. We've kept rats for the last 5 years and they've really been amazing for company, joy and amusement throughout this current dystopia. But we lost our last one two months ago and now an empty cage sits right in the middle of our living room. I've spent so much time and energy researching breeders and joining new lists, but there's been so many unanswered emails and painfully slow waits for responses. It would just be nice to know when this one nice thing will be back in my life.

How I feel right now is like no simple depression that, looking back, is what I had in my late teens. This is years of acute-on-chronic compounded trauma and discrimination and loss of even the most basic human need- safety. I'm numb and yet my whole chest hurts. I find myself wishing it would change, in either direction. I have fleeting thoughts of overdose on antidepressants or cutting myself, just to fortify the numbness or finally break through the walls around my heart. But I won't. Instead, I'll do just what I've been doing for four fucking years- enduring. Tolerating. Staying alive and not self-destructing. But inside, I'm crumbling more than ever.

Oh please, dear God, let things improve soon. There has to be a light at the end of this and I'm so desperate to live to see it.

[mistress-chan]

1095 Days Into My Life

Unfortunately I have not written as many actual blog posts as I would like, mainly keeping up with my #WeebWednedsay and other random fandom things. But today is a little different, today is three years into my life, my true life, a life I never thought I would live. Before I continue I will say this might get a bit deep, a bit personal, has trigger warning for mental health issues, and a lot of gay. If you have issues with anything lgbtqia+ or are a TERF please kindly fuck off. Good, now that that is out of the way, welcome to my life.

Let’s wind the clock back three years, I hated my life and myself. My father used to say before anything you had to love yourself and at the time I loathed myself. I could put on a mask to go to work, I would don a black duster to be who I thought was my true self, but I still hated who I was. I just thought it was part of having bi-polar disorder and depression, the feeling of always being on the razor’s edge of suicide just trying never to actually take an actual razor in hand. I will say I never committed any acts of self-harm which mainly one reason I never tried was out of spite for others. But now, I truly can say I love myself. How did that happen?

We need to go back a bit longer to see the start of this, that wonderful time of SARS-CoV-2 aka COVID-19. I at the time was working full time at home so the world shutting down around me did not cause me to have to drastically change what I already was not doing (being social), but during this time I did some reflection and saw that yeah I really did not like myself and needed to change it. And here is where my love of Utena just predicts things. I present to you THE EGG SPEECH:

If the egg's shell does not break, the chick will die without being born. We are the chick; the egg is the world. If the world's shell does not break, we will die without being born. Break the world's shell! For the sake of revolutionizing the world!

Now in the anime the egg is a whole different thing but in the lgbtqia+ community being an egg means you are trans but do not know it yet. You have your egg cracked when you figure out that yeah you might be trans. Which I kept saying for me never happened because for the longest time I said I was gender fluid and for a while used Ze/Zir pronouns but that has changed. See for a while I would do what in the convention world is known as CrossPlay, which is to cosplay a character that is a different gender than yours and well looking back I am surprised that it took this look to figure out that yeah I am girl.

Anyway, going back to why today matters, I decided to go talk to someone about what options I have for transing my gender and found a wonderful doctor who went over everything and prescribed the first dose of estrogen that I took on Jan 30th and damn did my body like what it got. I dropped the Ze/Zir to She/Her and started to go out full time as the woman I am now. 

Another thing that happened that day that I also see as a major sign that this was the right choice (besides my health being better, that I take after my mother and grandmother, and well not hating my life), was a person on YouTube that I liked so much I give them money on Patreon and here is the video:

Identity: A Trans Coming Out Story | Philosophy Tube ★

So thank you Abigail Thorn for being there for me in a very weird way. And I just found out she has a Tumblr account so yeah check here out here: theabigailthorn.tumblr.com

I am not going to say everything has been easy, I got fired from my job at the time for being trans, I have had the governor of the state I live in want me dead, I lost a favorite books series that I connected with because the author also seems to want me dead, and I am now the scariest thing to a conservative white male, transgender.

But honestly things have gone better than I expected. My family has taken it rather well, even those who I thought would not be as open to it have started to be more comfortable about it. The con I help with well they already had me wearing a lolita outfit all weekend so that was no big deal. My friends are still my friends and really that is all I can ask. I can say that I finally no longer feel weird saying that I am a lesbian and now I can be gay and do crimes. 

So for all those that think being trans is bad or harming others, or any of the other bullshit, please again go fuck yourselves, with a rusty spike. I am living my best life and I am finally able to look into a mirror and say I love the person I see and am glad that there are others that love that person as well.

Now back to your regularly scheduled whatever else I seem to do here.

-M