#originally a vent piece bc. i don't know what i want to do with my life now that i'm out of school

[thesoundofmadness]

I boarded this ship following you! From now on, what should I aim for?!

[daz4i]

ok ok I'm doing the silly and. talking abt my writing and showing parts of it and you gotta promise not to judge me and even if you find it cringe keep it to yourself pls be nice to me i am very sensitive!!!!!! anyway.

(tw for general depressing shit, mentions of death and implied csa near the end) (also this got so long I'm so sorry)

so the latest song(?) i wrote is called קלף טאקי בשולחן פוקר which is a reference to a local meme lol. i think i mentioned it before but if you missed it, it roughly translates to "uno card at a poker table". i think you can already guess what the topic of the song is. i actually wrote it after months of not writing anything and it felt like some of the grime on my brain was scrubbed off god bless

i have a file of a bunch of lines i come up with and don't know where to put yet and some of them are actually lifted from vent posts i make here and. this song was the first time i used smth from that file!! yippee!!!!

anyway i am not posting the whole thing bc my rhyming is. not good but I'll post some of my favorite parts in it i think. starting with

the lines the song opens with! originally it was called "unfit" (this word will come later too) but i wanted to get silly with it, hence the meme reference

speaking of references, that second line is one, to "avalanche" by bring me the horizon. great depression song go listen to it if you haven't yet. i kept thinking abt that line while writing and eventually i went "sure why not, may as well pay a tiny homage to one of my fav bands ever"

these are the opening lines of the second verse^

ik the length of the first one is a bit much compared to others and esp the first verse (see above), but this is one of the lines i grabbed from the aforementioned collection file and i was too attached to it to change it. i feel like once there's music and shit it might solve this

anyway i feel like here it's clearer what the topic actually is (the chorus also helps, but we'll get to that later) - having to be fake and pretending to be someone else in order for people to like you. the song wasn't originally supposed to be abt that but ngl most of what i write eventually comes to this lol (i think i have at least 3 other pieces about this oof <- joker kinnie)

this one!!!!! is a reference!!!!! to a play i liked as a teen and used a monologue from multiple times in acting school (everyone in the class loved the way i did it and asked me to keep using it in stuff and who am i to say no), dentity crisis by christopher durang!! it's about, well, identity crises lol, and eventually the main character loses herself trying to make sense of the people around her and the chaos of her life so naturally it felt like a fitting reference to make, esp with the whole theater theme

this is the. i wanna say bridge but idk all the right terminology oof. like the part before the final chorus+outro.

i think you might've picked up by now that this is a bit of a silly, somewhat sarcastic song on some level, hence the improv line lmao

when i hear this part in my head it's very dramatic, lots of belting like a broadway showstopper, mixed with some. almost spoken, yet still sing-song-y lines

and here the whole theater motif really picks up the pace too. honestly this one appears in a lot of my writing for obvious reasons, but it's especially fitting when the song is literally about pretending to be someone else in order to be loved

the game thing peeks its head in the first chorus which we will get into in a sec, but either way i think it goes hand in hand. games are often abt getting into the shoes of another character yknow? and there's a whole play on the word, well, play lol. and how it's both for games and for acting (in my first language we straight up don't have another word like "act". it's just the same as play and that's it. so maybe it works better in my head for that reason idk!)

music wise i imagine in the last 2~ lines the beat starts to slow down, the notes become a bit higher, every syllable is drawn out for a bit longer, and in "stops" there's a short pause before the final chorus comes in. speaking of!

yeah showing each of them separately would've been a bit too cringey even for me. i don't think they're good as standalones BUT i like them together paralleling each other. it's smth i like to do in almost every song i write tbh, and very often i switch between "i" "you" and "we" as the song keeps going, to sort of draw the listener/reader in and let them become a part of the "narrative" if they want to and relate to it hehe. kind of make them (and me) feel less alone in this feeling

second chorus talking abt masks is once again smth i put in a lot of what i write (<- joker kinnie. again) askflglg sorry for not being original it will happen again 👍 but what can i say, it's relevant to the topic!!

in the last one i tried adding some sense of urgency. a reminder that this comes after the build up of the bridge, so it'll either be more intense or more quiet. haven't decided yet.

"maybe one day I'll fit" goes with the original "unfit" idea. bc at the end of the day this is what it's all about yknow? gotta make up a humansona and constantly roleplay as it to get through.

and through that "maybe one day" sentiment I'll slide into the outro. it's less sung than it is spoken sing-songly and dramatically to the beat (speaking of, i imagine a slight key change by now, as well as the music itself becoming more chaotic and intense and messy for this part), so i didn't bother much with rhyming or a steady pace heh

i mean. can it really be something i wrote without at least one reference to death and/or being a slut (<- dazai kinnie).

actually ironically "better die as myself than be loved as a character" might be my favorite line in the whole thing bc. well as i said the song is sarcastic. in its essence it's about being TIRED of pretending to be someone else. it's about how it's not something you actually want, you only want its benefits. but eventually, at the end of the song, you're just too tired to keep it up. all shows have to end eventually. and, this connects back to the first chorus - "maybe one day I'll be myself", kind of implying this one day might be in death, since all of life is pretending (only good vibes and fun on this blog ♡)

but. not dead yet. and i still want the benefits. so better find an alternative! nobody needs to know who you are if you've got tits they can touch! - is what i learned growing up and as a teen it never failed me lol.

so, the song ends with finally taking off the mask, but. taking off everything else in the process as well. all for being wanted, or the pretense of being loved, because that's the only thing that matters 👌

and that's it! i apologize for being depressing and for how long it got, but i hope you liked it anyway uwu

[baladric]

4, 10, 14!! heehee!

ouuuu thank you!!!!

4. How many different styles/medium (e.g., digital art, traditional art, comics, sculpture, paper craft, etc.) did you try this year?

on the diversity of media front, i feel like i stagnated a little! i used to have a lot more breadth, but this year like 98% of my work was done with procreate, and the other 2% were very occasional pencil/pen doodles that i then spruced up in procreate ahaha!! but honestly i'm not too arsed about this, like the sheer volume of art i made this year is so much higher than usual, entirely bc messing around w procreate and the specific hyperfixations i've had this year really inspired me to keep throwing myself at drawings again and again until i got it right—which has translated into a lot of skill growth, which i honestly could not be happier about!!!!!

10. What inspired/motivated you this year?

content-wise, the goblin emperor was my main artistic motivator (specifically my own goddamn au s;alkdfjaow;if), but i'm also really learning how to create my own original works as expressions of various emotional experiences i'm shufflin my way through lately.

also (and i've said this already recently but it bears saying again) literally i looked at @littleowlbub 's concept art for their new comic, prism, and i fell deeply and madly in love with how they draw hands—they're like... so expressive and lovely, but what really sets them apart for me is this sense that there's joy in the simple act of drawing them. their hands are, for me, the visual equivalent of taking that first full breath of fresh air at the start of a hike in the blue ridge mountains ;lakjdfaef like, god, i look at a few of the drawings of spectrum specifically and just feel love and peace in my own existence as a tactile being, idk!!!! this is all a lot of weight to put on the way someone draws hands, but it's WHERE I'M AT and honestly it has really inspired me to find my own ways of creating that feeling with the hands i draw, and i have a long road ahead still but the results are so visible to me, and i'm so so excited about that progress!!!

14. What's one pairing/character/subject/body part/object you want to explore next year?

pairing(s): hrmm honestly i've been eyeballing my internal visualization of evemer and kadou from @ariaste 's A Taste Of Iron and Gold, like i am itchin to draw them a whole whole bunch

characters: it's become a pathological need to figure out how to simplify eddie entertainment munson's dumb face down to a few brush strokes, like i've done so much noodling to try to figure out what it is exactly that makes his face his face—is it the full lips? the angle of his eyes? the sparse eyebrows? the laugh lines? nose, the particular contours of his 3/4 profile?? who the fuck knows!!! but i will figure it out or i will die trying!!!!!!!!

subject: really digging my vent pieces so i fully intend to keep honing that style and the sort of. idk creative muscles that go into funneling big emotions into little eyestrain-y guys

body part: see my tender screeching about hands above. also really working on understanding legs. why are they like that. whose idea was that.

object: man i need to draw more objects. engineered shapes in general suck SO BAD. i wanna get better at musical instruments especially, but one of my broadest goals is to get better at dramatic lighting (light is a huge part of my creative world, which is really apparent in my writing and poetry, but much less so in my art bc i Don't Know How To Do It Yet), and i'm annoyingly aware that the best way to work at that is to, in fact, do a lot of still lives, and probably like. paint more. pls pls, 2023 me, let yourself fuck up with gouache. you love gouache. it's so good for light.

artist wrapped ask meme!

[wollfling]

I think partly I need to take a step back and think about what I want to do with my art truly because it's the only thing I'm good at/can do so I think I should pursue it, however it's not sellable as it is now bc its all so personal to me. Like if it's not my vent work, which is very specific to me in theme and the repeating figures (my wolfling who is just the curly haired wolf-boy I draw all of the time in my vent pieces or my more recent masked figure who basically just looks the same) then it's my ocs who aren't sellable because.. they aren't from anything and so obviously there is no buying interest. I've really only been making art for myself which is good but also, I can't really live from that.. my art a few years ago I could sell because they were usually just pretty dressed girls, and while some of it was vent or character work, it was more vague and easy for others to enjoy and want. That, and I would sell my original traditional pieces.. and I work mostly digital now. But I struggle too much to even draw things that I *want* to draw for myself. But basically what I had started this post with is like.. if it's not vent work or oc drawings... I just don't know what to draw anymore. If I alter my vent work to be less personal and.. "consumable"....... then it completely defeats the purpose of making it and it wouldn't be true to myself and just be soulless. I can't really fix my oc drawings for the same reasons. And well, I'm not good at fan art and I dont usually have much fun creating it (it's really rare 😓) I am not sure what else to draw. I havent had much inspo beyond my own need to put my mental tribulations into a drawing or illustrate my stories and characters.

All that and, well.. im terrified to know the print quality of my digital works as I have been horrible with just opening the default canvas and not setting the resolution to a reasonable number 😑..

That said I have a small select few that don't fall into vent or oc I think, but again I'm not sure they are sellable. It's almost sickening trying to look at my illustrations thinking how can make them more appealing to sell but also, disappointing that they aren't.

[1spooky-dad]

Back when i cared what my mother thought of me and my creative prospects, aka college, i sometimes read stories to her that i was particularly proud of. This always, always led to more heartbreak and frustration than any real critique could bring, simply bc she had zero concept of what a story is, somehow.

1. When i was actively writing my overwatch fanfic with all my ocs, i told her about the concept for a secret civilization of Australian natives, who, on their own, with their own advanced tech, had discovered an easy cure for most illnesses, including cancer brought on by radioactivity. This was after i had written a paper about the terrible treatment of Australian natives and how they have so often been erased in history, despite being one of the oldest groups of people on earth.

I had explained this all to my mother before explaining my concepts. She proceeded to ask why my civilization had to be futuristic and tech based, and why the native people couldn't just "find a magic root or something" instead of invent their own, superior tech. You know, instead of making them hard working, smart people, give them a magic root that they don't have to think about to use, and is the primary source of power, instead of the people themselves.

Even after explaining that that concept of natives being ~magic~ is white Hollywood bullshit and can be harmful to these groups of people, she couldn't grasp why i would design the civilization the way i did. She genuinely wanted me to change something i had so excitedly shown her, simply cause she was hand fed white culture version of native people and couldn't comprehend anything else in media.

2. I read one of my own original pieces to her, really, REALLY proud of it at the time. She only paid half attention to it, and then at the end said she couldn't follow it because two characters both had names that started with V. The names in question were Vladis, and Vervain. Very different names. Not really any rhyme to them, or matching mouth feel. She told me to change at least one name so it would be easier to follow. All my names are carefully chosen to properly fit character traits, even if you don't know that, i do, and the naming is very special to me. There is purpose to the names.

Big reason why i never shared my story where two characters are named Hokani, and Honani. There's reason for this, but i didn't have the energy to explain to her that their names are important.

3. When i was in high school, and going through very difficult mental illness, i vented through writing darker stories. No, they weren't any good, but writing about characters going mad and suffering through psychosis but still making it out and becoming better for it really helped me through a lot of hard times. The only time I read this kind of this to my mom, she scolded me for writing scary things, and told me to write happy things only.

4. This situation, over and over again without fail:

Mom, walks into my room to check on me: hey, what are you up to?

Me, writing in bed: working on a story, wanna hear what i have so far?

Mom: of course!

She sits down on the end of the bed and settles in as i start to read. A paragraph in, i look up and she's asleep.

5. The genuine shock she'd give any time i tell her about how my fictional world works, because every time, over the course of literal years, she can't fathom that i care so much about the thing I've been working on for so long. The "how do you remember all this?" That she must think comes off as amazed, but really just comes out as confused and honestly, disappointed bc i never put so much thought into, idk, math? As a general rule of thumb it's good to not show shock at how much someone knows about something if you know they've been working on it for years of their life, i think.

But then again, coming from the woman who, when asked point blank, couldn't remember the name of my best friend in high school, the only person who showed up for my sweet sixteen party, who was my writing partner, and who i spent most of my time with, maybe caring so much about something that you remember basic details about it just isn't her forte

[incarnateirony]

I've been told by someone I should make a post about this.

This is in regards to a certain group of fanpol that for some reason people associate to me. They did used to stay in my server, but were yeeted for a variety of problematic behavior (including: fanpoling, aggression, a variety of rule breaking, arguing the right to break the rules, and literally trying to take over the server to nuke what they wanted for being told to stop breaking the rules--ABOUT fanpoling).

I want to clarify:

1. I never told anyone to go out and fanpol anyone nor did I engage in them doing so, they were just, you know, people in the salt quarantine section of my server.

2. They were, in fact, scolded when they brought the fanpol in server against rules

3. I have no further affiliation with them.

4. I too think they're being giant twunts

For SOME REASON I am still getting blamed for their bullshit when it is the literal reason they were first reprimanded and, by their own cascade of inability to stop, ultimately removed from POLOL.

Listen, at the end of the day, idgaf if you have a gay dean headcanon as long as you're not out there like finding "rival lane" posts just to directly pick fights and bashing everyone on the head with it being THE ONE TRUE READ like you're allowed your sandbox and as far as I've seen all like 8 "gay dean theory" fans generally just mind their own fucking beeswax and build their own sandcastles. Nobody's out there doing real damage like, say, bronly stalking/libel/actor attacks they are literally writing fanfiction.

I don't like the theory. That doesn't mean I'm gonna stalk you down and assume the outright worst of gay dean fans as "biphobic" -- like, maybe listen and have a real debate (if they're open to it)? And if you disagree, disagree? There's a distinct difference between "paranoid cis guy saying dean 'can't be gay' bc he sleeps with women as bisexual erasure" or "actively pees in the real world LGBTQ sandbox by posting incest bs into real pride month tags just to annoy people even though that's like basic LGBTQ comm etiquette to never associate", and "LGBT fan builds harmless spec that he was repressed gay all along, which is like, actually a thing that happens irl sometimes". Like. You don't have to launch out in the worst possible faith against LGBT people that are just. Playing. In a sandbox. Not bothering anybody.

So I wanted to get that out there.

Ironically the person who told me to make this post was someone that was swept into their original horse shit before realizing how off the rails bananas they went. They saw it from the inside. And really thought I should make this post.

It's ironically the same as the bi Cas debate. Personally I can't stand the read, I feel like the entire journey of the shadow itself quite literally screams in heteronormativity through his ex to be abolished as he absolves himself the same way he taught Jack, who Made It Loud. Like indeed it's fucking loud. But at the end of the day if someone wants to see past that, that's fine. You have your own read you enjoy--stay in your lane and enjoy and we're fine. Come at me about it then expect an actual pointed debate. But I'm not gonna seek anybody out. Because beyond a few het girls that just relate through rachel, other popular m/f[or at least visually and textually maybe vague] examples like megstiel a lot are either lgbtq (such as ace and nb being common) or disabled (thus strong rachel parasocialization because she is a sweet bean)-- so the ones that DO mind their shit and DON'T show up to pick fights?

Man who gives a damn honestly. Who caaaares omg like the ship is canon the deancas queerness is canon it's all miraculously queer and yes but can people stop trying to eat each other with intersectional label fights omg that's it thats all you have to do just let fellow LGBTQ people play in their sandbox of an overall piece of queer media stop peeing on each other

Hell if you wanna vent!! And have those opinions!! Post them on your own blog! Converse it with your own people, or in your own server! Just don't come into my yard and take a shit and we're fine.

Or they pull that crybully bullyshit where someone doorkicks in, gets logically bodyslammed by someone already over their shit, and after them and 5 of their posse come in to fuck off cry that somehow the one person bullied all 5 of them, there on that person's blog

pls

that's not even highschool shit, that's playground bullshit omg how old are all of you

[savrenim]

hi hi hi. so I just got into the Hamilton fandom, I swear I am four years late where did everybody go, and, well. I am apparently a hamburr shipper. bcs that is my life now. anyway I saw your fic ifmlam and I swear it is my favourite of all the fics I've ever read (and trust me I've read literally thousands). I love it so so much, how do you write fics like that??? I cried about four times during the whole thing, I stayed up till 4am reading it even when I had to wake up at 7 because it is just. that. good. I could not stop thinking about it for days afterwards and ifmlam has just ruined me. I can't think of listen to Hamilton without thinking of ifmlam anymore.

on to my qursttion: is it abandoned? of course it's perfectly FINE if it is. don't let anyone tell u differently, your fic is YOURS and u are amazing.

but pls I really need closure from ur fic, it has been haunting me if its abandoned or ongoing and I've read ur other fics and they are just chefskiss and thank you so much for writing them all. thank you thank you thank you, I will never be able to thank you enough for writing this fic and for everything it's done for me. I am probably thousands of miles away but I am sending you virtual jugs through a co.puter screen right now.

(don't feel pressured to reply to this or update it flam, I know how overwhelming it can get with so many messages and after a while u get desensitized to it. u can literally reply "thx. itfmlam is abandoned" and I would still be amazingly star struck. anyway has gotten way too long and I need to sleep and I'm sorry u probably won't see this so I'm just talking to myself right now but bye!!)

and thank you so so much for writing itfmlam.

aaaah hello anon!

thank you so so much???? I am so??? honored??? that ifmlam rates so highly to you, and also that you've read my other fics??????

the answer to the "is ifmlam abandoned" question is probably the worst possible one, which is pretty much "I do want to finish it, both for the folks that still want closure as well as it bothers to me have abandoned projects that are in the public eye/ already partially published, but also, it is last on my current writing projects list"

my current actually active writing projects list, kind of in order of priority, is

I'm literally three chapters away from being Actually Fully Done with the not-quite-first-not-quite-second let's call it 1.5th draft of an actual?? full?? original?? novel?? Opus which of course then goes out to beta readers and then gets who-knows-how-much edited and then maybe beta readers again if a lot does change and then a copyeditor my mom, my copyeditor is my mom, and maybe my little brother he's one of the betas but is very good at catching typos and then I!!! get to publish it!!!! which is the single thing I am most excited for!!!!!!!!! this should be closed up in the next week or two, and then take a while for people to actually read the draft and get back to me.

I really desperately want to finish my open-but-like-90%-written fic, which means we raise it up, the final chapter of to the bottom of the river bc I realized that it was kind of incomplete, and the second chapter of a buried and a burning flame because any more work there will need to wait until the author publishes the next book in the series. this should be closed up in the next month or two.

Speedwrite the draft of the second book of the Opus series so that hopefully by the time book 1 edits are happening, I have an almost complete draft of the second book. this is mostly me side-eyeing myself about taking nearly four years to write the first book, but that is solidly in part because I had so many other open projects which point 2 is about clearing that docket. this should be done in the next year.

And then just have my major projects be, at least until books 1-5 are written and published, books 1-5 of that because that is arguably the first major 'plot arc' of the series, so if I'm looking for a pause point on writing, that's probably where to stop.

There are two or three other short side projects (a weird fun second person short story tentatively titled witch-queen, a collection of four short stories Memoirs about a not-so-evil necromancer and the shenanigans he gets up to trying to rule a kingdom, working title Perfectly Normal Recipe Blog which is a collaborative project about a perfectly normal recipe blog that definitely doesn't include anything out of the normal) that will happen when they happen

There are other projects that are on the backburner -- The Numanok Files, a series of probably 12-15 short novellas about a mercenary/ bounty hunter esque person in space whose specialty is dealing with hauntings, but, like, 80% of their jobs is actually "you are effectively a space home inspector pointing out faulty wiring reacting to solar flares/ there's a weird alien fungus/ it's carbon monoxide okay change your atmosphere filters" and 20% of it is punching ghosts; there's a post-post apocalypse novel that I want to write that I know characters and general pacing and half the setting but need to work out the other half and figure out how much aesthetic I want to commit to; there's Strangeside7 aka spacerace book that is my reaction to how much I love how Redline the anime movie commits itself to "no we are about a race, like 60% of the screentime is just fully going to be an utterly ridiculous sci fi space race"; there's even a ridiculous YA trilogy that I would have to completely transplant the setting but might end up writing because the interplay between angel-physics and physics-physics was one of my favorite things in the world. and I guess the weird ridiculous technically a sequel series to ifmlam that was going to be published as original books that was basically me having fun with 'okay I fucking love star wars prequels old rotting space bureaucracy galactic republic style' except with seers and that also still might happen because it does have some of the coolest sci fi concepts and honestly I thiiiink that's all?

but the tl;dr of that timeline is I'm trying to finish a punch of projects Right Now, so that I can write books 2-5 of Opus, and then when I'm done that (which honestly, my average fiction-writing output is close to 100k a year. if I'm concentrating purely on one project, and writing books that are about 100k, we are talking four years. although my job situation is super up in the air in that period and writing might get put solidly on the backburner as I try to make it in academia, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) I will re-evaluate which projects go next, and that's when ifmlam is likely to come up for review.

I do not have any expectations that I will make it as an original author. I'm planning on posting all of my stuff online for free, but, like. it is incredibly difficult to convince people to try out even a piece of free and easily accessibly original work even if one has a huge following, I am a very small fanfiction author, and from what I can tell the majority of the people who are interested in my work are mostly interested in me finishing ifmlam. writing is a hobby for me, and while I'm writing mostly for me--and hence the for me bit at least for the next five years is pretty solidly going to be this series that I am deeply excited about and have sunk my heart and soul into every single aspect of--I'm human, and I don't really like shouting into the void, and I expect if I spend five years publishing to absolutely no response I will either stop writing for a while and do other things gods know my life is busy enough, return to fandom in general to write some other fanfic about whatever I get deeply into, or return to a work that I actually get response to. so ifmlam will probably start getting worked on a bit at that point one way or another. unless, of course, we are in the incredibly rare timeline in which I do make it as an original author, there are people who are deeply hyped for my original works and an actual demand for them, in which case as you may have noticed there are enough ideas there to keep me busy for a decade or two, and they will just get my full attention instead of fanfiction*. in this timeline, I will do what I was considering doing a few years ago, which is officially declare ifmlam otherwise abandoned and make one more giant chapter update which is a full and cleaned up outline of what I was going to write, interspersed with the scenes already written, and have ifmlam be given at least that closure.

*I want to make it clear that I very much love fanfiction and am proud to have been a fanfiction author and in my heart of hearts would keep writing it forever, I just also have a lot of ideas for characters and settings and magic systems and Aesthetics and I have been biting at the bit to write something that is //mine// and all mine and only mine for a while, I don't see original work as superior so much as there are a dozen fandoms that I am currently in and bursting to make content about except oops these fandoms currently only exist in my head, and I want to correct that

of course given how much as writing is my vent activity and I write what I'm in the mood for, there's a chance I'll feel ifmlam cravings before then, just... expect it to take a couple of years for an update, but also for there to be an update one way of another in a couple of years? but as for right now, I'm turning to original writing, because that is what brings me joy.

but I am really deeply honored that it brought you so much joy!!! and while I will never publish spoilers in a public place, if you message me off anon I am perfectly happy to give a run-down of my current plans for the ending, bc I know "wait a couple years and see" is not the most satisfactory of answers! and hey maybe you'll be like me and once you've given Opus a try you'll decide you like it better too, it does have Seers although they are deeply different Seers than in ifmlam but imo it's very gay and fun and at least politics on one side

[denrbough]

In defense of bill denbrough

I don't have the room for screenshots (I tried to make them a gif of a slideshow but it kept crashing Tumblr bc huge files) but I'll sum up a few things I want to clear up in this

People thinking that Bill chose to be in charge of the losers to be bossy

Him wanting to leave Eddie in the sewers just because

That he was selfish

That he didn't have important problems ig?? Or that his story was uninteresting??

I want to talk about his perseverance despite a bad home life

And how the losers love him, if the losers you love can love him, you can too

And my last point is about how most people think somehow that Bill would be at all discriminatory??

I have bits and pieces from the book for all the claims and more coming below; I reread the whole book for this but kept what seemed most important to bring up

First; I'm going to start with how Bill didn't actually choose to be in charge, he didn't want to boss people around. It was clear in him and also sometimes noticed by the other losers, notably Eddie:

Eddie notices twice that the whole leadership thing is taking a major toll on Bill's physical and emotional health. That and Bill doesn't want to be the planner and the leader. He thinks he's a freak and he doesn't think he knows what he's doing. They nominated him as leader from a young age. He couldn't control that. (In order to preserve image quality and go into more detail on specific screenshots I will be making individual metas on each of my bullet points, this is just the large post where I vent my issues with the fandom perception)

Next I'd like to debunk the assumption that Bill wanted to leave Eddie in the sewers. He didn't, he wanted to come out alive with the others who still had a chance at making it. If you want further to analyze this, it can be brought up that Richie and Bev didn't want Bill to take Audra's alive body from the sewers despite us all saying Bill is the asshole for not being able to carry Eddie out.

In fact, Bev and Ben were the ones to originally suggest leaving Eddie. And to further that, Bev yelled at Bill for trying to get the living human out as well. Bev's motivations were more rushed and selfish, but Bill had the overarching goal of getting them all out.

That segways nicely into a point I'd like to make about how Bill genuinely was the most determined to kill It and not just for his own reasons, he thought of the other kids who might die several times while the other losers like to gloss over that:

When Richie went to go see the horror picture, he decided to pretend Bill's fingers hadn't almost been cut off. Put it off as a joint hallucination. And direct quote "besides there was no law saying he had to spend the next ten years thinking about it, was there? Nope"

If Bill hadn't pleaded with Richie to help, Richie would have had no intention of trying to get rid of It and save the other kids, even after Richie had to watch his friend get injured firsthand.

Stan was the same, not wanting to end up in the "nuthouse" on juniper hill. But Bill's motivation to save the town pulled even the most hesitant losers in to help.

And it's not just saving the kids from pennywise. No, he initiated a fight with Bowers not even knowing that his friends would join him and help, all to help a kid that he didn't even know. Mike Hanlon.

Not only was he the most determined, but in regards to pennywise trauma, he already had something very lasting to deal with as far as his mental health. His parents were neglectful and his brother was dead, and he kept on trying regardless. He was depressed, which is very clear in the book.

There's the point when he's getting Eddie's inhaler and it states "just as if Ben would be astounded if you asked him if he was lonely, Bill would have been likewise astounded if asked if he was courting death."

The narration makes it abundantly clear that Ben is lonely and always has been, which symbolises here that Bill is clearly suicidal, even if not actively, he does try to die/do things to harm himself with no intention of stopping.

This passage was heartbreaking. His fear in this scene was that everyone would forget about him, like his parents did, and like Georgie was gone. It's all his fault, he decides, and he thinks he deserves to be punished but he's still fully terrified of what he thinks he deserves.

In that note, his parents were neglectful, which affected him consistently in his thought process.

He wouldn't finish dinner because he couldn't stand to sit with them when they were so cold with him.

Mike mentions as adults that Bill practiced that poem so much because Bill wanted so badly for his mom to think he's a good boy. Bill cried at this, again as an adult.

He wanted to take pennywise's severed head to his parents and talk about how he'd avenged Georgie and "would they please finally talk to him"

He even thinks one point about how his parents are so caught up in their grief that he wonders if they know he's hurting, or if he's being reckless.

But unlike Sharon and Zack Denbrough. The losers were smitten with him. There's several passages of the losers talking about how much he means to them or how good he is.

Not to mention that Bill is the only one Bev told about her abusive father. She told him and he coaxed it out of her to let herself say she hated him, which is a huge turning point in the development of the way she views evil.

On a whole new thread of thought, I'd like to bring up how the fandom likes to pretend that Bill would be the most discriminatory loser?? I have a whole other meta to write about comparing losers in that way but Bill very clearly had the least ill intent towards minorities.

He met Mike and Mike was scared he'd ask questions about what it was like to be black, but Bill just asked him about baseball, and this comforted Mike. There's also when Richie is teaching Eddie about syphilis and how men and women get it from fucking, and Bill jumps in to say "unless it's two guys who are queer" and he had no malace or upset towards gay men, he just found it important to include in the conversation, which could be a nod to Bill accepting Eddie as gay, or even being mlm himself because it was a quick thought to have if it wasn't something prevalent in his life. He knows the shopkeep where he got silver the second time was gay, and was apologetic for scaring him, mentally acknowledging the hate crime

If you read this whole thing you deserve a prize for being a champ bc I'm more long winded than Stephen King himself Anna oop-

[blackrupee]

Woah that's a lot to process. Are you deciding to hold off on school bc of the cost or because of how time consuming it is? And I don't think there's anything wrong with feeling exposed with that person you talked to, if they came to talk to you while you were upset I think they expected to hear some sort of venting. Opening up can be good. I hate that that happened on what I'm assuming was a good night though. The brain is a bitch like that. New place though? Cheaper? #winning

welcome to my twisted ankle (very ramble-y)

neither. im just really lazy and procrastinate hardcore and i got an appointment to sign up for classes like.......two months after i should have lmao. so all the classes i really need to take are taken. plus, i feel like my second job is kinda expecting me to stay working through christmas and beyond maybe, but theres no way ill be able to survive on the kind of money im making there. like. its nice money but its very much a side job that i originally got because my leases overlapped. idk maybe what ill do is skip next semester, sign up for spring semester hella early, and arrange my classes so that i can maybe drop arbys? because ill have even more money saved up by then (im at a p decent spot rn with the plan of attending classes this fall)

but idk. i really do want to go back to school. i think i only need 34 hours to graduate so thats like two semesters and a couple winter classes and i just. would like to get it out of the way. on the other hand, though, what the fuck am i going to do afterward? i havent had a plan in life ever. i never thought id live this long and i never WANTED to live this long and the dependable schedule of “keep going to school” has become a crutch i guess idk. in that case, delaying finishing school becomes an excuse to avoid having to make difficult plans and decisions. kbdkjbfakjbjkjnfsdjkfdsajfds this is a fucking mess

but idk i dont really like to talk about my feelings. thats kind of a lie because i talk about what a piece of shit i am and how i want to kill myself all the time but theres a lot of internal monologue that goes on that ive never really shared with anyone. self analysis to the nth degree. ive always tried to bottle up my feelings and i feel like ive gotten worse at it but no ones really seen the UGLY side of me. only the Ugly side, which i parade around constantly. 

ultimately its not her responsibility though. like. she can say “oh i really want to help you and i want to listen to you and you can always vent to me(:” all she wants but its still not fair to unload everything onto her. plus, and this is going to sound shitty, i dont know if i really trust her. i cant really trust anyone tbh. like i dont really think of people as friends in an honest sense but more as a way to express familiarity (this is my friend = this is a person with whom i associate relatively regularly and who provides me with entertainment through conversations/etc). maybe that IS what a friend is. idfk. god this is so fucking edgy and i dont mean to come off that way sdjfsfdsfkdsjfsdankfask. i just know that i provide nothing positive for people? i provide no utility? so theres no incentive to interact with me at all? and i dont understand why people do, unless i can point to like, use of my house, or my writing (helped this girl write her paper), or my car (driving, moving). and in that case, its not friendship but a parasitic relationship. or is it parasitic if i get utility out of them? is mutual benefit the foundation of friendship? is it its entirety?

holy FUCKING shit this is all stream of consciousness basically and its pretentious and edgy as fuck i am so sorry if you made it through that paragraph

but yeah it was a good night until then but i always ruin everyones night :^)

and hell yeah new place. cant wait to move