#queue ((oh hell i've been queued))

[silverfoxstole]

OK. Right. I've sorted my panel photos, which I'll start posting tomorrow (I won't bombard you with them all at once!), so I can get my thoughts straight about yesterday. This is going to be long; sorry! I'll divide it into two parts so that those who want to skip my wittering and just see the pics can.

I hadn't actually thought I'd ever go to a con again; my last one had been back in 2009 and they've got a hell of a lot bigger since then, which sort of puts me off as I don’t really like crowds, and living as I do right down on the south coast they're usually too far away. However, when back at the end of January an ad popped up out of the blue on my Facebook feed informing me that Paul would be appearing at Portsmouth Comic Con (less than ten miles from me) my heart skipped a beat and I started wondering whether I'd be able to go. Of course, there was nothing stopping me but I wasn't keen to go on my own, and I knew my DW-and-anything-else-related-to-scifi-fantasy-etc-hating sister would never agree.

When not long later I saw Sylvester was going to be there as well I mentioned it to my friend P (with whom I’ve attended cons in the past), lamenting that I had no one to go with and not really expecting her to suggest that she try to come down from Manchester so we could go together but to my surprise she did and so the tickets were duly booked. Fast forward to about three weeks ago, unfortunately, and things started to go - literally in this case - off the rails thanks to a driver's strike and then engineering work that meant no trains into Portsmouth for the 11th and 12th and P very reluctantly having to drop out because she wouldn't be able to get down here and back in time for work on Monday. Still wanting to go but not really wanting to do it alone I had no choice but to ask sis to come with me, which she very gamely did and I owe her. Big Time. It’s really not her thing and I know she didn't enjoy it at all. She works in town and made me stand on the outside in the queue in case she saw anyone she knew!

I had been worried about how I was going to react as I do suffer from anxiety and I've not been amongst crowds since before Covid, but much to my surprise I was completely relaxed, even when talking to the guests; I'm obviously long past my 'OMG it's Paul!' phase (thank goodness!) and instead it was a case of 'Oh, yeah, there he is, and Sylv and Sophie (a later addition, and one I'd been hoping for) too.' I don't know whether it's because they're so familiar or I just got used to actors popping in when I worked in a shop near a theatre, but it was easy and I'm so glad! The reflexology session I had in Thursday might have helped keep me calm, too; if you’re feeling tense I recommend it!

I had only previously visited the Guildhall for concerts (sis knows it better as she's had to do presentations to the city council in the past) so it was rather odd to be in there during the day. I have to say that I think they could have put aside more room for the guests as it was difficult to work out who was queuing to see who (ho ho). It was very warm and the setup also made taking photos a bit awkward with people having to dance round each other a bit. We went to see Paul first (of course), and when he clocked me in my NotD cosplay he leaned back, smiled and announced 'It's like lookin' in a mirror!' I honestly can't remember exactly what I said in response to that! Probably nothing that coherent! He asked if I'd made it myself, which gave me a neat opportunity to present the gift I'd made for him: an Eighth Doctor bear and Mr Bush bear.

I think i've wanted to make bears for Paul ever since I put together the first one nearly three years ago, but I never thought I'd get a chance so when I knew I'd be going to the con I started planning. I was originally just going to do the Doctor, and make a Seven bear for Sylvester, but as they were coming to Portsmouth I decided to do Bush as well since I can’t imagine Paul gets a lot of Hornblower-related gifts. Of course, when it was confirmed that Sophie would be there I had to make an Ace bear too and here they all are before I packed them up yesterday morning, sitting on the bags i'd also run up to put them in (not pictured, my terrible embroidery name tags to help me tell who was who):

I'll do some more detailed posts so you can see them properly another day, but I was so pleased with they way they turned out that it was really hard to give them up! At least I knew they'd be going to good homes!

When I gave Paul the bag he just looked at me in surprise and went 'Is that for me? Can I open it now?' and there was a smile on his face as soon as he saw what was inside. 'That's my career! Doctor Who and Hornblower!' He absolutely loved them, couldn't believe I'd made them and told me 'I have a room where I keep all the gifts I've been given, and these are going to take pride of place.' I couldn't wish for more than that! Well, maybe a photo of him with them but it was busy and I didn't like to ask and possibly hold things up. I hope he's found the alternative Dark Eyes outfit that I added for Eight bear as I had some fabric leftover from my jacket; the sonic for that one took a bit of ingenuity!

He asked about my costume again while we were getting into position (for want of a better term) for a photo and commented that so many people are paying someone to make their cosplays now and spending a hundreds of pounds, something I'd guess he finds quite astonishing given the incredulous look on his face when he said it. I could be wrong, but I got the impression that he likes to see what different fans have come up with; there are a lot of people who seem to be patronising Steven Ricks since Paul got his remade costume last year, which I can understand because the man is a brilliant tailor, but sometimes it must be a bit like seeing clones.

Jen took the photo and we were about to leave it there but then this strangely confident person I found inside me asked Paul a question:

‘Can I be cheeky?’

‘Sure.’

‘Can I give you a hug?’

‘Of course!’

Well, if you don’t ask, you don’t get! (says the woman who hates asking for things in shops) He gives very good hugs. 🥰

I did manage to let him go (it wasn’t easy!) and he thanked me again for the bears before we moved on to see Sophie, which involved going round to join another queue in the same small space. Confusing? Yep!

I don't know who here has met Sophie Aldred but you should because she is so, so lovely. Ace has always been one of my favourite companions and I was so pleased when I saw she would be coming. I'd already started an Ace bear with the intention of giving it to Sylvester with his, but of course that got changed and Sophie was smitten. She looked really closely at it, remarking on the little details - 'Oh, it's even got the plait. And a rucksack and baseball bat!' - and sat it proudly on the corner of her table, where I assume it stayed for some of the day. Apparently it's the best Ace bear she's ever seen - you can't get a better accolade than that! (My head was swelling somewhat by this point, by the way. I don't like to blow my own trumpet but I don't often get so many compliments, and never in such a short space of time, so i hope you can forgive me for including them.)

Last but not least, of course, there was Sylvester, which meant another queue in the same space, which was just daft as because their tables were next to each other you didn't know whether people were waiting for him or for Paul. I'm sure that could have been organised much better than it was. In the same section there were also two chaps who had somethng to do with Star Wars who weren't getting much attention at all which was a bit awkward. They haven't gone back today and I can't blame really them.

I've wanted to meet Sylv for years and he didn’t disappoint. He liked the fabric the bag was made from because its starry night pattern was similar to his waistcoat, which admittedly was why i bought it in the first place. When he got it open and saw what was inside he said 'Oh! I'm a little bear! That’s lovely!’ and when I said I'd made one for Sophie too leaned round trying to see it on Sophie's table. I half wish I'd made a set of both for each of them now but that might have been overkill, and I would have needed a rucksack of my own to transport them all; my bag was full to bursting as it was. Maybe if I see them again I’ll give Sophie a Doctor bear and Sylvester an Ace. As it stands I am so, so pleased that all three of them liked something I'd made so much, and Sylvester and Sophie were both also taken with the cartoons of the Seventh Doctor and Ace that I asked them to sign.

Phew! If you've reached the end of this, well done! I know I have tendency to ramble on and I commend your stamina! I'll put the photos in a separate post but I was one happy camper, especially as just afterwards i got another compliment on my costume and was asked to pose in the TARDIS! We didn't stay the whole day as it was hot, I'd pretty much seen what I wanted to (the Doctor Who 'exhibition' was just a few monster replicas, most of which weren't that good, unlike the really impressive experience they had last year for the 60th and which I would have loved to see. And there were no daleks! My ambition to hug a dalek sadly remains unfulfilled *sniff*) sis had developed a headache, but I'm very glad I went. 😀

[schizosamwincester]

Hello! Welcome my sideblog! If you want to see me post about not Supernatural, my main is @drowninginredink.

If you're not going to read this introduction, it/its please, yes I am actually schizophrenic, and beware, incest lies ahead. The rest is below the cut.

Fics:

You sound absurd, even if you're right - schizophrenic!Sam, sampreg, Sam & Dean, past Sam/Lucifer

Sissy - closeted trans woman!Dean/John

Sister - Sam finds out about trans woman!Dean (Sam & Dean)

I remember when your head caught flame - Sam/John, underage, first kiss

But they were fucked up in their turn - closeted trans woman!Dean & closeted trans woman!John

Take My Body - trans man!Sam/John

A disfiguring chicken pox of the soul - weirdcest, weecest, trans boy!Sam/trans girl!Dean (not that either knows it yet)

like the baptism he never had - Sam/Dean, necrophilia, piss (All Hell Breaks Loose)

Silver Linings - Sam/Dean, necrophilia, piss (yes, again. But this time it's Mystery Spot)

Tonight I give in to the fantasy - Trans woman!Dean, sex worker!Dean

I'll use you as a warning sign - Sam/John, Dean/John, unplanned pregnancy

Webweaves:

Sober II/samjohn

An Overdue Downfall/Sam

The Sonnet-Ballad/deanjohn

Drowning in the Sound/John

I Haven't Masturbated in Five Days for Fear of Crying/wincest

Z-E-P-H-Y-R/Sam and Dean (and the Impala)

Big Houses/wincest

And Saints/John and Mary

The Cigarette Duet/wincest

What Makes a Man?/deanjohn

Rent/wincest

The Moon Will Sing/John & Dean

less words/wincest

Bike/wincest

Big Houses/Dean

San Cristóbal/Sam

Young and Dumb/Sam (implied wincest)

Father/deanjohn

I use mostly my own screenshots for weaves, so if you ever want one for your own thing, just ask and I'll send you the original!

All the posts about my pet headcanon are tagged "#schizophrenic sam winchester." Creative, I know. The occasional solely schizophrenia related posts are tagged "#schizospec education." Queue tag is #hallqueuecinations and oh boy do I have way too much stuff queued. I do tag ships so you can filter them out if you want to, but like... I am a johndean and wincest person. If you really don't want to see that, you should just leave.

I am watching SPN for the first time and am currently on episode S3 E7. Don't worry about spoiling me. Trust me, I've already been all over SPN tumblr. And yes, I am already headcanoning Sam as schizophrenic despite having not yet gotten to the part where he actually hallucinates. Pretty early on, I'd seen enough from the fandom to know that Sam was going to give me ~feelings~ as a schizophrenic, but Home was what sold me on it. The way he responds to the vision is exactly like my experience of delusions. It's like having blinders on. You can't think about anything else and you need to figure it all out and fix it right this minute. It's urgent and obsessive in the same way Sam was. His body language, too, was just perfect, down to just what he did with his hands. I look at Sam, especially Sam getting visions, and I see myself. So. Sam Winchester is schizophrenic. Not in some "Sam hallucinated the entire show" way (God I hate those theories) or that none of the supernatural stuff is real. Everything we see is real, but Sam's brain also pulls some shit of its own.

A very important note, given the name of my blog: schizo is a slur. I reclaim it a lot. I was diagnosed by people who want to change the definition of schizophrenia, and so for a long time, I was explicitly told not to call myself schizophrenic. That's bullshit. My symptoms aren't quite traditional, and I am at the more mild end, but as per the current DSM? I'm schizophrenic. But because for a long time I got told "you're schizo-spec, but not schizophrenic," the word I associate myself with more than anything is schizo. I try to actually write out schizophrenic when I'm on this account, but in real life, I usually don't. But if you are not anywhere on the schizophrenia spectrum, you should not say it (unless you're tagging me). I don't want my handle to give anyone the idea that you can go around calling Sam a schizo. I can. You can't.

My purpose isn't directly to educate about schizophrenia, but I know that the general cultural perception of it misses a lot, so just by shouting about how I headcanon Sam as schizophrenic, I will accidentally teach you all things. In light of that, there will be the occasional reblog of not at all SPN related awareness posts, and my asks are always open. You all have my permission to ask rude and personal questions about it that you should not ask strangers. Schizophrenia is basically a special interest of mine at this point. I am very open about stuff, not so much because of desire to educate or what have you but just because part of my schizophrenia is having very little filter. I will say that if you ask me about the delusions I've had, you're going to get an incomplete answer because going into them too much can be triggering. Everything else is on the table, though.

My banner is from this webweave (which I made).

And once again, I am very much johndean trash, with a strong love for samjohn. I do certainly partake in my fair share of wincest as well, but really, I'm here for The Dad Ships. Point is, this blog is very much not an incest-free zone. I'd say that I'm sorry, but I'm not. You're watching The Incest Show. What do you expect? If you do not like that, block me now and move on.

Fun fact: my birthday is November 5. No wonder I eventually broke down and decided I needed to see what SPN actually was.

[magpies-gold]

I may have finally unlocked the thing what turns my unhealthy overproductive causes-me-burnout creativity into enjoyable creativity - and it's called working off of vibes.

In the past I've tried just taking breaks from being creative, but that never works. Doing things other than being creative just feels like I've put myself in time out from the thing I actually like doing. Ultimately, I want to be creative. I love making art! I love writing stories! I genuinely get life from being my artistic self like.... all the heckin' time. It's all I genuinely want to do is make stuff. What I don't get life from is making it a grind. Working to rigid schedules, focusing on daily goals and - oh my lord, I despise the push to monetize it. I'm leaning hard away from that these days, and I'm not sure how far I'll ultimately take my aversion to pursuing profit from my creative ventures. It doesn't make me significantly happier to make money off of it (even though sometimes it's necessary, like when disaster strikes and I don't readily have four digits in the bank account to fix whatever's exploded), especially when making money comes with added stress from things like figuring out the taxes on what I've made, and the horrors of the perpetual chase to make more money. The emotional balance trends towards the negative and I'm over it. So I'm attempting a vibes-based approach - doing things when it's good for me to, and in a way that is fun. Some of it's a bit of concerted de-programming: for example, my webcomic is a source of truly bad habits for no good reason. It exists only on my Patreon, and it is exceptionally obscure and always was. There is very little point in wearing myself out trying to pour twenty hours a week into a new page every single week just because one is supposed to stick to a schedule, but over the last decade or so I programmed myself very well to do just that. Getting out of that rut so that I can have a healthy relationship with it again is a fight, but I'm winning. I want to chase the short term happy of getting a new page queued up every Monday, but instead I'm refusing to do so. If the page is done, I queue it up a few days late. And then the next week a few days later than that. Always a different number of days, pushing it out of sync so that I can't fall back into routine and neither can my handful of readers. I did not ever promise them a schedule. A schedule is bad for me. Result? I (mostly) drew three pages this weekend and enjoyed it. They're not done, but I made a heck of a dent and didn't feel gross about it. I'll finish them over the course of the next week or so, in bits and pieces rather than forcing myself to sit still for hours at a time until the page is done. I should be stopping when I'm done. I'm also way happier with the art I'm making. I'm still churning it out quick, but the lack of self-imposed deadlines means that I can have fun with it. I'm doing similar things with my writing. It's nice when I can keep Alpha Base moving forward, but for the last while I've been muddling around in different directions than forward and it's actually getting the creative wheels spinning in my head better than the methodical one-step-in-front-of-the-other approach. If I have a hankering to jump elsewhere in the plot and write a scene, I do. If I need to explore an aspect of a character that technically falls into a prequel (because dang it, I'm starting to develop prequel material) then I go for that. If writing a drabble that might not even land in the book, or any of the book(s), is what I need, then I'm doing that, and it doesn't matter if I'm "ready" to or "there yet" - I'm just doing it. Vibes. It's all worthwhile.  Hell, I spent most of the weekend writing a purely fluff scene (me! writing fluff!) between two of my antagonists and I think that was one of the best ways to spend a weekend. I feel damn good about it and learned a ton about them both. I think I even know where in the book to put it, and I sure didn't when I started writing. Didn't know that would happen! Life's too short to spend turning everything into a dang job.  I just want to play. So to hell with it. We play.

[sees-ghosts]

tiny tag dump. 

(look at me trying to be organized lol)

[joannahunts-a]

Tag dump. Finally getting all fancy like the cool kids.

[alientoastt]

tagged by @totopopopo :D

why did you chose your url? - it was my instagram username since like. 2017 or 2018? when cartoony alien prints were on everything. and i like toast. specifically avocado toast! but i settle for plain with butter

any side blogs? - yeah! @veomucho aesthetic blog @jonnyvangelis fic blog (canon url my beloved) and @marius-von-raum gaming blog. @lot27 is like my. for-later bin? its an untagged wastescape. every time i mention it someone follows it. you dont have to follow it

how long have you been on tumblr? - too long. i had to check my archive for this but. since feb 2017. its been four years

do you have a queue tag? - nahh. i have like one post queued for a tumblr holiday but its untagged

why did you start your blog in the first place? - a bitch could only handle instagram text post screenshots for so long 😔😔

why did you chose your icon? - this is the most gender tim i've drawn. im bi. im genderfluid. i contain too much gender

why did you chose your header? - oh i never get to talk about this!! thats my dnd character skunk (the one with the skunk hair) and his husband duke! drawn over that one pic of punks sleeping on the tube. the full one is here, along with a bonus smooch :D peep the mechs tshirt

what’s your post with the most notes? - these two fucking pictures of my grandma's cat tonto. which is fair because hes very sweet and i love him dearly but 33,899 notes is a lil bit exhausting (post is here)

how many mutuals do you have? - yall keep fucking track? probably more than i think and fewer than other people think

how many followers do you have? - 1,489!

how many people are you following? - 326 but i think like half of those havent posted since 2018

have you ever made a shitpost? - no man is innocent. of course

how often do you use tumblr each day? - this is the only fucking website i put my art on anymore and i am fond of the people here so. a lot?

did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? - statistically yes but i don't remember what it was and i block VERY liberally. does the gravy argument that made me follow ruth count

how do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts? - hell for my anxiety and guarenteed to keep me from reblogging it. theres a reason i tag "rb bait" even in joke posts

do you like tag games? - yes i LOVE talking about myself

do you like ask games? - see above :D

which of your tumblr mutuals do you think is famous - its @peitalo the boyfriend of my darling boyfriends, my sweet friend peebert, finder of members only jackets and who i love so dearly

do you have a crush on a mutual? - im dating @trashymayhem and @raycowboyroy does that count

tagging. whoever wants to do this i still have to finish breakfast and id rather do that than tag