#right now past me is drafting this after one of the lowest days ive experienced in a few months

[floralfractals]

Hi everyone, I wanted to write a quick update to you guys :)

I made this blog in March of 2021. At the time, I followed my first math course on fractals and dynamics, and had just discovered a tool to make my own awesome fractals. This blog started out as a place to share the art I was making as a coping mechanism during covid, but as I quit making them after a few months, this blog died pretty quickly. In 2022, I decided to start posting regularly again (mostly just shitposts though), just so that the effort I put into this blog wouldn't go to waste.

Then, in the beginning of this year, I started writing my thesis. I posted one (1) shitpost about him (my well-known and popular son), and got 10s of thousands of notes. Every morning I would wake up to another crowd of people who loved the graphs, or were baffled by them, and I got showered in asks to elaborate on him.

Truth be told, 2023 has been a very heavy year for me. A lot of things happened in my personal life, and I lost a dear friend to suicide. It became so difficult for me to keep writing on my thesis, and the project that should have been finished in June this year has now been taking 4 months too many. My mental health has suffered greatly, I haven't been able to take any breaks, and life has just been generally difficult. I have spent nights not being able to sleep because I wanted to finish my bachelor's thesis so bad, but my supervisors would keep demanding more work, more edits, and more drafts. At some point, I even considered quitting my studies and finding a job.

The community has helped me to keep going. Mathematicians and non-mathematicians alike who sent me genuinely interested questions, made me laugh in the notes, created fanart (??? I'm still baffled by this but the people who did this are the coolest in the world) and generally made me feel for the first time that mathematics isn't a universally hated subject. On some days, the only reason I was able to keep going and the only thing keeping me from experiencing burn-out was the support I got through this blog.

Today, 10/12/2023, I turned in my thesis. Thank you so much for your support!

[whatbutandreil]

i had an ask sitting in my inbox for a couple of months bc i didn't really know what i wanted to say, but i lost the ask:/

unfortunately, when i tried to save my response to my drafts, tumblr just,, fuckin deleted it, so im sorry to whoever asked it:/ but i have my response now. the ask said "what(or who) got you into tfc?" to the person who asked this question, thank you. this has been a really great reflection. so uh,, here's my answer:

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i kinda hate the way i came into tfc bc it was in a way that didn't respect the wishes of my, now friend on twitter, ziegenkind.

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basically, i was scrolling on pinterest, as you do, and i fell into a hole of like,, gay fanart? (not a question, just a little self-reflection on how fucking queer i am. how did i not fucking know?)

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anyway, so, i was scrolling, as you do, and i found @ziegenkind 's stunning painting of andrew and neil on the bottom bunk of the dorm bed (y'all know the one) and i was like "whooooo,, the fUCk are these two cuties (ʘ‿ʘ)??"

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PSA : DONT REPOST PEOPLE'S ART WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION, ESPECIALLY IF SOMEONE EXPLICITLY SAYS NOT TO. THIS COUNTS AS REPOSTING IF YOU POST SOMEONE ELSE'S ART TO PINTEREST, INSTAGRAM, TUMBLR, TWITTER, FACEBOOK, ANY SOCIAL MEDIA. DO NOT QRT PEOPLE'S ART ON TWITTER IF PEOPLE SAY NO. YOU ARE NO EXCEPTION. AND DONT FUCKING ERASE PEOPLE'S WATERMARKS AND DEFINITELY DONT REPLACE THEM WITH YOUR OWN. DONT FUCKING DO IT. to the lovely ziegenkind, (it's julian from twitter (^o^)丿) it's so fuckin unfortunate that i found your art through reposts and it's fucking horrible that people don't listen, but thank you for being my bridge into this fandom and im very grateful to have found you and been able to talk with such an angel. you quite literally changed my life forever and i can't thank you enough:') im eternally grateful for that. BUT DONT FUCKING REPOST DIPSHITS

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anyway, so, naturally, i sat in my bed for 3 hours at 1am on a school night, as you do, scrolling through andreil fan art and trying to figure out who the fUCK they were and what they were from. i found tfc and immediately downloaded it on my phone

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i didn't get to reading it for a bit tho:/ abt a week later, i was brought to the emergency room bc i was planning to kill myself. id been diagnosed with depression for around a year, who knows how long i was suffering before that, and i was hitting my lowest. it was abt 2 weeks after new years and on new years eve, i was planning on ending it bc i couldn't fathom dealing with it for another year. another year of feeling nothing or everything all at once. but my mom had called me downstairs to go to a new years party, so i didn't go through with it. abt 2 weeks later, i had seen my therapist again, and i was deflecting hard core, and she saw it, and she sent me to the ER. i was evaluated all night, but i wasn't kept for observation since i told the nurse that the thoughts had passed. i was taken out of school and put in an outpatient program where id have group for 4 hours and school for 2. every morning for abt a month, i would get picked up at my house in a minivan and id have a good 20-25+ min drive to program.

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every. single. morning. on the van, i would read tfc. every morning. i was going through, what i thought to be the worst time of my life (i now know that it in fact DID get worse and now we're going on a new level of bad, but then it was the worst id experienced) every morning i was reading about neil and him running from his father, something ive wanted to do for years. reading about andrew struggling with depression and self harm like i am and despising most touches bc of people in his life that ruined it, similar to how someone ruined it for me and doesn't understand that "no" means "no". reading about nicky learning to love and accept himself for being gay, for being who he is like ive been trying to accept myself being a queer ace trans boy. reading about kevin trying to cope with his anxiety, even if it's in an unhealthy way, the same way i do. reading about renee growing up one way and wanting to become a better person, something that i want to do every day. reading abt matt overcoming his addiction and loving his friends with his whole heart. reading about dan standing up for herself and being proud of who she is. reading abt allison cutting away the people in her life who wanted to hold her back. reading about aaron and andrew work through their differences to try and salvage their relationship. reading about neil taking his life back and living it the way he wants, on his terms, like i so badly crave to do. reading about neil and andrew finding a respectful and loving relationship, one where all boundaries are respected, not crossed, where there is comfort in being together and a certain understanding on a level that others could never wrap their mind around. the kind of relationship that i have always, always, yearned for, where i feel safe and loved and respected.

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these books taught me not only to die for the ones i love or kill for them, but to live for them, and to me, that is a much more daunting and difficult task.

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All For the Game gave me hope, something i never thought id have again. it gave me hope for tomorrow. and the day after that. and a month after that. and it gives me hope that one day, i will get away from my father, i will be comfortable with who i am and love myself for it, i will find ways to cope with my anxiety properly, i will be proud of the person i have become, i will have friends who i love and who love me, i will stand up for myself and be proud to be the person ive become, i will surround myself with good people and cut away those who treat me wrong and hold me back, i will work to repair and maintain good relationships.

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it gives me hope that i will finally break away from the pain and start to live my life the way i want, as the person i was meant to be, the way i was meant to live my life.

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it gives me hope that i will overcome my depression, that i will find the strength to stop harming myself to cope, that i will find the strength to push through, even after ive been given every reason to just give up.

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it gives me hope that one day, i will find a person who will love me for who i am, love me despite my past and the scars i carry, love me in a way that i'll never be able to explain or understand. that i will find someone who respects my boundaries, who asks "yes or no?" before touching me, who respects if i say "no" and still fucking loves me regardless. someone who can feel like they can be completely themself around me, and that i can feel the same around them. someone who will fall in love with me a little more every day. someone who i'll fall in love with a little more every day.

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it gives me hope that one day, hopefully someday soon—but i think im willing to wait—i will be happy.

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All For the Game quite literally changed to course of my life, and i can say with confidence that without it, i would not be here right now.

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people say that books and shows and movies change there life all the time, but i know that i wouldn't be here without it. these books saved my fucking life. i wouldn't have experienced those mornings, walking into program with a goofy smile on my face, practically vibrating with what i now know was joy, blabbing to every person i ran into that morning abt a boy with scars and a sharp tongue on the run and the small, depressed and angry blond who told him to stay. or nights when i sobbed and sobbed for those boys who deserved better. and i wouldn't have gotten black armbands to cover my scars and match with my two biggest inspirations. or when i have a bad impulsive thought, i wouldnt have a voice in the back of my head going "what would andrew say? what would neil say?" and the vivid image of the small blond giving me a stare, face carefully blank, yet eyes swimming with a mix between disapproval and hope, and the boy covered in scars tentatively giving me a hug, a bit awkward at first, but he's a lovely hugger and eventually, awkwardness turns into comfort. without it, i don't think id know what pure, honest love is supposed to look like.

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sorry, i suppose this got quite a bit off track from what got me into aftg, but once i started writing, i couldn't stop.

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TLDR; i saw fanart on pinterest, DONT REPOST ART WITHOUT PERMISSION, and my life was saved and changed for the better by a book that i stumbled upon, purely by chance.

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i don't believe in fate, but i do think that i found these books for a reason, and that my life changed because of it. i suppose you could call it the butterfly effect.