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leiawritesstories · 3 years

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Burden

One of the first fics I ever wrote. Inspired by the Evanescence song “My Immortal.”

Nexta x Cassian, canonverse. Written waaaaaaay before ACOSF came along, so ignore canon divergence.

TW: mentions of sexual assault

She is tired. Tired of the work, the long hours, the demanding pricks she must placate, the front she must show, tired of the façade she puts up, and so, so tired of locking away her heart.

But locking away her heart is the only way to protect herself.

Never again can she let anyone, anyone, know the storm of emotion that rages within her soul. Never again can she allow herself to forge one-sided trust. Never again can she bare her inmost self, lest she be left cold, broken, and utterly alone. Never again can she watch the only person she thought loved her dash her heart against the rocks of rejection. Never again. No one.

Not even him.

Him, the first male in this place to look at her like she was more than the silent, haughty, closed-off bitch the others considered her. Him, the only male to genuinely offer her what she needed during those horrible days after that bastard shoved her into his Cauldron-from-the- hells and cursed her with immortality: an outlet for her rage. Him, the male tied to her soul. Him, the male she cannot allow herself to love, no matter what her traitorous heart screams.

Cassian.

The brash, cocky, fearless Illyrian. The only male in the world who sees her as she is and does not balk. The only person she knows who can face the raging inferno that is her and stand completely unfazed.

Her mate.

A fact she must squelch. Never let it come to light. Never allow it to escape the steel cage around her volatile heart.

No matter that every time her mate’s eyes fall upon hers, she reads his unspoken question.

Please.

And no matter that every time she reads his heart written in his gaze, her own repressed heart leaps in response. Damn her heart for always feeling so deeply, so wholly. Damn her for not learning to rein in her emotions earlier. Damn her for turning into a pillar of steel, ice, and heartlessness when anyone so much as asks her a polite question. And damn her for being so godsdamn terrified of letting anyone even an infinitesimal step into her heart.

Her warrior’s heart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He watches her every moment she is present. And every moment, the pull on his soul grows stronger, ever stronger, drawing him towards the pillar of steel, flame, and unflinching willpower that is Nesta Archeron. He knows she feels the bond. He knows she refuses to let anyone know about the bond. He sees the faint flicker of fear in those glorious eyes of hers every time he speaks to her. A fear, not of him, but of what connects her soul to his.

What horror happened to her to make her fear having a mate?

Not that he will ever know. But he wants to. Oh, how he wants to. How he longs for her to trust him, or if not him, then at least her sisters. He can sense that whatever she hides in her soul weighs heavily upon her, can see the burden she bears in the ramrod-straight line of her spine. And how he yearns to take some of that weight off of her shoulders.

Every time he speaks to her, she pushes away his efforts to make her smile. He wonders if she has forgotten joy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She has not.

She has merely forgotten that her life can be joyful. She cannot see past the string of terrible events that made up the last months of her human life. And she cannot bring herself to share the pain that shattered her heart mere months before life went straight to hell.

Not with anyone.

No matter how much her brain, her heart, her soul push her towards spilling the entire story to her mate. Months in the Illyrian Mountains spent by his side, learning Illyrian combat tactics, dissolved the hatred she once felt for everyone in the Night Court, save her sisters. During those months, she discovered what lay under the Commander’s armor: his impossibly soft, warm heart. During those months, she came the closest she had ever come to revealing the scars that mottled her heart. He’d already seen the ones on her forearms, exposed during training; why, then, should she hide the mental ones, the emotional ones?

Because he would never understand, she thinks to herself.

“Nesta.”

She jumps, not realizing that while she was lost in her thoughts, he crossed over to her.

“What.” A statement, not a question.

“I…” To her shock, he trails off, self-consciously twisting the Siphons on the back of his hands.

“Bryaxis got your tongue?”

He jerks. A ghost of a smirk flits across her face. Which he notices. “By the Mother, Nesta Archeron. Did you just…joke?”

“Maybe.” That smirk returns.

He gazes at her, his eyes scanning her face as if trying to peer into her soul. “Why the long face?”

“Memories. From before. Most of them best forgotten.” Despite her iron resolve, a flicker of pain crosses her face.

“Nesta, please.” The word emerges a broken plea. “Locking away whatever your terrors are will only make them worse. Please. Tell someone. It doesn’t have to be me. It—”

“What if you’re the only one who will actually listen?”

He freezes. “What?”

Her eyes, silver collecting in the corners, stare directly into his. “What if you’re the only one I trust to listen, fully and completely?”

Red light flares, and she finds herself—and Cassian—in his familiar wood-paneled cabin at the edge of the Illyrian woods. “Then speak.”

She does.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not quite three months before Hybern kidnapped her and Elain, Nesta met a young man, new to the village. His parents were merchants, he said, and he had come to start a shop in an area where their commerce did not yet reach. He was passably handsome, and a sweeter talker than all the lecherous bastards in town. He also “happened to be around” whenever Nesta ventured into town. After his appearances became too frequent to be “chance,” Nesta allowed him to flirt with her, and despite her better sense, allowed herself to flirt back. Allowed herself to share her secrets, her hopes, her dreams.

A month after meeting him, he finally asked her to dinner, and she accepted. He came to her house that evening and charmed the hell out of her father, acting the perfect gentleman, even asking his assistance as a bookkeeper, considering his knowledge and experience as a trader. It was a pleasant enough dinner and conversation, a pleasant enough evening.

Until he escorted her home.

Or, more accurately, he escorted her into a secluded alley and pressed her against the wall. And clamped one greasy hand over her mouth. And ripped her skirt straight down the seam. Frozen with shock, all Nesta registered was his heavy breath, reeking of alcohol, and the lust-crazed sheen of his eyes. For one interminable moment, she could neither move nor think beyond the nasty, oily feeling of his other hand crawling up her thigh.

The moment passed. Nesta bit down on his hand as hard as she could, earning a strangled grunt as he jerked back. Before he could manhandle her again, she drove her elbow into his ribs once, twice, thrice, and was rewarded with a satisfying crack and him doubling over. Then, she turned and fled into the night.

She reached home in moments, burst through the side door, and barred it. Elain, who had come into the kitchen for some reason, gasped.

“Nesta! Your dress! What happened?”

Nesta could only shake her head, the horror of the encounter crashing into her full force. Elain, seeing her sister’s obvious state of shock, helped her upstairs, into a bath, and into bed. When Nesta appeared the next day, bruising on her face from where she had been gripped, her sister again asked about the night before. Nesta refused to answer. She spent years stuffing the memory of that night as far back into her memory as she could.

But the effects lasted. To this day, she fears opening her heart to any man, no matter how good, how sweet, how outwardly perfect he may seem. The scars from nearly being forcibly raped linger. And despite the years between then and now, there is simply too much that time cannot erase. Some scars run too deep.

His name was Tomas Mandray.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the silence following her story, Nesta realizes that she has slumped onto the worn wooden floor, unable to support herself against the flood of her memory. She realizes that the warmth on her face is her tears, falling freely.

And that the one thing keeping her tethered to the earth is Cassian’s hand around hers.

She lifts her head, drawing in a shaky breath, her heart…lighter.

Ever so hesitantly, his thumb brushes her cheek, wiping away the tears tracked there. He feels her tense, and then, incredibly, she relaxes, allowing him to brush the tears from her face as if he could erase the pain she feels.

Deep in a buried corner of her mind, a thread of golden light pierces the shadows.

Thank you, Cassian.

Always, my Nesta.

#my writing #leia writes #nessian #nesta #cassian

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ri-ahhh · 4 years

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desert secrets

MJ meets a helpful stranger in the desert that turns out to be more than she hoped for.

7k holy shit lol

warnings: some pretty unrealistic fluff that might get your hopes up that you’ll have a meet-cute with Grayson

***

Shit. Fuck. Fuck. Shit. Shit on a fucking stick. You actual fucking idiot, MJ.

A stream of thoughts along these general lines becomes her stream of conscience as MJ Macias plops down on a large rock, throwing her head back to the sky to bask in the sun and her own general incompetency. Maybe the heat of the desert mountain sun beating on her face will cause her to shrivel up and disintegrate to become lizard food or something — the thought isn’t altogether unwelcome.

Her trip to the middle of nowhere was meant to clear her mind both through exercise in the form of a nice, long hike, as well as simply by being alone amongst nature, under an endless expanse of clouds and stars. The week had been pure hell for her: she had been let go from her dream job at her marketing firm in the latest round of budget-related layoffs; received a ticket from a dickhead cop for going 34 in a 30; and discovered last night that the hot water heater in her apartment had broken. To top it all off, her ex had been harassing her relentlessly over texts and calls, wanting to meet up and ‘talk about things’ since she had dumped him two months ago.

So as she cried hot tears in a frigid shower that morning, thoroughly wallowing in self-pity, an idea popped into her head that was so spontaneous and ridiculous she didn't even try to talk herself out of it: go on a solo camping trip.

MJ really has no idea why this of all the therapeutic outlets available to her was something her brain decided was the right one, since a camper she is not. Sure, she loves being outside in the sun for a good hike, or a swim in the ocean once in a while — nature isn’t the problem. It’s the whole navigating-desert-terrain-alone-and-sleeping-on-the-ground thing that isn’t usually at the top of her list of fun weekend activities. The tent and sleeping bag that she had been forced to purchase for the ridiculous bachelorette party of one of her very outdoorsy friends had called her name as she paced manically around her apartment that morning, though.

Did she have every intent to return them after their one-time use? Absolutely. Did they both end up getting thrown to the back of her storage closet and thus forgotten about until then? Also, yes.

Both her practically nonexistent camping experience and her general lack of enthusiasm for the activity as a whole should have been her first clues at how moronic she was for thinking this is a trip she should (or could) handle alone. But, now determined to have the ultimate self-care weekend, she had: packed a backpack as an overnight bag; tossed it with her shitty little tent and a cooler full of snacks and water in the back of her car; texted her best friend Lainey to sound the alarm if she wasn’t home in 36 hours; and driven away to the first camping ground Google showed her that was at least 100 miles outside of LA. It seemed adventurous and spontaneous an indie movie-esque at the time.

But now, as she sits on this rock, feet and back aching, utterly fucking lost, MJ is starting to feel more like she’s on a self-inflicted episode of Punk’d. Being very directionally challenged, she had been using the maps feature on her phone to find her way back to her campsite after going on a winding, hilly hike, until her phone had suddenly died. The trails have no legible signs so between her use of the GPS, the borderline stalker-ish calls from her ex, and the heat of the sun, she’s left without her lifeline much sooner than she could have anticipated.

She thinks of her backpack and the battery-powered charger in her tent. In a moment of pure rage with herself for being such a lost, ill-prepared dumbass, she wants nothing more than to run back up the mountain and punt the now useless little piece of metal and plastic into the abyss. Her inner drama queen thinks maybe the best thing that could happen is that it will fall on a mountain lion, which will devour her out of anger before she shrivels up into lizard food, and put her out of her misery early.

MJ rolls her eyes at how ridiculous she’s being, and forces herself to take a deep breath and think. Her inner antics really do bring up an actually pressing issue. There are plenty of animals out here that don’t need any iPhone provocation to attack, and she’s only armed with a half-empty HydroFlask and a sparkly purple tube of pepper spray. Not to mention, judging from the incurring pinkness of the sky, the sun is going to set soon, and with that means it’ll be getting cold as well. She looks down at her thin Lulu Lemon tank top and shorts.

Fuuuck.

Knowing she has to make a decision, MJ doesn’t second guess herself when her feet heave her body off of her rock and set off further down the trail. Her only hopes at this point are to either miraculously stumble upon her camp before dark, or pray that she runs into fellow campers that might have a portable charger and that also aren’t serial killers. The only people she had passed on her hike had been a middle-aged couple and a woman maybe a little older than herself with a dog, but she couldn't have any idea if they were staying on the campgrounds or merely taking a day trip. Like she should have done.

MJ walks down the trail a solid 20 minutes, and wonders where the hell she had actually gone on her hike to be so far out from her own campsite. Inexperience with the outdoors had made her assume all the trails met up in a circle, but clearly that isn’t the case here. She’s already out of the hiking trail and in one of the areas designated for camping, but there are a couple of those around the park and she has no clue which one she had chosen.

Trying and failing to keep the creeping worry out of her spine as a few clouds turn orange and the noises of the nocturnal wildlife start up, she picks up her pace.

She’s about to resign herself to huddling in an unoccupied camping spot for the night when she suddenly sees flumes of smoke about a football field away. The Hallelujah chorus fills her head, and she mumbles out a quick ‘thank you’ to whoever is listening as she practically speed-walks to her impending safety.

The smell of the crackling wood draws her nearer and nearer. When she finally rounds the corner, she’s surprised and disappointed to see that while there is indeed a small fire burning, as well as a deconstructed tent piled on the ground, the occupant of the campsite is nowhere to be found. MJ hesitates and looks around for any sign of them, not foreseeing this issue. Should she wait around like a creep? Keep walking and hope to run into them?

“Can I help you?”

MJ startles out of her skin and lets out an embarrassing little squeak. She whips around and is thoroughly unprepared to see what just might be the hottest guy she’s ever had the pleasure of laying her eyes on in real life. Judging from her own height, he’s maybe six foot or a tad over; his thick arms are laden with a bulky backpack and a sleeping bag, and his dark hazel eyes observe her warily behind a flop of dark wavy hair.

“Uh,” she begins stupidly, slightly stunned by both his sudden appearance and his masculine beauty. “Yeah, um, I’m so sorry to intrude on your space but, I, you know, got a little confused on the trails and, uh…”

He raises a naturally arched eyebrow expectantly as she pauses and stumbles over her words. MJ looks at him, then releases a huge breath she hadn't even realized had been held in her chest until this moment, officially giving up on not sounding like a complete and total idiot.

“I’m fucking lost. I have a terrible sense of direction and was using a map online of the trails to find the pin I dropped on my campsite, but my phone died. Is there any chance you have a portable charger I can use for, like, twenty minutes?”

The guy chuckles, and despite her pure mortification at the situation, MJ cracks a smile too, glad to see he isn’t pissed at her for lurking around his campsite like the actual weirdo she is. Unfortunately for her, though, his crooked grin somehow makes him even more attractive, which doesn’t bode well for her already inevitable awkwardness.

“Uh, yeah, I have my Mophie in here somewhere,” he says, indicating the backpack in his arms. He nods his head in the direction of his campsite where there is a large stone clearly put there by park officials as a makeshift bench. “Come on over and I’ll find it.”

“Thank you,” MJ sighs in relief. She follows him through the gap in the log threshold, and when he drops the items he’s carrying on the ground, she gapes; holy shit, the man is built. She could tell he had pythons for arms, but the stuffed backpack and sleeping bag had hidden the way his plain white t-shirt stretches taut over every solid, muscled crevice of his torso.

She shakes her head and hopes he can’t sense her obvious stare that has since traveled from the breadth of his shoulders, down his tapered waist, settled on his ass, and finished on the multitude of tattoos decorating his legs as he walks in front of her. MJ finds every one of these aspects of him immensely appealing; she’s never felt so viscerally attracted to a complete stranger in her entire life.

MJ settles on the rock and, sensing some of the aforementioned awkwardness about to settle in the air, searches her brain for a way to alleviate it. She knows she’ll only be here a short amount of time, but she feels compelled to get to know him even just a little bit. And to not make a complete fool of herself, if possible.

“What’s your name?” she asks. That’s a safe place to start. She hugs her knees to her chest as she watches him arrange the stuff he had just dropped into a neater pile.

“Grayson,” he replies. Grayson crouches down to dig through his backpack and flashes her a friendly, blinding smile over his shoulder. “Yours?”

As if she couldn’t embarrass herself any more, she feels a flush rise to her cheeks. For fucks sake, she isn’t 16 talking to her high school crush — she’s a grown woman who has been with plenty of guys and knows how to have a simple conversation with one, no matter how hot they are.

“MJ,” she finally manages to get out.

“MJ,” he repeats, testing it on his tongue, nodding approvingly. “That’s cool. I don't think I’ve ever met a girl with that kind of name. What does it stand for?”

He stands and turns to face her. He extends the little black charger to her and MJ looks up at him through her lashes as he towers over her, biting her lip. Flirting isn’t her strong suit whatsoever, but she can’t help trying; it’s not like she’s going to see him again by the time the sun sets.

“It’s a secret,” she answers after a brief moment, taking the Mophie from Grayson and accidentally-on-purpose brushing the tips of her fingers against the back of his. “Thanks.”

Grayson raises his eyebrows, but a humored grin graces his full lips. “Okay,” he says, surprising her by taking a seat next to her as she plugs in her phone. “But who better to spill your secrets to than a total stranger, you know?”

MJ can’t help the giggle that escapes her throat, humored more by the fact that he seems to be having the same idea of fuck it, we won’t ever see each other again, as her, than his actual question. His nearness should make her uncomfortable, but it just…doesn’t; he’s close enough for her to smell his scent emanating from his warm body. Clean, like laundry and soap, but also hints of an earthy, masculine cologne and an admittedly enticing musk from being in the sun. She wants to lean in and inhale him.

God, she hopes she isn’t coming off as insane as she feels inside. What is wrong with her? He’s just a guy. A guy whose close proximity as a stranger should be making her feel intimidated rather than buzzing with electricity.

“You’re very right,” she says, leaning back on her hands to appear more relaxed. “If I die out here in the wilderness, killed by my own stupidity, I wouldn't want the last person to see me alive not know my real name.”

Grayson throws his head back and laughs, and it draws one from herself as well. She likes his laugh because despite the deep timbre of his voice, the sound is carefree and boyish.

“It’s Makenna Jean,” she finally admits once they both quiet down. “I’m named after my grandmothers, but my mom didn't like your typical shortenings people might automatically give to Makenna — you know, Mack, Ken, Kenna, all those. So she just started calling me MJ to avoid it all, and…that’s me, MJ.”

He nods in understanding. “Gotcha.”

They continue effortless conversation for a while, words and laughter flowing freely from their lips with an ease that MJ hasn’t experienced in years. In the first lull, though, MJ fills it with a sigh and extends her long legs to stretch them as they tire from being folded so closely to her body, flexing and pointing her toes. She knows her shorts are a little too short, her tank top a little low cut, even with a sports bra on. It’s another one of those accidentally-on-purpose moves that starts as inadvertent in the way it exposes and elongates her body, but ends in her relishing the way his eyes quickly dart across her form. She’s reticent to admit that she isn’t mad about it. Not even a little.

She ducks her head and bites her lip to hide a triumphant smirk as Grayson clears his throat and runs a hand through his hair. “So, are you out here by yourself?”

For the first time since she met him, a little swoop of nerves unrelated to her attraction to him passes through the pit of her stomach. She feels like she’s always had a spot-on instinct for determining someone’s ‘vibes’, and Grayson has only given her good ones since the minute she saw him. Maybe she’s fallen victim to the Ted Bundy effect, though…

He seems to pick up on her hesitation, and Grayson slaps his palm to his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut. “Fuck, sorry, that was so creepy. I didn't mean it like that, I was just, uh, making conversation.” He opens his eyes and rubs his forehead and, to her shock, is he blushing now? “I promise I’m not a murderer.”

She might have still been weirded out by a guy even putting the word out there in this situation, but her gut is telling her that Grayson is harmless, and she prides herself on being a pretty good judge of character.

“It’s okay,” she says, giving him a serious look. “I promise I’m not either. But you should know that I’m packing heat with a fully loaded can of mace and my best white belt skills from the karate classes my mom made me take in 4th grade.”

Grayson gives her a disbelieving look. “Fourth grade karate, huh?”

“Yep. For real, I’ll karate chop your arm off if you try anything sketch.”

“Try,” he challenges with a beautiful, dangerous smile, leaning in ever so slightly and looking her dead in the eye. It takes her breath away a little bit. “I dare you.”

MJ scoffs, still keeping up this facade that she isn’t fighting every primal urge to mount him, especially with the unmistakeable tinge of flirtation in his last words.

“Fine,” she accepts. Grayson grins wider and leans back, offering her his right arm. “Get ready.”

“Oh, I am.”

She lines her hand up with the dip in his muscles between his shoulder and the top of his bicep, rears it back, and —

“Ow!”

The side of her hand simply bounces off of the solid mass of his bulging arm. Grayson does that head-back belly laugh again and she pretends to pout as she rubs her sore hand. “That hurt way more than it should have!” she exclaims. “What are you, Superman?”

Grayson, still laughing, grabs her hand in his and strokes it rather tenderly considering the sheer size of his palm compared to hers. And it’s so cliche, but MJ swears she feels tingles where their skin connects.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says, biting his lip in an attempt to contain himself. “It’s just, in the least misogynistic way possible, that was high-key cute.”

“Hmph.” MJ scrunches her nose at him as her heart drops to her stomach in the best, scariest way.

Uh oh. He's a stranger, MJ; you’ve known him for half an hour, MJ; you’re in the middle of nowhere, MJ — you can’t catch feelings for a stranger you’ve know for half an hour in the middle of nowhere, MJ…

She clears her throat and gives his hand a slight squeeze before extracting it from his grip, hoping that conveys that she doesn’t disapprove of his touch. But the sun is well on it’s way to setting, and she does need to check her phone battery. It’s at 28%, not as much as she hoped for but probably enough to do the trick.

Shit. MJ really, really doesn’t want to leave him, but she can’t exactly invite herself to stay longer. She had already kept him from building his tent, and his fire is starting to die as well. She turns back to face him only to find his eyes trained on her, brow slightly scrunched. Her belly swoops again.

“I should, ah, probably get going,” MJ admits quietly, fidgeting with her fingers. A shiver runs down her spine and goosebumps raise themselves up the skin of her arms, too, as the setting sun steadily lowers the temperature around them. She crosses her arms across her chest, partly for warmth and partly to hide her stiffened nipples that peak through her thin sports bra and tank. “Or I really will kill myself out here in the dark by walking off a cliff or something.”

Grayson smiles woefully and lets out a little huff, ducking his gaze down for a moment and picking at a thread on his shorts. “Yeah, I understand.”

Is it her imagination or does he sound…disappointed?

When he looks back up at her, the sudden intensity of his gaze makes her swallow thickly. She wants so badly to ask for his number, his Instagram, his last name, but it all seems too weird given the circumstances and the amount of time (or lack thereof) they’ve spent together. Besides, she thinks, she’s still dealing with a psycho ex amongst the rest of her life falling apart, and doesn’t need any more boy problems in her already crazy-stressful life.

MJ stands and dusts off the back of her shorts. “Thank you, Grayson, seriously. You really did save my ass,” she says with a sad smile.

“Of course,” he replies, standing with her.

She unplugs her phone and pulls up both maps before setting off down the trail with one last wave at the gorgeous, sweet man she’s so reluctantly leaving behind.

“MJ, wait!”

She stops in her tracks, black Nikes skidding in the loose, sandy dirt. Turning around in time to see Grayson dig his hands in the backpack to fish out a sweatshirt and flashlight, her heart lifts when he starts jogging toward her. Despite her elation, however, she looks up at him confusedly.

“I’ve actually been to this place a few times, so I’m pretty familiar with the trails and campgrounds. I would feel a lot better if I walked you to your tent. Not that you need a man to help you anywhere or…whatever, but yeah, only if you want —”

“Grayson,” she interrupts, touching a slim hand to his forearm. She smiles, endeared at how flustered he’s getting. He runs a hand through his hair again. Is this him wanting to spend more time with her, or him simply being a gentleman? “I really do appreciate it, but I’ve already kept you from setting up your own camp. I couldn't ask you to walk me all the way to BFE and risk you coming back alone in the dark.”

Grayson shakes his head. “I swear, it’s fine. I’ve got a flashlight.” He clicks it on and shines it under his chin, illuminating his head in typical campfire story-time style, and makes a face at her. MJ giggles. “And you can’t be too far from here; there are only two main campgrounds and they’re less than a mile apart from each other, so I should make it back before dark one way or the other.”

A shiver from the cold overtakes her body suddenly. “Oh, here,” he adds, extending the purple hoodie to her. She starts to protest, but he shakes his head and holds it at her more insistently. “I know you’re cold.”

MJ flushes, but takes the soft garment from him gratefully. “I never said I was cold,” she remarks as she shoves her arms in the sleeves and slips it over her head. It practically swallows her, but it smells just like the laundry/cologne scent she had picked up earlier, only more concentrated and delicious.

Grayson eyes her up and down slowly, grinning. “I’m observant,” he says teasingly.

MJ raises her brows at him amusedly. Again, she should be creeped out, but there’s something about him that sends all potential red flags out the window.

“And I might not be done sharing secrets with you,” he adds quietly, smiling the softest, sexiest smile she’s ever seen and utilizing the ultimate puppy-dog eyes. “Please?”

Well, twist my arm, MJ thinks sarcastically. “Okay,” she says without hesitation now, her insides jittering with a strange mixture of happiness and nerves. He beams at her and jerks his head in indication for them to continue down the trail.

“So, you never said what you’re doing out here by yourself,” Grayson prompts, nudging her with his elbow.

MJ shakes her head and smiles up at him. “Nuh-uh. Not only is that a sob story no one wants to hear, it’s definitely your turn to share. So I could ask you what you’re doing out here by yourself?”

Grayson shrugs as if to say ‘fair enough.’ “I’m not, actually. I’m with my brother and his girlfriend because she wanted to camp, but my brother doesn’t know shit about it. I only came under the agreement that there was going to be no funny business while I was around, only to come back from getting firewood to find them going at it, so I chose to remove myself from the situation. They’re still at our original campsite further down the trail. I needed to make sure I was far enough away to not hear anything.”

MJ sucks in a sympathetic breath through her teeth. “Ooh, yeah, there’s nothing worse than being the third wheel, especially when you have nowhere to escape.”

“Exactly!” he exclaims, turning to her with his hands raised. “Thank you! Ethan told me I was being dramatic, but it definitely sucks. He’s been with her long enough now, I think he’s forgotten what it’s like to be the lonesome outsider.”

This is the perfect segue for the question, but it gets stuck in her throat. Come on, MJ, grown woman, remember? She’s sure she already knows the answer based on what he had just said, but it never hurts to check.

“So…you don’t have a girlfriend?”

“Nope.” She glances up at him to find him staring straight ahead with that lopsided, boyish grin. He looks back down at her and reciprocates the question. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Nope.” MJ is mortified to hear it come out as a whisper. She clears her throat and diverts her gaze to the sunset. She had literally, quite literally, just met this man — he should not have this kind of effect on her.

Just then, her phone buzzes, and she’s infuriated to see the deleted number of her ex pop up on the screen. She groans in frustration. “But it’s not for my idiot ex’s lack of trying to get back together,” she complains, wiggling the phone and sending it straight to voicemail.

“I’m sorry,” Grayson says, shaking his head understandingly. “I’ve definitely been there. How long have you been broken up?”

MJ swipes the voicemail notification away and rolls her eyes. “Over two months. We weren't super serious and it wasn't a crazy bad breakup or anything, we were just in different places, and I’m not one to be in a relationship just for the sake of it. Especially if I’m not feeling any aspect of it. I didn't hear a word from him the first month or so, but he’s acting like we were soulmates who had some tragic ending, calling and texting me nonstop the last couple of weeks.”

Grayson shrugs. “Sounds like he’s just realizing what he missed out on,” he says, grinning. MJ’s breath catches in her throat and she rolls her eyes again embarrassedly with a smile, flushing pink yet again. “Why don’t you block him?”

She sighs. “I probably will. I don't like to burn bridges like that unless someone really does me wrong, but it’s getting ridiculous at this point.”

Grayson nods. “I’m not just saying this, but I feel the exact same way. And about what you said with being in a relationship just to be in one. Like…” he ruffles the back of his hair, something she now detects as a tell for when he's uncomfortable. “Ok, like, this sounds so ugly and conceited, but if I really wanted to be with someone, I could. Ethan and I do social media for a living and we have a decent following, so it’s not a lack of girls, but that’s not me. Maybe when I was a little younger, but…yeah, not now.”

Wow. What does that mean, a decent following? Her job requires her to know the ins and outs of the social media side of marketing, but she isn’t super invested in it for herself entertainment-wise. Mainly, she’s active on Snapchat with her friends and just occasionally uses Insta, so with the knowledge of the spectrum of social media followings, that could really be any number in her book. “So you’re, like, an Instagram model or something?”

He chuckles. “No, no. We make YouTube videos mostly. We’re identical twins so a lot of them are stupid things based on that — challenges and skits and stuff. It’s pretty chill. We’re starting to dabble in documentary-style projects, too.”

MJ gawks at him playfully, though she is actually surprised by his admission. “There are two of you?!” she gasps.

Grayson gapes back at her jokingly. “Technically, yes. He’s my absolute best friend in the entire world and, like I said, we’re identical, but half the time we really couldn’t be more opposite if we tried. I’ll show you our channel later, if you want, and you’ll see.”

“Hmm,” MJ hums, catching her lip with her teeth briefly. “Well I’m sure Ethan is great, but I’m glad I met you, then.”

He bumps her with his hip. “Are you saying you like me?”

MJ rolls her eyes good-naturedly at the teasing lilt to his voice and hopes that the light is low enough that he can’t see the seemingly permanent tint to her cheeks. “Since we’re sharing secrets…maybe. Yes.”

“I like you, too,” he replies, just as quietly. She picks up a barely-detectable lisp on the ’t’ and the East Coast lilt on the ‘oo.’ It’s adorable.

Her heart flutters.

They walk steadily a few more feet in silence, when suddenly she feels his hand brush hers gently. She assumes it was accidental until it happens again, only this time there’s more assertiveness in the movement, clearly indicating what he’s trying to do. Her heart jumps in her throat as she gladly lets his palm dwarf her own as he takes her hand in his. They happen to both glance at each other, only to duck their heads simultaneously, each attempting to hide giddy smiles.

“Ah, so, secrets,” MJ says to break the silence that’s thick with the best kind of tension. “How old are you?”

There’s a beat of silence. “Old enough…almost,” he answers cryptically, side-eyeing her.

His reply actually makes MJ stop in her tracks, and she’s jerked a bit by their joined hands as he continues moving. “What?” she asks incredulously.

Grayson laughs heartily and squeezes her palm, melting her insides a bit. He’s clearly pleased with himself at catching her so off-guard. “I’m kidding. I mean, I am legal, but people tend to think I’m older than I am.” He observes her standing there, waiting for his answer, and finally relents. “I’m 20.”

MJ shakes her head, stunned. “Shut the fuck up!” she exclaims. “Twenty?! Dude, yeah, no kidding people think you’re older. I definitely did.”

He tugs on her hand to keep her walking, and MJ obeys dutifully, still amazed at yet another shocking disclosure. “Is that an issue?”

She shrugs; she feels like it should be, but he doesn’t look or act 20 at all. But also…an issue for what? They literally just met. And she should only be thinking of being friends; she can be friends with a 20 year-old.

That thought doesn’t stop her from answering, though, because time factor aside, something is happening between them. Something more than friends, if she’s letting herself be honest. “I guess it’s only an issue if it affects maturity, but that doesn't seem to be a problem here that I can tell.”

Grayson squeezes her hand again, and a shot of sparks zings up her arm this time. “Good. Now, are you gonna make me ask, or are you gonna tell me how old you are?”

MJ groans. Twenty. She’s basically a dinosaur compared to that. “God, I don’t even want to say now. I’m 24,” she admits.

“What’s wrong with that?” Grayson asks with a chuckle.

“Because…” How do you explain to a young, hot 20 year-old man that every year that you creep closer to 25 only means one year closer to the downhill to 30? “I don’t know. Sometimes I feel old. And stuck. Especially lately. And you seem like this super young, super successful guy. It’s a little intimidating.”

Grayson is quiet for a moment. “If there’s anything I know, it’s not to judge your path based on other’s. If you’re feeling stuck, something will happen that gets you unstuck. Age has nothing to do with that.”

His answer catches MJ by surprise in its sincerity and maturity and thoughtfulness. Before she can form an answer, they pass what must be his brother’s tent. She has to hush her fit of laughter into her free hand when Grayson makes a disgusted little noise and flips off the dark red canvas that is, indeed, rustling suspiciously.

From there on they share anything and everything about each other, with each other. Against her word from earlier, she tells him about losing her job and her other woes from the week; he briefly opens up that he had lost his dad a little over a year ago and is still coping with it. This shocks her a bit, but his openness leads her to sympathize with him by sharing how her mom had passed away in a car accident when she was 15. By the time they reach the next campground, their fingers are completely intertwined and she’s leaning her head on his shoulder, his smell enveloping her completely from both his shirt sleeve and the collar of the hoodie. MJ has truly never felt more connected to a man on this level, and it’s both exciting and terrifying.

They aren’t even to her tent yet and she already doesn’t want him to go.

“Should be just around this corner,” Grayson says, squinting at her phone before concentrating on the trail again.

Sure enough, the next turn reveals her campsite, complete with the tent she had miraculously managed to construct herself and her cooler propped next to the same rock-bench that they had sat on at Grayson’s camp.

Her free hand clenches around his elbow. “Yep, here it is,” she says.

They stop and stand to face one another. “Thanks again, Grayson,” she tells him sincerely. “I didn't really know what the hell I was doing coming out here. In more ways than one, obviously.” This earns her a smile and — God, as if her heart could feel any more sappy in that moment — he brings their clasped hands to his lips to kiss the back of her palm. “But in the hour that I’ve known you I think you’ve helped me take my mind off things more than anyone else back home could have. So…thank you.”

“Of course, MJ,” he says quietly. “I could say the same. I rarely talk about my dad with anyone besides Ethan, let alone someone I just met.” Her heart warms at his confession, and a heated moment of quiet and intense eye contact passes between them before he breaks it. “Come on, I’ll help you start a fire.”

She nods, and they release their grasps on one another to gather sticks and dry brush at his suggestion.

“You know,” he says as he leans over the fire pit that’s now filled with their findings with her lighter, breaking the short silence, “I was going to spend the night alone since E was clearly pretty busy. I don't think he would miss me if I stayed for a bit. To keep telling secrets. If you want, that is.”

MJ swallows. What the hell is this night? She’s pretty sure sad, lost girls meeting and mutually falling for beautiful, polite, genuinely funny boys in the desert is something that only happens in the likes of cheesy Meg Cabot novels. Yet, here she is, living out her nerdy 16 year-old fantasies in real life somehow.

“Yes. I want you,” she murmurs finally, and though she doesn’t mean for it to come out as a bit of an entendre, she doesn’t regret her wording; even in the low light of the late sunset, she can see his eyes darken. “Won’t he notice eventually, though, if you stay gone for very long? And it’s getting dark…”

“If I can borrow your phone, I can text him,” he explains. “I don't have any service but you do somehow. I guarantee he’ll use the wifi in our car to check his phone before he goes to bed, so he’ll get it eventually.”

She nods and unlocks her phone for him. “How do you have service out here, actually?” he asks as he types out a new message.

“My brother,” she answers, entranced by the way his thick fingers fly across the keyboard of her phone. “Being a firefighter, he gets to be on this plan for first responders where he gets first access to a bigger network in case he’s in the middle of nowhere on a call or in a crowd during an emergency or something. I was able to sign on with his account and get all the benefits of it.”

Grayson looks up at her, surprised, and smirks when he hands her phone back to her. “Wow, a firefighter? So he could probably kick my ass if he wanted, huh?”

MJ laughs. “Normally I would say yes, but somehow I think you've got a solid 20 pounds of muscle on him, even though he's a little taller than you,” she admits.

She finally can’t resist anymore and runs her right hand over a bicep that is truly bulging right beneath the edge of his shirt sleeve, and allows herself to take in unabashedly the way the fabric stretches across his wide shoulders, his defined pecs…fuck, he’s sexy.

He swallows hard and she looks up at him. For the second time that night, the intensity of his gaze stuns her into silence and stillness.

When he ducks his head to meet her lips with his, however, her insides are screaming and the hand not clutching his arm travels to grip the front of his shirt, then the short hairs at the back of his neck.

More cliches, but it’s a perfect first kiss — soft but intense, not too much tongue but just enough as it deepens. MJ sighs into his mouth, deciding she would be perfectly content to do this with him forever despite the fire now lit within her at his touch that has her body begging for more.

It could have been a few seconds or a few hours that they stand there entwined with one another, but eventually they part, eyes closed and breaths panting heavily in the minimal space between them. The longer she isn’t distracted by his lips, the longer she stands there trying not to overthink things.

But the beauty of what this trip has been — what Grayson has been — for her is that it was the opposite of overthinking; it was instinctual, impulsive, and honest. In short, her motto had been ‘fuck it.’

Her green eyes open and lift to his hazel ones. “Grayson,” she whispers, “we’re telling secrets tonight, right?”

“Right,” he replies just as breathlessly.

She swallows past a small lump as an inexplicable rush of emotion hits her.

Fuck it.

MJ’s hands cup his angular jaw and she forces herself to keep eye contact with him. She takes a deep breath. “Look, I’m not into drama and feelings and fairytale shit. But I like you. I really like you, way more than I should considering we’re basically strangers, which fucking scares me. And even though I barely know you, I trust you for some reason. I just…need you to tell me if you feel kind of the same, or if this is starting to feel like too much now that I’m putting my thoughts out there. Because my gut is telling me this is mutual, but we can both walk away now and write it off as a crazy, whirlwind thing in the desert. I go in my tent, you go in yours, and we never see each other again.”

Her words come out in a rush, her last sentence almost painfully so. She also suddenly considers the idea that maybe he’s only using her as a fun story to tell his friends about, the pretty girl he met in the desert, wooed by his charm and good looks into her tent, only to be ghosted by him the next day.

Maybe the uncertainty in her life is leading her to be too impulsive with her wants and desires right now.

Maybe she’s starting to overthink things.

Grayson catches his lower lip with his teeth and mimics the position of her hands with his own. His thumbs brush the ridges of her mandible and his long fingers overlap at the back of her neck, scratching lightly. Despite herself, she could have purred at the sensation, almost does when it’s combined with that of his lips brushing hers tenderly.

“MJ,” he says lowly, resting his forehead against hers. “I’m not a fuckboy, I promise; like I said earlier, if all I wanted was a warm body beside me, I could have that in a second. What’s so hard for me is to find someone who's not after clout or money or anything that comes along with being in the social media space. Almost every girl I’ve talked to in the last couple of years has been attracted to one of those aspects of my life, not me. Once I find that out, no matter what they look like, I’m never interested in being in the same room as them, let alone in a relationship with them. I can tell you don't give a shit about any of that, and I love it. I love how funny, genuine, and kind you are. I love how naturally, absolutely gorgeous you are. That’s what I look for, that’s all I go for, and you’re all of it.”

Holy fuck, how is this guy real? It’s like he could read her mind. Her thumb tugs on his lower lip and he takes that as his cue to kiss her thoroughly again.

“Promise me now, then,” she huffs when they break apart, “no matter what happens tonight, we try to stay friends, at least, tomorrow.”

“Deal,” he agrees with a grin.

MJ bites her lip and smirks up at him. “How about we, uh, keep sharing secrets in my tent?”

Grayson raises his brow, his smile widening. “It is getting a little chilly out here.”

#this might have originally been written w smut #but i wasn't sure if i wanted it to be official #should i post it as like a continuation?#hmm #dolan twins #grayson dolan #grayson dolan smut #grayson dolan fic #grayson dolan oc #grayson mj

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wishmanifestation14-blog · 5 years

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15 Minute Manifestation Pdf file

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donttouchthegun · 6 years

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It’s Okay, And I Love You.

Hi everybody!!

So, I know it’s been awhile since I actually posted anything but I just wanted to say I hope everyone had a great holiday season! And, if not? I’m so sorry.

If you didn’t have a nice break with family and friends, if you didn’t get any presents because you can’t afford them, if your biggest worry this season was whether or not you’d get to eat sometime soon and you’re still just struggling to get by? I completely understand, and it’s okay. I still love you for it.

If you went back to self harm? It’s okay, and I love you. If you made yourself sick after eating because you couldn’t stand the thought of keeping it down? It’s okay, and I love you. If you downed more pills than you should have? It’s okay, and I love you. If you’re feeling ashamed or guilty because you feel such hatred towards your family, and you feel like you can’t feel that way? It’s okay, and I love you. If you’re overweight and you have been binge eating all through the holiday and you feel disgusting and guilty for even thinking of touching food? It’s okay, and I love you. You are not worthless, you are not a disgrace, you are not unworthy of love. You do not deserve the pain you feel. You do not deserve to be treated like shit for things you can’t control.

Did you have fake it through another month of Christmas music and Sunday church services with an unconvincing smile on your face? Did you yet again listen to countless relatives talk about nothing but politics and insult the LGBTQ+ community, and had to sit quietly pretending that you agreed or just didn’t hear because everything they are saying applies to you? Did you worry so much that you cried yourself to sleep some nights because your mind is nothing but a beehive of nervous irrationalities that eat away at you in the dark? Did you return to old habits? Eat one more cookie than you probably should have and feel regret about it? Lie straight to your mother’s face to preserve your relationship and keep yourself safe from slurs and backlash and hatred? Get back into a relationship that everyone says isn’t good for you but no one else is there when you need them?

It’s okay, and I love you.

I’m in this boat too, and so are so many others just like us. December is a time for most people to at least put on a damn good liar’s face and smile through the holidays, sing about love and family and giving instead of receiving. But, there are plenty of us who spent Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanza, the Solstice, or whatever other holiday you or your family celebrates dying inside. Maybe you were broken up with on Christmas Eve. Maybe seeing snow always makes you scared to drive. Maybe this time is the anniversary of losing a loved one, or December always puts you in a position of questioning your faith because you’re terrified that if you’re wrong you’ll burn for it. And maybe, maybe you don’t know why you feel sad at all because you should be fine when you have everything but you just feel lost.

Whatever the reason is, I hope that anyone who had a December that wasn’t ideal is doing alright, or at least seeking help if not. I want you to know I care for you for you, no matter who you are, no matter your looks, your weight, your mental state, your race, your sexuality, your gender identity, your religion, or your political views. You’re a person, and that means you matter to me, and you matter to other people in your life as well, even if you don’t know it.

This may not even be your family. Though they’ll always claim to, you family might not always have your best interest at heart because they don’t know the real you or they simply don’t care. This could just be a friend from school, even if it’s the only one you have. This could be someone you met online who you immediately connected with because of all your similarities and who you talk to whenever you can. This can be a secret admirer, someone you don’t even realize has feelings for you And is too scared to come forward about it. It could even be someone you’ve forgotten about, someone you knew once long ago but haven’t talked to in so long that you hardly remember their last name, but maybe they still remember yours and would jump at the opportunity to talk with you again.

I encourage everybody who is struggling or suffering to talk to somebody. A therapist may work for some people, but for others the best medicine could be talking with friends. It could be venting on social media, even if your account does not reveal your actual identity. It could be talking to yourself- Writing in a journal is a therapeutic and judgement-free activity that provides an outlet to release stress and explain everything you need to get out however you choose to express yourself. Also, texting the crisis line and asking the advice someone someone who can look at your situation through an outside, unbiased view can offer at least some hope and a bit of advice if nothing else seems to click for you. (Even if you are not suicidal or having any suicidal thoughts or urges, Crisis Text Line provides users a free, 24 hour 7 days a week text service for those who struggle with depression, anxiety, and a wide multitude of other conditions that impact the brain negatively. The number to text is 741742, and you can find their site along with any additional info for here.)

There are countless people who are dealing with countless reasons that explain why they are not happy during this time of year. That’s the case for the rest of the year as well, but it seems that December brings out the worst of it. December does, however, have the lowest rating of suicides than any other month. More suicides occur in spring or summer than they do in December. It seems as though this month just brings forth a wave of painful thoughts and memories, most likely because although the holidays are a time for family, many people have secrets that they are hiding from their blood relatives and feel shameful of them because of the atmosphere. But whatever he reason for your dread in December of 2017, I have a few tips for you to try and release some of your emotions, keep yourself under control, and feel better about the winter months:

-Keep a journal I mentioned this earlier but this is a really good idea for everybody, not just those who are depressed. Journals allow you to write whatever you please with no judgement to be passed and no one to tell you that you’re wrong or you can’t write it. You can write as much or as little as you want- You could even keep a journal in the form of creative expression. Instead of writing, try drawing something that portrays the emotions you can’t vocally explain. Try writing some music notes that express how you’ve been feeling on a particular day. You don’t have to write full entries or complete entire drawings or write whole compositions of music if you don’t want to. It’s your journal. You have control over it. And the best part is that no one has to know what’s inside except for you, and you still were able to get out everything that was stuck inside your head.

-Writing poetry As much as many people are disgusted by it, poetry is one of the most expressive ways in which you can release your feelings. Many people grow a distaste for poetry through years of being forced to study and analyze the same classes poems from the same historic authors all throughout high school and middle school English classes, but there is a poem for everything. Anything you can possibly think of that you enjoy, anything you can conjure up in your mind, someone has written a poem about it. And if they haven’t, then you can. There are no rules. There are no guidelines. It can be as straightforward or as abstract as you wish. It can rhyme and be 10 lines or it can be freestyle and stretch on for 7 pages. There’s no limits to what you can do with poetry, which is one of the reasons why so many people with such different backgrounds and experiences and interests enjoy it. Poetry is one of the few things in the world you can truly make your own that no one can ever tell you is wrong. In poetry there is no wrong word or line, there is only room for you to better express your ideas.

-Cooking/Baking Even if you’re terrible in the kitchen and could manage to burn without turning on the stove, there are tons of recipes online that are easy to learn and user friendly. There are also likely old family recipes that you may have strewn about somewhere in the remnents of your kitchen, and if not I’ve provided some links to several different beginner-level recipes that anyone can figure out with some practice. (If you find any others you enjoy let people know about them! Don’t just keep it to yourself, talk about it with others who enjoy culinary arts. Tell them special things you did to the recipe to make it your own, give them advice if they’re a bit newer to cooking than you are, or just have fun talking about favorite dishes you’ve made! Try and spread some love guys!) Cooking and baking are things that let you relax and experiment at the same time. There’s something almost therapeutic about following the steps of a recipe, and it’s a great way to try out new foods or discover if you have a hidden passion in culinary skills. You can add in or take out any ingredients you don’t like (As long as they are not essential to properly bake the recipe, you can’t take flour out of a cake) And you can try different things each time as you grow more experienced with your skill and your ability to maneuver in a kitchen. It also feels incredible when you successfully execute a recipe, and it’s even better when you can provide food for someone and they compliment your ability. You can truly be proud of something you made and it will likely inspire you to continue trying out more recipes and dishes.

Chicken dinner

Easy rice

Simple Thanksgiving turkey

Sugar cookies

Vanilla cake

Gluten free - This is a site I’ve found that allows you to search for recipes and it will provide you with gluten free results, for any of you guys who can’t digest gluten or are sticking to a specific diet.

Dairy free - This site is similar to the gluten free site, it provides options for recipes that do not contain or require dairy for anyone who is lactose intolerant or allergic to dairy products.

Vegetarian - This is a site with some recipes listed that are designed for vegetarians. The recipes are all super easy and vary in their ingredients to provide a variety of options and meals.

-Arts and Crafts I had to include this one because as silly and childish as it sounds and seems, arts and crafts are an incredible way to relieve stress and let yourself have some fun. Go out and buy a spin art kit, and go crazy with the colors. Look up some DIY fun crafts for when you have nothing better to do. Buy some yarn and learn how to knit or crochet a scarf for somebody (Or yourself.) Arts and crafts are just serious enough that they provide you with an engaging activity that can lead you to a product you can be proud of that didn’t take up tons of time, but it’s just ridiculous enough that if you mess up or go a little off the rails you won’t get too angry with yourself because it’s just for fun. Tell me you can get mad at yourself because you glued on a googly eye that was a bit bigger than the other one or because you accidentally painted your reindeer’s antler’s the same color you were supposed to paint him so now his antlers just match his fur. You can’t, because it’s all for just some silly fun, and the most carefree time of a person’s life is when they are a kid. Because when you’re little kid you don’t have a job, you don’t have romantic relationships, you don’t have SAT’s and finals to worry about, you don’t have colleges to apply to and essays to write for scholarships to reduce the price of those colleges because you can’t afford them, you don’t pay taxes, you don’t worry about religion or politics or societal expectations. You’re just a kid. Your biggest wonder in life is whether or not you’re having spaghetti or tacos for dinner later in the night. So go and let yourself be a kid again. Indulge in something mindless, something that lets you have fun and not think about what your doing. It really is one of the most helpful ways to overcome pressure and stress.

-Listening to music And lastly- This one seems kind of obvious I know- But listening to your favorite music really does help you feel better about your day. If you just had a really terrible day where you got screamed at by your parents or your teacher, or you forgot to study for a big test and you knew the moment you looked at the first question you were going to fail, I wouldn’t suggest coming home and listening to lots of heavy metal with people screaming into your ears. There are times when you need music like that- When you’re furious and frustrated and you feel rage bottling itself up inside you, listening to something intense can help you express those emotions through loud noise and intense vibrations resonating in your ears. However, when your body is under a lot of stress and anxiety it biologically responds better to more relaxing, calming stimulations. I’m not saying you have to come home and listen to opera music (Though I personally enjoy it) But you should find something more soothing for your mind to focus on. Listen to some alternative songs. Try out classic rock (Not super intense stuff guys, songs with a steady beat and a melody you enjoy) Or you could even try listening to classical piano if you need to read for a test or a project. Research actually shows that when listening classical piano while engaging in homework, high school students tended to perform better on tests and be more well-informed on research topics. Classical music creates an environment where your brain can focus on what its reading, and it retains the information better. (Here is a link to one of the research articles about this study, but you can search for some of your own information about the theory as well if you’d like more information) Whether you’re studying, frustrated, or just had a bad day for whatever reason, music is a go to solution that many of us don’t realize we are using as therapy, but we are. We all connect to some type of music for some reason. We all have a song we know that we swear was written about our own lives. Music connects all of us in some way or another, and using it as an outlet for emotion is both an excellent and a popular method for maintaining our mental states of mind.

Remember that when you see somebody smiling, you’re only seeing what they want you to see, and they could easily be crying out for help with no way to get it. It’s easy for us to shield their true feelings because so many people take others at face value, when lots of us are simply crying behind the mask. Over half of people who stopped themselves from committing suicide did so because of just one little thing. Someone asked them how their day was, somebody prepaid for their meal at a fast food restaurant, they were told they did a good job at work or school. It could be as simple as someone saying they liked their outfit today. It doesn’t take much to make someone’s day, but it takes even less to ruin it, and something as simple as a sideways look as they walk past could be enough to convince them that they’re hated and worthless and judged by everyone around them. When some people make a stupid comment in class or get an answer wrong they simply laugh with their friends and move on, but others hold onto it for weeks at a time and can’t walk into that room without feeling sick at the ever looping memory of words that everyone else in the room forgot about before class ended. People are hurting, and although it’s more evident during December, it’s still not always easy to tell who is hiding and who is really showing you their true face.

Well guys, I’m sorry this post was so long, but I feel like I really needed to say all of this. Let people know that they matter. Talk to your friends, talk to those you care about, talked to your significant other or spouse. Ask them how they’re doing, check up on any tough situations you know they’ve been in recently, and let them know that even if they don’t want to talk about it or if they feel as if they’re lost that you care for them and that they matter. And if you’re on the reverse end, talk to those who are reaching out to help you. Even if you don’t tell them the whole story, even if you don’t know why you’re so upset, even if you just tell them that you’ve been struggling lately, let somebody know that you’re not okay. It’s not healthy or rewarding to hold it all it. It only causes greater amounts of stress that- As it accumulates- Will make every bad situation worse because it will just be piled onto the ever growing mountain of problems within your head. Try some of these methods, suggest some of your own if you have any, and talk to the people you care about. And try your best not to spread hatred towards others. Don’t tease them for their clothes, don’t avoid them because of their status, don’t judge them because they live with a family that doesn’t care for them. If you’re struggling this December, this year, or ever in your life, I’m so tremendously sorry that you’re going through this. Pain is the hardest thing to forget, and the most commonly referenced emotion throughout human history. It’s the binding feeling we all experience at some point or another, and there’s so many different types but it all hurts. As people, as towns, as cities and countries and continents, as a society, we all hurt. And I know it’s hard. I know there’s nothing I can say that will change the situation you’re in, but I’m really wishing that something in this post gave you hope tonight. And if not, it’s okay, and I love you.

#December thoughts #Anxiety #Depression #Suicide #Suicidal thoughts #Ways to help #Spread positivity #Help others #Love others #Give hope #It’s okay and I love you

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elddansurin · 7 years

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there’s a pretty good character development questionnaire going around my dash right now, so i took the liberties of filling the entire thing out on my own time, because buddy, you gotta make your own destiny.

1. Who’s the oldest character of yours that you still use? I had to give this one some thought bc my gut reaction was to say Tuo, but it turns out the answer is Falshavo, because I can explicitly remember drawing him in the hazy, far gone year of early 2006 when I was taking a drivers ed course. He started out as either some bastard of a Silent Hill fanchar, or a heavily SH-"inspired" character, and I think he could have at best been called a demon? I was like 16 when I made him, cut me some slack. In any case, Fal has changed very much over the years, most recently into an original species that can best be described as something visually between a satyr and a manticore, but is actually neither of those things. For quite a while he was based out of my one world, Undecim, but recently I decided he and his ilk would be better suited to my OTHER world, Aphelion. As far as motivations go, he's swapped from evil/crazy/malevolent to a much more nap-based personality. Two things that haven't changed since I've made him, though, are that he's blind in one eye and doesn't talk very much. So there's that.

2. Who’s the oldest character of yours, defunct or not? That honor goes to Jonathan, who was definitely and absolutely a FF7 fan character back when that game was new and I was still in my larval stage. He morphed into a mental illness coping mechanism as my childhood went on and he's just had a whole lot of interesting/embarrassing iterations, but I guess that's to be expected of a character I made in fucking 1997. That said, I retired him a few years ago. Tried briefly to bring him back, but I just wasn't feeling 2.0, so I didn't force it.

3. Has creating a character ever made you realize something about yourself? I was GONNA say no, but then it just dawned on me how much time I spent creating gay male characters in my early teen years before THAT realization caught up with the rest of me. I'm not going to say the characters themselves were involved in the inevitable personal revelation (they weren't), but more than anything I just think it's proof that pieces of my brain do not always work as a cohesive whole. I knew before I knew, so to speak, and it showed up in my characters.

4. Any minor characters that have either taken over or branched off into their own stories? UHHHH Your Boy Kolja was initially a primary antagonist in Mikhail's storyline, back before I decided to fundamentally retool a lot of things about Mik's whole deal. But I'm nothing if not predictable, and I'm a guy who loves a good villain, so I ended up making Kolja FAR more fleshed out and engaging than the actual protagonist of the story. Same thing kind of happened with Anzo, who was initially kind of an offshoot wildcard character in the horrible and confusing political landscape of that entire bed of storylines. But uhhh, that didn't last.

5. Do you prefer to make human, animal, monster, or _____ characters? Why? My characters are all unambiguously human/humanoid. Even the monsters are going to have recognizably human faces because I have a hard time getting emotionally invested in a character otherwise. I'm really not sure the reasons for this. There's a few exceptions, ofc, but not many. Peeling off for a sec, in regards to making characters in TES settings, I definitely am biased toward the elven races because if I wanted to make a human character, I'd do so in own properties. Also the human races in the elder scrolls are kind of... underwhelming...

6. When creating a character, do you come up with the visual concept or the written concept first? Written concept, almost every time. The rare exception is usually with minor and/or lore-based characters, like gods or monsters, since I rarely explore those characters as deeply as I do the regular types. But if I'm making Just Some Dude, I'm probably going to have a full written concept drafted out months to years before I ever get a concrete idea (much less an actual depiction) of what he looks like.

7. Do you have characters that you know you’ll never use, but can’t bear to get rid of/recycle? I'm going to have to go ahead and call back on Jon for this one, largely based in both his history and his significance to me and my own development. He was my primary, go-to character for such a long time, I don't think it'd do him justice to ever properly put him out to pasture or recycle (and I'm a chronic recycler, so that's saying something). He kind of exists in a creative limbo, and that's where he's gonna stay.

8. Is there a character that embodies your good traits, or traits you wish you had? Good traits? In all seriousness, probably. Nothing I am consciously aware of, so cop-out answer on this one. I'm also not really one for wish-fulfillment characters, so that's a no on "person I wish I was" aspect, sorry.

9. Is there a character that embodies your bad traits? Several characters? Which ones and what traits? HAHAHA hoo boy. Gavriil is the embodiment of my general shiftlessness and crippling self doubt, Tuo embodies my crushing depression and self-destructive tendencies, Ludo represents my reoccuring fear that I’m stuck in circumstances so far beyond my control that I ought not bother to try and change, and I'm not even gonna TOUCH on which of my boys were created as blatant outlets for trauma. There's a fun little game for you, try and figure that one out yourself.

10. Is there a character that explores your interests or fetishes (orrrr is that just all of you characters)? Uh, flat no on the "fetishes" part, but yeah, most of my characters tap on my significant interests in some way or another. Most concrete example I think is Desoto, who I designed (or, well, redesigned if we're getting technical) when my interest in astronomy was at its peak, back before I realized physics is something I'm terrible at and makes me cry/change my major in college. I still love astronomy and astrophysics on a conceptual level, but the second you break out equations, I'm gone. My Boy Desoto, though, I have designed to be significantly more likely than me to do math, so good for him. Funny enough? I've never made a character who's into geology. You know, my actual field. Go figure.

11. If you have characters that embody certain traits of yours—good or bad—has writing them changed how you view those traits? Has it affected you in any way? Not really, at least I don't think so. I might wake up in the middle of the night with a better answer screaming to my forebrain, but my gut reaction is a no. I tend to go into writing something with fixed views, and I can't recall an instance of me suddenly deciding "hey, actually this thing is good/bad and I never thought of it this way." I've definitely started viewing the characters themselves differently after starting a project, but never really the traits they personify.

12. Do you fantasize about being any of your characters, or are you more detached? Definitely the latter. I'm not shy about putting pieces of myself into the characters I make, but at the same time, I really do not see myself in them, nor do I wish to. There's a firm level of detachment in that these are my creations, and rarely do I mold the sort of character where I can in good conscience think "yeah, that's who I want to be." A big part of this is that my character creation/world building habits are and always have been rooted in maladaptive daydreaming (and I have only recently figured out the terminology for a phenomenon I was otherwise well aware of, funny how that works), and that has always been based in me trying to distance myself from who I was (and at times, am). I don't want to put myself into new shoes, I want to focus on someone who isn't me, but has weird, tenuous connections to me. If that doesn't make any sense, pretend that it does.

13. Do you create playlists for your characters? No, and that's based mostly in the sad reality that I stopped seeking out new music years ago. That, and I've never been much of an audiophile, so there'd just be so much overlap in any playlists I created that honestly, why bother. That said, I will occasionally listen to something and think "holy shit, this is ___". First example that comes to mind is Motorhead's Dust and Glass, which is very much the anthem for Ludo. Do me a favor and listen to that song, and you will know everything you need to know about Ludo. Also, I’ve got a handful of songs that make me think very much of Gav, but most recently, I decided that Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street is a good song for him. Like, also for me? But mostly Gavriil. It can be both.

14. When writing for specific characters, is there anything you have to do to get into the right mindset? I've gotta be in the right mood, and that's all it comes down to. I'm still trying to figure out the secret to writing something that's counterintuitive to my mood, but I'm not there yet. I know the answer is "just fucking do it," but here's an idea: shut up? I dunno. I'm a very flaky content creator.

15. Which character is your guilty pleasure? Right now, it is absolutely Gavriil. For a long time I had such an issue with allowing myself to have characters based out of properties that weren't my own, so I started out feeling very self-conscious about putting so much time and thought into Gav. I have since made like eight or nine more TES-based characters in his wake, but some residual sentiment still lingers! See also: I still am too self-conscious to publically share the story I've been writing with him. I'm not sure if that's rooted in me playing in somebody else's sandbox, or if the story itself is coming out of a place of extreme personal vulnerability (I wrote the bulk of it during my recent Complete Mental Breakdown™). Or maybe I'm just self-conscious about my writing in general. Who knows! But at the end of the day I absolutely love Gav and I'm having so much fun working with him. Before him was Kolja for many years, and Tuo before that. Don't get me wrong, I still adore the both of those guys, I just have a new focus for the time being.

16. Is there a character of yours who’s a real struggle to write/draw? Why do you think that is? Right now, definitely Anzo. He started out very different from what he's become, and at the end of the day, I'm still not sure what exactly I'm trying to do with him. I was/am trying to write him in a story, but it's been proving very difficult because I'm just not sure what I'm trying to accomplish with him. Initially, his core concept was based very deeply in a revenge fantasy that had gotten out of control (I mean, it was a justified revenge fantasy, but that still doesn't make it healthy, my dude, my guy). but then I started thinking a bit more about the major events in his life, and if I was making him react believably enough to what he'd endured. That, and by this time I was in some genuine, bonified darkness in my own life, and that started leaking out into the character and story very much. Now I'm stepping back and wondering, is this where I want it to go? If the answer is no, then where SHOULD it be going? I don't have an answer to that yet. So he's a hard character to write, at least for now.

17. Which character is the easiest to draw/write? I wanted to say Kolja, based in how enthusiastic I was for him for such a long time. I could tell you his story from birth to death, and there's only a few small threads that are still unclear in my mind. Unfortunately, this level of enthusiasm has left me with the understandably daunting task of, you know, actually writing it down. There's SO MUCH to sift through, and it's like scaling a damn mountain. It's all there, I can see the whole thing, but fuck me if I'm not in for a climb. I started in on it late last year before retreating to work on something on a bit... smaller of a scale. Gotta work my way up to that. That said, the actual easiest character to write right now is, again, Gavriil. Part of it is that enthusiasm I have for him right now, and another part of it is that his story is based on the main quest of Skyrim which, lets be honest, is an underwhelming plot on the whole. So the plot has already been written out by someone else; I don't have to worry about that. Neither do I have to worry about actually depicting the entirity of said plot, because it's not actually an interesting one. And honestly why are you reading a story of a character from Bad Game Skyrim if you don't at least have some cursory knowledge of how that game's plot goes? The interesting part- to me, at least- is the effect it has on my character. That's what I've been focusing on, and it's been fun.

18. Is there anything you really wish you could do, character-design-wise, that you feel is outside your current skillset? A concept that you wish you could pull off but are uncertain about? Visually? A lot. There's a lot that's outside my skillset, because I don't know how to fucking draw. That's why I shy away from drawing characters who, say, I imagine to have unnecessarily complex tattoo designs. Not only do I not feel like putting in the time to actually depict that, but I also lack the talent to properly do so. It also kind of neuters what I can pull off for some of my more outlandish designs, namely gods and monsters. Kjelchaikhan is the only one of the gods I've drawn so far, and not coincidentally, he also has the easiest design to deal with. I started in on trying to draw Tsenmaer before I realized holy shit, the way I picture her in my head is so far beyond what I'm capable of actually doing. I'm not even going to fucking touch on Archaeos, because that design is going to be... even harder!! Conceptually, not so much. It sometimes happens on a small scale, such as how I've designed Ludo to be a boxer when I know little about boxing and I don't honestly care to learn. But at the same time? His story is based far, far more heavily in the shitty circumstances of his life and how he's trying to worm his way out of that than in the actual "punching dudes in the head for money" thing. That was more a tool to tie him in with the questionable, shady shit that I needed him to be shackled to. "Underground boxing circuit" just sounded like as good of an idea as any, so I figured why not. That aside, most anything I want to write about ends up being something I'm either familiar with based on personal experience, or at the very least am interested in researching for story purposes.

19. What’s more important to you: visual design, unique personality, a trendy character aesthetic, etc? If you’re not sure, then what’s the first thing you usually nail down in a character? Definitely the personality and basic concept. I very much enjoy crafting characters that are fleshed out and generally believable, and I am very much terrible at designing them on a visual scale. Do all my characters end up looking the same? Yes. Does this bother me? No. If it did, I'd fucking do something about it. What's important to me is who a character is when you boil away all the set dressing. Who is he on a conceptual level? What are his motivations? His basic structure? My character creation process is me sitting down and saying "I want to make a character who embodies these basic traits, and is based on this core concept," then building from there. Visual design is always, always an afterthought.

20. Do you ever plan to do anything (comic, animation, etc) with your characters? Or are you just happy to have them? For the most part: Nope! My characters exist primarily to make me happy and give me something to think about when I'm tired of thinking about myself and my life. There's a few that I'm working very much to translate into stories, but even then I hem and haw over whether or not to actually share the content I produce. Part of it is I'm much more self-conscious about my writing than my art. Used to very much be the other way around, up until I stopped considering myself an artist. Now I just kind of shit drawings out from time to time, and if people think they're terrible, that's because they are and I put no effort into what I do. It's the other way around with writing. I very much put effort, care and detail into my stories. More than bad reception, I fear no reception, which is to say that I'd put so much effort into something, put it out there, and go completely ignored. I have no issues with "you suck/your work sucks," but absolute indifference cuts me pretty deep on matters like this. So yeah, that's a significant obstacle between me and content sharing. That, and assuming I did find any degree of an audience, putting my work out for someone else's scrutiny makes it SIGNIFICANTLY harder to go back and retcon. And boy oh boy, I am a notorious an unrelenting retconner.

#OCs #god fucken bless anyone who actually made it through All Those Words

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fizzyhibiscusteainapoptabsodacan · 5 years

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rooookieeee

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

nuanced

“The utopian ideal of the internet—unregulated access to information, pure connectivity—now feels antiquated. Also antiquated: trying to determine if the internet is simply good or bad. Possible and necessary: thinking more deeply about how it’s rewiring our brains and warping our experience of time, about the vistas of reality it’s revealing and creating, and what to do with our positions therein, so that we do not go mad from it all nor flee altogether.When the internet was less mobile, the distinction between online and offline was perhaps more defined. There was real life, and then there was the place that hosted our reflections on it. Now we are experiencing a collision between underbaked thought and tangible experience so great and rapid and omnipresent that it’s less of a crash, more in the water supply. Those who use the internet as an escape are thought of as outliers (Catfishers, video game addicts, radicalized young men), but its increasing presence throughout our daily lives has made a state of unreality not only more accessible, but very hard to resist.Rather than providing a shadow of reality, these platforms shape reality. They’re not pure outlets for our feelings and experiences; they are catalysts for what we feel and experience, how we feel and experience, and our shrinking capacity to process any of it. What we share on social media platforms does not disappear into a void, but increase their engagement and make them more profitable—even criticism is additive to the forces we seek to counteract. (Donald Trump: “Without the tweets, I wouldn’t be here.”) What we share also tells people how to sell us more stuff, so that the CEO of Netflix can stand before his peers and declare that their number-one competitor is sleep—“And we’re winning!”The internet feels chaotic, but it is not out of control. The internet is not one giant, democratic forum where opinions rise to the top by their own merit; it is a very deliberate structure, carefully calibrated to convince its users that visibility is the same as power.“

suspended in mid air

PALIMPSEST is the word

The above is a photo of a photo of my aura. I had it read in Chinatown a few weeks ago and nodded adamantly as the woman told me I was “removed, observant, in [my] own castle.” It is very likely that other parts of her reading were far less accurate and that I seized only on what resonated with me, but that itself is an innate part of being removed/observant/in your own castle: picking and choosing what you’ll remember later, curating moments, architecting your own narrative, as opposed to being open to the possibility that she could’ve been telling me something that did not already fit my idea of who I am. She said, “There is something between you and the rest of the world,” and gestured as though to indicate a screen in front of her face.

This year, I graduated from high school and moved out of my parents’ Midwestern home into a New York City apartment and started acting in a play every day, wondering, constantly, what it feels like to bring down that screen. This was for the sake of being onstage but also because I was trying to start my life: How does it feel to exist in a moment, connected to another human being and to the world, without thinking about what it signifies, what it’ll look like in memory?

To be able to consider these questions at all is not only a privilege afforded by a life with time to think about HOW EXACTLY to FULLY APPRECIATE all these MAGICAL MOMENTS I am #blessed with CoNsTaNtLy!, but also just how my brain works. I started a blog when I was 11, and every day after school, I came home and took photos of my outfits for it. I was very picky about the setting and the colors and the lighting, not out of any interest in photography, so much as a desire to draw connections between things and delight at the order of it all. I didn’t feel like they were self-portraits, although I’m in every picture. They felt similar, instead, to doing plays at camp and community theater, or sitting at our family’s piano going through a Bible-thick Broadway songbook and shifting among my favorite characters.

When I stopped writing my blog halfway through high school, I began keeping journals just for myself, each one cycling through a different personality as I had with fashion and with acting. For the duration of each journal, my handwriting would change, I’d dye my hair, I’d hang new posters on my wall, I stuck to a narrow selection of my wardrobe and my music, I chose a new route for the walk to school. I am similarly strict about the monthly Rookie themes, dictating to our illustrators and photographers which colors, motifs, and types of lighting to use in their work for us. My friends get annoyed with me for how often I try to art direct our hangouts instead of seeing where the night takes us—Can we all wear these colors, walk down this street, listen to this song? That cohesion frames the moment and turns it into a scene from a movie. I don’t quite know how to let experiences just unfold and be surprised by how they affect me; I want to know that I’ll write down the aesthetic details of an event later and be pleased at how they fit together: We wore fur coats and wool cloaks, walked down Lafayette, listened to Blonde on Blonde.

Sometimes this quality veers into the realm of vampiric hubris. Like: I sat on my roof on opening night of the play with a perfectly nice fellow who put on “Astral Weeks” by Van Morrison and his arm around me. Why did I let the lovey part of the song go over my head, but hear “to be born again, to be born again,” over and over, marveling before the skyline at my own personal reinvention over the course of the past few months—at how perfect it was that I was wearing my fuzzy pink moving-to-New-Yorkjacket—instead of returning the embrace of a person I liked?

There is a terrible YA novel cliché of a girl who lives her life looking for movie moments, and I recently defended her/myself in my journal:

1. Why worship a life that is movie-esque? 2. Why should something be significant for feeling movie-esque? 3. Isn’t life the real thing itself?

No. Movies are what make life real to us, because they pay attention to and crystallize emotions, colors, movement, human behavior, etc. (When I say movies, I also mean TV, I also also mean plays—even though a play is not recorded, it’s crystallized in that it lives on in the minds and memories of its audience). Movies are like “LIFE: The Best Of.” “LIFE: The Essential Collection.” “LIFE: Not Dead Yet!” So saying a moment is like a movie is how we can comprehend its beauty and grant it significance.

I can defend the art direction and the obsessive documentation, but I also know that there are different answers to the above questions. I know there are infinite moments that could take place and affect me in ways I can’t conceive of, if I could only put down my notebook every once in a while and actually live my life instead of trying to immortalize everything.

“We don’t like to admit it,” said Julian, “but the idea of losing control is one that fascinates controlled people such as ourselves more than almost anything. […] And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? […] To be absolutely free! […] To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal! […] let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn.”

The above is from the novel The Secret History. It summarizes why I like acting, and why I was so eager to listen and learn from all the times our playwright said to me, “You know the play. You know the character. Why are you still watching yourself perform, telling the audience how to feel about her, dictating the moment? Just be in it.” I’m paraphrasing, from my castle. But that was the gist. And, to throw a wrench in all of this, the characters in The Secret History do end up losing control and being totally present…and MURDERING someone in their state of freedom!!!! But for now, this is where this month’s theme starts: the combined beauty and danger of inventing yourself, owning your experiences, putting yourself on record.

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krogh39high-blog · 6 years

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Lenovo ThinkPad W550s Review.

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whitewolfofwinterfell · 7 years

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Over the years I've kind of noticed that a lot of people (not everyone of course) who've Instagrams, Tumblrs or other social media dedicated to tv shows, celebrities, singers etc. have struggled with hard things in life, i.e. depression, anxiety, bullying and so on.... and that's why they've come into fandoms, because they needed some sort of happiness, a way to feel like they belong and just get a break from reality, sort of... (part 1)

(cont.) like being in a fandom helps people deal with whatever they’re going through in real life. For example, when I fell (literally fell, it wasn’t intentional) into my first fandom I was going through a pretty rough time in my life, but being in a fandom helped me and it gave me a chance to sort of get a break from reality and the problems I was struggling with and brought a bit of happiness, and it kept me going and not to give up.and I’ve just noticed that a lot of people in fandoms have struggled with various things in real life and I have this “theory” that is why they get drawn into fandoms, because that TV show, or that actor or singer or book series etc becomes a way for them to hold on and get a break from the hard things for a while. Fandoms also gives people a way to meet others who might feel the same way they do and can relate to each other and find comfort together… what do you think about that? this got way longer and messier than I had expected (I apologize for that!) but I’ve just been thinking about this for a while and I wanted to know what others think… and you always gives such a good perspective and thoughts into your posts that I felt like sharing, hope that’s ok and that you get what I tried to get through… 😅

Don’t worry, I understand what you’re trying to say completely. Of course, it’s okay for you to share this with me. Thank you for asking. It’s actually an important and interesting topic to discuss, particularly for me because I feel like being a part of Tumblr and the fandom world has changed my life. I think everyone’s reasons for being in a fandom is different but the common denominator is that it acts as an outlet in some shape or form.

I’ll put the rest of my answer under the cut, since it’s pretty lengthy.

Personally, I see the fandom as a hobby in exactly the same way as football, bird watching, dancing, drawing etc. would be considered a hobby. And hobbies are such important parts of people’s lives because they serve so many purposes. They’re a way to channel our energies and creativity, share our ideas, build communities and make friends, improve our confidence and/or mental/physical/emotional health. So hobbies are very important and special to people, although the experience and meaning of those hobbies is unique to each every individual.

It has different sides to it just like any other hobby, so for me its: edits (gifs), meta and fanfiction and all of them are ways in which I’m able to express my creativity. Writing in particular is my passion and the fandom gives me an outlet for that in the most amazing way because I get to pair it with the passion of a show/movie/character/ship I love too. And it requires time, patience and care. Every day or every other day I sign into Tumblr, I reblog a post or make a change to my theme, answer an ask, respond to a request etc. just the same as any other hobby. And most of all it provides me with a release. When I’m going about my day (particularly when I’m at uni or writing an assignment) all I look forward to is being able to come onto Tumblr. It’s a form of relaxation and joy for me and for so many others. And I don’t think that the fandom particularly attracts people that are going through hard times, I think that is true for any hobby. When people are down, they’re struggling, they’re in a dark place etc. it’s only natural to seek out something to make you feel better about yourself and your situation. I think the difference is that more confident and extroverted people are more likely to go out and pursue an active hobby, whereas more reserved and introverted people are more likely to pursue that online. I know that for me personally, I’ve always struggled with my self esteem and there was no way I had the confidence to actually go out there and meet people and try to find a hobby (plus, I always loved writing and the best way to channel that is online anyway). But I think it’s just a natural thing for those that are introverted and/or not very good socially to seek social contact via the internet, because it’s easier than having to do it face to face. It’s easy to portray yourself differently online, to be the more confident you that you are on the inside until you’re in face to face social situations and I think that it’s a way for people to build their confidence socially. I also think that it’s a way for people to seek validation and acceptance. Particularly for those that have been bullied or just generally haven’t fit in at school or at home, the fandom is a place to find other people similar to yourself that will remind you you’re a good, decent and important person. And at the end of the day, that’s something that every human needs sometimes. We all just need to know that we’re not alone, that there’s someone else out there that feels/thinks the same way as us and more importantly that someone recongises our existence. I also think there’s a common feeling amongst a lot of people in the fandom whereby they feel out of place in their daily life and the world around them, which is again why they try to seek a place they feel more comfortable online.

I actually watched a news report about this recently. it was about how young kids are getting addicted to social media because each time they receive a follower or like or reblog or whatever it is, it releases dopamine in the brain and that’s a feeling I think everyone can relate to. Particularly for people that may not have many friends or have gone through their life never being popular, it’s kinda an amazing feeling to have people recognise you and want to talk to you, even if it is online. Each time we receive an ask or gain a follower or a note, it feels like validation and I think that definitely gives people a boost that they’re probably not getting in their daily life.

I also agree with you that the fandom is definitely a place where people seek out others that love the same things as they do. Although I’ve spoken to a tonne of people, I’ve only made one real friend through the fandom. But honestly, it’s so great to be able to go to her whenever and be like “DID YOU SEE THE NEW EPISODE OF _____?!?!?” because there is no one else in my life I have to share that with really. And I think that sharing the love for a particular show/ship or whatever it is can bring people together because it opens doors and is that first step of talking to someone. But in reality with time those friendships grow to be something much more profound and although you’ll probably still talk about fandom-y things, it becomes a real friendship that’s about so much more than just that. And you can’t really put a price on friendship as corny as it sounds. Even though the friend I made from the fandom lives thousands of miles away there are genuinely days when I feel like she’s the only one that’s there for me and I talk to her about things I don’t talk to anyone else about. So I think the fandom is definitely a place people come to form friendships and it works too.

For me personally, I actually joined for the opposite reason. Meaning, I didn’t want friends, I was looking for somewhere I could come and be anonymous, where I didn’t have to speak to anyone at all and could do my own thing. I loved that on here no one knew my name, no one knew my face, none of my friends were even on here and as cliche as it sounds, I felt so free with that. I felt like I could do whatever I wanted and it was for me. It’s not that I’ve ever particularly hidden my interests and likes from people, but I think until I found Tumblr I always felt like I had to downplay my passion for fandom-y things. My friends and family would always laugh at me (only harmlessly) for watching the same shows and movies over and over and for always reciting the script along with them, because to them that isn’t normal (whatever that means haha). Yeah, they all watch TV and movies but once and they never feel as strongly about it as I do. Since I was a kid I have been obsessed with watching things over and over again. It started with Disney (Lion King, Bambi, Aristocats to name a few), then it got to Harry Potter (seriously I could still write the Chamber of Secrets and Goblet of Fire scripts from memory), I watched repeats all day long of shows on Cartoon Network (Powerpuff Girls, Ed, Edd & Eddy etc.) then it got to Zoey 101 and Drake and Josh, when I got to my early teens Friends, Skins. I could go on, but you get the point. But I would literally fall in love with these movies/shows (don’t even get me started on how many times I re-watched the episode of Zoey 101 where Chase finally admitted he was in love with Zoey, eeeeep!) and no one around me really understood it. So to be able to come to the fandom and openly express my love for these things was so amazing. I didn’t need friends or anyone to even share that with, all I cared about was being able to have somewhere to unleash that side of myself. Obviously over time, I naturally got speaking to people and made a great friend, but I do think that being a part of the fandom can be as much about just having a place to anonymously exist and express your passions without the want or need for friends. Unlike other forms of social media you can literally come on here, do your own thing and literally no one will bother you or question you and I think that’s pretty unique to social media personally.

But I think you hit the nail on the head as to why so many people fall into the fandom or choose to be a part of it - escapism. Regardless of how happy or unhappy we are, it’s human nature to seek some form of escapism. Whether it’s through watching tv, writing, playing video games, reading, painting, listening to music - it’s all a form of escapism. It’s a distraction from whatever bad stuff might be going on in our lives, it’s a way to unwind and relax, to chat with friends, see the things we love. I often see edits on my dash and genuinely smile or laugh and it improves my mood when I’m having a bad day. I also think that in terms of the specific fandoms, shows, movies, characters and ships we attach ourselves to, they all kind of represent their own form of escapism. An example of that would be that one of my favourite characters is Prue Halliwell from Charmed and one of the reasons I love her so much is because I see all the qualities in her I wish I possessed (beautiful, confident, strong-willed, driven, successful, family-orientated, admired, passionate). My point here is that to an extent I almost live through Prue, imagining myself as who I want to be and putting myself in her shoes. That is just one example. Another would be that I love Sons of Anarchy because it is nothing like my life and I love being able to experience a completely different world from my own or my love for Cook from Skins because he is everything I’m not - reckless, adventurous, fiery, ruthless. All of it is escapism, it’s a way to experience different worlds, different lives, loves and emotions in a safe environment.

I also think that the fandom acts as escapism in regards to providing us with an alter ego. Who we are in the fandom is not who we are in our daily lives (at least not in my experience). On here most people probably think of me as ameliapondsraggedyman or pruehaliwells, the faceless girl that writes unnecessarily long ass responses to all of her asks and bitches about Stelena not being endgame hahah. But that’s not how my family and friends see me. To them, I’m just Shannen (or Shan), the girl that eats coco pops every single morning for breakfast, laughs too loudly (and usually at inappropriate times), talks too much, is best friends with her cat (what a saddo) and has to make her bed in this really weird but particular way (don’t even get me started haha). How I’m perceived or how any of us are perceived within the fandom is not a true reflection of who we are. Or should I say, it’s not a true reflection of every part of ourselves. For example, you may know my exact thoughts and feelings on Stefan Salvatore’s death, but do you know what I did yesterday? But that of course is the appeal of the fandom. To an extent, you get to be who you want. It’s a different side of you, probably one you usually have to suppress or hide and it’s great to be able to escape from who you are everyday and be the other you for a while.

Those are basically my thoughts on that subject. It can mainly be summed up as: I perceive the fandom to be a hobby like any other that acts as a form of escapism from the struggles of daily life and gives people the opportunity to make friends that they have common interests with, a way/place to express themselves and their passions or creativity and improve on themselves whether that be socially, emotionally or mentally.

I hopefully managed to express myself clearly amongst that huge messy response haha. Thanks again for stopping by to share your thoughts and asking me to share mine.

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