#I've seen several posts here and from Twitter and it's exhausting. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eoinmcgonigal · 5 months

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So I saw a post about tumblr wanting to try this 'communities' thing, and I just gotta vent/say my piece. (the tl;dr is 'fuck that shit')

1. I really hate the current trend of fracturing and fragmenting things down into little pieces so they can be categorised into boxes. That's not natural. (Also, discord pushing threads, which I already detest for 1) making me feel like I'm gonna hurl from the violently dissonant, ugly layout, 2) the severely narrow topic problem, and 3) how neurodiverse-hostile they are.)

Like, naturally conversations meander. If you're only allowed to discuss one topic, it's gonna be stifling. You WILL run out of things to say. Making another little box isn't going to fix it, it'll just add to the clutter

2. Quite importantly, honestly, just stop fucking changing shit. It's unnecessary

3. It's not going to be neurodiverse-friendly. As if fandom hasn't changed enough to become increasingly unfriendly to people who are just here to enjoy their hyperfixation and/or special interest. I don't need another thing to learn to navigate. I don't need another place with different rules to carefully traverse. Yes, I'm fandom old and salty. I'm AuDHD and a spoonie with about half a spoon to spend on a good day. I do not have the energy to do all this switching about and jumping from thing to thing. It's exhausting. I want everything where I can find it, and where I can be passionate without having to perform tasks like it's some customer service job, or job interview

4. FOMO shit is toxic. This whole 'be a part of the thing!' necessity if you want to 'engage' or see the conversations and 'content'. Why? I guess it's a social media model that drives engagement, but the stress of it is going to fuck people up. What if you don't have the time, energy, health, spoons, social skills, etc? I have no idea how much interacting will be expected with other people in the 'community' but I can see it becoming a twitter-like circlejerk, and if you're not one of the 'in' crowd doing your required interaction/reblogging/commenting then you might as well not exist to that fandom/group

5. From the description, it looks like these things will be ripe for drama, toxicity, clique shit, becoming echo chambers, etc. because 'semi public' means you gotta opt in/join in some way and whatever's said isn't visible to any old user

Like, who is going to create and mod these things? Who decides what the rules are? What if your fave is 'problematic', or your kink is 'gross' (if nsfw is allowed at all), your take doesn't fit with fanon, or you are just a bit weird and people shun or turn on you for that?

I hope I'm wrong and either these things never happen or they're not as bad as I fear, but fuck sakes I have the above worries because it's shit I've seen happen time and time again, and I don't want to see given a place here

Also, genuinely, what the fuck is tumblr going to be like if you can't/don't want interact with these community things?

Quickly, 6. it creates an 'us' (in crowd) vs. 'them' (not part of our gang)

And then 7. who is going to be dominant in these 'communities'?

Yes, I'm upset right now, because tumblr was just fine (well, fine enough) until this point. I mean:

We have the ability to make sideblogs! (My Star Wars sideblog from... well a decade ago oops... is still out there, I don't touch it any more but I left it up for people to go through). Tumblr even made it so we can reply with sideblogs, which was a very neat update.

Tags!! I don't think it's as usual these days for people to go through tags to find new content, but that's how I do it, how I've always done it, and how I always intend to do it. I'm not following everyone who makes an SAS:RH post. I love you guys, but no. My dash would cause me to have a panic attack. It's already too much for me most days.

EFFORT!!!! I can be here every day full-time doing Stuff if I want! Or I can zone out for weeks if I want/need, materialise and contribute a silly meme, then drift off into the sunset again. If I 'miss' anything, I can go back through the tags, or scroll someone's blog. But honestly, who notices/cares on here if someone lurks or goes afk for a bit. It's super low pressure, because I'm doing what I can/want when I can/want

I want to opt in/out on my own time and terms. The thought of having to be part of a 'community' so I can see/not miss Content TM is freaking me out. I don't want there to be an 'appropriate' time window to interact with things like there is on other social media sites.

So, idk how the shit will look, but I don't agree with making things harder for people to access/find. I won't be posting stuff 'semi-privately'.

And you know what's super upsetting? The thought that I won't be able to see conversations and creations for things I love, because they're hidden away behind some complex new social thing I can't navigate. (Which is already an off-putting, ostracising problem on discord.) That's not how fandom communities should be.

The thought of there being less stuff 'out there' because it's in some 'community' somewhere... really not the direction I'd ever hope this site wold go in

I'm fuckin exhausted. Just lemme do my fandom whateverness without having to perform to some arbritary social interaction standard/requirements that I neither understand nor can do

#i want to murder discord threads because this feels like similar bullshit that's just gonna exclude people #JUST PUT SHIT WHERE PEOPLE CAN ACCESS IT EASILY #aim to be as inclusive as possible with as wide an audience and engagement as possible!#why is that so damn fucking hard?#also lol how long until they'd turn communities into a subscription thing or something #they keep changing shit and the newer people to things like discord and tumblr and fandom in general have no idea what it was like before #things have not always been this bad!#they were bad in other ways but nothing as exhausting as this social-media-model bullshit #yes i'm very fucked up over discord's update #i detest threads with a violent passion there's no fucking need to separate everything out until nothing is left in the channel #i can't even turn the ugly icon off in servers i own #i miss irc #i miss forums #i didn't like lj that much but goddamn #i miss pre-jumbled-up-tags tumblr #i miss pre-threads discord #we do not fucking need this change but it's being shoved down our throats because investors want to see new shit #i'm off to see if i can fix discord so i don't nearly throw up when i open it #the horrible thing is that it looks faintly passable in light mode but i can't read in light mode and you get light or dark and nothing els #personal #vent #just in case anyone hides those tags idk this has been a vent post #i'll go back to rogues soon

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solmarillion · 8 months

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the slow death of silmarillion twitter

i'm really sad these days.

a year ago, i joined the silmarillion fandom through twitter. it's a small community and basically all of us know each other. and even though i had just joined, everyone welcomed me and accepted me there as if i had always been there. some of these friends i've even met irl and they've gotten me through incredibly tough times.

a lot of people on silmtwt i found, went to twitter because it was way easier to talk to people on there. less cliquey, people aren't as self-aggrandizing on there, everyone just wants to vibe, make silly memes and talk about their blorbos. and that's the kind of community that made me happiest. i have so many fun memories from the past year.

but lately, people aren't around as much anymore. the group chat i made is barely active, i don't see as much silmarillion stuff on my timeline anymore, i feel like i'm talking into the void.

why is this happening?

the rings of power show i will concede that part of the inactivity is probably because last year, the amazon show was coming out and everyone was talking about that. now that season 1 is over and we have to wait for season 2, there isn't much for people on tolkien twitter to talk about other than leaks and speculation. activity on twitter is heavily dependent on trends such as this.

toxic fan behavior several people on silmtwt had to deal with toxic behavior from hardcore rings of power fans, such as baseless accusations of "elitism" and "gatekeeping" just for disliking the tv show, starting one-sided ship wars, and perpetuating queerphobic attitudes, particularly in regards to queer GNC men. on the other end, there are the bigoted dudebros who are known for harassing queer and POC tolkien fans, including those on silmtwt. they spam people's replies with their hateful rhetoric and are boosted because of the blue checks. this has definitely made being on tolkien twitter exhausting and thus, engagement is discouraged.

elon musk destroying the platform this is probably the biggest reason in my opinion. elon musk's constant changes to twitter are making the platform unstable, and thus, people are leaving. i have seen several of my mutuals jump ship to threads, bluesky and mastodon, and neither of those platforms are a suitable replacement for twitter. but it is making a community that was once tight-knit far more scattered.

all of this has made me and several others feel lonely on tolkien twitter, because our little community we affectionately called "silmtwt" just isn't the same anymore.

and now i'm forced to come back here, to silmarillion tumblr, because this is where the silmarillion fandom is active, and always has been, regardless of whether a new adaptation has been released or not. but it's not active in a way where you actually feel close with your friends. that's just a problem with tumblr in general, because it's a blogging platform and people are less inclined to respond directly to your posts.

i know i can't change the way tumblr works as a platform. and that's why the death of twitter in general is really depressing. you can't replicate that sense of community anywhere else.

i just wish there was something i could do to capture that magic again.

#silmarillion fandom #fandom twitter #twitter #silmarillion #silm fandom #tolkien fandom #soleil.txt

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nukenai · 9 months

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Having a weirdo couple of days. So a friend group of mine has a friend in said group. When I first saw her at a friend gathering I went "oh I know that person from a million years ago". We weren't super close but I knew her! So I've seen her a few times and just went like cool, that's neat. No big deal.

On sunday I went to a bridal shower for a friend and she was there. After chatting with her for a while about Zelda and Pokémon she went "Um, so this might be awkward, but we knew each other when we were younger." I was of course delighted bc I just assume people forget me or don't care. So I told her of course I remember! (I kind of. Don't forget people I've met, 99% of the time. I can sometimes struggle with names/faces but I particularly remember voices very well). So that was cool!

Tonight I was at my usual/favorite board game cafe, and while I was leaving, someone came up to me. She started with "I don't know if you remember me, but we had high school Japanese class together!" and I was like oh shit! I know your voice and your face. But her name escaped me so I asked and she said "(name)!" and of course I remembered the instant before she said. And I was like "oh yeah! (Name) (lastname)! We're still Facebook friends!" I just hadn't seen her irl in LITERALLY FIFTEEN YEARS 😭

It's very nice that people not only remember me, but actively wanna bring it up? Lol. Like, the approach I've now taken to relationships now that I'm not depressed and insecure anymore is "sure, whatever!" I'm cool if people don't directly talk to me in forever but wanna reconnect after a while. A reaction to a post I make on Twitter/fb/here occasionally is fine. Just like "hey, acknowledging you! Sup!" I'm cool with that. We all have so much going on in our lives, and we're expected to maintain dozens of relationships online and off. It's exhausting! I'm so cool with whatever. Whatever man.

Also I was introducing myself to several people and used a mix of Nuke or Realname depending on how awkward I felt. My friend sitting next to me, who I met irl and not online, says to me, "I forget your name is Realname, I only know you as Nuke."

So I brought up my slight insecurity about my name like, it's a weird name. It's odd! But I'm the only person who seems bothered. Old high school friend even said "You go by Nuke now, right?"

I hope I can get over it eventually. I really don't like my real name but don't mind people calling me it if they've called me that for a long time I guess? It all comes down to not wanting to bother/inconvenience people by asking to be accommodated, which is like a waking nightmare for me. For some reason.

So yeah interesting week.

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nyxzee · 6 months

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i debated putting this on my art blog but as a point i've been vocal about this shit since it happened and i'm still fucking livid about it all despite how fucking long ago it was. this is going to be linked in my pinned posts so as a heads up, warning for all types of abuse, self harm (including a detailed description), suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, overdose mentions, intense mental health shit, ableist narratives and gore along with mistreatment from the fandom

hi, i'm nyx, this blog used to be called emeridan and my old main was bardofmotherfuck - i was one of the gamzee fans who was sent gore, the wish i kill myself, and other abuse for identifying with gamzee. this wasn't a "oh lol funny clown he's goofy like me" i identify with him due to abuse trauma, due to being an addict and mentally ill. because i was hurt deeply by religion and losing my faith caused me to fall into bad fucking shit. to slightly minor extents i identify due to the friendship and romantic issues he had, fuck gamzee makara even had me, a then 20something realize i was bisexual and nonbinary! to a more intense one i identify with him because his agency was taken away and he was made a slave to other peoples horrific intentions - which isn't fun as i hope you'd imagine. i used to have a tag for the vent art i did involving the makara line (blood, gore, abuse all in this tag as you'd expect someone with severe trauma to have in vent art)

i'm not unique in this. there are a lot of gamzee fans who dealt with this. it was a huge fucking issue, it happened on msparp too, to the extent they posted about it happening because it was so fucking frequent. there are multiple gamzee fans i used to follow on tumblr who were sent the same and worse shit. i'm not mentioning them because even to the ones still into homestuck content, this shit was traumatic. i'm a petty bitch so as a protest i only drew gamzee for a while! (just in case these are the real time posts from my main: 1, 2), i have this account from 2015 here, i have this mentioned again here. this fandom abuse has been established well for me, it started 9 months into my homestuck art centric blog after all!

i'm still here in spite of people wanting me to kill myself. honestly despite being petty and boastful in still being here about it when it happened i wasn't actually feeling like that in real life. shocking i know. i had an intense cutting period due to it, i'm still scared of having my submit open, i still want to vomit whenever i get an email that anyone's sent me anything. i've seriously considered suicide a lotta times because i was so frequently told i was in the wrong, i've still got methods in mind and whenever i take my regular medication for the chronic pain shit i think things would be better if i flat out just took everything and didn't wake up ever again. a lotta it is real life trauma, but i used and still use homestuck (and especially gamzee) to help with that.

i talk about it whenever i see a brief chance to, i just haven't screamed loudly in a while that this abuse happened. i find screaming that i'm hurt exhausting and i'm still pretty sure someone will end up giving me shit - and for what i'm doing in this fucking post i'm damn fucking sure i've painted a target on myself again. but i don't care. i am who i am, i've been through all the shit life has thrown (and continues to throw) at me.

@ardenttheories posted a thing that includes a message i sent on twitter (on anon of course because i was scared) in this post here. blog's inactive, i dunno anything about ardent and that isn't the point of this. i'm just proving i've been here for a long fucking time and i've seen some fucking horrors. the message was one i sent on twitter and it looks like the op has deleted their account so i can't prove this but i think i've shown that this isn't a thing i've pulled outta my ass because i'm one of the bitter old fans who hates the current team and wants to lie to hurt them.

i actually don't know anyone aside from james roach being involved and the fact kate was asked to rejoin the team. this is mentioned here by sarah who, was in fact part of this problem but of course that doesn't matter because gamzee fans are pigshit (no tag because i don't wanna waste anything on that drivel!). here's a casual reminder of what exactly the pigshit comment is referring to.

i don't think the trauma of gamzee fans trumps the trauma the team got. trauma and fandom abuse is bad all round. it's not fun, it's gross and painful and people who send abuse are fucking monsters. however, the team was a big part in sending a giant fuck you to the trauma gamzee fans have gotten. that's what the problem is here, that's what this whole post has been leading to. i'm not writing this as a call to cancel homestuck^2 - i'm writing this because i want some acknowledgement on what happened to us. as i said, i'm still here despite the abuse, hopes i'd kill myself and the want to kill myself so i'm making a point of saying something.

the issues in the fandom of team members didn't start with the hs^2 team, it had a nice jumpstart from shelby cragg. i refuse to link any of the accounts who have posted accounts of this as i don't want to get people who dealt with her more stress and the only other person who mentions it isn't someone i want to link any traffic towards. google 'shelby cragg gamzee hate' and you'll find it. she used to tag horrific shit on gamzee fans artwork. fans who had in fact, been sent gore and harassment. she used to post about how great abusive ships were, how actual abuse victims (specifically the gamzee fan ones!) should feel about gam/rezi, how stupid gamzee fans were and directly bait and switch gamzee fans who she'd directly told to call her out if she fucked up by telling them they were random people who had no right to call her out. she had an abuse survivor friend so of course, the wrong abuse survivors didn't matter.

her co-authoring the serendipity gospels which while not official canon had become fandom canon. purples and teals of course work together on alternia after they grow up! gamzee was a total abusive nut case whose personality was either lol druggie or abusive monster and terezi was his victim, gamzee was a bunch of things in this fanfic and it's still looked to as the greatest fanfic in fandom history. as anything shelby touched involving gamzee his portrayal in it was racist, ableist and was always abusive in some way to any character he was placed with. i'm not here to talk about the person who wrote it with her or whatever work she's doing now with her non homestuck content. my point is the fanfiction was bad and it became fanon legend.

gamzee fans have been out crying that we have endured severe trauma that made us relate to gamzee. we weren't there for the ableist shit shelby made out of his character. there are different types of fans for his character, but i hope i've made a point that i'm referring to the people like me. the ones who were directly targeted because of our mental illnesses and abuse history. the ones who monsters wanted to kill.

homestuck proper ended on a bad note for gamzee fans. we had no conclusion, we had nothing. in the end after everything we were left with absolutely nothing but people filling in the blanks to say we likely deserved it because we liked this fucking awful clown. we got nothing for what happened to us. we just had to blindly accept we were hated and people wanted us dead for identifying with a fictional character.

then the epilogue's happened. then homestuck^2. then pesterquest. it bought this hate for us back front and center. the team hated us, hated a character who helped us get through shit no one should have had to endure.

like shelby did, they brutalized his character, and i'm damn fucking sure those cunts know what happened to us. we screamed, and screamed and SCREAMED that we were suffering but they boiled it down to "oh they just like that abusive man! let me make him more abusive" - the portrayal of gamzee in the new work is nothing but someone constantly spitting in our faces. the album of the team's string of bullshit should give you an idea on how the rest of this is gonna go.

the epilogue portrayal of gamzee went into the shit we'd had enough already, it turned a character who helped people cope become a gross dystopian version of our fucking abusers!!! the shit we'd endured from the fandom and our real life trauma was the butt of every fucking joke. there was no conclusion to his actual arc in it, there was no happy resolution for us, but there was a shout out to us. we got our moment of acknowledgment! they turned something that had helped real life abuse survivors, mentally ill people, addicts and victims of religious trauma - a fictional character who people wanted us dead over - into our abusers, into the worst things we'd dealt with, into a fucking mockery of our abuse. ALL of our abuse. all of our trauma. all we'd been through.

homestuck^2 did this further. they were parading the mockery of our abuse to the fullest extent they could think to do. i couldn't get past gamzee's death. but i know they've continued to hate us. i know they can't wait for us to end up killing ourselves so they can piss on our graves.

i have a review of pesterquest here, it's not complete. i couldn't finish the game fully. rose's story caused a self harm relapse and a huge hope i'd be brave enough to take the fucking overdose and end it all. i didn't go into how much gamzee's route broke me. i couldn't. i gained something outta it though! my left pinky and index fingers often lose feeling and i'm unable to use them unless i rigorously shake my hand for five minutes because i burnt my arm as badly as i could. i have cigarette burns all over my wrist, it looks like an octopus scarred me with every arm of its on one side and like someone made an attempt to burn down to my bone with something far bigger than a cigarette on the other. it wasn't something other than a cigarette, but it was a few cigarettes in the same spot. it was burning until i snuffed it out, relighting and burning down again until i'd finished the cigarette, lighting another and repeating. i did this until i felt like i'd earned my right to be alive again.

i need you to understand i'm disabled due to severe pain. i have fibromyalgia that was undiagnosed and untreated since i was 15. i'm 30 now. i've been suffering chronic headaches since i was 11. i've had my lip ripped open. i have ganglion cysts that make bending my wrist in the slightest hurt. i tore both rotator cuffs severely 10 years ago, my wrists are hypermobile and hurt constantly. my dominant arm sufferers from tendonitis. my jaw is so fucked i can't open it fully some days and it always makes a horrific pop outta alignment when i yawn. i've spent at least 10 years sleeping on a couch instead of on a bed as i either didn't have a bed or the one i had was so busted it made sleep impossible, as such my back and neck are a fucking nightmare stream of nonstop pain. i have back trauma from a car accident as a kid. i've strangled myself a few times with cords to try numb the pain out, i've been physically abused to the point i nearly died, i've been sexually assaulted multiple times, i've been violently ill from attempted overdoses or allergies. my point is, i know pain. it's the oldest companion i have and i'm tired of having it.

the continued burning i did to myself from that night however, surpassed any of those individual incidents. it eclipsed the regular intense agony i'm in daily for a solid month. the emotional turmoil of a life like mine had led to this. i'd found fiction to hide in, i'd found a character who so perfectly captured all of this trauma, all of this pain, all of this shit i've had to fucking deal with. i've had people try and take him away, i've had monsters try and get me to take the plunge and kill myself. i thought i was largely numb to bad gamzee interpretation and could move past all this hurt. it turns out i wasn't numb and this shit would continue to hurt. but it wasn't just a random ignorant idiot this time round, it was official. it was the team digging my grave and getting ready to throw shit on top of my corpse. that hurts in a unique way.

i don't do homestuck^2 now or ever. i refuse to finish pesterquest. i do my best to ignore the additional trauma the original team was aiming for. i viciously ignore and deny the shit they pull now. i quietly hiss to friends that some disgusting and ignorant cunt said the dumbest fucking shit that makes me want to scream until my vocal cords snap. i see the odd snapshot of what mutilation is happening to a comic that frankly saved my life in so many ways. i don't look in the gamzee tag as someone will have tagged the mutilated hs^2 version in there and that will do nothing but hurt. i don't enjoy being irritated by the snapshots i've seen. i want noting more than a fucking retcon where hs^2 and pesterquest are removed and we were left with the snapchat panels as the finale of homestuck.

in a more petty sense i want a personalized apology from everyone involved in the project, tattoo "i'm a dumb cunt" to their forehead, write an essay as long as homestuck's entire transcript about why they're sorry for what they did. i want the fans who rejoice in the mangled mess that gamzee is in hs^2 to shut the fuck up and delete their blogs. i want the amount of money the kickstarter for hiveswap raised deposited into my paypal account weekly. i want my therapy sessions paid for until i die. i want them to pay for private health care so i can stop physically hurting. what i want is illogical and those are frivolous things off the top of my head. they're stupid and petty and a complete fantasy.

what i really want though, is something that seems like it's a million times more impossible than a weekly deposit of $2485506. i want some fucking acknowledgment of this shit having happened. i've laid out my personal history with this shit, but it's not a personal "here's the essay nyx wrote about how much gamzee hate has fucked them up - it's totally worse than what the homestuck^2 team went through - gamzee hate is a bannable offense as such on every site due to it" that i want. i've burnt down to my bones on how much this shit has hurt me and in truth, i think i'm largely writing this for myself so i can at least say i said something. i wasn't a coward. i stood up and shouted at the void that gamzee fans have been badly abused.

the truth is: i want the abuse gamzee fans went through, the harassment, the gore, the threats and the physical abuse some of us have endured recognized. i'm not trying to overshadow the harassment the team got. but i'm saying the personalized attacks on us were unjustified. the mockery of the abuse we received from real life abusers and the abuse we were sent online for liking gamzee makara. they knew what they were doing. they did it to mock us. they did it to hurt us because we were the wrong kinda victim. we weren't their warped view of the canon and we interpreted, saw, identified, found comfort and loved a character who they disliked. our real life trauma and circumstance wasn't what they saw in gamzee and we had the fucking nerve to see ourselves in a character who can't be replicated in any other media. we were the ones in the wrong. we're the wrong victims. the wrong fans. the pigshit.

i've been writing this for over four hours now and i think i've exhausted how much i can say this stuff. it's been painful and i've ripped myself open to say this all but i think i'm doing the right thing. i'll second guess my way for the rest of my life, i'll overthink everything i do every time because i'm the wrong sorta victim. overall, in a sense i don't care anymore. i'm not numb by any means, i'm not saying i don't care as a bravado this time. i'm saying that i'm not letting you motherfucking cunts put me in the darkest place i've ever fucking been again. i'm not relapsing and losing more use of my hand. i know what kind of people the team are, i know the ignorance and venomous victim blaming and hate in people who hate gamzee fans. over all my final point is this:

it's unfair. why was this shit justifiable. why do we get ignored when we're hurt severely. why don't we matter. why can't our method of coping with homestuck be accepted like everyone else's. why are we the wrong ones. why did we deserve this. why was the fandom abuse towards us a good funny thing.

why the fuck do you hate us so much?

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fatesresonance · 1 year

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11/16/22, archived from Twitter PTSD mention-ish

―――

Diluc and Kaeya being aware of how intimidating they can be individually and being careful with each other, moreso at the beginning of their relationship post Diluc's return.

Diluc yells a lot - it was a… necessity, so to speak, during his travels.

No one pays attention to soft spoken people, or soft spoken commands.

Kaeya's getting on his nerves and Diluc snaps and shouts at him from across the house.

Kaeya immediately shuts up, but it's all too silent. Diluc's stomach churns.

He goes to find Kaeya visibly shaken and taken back, but attempting to appear otherwise. His hands shake, though, and Diluc's heart sinks.

"Kaeya…? I'm… I'm sorry."

Kaeya shakes his head. He backs away when Diluc tries to come closer. "Don't."

It's an hour of Kaeya separating himself in the bedroom before he returns. He no longer has such a terrified look in his eye. He's merely uneasy.

"It… It reminds me of that night," he whispers into Diluc's shoulder, muffled. Diluc's embrace on him tightens.

"Does it?" Diluc whispers in return. Guilt threatens to choke him.

Kaeya hesitantly nods. His hair tickles beneath Diluc's chin.

"I'm… I…"

Diluc waits. He'd always wait for Kaeya.

"It scares me. You scare me, sometimes," Kaeya admits.

Diluc can't speak.

His own boyfriend is afraid of him. Diluc certainly doesn't blame him… But he still has the urge to vomit.

Kaeya must have felt Diluc tensing because his grip tightens too.

"It's been a long time since I've been scared," he says. "But when you yell…"

Diluc promises to avoid yelling at all costs. He'd never realized how frightening it could be, as it had been normal, but Kaeya's fear…

He wants to give him the best home possible. /Be/ the best home possible.

On the other hand…

Kaeya is very quick, manipulative, and agile. He uses it all to his advantage, sometimes unintentionally.

Kaeya stands in the shadows of Angel's Share, leaning against the wood, and watches Diluc yank on some longer gloves for his Darknight Hero getup and start off into the night.

Really, this is ridiculous, in Kaeya's not-so-humble opinion…

Diluc hasn't slept in days. What's he doing /fighting/ in this state? He can't help the insomnia, but this is risky even for him.

Kaeya frowns and follows behind. He's uncaring if Diluc notices him or not, because he's not here to be sneaky, but to take Diluc home and get him to bed.

Diluc fumbles pulling his hair up. Kaeya has watched him redo it three times, Diluc grumbling and twitching each time.

Diluc's agitated and oversensitive, it seems, and all from fatigue. He only repeats actions on his person like this if it's bad sensation wise.

Kaeya pulls his cape tighter around his shoulders and frowns. It's getting chillier at night now - it almost feels like a snow night, if Kaeya didn't know any better.

Diluc sets off towards the city entrance. Kaeya follows behind.

He would be lying if he said he's not interested in how this is going to play out.

An exhausted Diluc with self destructive tendencies + mobs of Abyss-laden monsters = ?

Kaeya's heart nearly jumps out of its chest as Diluc misses a shadowy step down and begins to tumble.

His body moves before he even thinks of it.

Kaeya lurches and grips Diluc's shoulder, fingertips digging into his thick clothing. Just barely he's able to yank him backwards and keep Diluc on his feet--

Diluc whips around, claymore suddenly in hand.

It's a work of Barbatos Kaeya jumps out of the way in time before it comes down on his hand.

"Di--"

Diluc in his entirety is a punch to the gut; one hand and Kaeya slams to the ground in an instant, pinned.

The breath is knocked out of him. The ground is so, so cold.

Kaeya wheezes. He struggles to turn, lips opening to snap, but words die on his tongue.

There's a look in Diluc's eyes he's never seen before.

He's unhinged, and terrified, wired and on edge. There's no recognition in them until several long minutes later.

"K--Kaeya?" Diluc chokes out.

Exhausted eyes that are oh so awake widen and crinkle in immediately guilt. The fear doesn't leave - oh no, no, no, it does not.

Kaeya notes how Diluc's body brims with restlessness.

Diluc's in survival mode now, isn't he? "It's me," Kaeya pants. "I'm--" Diluc lets up, and Kaeya pulls in a deep breath, "here to take you home."

"Home?" Diluc stares at him.

"Yes, home." Kaeya picks himself back up. "You're in no state to be out right now." Diluc's hands flex around the handle of his claymore. His eyes flit, in a constant state of alarm and surveillance.

"I--I can't," he mumbles, "I have to…"

Diluc sounds so pitiful.

"Have to what?" Kaeya asks softly.

"Not safe…"

Kaeya's heart breaks.

It isn't too often anymore he sees the aftermath of what the Fatui did to Diluc. It's harrowing every time, though.

He manages to coax Diluc down from being on the verge of snapping or bolting, and brings him back to his city apartment.

There's no way they're getting home to Dawn Winery tonight after what Kaeya caused.

Kaeya doesn't miss how jumpy Diluc is, even in a locked, safe home. He doesn't look like he feels safe.

Kaeya vows to make him feel safe every day for the rest of his life.

And for Kaeya, that means putting down some of his sneaky habits.

#fate threads #fatewrites #genshin impact #kaeluckae #kaeluc #luckae #whump

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fr1d4y-wr1t1ng · 3 years

Text

Your “Love Song”

Request: nooooo, I wanted to do an intro kinda writing thing lol.

Can I request?: absolutely.

Genre: Fluffy romantic head canons of the CC’s!

Content Warnings: none, except for swearing maybe. And of course my music taste /j (thought I would put this here, any references to a “her” or “him” has a they/them in brackets just letting y'all know)

CC’s in Post: irl!Dream(wastaken), irl!Sapnap, & irl!Wilbur Soot.

Description: These are the songs that I think would fit for your relationship with these CC’s!

Dream:

Cupid's Chokehold/Breakfast In America - Gym Class Heros

Holy shit Dream loves you so so so much it's unreal.

Like he would quite literally do anything for you like quite literally ANYTHING you can imagine.

Your day was shitty and you don't wanna do the dishes? He's got you covered.

You're sore from doing something physically exhausting? Don't worry, he'll do ANYTHING to make you feel better.

You got sick? He's already making soup and nursing you back to health.

He's semi-clingy like that you know?

Sometimes you may have to tell him that he doesn't have to do EVERYTHING for you, and that sometimes you can just do things yourself.

Remind him to take breaks too holy shit!! Like seriously mate go in there and REMIND HIM!!

But that's just because he loves you so much, he just can't express it any other way dude!!

I think the line that PERFECTLY sums up how he feels for you is “if I had to choose [them] or the sun, I'd be one nocturnal son of a gun.”

Just make sure you treat him the same, trust me on this one okay????? Pls?????

“Take a look at my [s/o], [they're] the only one I got!”

“George!!”

That's the only thing you've truly heard since he started streaming. You'd been sitting on his bed, scrolling through Twitter while minding your own business. You hadn't done anything to disturb him given the fact he was streaming and well… he hadn't exactly revealed you yet.

You looked at your boyfriend, just wanting your clingy little teddy bear back, you stared at him for a second, before seeing him mute and turn to you.

You two stared at each other, a slightly awkward but… mostly comfortable silence. His eyes looked like they had literal hearts in them. He chuckled quietly, looking at you until you spoke up. “...Clay?”

You questioned you boyfriend until he muttered, “you know, you're the most attractive person I've ever seen… right?” You started to laugh as your boyfriend got up and sat next to you. He quickly pecked your cheek and went back to his stream, attempting to make up for having chat wait.

To say this happened often would be an understatement.

Sapnap:

Never Ever Getting Rid Of Me - Waitress

I know people like to use this song in a more... stalkerish tendency. But, I don't think that's the meaning, you know.

Sapnap is very much... newer to love. It may come off in the wrong way, but he's trying to show you that he's not going anywhere because he loves you.

He can be awkward, but of course he's just excited!

You're his first s/o!!! How the hell could he not be excited?

Sapnap can be very “clingy” when your relationship starts... but don't worry. He calms down quickly.

Before you even know it, the relationship becomes natural, like you've been together for several years.

You two kind of end up acting like newly-wed’s when you get settled? If you get what I mean?

It's like you've been together for god knows how long, but you're just getting super settled and shit into a whole new level of your relationship.

I feel like the line that really represents how he feels is the line, “Oh, I'm gonna love you so. You'll learn what I already know, I love you means your never ever getting rid of me!”

He really believes that you're the one! So maybe (if you can) try to give the same energy back! Tell him you love him like, a lot!!

“I will never let you let me leave, I promise I'm not lying!”

What the fuck was that? You lay awake, thinking about the nightmare that just woke you. You slowly turned toward your phone. It's 4:08 am. You really shouldn't be up this early, should you? As you try to get back to sleep, you hear a muffled groan from him.

“Babe?” Sapnap asks, barely able to keep his eyes open, “Why ‘re you up?” You turned back to face him, wrapping your arms around his midsection. “‘is nothin’. Don't worry.”

His brows furrowed in thought, trying to stare at you for a second before asking, “Ya’ sure? You can tell me anything-” you quickly peck his lips, effectively shutting him up before mumbling, “it's just a nightmare. I'll be fine, as long I have you with me.” a small chuckle came from him before replying with,

“M’kay… love you.”

Wilbur Soot:

Telephone - Waterparks

At first when he falls for you he's... really fucking nervous.

He doesn't wanna mess your relationship up AT ALL.

He thinks the you'd legitimently regret being with him, but we all know we trolley want a man like Wil.

But, there's still apart of him that really wants you to feel the same.

But once you start dating, this kind of stressing about making you regret dating him calms down a bit.

Keyword: a bit.

The intrusive thoughts about you two dating can still get to him yk, so, please just remind him that it'll be okay babes-

He's so soft when he's with you though, like, legit it's such a magical experience.

When he's not streaming or making music he's usually spending time with you!

He's just so sweet man, tbh I want a bf like Wilbur 🥴.

I think the lyric that really explains how he feels is “I can be your best yet, future favorite regret.” because he can be the softest motherfucker ever!! (or... well... hm.)

“I’m interested but distant to a fault, and I'd never want to complicate your heart!”

Boop ba boop! Boop ba boop! Your phone's ringtone filled your apartment as you dragged yourself from your bed to your desk. You sighed, looking at the number and realizing who was calling you. “Hey Wil.” you answered somewhat bluntly.

“[Y/N]! Hey!” Wilbur’s sweet voice rang through your ears like a whimsical melody. Your lips perked at his response, “Whats up?” you ask, your cheeks filling with heat as you looked at the screen. “Well I-” Wilbur cuts himself off at the noise in the background.

“...anyways, I'm coming over!” he finished. You realized he was probably walking his happy ass to your flat. You looked around at the mess, a small sigh escaping your lips as you replied, “I'll see you in five then?” a chuckle escaped his lips, “yup! See you in five!”

Note: AAAAND THATS FINISHED, FINALLY. Why the hell did this take 2 days holy shit!? So, uh, I have an idea for making a part 2 but like... with the song that kinda describes the breakup (if there is one)? So let me know if you want that! Kay, see ya, byeeeeee!!!!

#mcyt #dream smp #dream x reader #dreamwastaken x reader #sapnap #sapnap x reader #wilbur soot #wilbur soot x reader #wilbur x reader #mcyt x reader #lol I hate how long this post took #jensjdndkdmkd

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bondsmagii · 2 years

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"honestly starting to think I read too many books to be on Tumblr" i thought "man that's a bit pretentious" but then i realized that this is how i feel after going to college. it's not that i'm not a dumbass! i'm just a somewhat more skeptical dumbass

this is such a good way of putting it... like a more sceptical dumbass, or I'm a dumbass in a different way to the usual dumbasses on here. incompatible dumbassery.

I made that post a few weeks ago now, but the more I think about it the more I realise it's definitely something. I see so much going on now that I just do not Get, not because it's beyond me but because it's so stupid that I can't even entertain the thought. it really does feel like a lot of people sign on to Tumblr (and Twitter, from what I've seen) with the sole purpose of being as wilfully ignorant and uncharitable as possible, and this new trend of rendering everything down until it can be "explained" in a couple of short, dismissive quips just exhausts me. all of these huge societal problems and these people think they can just summarise it in a meme? as if it's always been that simple and they're the first people to ever work it out? please.

to be even more pretentious now, I'm just at odds with most people morally, too. it's exhausting and upsetting to constantly see people I used to like and respect saying things that are outright offensive and cruel, because they're just looking for laughs or simplistic generalisations, or they want to shit over an "approved" group, or because their morals are actually flaky as fuck and not universal. any morals that don't apply across the board are useless; this is basic morality, and yet several people I used to consider friends or at least decent people have shown themselves to believe that some humans aren't even humans because they're not palatable enough. I don't know how to explain to somebody that no matter what a person has done, they're still a person. if you can't understand this, then yeah. I read way too many books to speak to you on any enjoyable level.

#people are people even if you don't like them: more at 10 #and yes.#whatever horrible 'but what about...?' you're thinking right now?#that's still a person.#shocking i know but also true.#anon #asks

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littlepichon · 4 years

Text

Twitter: Silvia Stringhini- Swiss Epidemiologist, English translation of Dr. Daniele Macchin’s account...Bergamo, Northern Italy. Monday 9th March 2020:

‘I may be repeating myself, but I want to fight this sense of security that I see outside of the epicenters, as if nothing was going to happen "here". The media in Europe are reassuring, politicians are reassuring, while there's little to be reassured of. This is the English translation of a post of another ICU physician in Bergamo:

“After much thought about whether and what to write about what is happening to us, I felt that silence was not responsible. I will therefore try to convey to people far from our reality what we are living in Bergamo in these days of Covid-19 pandemic. I understand the need not to create panic, but when the message of the dangerousness of what is happening does not reach people I shudder. I myself watched with some amazement the reorganization of the entire hospital in the past week, when our current enemy was still in the shadows: the wards slowly "emptied", elective activities were interrupted, intensive care were freed up to create as many beds as possible. All this rapid transformation brought an atmosphere of silence& surreal emptiness to the corridors of the hospital that we did not yet understand, waiting for a war that was yet to begin & that many (including me) were not so sure would ever come with such ferocity. I still remember my night call a week ago when I was waiting for the results of a swab. When I think about it, my anxiety over one possible case seems almost ridiculous and unjustified, now that I've seen what's happening. Well, the situation now is dramatic to say the least.

The war has literally exploded & battles are uninterrupted day & night. But now that need for beds has arrived in all its drama. One after the other the departments that had been emptied fill up at an impressive pace. The boards with the names of the patients, of different colours depending on the operating unit, are now all red and instead of surgery you see the diagnosis, which is always the damned same: bilateral interstitial pneumonia. Now, explain to me which flu virus causes such a rapid drama... And while there are still people who boast of not being afraid by ignoring directions, protesting because their normal routine is"temporarily" put in crisis, the epidemiological disaster is taking place. And there are no more surgeons, urologists, orthopedists, we are only doctors who suddenly become part of a single team to face this tsunami that has overwhelmed us. Cases are multiplying, we arrive at a rate of 15-20 admissions per day all for the same reason. The results of the swabs now come one after the other: positive, positive, positive. Suddenly the E.R. is collapsing. Reasons for the access always the same: fever and breathing difficulties, fever and cough, respiratory failure. Radiology reports always the same: bilateral interstitial pneumonia, bilateral interstitial pneumonia, bilateral interstitial pneumonia. All to be hospitalized. Someone already to be intubated and go to intensive care. For others it's too late... Every ventilator becomes like gold: those in operating theatres that have now suspended their non-urgent activity become intensive care places that did not exist before. The staff is exhausted. I saw the tiredness on faces that didn't know what it was despite the already exhausting workloads they had. I saw a solidarity of all of us, who never failed to go to our internist colleagues to ask "what can I do for you now?" Doctors who move beds and transfer patients, who administer therapies instead of nurses. Nurses with tears in their eyes because we can't save everyone, and the vital parameters of several patients at the same time reveal an already marked destiny. There are no more shifts, no more hours. Social life is suspended for us. We no longer see our families for fear of infecting them. Some of us have already become infected despite the protocols. Some of our colleagues who are infected also have infected relatives and some of their relatives are already struggling between life & death. So be patient, you can't go to the theatre, museums or the gym. Try to have pity on the myriad of old people you could exterminate. We just try to make ourselves useful. You should do the same: we influence the life and death of a few dozen people.You with yours, many more. Please share this message. We must spread the word to prevent what is happening here from happening all over Italy."

I finish by saying that I really don't understand this war on panic. The only reason I see is mask shortages, but there's no mask on sale anymore. We don't have a lot of studies, but is it panic really worse than neglect and carelessness during an epidemic of this sort?’

(Source: @silviast9 https://twitter.com/silviast9/status/1236933818654896129?s=21 )

———————————————————————

Donate to fundraiser for Ospedale San Raffaele di Milano: https://www.gofundme.com/f/coronavirus-terapia-intensiva

Donate to China: https://give2asia.org/help-support-coronavirus-outbreak-prevention-wuhan-china/

Please update with donation/info links! Stay safe x

#COVID-19 #coronavirus #Italy #please take this seriously #WASH.YOUR.HANDS.#look out for each other #educate yourself #plan ahead #covid19

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yukipri · 7 years

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I never experienced art theft until one of my works became unexpectedly popular- since then, I've found my work reposted, redrawn, and used as reference for cosplays. It's been exhausting, both seeing it, and not knowing WHERE I should stand on the issue. I've let redraws slide (with credit), but I plan on not allowing future ones from occurring. How do you deal with art theft? How do you continue drawing without thinking about the disrespect thrown at you during bad/failed confrontations?

I am so, so incredibly sorry this happened to you, and empathize very strongly with you. Art theft SUCKS, few things can be quite as demotivating as a creator than having something you’ve worked your ass off on swiped by someone else. And unfortunately, given the current internet culture, if you continue as an online artist it’s inevitable that it’ll happen at one point or another.

Because sure, of course part of the reason why we create is because we want to, but a large part of the motivation for sharing it is to hopefully get some response that people like it, whether it be in the form of likes, reblogs, comments, asks, tags, or anything else. That is the tangible PROOF that our work touched someone, and for someone who put in zero effort and has no idea how we felt while creating to receive all of that instead of us…sucks.

I think where you stand on the issue is up to you, and it’s okay for it to change. YOU always have the right to decide how you’re comfortable with people sharing your art, and your feelings are valid regardless of how they change.

Ironically enough, I just had another art theft on Instagram (my Anniversary post) super recently, so I was like HAH when I got this orz

This rant got a bit long, so the rest beneath cut but here’s a rundown about how my feelings towards art theft have evolved over the years.

For example, over the years I’ve gotten much, MUCH stricter. My earliest online art, I just put it up, no url, oftentimes no signature, no warnings in the comments or my blog bio. Admittedly I was starting out and didn’t have much viewers anyway, but the point was I still had Trust at the time.

Then the art thefts began. I started adding my url to all my illustrations, even if it was just small in the corner, as this’d let people at least find my website. Most people are too lazy to type out a url though, and I’ve seen people asking “Who drew this??” on art theft comments EVEN WHEN THE URL IS LITERALLY RIGHT THERE…

And then people started cropping my watermarks. I made my url bigger, and started adding an additional “DO NOT REPOST” to the image itself. I used to allow reposts with credits on platforms I’m not on, like fb, until I realized that people were then reposting from THOSE communities without credit and putting them into their videos and fics and I just…decided it wasn’t worth it.

I switched to no reposts PERIOD. I have lengthy disclaimers on all of my art that leads to an even lengthier FAQ post that, should people wish to look, leads to even an even more detailed post about WHY art theft sucks, as I’m explaining now.

(EDIT: ALSO, reduce the quality of the images you upload, and NEVER upload the full resolution, and try to keep you unmerged original files. This is for several reasons: no matter how much an art thief reposts your work, they’ll never have access to the higher resolution, and if they ever decide to try to print to sell for profit it’ll be shitty quality compared to anything you make with the original. ALSO, you having the maximum resolution with no watermarking with additional unmerged psd files will be proof that you are the true creator should you need to prove it, which I’ve heard is sometimes necessary to show when your art is stolen at say, an artist alley)

I also used to bother trying to talk to art reposters. I’d comment on the post, try to send messages, etc. It’s fucking exhausting, and while there are some exceptions, the VAST majority of art thiefs will feel attacked and immediately get rude and defensive. (the failed confrontations and disrespect you mentioned orz) If it’s a large community, they may even try to gang up on you. I’ve unfortunately experienced this most frequently in communities centered around other languages (mainly Spanish) because of different mainstream attitudes towards art reposting etiquette combined with a language barrier.

You will, and no doubt already have, encountered people who will argue with you, like the people I describe above. “You should be grateful for the bigger audience!” “We just want to appreciate your art, how can you be so horrible?” “We’re all fans together!” “This is fanart and doesn’t belong to you anyway!” Etc. etc. etc. It’s exhausting, it’s repetitive, it’s neverending, and you already felt awful before it even began and the stress just continues to build.

So I personally have just begun reporting people, if the service allows it. Use DMCA takedown request forms (and YES, even if it’s fanart it’s still yours if you drew it). This is stressful too because it sends your real name + info to the reposter (and wow I clearly can’t trust these people to begin with, why would I want them to have that???) but most sites (facebook, instagram, certainly tumblr, twitter) are very efficient and responsive, and in the end the relief of receiving that email that the art has been taken down is worth it. Especially with facebook, they also send a scary official warning email to the reposters which I sincerely hope will help educate them and discourage future art thefts.

I try to avoid posting public urls because yes I’m aware how mob mentality Tumblr can get, but sometimes it’s just too much. There’s no convenient form of getting my content removed (perhaps bc it’s in a compilation with a ton of other content), or for some reason my attempts to communicate have failed. In those times I have occasionally asked my followers to help, with a reminder to PLEASE always be polite and respectful, regardless of the offense. Y’all have been amazing, and this has saved me many nights of crying in the past.

I will sometimes also write lengthy posts (like this one!) to help educate. Because I do feel that art theft will continue so long as people don’t understand what it does to artists, and it’s up to the community as a whole to make that change, which also depends heavily on the consumers not just creators. A lot of art theft really isn’t intentionally meant to harm, but IS super ignorant.

But in the end, all I’ve ranted about so far is how I’ve dealt with actually removing/dealing with the shit. But the emotional pain, it builds. Sometimes, when it’s too frequent and the stolen art gets way more attention than my original that I worked my ass off on that basically flunked on my own platforms, I feel a bit of me break.

And in the end, it’s up to you what that threshold is, where posting art and feeling good about it is overwhelmed by the pain, fear, and anxiety of art theft. I’ve crossed my own threshold too many times, and once had to take an art hiatus because of it (fandom was BH6). This lead to a break in my productivity and motivation and my eventual complete departure form the fandom. I’ve seen many other artists just stop posting art entirely or moving everything to private. It’s terrible, but my feelings are with these artists, and I feel so, so sorry that they were hurt so much to the extent they had to do this.

With my current fandom and followers, I feel that regardless of how niche an audience my content tends to be geared for, I have a community that is really satisfying for me to create for, one that is responsive to me and gives me tons of feedback. This is the number one reason why i continue to feel motivated to post a ton of online content despite the risks.

The takeaway form this long meandering post: Posting online is a hobby, it’s for fun, and I don’t make any money off my public audience (unless they come to Patreon! LOL!), so I’m a firm believer that once the anxiety + misery starts outweighing anything positive you personally may get from sharing online, which for me heavily depends on my audience and their responsiveness, there’s no reason to subject yourself to that anymore and you are in no way obligated to stay. There are various methods to more efficiently get rid of art thefts without dealing with them in person which is stressful AF, and also ways of marking up your content in ways that may look less aesthetically pleasing, but will hopefully discourage art thefts, and at the very least give them very little leg to stand on should they do it anyway. How forgiving you are in art thefts also depends on you, but the more forgiving you are, the more it can get away from you. And in the end, YOU as a human are more important than any complaints about art looking less pleasing or the feelings of art thefts who don’t get to do what they want with YOUR hard work.

Sorry this was so disjointed and literally just me spewing at you, but I hope some of it was helpful ^ ^; Please let me know if I can give you any other advice, and I’m sorry again that you have to deal with this ;_;

(and to respond to your second ask, I do try to respond to most of my asks, but sometimes it takes a while (sometimes even months orz), especially if it’s one that requires a lengthy detailed answer like this one ^ ^; thank you for your patience!)

#YukiPri replies #Anonymous #art theft #I hope this was helpful ^ ^;#started getting really distressed myself writing this haha #in general i'm okay with my art getting little to no attention #i just asked that i don't get hurt for the trouble of posting which i feel should be fair #and sometime yeah it does get to be too much #hopefully won't happen in the near future for this fandom but #we'll see sigh #another reason i like drawing niche hyper specific content LOL #fewer people tend to want to reblog/share it #but fewer reposters are also interested in it haha #long post #longpost

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meowlexandragrace · 7 years

Text

How I've Handled the Feelings that Come with the "Me Too" Campaign

If you have been on social media this week, you have probably seen your fair share of women (and men!) posting the status “me too.” Over the weekend, when I saw the first few statuses pop up with no explanation on Facebook, I decided to go where I figured the trend started- Twitter. I typed in the hashtag #metoo and suddenly, I was deeply engrossed in other people’s retelling of their experiences with sexual harassment and sexual assault. Some were celebrities and some were strangers on the internet. Some were more mild experiences, some were violent and severe experiences. This is not a new subject for me, I’ve often been the drunk one at a party who brings up feminism and tries to teach men to be less aggressive towards women, to but it mildly. To put it more accurately, I’ve been told I can be “intense” and “annoying” and “easy to make fun of.” Even though it wasn’t a new topic for me, I couldn’t help but notice that I was suddenly exhausted after reading through the hashtag.

Every story I read, I couldn’t help but go back to high school. My then boyfriend and I were walking down the street when someone honked their horn and hollered some form of profanity out their window at me. This was not the first time this happened to me, so my instinct was to flip them off as the drove by. I remember being visibly infuriated at this. “What do they think was going to happen, they honk their horn and I was going to chase after them and beg to suck their dick?!” I said. My boyfriend at the time said, “why don’t you just take the compliment?” That made me more mad, because it didn’t feel like a compliment. It felt aggressive and intrusive. It was quick, but it still felt really intimidating.

I couldn’t help but go back to the time fresh out of high school when I was dumped for the first time. It was right before Valentine’s Day, a time of year which that I now have a track record being dumped, but that is a different story for a different time. In effort to cheer me up, my best friend at the time decided we should go dancing at an 18 and up club on Valentine’s Day (gross, I know, but I was young). I ended up dancing with some random stranger, which is a thing that just happens at clubs. Guys come up to your bum and start grinding on you. I had been to a high school dance, so it wasn’t unfamiliar. We kept dancing for a couple of songs, then he started to push my dress up, which I continuously stopped him from doing. Then, he turned me around and started making out with me. TMI moment- I will never ever forget how much like his tongue felt like a giant slug in my mouth. I ended up turning around and signaling to my friend that I was done. And yes, girls have to have a signal. Present day Alex is more prone to her signal being “don’t touch me, dickwad,” but again, I was young and needed to call in reinforcements. My friend and I went to the bathroom, and when we walked out, he was standing by the bathroom door, waiting for me. Fortunately, my best friend was a black belt in karate and total bad ass and forced him to leave me alone.

I couldn't go back to my first job, working at a Starbucks. One of our regular customers had come in, and it was post morning rush, so we were making casual conversation while I assisted him. He’d asked me about my classes, he knew I was studying film in college. I told him I was thinking about doing a stop motion animation project for one of my assignments, and he said he saw a really cool stop motion animation recently I should watch. He handed me his business card (I should specify, I was 19, he was late 40’s early 50’s I would venture to guess, so he had business cards). He said I should email him some of my projects and if I wanted to include other, more personal material, that he would really enjoy that too, he winked, grabbed his venti caramel frap with extra caramel drizzle in the cup, and walked away. I remember telling myself, “there’s no way that happened,” but I told the Starbucks manager and she said he could be a creep and that I wouldn’t have to deal with him if I didn’t want to. I didn’t for a while, but since it was a small kiosk inside a grocery store, eventually I had to talk to him again because we often had stretches of our shift that we were alone. He never said anything inappropriate again, but I was always on edge when I was alone with him.

These are just three examples I can think of, and for some reason, they are the ones that stick out the most. There not even the worst experiences I’ve had with men! They continue to stick out, though, I think because I was still so young and incredibly naive at the time. They were fresh wounds, I just went out in the world, expecting something simple, like I was going to do my job, or dance with my friend. It was a complete shock and surprise to me. Now when a man approaches me aggressively and harasses me, it’s still uncomfortable, it still makes my skin crawl most of the time, but it doesn’t surprise me. It’s become a part of my life.

That’s why I decided to write more about the feelings that #metoo brought up for me, even though I didn’t have a solution. Even though I even kept saying, ‘yeah, but you’ve not had it that bad. Other people have it way worse.” Even though I don’t have a way we can magically end sexual assault and harrasment. The thing is, I’m tired of keeping quiet. I’m tired of caring if people think I’m annoying for calling people out when they’re being disgusting just because it might cause a scene. I’m so done hearing the excuse “it was different when I was growing up,” because a majority of the men who act inappropriately with me are older. I don’t care if me standing up for myself or other women makes you uncomfortable, because I’m beyond fucking tired of living uncomfortably.

And for the rest of you survivors, whether you’ve shared your story or not (because you shouldn’t feel pressured if you’re uncomfortable sharing it, you don’t owe anyone anything), know this: you’re not alone, you are loved, your story is valid, and I’m here for you while we get through what seems to be a never ending storm of disgusting behavior.

xoxo

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