#i did not intend to summarize the whole thing im sorry

[sea-salted-wolverine]

@slightlyunderokayartist i made another post so I didn't hijack the other one. Because I basically paraphrased an entire novel.

I am going to make you appreciate Pride and Prejudice. It may at some point involve a PowerPoint full of comic sans and memes but I'm on my phone right now, so bear with me. Don't worry, I will remain nice about it.

The thing about Austen, is that she was one of the earliest means based feminists. (Yes, shes writing about landed gentry, but this is 180fuck and feminism is baby steps) Basically the thrust of alot of her work is that violence against women isn't always physical or even particularly violent. A lot of her contemporaries had stories about kidnapping and coercion and perfect pure heroines. In contrast Austen writes a character who is kinda a bitch and the primary antagonist is the fact that her life is entirely beholden to the decisions of the men around her.

So the book opens and you have lizzy. A bitch(affectionate). Shes got four sisters, no brothers and parents wealthy enough to own a country estate but not a London town house. So they're well-off but not fancy.

Lizzy is the second daughter and her dads favorite, because she's clever and cynical like he is. Her older sister is beautiful and sweet and shy and if Austen were anyone else she would be the main character. But Austen said 'nah, I wanna write about the messy one'. There are also 3 younger sisters who are various mixtures of spoiled bratty immature wild child girls.

If you can't tell, Mom and Dad have not been doing a ton of parenting. Specifically Dad, has not bothered to hire a tutor or send them to school so none of them has any marketable skills beyond being a socialite. And they're not even particularly good at it. Dad is less than motivated to take them anywhere they make connections and the entire family is pretty yikes as a result of his decisions. People see Jane (older sister) and go 'oh shes pretty and pleasant and her sister (lizzy) is fun to chat with, but yikes'

The issue is, there's no dowery for any of these girls. A dowery, if you don't already know is money set aside for a woman's married life that transfers to control of her husband when she leaves her family or if she doesn't marry, goes in a trust so she'll be supported when she doesn't have family to take her in. Its basically an insurance policy so she won't starve to death on the street because women can't legally own anything. Also it's a lot of money, that then goes to the new husband, so it makes woman in question more desirable. These girls don't have that, because dad never got around to it. Other issue, when dad dies all his stuff, including the house, goes to some cousin because women can't hold property. Cousin has never met this family and could decide to kick them all out when he owns the house.

Mom, looks at her daughters and goes, 'holy tits, you have got to get married. Preferably to someone rich enough to take care of his in-laws, but married, now.' So she's trying to marry her daughters off for money and different adaptions handle this differently but the original work is pretty forgiving because the other option is pretty grim.

In comes Mr Darcy and his buddy Mr Bingley. Bingley is very wealthy and has the personality of a golden retriever. Darcy is extremely wealthy and doesn't want to be there but his extrovert bestie is dragging him to parties because its good for him.

Mom goes 🤑🤑🤑 and shoves her daughters over there. Bingley and Jane are getting along immediately and Darcy is looking at Mom and going "uh dude..."

There is an overheard conversation that consists mostly of "eh, Jane seems nice but uh everything else? Yikes.😬 " to which Lizzy has the opinion of "what a dick, whatever, not like i ever have to see him again"

Except Mom sees JanexBingley happening and she's gotta lock that shit down. So she insists jane ride on over to his place for a visit tomorrow. In the rain.

"But momma we are fragile English gentry we can't get rained on, I will surely fall ill and die" says jane.

"Yeah, no shit, that's the point. Now go live your favorite hurt/comfort sick!fic and snag a husband"

Jane gets rained on, Jane gets sick. Lizzy says absolutely not and walks over to Bingley's house in the mud and busts down the door to get to Jane. (Lizzy has Plot Armour and/or a functional circulatory system)

Darcy, who's chilling at his bros house, looks at Lizzy and goes "oh, wow" Lizzy goes "you're a dick i don't care about your opinions"

Inside of Darcy head: ooooooh😳😳😳 pretty lady being mean to me? Flirting? 💘Maybe?🥰 oh no shes meeting all my standards

What actually comes out of his mouth: I'm not impressed

Lizzy: I don't feel bad about hating you, because as usual, I'm right

Then Mom shows up, because it can always be worse. Jane is in fact living and enjoying her hurt/comfort sick!fic and Lizzy is about to invent noise canceling headphones a couple centuries early so she doesn't have to make any more small talk. Mom wants to make sure that Jane is being slutty enough. The bratty little sisters are there. Bingley is shopping for rings. Darcy the hypocrite thinks maybe he should chill a little because the prospective inlaws are yikes.

A note: having unhinged in-laws was a big no-no that reflected badly on you as a person, un like today when its just assumed that everyone has a nightmare somewhere on the other side of the family. Like the toilet shotgun. We don't talk about the toilet shotgun.

Carrying on

We meet a dude. His name is Wickham. Hes a bad dude but we don't know that yet. He is of the opinion that Darcy is a huge cunt and Lizzy decides this man has good opinions. There's drama, Darcy screwed me over, blah blah, he sucks and I'm broke but handsome and charming.

We also meet the cousin. Imagine the most obnoxious person you know with a connection to some random famous wealthy person and make sure they bring it up every chance they get. He's also aware he inherits the house.

Marrying your cousin was a thing back then, so he looks at the available choices and picks the pretty one. Jane is spoken for, says Mom but Lizzy is very lovely, I'm sure she would love to be not homeless. Cousin goes yea sure, acceptable. Hey Liza, sorry, Lizzy, I love you v. much, plz marry.

Lizzy, understandably, does not want. Says no. Will not marry into a miserable loveless marriage for comfort. Dad gets the final say, says yeah thats reasonable, favorite daughter gets what she wants. Mom goes "hey your options are miserable and married or miserable and homeless. And your entire family comes with you on the second one. Are you sure thats your final answer?"

Theres some plot, there's a party. Bingley cuts it off with Jane and she sad. Lizzy is pretty sure it's Darcy's fault.

The man himself shows up and asks her to marry him. It goes... poorly.

There is an adaption where she starts swinging a fire poker at him while spouting lines of dialog lifted straight from the book and its not out of place. She reads this man for filth, bringing up Wickham and how he's responsible for breaking her sisters heart and also in general a huge dick that she would not marry if he was the last man on earth. It does not help that he's not only admitting to the things she's accusing him of but defending it with stuff like "i didnt want my buddy marrying into your nightmare family" and "Wickham is an asshole who deserved it"

She knows shes fucked if she doesn't mary rich but she bitches this man out so hard he leaves town and goes back home to learn to be nicer.

A bit later she gets a long ass letter explaining how Darcy thought that Jane was getting shoved into marriage by their mother and didn't want her and Bingley to end up unhappy. And also how Wickham got a fuckload of money from Darcy's dead father and squandered it all because he's an asshole. The asshole also tried to marry his baby sister to weasel into the family fortune so they're not talking and there's the 1800s version of a restraining order out there. Ends with something like "I respect you and am a little scared of you which is why I wanted to marry you and if you never want to speak to me again thats fine"

Lizzy should really be allowed to say fuck here but she doesn't. She decides to get out of town herself and goes to chill with her aunt and uncle. They're touring the countryside and Darcy has a house big enough for tours so they end up touring the house. (Ugh, rich people)

The household staff who work for this guy are all of high opinions. The cleaning lady knows your shit. She knows. And they all like the guy.

Lizzy does not say fuck.

Darcy is not supposed to be there in his own house but he shows up in his own house and sees the love of his life with whom he monumentally blew it. In his own house.

Darcy doesn't get to say fuck either.

Lizzy gets a letter and she really really should be allowed to say fuck because Wickham has run off with her baby sister.

Not married. Run off. Sister has had no supervision or parenting and just knows she needs to get a man so she did. Kinda. And tanked her whole family's reputation in doing so. No no one will marry any of the sisters and they're all fucked.

Darcy realizes this is partly his fault and hes also the only one who can really fix it. So he, without telling anyone, runs down Wickham and threatens/blackmails/bribes him into marrying baby sister and saving everyone's reputation. He makes sure little sister and Wickham have enough money to live comfortably regardless of how shit that relationship turns out to be.

Then he goes over to his sad golden retriever friend who has been moping about the pretty lady who didn't love him and point out that now he has spent all that money and effort rehabilitating the Bennet reputation Bingley might as well marry Jane. So Bingley prances off to go propose to Jane and Mom realizes her family is secure and quits double fisting ye old anxiety meds.

He doesn't tell anyone this. Lizzys family still thinks she hates him. He shows up and goes "hey hope you're happy and okay with this, my feelings haven't changed since last time I asked, I'm hoping yours have."

Lizzy would love to marry this guy because he was never really an asshole from the start and her family is indeed kinda a mess.

Her dad reassures her she doesn't have to marry the rich dude she hates for his money, Jane already did that. Lizzy explains that no actually she loves him and also he saved their ass with respect to the Wickham debacle. Dad decides that Darcy must be a good dude if thats the case and says yep go get married.

Blah blah blah happily ever after.

Lizzy overcomes her prejudices against Darcy and unbends her pride enough to admit she was wrong.

#pride and prejudice #i did not intend to summarize the whole thing im sorry #its good #Elizabeth Bennet is a bitch (affectionate) #sitting over here with my dunce cap that barely fits over my enormous brain

[narwhalandchill]

a bit more serious/negative note on childes characterization and fandom perception, saw a post where the tone upset me quite a bit

i did do a whole vent/rant/cathartic 2.4k words of writeup on this yesterday which like did help clear my thoughts a lot but in hindsight is way too long to just release by itself so i suppose ill just summarize my thinking now

so i would really appreciate it if a certain subset of childe fans reading his character a specific way (the trauma, identity crisis, dark abyss experiences, etc. - you know the one) could stop acting as if its this like. superior canon proven hoyo intended most real and intellectual way to look at his character and interpret his narrative. as opposed to just one reading of the canon material among others. and im sure most people are civil but ive seen this tone enough to just need to get this off my chest rn.

like im not "missing" something or being "tricked" (what?) by childe or the narrative. its not some naive ignorance about this reading being a thing and the ways people argue for it. ive read his lore. p much memorized it rly. and i simply did not find the arguments that compelling or feel that inserting this additional layer of subjective interpretation atop my understanding of the canon text did much to enhance childes narrative potential or characterization for me.

simply put. applying this super strict irl psychology logic (bc yes a real 14 yo going thru some irl version of ajax' backstory would get severe psychological disturbances as p much given. i know what the DSM-V is) to fantasy game characters isnt how i enjoy engaging with childe or any character really.

genshin is a fantasy game and fantasy as a genre has always readily sidestepped things like realistic psychological consequences of various heavy experiences in favor of building a compelling narrative whenever necessary. i dont find arguments relating to irl psychology particularly relevant at all on the subject really. if you enjoy this approach, go on, have fun! but please understand that its an interpretation that people can disagree without being "wrong" or failing some arbitrary reading comprehension test.

like the dismissive tone i see from people who simply cannot comprehend that like no, this take isnt some universal truth of hoyos that every person will glean from reading up on childes lore and appearances if theyre big brain and intellectual enough is just... really fucking rude? and alienating.

im not going to go on a like whole ramble on all the things that i personally see very much as hinting towards childes characterization going quite a different direction than this popular heavy self-doubt, psychological angle would suggest. its my interpretation after all, and could be proven wrong the way any interpretation can. but for now ive read his lore for years and looked into every single tidbit that involves him and so far hoyos writing of him hasnt given me any convinving case for changing my view drastically anytime soon. and id just like to be allowed to exist in this fandom space without being randomly jumpscared by posts alleging im reducing his character to this or that just bc i see his greatest narrative potential elsewhere.

theres enough insane shit and incredibly interesting lore relating to his overall role in the story and the cosmic scale of teyvat as a whole to be invested in already. like taking childes character as depicted to us and how in-game content characterizes him at a relative face value as opposed to seeking an implied internal struggle of sth hidden and repressed is me simply finding that take the most unique, fascinating, horrifying, compelling and exciting way to see him instead. thats what i love about him and his character. like im sorry, in my eyes the dark past corrupting innocence and trauma angle has just been done to death already in media. childe can have something actually different and breaking those tropes is what makes him stand out for me!

anyway. this whole situation is not sth i wanna start flaming ppl for or make into some drama, i try my best to stay on my lane and let ppl live even if i disagree w these sorta takes on childe. and i just wish for that grace to be extended towards myself too.

#like this attitude literally drove me off genshin fandom and childe content one time already im just tired #im sorry this got so negative but man. #and like do not fucking make this into a debate on whose interpretation wins im talking about basic respect. i WILL block you #rambles #genshin #childeposting #long post

[salora-rainriver]

the lily orchard thing is weird because the primary callout for her that i've seen comes from a youtube channel with absolutely no sense of proportion, putting "wrote a shock fic years ago" and "featured as a character in feral furry porn" right next to "actually groomed minors" as though these are all equally bad and worthy of scorn. it makes me realize that even when we're right that someone is a bad person, we can still fall into transphobic ways of framing it

Okay full disclosure: i don’t know what youtube vid you’re talking about. I did watch A Videos on Orchard.

So first off I get the point about proportionality, theres absolutely a difference between writing stockholm and that whole stint where she encouraged a teen and an adult to “breed”, and I do agree that any callout should make the difference in severity clear,

But im not sure that, in this case, someone failing to make that distinction clear is A Transphobia. And that’s because… I’m not convinced Stockholm was intended to be a shock fic. I can definitely see where one may draw such a conclusion, I just personally feel otherwise, I feel like Stockholm is itself morally wrong. I feel the same way about it that I feel about “lolicon” art, and asking me to not mark the fic as a slight against Orchard feels odd to me, because I would be uncomfortable with Butch Hartman writing material like that. I would want to know that he wrote this, feels no remorse for writing it, intends to make media for children while having written that.

People draw their personal lines in the sand in different places, particularly when it comes to fictional depictions of That Shit. Someone’s Lolita (a harsh and uncomfortable work thats clearly not glorifying the act once you sit down and engage with it fairly) is going to be another’s [idk insert literal fucking CP here], and the wide diversity of art makes it nigh-impossible to be able to draw a line between Acceptable and Unacceptable.

And for what it’s worth, the above ^^^ is why Im frustrated with the binary framing of the pro-ship and anti-ship discourse. It just doesn’t work, even the most ardently pro-ship person is going to draw their line somewhere, and even the most ardently anti-ship is going to look at someone else’s judgement and go “but theres nothing wrong with this”. And ultimately, the two camps of pro and anti… don’t actually exist. Ask me honestly which camp I fall in and I genuinely wouldn’t be able to tell you, and if you interrogate your personal moral values and feelings about various dubious media honestly, you’ll realize that you can’t, either.

Sorry. This is a ramble. I’ll summarize:

- I think it’s important to know that Orchard wrote Stockholm, and to allow people to judge her for writing that, because many believe that works like these are morally wrong, period end of, and it’s not transmisogyny for one to judge this fic the same way they judge similar works from cishet writers.

- despite having that opinion, I do agree that the real grooming is much worse than the fic, and agree that making this distinction clear is important.

- I also think its dangerous to discuss the morality of fictional media from an all-or nothing binary framing, because the truth is we do not genuinely hold such extreme positions in real life, we all have a limit somewhere on the spectrum in either direction, which is my main frustration with pro-ship and anti-ship discourse, because you can never fully belong to either camp. Your position on the issue will be a mix of both. Pro some ships, anti other ships.

I hope thats clear? Thanks for the thoughtful ask. Also, mandatory “pls be gentle I’m the birthday girl”

#discourse #pls be gentle its my birthday #cw discussions of CSAM

[fanficaficionado]

okay, i know i said i would be starting with things i knew and loved. hell, i even had a fic from the fandom im currently ass-deep in all lined up!! but then i procrastinated, and i lost motivation, got distracted by my scheduled post-holiday shutdown, and something else finally kicked my ass into gear. so this blog's first true introduction to the world will not, in fact, be a post where i worship the very ground my favorite fic writers walk upon.

no, today we are talking about Ascent into Madness by cesium_sheep

((spoilers, obviously))

Now im going to preface this by saying that this criticism is subjective and based in my opinion. I did genuinely enjoy this story, and i did not at any point feel the urge to launch myself into the sun with nothing but the pure force of my rage, causing the sun to explode and consume planet earth in a scorching hell-blast and decimating all life on our tiny little space rock, which even some of my favorites are guilty of because in some stories characters just love to waffle about ((especially in my preferred reading material which puts romance at a very significant focus)). This story just isn't for me.

I'm going to explain why, and believe me when i say i am being as gentle as i physically can with this story because it is not objectively offensive to my very being, It's a good read and setting aside the problems i have with it i enjoyed it.

I keep repeating that i don't hate this story because i do not want to be accused of baseless hate, not because of reputation or anything but because being accused of something i know i didn't do sets off the same sensation that i get from rubbing my fingernails on egg cartons, the one of the back of my brain being assaulted by the mayonnaise-coated fingers of satan himself. Damn i should really get to the criticism before this just becomes an in depth description of my very soul's adverse reaction to the cream in queen anne chocolate cherries.

anyways.

The thing about this story is that, to me, it feels.. unfinished. Or at the very least like it wandered off its intended course. It leaves me with a feeling of mild dissatisfaction and the taste of confusion in my mouth. I think this problem is best summarized by the fact that, in the first chapter, it is set up that rose is in some sort of hospital, and that dave thinks she is in the grasp of some delusion, and the second chapter sets up the retroactive explanation for how it got to this point. See, what i expected was to be caught up to that point in the story, reach that point in time again, and then progress from there.

But that first chapter?? With the hospital, the delusions, the brick through the window with the radio attached?? Never brought up again, not even once. It is completely discarded and never even thought about. The story even stops trying to set up that scene after a certain point.

To put it in homestuck terms, because i'm a loser, a time player, and come on we're talking about a homestuck fic here you know i have to do this, it feels like we started a loop and then branched off the alpha timeline so completely we aren't even a part of the metaphorical timeline-tree anymore. It nags at my brain man, it's one of the main things that fuelled my motivation in writing this. It feels lost and wandering and it confuses me in a bone deep sorta way.

The second thing that gets to me is the complete lack of information presented about what, exactly, the fuck is going on. I have no idea how we got from point A to point B, not just because it completely disconnects from point A not even halfway through, but also because there's a lot of plot threads thrown in haphazardly and then never extended upon. There's a mention of jake and john's respective guardians knowing something about the story's big bad and all the mystical bullshit that follows along behind him, but that is never followed up on even a little. No one questions why they know, despite this information being so rare that literally only two families and a single group of aliens seem to have access to it. It just is a thing and then whoops, hand musta slipped because that bad boy is out the window and is facing the combined nonexistent mercy of gravity and this ten story drop.

The main plot has this same problem, in feeling like you get just enough info to keep it going forward. There's a sword in rose's umbrella basket or whatever the hell it's called, and it's implied a future dave put it there for his past self, but do we get confirmation that it was him?? Do we see that loop completed?? No, it is just used as a driving force for rose to try and push the fact that dave's got Timey powers. It feels like i'm being pulled by the hand through this story because it only gives just barely enough information to keep this crazy train rolling and then goes so far as to leave fucking time loops hanging there incomplete which okay i might be getting a little peeved about that but can you blame me?? Can you really blame me at all??

Maybe i am judging the plot too harshly, after all i was forewarned not to read for the plot in the summary because it's pretty slow and wandering. So let's get into something else then, yes?? Let's hop to the relationships.

The relationships, too, fall prey to this complete lack of any meaningful focus on any piece of information ever. I'd swear the writer was allergic if that didn't seem too harsh a description. It's a whole lot of telling without any showing, a cardinal sin in writing. We get a conversation with kanaya that doesn't suffer the disconnect from all things that the rest of the story seems haunted by. It's actually really a neat little conversation and i find it kind of wholesome how kanaya talks about rose and i personally think this interaction to be entirely too short. Then kanaya mentions karkat and apparently there's some of davekat's standard romantic tension happening off-screen because dave starts to get flustered and ponders what that means. And once again a plot thread is thrown to the winds because we never get another whiff of it.

Actually on the topic of davekat, dave just naturally gravitates to karkat and then they're stuck together like glue, so stuck in fact that dave dies for karkat because dave apparently forgets the golden rule of "If you have time to jump in front of someone then you have time to push them out of the way" and then ignores the added bit i spitefully wrote on the ancient stone tablet of Things That Make Sense in neon orange sharpie that says "Especially if you have time to have a discussion about your choices with an ambiguously-dead girl. Pull your thumb out of your ass, dave, nobody has to die here, magic option number three was not the one you picked."

Of course, this is a fanfiction, these are characters i already know. I know how these characters would interact, i know how their relationship develops in-canon and i know that given the chance these fuckers become goddamn inseparable. But that doesn't excuse the fact that it is all tell and no show, we dont see how it gets from "You're one of the only familiar faces in a group of strangers and i am not about to start interacting with new people unless i have to" to "Here let me die heroically for you and then be revived for no explainable reason besides Because The Wizard Of God Says So." I have no reason to be invested in this or even give a half-ounce shit despite it literally becoming something that the climax hinges on. And then rose and kanaya are just inexplicably,, together?? Right at the end?? And while i am happy that the lesbians get to be in love everything is off screen and nothing is ever explained, not even like one time, and god it's just so confusing. I am so confused.

But again, maybe i'm being unfair, once again the very tags of this fic are telling me that the relationships are not the focus and only really tagged so people can filter it out. I suppose i should judge the characters, then.

From what i remember there are sixteen characters, excluding ((who i believe to be, as it is once again not explained or explicitly stated to be)) caliborn at the end, with speaking roles. Five of those characters retain any narrative relevance for more than a nanosecond. A good chunk of the trolls arent even mentioned by name, with eridan and i think sollux being mentioned, and who i think to be sollux speaks when rose and dave are first brought to the trolls' apartment but again, the fog of uncertainty clouds all things and i don't have my handy dandy leafblower on me to airblast that shit out of my way. Of the five characters with any focus on them, two are relegated to the role of supporting character, with karkat joining that number more often than not. That leaves us with dave and rose, who are ultimately as a whole unaffected by their experiences. They do not learn anything, they do not grow or change. Sure rose freaks out about her perception of reality, but that falls flat because it's more tell and no show again. Dave freaks out, as he rightfully should in this situation, but there is no arc. There is no significant change in anything but moving toward the boss fight with the big baddie.

There aren't any particularly interesting interactions between these characters, either, i cannot recall one time in which i laughed, or felt much of anything really. They all fall into a state of Existing while also feeling like they aren't doing a whole lot. It's more noticeable in retrospect but these characters just Do Not feel alive, they seem incredibly flat at times and it's hard to notice while you're reading but looking back it stands out so painfully and it makes me very sad.

If i'm not supposed to read for the plot, and i'm not supposed to read for the relationships, and i can't read for the characters, then what is this story meant to be read for?? The only other thing i can think of is the mystery and sorry pal, but that's a plot, which we have already established doesn't really have a whole lot going for it because while your mystery sure is there it is currently stinking up that rug you shoved half the answers under because those mysteries aren't the ones you want to focus on.

Is it simply meant to pass the time?? Is there no deeper purpose besides keeping yourself entertained as the hours tick by?? Because if so, it at least accomplished that. Despite its faults, it kept my attention for the entire fifty one chapters, and it passed my time.

There are other nitpicks i have, but that's more based around the writing style on a more technical level. The chapters are too short for my personal taste, and there are far too many cliffhangers, these things i will not condemn as the writer gave a good reason for the latter and obviously no writer is obligated to churn out 2,500 words per chapter unless they damn well want to.

Ultimately, this story is neither good nor bad. It is straightforward in that it burns any other plot threads besides the main one on the sacrificial alter of The Writer Does What The Writer Wants, it's a bit too ambiguous and under-explained for my tastes, but there is nothing egregiously offensive in it. It is a story that exists. I wouldn't read it again, but i wouldn't not read it again, and i don't even come close to regretting the time i spent reading it ((outside of the fact that it is currently almost nine am and i haven't slept but that one is my own fault)).

I scrolled passed this story in its beginnings, assuming it would not be particularly mindblowing, and now that i've read it i know that i was entirely correct. Read it if you want, or don't, just don't go in expecting something life changing. I suggest picking out a spot on your schedule where you have nothing to do and will no doubt be bored out of your mind. I sincerely doubt you'll regret it.

#homestuck #homestuck fanfic #fanfiction #god what else do i even tag this as. fuckin.. #fanfiction critique #???? #i feel like a child #i am but a little boy lost in the deep dark woods and i have no idea where i am going #there is no map for this shit #also as i write this tag it is now 9:52 am #a whole hour after i finished writing this monstrosity #because editing this stuff to make it somewhat coherent is a task and a half #i ramble worse than any homestuck character and i have proof too. go ahead. challenge me. i dare you. i know im right #i don't know why or how i got to the bit about queen anne chocolate cherries but i think its funny so fuck it its staying in #again if the author of this fic somehow comes across this and doesn't want this shit on my blog or wants to be tagged like let me know plea #i am trying desperately to not step on any toes or hearts here but i was not Raised so if i fuck up please just tell me #i dont wanna be publicly hung via tumblr anon attacks and callout posts that are poorly made at best and wildly inaccurate at worst #anyways thanks for reading i guess i have no idea how to tie this shit off and it Shows lol #hope i did okay #fuck it im not rereading this anymore im sending it out into the world #off you go little timmy suck it up and face the judgement of strangers

[englacial]

ok this will probably be the only time i post about this but i just really wanted to make a post apologizing for my unreliability in activity here & the fact that i basically ghosted some very good friends who absolutely didn’t deserve that with no explanation -- nothing prompted this & things seem to be all good but i don’t want anyone thinking i just dropped off the map for no reason so im gonna give just a little insight to everything that’s been going on ! (long post ahead) <3

as a lot of my friends here know, in february of 2017 i got married (i was 19 and can say with certainty now it was a huge mistake & i made a hasty and immature decision but really could not see that at the time), i was super excited, felt like i was in a good relationship & was finally able to live my life, all that good sappy stuff -- so i literally moved across the country into a totally new state away from my friends & family with a fresh start with this person thinking that this was a great way to get out of my abusive living situation (as some of you who have been w me a long time may recall i got kicked out, was briefly homeless, and my life fell to literal shit) and also have someone who cared about me. but as some people suspected (and im really sorry for not taking your concerns for me more seriously, i know now that i shouldn’t have treated it so flippantly, i was just really blinded by my love for this person and i don’t think anyone could’ve gotten through) it was just... not all i made it out to be. he was really abusive and controlling and i made excuses for him and defended him, i let myself excuse a lot of things, wrote off any and all red flags, and ended up alienating a lot of friends (and family) who were just worried about me.

there were several moments later in my relationship that i started to realize what was happening, but i tried really hard to fix it within our relationship. i literally convinced myself i could change him. i pushed for counseling, group therapy, self help books, literally ANYTHING i could in an attempt to get him to see what he did. at one point i even sat down in the car with him to discuss things that needed fixing and he told me to my face that he didn’t think i deserved things. like direct quote “i just don’t feel like you deserve things”.

it was bad, but i was still making excuses and still convinced he was a good person with good intentions just misdirected. (i was way off). 

it wasn’t until january of this year that i kind of had the biggest wake up call as to the things he was putting me through and that he just... wasn’t a good person, and it took him divorcing me for it to really hit me everything that happened. 

in january, he announced out of the blue that he was divorcing me but that he still wanted a relationship with me but that he felt we needed to “work on ourselves separately” to do better in our relationship. i ignorantly believed him at first  and for a few months post-divorce we had an “open relationship” (really just his way of having his cake and eating it to, he wanted all the benefits of a relationship with me without the work and i didn’t realize that initially), however i pretty quickly found out this was him wanting to control me and still have the romantic/sexual benefit he got from our relationship without the burden of having to actually communicate and work on himself the way he claimed. he watched me get a job, get my own car, and do everything i was supposed to without him ever lifting a finger to do hard work on himself & eventually i got fed up. over the few months of getting divorced i found out that he stole over $500 from me to buy my plane ticket home + a ticket for himself (the money was from savings i had for a camera so  i could start doing photography, i thought he had ordered the camera but he actually used all of the money for the plane ticket which i only discovered later when .. lol, my camera never showed up and i confronted him), he gave me only 20 days to collect my things and arrange a new living situation (which put me back in the home of my abusive mom whom i still have to live with), made numerous threatening and scary posts about me on his social media accounts, i discovered he’d been cheating with potentially multiple women (when he shipped back some of the remainder of my possessions, there were clothes and beauty products that didn’t belong to me among them), i found transphobic posts he’d written about me being nonbinary & literally just SO MUCH other stuff that was absolutely unacceptable. 

there’s way to much that happened post-divorce to even go into and this isn’t even including the things that occurred WHILE we were married. it just wasn’t a good thing at all.

in the midst of all of this, very recently, he alerted me no more than 6 months AFTER our alleged divorce at the beginning of july to tell me that the paperwork got kicked back to him and we were never actually divorced and that he had known SINCE BEFORE I HAD GOTTEN HOME that we weren’t officially divorced. it’s been a struggle getting things sorted, he’s committed all sorts of fraud, tricked me into sending nudes to him (yikes), and a whole number of things that have made me really begin to unpack how unhealthy and abusive our relationship was from the start.

he isolated me from all of me friends, regularly would encourage me to cut ties with people i cared about, and even limited my time online which cut into hobbies like this that i really enjoy. additionally, when we would visit my hometown, he would primarily want to spend time with his own family & wouldn’t give me much time to see mine. there were some other abusive things that happened within the relationship prior to him announcing he was divorcing me, but they’re personal so i won’t go into a lot of detail but it was just very, very bad.

all of this are literal classic warning signs of abuse and i just... really fell for it. it makes me really ashamed to admit that, as someone who has been abused my whole life, i basically fell right into this trap all over again.

on top of all of this and the legal battles resulting, i have been dealing with a medical crisis linked back to a car accident in september of 2017. ive had a lot of bad stuff happen with my health that were tied to the misalignment of my neck and back that i DID NOT EVEN KNOW were related until only a few months ago when i got a second opinion from a much more experienced and adept doctor. ive had multiple surgeries from complications related to injuries i had initially been told didn’t exist, i’ve literally spent thousands of dollars for things that actually could’ve very simply been avoided had my spine been treated properly after my accident.

all of this has just... really taken me out of the rp scene but also made me a really shitty and unreliable friend. being in a controlling relationship isolated me from a lot. ive lost a lot of friends because i was in survival mode even after the relationship ended. i regret that a lot and i understand that it’s hard to be friends with someone when they are not present so ive been working a lot on myself nd how i communicate with the people i love when i feel unable to be in their lives for periods of time for one reason or another.

so now im 22 and divorced with the back problems of a 83 year old who’s three times divorced lmao it’s literally like... i sometimes feel a lot of shame for what i let myself go through but i know it’s not my fault that the person i thought i loved and thought loved me ended up not being who he said he was.

it sucked. there was a lot that happened that i can’t begin to even summarize. i still have some sleepless nights where i wonder why i wasn’t able to see it then when it was literally blatantly obvious what was happening, but hindsight is 20/20.

now, i can pretty happily say i am in a MUCH better situation. things are not perfect (im literally living with an abusive parent again and yikes but it is not near as bad as when i was a teenager), but i am no longer in a relationship that was about the convenience of using me more than it was caring about me, and alllllll of my medical stuff has an active treatment plan that has been working wonders for me!!! (yay!) 

so i just wanted to firstly apologize for my inability to be in people’s lives the way ive wanted to. i know that this is hurtful and not ok. it was wrong of me to ghost and leave people wondering where i was or what i was doing and there’s no excuse for that tbh. im actively working to be more present in the lives of people i care about as well as communicate more when i am not able to be that present. it’s taken a lot to get to that point, and i want to secondly affirm that my inability to be consistent and reliable with this hobby as well as consistent and reliable as a friend has nothing to do with any kind of personal slight i had with anyone or anything else. it’s been a rough few years, it took me a long time to see that i was in a situation that was harming me, and there was a lot of fallout as a result. 

rest assured, i intend to do a lot better about being here now that i feel like im properly adjusted. you can expect me to be a lot more communicative if i take time away and a lot more attentive to the things and relationships that i want in my life. ive taken way too much shit and let myself sacrifice too many people and situations for ONE person whose end goal was nothing more than using me to his convenience. i am not going to lose that again.

im in a much healthier relationship, taking care of the responsibilities i have as an adult, and have an active treatment plan for my various health needs that has improved my condition significantly. like, ya’ll.... life may not be perfect right now but it’s pretty damn good from where it was nd im excited to continue to grow and do better (for real this time) especially now that i feel like i can do the things i love again (like writing here with all of you lovely people).

thanks for reading!! sorry things have been sporadic, unreliable, confusing, and that i haven’t been a very good friend. i recognize these things & want to prove that i can do better now that i have a handle on things.

#* here for a good time not a long time / ooc #anyway... i didn't just want to show up out of the blue (AGAIN) and offer no explanation #i know that a lot of my friends are kind of fed up and if not fed up are just confused and worried and hurt #just want to offer some insight into... everything #i love the people ive met here very much #i love this hobby very much it has genuinely gotten me through a lot! #so i owe it to the community and the people here to explain what the fuck has been going on & yeah it's a lot #im not going to push this further tbh i just want my actions to speak for themselves as to how i intend to do better #i know telling people what im gonna do only does so much lmao i have to actually ACT on that and do it #but anyway!! here's this. thanks for reading ! triggers are tagged #abuse tw #car accident tw #long post // #(if you notice anything else that needs to be tagged let me know!)