yes i'm rooting for m*leven breakup because byler is neat but mostly? i'm rooting for m*leven breakup for the sake of el and mike.
to me, their romance was always a puppy love born out of a combination of social pressures, naïve curiosity, and a lack of true understanding regarding intimacy and romantic love and what it really is. it was real in that they do truly, deeply care about each other and they are close friends, maybe even shared an attraction, but a maturing romance is so much more than that. they've grown up and out of being boyfriend/girlfriend, and that's okay! i think television/film needs to show more often that most of us don't have definite "soulmates" or first childhood loves that we spend our whole lives with. it doesn't mean these relationships meant nothing and didn't impact us, it just means they've run their course and that something else is in the cards, and this is part of life!
i've always felt el was at her best and most confident self when broken up with mike, discovering who she was and what she liked alongside another girl her age instead of just relying on mike for mentorship on how to live in the real world. she deserves more of an opportunity to find herself, her autonomy, and her independence, and to love who she is, and she's made it clear she's felt insecure in the relationship with mike because she isn't being loved and understood the way she wants, needs, and deserves from someone who is her partner.
also, it's okay if mike doesn't love her in "the way he should". he is not obligated to love her romantically and stay in a relationship with her just because she's a girl, because she "needed someone", or because he cares about her a lot. he shouldn't be pressured into a romance if it's not truly coming from his heart. he deserves freedom to find out and honour who he is, too, instead of just staying in his non-functional first relationship — one he got into as a child, essentially — and defining himself that way because it's what's expected when a boy and a girl are close. he loves her in some way, yes, but it's okay if he doesn't feel comfortable or secure being her boyfriend anymore, for whatever reason that is. he's felt insecure too, and that's valid and it matters.
they are their own people and are steadily growing and changing every day. they need time to figure out who those people are, and it's become clear (at least in my opinion) that those people aren't meant to be a couple at this stage.
they deserve freedom. they deserve to grow up and be authentic to themselves and not feel like they need to lie for the sake of a relationship. they deserve to move on from this version of their relationship that isn't making them happy and rekindle the best part of their bond: their strong, beautiful friendship. they don't have to be a couple if it doesn't make them stronger and better and happier people.
i think it would be healthy and wonderful for a show, especially one consumed frequently by young adults, to show a relationship starting, progressing, and ending on good terms in this way. sometimes things don't work out, and that is okay.
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Meet my new ocs!! :>
Lore and info below the cut!
The pink hair guy with the silly creatures in his torso is Emilien (Emi for short) (he/it pronouns) some times after his top surgery he had these cute mouth entities that woke up in his scars (he's not really enjoying their presence)
That tall long green hair man is Sohan (he/him) he's a cashier who is gonna find out about Emi's creatures and be fascinated by them. Could be a good thing for Emi since it had a crush on Sohan since some time (despite the fact that they never really talked) but actually Sohan is like. an unsympathetic and unfriendly asshole. He doesn't care about Emi as a person at all
Because of Emi's mixed feelings about Sohan, the creatures will be very hostile toward him, so he won't be able to study them. And because he really wants to, Sohan will try to force himself to fall in love with Emi
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Recently I saw a post explaining cats vocalize around humans as a way to social signal. That Humans do a lot of social signaling as well. That's why people talk about the weather or will grumble about the long wait in line to the person near them. Or why people will ask 'Hey, how's it going?' and just want a 'good. Thanks for asking. And you?'. It's all about recognizing you're part of a group.
Then I saw, and reblogged a post, explaining that compared to most marketing stats, fanfiction is exceptionally above engagment averages at even 10% kudos per hits.
Yet, fanfic writers often feel as if they're screaming into a void and that engagement is down/dwindling/dying/etc.
So now I'm wondering if these two things are connected.
I think the problem fanfic writers are currently facing is a matter of community. In a way participating in fandom by writing fanfic is a way of social signalling. It is a way for the writer to go "I like this thing, don't you like this thing too?"
It's like the writer is calling out hello only for 90 out of 100 people to blankly stare at them. 10 out of 100 will wave hello. Only a few out of 100 will actually say something back.
Is it any wonder writers feel like they're screaming into a void? At least when you scream into a void you don't know how many people heard you, you just hear who screams back. It has to hurt mentally to put your heart out there and feel like it's being ignored.
I think about how forums of the early internet age have largely died off. How Tumblr engagement has ebbed over the years. How fanfiction has become some people's main means of engaging in fandom because it's 'free'.*
So I genuinely think the problem here is fanfic writers want community and are trying to gain that through fanfic. And they feel largely ignored/abandoned/snubbed because they're not recieving that engagement.
So my advice to writers:
turn off/hide/ignore your fanfic stats. If email alerts for kudos and/or comments spark joy then keep them. Otherwise turn those off as well.
create and/or join fandom focused discords. Find people you connect with and build a community that way.
put an author's note on your works that you like to engage with readers. That you want their thoughts, feelings opinions, etc. on your writing. Provide links for people to to chat you up on whatever social media site you prefer.
My advice to readers:
if you're going to talk to fandom friends about a fic you read, maybe leave a comment as simple as 'I love this and I'm going to share it with everyone I know.'
if you find a fic you regularly re-read or an author you loyally follow, let the author know that.
if a fic had a huge impact on you, let the writer know that.
Readers please note: I am not saying leave kudos more often, I am not saying comment on every fic. I am saying, in short, if it moves you then let the author know you were moved.
* yes I know fanworks are a labor of love/hobby and not actually free for the creator at least in time/effort. I write fanfic. I'm just saying it doesn't typically cost money to consume.
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You have to choose love. I'm sorry, I know. I know it hurts. I know you're upset, you deserve to be outraged. Your pain is real and deeply unjust. But you have to. You have to choose love.
There's too much hurt in the world. Too much bitterness. The powerful have built an inconciecable machine that turns all human suffering into unimaginable wealth, and it us hurting all of us. It has taught us to hurt each other.
We can't let it continue. We can't keep lashing out at each other. We can't keep making enemies of our siblings in pain. We have to choose love. We have to.
We have to forgive each other. Not entirely, we don't have to forget our pain, but we have to forgive enough to see each other as more alike than separate. We have to forgive each other for being taught to cause hurt.
I'm not your enemy. You aren't mine. There are people poisoning our planet en masse, killing our mother earth, erasing whole cultures, stripping human rights to keep us disempowered. We can't let ourselves become each other's enemies, even when we hurt each other.
Your pain is real. You deserve better. We all do. But we'll only achieve better if we save our ire for the real bigger fish. We can't keep fighting over the details, we all already agree on the most important part: we deserve better.
Language will always be muddy, we won't all speak the same meaning into the same words. We're gonna step on each other's toes, hurt each other deeply, even when we mean to be gentle. We're going to make mistakes along the way, we'll be misguided. But we have to forgive. We have to choose love.
I know this is preachy, I know this is vague, I know this is corny. I know. I'm just.. scared. I'm terrified. Every day I see so many like-minded people on here who would sooner tell one another to kill themselves than agree to fight for our common causes because of deeply held presumptions of character built on superficial things. I see people declaring anyone who finds joy in the wrong things, the wrong labels, to be as good as an abuser, as the very people who've put the boot on our necks in the first place.
I see so many people see the state of our world, the abysmal status quo, and respond by pouring a deep righteous passion into delineating who of us is a worthy enough aly and who is effectively a walking incarnation of their ideological enemy.
We'll never be able to achieve the unity we need to take our rights back if we're so quick to make teams and choose sides. I know, I know that a lot of these things actually matter, I'm not trying to dismiss the significance of any of these things.
What I'm saying is that, despite these conflicts, we need to swallow our differences and choose to love each other enough to focus not on the ways in which we are divided, but on our unity in oppression. Every LGBT person is threatened by any of us having our rights taken, we are a family. Every internet user, proship, antiship, vanilla, kinky, artist, lurker, all of us are threatened by attacks on privacy, by the advancement of censorship of any kind.
We can sort out our grudges when there's time. But I can't help but think too much is too dire for us to let ourselves choose to fight each other as enemies when we're all in such similar need of better.
We need humility in the face of error. We need to let go of the fear of being wrong, of having believed the wrong things, fought for the wrong causes, of having hurt other people. We need to release our guilt, for no amount of it will ever heal a wound inflicted, reverse an error made. We need to see even our enemies as human, even the worst of us as human. We need to remember that we, and others, can always make a choice.
Everything is so, so goddamn scary. It's hard to know what to believe, and who to trust, and who and what and where is safe. And I think that the answer has to be love. We have to love recklessly, we have to be kind no matter what. We have to trust ourselves to change, to be capable of change, of being accepted for changing, we have to trust each other to mean well, to accept us when we try to improve. We have to give second chances, we have to seek the humanity behind each other's actions, and seek to connect with it.
I love you. I want to make a better world with you. Even if we believe different things, I want your life to be easy. I want food in your fridge, I want joy to be an old friend you can always count on being in your daily life. I want rest for you. I want sleep to come easy, I want you to feel safe. I want you warm in the cold, and cool in the heat. I love you.
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am i bad if i hide being trans? i'm proud of the community and the representation but i'm a regular woman who goes unnoticed and this life is basically what i've always wanted
Please, oh god, please don't feel like you need to be open about being trans in order to be "good". You are already good. You are whole.
There are a million and one reasons to "hide" being trans - from your environment, to preference, to just wanting to be treated like everybody else. No matter why you're not open or out about being trans... that isn't anybody's business, I think. You owe nobody that information - especially because, usually, being trans is very very personal.
If you want a life where you fly under the radar, I say go for it. You don't deserve to be tokenized for being trans, or to be treated like the "other". I really hope you never forget that you are loved regardless of being stealth. There are so many people like you, and that's the beauty of the trans community - that we are all different, and that though we are different we also are so similar.
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