I’m sorry I just need to vent :(

tw: loss of a parent, grief

grieving is so strange. I’m fine one minute, laughing and smiling, but the next minute I find a bracelet of my mom’s and it hits me again she’s gone.

I just walked my dog and cried the whole way home because I saw kids with their moms and it just hurt I wouldn’t see her again. I can’t call her. I can’t hear her silly jokes. I can’t hug her. It fucking hurts. So every night I bawl my eyes out until my eyes burn.

fuck cancer. I lost my person 💔

saw this comment today on weibo and it’s so true lol.

My friend once said that when internal entertainment encounters a vicious incident, the best "PR" is to provoke Xiao and Wang's fans. It's accurate, there are so many stupid people, it can be blocked for a while if you get on the hot search. Anyway, the final victim is the reputation of the two stars.

When will these two groups 🏍 🍤 realize that they are being used???? I don’t normally talk about toxic fan behavior but for some reason, what happened just irritates me. When will you learn. Stop patronizing melons. These accounts are getting more malicious day by day cause they know they have the attention of big fan groups. If it’s something bad, just report it then leave. Don’t drag other people. They are all being manipulated to make noise and divert the public’s attention. In the meantime, 🏍 should know that the next few weeks are sensitive. There are people out there who will try and make scandals stick to Bobo because he has movies coming out. Don’t get provoked.

the fact that haymitch lost his family because he fucked up in an interview tho. like yea of course he said winning felt awful he was a kid. he was never meant to be headline news or in the spotlight, he just wanted to live his life and have no one remember him when he was gone. that's a life well lived to him. instead he became the winner of the biggest hunger games yet and has to suffer year after year of being dragged back into the spotlight knowing that it's not the games that ruined his life, it was him saying the wrong thing and ruining the image of a victor. it's part of why he's so tough on katniss; they have too much in common, and peeta's pretty much the only thing making her likable. once peeta's gone, katniss is going to have to do it herself, and he's scared if she wins, she's going to make the same mistakes that he did by speaking her mind instead of playing the part she's expected to.

Okay I don't wanna hijack a stranger's post in the reblog but I saw this post and it finally solidified something I've been trying to figure out for myself since I finished my first run of BG3. I'm gonna cut this for friends not here for BG3.

Basically the post says: "i'm not triggered or upset by or even ideologically opposed to it, i just associate it with something so bad that i can't enjoy it anymore" is such a frustrating relationship to have with a piece of media"

And this is why I've had such a hard time interacting with content for Astarion. Friends that I know are writing for him -- Rose, Megh, and others -- please forgive me for not being able to jump in and share the fun! The fandom hit the bad dragon age feels button for me from the days of vicious arguing over certain characters and it's so hard for me to separate out those bad feelings. I don't want to rehash but a lot of us left DA fandom over it all. And it sucks because Astarion is a cool character and I had such a personal, visceral connection to his story, but that is also part of the problem. The ascension path is deeply uncomfortable and borderline triggering for me, and regular path is tangled up in fandom ick from days of yore....

I don't know where I'm going with this, I just feel really bad and don't want to bring a cloud over anyone's enjoyment of him or the fanwork out there! He's a great character!! And also I want to support my creative friends! Please forgive me y'all, please keep enjoying and creating and know I'm so happy to see you all having fun even if it's really hard for me to be part of it.

tw animal death, tw cancer under the cut

if it hasnt been painfully obvious based on my posts, shit has been happening in my personal life. my dog of over a decade just died. like an hour ago “just.” she had osteosarcoma, and while she was still there in her personality and still eating food (always. always eating food.) she was in pain and the cancer had spread a lot, and the kindest thing to do was euthanize her. it was peaceful, it was at home, she wasnt alone.

why are you telling us this, tumblr user leaf cabbage? i guess theres two reasons. one is that this is going to impact my writing and that’s what you are all here for. i dont know if ill be writing more as escapism, or less because i have a story about grief and i dont even know how to handle my own. i dont know how grief is gonna hit me this time around. i hope you will understand. i hope it does not impact the quality of my work. i want to give you the best, and i promised a lot over the summer. i want to write what you guys deserve, which is a good and satisfying story.

the other is selfish i guess. i just want other people to know she existed. she was an incredible dog and i want everyone to know she was here. she was a huge part of my world. she mattered more than most things. i want her to be known.

here’s to her. tate “tater tot” b. will always be the sweetest dog to ever exist in my eyes. 

thank you for reading. thank you for your patience and understanding when it comes to my writing

Regina Mills/ Evil Queen rp

NBCS; Once Upon a Time { OUAT } 

Mun; 30 they/them

21+

                                     Home   Rules    Asks 

Blog roll ;

@manyneverendingstories   @firebloodmuses​

Independent and Easy

PLEASE DO NOT REBLOG THIS

The main reason I'm even here is to work through the things causing me anxiety. I'm not going to try very hard to make things brief. Maybe I'll post some one liners or one paragraph things occasionally, but most of what shows up here is going to be long text. If I can figure out how to reblog from others here, I might do that too, as long as I'm not found by anyone I don't want to find me. So here it goes.

I’ve worked a lot in the past decade, especially the past few years, really especially the last year, to improve my relationship with my mom. And it has improved greatly from its historical situation and definitely from its low point in 2011. But damned if she can’t still hurt my feelings without putting any effort into it. At least I hope and want to believe she’s not putting any effort into it.

When she was my mom and wasn’t anyone else’s mom or grandmother, she made it very clear to me that to be the most pleasing, to get the most love, to get what I needed, I had to be easy. I had to not need or want much of anything, and definitely not demand it; attention, money, time, stuff, emotional labor, practical help. I had to not cause her any trouble, which meant I had to not cause anyone who would go to her about me any trouble either (teachers at school, doctors, other family members, anyone else she perceived in charge of me). I had to happily accept any responsibility and expectations placed on me, no matter how extreme or irrational they might be. No complaining. No crying. No getting angry or resentful. If any of that flared up, remind yourself (so she doesn’t have to) that you’re selfish and you don’t matter as much as other people/she does, or that you don’t matter at all. Remind yourself (so she doesn’t have to) that you’re lucky you have a roof over your head and food to eat and you aren’t getting beaten or thrown in the closet/basement or forced to sit on the front step and read the Bible out loud with your stutter and dyslexia until your parent was satisfied with your shame and humiliation, or kicked out of the house (and you knew kids who suffered some, most, or all of that). Be easy, Jennifer, and be glad and grateful you don’t have it worse (the implied and unspoken message there was always...I could always make it worse).

So I was easy. I literally never had one disciplinary measure taken by any authority figure through preschool and 13 years of public schools. I never got in fights with mean and selfish and loud cousins at family gatherings, even when they definitely were pushing me around. I got straight A’s. I got high test scores. I took care of my baby (literal baby) brother as a middle and high school student, without dropping the high test scores or grades, or getting into any disciplinary trouble. I got a job and worked every shift I was scheduled for minimum wage. I didn’t do any social anything unless I could pay for it myself with the money I earned from my job (the childcare I provided for 11 years for my mom was always totally free). I didn’t ask for (even) a (used) car; didn’t even get my driver’s license until I was 17 because Mom and Dad didn’t have the time or desire to teach me to drive one of the family cars. I signed myself up for driver’s training (it wasn’t offered through my poor public high school, like countless movies about high school led me to believe.) I took 3 lessons and the road test in cars I’d never drive again, and passed...with 3 lessons from strange people in strange cars. And then didn’t dare ask for a family car, even with a license, unless it was to drive to work or local college classes (had to stay home for school to take care of my brother...so I could be ‘easy’).

The one time I actually expressed any displeasure to my mom, she threw a hot pan of gravy at me. She’d made gravy that was supposed to be savory, but mistook powdered sugar for flour, so it was incorrectly and cloyingly sweet, which I (I thought) diplomatically pointed out, and she shoved and slammed down the hot skillet onto the table and told me I never appreciated anything she did for me and I was just being difficult. My dad then tasted the gravy and agreed with me. She took the pan back and remade the gravy, but she never said she was sorry. I learned to never point out one of her mistakes and make sure to gratuitously fawn over what she did for me then. To be easy.

My mom when she was working was late for every appointment she made with me when I became an adult. ‘Let’s have lunch, Jennifer,’ and she’d leave me sitting at a restaurant table alone for up to my entire lunch hour, waiting for her, without calling or even answering her phone. If I brought up that she was late (with what I thought was obvious concern for her safety and wellbeing), she always told me she was very important and needed at work. I should understand that. I learned to never expect anything from her but to always fulfill her shifting and sometimes conflicting expectations of me. To be easy.

I learned to handle shit myself and if anything bothered me, including panic attacks, I learned to keep it to myself. To be easy. I was good at shit. To be easy. I was good. To be easy.

When I moved out, I bought my own place and didn’t ask them for any money. I bought my own furniture and appliances. Didn’t ask them for any money and was certainly never offered any without asking. In fact, they told me it was the stupidest thing I ever did (“You used to be smart, Jennifer.”) and they were not going to make a mortgage or a utility payment for me and ‘don’t think you’re coming back here when you can’t do it by yourself.’ But I did do it by myself, because I was raised to be independent and easy.

She complained about me asking her to take a half day off work the day before our wedding so she wouldn’t be late to our rehearsal dinner. I hired the caterer, booked the venue, and the DJ, made the flowers myself, made the favors myself, made the invitations myself...you know...to be EASY.

When J and I had our son (after losing my first pregnancy in a traumatic way), my mom and dad were happy, I guess, but she didn’t really care that much. She told me to stop giving her new pictures of the baby because they were ‘cluttering up her house.’ When we asked her to babysit so J and I could go on dates, we would only go to a meal (lunches during weekend afternoons before the boy was potty trained and sleeping through the night) for some minimal alone time together; we never even went to a movie. To be EASY. Once we asked for two weekends in a row, and she said, ‘I’m not doing THIS SHIT every weekend, Jennifer.’ So we made sure to only ask once a month or less. To be independent and easy. We didn’t need her to help us ‘too much.’ We weren’t being selfish and demanding and lazy and entitled to her time and attention for our son (her only grandchild). We wanted make sure we were easy.

She told me I shouldn’t have any more kids because I couldn’t handle any more by myself. I worry too much. My anxiety gets in the way. It was maybe overly hopeful for J and I to have more kids based on my first pregnancy, and we made a decision as a couple to not try for any more after the boy turned 4 regardless of my mom’s unsolicited input on the situation, but it still hurt that she pointed out that me having even one kid, in her eyes, made me less independent and easy. It kind of put expectations on her and I was now sort of failing to meet the expectations she had of me. Being a mom made me less independent and easy. And she probably resented me for making her a mom and making her less independent; putting any expectations on her. Me staying home with my son was lazy and entitled and spoiled, things she’d taught me over and over again were bad. In fact, she didn’t like watching my son because if I ‘get to just stay home’ every day, why would I ever even need a babysitter for any reason? I can’t even handle sitting on my ass doing nothing all day? I need a break from that?

The biggest fight I ever had with my mom was when my son was 4. J and I had gone to a Halloween party and I told my son to please eat what my mom made him for breakfast and not demand something special (to be easy) and to not ask to go to the toy store (to be easy). When I called my mom to check on him before we picked him up the following morning, she cheerfully told me he had both demanded a special breakfast my dad had to go out for and she took him to the toy store the night before. I asked to speak to my son and I calmly said, ‘Buddy, I thought we talked about these things last night,’ and he started to cry. My mom then snapped the phone away from him and said, ‘All you do is make him cry. He was a perfect angel until you called.’ When we got there to pick up my son, she called me an asshole and a bad mother in front of both my son and J. I asked J to take our son to the car and told my mom, ‘I’m done,’ once they were outside. I was just trying to train my son to be independent and easy to be pleasing to her. I was trying to stay independent and easy and pleasing to her.

I thought being easy was what would earn me love and connection, because that’s what I was very deliberately led to believe with her my whole life. I took responsibility for being a bad mom, a bad daughter, a bad person, unworthy of attention and love and care and respect, because I wasn’t independent and easy enough.

But that’s all horseshit. Because now my mom goes and cleans my brother’s and his wife’s apartment for them semi-regularly. They are double income, no kids. They’re fully capable of doing their own housework. My parents gave my brother a car when he turned 16 without him having to even ask for one. Then he totaled it. And they gave him ANOTHER car and bought a new one for themselves. My brother got Saturday school in high school once for shouting, ‘Where’s the fuckin’ call?!’ to a high school basketball referee. He didn’t get in any trouble at home. My mom helped my brother’s wife plan a wedding shower and a wedding...with glee. She cried at his wedding...the ceremony and the reception. She sat there stone faced at mine.

And I used to write a lot of shit shit off as internalized misogyny (which she does have a lot of) because of the obvious preferential treatment she afforded my brother and my son. And ‘he’s the baby’ for my brother and ‘he’s the grandchild’ for my son, too. But that’s not it, really. It’s more personal to me. Because now, my mom devotes entire days of her time to my aunt’s daughter. She’s younger than me, but she’s the oldest of her siblings, just like me; she’s a woman, not a boy or a man, just like me. My mom can’t stop talking about how cute my cousin’s kids are; she babysits joyfully...is honored to be asked...teaches the little girl how to make brownies from boxed mix...shares all kinds of photos of them whether I want to look at them or not. This woman isn’t my mom’s daughter OR grandchild. It hurts me that she makes them a priority and not me.

So at 44, I’ve finally seen the error of my ways, although going back through my life and history with my mom, I can’t possibly see how things could be different now. It was either end up here, or end up even more estranged because I wasn’t ever independent and easy. It’s me. It’s me she has never been able or willing or desirous to connect to. The curse of independence and ease is that she raised me to not need her, on purpose. And she doesn’t want me to need her. She still wants independent and easy. The curse of competence is that you don’t need anyone, so they just don’t show up for you. It never matters that you want them. My mom sees my brother and my cousin as sort of incompetent and dependent and difficult. So she feels like she HAS to help them. Which I know she doesn’t like. But she’s connected to them; she seems to be connected to them the way I’ve always wanted to be connected to her. But I also know she resents and complains about that connection. There’s just so much conflicting feeling about the situation for me right now. Competence and independence and ease cost you connection, but I’ve never wanted to be an obligatory connection to anyone, even my mom. Maybe especially my mom. So I’ve always just stayed trying to be independent and easy, but being independent and easy and keeping all your own needs and desires inside only ever ends up in lopsided, often abusive relationships, and it always hurts you.

I can see the same thing happening to my son now. J and I very intentionally raised him to know we love him regardless of our own visions and whether or not he matches them. We don’t put pressure on him to hide feelings and perform. We don’t expect too much of him; we try to let him be a kid. But despite all that, there are a lot of folks out there like my mom who place heavy expectations on people but demand those people have no expectations of them. He feels that pressure from teachers and friendships and other peers. He feels that pressure from just growing up in America; in growing up a boy. Expectation to handle shit yourself. Expectation to not ever express any feeling and need. Expectation to be independent and easy. I can see it. I can feel it. And I notice my son trying to be independent and easy. And it hurts me. I wonder why it never hurt my mom. Probably because she didn’t watch me.

hello there <3

aisha/shyna • she/her • indian • 27 • selfships • ko-fi • masterlist • header creds: @amberswords (thank you once again 💖)

you can catch me talking about jotaro kujo, tetsuro kuroo or kento nanami often hehe <33

url changes: @/musingsofanextrovert -> @/tetsukentona -> @/jotatetsuken

❛ byf/dni ❜ • ❛ collabs ❜ • ❛ character rules ❜ • ❛ favorite characters list ❜

❛tags navi❜ • ❛moots❜ • ❛ rules/writing rq ❜ • ❛ my ocs ❜

recents: sunkissed| summer paradise | [11:30pm] | [8:00pm] | dear theodosia | meant to be

networks: @tokyometronetwork • @hanayanetwork • @downtown-roponggi

collabs & events: shyna's seiyuu birthday celebration - edition 3 • ...that wears the crown collab • i was never good at sports collab • kento nanami’s birthday special

inbox = 68 (will get to y’all soon so sorry)

to receive updates about my fics, fill taglist form or follow @shynahasabookshelf (my library blog, turn on notifications)

Sideblogs: @musings-and-moans (NSFW Blog; Ageless Blogs, Blank Blogs, Minors DNI!) • @anikasenkujo (Jojo OC) • @shynahasabookshelf (library account) • @shys-cafe-lair (RP Blog, Minors, Ageless, Blank Blogs Please DNI)

✍🏼: july 17th, 2022 • 🎧: meherbaan - shilpa rao, ash king • 📺: jojo’s bizarre adventure: stone ocean• 📖: jjba steel ball run and blue lock, the book thief

current concern: Can Jotaro stop showing up in my dreams? /j /lh

© Shyna 2021 (blog was established in 2011, but started writing in 2021) - As I post on Wattpad & Instagram under the same username, and Quotev under RushiMushi16, (and will start writing on AO3 soon), I do not give permission to repost, modify, translate or share my works on any other platforms. I'd appreciate it if I'll be notified about situations like these should they occur. Also, if you're inspired by my content, please do speak with me before you credit me.

I heard the news about Kazuki Takahashi this morning, but couldn’t properly collect my thoughts before I had to leave for work, so now that I am home I can finally put my thoughts into words. 

Losing Kazuki Takahashi is devastating for a lot of reasons. He created the first fandom I ever actively engaged with on the internet. YGO was the first fandom I ever wrote fanfic for — it’s what really inspired me to write in the first place and drove me to better my storytelling skills. It was the first fandom I ever created an OC for, and then multitudes of OCs for that live rent free in my head to this day, absolutely cringeworthy but near and dear to my heart and will probably never see the light of day lmao, but my point is. YGO has been such an integral part of my past, present and hopefully future. 

It doesn’t matter to me that we won’t get any more updates, or any new YGO tidbits fleshed out. It doesn’t matter to me that the worldbuilding ends with Kazuki Takahashi. What matters to me is that we’ve lost an absolute legend, a brilliant storyteller, and one of the first people to inspire me to write in the first place. I wouldn’t be here, or have this blog, if it weren’t for Kazuki Takahashi. 

Thank you, for everything you’ve done, and everything your legacy will continue to do.

Ah, so here’s me. I FINALLY get to wear my Ethan Winters’ outfit. I’ve been waiting since March to finally be able to wear it since it’s getting cold now.

Since posting a fic recently, I’ve been thinking about the fact I don’t get much engagement beyond likes on my fics and I think that might be because my writing isn’t particularly remarkable or interesting enough to be worth sharing or commenting on and I think the sooner I come to terms with that, the more content I will be with my writing

I’m really glad that Aaron’s self-immolation for Palestine is getting attention, but on November 8th there was also a Congolese man who did the same thing for the genocide happening in the DRC. From what I read in the article above, his fate and identity are unknown but I think his story should be getting equal amount of traction and I haven’t really seen anyone talking about it on Tumblr specifically yet.

To illustrate this post by @mayahawkse I would like to visualize to you the difference:

A post in 2023:

A post in 2014:

A zoom out of the same post:

This is what a community looks like.

See how in 2023 almost all of the reblogs come from the OP, from their few hours/days in the tag search. Meanwhile in 2014 the % of reblogs from OP is insignificant, because most of the reblogs come from the reblogs within the fandom, within the micro-communities formed there. You didn't need to rely on tags, or search, or being featured. Because the community took care of you, made sure to pass the work between themselves and onto their blog and exposed their followers to it. It kept works alive for years.

It's not JUST the reblog/like ratio that causing this issue, it's the type of interaction people have. They're content with scrolling and liking the search engine, instead of actually having a reblogging relationship with other blogs in their community.

Anyways, if you want to see more content you like, the only true way to make it happen is to reblog it. Likes do not forward content in no way but making OP feel nice. Reblogs on the other hand make content eternal. They make it relevant, they make it exist outside of a fickle tumblr search that hardly works on the best of days.

If you want more of something, reblog it.

you can use this site to find out which phase you were born under, and this site to see if you were born on a blue moon!

SO IVE BEEN GOIN INSANE SINCE THIS TRAILER DROPPED. JUST. SIMON. SIMON. SIMON.

"...And I Turned Out Fine..."

PLEASE DO NOT REBLOG THIS

I know my personal experience isn't the same as everyone else's. I'm not a navel gazing dipshit. But I do want to talk about my own bias here, I guess, having to do with this phrase and phrases like it.

I've said something like this probably thousands of times in my life. It was always trying to dismiss my own true feelings of not being fine. Literally every time I said it, it wasn't true. Not that it was exactly a lie. It was more an argument to myself so I could move past something shitty like it wasn't shitty and it shouldn't bother me. Sometimes I even justified shitty things like they were good for me. In some ways, some of the shitty parts WERE good for me, in the long run, but that doesn't mean I don't still have real trauma from them that I try to invalidate for myself all the time.

I think we're all basically made up of our traumas and their coping mechanisms. Optimism is one of mine. Sometimes that's really great. It's almost always great for helping out OTHER people who are having a hard time seeing their way out of shit, or can't find anything positive to hold onto in a dark time. I can see it. I'll show them where it is. I can spin a lot of things into brighter light, when someone else is already seeing the dark. I'm thankful for that part of me and how it serves other people. I really am. But for myself? Optimism, while often still really effective, means I'm just denying it's dark.

I never shared this anecdote between J and me publicly on the older, more followed blogs, and I may have shared it privately with a couple of you already, but it's on my mind again today, so here it is. In writing.

Maybe a year or two before tumblr hit my radar (maybe 2014ish?), J and I had a date where our son stayed over with my parents (I've always had mixed feelings about having our son stay with my parents, but there really isn't anyone else we trust at all around here. Anyway, so J and I usually went to dinner somewhere and then came home and did kinky shit together and watched rated R shit on streaming we couldn't watch when our kid was home. But this particular evening, after doing kinky shit, we were both web surfing some and we ran across one of those What Kind of Dom/Sub Are You? online quizzes (50 Shades was at peak popularity there, I think). So for silliness, we both took it. (We were living D/s since early 2007 at that point; so before 50 Shades existed). My results were all over the place, 20% of four labels each and 10% each of two more. J joked that I couldn't be labeled. His results were something like 85% White Knight Dominant. I remember the explanation saying that these 'types' were really concerned with safety, and very protective, and were 'typically drawn to submissives who are abuse/trauma survivors.' I said, 'You must be atypical. Because that's not me,' laughing at how ridiculous that suggestion was for me (it's dead on accurate for J). And he said, seriously, and kind of sad, 'Peaches? That's totally you.'

I admit that I use my happiness and security and accomplishments to justify my trauma and abusive past. I said, 'I did this, so my mom didn't really hurt me...' 'J says I'm a good mom, so I must not have been affected by that event...' 'What do I have to complain about in my life now? I turned out fine...' But the truth is all that hurt is still there, and that's why it comes out in the fiction. Because that's the place it's the safest to let it out still. Going to repost the first thing I wrote here with the no reblog control now that I can do that because all that's on my mind again today too.