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certifiedceraunophile · 3 years

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I can see that you're not a native English speaker but your grasp on the language is applaudable how long have you been learning?

Your writing (both tumblr posts and fanfiction) have a classical elegance to it and it's hard for even native speakers to communicate their thoughts as beautifully as you do 💙 Have you taken some special training for it?

Oh my god angel anon this is so sweet, and lmao you're right I'm not a native speaker like at all, tbvvh I struggle a lot w english, always have like I'd score the lowest in it out of all my subjects in high school, ugh my total percentage always took a hit bc of it -_- wont ever stop being salty about it ngl, so no I've had no real training whatsoever beyond like the general compulsory learning in school, and also anybody who chats w me for like more than a minute will immediately know that idgaf about spellings or sentence structure or general coherency in my day to day english, Lmao which reminds me the other day I literally told someone I ~idealize~ I look up to in every way possible when it comes to writing *cough* Jenn @cbk1000 *cough* that “……blah something blah…..I teached...blah blah” while talking and I didnt notice it for like a hot second and Jenn is too sweet (sort of) to point it out but oh my god I was mortified by it when I realized what I had said, but honestly what throws me is that I didn't really notice it was wrong for a long time and like I thought it was a-ok until it hit me that it’s taught.

So in all honesty my english is as good as any non-native speaker who had to learn the language growing up strictly for school purposes.

That being said in my ff writing I just try really really pathetically hard when I write, like the pretension leaps out and tries to reproduce whatever I myself have consumed so far in terms of writing and recycle it as my own crap, I just have this ability (it's not a special thing everyone does it lmao) to subsume what I read and I mostly just take sentences, metaphors and other writerly things sometimes even just the mood/setting of the writing that strike me and rewrite it w an added touch of pretension and it's actually really tangible how much I allow what I read to drastically affect how I write and since I read a weird eclectic mix of really….just a lot of different things that shouldn't really go together lol, my writing style/ narrator voice/ mood setting for my ff also varies a lot, like one day I write Klaus w a satire and critical wit that’s not exactly Voltaire but close, where he’s pretty much just disgusted by everything and decides to mock it all with a straight face and the next day I write him as a lil pining shit with saccharine levels of romanticism in my writing to appeal to his artist-soul mostly bc I sat my ass down and read a poem or two by Keats prior to writing, other days he’s cute and murderous, wears human teeth as jewelry and is just a tiny bit poignant bc I had a date with Poe….so yeah basically what I’m trying to say is that the only "training" I've ever had is what I've already read all these years and what I write is just all the text I've kept w myself and can recollect and re-arrange into my own writing, which is why I would never consider my work to be something that’s completely and originally mine bc I have this personal saying that goes,

“Everything I see is an image of an image.”

Which to me means a lot of things but in this particular context means that nothing I create belongs to me and only me, it belongs to every writer I’ve read before writing it and will be reminisced by every author who I’ll read after it, that everything I create is just what creators before me have done but have allowed me to take their creations and make it mine before I too pass it on with love and history to the next person.

I also have another quote I feel in every inch of my heart and that’s

"I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women and men that I have loved; all the cities I have visited."

-Jorge Luis Borges

So really this is just my personal...philosophy?? Belief, that I owe my creativity to the world and everything it creates *through* me because I don't own the beauty, I’m only a lens through which it passes through, that my creativity refracts the world's beauty into my life and my creations, and I am glad, blessed to have been the lens through which such beauty passes through.

And that I am more than happy to just be another image who is someone else’s reflection or the very object someone else will reflect, I love how much that connects every human being and every object of beauty, of creation in existence inescapably.

Now I’ve rambled on a lot like a LOT, definitely wayyyyyy more than that simple ask warranted lmao so I’ll shut up and just say you’re the sweetest lovely anon this message made me feel so very flattered and I genuinely think I blushed (and trust me brown girls cannot blush mostly bc the melanin wont let the pink filter through lmao) and I am honoured to know that you thought I took some professional coaching for this because I literally am the most amateur absolutely clueless bullshit your way through everything writer you will find out there and I am ngl proud of that.

(like seriously dude the other day I learnt for the first time how to use a semi colon and I s2g I wanted to dig a hole and bellyflop into it after realizing how many bloody times I’ve used a semi colon wrong like jfc someone kill me before I do it myself it’s mortifying)

eenyways *tackle hugs* thank you for making me smile and for your kind words youre absolutely precious 💖 and I dont deserve the compliments but I am never gonna let them go bc they make my heart warm.

#the most flattering anon I've ever had #like DUDE I CANT STOP SMILING #You make me feel so accomplished when I'm just a glitter graveyard full of junk and pretension #ugh *hugs you ans sways in place*#asks #anon

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gigi-sinclair · 4 years

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This is entirely for @draculas-gay-daughter, because of this.

Also, the research for this has awakened in me an actual desire to learn to make candles, so thanks for that new quarantine hobby!

It's like, what do they call it, ASMR.

That's what Edward tells himself. Some people find it relaxing to watch strangers pop plastic wrap or flick dry paint brushes or whatever. He happens to find it relaxing to watch Tom Jopson talk about the intricacies of making candles.

He doesn't know how he first landed on “Brighten Your Day With Candles.” Some winding path of Youtube “recommended videos” he wouldn't be able to retrace if he tried, but the moment he found it, Edward was entranced. He watched every one of Tom's ten-to-twenty minute long videos immediately.

Nine months and thirty-four new videos later—Tom took off the weeks of Christmas and New Year's, leaving Edward bereft over the holidays—Edward understands no more about candle making than he did before. Tom, however, is endlessly fascinating.

Edward can't say exactly what it is he finds so alluring. Tom is handsome, with his flopping dark hair and his five o'clock shadow, but Edward sees handsome men all the time. He's clearly very intelligent, but Edward works with some of the biggest minds, not to mention egos, in the country.

There is something else, something which leaves Edward unable to look away. When Tom says, “Adding too much fragrance can, unfortunately, lead to curdling in soy candles” with a look of heart-wrenching empathy in his big eyes, Edward wants to gather him in his arms and give the man a good, solid hug. When he says, “I had news from viewer Jamie in Nova Scotia that they've solved their ongoing issue with wet spots!” Edward wants to kiss him in celebration. And when Tom leans forward, the V-neck of his shirt revealing a patch of dark chest hair, to confide, “Today, we're going to talk about the length of your wick,” Edward offers up a mental apology and reaches for his fly.

Edward thinks his obsession is secret, until one evening his flatmate George says, “Thanks for staying out when I had Emily over the other night.”

“It's fine.” It is in Edward's best interests not to be about when George and his girlfriend get together. There is only so much saccharine sweetness and over-the-top pet names he can handle.

“I really appreciate it. So does she. We wanted to get you a gift.” It's only then Edward notices the bag, printed with pink flowers and the words “It's a Girl!”, in George's hand. “Sorry about the bag,” he adds. “It was the only one I could find.”

Where? Is the question Edward doesn't ask. “That's not necessary, George. Really.”

“Open it!”

Edward tries not to sigh as he opens the gift bag. George's gift-giving history, while admirable in its efforts, is remarkably poor in its execution. The last thing Edward needs is another “Purrrrrfect Friend” mug with a cat’s tail as a handle, or a T-shirt with a Sasquatch on it. It's the thought that counts, he reminds himself, even if that thought is, when it comes to George, quite often incomprehensible.

This gift is just as strange. Edward stares at what appear to be squares of white wax, a roll of string, and several tiny bottles, until George, still smiling, explains, “It was Emily's idea. I told her how you're always watching that candle making channel on Youtube, and she said you're probably dying to give it a go yourself.” He looks at Edward, his expression expectant. “It's great, right?”

“Right.” Edward smiles. “It is. Great. Thanks, mate.”

The next day, Edward buys a pair of headphones.

***

One Wednesday nearly a year after Edward first found him, Tom finishes a talk about gel wax, then leans back on his stool. All of his videos are filmed in the same kitchen, with several little cactus pots on the windowsill and a gleaming sink, spotlessly clean, in the background. Edward wonders if it's Tom's own kitchen. If the rest of the room, or the house or flat, is as tidy as what he shows. If he lives with anybody. No one else is ever on the videos, although that doesn't mean Tom doesn't have a friend or a flatmate or a partner behind the camera.

“I'm really going to miss you,” Tom says, putting the gel candles aside. Edward's heart seizes. “But I won't be making any new videos for the next little while, because I'm going on a book tour!” He holds up the book, also entitled “Brighten Your Day With Candles”, he's been showing for the last few weeks. Edward ordered it the first time he saw it. He feels like he owes Tom at least that much. “I am so excited,” Tom says. He looks it, but Edward has never seen him be anything but sincere. “Unfortunately, it's just in south east England at the moment—sorry Jen in San Luis Obispo, I can't make it out to California this time, although I would love to someday—but I would really like to meet as many of you as possible. My complete schedule is below. See you soon!” He waves. Edward is about to scroll down to the comments, then hesitates.

What would he say if he met Tom in person? That he thinks Tom is the most incredible man he's ever seen? That he's watched every one of Tom's videos multiple times, and still knows nothing about making candles? That he often pictures Tom talking authoritatively about long burn times and multiple layers while Edward blows him? It's disgusting, inappropriate, probably illegal.

With a shake of his head, Edward puts the thought of meeting Tom Jopson entirely out of his mind.

***

At one time, Edward loved his career. That was before the company president died suddenly and his role was taken over by two co-presidents, promoted from within, who have a long history of conflict and have used Edward as a go-between, the miserable child of an unfriendly divorce, for months now.

It saps Edward's energy to the point that he doesn't have the will to look for another job. He just goes to work every day, suffers, and comes home to brighten his day with candles. Until one night, when George meets him at the door.

“Don't take your coat off,” he tells Edward. “We're going out.”

“I really don't feel like...”

“You will. Trust me.” Edward doesn't. They're great friends, but Edward doesn't trust him a bit. The feeling is vindicated when they arrive at the local Waterstone's, and George pushes him inside.

Tom is even more beautiful in person. His stubble looks like it's deliberate rather than the result of a long day, although Edward has always found that very charming in itself. He's wearing a smart white button-up shirt, and the smile he directs at the woman in front of him is so brilliant, Edward feels weak.

“No.” Edward turns to go.

George stops him. “Why not? It's the guy you like, isn't it?”

“It's...I don't...What am I going to say?”

“That you're a big fan? Even though you still haven't used that candle stuff Emily and I got you?” George looks at him pointedly. “Get him to sign your book.”

“I don't have it with...”

George reaches into his satchel and presses “Brighten Your Day With Candles” on him. “Get in the queue,” he says, in that imperious tone he sometimes has. “I'll wait in the café.”

Edward's stomach churns, but he follows George's direction, joining the queue behind a middle-aged woman and her teenage daughter. There are two other people ahead of them. It’s long enough for Edward to regret his entire life up to this point, not long enough to gather the wherewithal to walk away.

When Edward reaches the table, Tom's smile becomes even more brilliant. “You're Edward, right?”

Edward's carefully thought out opening words—“Good work”—disappear. “How did you...”

“Your friend George sent me a message.” Of course he fucking did. Edward is going to kill him. Is actually going to put his hands around his throat and...“He told me you'd be here.”

“Hm.” Edward has no idea what to say. His mind is entirely blank. He searches desperately, a quest which eventually arrives at, “Yes.”

“You like my videos?” Tom holds out his hand. Edward shakes it, then, face burning, realizes Tom was reaching for the book. Edward drops it onto the table. It thunks loudly.

“Yes,” Edward repeats.

“Do you have a favourite type of candle?” Tom opens the book and turns to the title page.

“Wax ,” Edward replies, because his brain has apparently given up on this situation as entirely unsalvageable.

Tom laughs, as if that was a joke. He scrawls something in the book, then closes it and hands it back to Edward. “Thanks for watching, Edward. I really appreciate a loyal viewer like you.” He holds Edward's gaze as he says it.

Edward swallows around the lump in his throat. Edward has never done well in front of others. If he and Tom were alone, Edward might be able to come up something halfway coherent. Maybe. They're not.

“Thanks,” he says. He could swear Tom throws him a wink as he walks away.

It's that, along with the general humiliation, that leads Edward to duck out of view between Interior Design and Gardening. He opens the book to see what Tom wrote.

The words “For Edward” and a scribble that could be Tom's signature lie across the title page. Beneath that is a series of numbers. It takes Edward a moment longer than he wants to admit to realize it’s a phone number. He's not that lucky, usually. But he's also not this stupid.

His heart still hammering, Edward takes out his phone. I'm not really an idiot, Edward types, then sends the text before he can think twice. He glances at Tom, deep in conversation with a young woman in denim overalls, and goes to murder George.

Two hours later, Edward is sitting on the sofa at home when his phone trills. You don't seem like one. It's too kind. Just like he expected Tom would be. Can I buy you a coffee? Or better yet a drink?

“Who's that?” George asks, without looking up from his laptop. He doesn't need to. His entire body exudes smugness.

“Mind your own business,” Edward says. But, he adds silently, thank God you never do.

***

The rest of Tom's flat is as tidy as the kitchen he shows on his videos. It's also, amazingly, less than half an hour's drive from Edward's place. In addition to that, Tom has a day job at a shop Edward has passed hundreds of times, which he's always derogatorily classified as “candles, crystals and shit” and avoided.

“So if you hadn't been such a snob, darling,” Tom tells him, with a smile and a kiss, “we might have met a long time ago.”

Edward can't deny that. He can, however, deny that it's a good idea for him to join Tom on screen.

“Don't worry.” Tom sets up his phone on its tripod and comes back around the counter. “Just pretend it's not even there.” He kisses Edward again, on the cheek, then turns to the camera. “Welcome back, everyone! We have a very special guest today. This is my gorgeous boyfriend Edward, and we're going to help him make his very first candle!”

Tom posts the video later that evening. Not long afterwards, the comments start appearing. Normally, Edward would avoid them—he knows what Youtube commenters are like, and he never wants to see any criticism of Tom—but this time, he looks. To his surprise, there are several remarks about him. “Edward's so cute!” “OMG ur bf is the sweetest!” And, “That Edward guy really is great. I think you should have him on every episode.” The username beside that one is “PianoMan86” and the picture is the same one George uses on Instagram.

Bloody George. Fortunately, Edward thinks, looking at the slightly lumpy candle he produced with his own two hands, he has the perfect gift for him.

“Edward!” Tom calls, from his room down the hall. “Are you coming?”

Before they met, Edward assumed Tom would be the kind of guy who lights a million candles in the bedroom. In fact, he only ever lights one, but it never fails to have the perfect luminosity and fragrance for the mood.

“Yes.” Edward puts down his phone and hurries to join him. As amazing as he is on Youtube, Tom is unspeakably better offline.

#draculas-gay-daughter #niche youtube au

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cosmosogler · 6 years

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hi guys. STILL DOING BAD!!!

today i woke up at 8:30. which is not as bad as 9, but not very good. that’s how most of my day went. could have been worse, but that doesn’t mean it was good.

i worked for 5 work sessions and finished one quantum assignment. that’s about 20% of the work i wanted (needed) to get done this weekend. i was working very, very slow even with the self-imposed work session alarms to let me know when to take breaks and stuff. usually i can focus for a few of those before i get tired... i was wiped after one.

i also had trouble getting moving in the morning so i didn’t even get to the department until 12-ish. i got working at 1:30 and then jennica and luis wanted some dinner at 4:30 so we got some chinese takeout. it was decent.

i can’t handle the workload and the tests coming up and the new secret tax plan passing and we don’t know the implications AND net neutrality is being attacked YET AGAIN and whatever the hell else is going on that i forgot because i can’t think of more than three things at once.

my certified organic non gmo dumbass mom put off rescheduling my plane trip for so long that she didn’t get to reschedule it. so i am here doing absolutely nothing an extra day after finals. nice good great fantastic wonderful excellent. i’ll have to reschedule snoopy’s board and i will get to see eve and the other dogs and my grandparents and siblings for one day less while going crazy alone in my apartment for one day more.

also she took a thousand dollars out of my savings account two weeks ago and never put it back. feelin real good about that. that’s a huge chunk of my entire money collection.

i tried to talk to suzanne about how i was feeling, i scheduled a time and everything... then when it came time to talk she just sat in a room with a whole bunch of people. i asked if she was busy and she said she was going home real soon. so i didn’t really... bother.

early in the afternoon she did say i should talk to someone and i let her know that i see five hundred thousand therapists every week. maybe she felt like i had it under control even though i specifically asked her if she had time well after that and she specifically said yes.

how can i possibly be assertive in that situation? “yeah, sorry, i’m gonna need you to put down your work which is due tomorrow, leave this room full of your friends, and pay attention to just me, who doesn’t even know what i want to talk about now that i’m on the spot. just because you said you would earlier.”

she didn’t even bring it up. did she forget...? i brought it up when i asked if she had time before i left that evening.

how am i supposed to open up to these people. they don’t want to hear the details of my life any more. i was talking to jennica and harrison a bit and i mentioned some high school trips around the world i went on and at the end i said “i am specifically leaving out all the details to make it sound like these were positive experiences” and they both said “yeah keep doing that.”

well that was an abridged version of the conversation. it was more like i was getting impatient with jennica interrupting me and harrison not sounding interested at all even though we were talking about travelling i guess and i basically said “i am doing what you wanted me to do” when i wasn’t getting enough of a response.

i feel like i’m going to explode. i thought it might be for the best, it might be healthier if i stopped venting at all times to every single person i interacted with. but now i just feel... hurt and isolated. and when i do what people want, which is either stay positive or ask for time to talk when they have the energy, i don’t get a response at all. or i get the beginning of a response but not a follow-through, which is somehow even more frustrating.

man, i don’t know what to do... i’m absolutely miserable. i can’t seem to pull myself out of this latest drop in mood no matter what i try. i wish i’d gotten to play and relax on friday. i feel like this wouldn’t have happened if that chance hadn’t been taken away from me at the very last second.

but who even knows.

while i was out shopping with mom last week i made the mistake of picking out a new brand of pasta salad since they didn’t have the kind i wanted at target. i made the incorrect assumption that the “pasta salad” section would have pasta salad that you store and eat over a few days and not “hot pasta that you serve immediately with no salad trappings that we are calling pasta salad. because we hate you.”

i’m gonna try cooling it and taking it to school with me tomorrow but i’m glad that i picked up a whole bunch of other lunch supplies this weekend on a hunch it might be a good idea.

trying to scrape up the will to continue but i can’t seem to find any. i know that the more i hesitate the less likely i am to succeed and that makes me feel like i’ve already failed, i don’t even need to take the test to know that. every day i lose to doing absolutely nothing and not moving at all is a day i could have spent catching up, but i am just getting further and further behind because i think i’ll have it sorted out and then some other bs will happen and throw me right back to the bottom of the pit.

it’s SO FRUSTRATING!! AAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

AND I HAVE NO ONE TO TALK TO ABOUT IT! NOT EVEN A SINGLE ONE OF MY PEERS! I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO HANDLE THIS IN A PHYSICS ENVIRONMENT AND COUNSELORS DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE PHYSICS DEPARTMENT IS LIKE!

THEY SAY I CAN TALK TO THEM ABOUT IT AND THEN DON’T LET ME TALK TO THEM ABOUT IT.

my head hurts. my eyes hurt. my teeth hurt. my jaw hurts. my throat hurts. my shoulders and back hurt even more. i’m getting a cramp between my neck and shoulder again. i can’t get my feet to sit comfortably on the ground. i can’t talk coherently.

i’m so uncomfortable and restless and i have no energy. so it’s not even a useful kind of restless. if i stay up late between now and finals i am going to get sick and not get better before my tests start. i feel like a beetle pinned against the ground on its back under a sadistic middle schooler’s thumb.

that brought back a really unpleasant memory. i mostly associate that brand of sociopathy with christian private schools but it’s not a stretch to apply it to kids in general.

i can’t think of anything positive to say today. i haven’t been able to for a while. i just feel Really Bad in a way that’s very hard to describe. sick but not with a cold. it can feel like a cold but it’s not that.

i want my friends to give me advice but i know that they won’t have much. the people i want to talk to do not have the context and life experience that would help them better understand how i feel and it’s so hard to describe.

the best i can come up with is that you are writing a paper. every few sentences invisible hands will pound on the keyboard and even sometimes write “kill yourself.” but the hands are invisible. where is this coming from? did you write it? do you actually want to kill yourself? if you didn’t want it, why are you writing about it so much? sometimes the invisible hands grab your wrists and you can’t type at all. do you really want to write the paper so bad that you’ll fight these mysterious invisible hands that might just be your own indecision? will you do that every minute of every day? what happens when you sprain a finger? are you willing to fight the invisible nonsense hands to type with a finger that’s not working anyway?

#tw suicide #i use it in a metaphor just a mention

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