#bluster speaks

[blustersquall]

She (I'm calling her 'she' until I know the gender for certain) has decided that here is an excellent place to sleep...

[blustersquall]

Here s/he is. The one who was meant to be the new member of mine and Nyx's family. Its just me and her/him now.

About twenty weeks old.

I've done all my research on bearded dragons, and this was something in the works for about six weeks before s/he arrived today. Vivarium is all set up, except the UV light because the ceramic fixture is faulty. So getting that replaced tomorrow.

So far, so good. S/he's eaten some greens and locusts, and I've watched him/her bask under the heat lamp. Right now, s/he's just chilling on my chest as I write this up.

I was excited to have a third member of the family. I'm still excited to have this new family member. Nothing and no one will ever replace Nyx in my heart, but this is something new and it is exciting.

Not sure on a name yet.

I'm weighing up Cosmo, Vesper, Nova, Kai, Aether and Squish.

[blustersquall]

Okay, but like....Nova is so stinking cute. I just cannot.

Look at her slorping on the ground. That's how she's decided she wants to sleep tonight.

[blustersquall]

Pancake

[blustersquall]

your crochet work is amazing! have you ever considered amigurumi?

Thank you, that means a lot to me as I feel like my crochet work is ignored.

As for amigurumi, way ahead of you:

I haven’t done any amigurumi for a while though. I need to get back to it and challenge myself more. I have lots of patterns put aside that I want to attempt.  T-T

[blustersquall]

I was just wondering...why do you create ocs? I'm not about to attack you for it, I'm just curious. I actually really enjoy a well written oc, and yours are (imo) but still...why do it?

Oof...

This is such a heavy question, and I think you would get a thousand different answers depending on who you asked.

For me, personally... I started creating OCs long before I knew what OCs actually were. Long before I was on the Internet or anything. They were an extension of myself, slotted into universes of shows I liked. For example, I would imagine myself in scenes from Biker Mice From Mars when I watched it, or Gargoyles. Because I loved those shows, I desperately wanted to be a part of it, and I was a hella indoor kid. I didn’t have a lot of friends, I kept very much to myself because of family life, and I didn’t have anyone particularly interested in all these ideas coalescing in my head because of stressful family life, so this was how I expressed myself.

As I got older, the “myselfs” became far more of their own person. I guess my first proper OC would have been Chase and Sulcromon from Digimon. Although they’ve been through a lot of revamps and changes since their first incarnation, they came about because I had found the FDD community online and wanted to be a part of it, but I was also wary of using my real name online. So, I made “myself” but with blue eyes and more confident, gave myself a weird dragon/dog hybrid creature as a partner because cute and changed my name...

And it went from there. 

Again, I was a hella indoor kid, and as I grew up and went through school, both school and home got progressively worse. I wasn’t a popular kid at school. I was quiet, and insular, and I was bullied a lot. I was the butt of a lot of jokes, and I was the kid that the parents wanted their kids to be friends with. I was considered “safe”. I had people befriend me because their parents told them to, and then these people ditch me when it was convenient for them. I also started self-harming around the age of thirteen. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was struggling with depression and anxiety, and I didn’t even know that self-harm was a bad thing, it was something weird I did in private that made me feel good for all of five minutes.

OCs became a way for me to deal with my angst as I got older and started to understand it a little bit. I could project onto these characters that weren’t me my hopes, my dreams, my anger, my rage, my sorrow, and my regrets. I could live vicariously through these entities in worlds that were fictional and so much better  than the world I was living in. The OCs, these women who came from my imagination were strong, they were heard, they were sexy, they were confident, they were intelligent, they were someone people took seriously and respected. They had bad things thrown at them - whatever I was trying to deal with at the time manifested in the stories I constructed in my head - and they could over come them in ways I never could. 

It took... a really long time for me to realise that’s what I was doing with my OCs. I was projecting onto them and working through my issues by using them as a... as a soundboard, almost. Of course there were OCs created for the hell of it, because there was a cute character in a show and romance in my own life was so lacking or so toxic, that I wanted an extension of myself to be happy and loved in another universe... But the main OCs I’ve had, ie. the ones who I’ve spent the most time developing and writing and who have evolved over time, they’re the ones who have helped me the most.

Take Nevena for example. Specifically in the Only Make Believe universe. I’ve stated several times that Make Believe really started as a cathartic exercise. That it was a test for me to see if I could put into words the things done to me by someone I was in a relationship with. Some of the things he did I haven’t been able to talk about with anyone. Some of the things I’m not sure I’ll ever utter aloud to a living soul who understands my words; but through Nevena I’ve been able to... exorcise some of that pain and anger... and it’s not so intense any more. It’s not something with gnashing jaws that eats away at me day-after-day-after-day-after-day. By channeling that pain through Nevena, and exploring it safely with her, I’ve been able to make some peace with it.

.... I honestly don’t know if this makes any sense, but it’s my answer. I hope it’s satisfactory?

[blustersquall]

Sorry if I randomly drop off the face of the earth. Or if I don't reply to messages. Or take a long time to. Sorry if I haven't reblogged or shared the thing you originally followed me for in a while...

I'm in a bit of a strange place, mentally. Some family stuff has been occuring and its really knocked me off kilter. And its involving other members of my family. My defences are up and I'm feeling... prickly and vulnerable? I don't like it.

I'm fine, mostly. My brain just isn't in the right place. So, apologies if I stop in the middle of a conversation. Or haven't written on a while. Spoons are reall6 limited right now.

[blustersquall]

Are you still writing for Arthur and Isabel?

I want to be...

Honestly, writing anything has been really hard for a while. I have no motivation to write or... really do anything creative so... While I would like to still be writing for them, I’d honestly just like to be writing in general.