Zen | 27 | Canada | INFJ | She/Her | Hopeless Bioware, TAZ, and Star Wars Addict | Hufflepuff | 52kg Powerlifter | Cosplayer of Merrill | Owner of Two Cats and a Greyhound | Icon by Hoskky, Mobile Cover by polkadogpjs
I got a very unhappy comment on one of my old ME fics, and while I totally respect that every reader is looking for different things and my work is *not* for everyone, it came off as much more on the “criticism” side than the “constructive criticism” side and I’m doing my darndest to not be hurt by it.
Writers - and creative folk in general - know that our work isn’t going to make everyone happy. We know that we’re putting it out there and the potential for these types of comments exists. But if you’re going to comment on something just to say that you don’t like it, especially when it’s something like fic where we’re not professionals and we’re doing this for free, please be mindful of how you can make that comment constructive for the writer. Or consider protecting our fragile egos by tossing a compliment in there.
In honour of the Mass Effect reunions and the remaster, I wanted to try draw everyone together for real (more or less)
This game and this gang means more to me than I can put into words, and it’s what got me into drawing in the first place. So, after 6 months of drawing, here’s me bringing the two together to try express my gratitude for it.
I got a very unhappy comment on one of my old ME fics, and while I totally respect that every reader is looking for different things and my work is *not* for everyone, it came off as much more on the “criticism” side than the “constructive criticism” side and I’m doing my darndest to not be hurt by it.
Writers - and creative folk in general - know that our work isn’t going to make everyone happy. We know that we’re putting it out there and the potential for these types of comments exists. But if you’re going to comment on something just to say that you don’t like it, especially when it’s something like fic where we’re not professionals and we’re doing this for free, please be mindful of how you can make that comment constructive for the writer. Or consider protecting our fragile egos by tossing a compliment in there.
emmavakarian-theirin replied to your post “Life Update”
sending all the love and hugs! i'm sorry for all you've had to endure but i'm so happy and proud of you for getting through it all the way you have! you've come so far in the time I've known you and I know you'll go so much further still! <3
Thank you so much, you’ve always been such a treasured friendship to me and I think of you often!
sssamson replied to your post “Life Update”
Congrats!! You definitely deserve some happiness after such difficult times. :)
Thank you! We all deserve more happiness, I think.
servantofclio replied to your post “Life Update”
Congratulations! I'm so glad for you! I'm glad all your hard work has gotten you to this place! <3
Thank you so much :)
tigerpika replied to your post “Life Update”
I'm so happy things are coming together for you! Come visit British Columbia, I also bought a house!
Congrats, that’s wonderful! Flights to the west coast are FINALLY somewhat reasonable?? So I may take you up on that offer ;)
Aka: How I went from one of the darkest places in my life to one of the best in the span of almost exactly a year.
(This might be long, so continued below the cut)
I’m writing this thinking that no one (except for maybe my close friends on here) will read it, but my hope is that it will provide some encouragement to someone in a dark place that there’s a chance for hope, even when you’re feeling at your worse.
(TW: Talk of death upcoming)
Let’s go back to about a year ago in my life. My boyfriend’s mom was in the hospital, and she wasn’t making it out this time. The cancer won. I won’t go into details, but I will say this: cancer isn’t pretty. It takes and it takes, and to this day, her loss is a dark cloud over our lives. Grief brings bad days when you least want them or expect them. I was both inside and outside the grief, being there through every step from her diagnosis to her treatments, and I had my own grief, but I still wasn’t in the family. I just did my best to help all of them with every part of myself that I could.
About two weeks after her loss, while we tried to get ourselves back into our normal routines of our lives, I injured myself at the gym. At the time it felt like a small tweak, something I thought I’d be over in a day. It ended up being a lower back injury that bothered me for almost 8 months and made me entirely re-evaluate my approach to training. Although it was good in the end, it lead to endless days of frustration with my training and a lot of ups-and-downs when I’d think it was getting better, and then realize it wasn’t. I’d lost the gym as an outlet to my grief. Being able to go to the gym is a privilege in itself, one I’ve since checked and reflected on and become more grateful for, but it was still a coping mechanism gone for me.
Around that time, my partner and I made a difficult but important decision: I had to pay off my credit card debt. Spending at times had been therapeutic to me, and cutting it down to almost zero while taking on any side jobs I could (and eventually taking on a second job) weighed on me. I want to reflect on my privilege and know that many live like this out of necessity, and not out of choice like I did. But I still struggled with it, and often. I began to work 60 hour weeks (because my part-time job never respected my availability), plus freelancing and podcasting -- some weeks, when I was podcast editing, I was doing much closer to 80 hours. Having the two jobs and freelance writing on the side and having a podcast and trying to fit fitness in when I could... sacrifices started to have to be made. My training went on the backburner, again. My partner and I found ourselves spending significantly less time together. Time with friends and my family was infrequent. Sleep suffered.
While I was going through this money madness, I was looking for a replacement full-time position. I knew I wouldn’t have to work the two jobs to pay off my debt if I just had a better paying full-time position (and I was ready for something with more upward growth -- I had been in my full-time job for over 5 years and the raises and upward growth were non-existent). At first I had hope -- I got a couple responses! Even an interview or two! But nothing worked out. And it kept not working out. Every job that I really wanted when I applied I didn’t hear back from, everything else was too big of a sacrifice (far commute, pay cut, industry or position that I didn’t really want). I started to feel like I was trying to claw myself out of a hole using only my bare hands. No matter how much dirt I kicked aside, I couldn’t seem to get my way out. By November of last year, I was grieving, I was broke, I had no job prospects, I was spending so much time at work and I was already weak from a previous injury so my lifting sucked, I barely saw my partner and my pets.
But things began to look up.
Mid-last year, we bought a house. Which was a thrilling and terrifying decision (and the catalyst for my paying off my debt). After living in a basement apartment for years, we had a little space of our own. With a fenced in back yard for the dog, and a garage for us to build a gym in. 11 hour days are made more tolerable by coming home to a space that is yours, that you love (even if you had to buy a house in a Very White town with a neighbour that flagrantly sells pot and loudly argues with his girlfriend). For five years, I felt stuck in my debt, in my job, in my crappy basement apartment, and this was the first breath of air for us.
But January 2019 was when things started to change, and quickly.
Summer of 2018, my podcast was asked to be featured guests at Podcon. Which was... the most wild and wonderful offer that I could ever recall. It was so wild that when I was struggling, I wouldn’t look to that for positive light because I was certain they invited us accidentally and would soon realize we didn’t deserve to be there or it would somehow get cancelled because things that great didn’t happen to people like me. But in January it DID happen, and it was every bit as wonderful -- and more -- than I could’ve imagined. I got to meet my heroes, and learn from them, and they’re all 100x more incredible than you could imagine. All of them. And we had a live show in front of 100-150 people and let me tell you, having people cheer when you’re introduced on stage is... one of the most wild experiences of my life, one I’ll never forget, one I am eternally grateful for.
Shortly thereafter, I paid off my debt. The endless hours, desperate saving, doing ridiculous things like online surveys and freelance articles about plumbing all came together and I did it.
The ball kept rolling.
I had interviewed for a position in summer of 2018 that I desperately wanted that was in the fitness industry. I didn’t get the position (and later found out it went to someone who was simply more qualified than me), but at the very end of last year, the manager contacted me again asking if I was looking for a position. He took me out to lunch to discuss it, and three weeks ago, he offered me a job. With a company I adore, in an industry I'm passionate about. Today is my last day at my old position, and I’m leaving on a more positive note than I could have imagined. I only have 2 shifts left at my part-time position. Next week I start at the new job, and I’m unbelievably excited. I’m not even nervous. Maybe once you meet all your heroes and in the same weekend go on stage in front of 100+ people and play D&D everything else seems easier, or maybe I’m not nervous because I’m completely confident that it’s the right thing to do. I haven’t felt so sure of anything in a long time.
Two days after I got the job offer, my boyfriend -- now fiance -- proposed on our seven year anniversary. I think my response was “what the fuck” but it was such a joyful blur I can’t even recall fully.
Swiftly and fully, everything in my life came together.
My intention isn’t to brag. My intention is to remind you that even when you’re in the darkest part of your life -- when you feel like everything’s going wrong, when you feel like you’re working for nothing, when you feel like the hamster toiling on the wheel that turns but goes nowhere, there is hope. There is goodness on the horizon. Sometimes you have to wait for it, and sometimes that wait is longer than you’d like.
prguitarman
jacobvanloon
annaxmalina
germansingergirl
theartofmadeline
origamiaround
