So, first off:
UGHHHHHHH, GRRRRRR, WHHHHYYYY.
Now, onto the post:
IIIIIIII am hating my phone right now. I keep–
No, so I have a 7 year old BlackBerry smart phone with an actual keyboard (it’ll have its birthday, actually if not this month then next I believe) and it’s been PISSING ME OFF lately like, SO much because:
- I cannot receive a text message at the SAME TIME that I am sending one. Because if it happens, and it HAPPENS, my phone REFUSES to load for at least 10 – 15 mins (I should clarify, I cannot access those in question text messages from the person I’m having difficulties loading with or CREATE any other NEW ones to ANYBODY else. I’m pretty much locked out of my phone unless I email or call). And that has to be 10 – 15 mins of active involvement trying to have it load, so if it goes to sleep during that time, it just adds MORE time to the recovery phase of things. This is particularly annoying and I’ll get to that later.
- 85% of the websites when I do go on Google, most often, save for Youtube and my blog, don’t load. The funky new text interaction and ads just doesn’t work on my phone. When I try and click on them I get an error message. This also applies if I try to enlarge an image via a Google search, it just doesn’t work.
- Even with Youtube, I cannot stop or change the location of the video–it has to play all the way through, I cannot, especially now, I cannot change where I put it because the window for it is so small (it wasn’t always this way)
- I can’t load Twitter whatsoever. (And we all know how much I use and like Twitter, even when it’s The Void)
- I can’t even load most images via emails like if the email is of a company and sample images for promotional purposes it refuses to load or show up at all
- When I do have the loading issues like with a “locked” text message (so to speak), my phone starts overheating and I’ve had instances in the past couple of months where it kills literally HALF of my battery power or more. Soooo that’s annoying too!!
Honestly? I think that’s about it. I think I complained and vented enough.
It’s just been proving to be far more of a hindrance than a help lately and I’ve been really getting sick of it. I just want to hurl my phone–OH RIGHT:
8. I believe my keys at work nudged into the bottom center of the screen where the letters ‘T’ and ‘Y’ are (so just above of the keyboard, on the glass screen) while they were in my pocket, maybe back in Feb, and it cracked a (at the time, small) section of the screen. I literally had glass come out and now it’s gotten a bigger scratch expanding from the injured area and more of the glass falling off each day with the glue-like substance beneath it. I did have a screen protector which probably minimized the damage but yeah, that sucks. When I realized what happened (at first, I was eating a bag of pretzels so I thought it was a piece of salt until I found out what happened) my first thought legitimately was “Welp, I guess it’s time for a new phone.”
So I knew the end was coming soon.
Especially given the fact that, oh right:
9. I can’t use most of the main stream apps on my phone because it is neither an iPhone or an Android. It’s…. a BlackBerry.
10. I can’t access things like my accounts on Netflix or Disney+ (which would be helpful at work)
…that I’ve now had an iPod Touch since about Jan. 2020 so I’ve been able to experience the fact, when I’m in a place of WiFi (library, home) where I CAN go on all these websites, I can be on Youtube maneuvering the time stamps to wherever, I can be on app games and such, I can be on TWITTER, I can be on my blog, I can be looking at the Weather app given each town I’m in (to plan my outfits, of course) and so on and so forth.
Of course, while at Amaryllis, because there’s no free WiFi/open WiFi, I can’t access these things— OH YEAH
11. I can no longer go on FFN on my BlackBerry. It doesn’t support it at all. I was fine up until this year when things on the site changed, apparently. Ugh.
—like the Internet and such on my iPod, and I can’t use it as a phone so I can’t send texts or calls but the idea that I one day, with a new phone, will be able to is soooo brightening.
And I’ve been looking at new phones on and off over the last 3 months. I found one that I liked and really attached to but there were some problems with it so that got abandoned and now it’s been over a month since I looked at a phone again. I may still stick with BlackBerry because it DID serve me a long time (I wouldn’t go iPhone, Android only) and it is partnered with Android nowadays or with the models I have briefly looked at so that should be fine. There’s a couple pricey ones and maybe decently priced ones (if we operate on my faulty memory) that do still have a physical keyboard as well. Then there’s things like size of the phone versus pocket to consider and such. Let’s hope that I can start this month again the process of looking at phones. It would be nice, you know?
Now, here’s why I REALLY wanted to blog:
But before that–
Can we just take a moment to celebrate the fact that apparently Mental Health Awareness Month treated me so kindly, and that my iPod was acting up this evening so I couldn’t be on Twitter, for me to bring together the MASS EFFECT of a whirlpool to ACTUALLY be blogging and dealing with my thoughts and feelings IN A BLOG POST like we’re back in 2016 or some shit?
Like, can we just celebrate and take a moment to have a chef’s kiss for everything to have collided right in the universe for me to have my gut reaction to a problem be that I blog (not blob) about it which hasn’t happened in literal YEARS?
Okay?
Okay.
Thanks.
Glad that we had that discussion. I’m amazed, I’m in the feels and it feels REALLY good. It’s been so long. And something about being more active on here when I’ve literally craved it after the last couple of years and to see that AHA Twitter took me away from this a little bit (I mean, there were other factors too of course), I don’t know, it just feels magical to discover at the moment. So, one more gif because I’m happy to find that I can use them and thought of them in the first place for the first time (or what feels like forever) here:
I want to talk a little bit about fan fiction. Particularly, MY fan fiction.
If you don’t know:
Hi, hello, it’s Raquel again and I write mainly Loki centered Avengers fan fiction on topics including physical health and mental health, overcoming adversity, hurt/comfort, trauma, suicidality, growth, recovery, adjusting to life’s difficulties, hope, passion, romance (FrostIron, I’m really big on FrostIron; READ: Loki Laufeyson x Tony Stark relationships), medical mysteries, resilience and probably more, let’s be honest.
I have both an FFN account (I made it back in summer 2014, but only started posting my own fics in 2016) under the name: Unmasked Potential and an AO3 account that I made back in 2018 after someone on FFN suggested it for either D&D or ALU, my two most popular stories, because they thought the fics would do very well there too, and my username on AO3 is UnmaskedPotential. 🙂
So yeah, I’ve been writing Loki centered Avengers fan fiction stories since 2016. I, actually someone that I was emailing with just asked me this so I can say it here too, am more of a planster kind of writer: I outline chapters when I go to write them but I also keep adding new projects when I haven’t finished my old ones lmao So I have a LOT of stories in progress, really none that I’ve finished (besides one shots) and even a few others that were drafted or started but not finished or put together (mostly one shots, I’ll be honest). BUT some still as only ideas.
I would say… over the last 5 years I’ve been dabbling in other forms of creative writing, for instance:
While I was in college: research papers, essays for academic purposes as well.
What you guys have seen the most of on my blog since the start (and no I never fully finished it, gwah) my newspaper articles for the paper at uni where I spoke of my mental health on a public sphere and also outlines my recovery etc
And then, of course, within the mix of time (I started college in 2012) things like original short stories, multiple chapter stories and poetry.
I ended college in fall 2018, so I’d say, alongside also doing blog posts for writing within all the years, in 2019 to 2021 I’ve discovered something particularly interesting since I’ve just started in 2020-2021 to write NON fanfic work, so like more original stories or looser fanfic that’s not Avengers/Loki based: (like at work, with kids, etc)
While I can write Loki-styled things really well…
I’ve kinda gotten stuck writing Loki-styled things really well.
Me 2021
Like, I cannot UNDO the Loki!!
Like, okay, maybe my novel is a little different, maybe, I’m not sure.
BUT like other short stories or non related Avengers stuff?
It all sounds like Loki.
IT ALL SOUNDS LIKE IT COULD BE LOKI.
I HAVE BEEN LOKI’D.
I cannot NOT write like I’m writing a Loki centered Avengers fan fiction.
It’s a problem. I SWEAR it is.
I also swear I’m crying laughing at the absurdity of this. Never thought I’d be in this situation ahaha. And the fact that the Loki’d jab references are too good is amazing too (but I’m sad there’s no gif of that)
However, my problem STILL stands.
The way I write that angsty, depressing, unworthiness and stylistic pull and churn of Loki in my fics, just, bleeds through in all other avenues as well, it seems.
I mean, I guess there are worse things.
Maybe I just need more practice to relocate my author’s voice, so to speak. Probably some awareness, cracking down out of it, editing through it and reading new content will help with that. It’s probably not forever broken and maybe I’ll just keep writing free fan fiction until I’m in my forties lmao I can dream, can’t I? (Let’s hope I’ll have some original work published by then, though!!!) [[PS If you happen to have any published work, I’d love to read them and review them onto this blog too!!! Hit me up in the comments or an email. <3]]
But here’s the real meat of what this post was inspired by:
I’m in the process of re-reading my most popular fanfic called A Little Unsteady (ALU) and… I ALWAYS forget how good it is until I go back and reread it. Like, it’s SO GOOD. THE FEELS. The questions. The existential awareness/crises. I always fall back in love with it and I am reminded each time, ‘Aaaa, yes, this is why it’s my No. 1 most popular fic’ Of course, I don’t exactly do this process super often given the fact it’s been a year and 3 months since I last updated it but even so, little things come back to my mind to look forward to (I’m particularly currently excited and fangirling for the scene where Tony and Loki hug!!) OH!!!!!! I JUST remembered how that happens. Ahahahhhaa Loki initiated it, yep. Then he threatened Tony about it, ahaha. By the way, my fics all pretty much take place in an AU where the Avengers movie only recently took place, I go and avoid most of what the MCU covers while still making light references here and there. It’s just the OG team for the majority of them though.
But yeah. Just little things and little reminders and ways that the writing flows. I mean, I’m definitely NOT without typos “pale white streaks” not “pale white steaks” or without a catch all plot formation (I make it up as I go, a lot of the time) but it’s my writing so it’s there. I’m there for it. It’ll grow and change and transform, probably with the more I read and maybe even, oooo, take some creative writing classes again.
But yeah, I’ve just been fangirling after a long day at work, reading from 4:30p this story until about 9p. When I got up to fix the streaks/steaks on AO3 and then had the run in with my phone. It’s been nice. I’m glad it was on my mind again today and I look forward to reading the rest tonight and over the next couple of days.
And hey, maybe it turns out that I had writing vibes in me today after all. 🙂
Welp, that’s the end of this post. How many words? Probably too many. 2,250, eh, not bad, I’ll take it.
I hope that you managed to enjoy this post!!! And check out my fanfic if you have the time and see how Loki things are and maybe I’ll post up some more OG stuff soon so you can let me know if it is really leaked into my every day writing or if it’s a fallacy my mind is creating in and of itself.
I’ve gotta go, but it’s been real.
See you all soon.
XXX
Song in background for the last hour: “Dancing with the Devil” by Demi Lovato; I also tried changing the song I listened to each chapter for ALU so that was nice. This is my first time properly online all day! Besides rereading where I did. (On AO3) Links in my About Me page for the fanfic stuff! PPS I’m reading on Chp 5. Post written at the earliest, 8:30p – 10p
RecoverytoWellness 