if my feelings for you were ribbons

I’ve wanted to do a mini ballet inspired Princess Tutu fanart series, but this got put on hiatus when my dad got sick last year. I’m now finally getting around to it, and first up is none other than “Romeo and Juliet”, or to use its Italian title (the play does take place in Verona, Italy), “Romeo e Giulietta”.

The background silhouette is inspired by the art of Junichi Nakamura, who in turn inspired the use of silhouettes in shoujo anime such as Utena. The scene depicted in the background is the famous balcony scene, while the foreground is one familiar to PT fans: The Last Farewell. I tried to make the mood reminiscent of the lovers sharing one last late night pas de deux before they must part ways. Hopefully I managed to capture the angst in that scene 🤧

Good.

So like... ya

This is me responding to your old(?) post about someone else's fiction not being able to hurt you, this is probably just a me thing but mental illness makes you do things and react to things in insane ways that sometimes you cant control. I knew while reading that it was affecting me in some way, but I kept reading because well, I'm mentally ill, and then a month of my life dissapeared lol

I think I'm trying to make a point about something but I'm not sure

I did after the fact comment to the author and just kinda, told them about what happened, but I didn't harrassed them or something, -

-but when something does what this fanfiction did to me then you're basically obligated to let the creator know I think(they are a really good writer), I'm an adult and the fanfic was in the ballpark of something I would read and if like, 59% of it was taken out and it had a happy ending I would be fine but oh well

Oh boy, I'm starting to have a panic attack just typing this out holy hell anyways uh, I'm not disagreeing with you(?) but I am saying, don't be too quick to dismiss someone who says a piece of fiction fucked with them? idk sorry, have a good one

My friend, the fiction didn't harm you.

Your mental illness harmed you.

Random writers on the internet are not responsible for managing your mental illness for you.

You are responsible for managing your mental illness.

I knew while reading that it was affecting me in some way, but I kept reading because well, I'm mentally ill

This is self harm. You were engaging in self-harming behavior by continuing to read a fanfiction that you knew was triggering to you.

👉 You are responsible for managing your mental illness.

👉 Writers are not responsible for managing your mental illness for you.

Ao3 has so many works. If they didn't Tag something that you specifically knew would hurt you, then you could tell them to please tag those things. If they chose/choose not to tag it, for any reason/lack thereof, you don't have authority to do anything else.

Otherwise sending them an awareness(?) comment is nothing but a guilt trip. They did not write the content to hurt you. They wrote the content for whatever reason they had and probably a little passion and chose to share it hoping that it would vibe with some people or something. You are not a part of those people if it hurt you, because they aren't writing with malice.

If someone told me that my writing gave them psychosis, it wouldn't stop me from being interested in the things I write. It would make me feel like a terrible cruel horrible person and maybe kill my passion for writing. If that's what you're going for, then that makes you the bad person. It is never okay to imply that someone should stop doing something they enjoy.

Obviously mental health is difficult and knowing something is affecting you ≠ processing that 'this is hurting me and I need to stop'

But in no way is that the author's fault? It's a lack of recognition on your part, which doesn't even really sound like your fault either. It's an issue that you should try to consider moving forward but that isn't something anyone would blame you for. But, saying 'I did it because I'm mentally ill, which is something that i cant control' doesn't justify telling a stranger something that could make their own life go downhill if they take it personally.