Stuff About Things & Things About Stuff

brook ride or die ready to commit regicide for his captain

Your perspectives matter. Your representation matters. You are not bothersome for demanding equal treatment in fandom. It is not your responsibility to make fandom more welcoming and inclusive to you. It is not your sole responsibility to create all of the Black-centered content. You are not "ruining" anyone's fun for demanding better for yourself, and anyone who says otherwise can go fuck themselves. Any fandom worth being a part of should have no room for racism in it.

Black people in fandom, you are wanted. You are needed. You are loved and appreciated. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

I think of what could have been, what could still be and yet-

Now I sit, exhausted and underwhelmed in how far I have gone, in how much further there is to go.

I am disappointed I am not as brave as I dreamed I'd be.

I couldn't have known I would make it as far as I have and yet-

I wished it were further. That I would be further.

I know I could be great. I hoped I could be great and yet-

It feels too late.

The parts of me that pushed for greatness, strived for perfection, and were hungry have died.

The parts that were angry and scared, small voices have grown into monstrous creatures, consuming any small fragments of the idealistic, bright-eyed student whose writing was called promising.

The curious and hopeful child who dreamed of stories to tell and watched movies with stars in their eyes has grown still.

Those dreams were an escape; they gave me hope for what could be. who I could be. Those dreams were not accepted as anything beyond a daydream.

When what I needed most was a steady hand to balance against, I found the tightrope I walked was without safety nets, I chose not to walk it.

Instead, I sit on the edge of a precipice leading nowhere and wait.

For what I could not say.

Nothing ahead feels as tangible as it once did. I cannot see anywhere to go and so I sit and wait for something to happen, for the wind to change for a direction to be pushed in. My fantasies and dreams atrophied in their stillness.

I am so angry that I could not be who I thought I would be. That I did not grow into one of my imagined fates, that the many versions of me who kept me company in the dark have since left me behind. The distance between those versions only grows.

Now I sit alone and wait for someone or something to tell me what to do and where to go.

I want to be driven.

I want to hate losing enough to push myself to be better.

and yet-