Pixie's Chronicle: Word Vomit

Wow, this past month has been a whirlwind. Once again, I was trying to get back to my once a week updates, but real life had other plans for me just like it always does. However, despite how busy I've been, my brain decided to explode with ideas again. My poor notebook and phone don't know what to do with themselves, they're all jam packed with notes of ideas, rough sketches and drafts. I'm just glad that I had a notebook to spare as the rest of mine are filled to the brim. I never realised just how much I brainstorm when the muses decide to bless me. 

Unfortunately, I didn't really have much time to properly work on these ideas since I ended up doing even more overtime at work. My supervisor had a bit of a mental breakdown, so I stepped in to cover for her, because us crazies always like to have each other's backs. Then the week after that, the manager was off, so while she was covering the manager position, I was once more covering the supervisor position. I hate being in charge, especially when important stuff happens that I need to deal with. I swear, every time I'm left in charge, the higher ups always decide to hold a conference. It's like they know the days that I cover in advance and purposefully plan for this. I always just end up sat there with no idea what's going as they all spout figures at each other.

But this conference actually heralded some good news! We've changed regional managers! Woohoo! So now we no longer have the bitchy, passive aggressive woman who doesn't have two brain cells to rub together, and we now have a pretty decent guy as our regional manager. He actually seems competent at the very least, and he made the effort to properly introduce himself to us lower workers unlike his predecessor who would just ignore us. That immediately granted him some points from me. Even more so when I found out just how miserable that other horrible colleague of mine is over the switch. Now she can no longer be a total ass-kisser and lord over us like she has been doing. 

Work has been so much more peaceful as a result. No more of her constantly ringing us and harassing us over our work and acting like she's the CEO of the whole company or something. Part of me is praying that she leaves as a result of this. Is that mean of me? I felt mean, but also smug when she called before the switch took place and she sounded super miserable over the whole thing. When I told my other colleagues, we just kinda stood there for a second before we all burst out laughing. Again, I felt horrible, but that woman had made our working lives almost unbearable. We were all on the verge of walking out because of her. She was a bully, pure and simple. I've lost count of how many times she's made us, grown women, cry like babies because of the way she treated us and made us feel.

So yeah, I can't help but be happy over it, despite how much I know enjoying other people's misery is wrong. Things have been so much more relaxed, and I'm finding myself actually enjoying my job again. I had forgotten what that felt like. I'm sure the previous regional manager was glad to be rid of me as well given that I was one of the few that actually stood up to her lol. There's been so much less drama, and it's been great! 

Still, the customers are just as stupid as ever, but that glides more towards the entertaining side of things. Yeah, it can be annoying, but it is more funny than anything else. Just yesterday something hilarious happened. I was just doing my own thing while these two women from Pakistan were looking at some medicine, talking to each other in their native language. I thought nothing of it, so I went to sort some stuff out further away. My manager herself is Pakistani, so I presume that the two women were speaking Urdu or something because she was able to understand them. Apparently they had said something really nasty about me, because my manager turned around to glare at them, and she said their expressions were hilarious when they realised that my manager had understood everything they had just said. Apparently they were talking about how they didn't want to ask for my help because I was white which meant I was stupid and wouldn't know anything. 

I found it hilarious, but then that got me thinking about how this is what people of different ethnicities have to deal with all the time, only it's much more threatening to them. Was what they said about me racist? Yes, of course it was. But it didn't threaten me or endanger me. I felt safe and easily brushed it off. But if I wasn't white British, it would have been entirely different, especially with Britain's history (and continued) racial oppression of other ethnicities. I was born on a perch of privilage, so it has little effect on me. But my Pakistani uncle has been the victim of racism, my Hungarian father has been discriminated against, and my grandparents and great-grandparents were prevented from learning Welsh, their native language, and forced to be anglicised. It has deeply effected all of them because it had a profound negative impact on their life and were oppressed because of their different backgrounds. I'm the lucky one.

Racism is probably one of the stupidiest things that humans have ever come up with. As if the off chance of being born on a certain piece of land or being born with white skin automatically makes someone superior? The arrogance of that assumption enrages me. What makes it worse is that I remember that groups like the KKK still exist. There are still Nazis out there, and Muslims are being forced into concentration camps in China! Racism and genocide has never gone away. It's still happening. And why? Because one group of people decided that they were better than others. For what reason? Aesthetic of all things! When you think about it, that's what it often boils down to. Aesthetic and arrogance. 'Oh, I have white skin, therefore I'm perfect and everyone must look like me, and anyone who doesn't deserves to die or have a poorer quality of life.' It's... it's foul...

Sorry for going on a bit of a rant there, but that incident just really got me thinking about it. That people out there are suffering because of racists mindsets, yet I was able to easily brush it off as a humorous incident simply because I was 'lucky enough' to be born in Britain with white skin. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia... it's all so horrible. Those are not justifiable reasons to hate someone and abuse them. I always liked this quote by Phil Lester who said something along the lines of, "you shouldn't make somebody feel bad about something that they can't change about themselves." So that's always something that I try to live by. 

I got way off course here, but I just felt like it was something I had to talk about. To all my readers, you're safe here, and I will not hesitate to deal with anyone who uses any of my sites or platforms to target you for any reason. I've already lost a dear friend and a fan of mine to a horrible internet creep, and I'll be damned if I let something like that happen again. 

Anyway, apart from working, I have been managing to indulge in most of my other fandoms again. I've been working on my Hellsing fics as usual lately, and finally managed to update Go and Conquer this week. It's been cool to see some familiar faces in the reviews of my other work, knowing that there are people out there that share the same large variety of interests like me. Plus, a writer who I am a fan of noticed my work, so when they left a review, it was super hard not to hyperventilate into a paper bag. It reminded me of the time that me and LycoRogue first got in contact. I was originally so intimidated by her, but she is literally one of the sweetest people I have ever met, and she's practically adopted me and become my mama wolf lol. 

Then there's me and Jowy. He originally started off as one of my fans who just happened to message me on FanFiction one day. We became instant friends and then months down the line we were just kinda like, 'so I guess we're dating now?' We don't even truly know when our anniversary is because we have no idea when we technically officially got together. I just know at one point, Jowy became my boyfriend. It was such a strange butterfly effect. If I hadn't come back onto FanFiction, if I hadn't posted those particular stories, if Jowy hadn't messaged me, or if I hadn't messaged him back, how different would our lives have been? I'd be without an emotional rock, that's for sure. That, and I probably never would have gotten the mental health help I desperately needed, since it was him that finally managed to convince me that my situation and thoughts were far from normal, and that I needed to see a doctor. So yeah, I'd probably be locked up in some asylum somewhere right now if it wasn't for him lol. 

I've made so many friends through writing fanfiction, and it's hard to believe how much my life has been shaped as a result of it. You're all such interesting people, and I love it when you guys message me or leave comments on my work. It always hits me out of nowhere that people are actually paying attention to my work and enjoy it; it never fails to blow my mind!

Aside from Hellsing, I've also weirdly because obsessed with Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler) again. I've always loved the anime, but I never got around to reading the manga, so I've started collecting them. However, if there's one thing that disturbs me in that fandom, it's the people that ship Ciel and Sebastian, and I even saw somewhere (though I don't know how true it is) that the creator said that there is supposed to be hints of a sexual/romantic relationship between them. Ummm... Ciel's 13?! No! Ew! Ew! Ew! Bad! No! So many levels of wrong! Now, if people have aged Ciel up and ship him with Sebastian like that, then fine, whatever. But while he's 13?! There's a lable for that kind of situation. It's disturbing as hell, and I really hope that it wasn't the intent of the author to hint at their pairing while Ciel is still a child! 

 Personally, I never really got these 'hints' while watching the anime (apart from the rude joke with the corset). At the end of the day, Sebastian is a demon who wants nothing more than to eat Ciel's soul. I think that Sebastian has a high degree of respect for Ciel because of his intelligence and willpower, and that he very much enjoys playing with his food so to speak. He's a current source of entertainment for Sebastian while he waits for his soul to slowly stew. At least that's my opinion anyway. 

Who knows, maybe I'll even branch out into writing some Black Butler fanfiction since I'm currently pulling myself away from focusing solely on Miraculous Ladybug. I'd probably be one of those people who wrote an OC/Sebastian fic, but I dunno. I always get hesitant to publish stories that have a heavy focus on an OC as a main character, because I get worried that people automatically assume it's a self-insert or something. Not that there's anything wrong with self-inserts, I just personally don't want to come across that way because for me, that's not the case. Then of course there are the Mary-Sue worries. 

I also actually have some W.I.T.C.H fic ideas in the works as well. Nothing too serious, just something on the more casual side. Not to mention I also have another Sonic the Hedgehog fic idea for the first time in years, though I'm stuggling to bulk it up so it's actually a proper story. Whether I'll publish it, I don't know yet. I guess I'll just see what happens with it. 

Madness Within on AO3 is nearing the end, so that means I can soon focus more energy on the sequel. I also noticed that I hadn't worked on editing Destiny's Dance for a while, and I wonder if there's any point in continuing since it's been so long since I uploaded a chapter onto AO3. People have probably lost all interest. Not to mention the canon divergence is now so obvious that I'm worried readers will get confused. When I wrote that story, season two had only really just started, but now we're currently entering the fourth one. The lore of that story takes a complete swan dive off a cliff compared to the actual canon timeline now. What do you guys think?

I think I've ranted on today for long enough. I apologise if this entry felt more like word vomit. I hope that you've all been keeping yourselves safe and that you're all well. I also apologise if I take longer than normal to respond to any of your messages. Especially on Twitter since my app seems to be playing up. I'll try and get that sorted. Until next time, take care!