Immzie's Adventures Through Books

Whenever I get an influx of new followers (which has happened today, hi!) I can always guarantee that the reverse fairytale is doing the rounds again.

And it makes me so happy that like, what, seven? Years on my writing still brings people joy even when I no longer really write

Yes this is yet more She-Ra lettering

I’m back in my she-ra obsession but honestly I don’t think I ever left it

Completed rebindings of a Darker Shade of Magic

In case you were wondering what strange creative thing I’m up to these days it’s rebinding paperbacks to hardbacks with my own cover designs and these are my latest victims

The process of healing is slow

Not a line but a journey where some paths lead

Forward and others back

It is a maze where there are more dead ends and ways

To the start than the single one to the end

It is the process of hearing the ‘you’re wonderful’

And only internalising the ‘but’

Of knowing the praise is truthful

But waiting for the more honest critic

It is the fighting of your head

and your heart every day

Of feeling danger at each turn

And thinking to yourself that you’re safe

It’s the needing three good things to

Outweigh the one bad

And only one bad thing to

Break your memory of the good

It’s falling and breaking

and hurting every day

And standing back up and smiling

And pretending you’ve always been okay

Until the pretending looks so real to

Everyone else that they

Forget how much work you take

Sometimes just getting out of bed

I am a broken plate fixed with gold;

On the surface I am fixed I am stronger I am shiny

Underneath I am jagged and lost and feel tiny

Without the parts of me that no longer fit

The missing sections painted over but not replaced

And I am tired.

It’s 2am and I can’t sleep bc I am a bundle of anxiety but my brain decided to stop being Anxious for three seconds purely to give me the thought of ‘beauty and the beast retelling but make it the ugly ducking’ and then that same cursed brain went straight back to overthinking life like that idea never happened

It’s funny, the feeling of being discarded

Displaced from the chapters and into the asterisk

Of having a name, then just being a note

Hidden in ‘others’ and written in past tense

It teaches you nothing than to second guess

What you do where you are who you are to the rest

You’re told you mean something so you give it your all

Every heart every thought every fragment of soul

And then you’re pushed to the sidelines, the margins

You realise you’re nothing more than the red ink

Crossed out while drafting; your story no longer what they need

So you’re written out, replaced - such an easy deed

They forget, but you don’t, confidence cracked

You question your worth in every breath, every act

Years of teaching yourself to believe

Gone within seconds, and you know unlikely to once more be achieved

I know it’s been years since this notebook was put together and a lot of people who sent in comments or even posted things out to add to it are probably not active, but

I still look through this when I’m struggling and it still makes me smile whenever I open it and flick through it. This book is filled with so much love from so many people - friends, mutuals and even people who were too shy to ever talk to me- and art and memories and even a COOKIE RECIPE that it always reminds me that yeah, when I don’t have faith in myself, there still are people out there that do

So even if these people aren’t active any more, everyone who put forward something to add to this notebook - you’re all incredible

Today I cried twice over the same show and the first one was because I was in a lot of physical pain and my emotions weren’t switched on properly so I cried over how unfairly beautiful a character is.

The second time I was in emotional pain because the show is evil and ripped out my heart TWICE in quick succession and I’d like to forget that happened and go back to the first one thanks

As a child she was told the only true way to do something was to give it her all. Pour her blood and sweat and tears into it. Give it a portion of her heart and nurture it outside her body. Give away sections of her soul to show she really cared.

In those early years she did not know how to give it away properly; a friendship starved because she hadn’t given it heart. A dream suffocated because she’d given it too much (though of course this was not mentioning the other side of dreams, the darker lessons she was taught to give up because they were a stretch too far from reach)

As she aged she learnt to portion herself, from lessons of elders and reminders from herself. She thought she’d worked out the secret to it all as she turned from child to adolescence to adult, but then she only told that she’d given herself to the wrong things.

Friends, she heard, were not worthy of her heart, for as an adult she had responsibility- to her family first and then to building herself a future. One of wealth in gold rather than memories. So she claimed back the pieces she’d given, ignoring how they were battered and scared from being cut out time and time again. Some pieces didn’t seem to fit right - accidents happened and hearts couldn’t be mixed up - but she was told just to hammer them in place and ignore the pain. It would dull to an ache with time.

Her heart still healing she divided her soul. First, she poured it into the thing she was told would give her purpose - a job she found no joy in - because surely if she gave it some of herself, she would learn to love it.

Next she gave some to her family. Not the one that had raised her - there was still a part of her heart outside, kept by them along with her childhood - but the one that she was meant to search for. A perfect partner. Every potential she found took a section, until when she did find her Prince in shining armour, there was only a whisper of it left.

It was okay, though. Relationships took time and hadn’t he given her a part of him too? Even if that part was seemingly unmarked by time and strangely cold.

She tried to put some into her passions; those dreams she had as a child that still brought her joy. She danced in the darkness when no one else was home, sang stories to the trees as she walked. They would keep her secrets if no one else could. She painted golden skies on canvas and tried to ignore the comments that tore at that scrap of herself she’d weaved into it.

She was told to stop putting herself in those joys when they wouldn’t give her anything back. The paints were hidden at the back of the closet with the photos she pretended she no longer remembered.

She wondered, sometimes, if there was more to the world than this. But it was what she was taught, and the world seemed content even if she was not.

So she gave more parts of herself away. More to her work and more to what was expected of her. When she’d given her soul she though to herself, is this enough? But the world just tapped on the stitches in her heart, and tugged them out one by one.

She held the broken parts in her hands and wondered, is this everything? Am I not enough, will I ever be enough, or will they take me apart but by but until I am nothing more than the dust in the breeze?

She didn’t want to just be enough. She wanted to be everything. Not for others, but for herself. So when the world tried to snatch another part of her heart she closed her hands around it and took a step back.

The world has no place for dreamers, she’d been told over the years, by so many different people that the voices layered upon each other and she couldn’t tell them apart. Dreamers end up broken, with nothing.

But she’d tried to forget how to dream, and hasn’t she ended the same?

She remembered the stories she’d stolen so young, ones she wasn’t meant to know about. Where princes slayed dragons and princesses danced under candlelight and moonlight and secrets. Where good always won and happiness ruled, no matter how small your part in the story.

And she realised then, long before she was meant to know how, that she’d tucked a part of herself between the pages, glued it to the words and coloured it into illustrations. And holding a heart broken and bruised; but still, in time, able to heal, she closed her eyes and instead of pulling those parts back to her, she travelled to them.

She was told as a child the only true way to do something was to give it her all. So she dreamed her way into a story, and took back all the parts of herself that the world had stolen

I don’t do New Years resolutions

I’ve never seen the point

When I know myself well enough to know

The more I try to stick to them the more I’ll fail

But this year I did. Just one.

I’d had a rough end to the year

And an even worse start to the next

And my one resolution was to just

Stay

Alive.

I think the universe took that as a challenge

And 2022 kept bending to see how

Far it could go til I broke.

It nearly won.

But I remembered my resolution

And though it didn’t mean much

It made me pause, at least.

On a warm summer day

When my head was somehow loud and silent

At the same time. When my eyes were red and raw from crying

So much that for moments I felt entirely numb

I almost failed that resolution.

It scares me now how close I came

To not knowing what the last third of

This year would give me.

Because if the start of this year was one of my worse

And the middle was somehow even lower

Then the latter has been one of the best

Unexpected and hard but wonderful

And I almost didn’t see it.

I never normally do New Years resolutions

But this year I’m glad I did.

I still struggle some days and not everything’s perfect

But I’m still here, and more often happy, and more importantly

Still

Alive.

Stop me before I build an army of posters

Hello I have watched our flag means death and I’m obsessed and ready to calligraphy what are the best quotes