#I do for me

[shhh-secret-time]

Seasons Change to Someshing Cold

"Run away, run away and let go; you're carrying too much. You'll break under all the weight."

Prologue

It started when he was ten. Or maybe before that, and he just can't really seem to remember, but does anyone when they open their eyes for the first time? Waking up to a world that greets you with dim colors, colors that seem to fade in and out like the seasons. But if you're anything like he is, then colors don't pop like they should. Everything is dull like a filter over his eyes he can't peel off. Maybe that was a common way to describe it, but there had to be a reason why so many people said the same thing.

Dull. That word popped up so much that it was starting to lose its weight. Even he had to admit he used it too many times in his songs or the little poems he secretly wrote in the back of his warped composition notebook. But how else was he supposed to describe it? Why fix something that's not broken, right?

It started when he was sixteen. Cheap whiskey and crumbled cigarettes coursing through his body; hazy nights lost in the bottom of some backwashed alcohol. Waking up in the back of his truck with a few missed calls from his mother or sister, never his father, wondering where he was and if he was safe. That's when the texts asking him if he was alright turned into ones telling him to get his shit together.

Or maybe it started with the farm. Screaming matches between his father getting louder and louder he swore someone in town was bound to hear them. Where the bags under his eyes got heavier and his mind got louder, so loud that even his music couldn't drown out the thoughts. Some nights it was lying on the floor of the bathroom trying not to vomit the cheap gas station food as it battled the alcohol in his stomach. Some nights it was him curled up in bed trying to find a reason to get up and do anything besides doom scrolling on his phone.

What he would have given to just go outside with his friends and get the rush of doing something. Anything. Instead of watching some stranger on his phone, do it. Like he was trying to squeeze that feeling out of the little box in his hands. Instead of sunlight, he'd settle for the screen's light in a dark room. His only saving grace was his guitar and his poetry. It felt like the only thing that got him through it some days. That’s when the fog would lift, and the seasons would change into something warmer. Where he'd pick his pen and create, his addiction turning into creation. The guitar strings digging into his fingertips would ground him and bring the color back for a little bit.

It started last month. He finally pulled himself out of bed. Talked to someone outside of class or one of the million parties he showed up to. It was Michael, someone he hadn't put merit in since middle school, the two sitting behind the school wasting time and probably years off his lifespan with a cigarette. Michael was the only one he really showed any of his poetry too, the two sitting in silence as he flipped through the book. Smoke billowing from his lips catching the light of the early sun and disappearing up into the clouds.

"It's good. Maybe a little rough around certain parts, but I get what you're trying to say." Michael pulled the cigarette from his lips and in between his fingers, giving it a new home. He was getting at praising the things around him, something that he grew into when he hit his senior year.

He didn't say anything as he rolled the cigarette between his lips, focusing on the burn in the back of his throat. He didn't need it to be good. He just needed it...to be heard. Maybe he didn't believe Michael really understood what he was trying to say, but it felt good to hear.

"I think you need to talk to someone though." He turned towards the taller man as he stood up using his cane. The silver tip tapping the ground wordlessly asking him to take a step back and give him space.

"I didn't realize you cared." His joke falls flat.

Michael doesn't laugh. Doesn't give him that pity laugh or nervous chuckle others do when he tries to deflect. Not that the goth was known for his laughter to begin with. He liked that about him. He was real.

What he didn't like was the way the curly haired man stared him down and silently took another puff of his cigarette. It made his skin crawl as the silence crept back over the two, but it wasn't the one he liked. The kind of silence where two friends could just bask in each other's presence, the warmth of their bodies reminding each other that they were there. He hadn't had that kind of silence with anyone in a long time, but he felt something like that when Michael was reading his work.

"Stan. I'm not the type to give you a lecture, preach to you about how it gets better." Michael breaks the tension when he's decided Stan's had enough, "I don't make pretty speeches, so I'll just come out and say it. Get help, talk to someone about what's going on in your head."

Stan's jaw shifts as he blows smoke from his nose, his eyes immediately shooting towards the ground. "I didn't say I needed your advice. I just wanted you to read what I wrote." He grumbles.

"I don't care what you want. I do care about you though, as much as I can." Michael responds with a bored expression like the venom in Stan's tone didn't even touch him.

"What's that supposed to mean? Am I that hard to care about?"

"Sometimes, but it's not because I don't like you honestly. You're one of the few that don't drain me." Michael pauses in between snuffing the light out of his cigarette on the brick wall behind him, being careful not to put it out on some of the artwork. "It's because it's like you don't want people to care."

Stan scoffs and rolls his eyes; he's not taking pulls from his cigarette anymore so he can feel the wind brushing against his lips. The cold nipping against his skin reminding him that it's here. The seasons are changing again.

"At least that's what I got from your writing, now if I'm looking too much into it than that's that." Michael taps his cane against the dirty stone, brushing away some crumpled-up newspaper as he limps over towards him. "You could always tell me I'm wrong."

God does Stan want to, to tell him to shut up and to stop talking. The embarrassing memory of him losing his cool in middle school flooding back into his mind, he squeezes his eyes shut to try and blink the thought away. The thoughts clawing at his lips trying to push themselves out.

".... When I graduate, I'm leaving South Park. I'm getting out of this hellhole and finding another one to call my own." Stan looks up from his feet at him as he speaks, "I might not find anything but it's better than wishing I did. Find something Stan, do something instead of wishing you could." Michael goes to walk past him like he didn't just pierce through any wall Stan tried to put up, maybe his poetry got too much across.

Find something.

Fuck that. He didn't have the energy or the time to deal with that.

"Here." Michael presses a worn-out looking card in his palm. Stan looks down at the creases where it was folded and unfolded over and over again.

Some therapist's business card looked like a woman's name if Stan had to guess, the address and phone number written in small text. His brows furrow together, and suddenly everything feels too heavy again. He feels too tired to walk back to class or even try and eat lunch with his friends.

"Do it or don't, I can't control you, but I don't waste my energy on people I don't care about. I can just hope you'll be here when I come back one day."

And that was the last thing Michael ever said to him, the last time he smelled the clover cigarettes in the air. The last time he ever showed his writing to someone. Rumors floating around school that he just packed a bag and left in his hand me down car he got from his mother. He didn't even wait for the school year to be over he left exactly how Stan thought he would.

Now it starts here. With him staring out the window, wondering what exactly it was that Michael was going to find out there. Stan presses his lips into the palm of his hand, hiding behind the fingerless gloves. The card tucked away in his worn-out brown jacket with his other hand, palming the card repeatedly bending it over and over.

Prologue | 1 | 2

#south park #sp fanfiction #south park fanfiction #stan marsh #south park oc #oc/canon #oc character #my oc #goth kids #Goth Kid Michael #high school #AU #prologue #I do for me #shhh its a secret #pomegranates and honey

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

#yeehaw #1k #5k #10k #posts that got cursed. blasted. im making these tag updates after... 19 hours? #also i have been told it should say speech loss bc nonverbal specifically refers to the permanent state. did not know that! #unfortunately i fear it is so far past containment that even if i edited it now it would do very little. but noted for future reference #edit 2: nvm enough ppl have come to rb it from me directly that i changed the wording a bit. hopefully this makes sense #also. in case anyone is curious. though i doubt anyone who is commenting these things will check the original tags #1) my friend did not do this on purpose in any way. it was not intended to distract me or to hit on me. im a lesbian hes a gay man. cmon now #he felt very bad about it afterwards. i thought it was hilarious but it was very embarrassed and apologetic #2) “why didn't he use 🫵🏼?” didn't exist yet. “why didn't he use 🆗?” dunno! we'd been using a lot of hand emojis. 👌🏼 is an ok sign #like it makes sense. it was just a silly mixup. also No i did not invent 👉🏼👌🏼 as a gesture meaning sex. do you live under a rock #3) nonspeaking episodes are a recurring thing in my life and have been since i was born. this is not a quirky one-time thing #it is a pervasive issue that is very frustrating to both myself and the people i am trying to communicate with. in which trying to speak is #extremely distressing and causes very genuine anguish. this post is not me making light of it it's just a funny thing that happened once #it's no different than if i post about a funny thing that happened in conjunction w a physical disability. it's just me talking abt my life #i don't mind character tags tho. those can be entertaining. i don't know what any of you are talking about #Except the ppl who have said this is pego/ryu or wang/xian. those people i understand and respect #if you use it as a writing prompt that's fine but send it to me. i want to see it #aaaand i think that's it. everyday im tempted to turn off rbs on it. it hasn't even been a week

[cadaverkeys]

You guys rlly don't realise how much knowledge is still not committed to the internet. I find books all the time with stuff that is impossible to find through a search engine- most people do not put their magnum opus research online for free and the more niche a skill is the less likely you are to have people who will leak those books online. (Nevermind all the books written prior to the internet that have knowledge that is not considered "relevant" enough to digitise).

Whenever people say that we r growing up with all the world's knowledge at our fingertips...it's not necessarily true. Is the amount of knowledge online potentially infinite? Yes. Is it all knowledge? No. You will be surprised at the niche things you can discover at a local archive or library.

#rambles #if you are a person who is into delicate skills #like lacemaking or printing or sewing #you will know fair well just how non expansive the knowledge online is in comparison to written guides from like the 50s #there was a time where at least one person in the household had to know a constructive skill #but in the modern day there is just less ans less demands for comprehensive guides #library propaganda #im stuck doing an essay rn but bc i have covid i cant go to the library and its totally fucked me #i want to source a lot of the stuff i read irl but i just cant go and get it and theres no online ver

[lazylittledragon]

can't believe we're all adults being forced into the club penguin level of censorship in 2024

#ramble #if you say unalive in front of me i will personally kill you with my hands #you just can't muffle and censor and hold someone's hand through some things #some things are horrible. and they should be spoken aloud and they should upset you. because they are horrible #the second we started kidzbopifying the world was the end of taking anything seriously i think #i'm not even joking i've spoken to people older than me who won't even say the world sex #this isn't the playground you're not going to get in trouble just let us say the word!!!!!! #how am i supposed to listen to you when you won't even say the thing you're supposed to be talking about #yes this is the fault of the platforms with their censorship rules but the fact that we all just go along with it like it's not dystopian #you do know it doesn't stop with cursing right. people are already having to censor queer terms because they get flagged as inappropriate

[secondbeatsongs]

somehow instead of saying "as a treat", I've started using the phrase "for morale", as if my body is a ship and its crew, and I (the captain) have to keep us in high spirits, lest we suffer a mutiny in the coming days.

and so I will eat this small block of fancy cheese, for morale. I will take a break and drink some tea, for morale. I will pick up that weird bug, for morale.

I'm not sure if it helps, but it does entertain me

#personal #sbs rambles #eta: the people tagging this with leverage are correct by the way #love that show so much #hug for morale! #but that's not what started me doing this I think #hmmm

[dovesick]

endless night

#animal art #animal comic #penguin art #comic art #artists on tumblr #just a comic about emperor penguins #(they are emperor penguins but yellow didn’t go with the colour scheme loool) #(i tried to make it work just trust me lol) #i keep forgetting to upload here woops #sometimes i don’t wanna draw anthros #i’ve been wanting to experiment again #i have a couple pieces planned #but i also wanna do more horror #rlyyyyy hard to decide lmaoooo

[mybreadsmybutters]

when i was a kid i wanted to be a famous youtuber like dan and phil so that people would gay ship me with my irl best friend and we would be sooo weirded out by it and laugh and make videos joking about it but secretly it would make her realize her repressed gay crush on me and i'd help her through her gay crisis and then we would have a sickeningly sweet sappy romance and read fanfiction about ourselves together... anyways just found out she's married to a guy in the mafia now so i probably don't have a chance

#dan and phil fanfiction changed me #come into my lady door #and teen me saw that and went “i need to be that so fuckan bad” #i wanted to be dan but now that im a mature adult i understand that phil is better. phil guy 5ever nowadays #do i tag this as dan and phil. i still dont know tumblr site tagging norms and im like a year in now #dan and phil #dnp #phan

[inkskinned]

i got rickrolled today but it didn't work because i have adblocker installed, so youtube just told me i violated the terms of service. yesterday i was trying to edit a picture as a joke for my girlfriend, and google made me check a box to prove i'm human because i wasn't "searching normally".

it isn't just that capitalism is killing fun and whimsy, it is that any element of entertainment or joy is being fed upon by this mosquito body, one that will suck you dry at any vulnerability.

do you want to meet new friends in your city? download this app, visit our website, sign up for our email list. pay for this class on making a terrarium, on candlemaking, on cooking. it will be 90 dollars a session. you can go to group fitness, but only under our specific gym membership. solve the puzzle, sign up for our puzzle-of-the-month-club. what is a club if not just a paid opportunity - you are all paying for the same thing, which makes you a community.

but you're like me, i know it - you're careful, you try the library meetings and the stuff at the local school and all of that. the problem is that you kind of want really specific opportunities that used to exist. you are so grateful for libraries and the publicly-funded things: they are, however, an exception - and everything they have, they've fought tooth-and-nail to protect. you read a headline about how in many other states, libraries have virtually nothing left.

do you want to meet up with your friends afterwards? gift your friends the discord app. you can choose to go to a cafe (buy a coffee, at least), a bar (money, alcohol) or you can all stay in and catch a movie (streaming) or you can all stay in bed (rent. don't get me started) and scream (noise complaint. ticket at least).

you want to read a new book, but the book has to have 124 buzzwords from tiktok readers that are, like, weirdly horny. you can purchase this audiobook on audible! your podcast isn't on spotify, it's on its own server, pay for a different site. fuck, at least you're supporting artists you like. the art museum just raised their ticket price. once, they had a temporary exhibit that acknowledged that ~85% of their permanent art galleries were from cis white men, and that they had thousands of works by women (even famous women, like frida! georgia o'keefe!) just rotting in their basement. that exhibit lasted for 3 months and then they put everything away again.

walmart proudly supports this strip of land by the street! here are some flowers with wilting leaves. its employees have to pay out-of-pocket for their uniforms. my friend once got fined by the city because she organized a community pick-up of the riverfront, which was technically private property.

no, you cannot afford to take that dance class, neither can i. by the way - i'm a teacher. i'm absolutely not saying "educators shouldn't be paid fairly." i'm saying that when i taught classes, renting a studio went from 20 bucks an hour to 180 in the span of 6 months. no significant changes to the studio were made, except they now list the place as updated and friendly. the heat still doesn't work in the building. i have literally never seen the landlord who ignores my emails. recently they've been renting it out at night as an "unusual nightclub; a once-in-a-lifetime close-knit party." they spent some of those 180 dollars on LEDs and called it renovating. the high heels they invite in have been ruining the marley.

do you want to experience the old internet? do you want to play flash games or get back the temporary joy of club penguin? you can, you just need to pay for it. i have a weird, neurodivergent obsession with occasionally checking in to watch the downfall and NFT-ification of neopets. if i'm honest with you all - i never got into webkins, my family didn't have the money to buy me a pointless elephant. people forget that "being poor" can mean literally "if i buy you that toy, i can't afford rent."

you and i don't have time to make good food, and we don't have the budget for it. we are not gonna be able to host dinner parties, we're not made of money, kid. do you want some kind of 3rd space? a space that isn't home or work or school? you could try being online, but - what places actually exist for you? tiktok counts as social media because you see other people on it, not because they actually talk to you.

there was a local winter tradition of sledding down the hill at my school. kids would use pizza boxes and jackets and whatever worked, howling and laughing. back in september, they made a big announcement that this time, rules were changing, and everyone must pay 10 dollars to participate. when im not scared shitless, i kind of appreciate the environmental irony - it hasn't gone below 40. so much for snow & joyriding.

i saw a bulletin for a local dogwalking group and, nervous about making a good first impression, showed up early. the first guy there grimaced at me. "sorry," he said. "there's a 30-dollar buy-in fee." i thought he was joking. wait. for what? the group doesn't offer anything except friendship and people with whom to walk around the city.

he didn't know the answer. just shrugged at me. "you know," he said. "these days, everything costs money."

#spilled ink #warm up #“why did u tag it warm up” bc i wrote it off the cuff while drinkin coffee lol #btw the 30 dollar buy in for the dog walking is bc they pay the organizer a small pittance so she can #run fb ads and stuff and like she does put in a lot of work i don't mind paying her #but that's exactly what im fucking talking about like. #ppl can't afford to volunteer their time anymore and we all understand it!!! everything costs money for everyone! #like we didn't have to use to say ''do you mind paying me back for the stuff we ate'' #we used to be able to afford to feed our friends once in a while!!!

[hjartasalt]

One time I was working as a waiter at a burger joint where the fries were tossed in salt and coriander and as I was bringing food over to the table for these two huge beefy guys one of them asks what the green stuff is so I go "it's coriander" and his friend goes very seriously "he can't have coriander" and I'm thinking shit ok maybe he's allergic and guy 1 starts pulling up his sleeve to show me something and I'm thinking shit shit shit he's probably breaking out in hives rn and it's my fault but he just shows me his arm and he has this huge cursive font tattoo that just says "I fucking hate coriander"

#the fries were brought back to the kitchen and he got ones that just had salt on them instead #chef asks me why #uhmm #how do I explain #well he has this tattoo

[moregraceful]

Bought my uncle a burger and milkshake in exchange for letting me disrupt the holiest day of the week, NFL Sunday Football, so I could install a Pi-hole and free the household of ads...the thing abt the specific boomers I live with is they told me not to trust people on the Internet but they do not understand the algorithm or online advertising and think that Facebook has their best interests at heart. And every time I have tried to explain to them that no, blorbo from my dashboard is not selling my kidneys on the dark web but Google from your capitalism is definitely selling your web searches to every advertising company on the planet, they think I am paranoid. How could their personal friend Mark Zuckerberg want anything bad to happen to them etc. I am fighting battles I did not know existed!!!

#i simply. do not wish to see ads #anyway that took me and beryl 2 hours to set up DO NOT ask me anything #i was definitely better at linux systems when i was in high school lol #fresno oilers.txt

[myclericalromance]

i went to a tiny counterserve diner once and accidentally poured sugar instead of salt all over my hashbrowns and was eating them sadly anyways. the waitress took them away and started making me another one and I tried to protest, but she just snorted and said "we're not catholic here". now every time i'm doing something painful out of obligation i think about how that is not repenting, this body is not a catholic establishment, there is no nobility in suffering.

#edit: i know i did not invent the phrase no nobility in suffering #holy fuck this hit 50k are we all. doing okay. #please stop telling me about sweet latkes i knOW about them #this was a terrible horrible accident involving a sugar shaker with a very large opening that i mistook as being a salt shaker #there was a quarter cup of white granulated sugar on my hashbrown before i could even process my mistake

[ot3]

i dont like the idea that kids these days are doing their fandom rps with ai chatbots. that's how you're supposed to make lifelong friends as a weird really online teen.

#i was never really an rper of any kind it just did not do it for me #im like im sorry actually i cant do this collaboratively i need to be controlling all of the little dolls myself. #however homestuck rp deck epicmafia. now that was another story

[eastgaysian]

#ordinary photo of yeti #they made astarion in a lab for me to be obsessed with. #like hottest man in game for me is halsin truthfully. astarion is my shitty little white dog with separation anxiety who bites people. #very different things. if i say i'm doing a playthrough as astarion that's when you put me down #main factor motivating me not to is i need to hear neil newbon's voice acting at least once a minute or i die. #i've got a dark urge concept rattling around the brain but i should maybe self-impose a gaming break and take care of. responsibilities 😐

[spyglassrealms]

had a fucking hilarious dream that tumblr replaced the "block" function with the far funnier "glock" function, which did the exact same thing except whenever anyone blocked you a random bullet hole, like a png of a bullet hole, would appear on your blog. discourse blogs were unreadable bc you'd go to the page and the sheer amount of bullet hole pngs stacked over the blogs obscured everything. I woke myself up laughing

#normally I don't chronicle my dreams here but fucking hell that one was funny #I think this would genuinely make tumblr better tbh #@ staff do this cowards #spy has thoughts #my life is a sitcom and i am my own laugh track #functional website #spy's smash hits #Glock function #edit for everyone in the notes saying 'everyone clapped' #I know I can't prove to you that it happened for real you're just gonna have to trust me on this #but I swear on my goddamn life I'm not making this up #I make so many conscious puns that sometimes my subconscious cooks up a real good one

[greykolla-art]

It’s healthy to step out of our comfort zone’s a little!😜

#grey art #god this show has possessed me help! #I have other things to do aaa!😂 #hazbin hotel fanart #hazbin hotel comic #hazbin hotel #charlie morningstar #vaggie #nifty #alastor #hazbin vaggie #hazbin niffty #hazbin alastor #chaggie #i should probably rest my hand before I cripple myself #but this made me giggle so much I had to finish it!😂😂😂

[beebfreeb]

An Interview with Dot.

#beebfreeb art tag #comic #ms paint #artists on tumblr #art #I slept for two hours and then couldn't fall back asleep so I made this. Thank you comic ideas in my phone notes for giving me things to do #my ocs #<- sorry I've been really into one-off robot OCs lately #an interview with dot #robot