#I found a different

[kingpippthe2nd]

This is going to be a Neil Gaiman appreciation post. Not because I think, the internet needs another person babbling on about how good an author Neil is. There is enough of those. This one is purely egotistical, because I have too many words rattling in my head, and they want out. So, settle in and let me tell you a story. I promise, it will make sense in the end. Or go read something interesting. I’m not your parent. 

I used to read a lot as a kid. The library in my town was open on two afternoons each week: Tuesday and Thursday. So, every Tuesday I would go there with my stack of read books, swap them for a smaller stack of books, which I would devour in the next two days, return them on Thursday, leave with a bigger stack and so on and so on. I couldn’t read enough. I loved disappearing into all the different worlds, all the different adventures. I was the kind of kid, that would read until the middle of the night, illuminated by a flashlight, be exhausted all day in school, just to go home and do it all again.  

I don’t know when this changed, exactly. Only that it did. Something about growing up took away the wonder of printed words. Or wonder in general.  

I remember telling my therapist a year or so ago how I remember being able to see so much beauty in the world. How the tiniest thing could spark so much joy in me. Make me imagine entire worlds. And how I couldn’t find this kind of joy anymore. How I felt that something in me was irrevocably broken. She reassured me, that this was normal. All part of growing up. Childlike wonder at the world is not for adults to have. Never have the words a therapist felt so fundamentally wrong. I was heartbroken leaving that session. My worst fears had become true: I’d never find that joy again. 

Over the years, I never lost my love of stories. I started listening to audiobooks, a form of media which I used to despise. Why listen to a book when you can read it? Hold it? Smell it?  I watched movies and series and listened to podcasts. But I didn’t really read. I had lost the patience for them. Don’t get me wrong: I still loved my books. I have some beautiful editions of my favourite books that I loved showing off to people. I bought new books as well. New stories. And I told myself I’d get around to reading them soon. But I never did. 

I used to write a lot, too as a kid. I wrote diaries, though I never kept up with them for long. I wrote short stories and even started writing a book, which was not very good and is now lost forever. I wrote loads of poems. One of them I wrote sitting on a roof in a night gown while the full moon shone behind the church tower. I still have that one. It isn’t half bad. But I stopped writing years ago. It left me, when I left the books. 

Some years ago, my partner at the time introduced me to a new book. Theyread it aloud to me in the evenings. It was called “Neverwhere” by a man I had never heard of: Neil Gaiman. I fell immediately in love with the story and the writing and the characters. Soon enough I owned all the Neil Gaiman audiobooks I could find and listened to them ravenously.  

Within the last year I have tried to read four books. I finished one of them. Not a big one. And it took me multiple months. I had to force myself to finish it, even though I loved the story and the writing. The other three I abandoned halfway through, feeling terribly about myself and my apparent inability to read. 

And then Amazon Prime released season two of Good Omens and I found myself swept up in a maelstrom of emotions and hype and fan theories. I started reading fan fictions for the first time in my life. Long ones too. I started telling anyone and everyone about how much I loved and missed the show. About how genius a writer Neil Gaiman was. How I had loved his way with words and worlds for such a long time and that he was my favourite author. 

A week ago, I had a realisation: I had never actually read a Neil Gaiman book. I’ve had them read to me. I’ve listened to hours and hours of audiobooks. But I had never ever actually sat myself down and read a book by my favourite author with my own eyes. Held it. Smelt it.  

So, I picked up one of the “I’ll get around to it books” from a stack on my hallway book shelf and started reading. A little thing called “The Ocean at the End of the Lane”. I finished it within three days. I read it on my way to and from work. One night, I walked all the way from the tram stop to my flat whilst continuing to read, phone flashlight in hand, so the darkness wouldn't steal the story away from me.  

And as I finally looked up from on the pages again and looked around, something else happened. It was as if the words had given my mind a little nudge. The world was spinning slightly differently. And all over sudden I could see the world as I had as a kid. There are more colours now. Everything is a bit more sparkly, more magical. I can taste stories on the wind, see them in the early morning sunshine. I have ideas rattling in my head that need writing down for the first time in what feels like forever. Ideas for short stories, for poems. Maybe even for a book.

I can’t even begin to express how thankful I am to Neil for giving me back something, I knew I had lost forever. Because childlike wonder at the world is not for adults to have. With nothing but his words printed on paper he remade the way I see the world. If that isn’t some kind of magic, then I don’t know what could be. And who wants to be an adult anyway.

#I'm rambling again #noone should read this #I didn't either #I just wrote it #who proofreads stuff anyway #I found a different #neil gaiman

[tokidokifish]

#tumblr polls #i went to the hardware store today and remembered how magical i found the lighting section #with all its different shapes and all of them lit up #delightful

[ohposhers]

troll who isnt allowed caffeine or she'll reenact the Hammy energy drink scene from over the hedge clay prefers tea anyway

#bruce is back home so hes not in the comic (i couldnt fit him in frame) #i stopped halfway through working on a different troll comic to make this troll comic this keeps happening #of the firm belief trolls have animalistic traits so they hashtag PLAY HARD #im talkin pouncin chasing biting etc etc #let my girls be rowdy at 8 in the morning (branch has babyproofed most of the bunker so they dont knock shit over when they run around) #trolls #trolls band together #clay trolls #john dory trolls #viva trolls #poppy trolls #branch trolls #brozone #im not tagging this as cliva cause imo they are found siblings fuck u but if u see them as lovers i support you barely #im kidding live your dream idc #my art #floyd trolls

[keferon]

I’ve been thinking about the fact that Drift and Deadlock are actually the same person

#transformers #maccadam #mtmte #lost light #drift #tf drift #deadlock #tf deadlock #yeah no because #I draw Drift and I draw Deadlock but I always draw them so differently #I’m reading some new fic rn #and it has a lot of thoughts about personal growth and changing #but it also shows that Deadlock wasn’t something Drift just changed into like a costume #he was Deadlock and he was doing terrible things #he stopped his harmful actions but he never stopped being Deadlock #…man #these fics #I found another 300k words one and I have fun can you tell #it was intended like a little warm up sketch btw hahah

[intermundia]

i just read about the "narcissism of small differences," aka the idea that the more a community has in common, the more likely the people in it are to engage in interpersonal feuds and mutual ridicule because of hypersensitivity to minor differences perceived in each other, and i knew there was a reason my time in academia and fandom felt oddly similar lmao

#you guys!!! this was freud's term from 1917. not mine #i understand people concerned about the colloquial usage but again. this is freud's term for the phenomenon in psychoanalysis #where the term 'narcissism' has a specific meaning #again. not my term. just a specific concept i found when i was reading about psychoanalysis and found relatable #ANYWAY. original tags -> #fandom stuff #like with people shipping the same ship #they have so much in common #love of and knowledge about the same characters #but then things like #top vs bottom characterization of one character #such a slight difference between people obsessed w the same character #makes sense it's so vicious lmao

[sanctus-ingenium]

i run towards my own death / i run to live another day

#i just found this in my drafts.. .i remember someone asked for them together #setting: mez #knights #the reason i couldn't do a proper diptych is because i stupidly used different aspect ratios

[inkskinned]

crows use tools and like to slide down snowy hills. today we saw a goose with a hurt foot who was kept safe by his flock - before taking off, they waited for him to catch up. there are colors only butterflies see. reindeer are matriarchical. cows have best friends and 4 stomachs and like jazz music. i watched a video recently of an octopus making himself a door out of a coconut shell.

i am a little soft, okay. but sometimes i can't talk either. the world is like fractal light to me, and passes through my skin in tendrils. i feel certain small things like a catapult; i skirt around the big things and somehow arrive in crisis without ever realizing i'm in pain.

in 5th grade we read The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-time, which is about a young autistic boy. it is how they introduced us to empathy about neurotypes, which was well-timed: around 10 years old was when i started having my life fully ruined by symptoms. people started noticing.

i wonder if birds can tell if another bird is odd. like the phrase odd duck. i have to believe that all odd ducks are still very much loved by the other normal ducks. i have to believe that, or i will cry.

i remember my 5th grade teacher holding the curious incident up, dazzled by the language written by someone who is neurotypical. my teacher said: "sometimes i want to cut open their mind to know exactly how autistics are thinking. it's just so different! they must see the world so strangely!" later, at 22, in my education classes, we were taught to say a person with autism or a person on the spectrum or neurodivergent. i actually personally kind of like person-first language - it implies the other person is trying to protect me from myself. i know they had to teach themselves that pattern of speech, is all, and it shows they're at least trying. and i was a person first, even if i wasn't good at it.

plants learn information. they must encode data somehow, but where would they store it? when you cut open a sapling, you cannot find the how they think - if they "think" at all. they learn, but do not think. i want to paint that process - i think it would be mostly purple and blue.

the book was not about me, it was about a young boy. his life was patterned into a different set of categories. he did not cry about the tag on his shirt. i remember reading it and saying to myself: i am wrong, and broken, but it isn't in this way. something else is wrong with me instead. later, in that same person-first education class, my teacher would bring up the curious incident and mention that it is now widely panned as being inaccurate and stereotypical. she frowned and said we might not know how a person with autism thinks, but it is unlikely to be expressed in that way. this book was written with the best intentions by a special-ed teacher, but there's some debate as to if somebody who was on the spectrum would be even able to write something like this.

we might not understand it, but crows and ravens have developed their own language. this is also true of whales, dolphins, and many other species. i do not know how a crow thinks, but we do know they can problem solve. (is "thinking" equal to "problem solving"? or is "thinking" data processing? data management?) i do not know how my dog thinks, either, but we "talk" all the same - i know what he is asking for, even if he only asks once.

i am not a dolphin or reindeer or a dog in the nighttime, but i am an odd duck. in the ugly duckling, she grows up and comes home and is beautiful and finds her soulmate. all that ugliness she experienced lives in downy feathers inside of her, staining everything a muted grey. she is beautiful eventually, though, so she is loved. they do not want to cut her open to see how she thinks.

a while ago i got into an argument with a classmate about that weird sia music video about autism. my classmate said she thought it was good to raise awareness. i told her they should have just hired someone else to do it. she said it's not fair to an autistic person to expect them to be able to handle that kind of a thing.

today i saw a goose, and he was limping. i want to be loved like a flock loves a wounded creature: the phrase taken under a wing. which is to say i have always known i am not normal. desperate, mewling - i want to be loved beyond words.

loved beyond thinking.

#spilled ink #writeblr #personal #please don't ask me to talk on my experience on the spectrum lol. i hate how ppl talk to me about it #i really try not to write so specifically about it #bc inevitably someone talks to me like im a child #i think this is the first time i've ever openly identified with it but i've been hinting for years #i might delete this. feels big. #the thing is that being on the spectrum actually IS a spectrum #and if u say ur autistic #inevitably someone makes an assumption about ur needs/symptoms #please do not treat me differently than u usually would. like.... we can tell when you do #and like i mention. i do appreciate the effort. i do truly appreciate the effort. #but it still feels like... #when i was blind. sometimes people kind of did the same-ish thing. #they'd find out i was blind and start talking really loudly? #and while i KNOW they're just trying to help. it would be like. i'd be trying to find #the right way into a building (sometimes only 1 door is unlocked and i couldn't see the signs posted about where to go) #and ppl would be like ''OH UR BLIND? YES SO THIS IS A DOOR. IT OPENS INTO THE BUILDING. IT IS LOCKED NOW." #''A DOOR CAN BE FOUND IN MANY LOCATIONS.'' #and it feels like. when i admit to being autistic #someone comes screeching into my life being like THIS IS A DOOR.

[learnelle]

My Baudelaire presentation + essay are finally submitted! I’m basically done with this evening diploma in French and honestly… it’s a relief. Consistency really pays off, even when the end doesn’t seem in sight ⭐️

#I still don’t know how I found the time to attend courses from 3 different universities 👁️👁️ While working 💀 #And you know what? Mid breakdown last year I vowed to never commit to evening courses again because they’re just sooo fatigant #And STILL when I submitted my work I went through the catalogue of other languages this uni offers 🥴 2 year German course next semester? 👀 #studyblr #light academia #studyspo #dark academia #Cottagecore #langblr #cozycore #French langblr

[periswirl]

DP×DC Prompt

Love the idea of Danny being a horror movie child.

Like he somehow ends up with a non-supernatural DC family, be it the Kent's or the Batfam, and kind of just....is vaguely unsettling at first.

He stares into dark corners laughs at jokes only he hears. Tells random people things no one else should know.

And, used to weird, his new family let's it slide. Then they start seeing things. His shadow is bigger than it should be. Multiple eyes appear in the dark, watching them. Whispers fill the halls at night.

It's driving some crazy as they can SWEAR that when Danny gets mad they hear the screams of the damned.

Meanwhile Danny is chilling with his bodygaurd Fright Knight and is happy to have visits from his former rogues who make sure to check in on him as he's going through a rough patch in his life and, as a young ghost, is very susceptible to drastic changes.

#Theyre in two completely different genres #The new fam: horror mystery #danny: coming of age found family #like if its the batfam; #tim: theres SOMETHING HAPPENING. i havent slept in days #Duke: the shadows are alive and theyre Angry #Danny: :D wow im so happy to have friends who love and support me #Fright Knight: *unintelligible screams of horror* :] happy to be of service my lord #dc x dp #dp x dc #dpxdc #dcxdp #my post

[ladybeug]

I drew the same comic twice because I didn't think the first one was funny enough. I don't know if the second comic is funnier though??

Here's both of them

Side by side because i couldn't decide which one to put first - knowing the punchline changes the experience?? pick your adventure. read either one first.

which ones funnier i honestly can't tell

#this is what its like in my head when im writing comics #its cool to have an example #of how different the same joke can be #i mean i dont know if you think its cool but i think its cool #i think i have a favorite out of the two of them but its close #to be honest neither of them quite thread the needle for me #theyre not QUITE as funny as i want #but theyre still good #anyways #my art #miraculous ladybug #I did these a while ago. long tags sorry but how else am i supposed to tell you how im doing lately #found a bunch of comics that made me laugh #excited to post some of them #ill organize them soon and do a couple comic dumps

[lotus-pear]

VERLAINEEEE as promised

#HE IS SO BEAUTIFUL WHAT THE FUCK😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 #YALL SEE WHERE CHUUYA GETS THE GENES FROM???????? #BEAUTIFUL ELEGANT ETHEREAL TRAGIC SAD GAY FRENCHMAN #I CANT BELIEVE THERES PPL WHO DONT LIKE HIM WTF #PPL WHO DONT LIKE VERLAINE ARE EMBRASSING...........KEEP THAT TO URSELF😐 #im actually so insane im im im im #i actually found a new brush and i've been absuing yf out of it if u couldnt tell the colorings a little different #anyway yea #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #bsd #bsd verlaine #verlaine bsd #stormbringer #bsd stormbringer #lotus draws

[lave-ium]

some requests i took from instagram!!

#different doodle style! #i tend to experiment a little with doodles #these are new brushes i found !! #transformers #transformers art #transformers fanart #maccadam #lavesartstuff #soundwave #overlord #getaway #prowl

[vampcaprisun]

why do all of the options for talking to wyll after mizora's punishment feel so mean? the poor guy just got sent through the tortures of the nine hells and had his body permanently changed, and it's clear that all of this is because mizora was deceiving him, and you're telling me i can't just...check in on him? like what's even the point of having five different options if all of them are just different flavors of "you had it coming"? i think he's been beaten down enough by the devil who just showed up to fuck him over and treat him like something less than human while doing it, let me just be nice to him!!!!!

#like He Would Not Fucking Say That. None Of My Tavs So Far Would Fucking Say That #they would all have different reactions but this is just. five flavors of the same reaction and it doesn't fit any of them #not to mention with the timing of the scene in this run it happened the same day that wyll found out his dad was kidnapped #like he just had the roughest fucking day and you're telling me i can't just. be nice to him????? bullshit #wyll ravengard #bg3 #baldur’s gate 3

[neo--queen--serenity]

plot twist: Akutagawa has been shooting his shot since season 1 and is just really, really bad at it

#shin soukoku #bungou stray dogs #ryuunosuke akutagawa #atsushi nakajima #bsd #sskk #bsd sskk #nakajima atsushi #akutagawa ryuunosuke #akuatsu #bsd text posts #bsd textpost #i completely forgot that i made this and found it while looking for an entirely different photo so here we are #bungou gay dogs #bungo stray dogs #neo queen serenity’s memes #bsd memes #bsd rewatch #bsd akutagawa #bsd atsushi #akutagawa bsd #atsushi bsd #akutagawa ryunosuke #ryunosuke akutagawa

[uncanny-tranny]

The hardest, but most important, part of my transition has been untangling what my personal dysphoria is, and what is more a result of cissexism.

What I mean by this is that I learned that I am not dysphoric about certain aspects of myself, my body, and my life, but my discomfort in these aspects was influenced by the cissexist culture I live in which told me I couldn't exist as myself.

It's definitely a slow process, but I have found that it helps me self-actualize and actually see myself instead of what others demand of me.

#trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtq #ftm #mtf #nonbinary #dysphoria #and what makes this really tricky is that often it isn't clear-cut as to what makes you dysphoric... #...versus what makes you uncomfortable due to your culture or environment... #...i still experience dysphoria but now i find that my motivation isn't to please the people around me... #...if i truly wanted to please the people around me then i would cease to exist altogether... #...and once i truly recognized that and came to terms with this reality i stopped feeling like i owed the world everything... #...i stopped feeling so disconnected with myself... #...i don't think this will be useful for everybody but i want to offer a different approach to it... #...by no means do i think that this is a 'cure-all' in fact it's not even close... #...because what i found that this has done is bring me *closer* to my trans body and my trans soul... #...i have found that my dysphoria has narrowed (especially since going on testosterone) and i feel more at peace

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Gaslighter? I hardly know her!

[First] Prev <–-> Next

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #wei wuxian #lan wangji #jin guangyao #qin su #The parallels to the mulderskully comic were genuine scripting coincidences that I kept in for the irony. #wwx and mulder both have a strong need to show their beloved (investigation) partner the cool thing they just found. #Much to their chagrin and concern. #For as much of a mess the plot gets in The Untamed...one of the things it does probably the best of all adaptions is setting up JGY. #specifically how we spend time getting to know him as a *Regular Guy* around our deuteragonists' age. #I love how he's present in the cloud recess arc! I was rooting for him as a character! The twist villain reveal felt so heartbreaking! #Here in the audio drama (for as much as it does well) we pretty much get 2 scenes tops with this guy before he's villain monologuing. #before this we know him as 1) the guy NMJ yelled at a lot 2) a suspect 3) leader guy Jin Ling was partially raised by. #The elements are there but but not with any particular depth to make him...interesting (in this version). #Sure we get to learn more after the fact but it just falls so flat in comparison B*/ #ohhhh noooo the guy we are pretty sure killed a guy is gaslighting his wife and has a secret torture chamber. And he's a politician. #not much of a mystery to it all innit. #Feel free to disagree or bring up differing points btw; I love media analysis convos and this truly is just my opinion.