#You belong (to us) & We belong (to you)

[inkskinned]

you wanted to be a good friend, because you loved your friends, but the truth was that everyone else somehow had a pamphlet on being normal that you never received. most of the time you learn by trial-and-error. you are terrified of the next big mistake you make, because it seems like the rules are completely arbitrary.

you've learned to keep the prickly parts of your personality in a stormcloud under your bed - as if they're a second version of you; one that will make your friends hate you. it feels feral, burning, ugly.

instead, you have assembled habits based on the statistical likelihood of pleasing others. you're a good listener, which is to say - if you do speak up, you might end up saying the wrong thing and scaring off someone, but people tend to like someone-who-listens. or you've got no true desires or goals, because people like it when you're passive, mutable. you're "not easy to fluster" which is to say - your emotions are fundamentally uninteresting to others around you; so you've learned to control them to a degree that you can no longer really feel them happening.

you have long suspected something is wrong with you, but most of the time, googling doesn't help. you are so-used to helping-yourself, alone and with no handbook. the reek of your real self feels more like a horrible joke - you wake up, and, despite all your preparations, suddenly the whole house is full of smoke. the real you is someone waiting to ruin your other-life, the one where you're normal and happy. the real-self is unpredictable, angry.

your real self snarls when people infantilize the whole situation. because if you were really suffering, everyone seems to think you'd be completely unable to cope. but you already learned the rules, so you do know how to cope, and you have fucking been coping. it's not black-and-white. it's not that you are healed during the other times - it's just that you're able to fucking try. and honestly, whenever you show symptoms, it's a really fucking bad sign.

because the symptoms you have are ugly and unmanageable for others. your symptoms aren't waifish white girl things. they're annoying and complicated. they will be the subject of so many pretentious instagram reels. if they cared about you, they'd just show up on time. you care, a lot, so deeply it burns you. you like to picture a world where the comments read if they loved you, they'd never need glasses to see. but since that's a rule you've seen repeated - "one must never be late or you are a bad friend" - you constantly worry about being late and leave agonizingly early. there are no words for how you feel when you're still late; no matter how hard you were trying.

so you have to make up for it. you have to make up for that little horrible real you that you keep locked in a cabinet. you are bad at answering emails so every project you make has to be perfect. you are weird and sensitive so you have to learn to be funny and interesting. you are an inconvenience to others, so you become as smooth as possible, buffing out all the rough parts.

all this. all this. so people can pass their hands over you and just tell you just the once -how good you are. you're a good friend. you're loveable.

#spilled ink #woke up at 530 to write this lmafo #me in a cold sweat: #how do i be normal #edit in the tags: #hey so i've seen y'all talk about like ... wondering if ur ''allowed'' to relate #like if this is about X specific diagnosis #and when i first posted it i really almost labelled it ''please don't assume this is about a specific condition'' #because as an artist i am often walking this line of discussing a symptom or discussing my conditions etc #and sometimes yes ! i do want to talk about an experience that is specific to who i am and my condition #but sometimes the effort of the post is about the EXPERIENCE rather than the diagnosis #because yes i am not neurotypical and as a result that influences my work but it is ALSO true that there are many reasons #why someone might experience this particular vague horrible feeling that you are... almost being CHASED by what you ''really'' are. #that you're outrunning your symptoms... that you're not really normal you're just sort of a mockery of a person #.... that's a really isolating and horrible way to feel no matter why you are feeling it. and the nature of this PARTICULAR post is that #it is inherently talking ABOUT that sense of isolation & of feeling not-deserving & of minimizing your own experiences to make urself #palatable for society in a way that others find easy-to-deal-with.... #this post is about a certain experience such that my impression is there's a higher likelihood that those who relate #would have more difficulty thinking they ''deserve'' to relate - that it doesn't REALLY belong to them #bc often we are the kind of people who are SO used to being alienated and set aside and ''different'' that we AUTOMATICALLY assume #that things are not ''for'' us... they never have been why would it start now #we are the kinds of people to be ... ''too normal for X diagnosis but too symptomatic to be normal'' #[or as this post points out... so good at ''coping''/masking/hiding it that we essentially conform to whatever shape we're poured into] #but i have witnessed others already say in the tags ''thought this was about me but it's about X so it can't be'' #and im like ... of course it was about you. #art is not a resource that is diminished by greater appreciation . #you reflect in whatever mirror fits your frame. not just the ones in your bedroom. not just the ones i specifically give you. #there will be - and often are - times that i will talk about my specific conditions... but if you're reading this #regardless of why you're here... we are here together. holding hands through space and time. and i love you for carrying it #and i know you're exhausted. i am too. but i understand. and i see you.

[thetisming]

btw if you remove people of colour, fat people and disabled people from queer history youve removed so much that you can barely even call it history anymore.

disabled queer people have always been here. non-white queer people have always been here. fat queer people have always been here. you cannot erase ANY of us without erasing a huge part of queer history.

#queer #queer pride #queer community #queer history #im disabled and fat and you CANNOT erase us nor can you erase our non white queer siblings #we have ALWAYS existed and we will continue to exist and we will always belong no matter what #no matter how hard you try to remove us from history we have been here and we will always be here

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

MDZS Disco Elysium AU part 2 - Psyche Skills

Part 1 - Part 3

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #disco elysium #MDZS disco elysium au #jiang cheng #jiang yanli #yu ziyuan #While it's more in vogue to draw a character's skill roster tailored to them - #One of the more subtle details I love in DE is how some of the skill portraits parallel character portraits of people hbd associates with. #Theres somethine rather poetic to be said about how other people shape out thoughts and sometimes act as a 'voice' in our head. #How we are in part a collection of impressions other people left behind on us. #I am a huge Skillhead (Those are my friends! My party members! They love me! They have their own agendas and alliances!) #so of course a healthy portion of this AU is dedicated to them <3 #the Int skills go basically unchanged from DE. Psy as well (with changes to a few quirks in voice). #Fys skills though...well...wwx is in a different body! Those voices belong to Someone Else. #Esp electrochem (MXY in this AU also partied to near death. WWX is withdrawing and craving substances he's never even heard of before) #While I personally don't fully subscribe to Volition Jean I *do* see Volition Jiang Cheng. The voice of your Not Brother keeping you afloat #All three of these parallels make me unbelievably sad. They are also both purple. Art is like that sometimes. #Empathy Jiang Yanli...oh man do I have a lot of thoughts about her. Disco fans Who Know....you can probably see what I'm cooking. #Authority is a really interesting skill in DE because *yes* its about power and intimidation - but it's also about finesse and respect #Titus Hardie and YZY both abuse *and* finesse how they establish their authority - in a way that leaves quite an impression. #2 more mdzs disco posts that I *need* to create and then I'm off to working on raffles <3

[sesamestreep]

thomas blanky shouldn’t have been dying in the arctic, man. He should have been wearing a life is good t-shirt at a buffett concert.

#terrorposting again are we?? #he buys francis one too but he refuses to wear it because he does not agree with the premise that life is good actually #anyway #the terror #the terror amc #thomas blanky #he should have been violating open container laws with us in the 21st century where he belongs #wearing wrap around sunglasses #You get it #the vibe is clear to us all

[hadesoftheladies]

"we need more men in--"

no. no we do not. we do not need more fathers, we do not need more men in healthcare, we do not need more men in universities, or boys in school or whatever

we do not need more men PERIOD

what we actually need is more women in all these fields getting paid their fucking dues

the less men there are, the less war, the less violence, the less terrorism, the less economic collapses, the more we have a chance at fixing these worldwide catastrophes and healing the earth (this has the entirety of human history's worth of documented and observable evidence)

women and girls are not only healing society but the earth; the fact that boys and men hate that school is no longer boy's club, the fact that they have made themselves useless if not destructive without their precious fabricated masculinity, the fact that they keep expecting a parade in their name for doing the barest of minimums isn't our problem, it isn't a human crisis, it is a crisis of the male identity

no one needs to resuscitate it; let it die a natural, deserved, overdue death

#feminism #radfem #radblr #masculinity #women stop catering to men's self image look where it's gotten us #it is a waste of time and dehumanizing to you #how long will we put ourselves down where we do not belong #so they can feel good about themselves? #when they do not deserve to feel good about themselves? #why give authority to those that have repeatedly shown they are unfit and unqualified for it? #enough is enough #im not coddling these whiners #they can pull their fucking weight in becoming decent human beings #instead of expecting a reward for participation

[zerozeroren]

Feeling wistful feelings over the fact that the form of Ahiru the majority of us viewers end up loving and rooting for the most (girl Ahiru) is also the most illusive and unreal of the three

#Hear me out on this #The Duck is true to reality. It's a living being. Princess Tutu is true to the fairytale. Same way Mytho is. #But girl Duck? She's completely fabricated. No firm ground to stand on #Quicksand of an existence. And yet. It's her we connect with #Her that we are rooting for #Her who builds relationships and bonds and her who does all the preliminary work for Tutu to take over later #she's the most real person for us emotionally #And because of that it's heartbreaking #Because if you look closer you'll know that she's doomed and destined to be forgotten #She belongs to no world #But you want so badly for her to pull through #princess tutu

[pinacoladamatata]

Cazador: mY vAmPIrE!!

Wyll, Karlach, Lae'zel, Shadowheart, and Gale:

#DFHDS:JKFsdjk #bg3 spoilers #i love them all sm u dont understand #the way they are just like 'fuck this guy. astarion do u want us to kill him for you? we will kill him' AAHHHHHHH #something something dependence becoming devotion #something not owned but belonging

[hanniballectersballs]

if👏 you 👏 don’t 👏 support 👏 asexuals 👏 and 👏 aromantics 👏 you 👏 can 👏 fuck 👏 off 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

#asexual #aromantic #LGBTQ+ #i think #love you guys! #you belong here with us!! #we like you a lot :)

[midnight-moth]

@foxybouquet for you 💐

#Squammer #why does he just do that like that #I hope Dew giggled #we need another angle to see if he did #either way seems like neither of them are very ticklish #they must be used to this #yes they have tickle fights backstage #I know it #rain ghoul #dewdrop ghoul #once again I don’t know who this belongs to because it’s been circulated a lot so lemme know if you do

[whaliiwatching]

pillow that loves you

#spider man: across the spider verse #spider punk #spider noir #hobie brown #noirpunk #world cold and hard. spider gf soft and warm #take notes ok this is true love #did i use the same eminem line in the last lesbian noirpunk drawing? yes #its my goddamn right #hmmmmmmhhh size difference #need and deserve to hold n be held like this #not got much in the way of tags today #if tumblr would let me take hobie’s shirt off entirely we’d get to see the scars #transmisogyny ruining all my fun #anyway. they go on picnics #hobie wears her gf’s clothing all the time i know this bc ive seen it #‘hey darling have you seen my coat—oh.’ ‘sorry no all i got is this one that belongs to ME’ #holy shit. transfem fat butch noir packing heat. i need to watch her shoot a fascist dead #(we all need that i think) #spiderdykes

[time-is-restored]

btw not to make everything about My Fucking Guy but i honestly think one of the things that seperates q!phil out from the other islanders is the approach he takes to dealing with the lack of agency + control all the islanders have over whatever the fuck the federation's doing.

it shows up most prominently whenever tubbo is excitedly telling him about the 'progress' he's made with cucurucho or various investigations (ie: trapping him into a corner with the 'do you have free will' questions), and phil always shoots it down w an immediate 'that doesn't mean anything. curucuho will say anything to mess with you. you can't take anything he says as true.'

and it's not that phil is... a paticularly pessimistic character? he's just EXTREMELY practical. like, he's yet to give up on anyone EVER finding ANY answers (he was the one who initially gave the federation that one week ultimatum w the cage for a cage stream), he just doesn't trust the idea that curucuho is ever going to voluntarily give them. they're uncontrollable + senseless - you might as well argue with the weather.

and like, if that's how he sees the one (1) and only point of contact the islanders HAD with the federation for months, it explains a lot abt his characters lifestyle! ofc he sits on the wall all day, talking to his kids, and keeping his head down. he believes that the federation wants nothing more than to drag the islanders into sick games + tasks just so they can fuck with their head (ie: curucuho revealing he was the one cellbit gathered all that information for). and while he can't totally PREVENT any of that from ever impacting him, he can make sure his kids are well fed, well protected, and as happy + comfortable as he can manage. this is objectively not a perfect situation, there is a guaranteed amount of suffering + fear that he can't mitigate, but he can at least account for it.

like, he REFUSES to engage. whenever curucho shows up, he treats them with total ambivalence. he's not going to get riled up by anything they do, he's not going to get super attached to the guy, he's just gonna laugh it off and irish goodbye it when things drag on. the ONLY time he's strayed from that general guiding principle has been since he's lost his eggs, and can no longer afford to let the federation's fuckery go: those are his fucking kids.

hence the completely unprecedented levels of outward rage and sadness and terror he shows throughout the birdcage streams - almost all directed directly to cucurucho. it's all a completely fair + proportional response to the horror the islanders are being subjected to, but it feels so different bc until now, q!phil has been so dedicated to not reacting, and not giving the federation any sign that they're actually getting to him.

#qsmp #q!phil #LIKE. does anyone else think this! i genuinely believe its like one of the major #traits of his character i feel like u can trace it through Everything. #the man lives with the constant knowledge that sometimes all it takes is a tempting ravine and a badly timed creeper to end a life #whether that life belongs to a stranger or someone you love more than anything else in the world #you COULD rage against that. you could scream and shout and tear your hair out and grieve for the futility of it all #but what does that change? the days march on. death waits either way #and that's not to say he's a laizesfair kind of guy. anyone who's seen him stress out abt chayanne's risk taking + freak out #whenever his kids don't have enough autofeed grist can see that he cares DEEPLY. which resolves into his very distinctive #defensive + protective playstyle. the goal is not to win the fight the goal is to *survive* the fight etc #but the only way that mindset doesn't spill out into unchecked paranoia + complete agoraphobia is with acceptance #'shit happens: the philza minecraft story' #i also think it even manifests in the nightmare sequence w his last words to chayanne? 'they didn't want us to live. we were never supposed #to survive' or whatever the exact wording was #he is FURIOUS and deeply hurt and sad abt the deaths he says so explicitly later #but at the time the first thing he reaches for is. exhausted acceptance. it wasn't their fault. it wasn't his fault. they did their best. #they could only do so much in the face of the federation's Overwhelming Hostility. y'know? #mine

[ganymedesclock]

My personal feelings on people headcanoning the Hollow Knight world as small is that it always feels uncomfortably like looking at a world where there are no humans and immediately deciding we'd have to be overpowered supergiants that are being worshipped more than the actual gods.

I've seen it paired with takes that PK or even Radiance would be helpless before a god, when Radiance in particular is, you know, a god of dreams shown to be able to affect or press on just about anything with a mind to the point that other deities were scared of her, and even if she was the size of a soccer ball she'd pose a significant threat to an ordinary person.

Ruka's point about the nails being obviously in-name-only, that the scavenged weapons are scavenged from the corpses of larger creatures and not from any evidence of a bigger creature civilization also grates on me because not only is it literally a plot point in strengthening your weapon that the nailsmith works raw ore, nail weaponry is obviously a sophisticated technology with cultural and practical variations in how they're made... but it feels lavishly patronizing to look at a character like the Nailsmith who is very explicitly being driven by a single-minded obsession to make the perfect weapon, and insist he has to just be stealing thumbtacks from humanity, that he can't possibly compete with.

Like I'm in neither the position nor the desire to run around other people's blogs screaming at them until they Forsake Their Ideas, people think what they will think, but I think it's important to ask questions of, why do we believe what we believe? The idea that the HK bugs are tiny seems to come inextricably paired with the notion they are subordinate to humans, which there's no existence of humanity in HK. We don't even see evidence of mammals. Some bugs mostly resemble earth wildlife, but others? The God Tamer's beast was a lobster in its original concepts.

#Hollow Knight #maybe I'm just salty because of one youtube theorist that decided the cool way to open an HK video #was to do a bit of him spraying raid on the main characters to kill them instantly #because har har remember bugs are an infestation to a world that belongs to humans right #what do you mean Hornet's a demigod and Ghost is a weird undead fantasy being #we won't engage with fantasy unless it affirms us as the most powerful being ever apparently??

[p0rchc0ll4ps3]

and all the time the world unwinds i can't deny the way i feel and all these words they mean nothing at all

it stays in stella maris

it doesn't leave that room

but dawn comes, warm light over the east, warming the ruined streets of home. you were meant to be with me, here, for we are built, trained, conditioned to disappear

what comes next needs everything we got. elysium must wake

#my art #disco elysium #de #jean vicquemare #kim kitsuragi #kimjean #jeankim #dunno which ones the right one but. yeah. #this is based on my fic. btw #which i hopefully will post soon. #okay sure some sort of just nice little sappy fic well. it's also part of my casefic and this fic takes place two months after the game #there's politics here. the world is shifting. things will be different #sure it stays in stella maris. sure you can try and forget. sure you can say it means nothing #but the truth of the matter is the gears of conflict still groove and turn #and a new dawn is coming. elysium must wake #okay? #and if you are here with me and you are also here with me and you and you and you and we stick together... #and if we all hold hands as the radio plays... the violent erasure of the world can be pushed away. all of this belongs to us. #and we will fill her lungs with air. #IDK LIKE IT WAS JUST A DOODLE bc i wanted to show how they dress differently #but ive been feeling very strongly about the hinted return. revolution. #its just been in my brain #btw there's lyrics here. #it's lonely carousel by Rodrigo leão #and uhh #accidents of gesture by Rome #and then in the tags I reference #lol. the day the world died by miracle of sound #and electrical kittens by British sea power

[torgawl]

this is absolutely killing me *bombastic side eye, criminal offensive side eye playing in the background*

#zhongli probably thinks neuvillette will turn into that one kermit punch meme as soon as he lands eyes on him 😂 #this entire quest was peak humour #i really love genshin sometimes #also neuvi falling for a marketing strategy and ending up buying too much tea on the first time he goes out to another country is so him #there was so much going on during this quest #neuvi explaining an inside joke to wrio... that was so cynoesque ahjsgsjsgshs he's trying his best at fitting in 😭 cute #i love that old man so much #and the ladle?!!!!! picasso 🤌 #furina having a death note moment of reverse physchology trying to understand if zhongli knew who she was was only missing the #l's theme playing in the background #plus clorinde and navia being questionably lesbian in the mountain that was also nice 👍 #but i swear neuvi is so funny #what do you mean that man carried everyone's belongings and went to another country in half a day and managed to scare zhongli without #even trying agsjsh i'm gonna create a monsieur neuvillette fan club #he's the best ever #i need him to meet zhongli for scientific purposes. the world will stop when that day comes 😂 #i need to know what would happen #okay realistically neuvi would probably start wheezing the moment he saw the false vision #but still poking genshin so they give us the content we need they can't just tease us like this

[thelaurenshippen]

we need more names for men in stories. as a tumblr user in certain fandoms the steve/stede, ed/eddie, buck/bucky of it all is really getting to be too much, you're always one typo away from being in a completely different universe

#have I made this post before? #perhaps #I am just copy pasting a tweet of mine from 9 months ago lol #bc cherokee and I were talking about this today in recording DD #and I brought this up and she waas like HOW is there not a tumblr post about this!! #and I was like I made one! #except then I remembered that I deffinitely tweeted it in the time when I used to tweet #so here it is #we need to talk about this #we need more names for men!!!!!! #unfortunately I love the name buck/bucky/buckley so I probably will name a character that at some point #but steve and eddie I think I can stay away from #I think...? #have I named a character either of those names? #they're solid names #but they belong to those guys you know? #we have reached capacity!!!!!!! #steve/eddie AND stede/ed AND eddie/buck AND steve/bucky #what are we DOING #lauren feels things

[blood-orange-juice]

There's something to be said about how we never find Mary-Ann, only other people's dreams of her. Fragments.

Both Rene and Ann muse that maybe Mary-Ann never existed, and in a sense it's true. There obviously was a girl once, but that girl is not what any of them are searching for, not really.

#narcissenkreuz #everything is mary-ann #everyone has their own idea of mary-ann #and maybe that's why her absence is louder than anything alain ever built #objet petit a #(ok. I'll shut up) #I am not normal about them #seymour needs to belong somewhere #cater needs to feel useful #lyris wants the old halcyon days back #ann needs to find who she is #no idea what alain wanted but maybe we'll find out when we know more about sandrone #none of these have anything to do with the real mary-ann #they just look mary-ann-shaped if you squint