#we all have that one friend...

[inkskinned]

in internet posts it is easy to cut them out of your life. they are hurting you! they aren't listening to you!

they held your hair back. they lent you lipstick. they held your hand at the train station and got you home safe. they rounded on your bully, got loud, said get fucked, spitting-mad in your defense.

they also cut the hair off again. told you that you should really think twice before wearing something like that. took you for granted. took your insecurities and threw them in your face again.

you know logically it should be easy. all the internet advice comments always read it will feel better. like an equation - if a person is rotten, you just remove them. you pull the tooth that's hurting.

but it was never a big flare-up moment. you don't live in a sitcom. they never tried to take your boyfriend or steal from your apartment. they showed up to birthdays and they wrote songs about you and bring you water without you asking. once you found out they carry an emergency inhaler for you, even though you haven't had an asthma attack in years - just in case.

where is the line? people fuck up. sometimes they fuck up badly. sometimes people have raw personalities, like a powerline, and being around them is dangerous. addicting. sometimes they can't help themselves, but you know they're trying. sometimes they are just rough-around-the-edges. sometimes they don't even realize how they sounded when they said that. sometimes it's just - you've both loved each other for so long now, the way this thing hurts goes back to the root.

and that's the fucked up part. you have pushed your fingers against the sweetheart of memory. things these days are electric, tense, harrowing. they didn't used to be. there were a lot of good days in there. sometimes you want to just close your eyes and say can this be over yet? do we still need to be fighting?

doing that would give up any chance you get of getting an apology, but you don't always know that you need an apology, you love them. once they flaked on your birthday party. once they told you to get over it, people are always dying. they also let you crash on their couch for a week after the breakup, handfeeding you when you were so sad you couldn't eat. they are also judgmental about everything, occasionally react to banal statements with an attitude that is weird and fiery. they also love you like a lighthouse sometimes, so strong they cut the storm like lightning.

but the problem is that you might be storm. you might be the thing that needs breaking. what if you are two forces who are desperately, horribly drawn to each other, shaped by the other person's passions, and both good for each other and bad in equal measure.

what if you're both just people, and you're no saint neither.

just cut them off! swallowing the saltwater, you catch yourself in the mirror. you've been shaking more than usual. there's an ache in you that is oblique, loud, impossible to soothe. is this what it looks like? when life is "easier"?

your mouth will always have a hole, is the thing, if you remove the tooth.

#spilled ink #warm up #writeblr #this is about someone specific but feel free to blorbo on main. #tbh this is familial for me so that is an element but it's also about childhood best friends #and probably about ur enemies to lovers blorbo #(but i want to specifically say if ur partner is like this. not necessarily a good partnership lol.) #(the dynamics at play in familial/friend relationships feel equally important and in some ways are HARDER to escape. #bc we can see that this is a potentially toxic romantic foundation. #but in family ? ...... it's toxic and it doesn't stop u from loving them. bc u always have. #and i think that makes it harder. by a lot. which is what this is referencing). #but genuinely and really truly forever feel free to tag ur potentially toxic enemies to lovers on this and all my poetry #here i'll do one for u - adora & catra :x

[andthebeanstalk]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

#hlep #original #mental health #my sympathies and empathies to anyone who has to rely on this kind of hlep to get what they need. #the people in my life who most need to see this post are my family but even if they did I sincerely doubt they would internalize it #i've tried to break thru to them so many times it makes my head hurt. so i am focusing on boundaries and on finding other forms of support #and this thing i learned today helps me validate those boundaries. the example with the milk was from my therapist. #the example with the towing company was a real thing that happened with my parents a few months ago while I was age 28. 28! #a full adult age! it is so infantilizing as a disabled adult to seek assistance and support from ableist parents. #they were real mad i was mad tho. and the spoons i spent trying to explain it were only the latest in a long line of #huge family-related spoon expenditures. distance and the ability to enforce boundaries helps. haven't talked to sisters for literally the #longest period of my whole life. people really believe that if they love you and try to help you they can do no wrong. #and those people are NOT great allies to the chronically sick folks in their lives. #you can adore someone and still fuck up and hurt them so bad. will your pride refuse to accept what you've done and lash out instead? #or will you have courage and be kind? will you learn and grow? all of us have prejudices and practices we are not yet aware of. #no one is pure. but will you be kind? will you be a good friend? will you grow? i hope i grow. i hope i always make the choice to grow. #i hope with every year i age i get better and better at making people feel the opposite of how my family's ableism has made me feel #i will see them seen and hear them heard and smile at their smiles. make them feel smart and held and strong. #just like i do now but even better! i am always learning better ways to be kind so i don't see why i would stop

[newttxt]

and thats a wrapppppppp!!

from the 10th and final chapter of utilities included

masterpost

#one piece #zosan #sanji #zoro #luffy #trafalgar law #utilities included #I DID IT. BREE DID IT. WE DID IT!! #i cannot believe i got all ten pages done on time. i feel ridiculous #AND THIS OFFICIALLY MARKS THE CONCLUSION of me drawing a comic a week for ten weeks. I HAVE LIKE. 45 PAGES OF COMICS FROM THIS #i definitely gotta compile em into a little pdf #wow #bree. if u see this. thank you. its been an honor to work on this with you. #i love how visual ur writing is to me. and i look forward to ur next project and how i can stick my horrible little fingers all over it #man. im just so proud. might still be unemployed #but im making art with a friend!

[twinstxrs]

so much happened in this whole episode but i’m still on fig infiltrating ruben’s dream, making it look like the place where his friend was murdered, and then disguising herself as kipperlilly & repeatedly saying different variants of “somebody needs to take the fall for this, and it’s not going to be me. it’s going to be you.” while adaine as the elven oracle shows up next to her. can you imagine waking up from that, the idea of a horrible truth being pinned on you by your friend to save her own skin while the personification of fate and destiny stands there, almost as a promise that this is GOING to happen to you. we don’t even know if this kid is guilty. my god.

#fantasy high #dimension 20 #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #fantasy high junior year #fig faeth #ruben hopclap #lucy frostblade #the rat grinders #adaine abernant #kipperlilly copperkettle #watching fig terrorize him like girl!!! we don’t even know if he’s guilty!!!! #this might just be for me but i do not think 5 teenagers willingly brutally killed their friend idk #like there just has to be some other element to it and i am very scared to find out what that was #what if they were put in a position where they felt there was/there was no other choice… like oh my god #my comedy brain is having fun but my ‘this is a teenager’ brain is in such deep distress all the time this season #the rat grinders i trust brennan to not make u cartoonishly evil so i am holding u as gently as i can in my confused shaky hands #also with the devil’s nectar i’ve been wondering why they all seem so well-adjusted & now i’m curious if they’ve been intentionally- #changing their memories in a way so that either the trauma is lesser or they think they aren’t guilty. idk #but it seems like from how gertie was talking she was making it more recently so the well adjustedness from early jy doesn’t quite add up #they could have another source maybe??? idk i’m just low stakes 4 a.m. spitballing here #there’s also the strong possibility that they’re aware of what happened but they weren’t the ones who killed lucy. idk who knows #the way you could probably devil’s nectar yourself into believing it wasn’t your fault someone died… CRAZY IMPLICATIONS!!! CRAZY IDEA!!! #anyways the bad kids & the rat grinders don’t ever have to like each other but i do wonder if at least some of those kids deserve a chance

[butterflyscribbles]

Homieostasis☀️

#tmnt mm #mm april #mm mikey #mutant mayhem #tmnt mutant mayhem #teenage mutant ninja turtles mutant mayhem #we all have that one friend/sibling that feels like they’re cold blooded #it’s just literal in this case

[cracklewink]

Harmony Syndrome Part 5/5

The last chapter of my mlp infection AU! Thank you to everyone who followed along. Some final thoughts on my twitter @cracklewink if anyone's interested : )

#mlp #my little pony #mlp infection au #mlp infection #twilight sparkle #Sorry for leaving the ending open ended but I genuinely couldnt decide on just one way for things to turn out and I liked the idea of #leaving it open the most #in my mind sunset's final message is like we found a recording from the later days of the infection and we dont know what happened in the #end because the recordings stopped/ended #In any case I think they were able to put twilight and the others to rest #but who knows who survived the “final battle” and who didnt #also yes Twilight created harmony syndrome but not on purpose lol #it was the result of her botched attempt to create a spell that makes ponies immortal #obviously it backfired lol #and the irony is that twilight ends up dying before any of her friends #if they didnt want me writing my little pony horse tragedy they shouldnt have left mlpfim off on the note that all of twilight's friends #were growing old without her #ending thats been haunting me for five years #if anyones seeing this this is an open au btw so feel free to adopt any of the ideas if you like! : ) #tw thanatophobia #thanatophobia

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

#selfie bee #hello friends!! how are you doing!! ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ #I'm very very tired today #I woke up very early today because I took a driving lesson! #I have had my licence for many many years now but I haven't driven in so long #and when I tried I just turned on the windshield wipers again and again #so I'm taking some refreshment lessons! I was really afraid of driving again but my new driving teacher is very nice (❁´‿`❁) #my last one scared me a little because he talked a lot about bathroom renovation #I just drove for an hour or so but I was so concentrated that I'm very tired now #I have another lesson tomorrow because I deleted every information in my brain about how to park a car #all those synapses are currently used to remember Godzilla facts #another big news!! #I saw a PHEASANT last week #we almost hit it with the car but luckly it remembered in time that it was a bird and flew away #I've NEVER seen a pheasant before!! ( ´ ▽ ` ) #I knew that pheasants were real because my favourite cartoon as a child was animals of farthing wood #and there's pheasants in it and then they get murdered and all the other animals are like 'oh well' #but I had never seen one! #I feel like a stronger person now #one that can drive a car #maybe even park one ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ #have a wonderful evening friends #<3

[allgremlinart]

do I think Ty Lee at one point felt genuine friendship and connection with Azula when they were kids before it got corrupted ? yes. do I think Mai wanted to kill Azula with a looney toons hammer since they were 7 ? also yes.

do I think Ty Lee and Mai both incorrectly believe that their internal Azula experiences have been more or less the same ? also also yes. do I think this makes the toxic lesbian love triangle way funnier ? Triple Dog Yes.

#Ty Lee: oh its so sad that we lost our friend it could have all been so different.. . #Mai: our what #atla #mailee #tyzula #<- both relevant #this might be controversial but idc. (mostly) one sided Mai/Azula antipathy sooooo funny to me

[ewwww-what]

friendship so strong it grants you a sixth level spell slot. I have words to say.

#you aren’t always supposed to handle doubt alone. #even if you aren’t afraid of the dark it’s easier to navigate with someone holding your hand #Kristen said ​‘I just love my friends. I love my friends so much.’ #and Fig said ‘maybe I’m not an artist. maybe I’m just a really good friend.’ #and everyone in the world wanted me to be okay and normal about it #queerplatonic love comes in so many forms and this is one of them #fig and Kristen. fig and Kristen. fig. Kristen. #also also #I’ve been so emotional about the fact that all of the bad kids care so deeply about Cassandra despite not worshiping her #‘​I believe in Cassandra because I’ve seen her!’ like they have come eye to eye with a goddess and chose the mutual friends route #god I love it so much #also nonbinary fig believers how are we feeling tonight #fantasy high #d20 #d20 fantasy high #d20 fanart #fh #fantasy high fanart #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #d20 fhjy #fig faeth #fig fantasy high #kristen applebees #kristen fantasy high #faebees #queerplatonic #that’s important to me. that is an important part of this. #undescribed #my art

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Welcome to the Dungeons of Fear and Hunger.

#Fear and Hunger #D'arce Cataliss #Cahara #Ragnvaldr #Enki Ankarian #Unlike Dungeon Meshi - I cannot in good faith recommend this game to a broad audience. #My background with F&H goes as follows: I am hanging out with a friend. He says “hey try this game I've been playing.” I say “Okay!” #I have never heard of this game. I pick the mercenary. I go through 5 min of character history and background. I am mauled to death by dogs #It took me 4 resets to even get in the dungeon. But I finally get there. I am caught by a guard. He cuts off all but one of my limbs #I am forced to crawl around in a blood and corpse pit until the game tells me 'give up idiot'. #I reset. I am mauled by dogs again. I realize this is not for me but I am intrigued enough to go home and watch some playthroughs #And WOW what an interesting game it is! I really do appreciate games that blend their design philosophy with the theme it wants to set #This is a game about fear and hunger. And persevering. And penis (my god is there a lot of penis) #I recommend this to people who like extremely challenging games and can handle the many *content warnings* within this series #If the idea of Bloodborne/eldenring and undertale having a little RPG maker baby sounds appealing to you - give it a shot #It's made by ONE GUY and it's a great horror game. I am just really bad at it. #My friends just enjoy putting me in situations where I scream and yell. We don't talk about the corn mazes. Or the other horror game nights #Apparently I'm funny when I'm Scared! #As people who follow me on twitter might know; I am deep in the pits of this series right now. I will be back with more art.

[mugwot]

lets go gamers

#a little kiss #as a treat <3 #i was having a totally normal one drawing those hands no yearning here nope #limited colour schemes saves my ass not for the first time #cant imagine rendering all that #that and gradients gradients have yet to do wrong by me #the only one missing is rim lighting and we would have the whole gang here #my art #isat #sifloop #isat siffrin #isat loop #in stars and time #comic #sometimes you want to make a quick doodle to make tour friends happy and then some things happen

[raplinenthusiasts]

💐 @cordiallyfuturedwight

{© namuspromised}

#kayla you’re my one and only soup snake forever #btsedit #btsgif #dailybts #dailybangtan #userbangtan #usersky #annietrack #userpat #tuserandi #uservans #userzaynab #useremmeline #heyryen #usermaggie #userkelli #*mine #bts #I wanted to use your favourite things here but idk how it ended up like this #I hope you have absolutely the best day and this next year is full of love and music and concerts 💛 #I LOVE YOU KAYLA IM SO GLAD I FOUND YOU HERE 💛💛💛 #I think I scheduled it to perfect time zone but if now then let’s just pretend #I even included tae! so it’s all your boys together! #some of them are little rough sorry for that #it’s supposed to give moving movie posters vibe #im best friends with clipping masks now #but me and magical wand? we hate each other

[ryllen]

well yuu said watch, not hear

#sorry i really just like u more than malleus that's it; well correct that i like malleus but not when u describe him no #i know general public encourage to go straight into listening and supporting whatever ur partner's hobby or like is #but sometimes u have partner that's into sport or kind of game or film genre u have no interest in at all and i guess it's okay #it's more fun if u both r but yeah not everybody perfectly came from one pod like that; we should be more accepting of the difference #twst #twisted wonderland #sebek zigvolt #twst yuu #twst mc #fanart #beside this is when friends with same type of interest come to play #go make friends boy

[kiwi]

i cannot wait to tell yall about this WILD arg that some mysterious stranger is putting my household through. i wouldnt believe it if it wasnt happening to me

we make a monthly zine that accepts submissions, and someone emailed in this poem...

right away we noticed the capital letters and put them together.

Holy shit.

We thought it was cool, but had nothing else to solve. Then, the next day... A stranger asks one of our friends at their place of work if they know the editors of the magazine, hands them a beaten up envelope, and walks away.

On the outside is the name Malum Mors and the coordinates to a local fountain. INSIDE...

It solves to say "caesar cipher," a kind of cipher where you move letters in a message a certain number down the alphabet. the sum of the three 3's gave us 9, but nothing to decode yet.

Again, we hit a dead end. THEN.... an account with no content followed us. In the description was this:

Using the caesar cipher number, it says "What are you looking at?"

But guys. there is So. Much. More. its been so exciting and a little creepy, ill update this post once we write our article about this baffling chain of puzzles and riddles we've been getting

#and we have NO IDEA who the puzzlemaster is. #it could be one of our friends and it could be a random stranger. but all the info theuve gotten is publicly accessible #so i THINK its someone we dont know

[dreamofbecoming]

listen i know we all love steve “completely ignorant of queer culture to the point that bisexuality is a surprise” harrington being roasted and educated in turns by robin and eddie, yadda yadda, good stuff. i read “they made a horror version of rocky?” in a fic recently and cackled. also a big fan of “he knew he was bi from the start and just never talked about it” as a trope, love it excellent well done

but what about steve who realizes after starcourt that the most important person in his life now has this thing that’s a major part of her life that he knows nothing about, and what if he fucks it up? what if he says something ignorant or rude by accident, and hurts her? what if he loses her because he didn’t know the right thing to say? what if he can’t keep her safe because he doesn’t know what to look out for? absolutely fucking not, this steve says

and listen she’d never say anything, because she can tell that he can tell how much she likes teasing him and teaching him things, so he plays dumb, and she thinks it’s very sweet. but she notices when the zines she keeps under her bed that she buys at that one secret bookshop in indy when she can sneak away on family trips start going missing, always one at a time, and replaced in a few days with another disappearing. and she finds the new ones he must have gone to buy the weekend she was at her aunt’s house hidden in the back of his closet when she goes to steal one of his sweaters. and she notices when he slips more of her queerer movie recommendations into his personal take home pile rather than the movie night stack when he thinks she’s not looking.

she doesn’t notice when he drives to indianapolis after she tries to explain to him why she can’t just ask out a cute girl, tries to impress on him the fear attached to every moment of attraction that he simply has never had to feel, but later she finds a crumpled receipt from a diner in one of his jacket pockets when she’s looking for his keys, and the address is across the street from the bar the gorgeous woman at the bookstore told her about, the one she memorized the address of but hasn’t worked up the guts to think about visiting, and she knows he must have gone looking for a place like that, must have been trying to understand, must have been scoping it out to make sure it was somewhere she could feel safe, after she told him she never had.

so when eddie nearly pops a blood vessel when they clock each other and she mentions that steve is the only person she’s ever come out to before, her hackles come up. because she gets it, she does, he’s only known king steve until recently, so it makes sense that he would be afraid, be concerned for her safety.

but steve is her person, and no one- no one- has ever made her feel as protected or as cared for as he does. no one has ever tried as hard to understand her, no one has ever put so much work into making her feel safe and seen and loved. and she thinks maybe even if no one else ever does, that’s ok. because she has steve, and more importantly steve has her, and that means no one gets to question his ally credentials in her presence without a dressing down to remember, no matter how well they mean or how recently they helped save the world.

(and maybe she’s not as surprised as she could be when he figures out bisexuality all on his own, because she’s been reading all the same pamphlets he has, after all. and she’s seen the way he looks at eddie, i mean come on. maybe no one else has noticed, but then, nobody knows steve harrington like she does.)

#stranger things #steve harrington #robin buckley #platonic stobin #steddie #(if you squint) #this got away from me #i just really love love giving steve a bit more credit yk? #like yes he’s very stupid and he has a history of being self absorbed #and we love that about him #he’s very flawed and that makes him interesting #but i really feel like one of his defining traits is his need to be useful to the people he loves #combine that with his abandonment issues and i really feel like he would be scared of fucking up and losing robin #and yeah he would play dumb like he does with dustin and d&d #but i don’t believe he knows nothing about d&d after all this time and i don’t believe he would let himself know nothing about queer culture #i’m just so so attached to the idea of steve who knows that teasing him for being dumb is his friends’ love language with him #so he pretends to be dumber than he is so they have chances to explain things to him #also stobin sharing clothes is so so so important to me just putting that out there #anyway i just think they’re neat #my writing

[heymacy]

IAN GALLAGHER + his journey with bipolar disorder

╰┈➤ “At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of stamina and even more courage, so if you’re living with this illness and functioning at all, it’s something to be proud of, not ashamed of." - Carrie Fisher

#happy world bipolar day to all my bp babies #(more thoughts at the end of the tags) #shameless #shamelessnet #shamelessedit #ian gallagher #cameron monaghan #*macygifs #bipolar disorder #hello pals how are we doin #i made this gif set in july of 2023 and never posted it because 1) i was terrified to share it and potentially see Bad Takes in the tags #and 2) because my hyperfixation was waning. and while both of those things are still mostly true (the fixation comes and goes) #i feel like it's really important to share as ian's bipolar storyline was not only so vital to his character it was a bit of representation #that isn't often given to the disorder and those (like myself) who live with it every single day #world bipolar day is a day where we can both celebrate ourselves and our resilience and also raise awareness of the reality of the disorder #which is both terrifying and beautiful at its core. this disease is not a death sentence or a sentence to an unfulfilled and miserable life #while there are challenges galore when it comes to balancing life with this disorder it IS possible to live a full and productive life #and i think it's really important to have representation of that in media - and while shameless dropped the ball on a LOT of storylines #over the years THIS is the one they really fucking nailed and i am incredibly grateful #i first started watching shameless while in the midst of a major depressive episode and i was later (finally) diagnosed during an extended #hypo/manic episode - this show and ian's storyline got me through so much and made me feel so seen and validated in my struggles #world bipolar day is also vincent van gogh's birthday (happy birthday buddy) who was posthumously diagnosed with bipolar disorder #and who experienced both depressive and hypo/manic episodes during his lifetime (and was regularly institutionalized) #it takes a lot of help and support to keep us going. it takes the support of our family and friends and *most* of all #it takes patience and kindness and understanding - which is so so so easy to give if you are willing to love and listen #so please. be willing. listen to our stories. be patient with us. show us love without conditions. support us in any way you can. #we are worth it #i promise #anyway. that's really all i wanted to say. happy world bipolar day to those who celebrate (me) and may all of us living with this disorder #go on to live happy fulfilling beautiful magical lives