#and also very very mentally ill

[stil-lindigo]

lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)

if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.

--

no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.

I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.

I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.

If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.

[y-avann-a]

What the fuck? Why am I sucking my stomach in and sticking my breasts out while posing for a picture with my sisters? I am ELEVEN YEARS OLD in this picture - why do I have body image issues? I hate this stupid thinspo-dietculture-fatshaming-bodyharm culture

[starry-bi-sky]

on a completely separate note; shizun luo binghe with a disciple shen yuan who fell into the abyss??? *thinks about LBH canonically stealing SQQ's corpse for 5 years* he'd hallucinate i think. like, like visual and audial hallucinations.

Keeps thinking he's seeing SQQ in the corner of his eyes, or wandering between the trees, amongst a group of disciples. Thinks he hears him calling for him, but its just the wind or another disciple.

Gets Xiu Ya reforged but patently fucking refuses to make a sword mound. Because his disciple Is Not Dead :))) There was No Body. He's Not Dead. And If You keep Insisting That He Is, He's Gonna Skewer You :). He's holding onto Xiu Ya so he can return his most favored disciple's sword when he returns. It's on his hip right next to Zheng Yang where it's supposed to be.

Also this motherfucker?? does not sleep btw. He has the image of SQQ, wide eyed and hysterical and standing at the mouth of the abyss burned into his fucking eyelids. Can't use the dreamscape to escape it either because he keeps trying to save him and either he does and it's an incredibly cruel trick to wake up to, or he doesn't and he gets his heart broken in several different pieces again.

There is no convincing this man that Shen Qingqiu is dead. Absolutely nothing at all. He is buried so deep in denial that moles would be jealous of how deep he is. He keeps making tea for two in the bamboo house only to remember that it's just him. SQQ's fans are hiding everywhere, little reminders of his presence. He goes to wake up SQQ on the mornings he sleeps in-- only to find the room empty.

[inkskinned]

something bad happened to you, and you died, and you came back wrong.

not wrong all the way. the little ways. you forget important dates, stopped going out with friends. it's harder to make you smile. you're apathetic towards things you used to love, afraid of places you used to go to cheer up. quieter. flinching. different.

you came back for love. you're still here for love. what pulled you back was a brightness so loud that even death couldn't outshout it. death heard the call and smiled at you and said okay. go home. somebody is waiting for you.

but you came back different. like lot's wife; you've turned into salt. you used to chirp through life in hops and skips; but now you lose skin just standing up. you have to move slower, skimming across this world without-touching-it. most things feel dull - until they're suddenly all-too-much. life, and being alive just rushes up and over you and you get hopelessly crushed.

you try to explain it to them: it is ugly, but this is what you are, now. the huge golden hoop of your halo now a little bronze ring. you are still watering your plants and wearing the same clothes. after all, you worked hard to come home. this life; so odd and off-color, now that you are wrong.

but they waited for you - it's just that they wanted the "you" that happened before this. the "you" that could sing in the show and hug people tight and look at a blade without breaking down to cry. the you with a smile in pictures. god, holyshit, it's like looking at a completely different person, isn't it. that other-you; the one they actually wanted.

you are the consolation prize. you are the body that forgot the ghost. you are the memory of the bad thing, and the death after; like you are wearing that memory as a banner. you are a fragment, an assembly. simulacrum. you don't make eye contact in mirrors, afraid the light will glance off and your true nature will flash back at you.

you hear them talk about it in their hushed, desperate whispers. sometimes they even admit it to your face; harsh and violent, acid thrown at christmas dinner. god, can you just fucking be normal again. you do not remember what normal is. you had to climb so far to get back here; you are far too exhausted. you want to open the glass door of your heart and show all the gears. can you help resolve whatever got messed up?

you try so, so hard. you came back for them. because you believed they would love you, even when you were so horribly broken. because you believed they would be patient. because you believed unconditional meant "without exception." you cannot do things the same way. you just get tired too quickly these days.

you want to put them on a couch and pour them the tea with hands that shake more than they remember. you want to line them up and draw them a map of where you have had to wander. you want to show every bruise in a backsplash; the little helpless ant of your soul carrying all that weight, over and over. you want to say: yes! it is different! but i did it for love!

you want to say: "i'm not the same, but i'm yours and i'm here. can that be enough?"

[mysterycitrus]

their relationship is complex and not entirely definable but if u look me in the eyes and tell me that dick grayson isn’t bruce waynes first kid im not gonna take u super seriously. sowwy

[obsob]

here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud!!

✷(print shop)✷

[oakbuggy]

a little p2 to this post !

full thing on ao3 as always hehe

[the-knife-consumer]

Bill is the villain of the series. Not Mabel. Not ford. BILL. oh my god. If I see one more post pinning literally everything on Ford I'm going to lose my mind. And before it was Ford it was Mabel. Mabel was a little girl terrified of growing up who got tricked by BILL pretending to be someone else. She didn't make a deal with him she got tricked (and even if she did?? Literal twelve year old she's just a kid). Also yeah ford did a bunch of horrible shit because BILL fucked with his head. Bill MADE him trust no one and isolate himself. Mabel and ford are not the bad guys the BAD GUY IS THE BAD GUY. SCREAMS AND RUNS AROUND IN CIRCLES. COME ONNNNNMN

[radlymona]

TRAs having no empathy yet again

Teenagers who are pushed towards transitioning aren’t “pushovers” they’re mentally and emotionally vulnerable young people who shouldn’t be allowed to make life-changing medical decisions. Acknowledging this fact isn’t stopping adults from transitioning. It just aims to stops other vulnerable teenagers from doing the same.

[hballegro]

"A lot of very touching songs came outta that war..."

s2e5 "Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde"

previous piece

next piece

another piece for the pile. this one took ~25 hours, ish? i regretted it as soon as i picked it lol. still CSP, still gouache brush [my beloved] and various blenders. when i got to the rain poncho i had to bribe myself with sweets to do all the texturing, it was hell on earth and that alone took 6ish hours. i am most proud of the right [his left] eye lol i think i nailed that sucker

if anyone has recommendations for the next one, speak now; i am very bored over summer break waiting for college to begin and this damn show is swallowing up my life, so might as well lol

and like last time, heres some WIP snapshots [with numbers this time] to show what order they came in

put off that ear for 12 years and then nailed it first try, c'est la vie

[beanghostprincess]

Actually thinking more about Reiju's only sin being a woman and... Going into more depth, I know that logically/canonically she's smart and empathetic enough to not want to be in her brothers' place. She doesn't want to be an heir/ successor or follow the family's footsteps at all. She knows they're bad. She sees herself as such, too, unable to change/be different like Sanji was. She doesn't think she can bring her mother's kindness to this world the way Sanji does, so she sticks to what she knows, whether it is to protect Sanji too or to accept her fate.

BUT (and bear with me for a second here, I know I have been watching too much Succession lately) we also do know that during her childhood she didn't do anything to help Sanji from the abuse. She watched it happen because that was the way things went there and because she knew what would happen to her if she did. Of course, she ends up helping him escape and taking care of him but-- I'm just thinking, for a tiny little moment, about how she's actually the oldest.

She should be the heir. She should be the person everybody views Ichiji as. She should be considered the most responsible. The smartest. The strongest one. The one who should take the throne. And she doesn't even want it now, but what about back then? What about when she did have some little, tiny faith/hopes for her family and what they did? She sought approval and naively thought "my father is going to offer me the place I rightfully deserve, right?" blindly seeking acceptance like all of them did.

But no, because she might be the oldest but Ichiji is a man. She might be the strongest, the smartest, the most reliable... But she is not a man. And I believe there must have been a time when she expected her destiny to be something more, and once she realized she was just a woman in their eyes... Well, we know what happened.

I just keep finding similarities between The Vinsmokes (OP) and The Roys (Succession) and perhaps my headcanon of Reiju being similar to Shiv has gone a bit too far. But the scene where Shiv is like "This is real?" when Logan promises she'll be the CEO and he goes "This is real. Remember this. The slant of light" for it to be a lie later is something I fear could have happened with Reiju and Judge if Oda had given us more content,,,,

[boatemboys]

part of my tooth fell out earlier so if u need a reminder/wake up call that dental hygiene and eating healthy is Important Actually here it is 👍

[avengerchuck]

my evil breakfast

[braincake666]

Batman Beyond does not get the credit it deserves for how respectfully and realistically they portrayed a lot of the issues they touched on, especially for a show that came out in 2000.

Babel portrayed someone going deaf and resenting their reliance on hearing aids to fully perceive the world. Spellbound showed a high school counselor exploiting students by getting them hooked on drugs. The Winning Edge has a coach pushing his athletes into doing steroids because he only sees them as pawns for victory. In Disappearing Inque and Eggbaby the main antagonist was explicitly abusive toward their henchmen.

And don’t even get me started on THAT scene in Black Out that was a pretty obvious assault allegory. A depiction of an attractive woman restraining, kissing, and then physically forcing her body down the throat of a teenage boy, leaving him dry heaving and coughing up the liquid she left behind? Being shown as a horrific and disgusting and traumatic experience?! In THE YEAR TWO THOUSAND?!

[al-luviec]

juvie buddies

[himboextraordinaire]

I love domestic/fluffy Byler so much, but what I really want is for them to be a mess.

Everything about their relationship with the involvement of the upside down and Eleven is a mess. Will is carelessly lying to Mike about El and his painting, Mike is not communicating and was being particularly distant to Will for virtually no reason on his birthday (which btw I totally don’t buy it that the Duffers and the writers room just “forgot” Will’s birthday when they remembered Will’s favorite candy just so they can have it as a silly little easter egg in like two scenes). Everything about it that has been building up to this point is just a huge pile up at this point.

They’re going to likely be with each other for most of season 5 because of the promise that they made to each other at the end of season 4 (and the BTS photos but yknow), which gives time for a lot to happen. Will and Mike are not perfect people, and it’s clear that their friendship isn’t either. The confession isn’t going to be light and fun. That pileup is going to collapse under it’s own weight and it will not be pretty at all. It’s going to be a mess, it’s going to hurt, and I am HERE FOR IT.