#and i did stop drawing for a year or two due to personal issues

[ozymandian-hymn]

HYMN!!!!!! SHARE MORE WIPS AND MY LIFE IS YOURSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!! /j no but fr i love it so much when artists share the steps of their creations it's so interesting and cool. i really really enjoy seeing the process!!! :D (so yes if you want to post more wips i'd say go for it!!!!) (i'll be in the tags screaming. very loudly.) (like always.)

alright uh. uh. what did zeus actually do in the original god of war. uh. dies idk thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and i see your comments in the tags all of the time (i'm the most jobless full time office worker of all times and i scroll through my notes) thank you so much for being so hyped and chatty! i really appreciate it

[punkeropercyjackson]

I want to know everything about Nia!

AND MONTHS LATER,YOU ARE FINALLY GETTING HIM!!!!

Nia The Dragon Nomad,born just Nia,just Nia and is 16 at the start of the series

His version of the franchise is called 'Avatar:The Airbender Legacies' and it's 4 books instead of 3 and the 4th one is 'Book 4:Air'

He's half Air Nomad,half Fire Nation but specifically the black etchnic subgroup in the comics you helped me discover which is what led to his creation!!As pointed out by jewish Atla fans,it would be more realistic for the AN to have a small surviving population that went into hiding after the Air Nomad Genocide and Nia's mom is a descendant of them!His parents names are Yung and Dahla and Nia's mixed heritage is symbolism for the coming era of peace

Nia was born in the Fire Nation as lower class,Dahla a homemaker and Yung a chef at the Fire Nation Palace.Dahla has Air Nomad features but never practiced her culture for safety so nobody could point it out without sounding like a maniac and Yung's job led to Nia meeting Zuko when they were 4 years old and becoming best friends and keeping it a secret since Zuko and Azula weren't allowed to befriend 'peasents'(hence why Ozai encouraged Azula to only interact with Mai and Ty Lee).Nia was unaware of not being fully FN but his dad was one of the first prisoner's of The Boiling Rock for a crime he didn't commit and this led to to his mom using Airbending publicly to try to stop him from being taken away so the next day,their house was burned down with her in it by Fire Nation supremacists and Nia being only 13 at the time had no choice but to run away and become a Nomad,leaving Zuko a tear stainned letter in pink ink explaining what happened and telling him how much he loved him as a person and for being his best friend(Nia wouldn't find out Dahla had been an Air Nomad for a long time,not being present when she bended and Zuko got a lot meaner after he left since he was his only real loved one due to Ursa's dissaperance and desperately looked for clues on him,seeing him everywhere even though he was gone)

Nia learned firebending on his own and made a name for himself on his travels by helping people with kindness and resources and fighting for them,committing various anti-imperialist crimes.During this time,he realized he's trans and is a woman and a man at the same time and his gender presentation is very feminine but he uses only masculine ponouns!!He's also autistic,adhd,mdd and anxious and his hair is 4b textured

Personality wise,Nia is very much an Air Nomad-He's super bubbly,openly kind and gentle,silly,optimistic,unrestrained and open-minded.He follows the no kill rule as a buddhist but also believes in severe brutality and has anger issues,low self-eestem and a snarky sense of humor,is very older sisterly/pseudo-momish as a coping mechanism from having almost no positive adult figures as a kid and being picked on by other kids and even adults all the time and his interests are pink/pastel things,suncakes,art,games,animal life and dancing!!!

He's introduced in 'The Warriors of Kyoshi' as he was on Kyoshi Island due to his travels and joins the Gaang because of his instant platonic connection with Aang.Aang says there's something familiar about Nia he can't quite place and he takes on the mom friend title instead of Katara since he's the eldest now and actually did it to himself instead of parentification like her.The two girls bond over being feminine and him and Sokka bicker all the time due to opposite personalities but they really are friends and Kataang is still a thing here so Nia wingmans them

It takes a hot minute for Zunia to reunite(as in several episodes)but Zuko gets hints to it through reports from his crew and is in denial of it at first only because he dosen't want his hopes to be crushed.We get flashbacks to their childhood days,including Zuko drawing both of them as dragons and Nia making strawberry suncakes for the first time for them to share as foreshadowing and this makes their reunion all the more upsetting because they don't even recognize eachother at first due to Nia's complete style change and Zuko's scar,plus the puberty,on top of his old best friend hunting down his new best friend at the order of his dad who he always made him feel safe from.There's a lot of tears and yelling and Nia has to be comforted by his honorary younger siblings afterwards and Zuko has to pretend nothing happened for the sake of not putting him in danger

Nia's very strong and smart so he's a pretty useful addition to The Gaang and provides comedy/jokes too and Aang tells him about The Air Nomads for funsies which leads to

The 'Dahla was actually an Air Nomad' drops happens in 'The Avatar State' when Aang and Nia are trying to figure out Avatar stuff together and it leds to spiritual magic jizz revealing it through Nia's soul.They're heavily shocked but Aang bursts into happy tears and tackle hugs Nia,rambling about how happy he is that he's not actually The Last Airbender and Nia smiles and agrees,telling him he already thinks of him as his little brother and Aang views him as his older sister so they officially dub eachother 'The Flight Siblings',Sokka telling them it's a stupid name and Katara drops water him for it.In 'The Blue Spirit',Nia had romantic moments with Zuko in his Blue Spirit suit so he gains a dreamy crush on him that's played for irony and second-hand embarrasment humor.Aang becomes Nia's Airbender Master starting in 'Nomads,Leafs and Forevers' and this strengthens their bond big time

Nia rejected Jet's attempted flirtatiouns on first meeting by saying 'I came here to make friends-Only friends so instead of trying something,try covering my back' and they got along well from then on even post 'betrayal',Toph dissed him at first because of how girly Nia but after they actually talked they clicked perfectly,'The Tale of Nia' replaces Iroh's section and it's about him saving a group of kids from Earth Kingdom propaganda by impressing them and being sweet to them and it's implied they grew up to be freedom fighters and 'The Tale of Zuko' is a gag bit where girls keep trying to hit on him but he keeps comparing them to Nia subcounciously so none of them stick,Ty Lee let's out a loud squee when she meets Nia again face to face and squishes him up in a hug as she says she's missed seeing his pretty pink face(platonically)and Mai drawls that he's gotten even weirder and Azula adresses him as 'Nini' when she was younger but also 'The Avatar's babysitter' now and they don't know eachother at all well since Ozai didn't even know about Nia being best friends with his son

Jet survives his attempted assisination by the Dai Li and joins the Gaang as it's 'token bad' teammate(not really,he's just genuinely radical).The shippy undertones between him and Katara are gone as they turn into platonic close friends and he acts as the cool bitchy but reliable older brother.Hama is also never villanized but potrayed as a tragic figure and a badass who gets reperations from the Fire Nation and basically adopts the Gaang as her grandkids,Katara still being scared of Bloodbending and choosing not to kill Yon Rha so Hama does the job for her since Kya was her childhood friend's daughter and she's built for killing fascists already,not being only 14.Yung and Dahla are given big significance on Nia's story as his parents and how they influenced him as a person like Zuko and their own life experiences did and 'The Dragon Nomad' is a title given to him pre-series because of being a traveling firebender but also has a double meaning that wasn't even intentional in-universe and there's quips about it as a running gag

Nia's none too eager to return to The Fire Nation but powers through and teaches his teammates how to blend in and takes them to a clothing store he used to go to as a kid and they have a positive talk with the owner not recognizing them until they all leave and as they exited,they make a comical expression and whisper 'I always knew that kid wasn't dead!I don't think that little airhead can even die!'.As they settle in,Nia can't help but go visit where his old home used to be to see nobody had even bothered picking things up or replacing it with a new building and it makes them tear up and he brakes down on his knees,screaming about how much he hates fire as he breathes pink flames from his mouth and dosen't even notice.He stays that way for a solid onscreen 30 seconds and is found by Zuko who frantically picks him up and hides him in an ally with him before soldiers can find him.He dosen't get to comfort him for long as Nia fully registers the situation and shoots up,curtly saying with a glare 'Thanks for the shoulder to cry on,Zuko'.Hope you're enjoying your new life perfect life without me' and runs off back to the Gaang's temporary residence and Zuko dosen't even bother getting up,struggling to find the words until Nia's too far to hear him,yelling out 'BUT IT'S NOT MY LIFE WITHOUT YOU!YOU'RE THE CLOSEST THING I'VE EVER HAD TO PERFECT!'

Nia infilters the Royal Fire Academy For Girls and disrupts everything as he encourages the other female students to fight for their rights and proves to them the anti-Air Nomad things they were taught are lies and burned the academy down using his pink fire and his new friends help out with their own firebending.He cracks a couple eggs on the way too and 'The Beach' confirms Mai as a comphet lesbian,Tyzula as a mutually canon ship even if they don't get together and Nia is on Zuko's mind a lot and the fun summer-y setting he's in dosen't help.Nia's swimsuit is a pastel pink two piece and he has a crown of matching hisbiscus him and Aang made for eachother

Zuko and Nia finally make up in 'The Western Air Temple' as Zuko's decided to give up evil by becoming Aang's Firebending Master.Katara immediately rejects him as per canon,Aang welcomes him with open arms as always and Nia dosen't really know what to do with him.Zuko does his best to reassure him he's truly changed for the better in both words and actions and tries to recreate what they were like as kids until Nia puts his foot down and tells him 'We're not the same as we used to be........And i'm okay with that.I love the Zuko here like i did the old one' and Zuko's entire face goes beet red and Aang connects the dots and grins cheekily as he had a feeling they were a thing from the start.They act as the Team Mom and Team Dad of The Gaang or 'The Dragon Parents/Dadko and Momia' and Katara makes a snide comment on how she'd be expected to be with Zuko over Nia by the public

'The Boiling Rock' has Nia,Zuko and Sokka rescuing Yung and Hakoda and a conversation between Nia and Azula as they fight that's basically just Nia going 'You're not a perfect sexy calculated villaness,you're 14 with an abusive fascist dad and you deserve a therapist and some goddamn friends and fruit pies so you can calm down' and Azula responding 'FUCK YOU MEAN???NUH UH!!!!' and Yung and Nia have a heartwarming reunion and he eventually legally adopts Aang,Jet and Toph since they don't have living/good parents like the Water Tribe Siblings do.Nia's Ember Island Player counterpart is played by a nonblack actor who jokes about having no gender and reminders everyone he's still half Fire Nation not JUST Air Nomad because they're 'both equally important' and Nia'd never cringed harder in his life.Kataang went a bit differently since Aang asked Nia for romance advice since him and Zuko were unspokenly unofficially together so their only season 3 kiss is the finale one and the remaining run time is used on developing the other characters,including The Air Nomads in flashbacks.Nia is given a half dragon soul as a blessing by Avatar Wan to help Aang and it dosen't actually take much adjusment for him to get used to it

Mai and Ty Lee came to Nia on the Day Of Sozin's Comet to help him takedown Fire Nation Soldiers and the three girls fought viciously and had banter and peer support.They're nicknamed 'The Riot Gyals' and Ty Lee still joins the Kyoshi Warriors while Mai takes up a blacksmithing mentorship and Nia grows up to found his own children's education and protection system called 'Nia's Kidbender Program' that was built up by him with big help from Zuko but first,we get to Book 4 aka Book Air,which is something of a playable epilogue in cartoon episodes form of that makes sense and an improved version of the comics where we see The Gaang's lives and their world post-Ozai.This includes Kataang's dating dynamic,finding Ursa again,how they further helped the world with even more activism and direct action,Toph realizing she's a transmasc girl instead of just a tomboy,Nia being the Aang to Azula's Zuko by befriending her and thus her gaining character development that leads to a redemption arc and finally dating Ty Lee and last but not least,Zunia getting together

Like Kataang,it happens in the last episode of the season and the ultimate series finale but in the opening so it's almost entierly about Aang and how far he's come and Zuko and Nia being boygirlfriend and girlboyfriend it's titled 'Air,Fire,Dragon,Love' with the last word being about Zunia,The Flight Siblings and The Peace Brothers since their love for eachother is equally strong and important cosmically.The previous episode was a cliffhanger of Zuko asking Aang for help since he knows Nia as well as he does and them doing a grand romantic display with pink,dragon and summer themes that looked ridicioulous and Nia is pleasently stunned speechless and they think he hated it until he bursts outlaughing and drags Zuko off to start their date as he yells over his shoulder to Aang that he loves him and is proud of him and then calls Zuko 'such an old lord' for the cheesy display and he sputters back that he was trying to treat him like the future Fire Lady.It's Nia's turn to blush,entire face glowing like a pink version of The Avatar State and it's Zuko's rare turn to be the cocky one but as always it dosen't last for him

Their date consists of doing both romantic Fire Nation traditions and romantic Air Nomad traditions,including Zuko gifting Nia Air Nomad earrings he made with Aang's guidance.There's zero restrainment in their pda except not kissing until they get back to the Fire Palace and lean in for their first kiss at the same time which turns into several more chaste kisses and we get a final narration that's done by the entire Gaang in bits,flashing forward to their older years and we see Aang and Katara's wedding amongst many other things and this includes Zuko and Nia having a daughter named Zara

And 'The Airbender Legacies' refers to Aang and Nia for obvious reasons but also Aang choosing to keep their culture alive by not killing Ozai and Zara herself as the first Air Nomad born in a long ass time who'd live without persecution

@nogender-onlystars @moonage-gaydream @refrigeratedboombursts @cam24fan @biandbored @sarasanddollar @insomniac-jay @floof-ghostie @9ragonmew @mayameanderings @fandomunsexyman

[riewritten]

what do you think Erwin considers himself that he sucks at but at the same time he enjoys doing it? suddenly i thought of tiktoks that are like "having a hobby you're bad at is okay". do you have any hobbies you consider yourself not good at too?

tbh i think the "bad" and "good" stuffs are all social constructs, but i'm still struggling with crocheting just bc i think i suck but at the same time i know that's something i do for relax. still sometimes i can't afford to think that way??? do you have the same problem and have you overcome it? i have no idea if this is a prompt or just me asking you stuffs.

do you often project what you're thinking into your writing and visual arts and any other form of art?

oh my god this is getting nowhere 🥲🥲 thank you for reading Rie. have a good day!!!

THE BEST BIRTHDAY

ERWIN SMITH X GEN NEUTRAL!READER

TAGS: fluff, slice of life, kissing, comfort, office romance AU, idiots in love, insecurities, and AAAA HAPPEE BIRTHDAY ERWIN (this also goes with my most recent ask)

WORDS: 2.9k

hi @frenchdyer ❤ i know i took this long bc i've been thinking about this. like the otherworldly self-reflectio i only tend to have once in a year or whenever i'm PMS-ing lol. how's your crocheting? were you able to improve somehow months after you had sent me this msg? my sister gifted me a crochet kit, so i've been planning to learn, too!

on a personal note, the hobby i suck at but enjoy doing nonetheless is drawing! perhaps it's a self-esteem issue, but i've been drawing since i was 5. the passion came to me even before i learned how to write! due to the amount of years i've been trying to master it only to have minimal progress, i can say drawing is smth i can never admit i'm good at. but i came to terms to it now (when i was in highschool i was so insecure about it lol) and bc i did, i draw things to enjoy, not bc i'm utterly pressured to improve!

On the surface, even his closest friends would have a different time answering this question. It's Erwin we're talking about, after all! The literal embodiment of academic perfection and charisma!

Erwin also wants to think of something other than an answer. Although he admits his flaws well when someone points them out, he wants to be good at everything as much as possible. For a perfectionist like him, self-admittance would mean giving up!

It is until you said something that made him recnsider. "Sometimes, I don't see you as a human."

In hindsight, the context of your question was, "What do you want to have for your birthday?" but Erwin seems to be the type to already have the things he'd want and need in life, perhaps if one were to speak materially. Every gift he'd receive would only impact him a little, and you want to change that.

He chuckles at the remark, amused as your features remain serious, "Do I feel like an alien?"

"Dunno," you shrug without turning up at him—only at the papers, hiding a frustrated blush. "And if you're actually a slimy organism underneath? It scares me."

You hear the office chair sliding towards you, and as swift as ever, Erwin's hand is on top of yours. He squeezes it gently, and you try to hold your fluster by glaring at him. Luckily. Only the two of you are in the office; what would the others say if they saw this? You and Erwin made it clear to keep your relationship hidden by acting 'decent' in public places.

He lets you feel its warmth first, although unsure of the reason why, then he guides your hand towards his cheeks. He presses your palm on it. 

"W-what?"

Erwin casually leans his cheek to your palms, albeit with a tranquil expression contrary to you, perhaps amusingly watching your reaction. "Mind repeating what you said earlier?"

"I said underneath. Hypothetically. And I don't mean it literally as well."

"Underneath? Well, that's quite a unique way of asking me to—"

You swatted your hand away and lightly hit his chest as you couldn't hold the fluster. "Stop playing with me. I'm not done yet."

"Well, I'm done."

"Please don't make it my problem."

"I'm actually offering to help."

You perk up in glee. If Erwin's to help, then you might as well consider yourself done. You pulled your chair away from your desk so Erwin could look at it.

However, Erwin asks something completely unrelated amidst the heap of your paperwork. "Why do you not see me as a human?"

"You feel like some sort of god."

"Silly, that's a metaphor that would fit you more."

"Oh, you. Stop flustering me." you huff in sarcasm. "You know about the crocheted scarf I was planning to give you before winter ends?"

"Yeah, and it's summer already. I'm still waiting for it, though."

"I threw it away."

"Huh?" Erwin looks at you in surprise, eyebrows twitched in confusion, perhaps in a whine. He knows you've been trying so hard for it. "Why would you?"

"I'm not good at it."

"But you were enjoying it. You told me so."

"Not because I enjoy it means I'm good at it," you then smile in defeat. "Let's just say I'm not as fast at learning as you are, no matter how much the task interests me. Maybe that's why I sometimes can't deem you human, too. Too good for me, I think."

Erwin could only observe you afterward. You don't try to make it a big issue, none but admittance that unpretentiously comes out of your mouth. As much as it is, perhaps, concerning self-esteem, Erwin is the one hit by it. The way you could admit your flaws a bit too easily and go home without pondering on it is something he couldn't easily do even if he tried. It takes one to help overcome an insecurity and another to admit his own.

"That's not true."

"It is. You really excel at everything, Erwin. That's something I also yearn to have for myself. You don't have flaws. Or, well, let's say you have one, but no normal being can see it so easily."

Well, you were able to lay down his flaws then and there. After all, he's having difficulty coming to terms with his flaws—or perhaps, on saying such admittances out loud. You are right. As much as Erwin demands you to open yourself up to him, some facets stay unsaid because he opts to and wants to remain an ideal image, perhaps one who can only admit his inadequacy if someone points it out. You're the complete opposite, though. You could admit your flaws and still end the day happily. The 'incompatibility', or so you might call it, could be giving him a hard time consoling you.

Oh, and when he recently enjoys consoling you the most. He really appreciates having you open up to him, enjoys the privilege of being able to take care of you as you let him, enjoys listening to your blabbers, and offers resolutions just like the strategic man he is. After all, he's one of the few people who sees that.

Only if he doesn't suck doing it.

"Oh no, did I say something that upset you?" you ask worriedly, sensing his silence.

And he's not the one to be given comfort right now, or so he thinks. It's as if you hit a nail, albeit unaware of how and where it hit him.

Just as if closing the distance is the needed nudge, Erwin pulls your figure towards him, holds both cheeks and surrenders to sweet kisses. Erwin's lips are warm, and the pace is languid. Yet, it's overwhelming enough to deprive you of your senses, let alone the urgent question of why he is suddenly acting the way he is. This might be the first time he got intimate with you inside the workplace. You know this type of kiss from him, too—he does it whenever he's dreary or after working on a significant research paper that got him weary.

The worry reverberates, and thus, you withdraw from the kiss, "Is this because of the scarf? I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have thrown it away. Don't worry, I'll make another one and—hmph!"

He cuts you off for another kiss, harsher this time, perhaps classified as a silent sulk for cutting off the lovely exchange, but no—you're wrong. It's not on you at all. Erwin is frustrated with himself. He holds onto your waist until you're seated on his lap and wraps his hand around your neck to press you further to his chest—hoping it would compensate for the distance you two have due to his inadequacies. To be great in giving you solace is to be vulnerable and imperfect; how could he do that?

He withdraws when both of you need air, albeit begrudgingly, "I'm sorry, Erwin. I know you waited for that scarf."

"No, it's not about that."

"Then what?"

He pretended to ponder for a few seconds, eyes roaming the room to gather his words. He pursed his lips before pointing out, "Don't you think the way you perceive me as a human far beyond you is a flaw I might have? Partners are not supposed to see each other that way."

"I'm merely exaggerating."

"Yes, but still."

"Are you saying you must apologize to me because you're such a perfect being?"

"No, because I'm failing to show you that I'm not."

Oh. 

You finally see where he's coming from. "Are you failing by choice?"

He averts his gaze away, "Yes."

"Then it can really be a flaw," you flash him a sympathetic smile, moving his face so he'd see you in the eyes again, "can you tell me why?"

“I'm not brave enough to show it the way other people do."

"You just did, honey."

"Not because I want to, but because I'm insecure about my inability to console you like a normal partner would. The way you perceive me right now says a lot about our distance. And mind you, doing this isn't even supposed to be this hard."

Both of you stopped. That is by far the most vulnerable thing he had said about himself since you started dating months ago—and it wouldn't even sound vulnerable unless it came out of Erwin's mouth. That's how hard he's been all this time.

He expects you to be annoyed. After all, that might be one of the shallowest reasons he had ever given, too.

But then you smile as if you appreciate him for saying that much—just as if you know it takes a lot for the Erwin Smith to admit something like that, "It's not something you can unlearn overnight. Do not fret."

He lets out a defeated chuckle, "That I know well."

"What's strange is that I'm not your first partner. How come this didn't become a problem with your previous ones?"

"Because people are content to perceive me that way. At some point, I preferred that, too. Honestly—" he leans his head on your shoulder, hands on your waist to keep your balance on his lap, "had it not affected the way I console you, I would prefer things to stay that way."

You pepper him with kisses all over his face, something he accepts as a reward, "Honestly, I would prefer you this way, too. A relationship with a god can be a bit of a struggle, after all."

"Indeed it is. What a struggle I have right now."

You glare at him, "What do you mean by that?"

He shakes his head nothing, hands lurking inside your shirt to feel you more, to shower you with reverence, "Let me finish this now. I miss our bed."

Today is his birthday, and you still need to think of a gift that could be deemed special.

As a last-minute reflection before giving up the gift that has been frustrating you for days, you try to ponder on the previous days since he opened up.

Erwin has become more talkative since then. He's always been chatty towards you since you started the relationship, especially when info dumping. However, this has a stark difference. He's trying too much as if matching an expectation no one but him had set up. Wording it as "forced" would perhaps hurt, but it's not something you could deny, either. Only when afternoon came did you realize how to fix it, with Erwin on a couch and crochet yarns on his lap. He has his phone at the coffee table and the familiar tutor video playing in the background. Eventually he sighs, unties the yarn, and repeats—this time with much precision, and you couldn't help but smile. When Erwin is about to learn something new, he locks himself in his office and spends the whole day studying it alone. Only now did you finally unravel why, and it's apparently part of his mentioned flaw that night.

He might be forcing himself lately, but it's the adjustment that counts.

Erwin perks up in surprise when you sit beside him and hold his hand. You guide his fingers into the correct way of tying the knot. You didn't say anything, and maybe you even tried to act like it's an everyday routine. Erwin pretends to listen and pick up the techniques you're blabbering, but in reality, he's just looking at your face. His lips are flat but twitching as he's trying to hold the urge to steal a kiss. He tries to inhale longer to indulge in the scent of your hair but not too much to call your attention. And as the moment passes, thirty minutes, perhaps because the video's finally done playing in the background, Erwin realizes something.

Just… just what held him back from being like this towards you? This is, in fact, a short step. The bare minimum, even. And even so, it felt genuinely liberating. Indeed, he's been forcing himself to be vulnerable recently, but this is the first time it exuded a positive feeling. 

Your hands gently stop, the instruction's done, and Erwin only realizes when you turn to look him in the eye, "You get it?"

"The what?"

"Huh?"

"Oh," Erwin tries to recall what his blank, sappy head might have digested so far, only to no avail. The only thing coming up in his mind right now is the smell of your shampoo. Perhaps his nerdy brain is trying to guess the unfamiliar flavor mix and earn your praise once his guess is correct. "I—uh—"

"You didn't listen at all."

He smiles, guilty.

You sigh, "I'm quite persistent, you see. We're not eating dinner until we both master this knot."

"Wouldn't this wait? I'm not in the mood anymore."

You shake your head and untie the yarn. But just as you're about to quip at his newfound impatience (and how cute he is trying to get the hang of it like a little kid learning origami), Erwin grasps the tool away from your hands and cups your cheeks.

He first lands a chaste peck on your forehead, then the bridge of your nose, then the tip of it, then the two cheeks, and finally, it deepens when he reaches for your mouth.

And because you are indeed a persistent being, you have no idea how shamelessly grateful Erwin was when you did more than just pull him in. He tried to stop himself, after all, for seconds in case it'd do anything better. Maybe you're not in the mood; perhaps you want to see the side of him not knowing better and learning things together. But when his palm glided on your cheek and your eyes widened in response, the tremor in his nerves overpowered the need to ask. 

Perhaps the tremor was gratitude because here he is, not getting any younger, and yet, this is only his first genuine step to face his vulnerability. 

You kiss him back and wrap your arm around his neck to pull him in, albeit quite sure why he's suddenly kissing you like this.

Unlike the previous one, his kisses are full of gentleness, and not a tinge of frustration can be seen. His hands, although huge and hard, slide inside your shirt so softly to feel your bare skin. You withdraw a bit to ask what might be the matter, but quickly forget the question when you see his face. He's blushing as though it's the first time he has kissed like this. His eyes are pretty lidded, lips a bit open, and you realize that although you had seen this expression before, it was for a very brief moment—not immediately after a chaste kissing session. 

He looks at you, quite disappointed for cutting the kiss short again. He grabs you by the ankle until you're sitting on his lap.

"Did something happen?"

He shakes his head, "Saying it out loud would be sappy."

"If you think I'd forgive you for spacing out while I'm—kyah!"

He starts sucking on your neck, "Shut up and don't ruin the moment."

"The what? Hey, don't mark on it. I'm warning you."

Erwin really wants to explain his thoughts. He's sure you'd be glad if you were to know all of this. Even though he could never perceive this as a significant step beyond, he bet you'd be giggling and jumping once you know.

He looks up and tries to explain but realizes how tired he is holding everything in—it took him decades. Erwin addressed it only after loving someone so ardently that he was willing to give up years-long prideful habits—all to love you more. He is exhausted, and your lips are so soft and so near, offering the sheer comfort he needs. It's parted slightly; if his tongue were to slip inside, it would send him into great bliss. Erwin is exhausted right now; perhaps he’d share his thoughts after this overwhelming, trembling warmth subsides.

For now, he at least tries to give a small context, "This is the best birthday I've ever had."

"Y-you think so?!" What have you done? You've been thinking about it for months! How could it happen without you knowing? "We spent the day indoors. We haven't even done anything special yet."

"You'd get quite full of yourself if you knew."

"You're trying to escape for not listening to my crochet blabbers."

"I don't want to get sappy today. Can't we just continue?"

"Well, uh… I really want to know what I did," you avert your gaze away. "I've been at the edge lately, thinking of ways to make you say you got the best birthday today—with me. Now that you finally say it, however…"

Again, it's as if you hit a nail, albeit unsure where and how you did.

"And there you have it. Your answer."

"Huh?" It took you a while to process that. "Because you're with me?"

He nods, albeit in a teasing manner.

"Eek. The sap shudders me."

"That's why I asked if we could just continue where we left off."

"The crocheting, indeed." you tease, but as you're about to reach the tool again, Erwin carries you up in his arms. He doesn't even need to tell you where he'd bring you. The impatient man would straight up lead you to bed to show what he wants.

Instead of scolding him for cutting the lecture off, you sigh and muffle your head in his neck, "You have to thank god it's your birthday today."

"Oh, yes of course," he kisses the crown of your head. "Thank you, dear."

TAGLIST: sorry for causing inconvenience with your notifs, my dears in taglist TT i wasn't planning to publish this tonight but the birthday request activated my brain neurons and said "what if u unload your WIPS and just publish this thing" so yea. sorry. @frenchdyer @watyousayin @collinnmckinley @aeanya @xiaotopia @cadenza-damour @grimistheangerinmystares @rinamars | STORY SUBSCRIPTION FORM

MORE OF SWEET SUBTLETIES SERIES HERE

[orbitposting]

Hello, I was wondering if u could tell me more about the DID youtube stuff and the stuff with DissociaDID, I don't know a lick of any of that, I've only rlly watched The Entropy System, The Rings System and some of DissociaDID's educational videos fairly recently (still new to the online OSDDID community in general), all I've heard is that DissociaDID is anti-endo?

(I use DissociaDID to refer to the system as a whole. They don't have another updated system name that I am aware of.)

Hi, two people brought up something like this in my inbox, and it's worth clarifying. My point was unclear, and I'll do my best to clarify now. In my eyes, DissociaDID has come under a lot of scrunity for concerns that are valid but overblown, standards that others are not held to, ableism/fakeclaiming, and sometimes claims that are bordering on conspiracy. Unfortunately, I was pretty up-to-date on the situation, so I'll make an outline of things people were upset about.

Outdated

- Using racial terms to describe a darker-skinned alter, Nadia, when the body is white. Of my knowledge, this has not happened since. (I am white, so I can't police if you forgive them or not. This is just context.)

- Engagement with Team Piñata*. They're no longer together. End of.

- Overstating their qualifications. DissociaDID no longer states any qualifications other than being a system that does research, basically. Before, it sounded almost like they were claiming to be a mental health professional.

- They partnered with BetterHelp** at one point. They never gave a statement, but they haven't promoted it since.

Disproven/Clarified

- DissociaDID has used *very* outdated studies to support points in their older videos. This is frowned upon in scientific research, where sources become less accurate very quickly (Rule of thumb is use studies no greater than 20 years old). DissociaDID has previously referenced a study from 1902, at worst.

- Many criticise DissociaDID for coming back to YouTube just when their monetization is about to run out.

- Can handle criticism very poorly at times, which people took an issue with, especially when they were proporting themselves as mental health experts.

- Brought a flood of people to the DID community, negative attention included. Many DID YouTubers stopped posting due to the negative attention the DID community received. DissociaDID did not personally cause this, as far as I can tell.

- Diagnosis at Pottergate Center: Even if that diagnosis wasn't valid, they were also diagnosed through the NHS. (Diagnosis is sometimes referred to in ways other than pencil-and-paper diagnosis, too.)

Not sure, but hasn't come up

- Treatment of various friends in the DID community such as Bobo & Co.

General dislike (Up to you)

- Many say they are "sensationalizing" DID, due to their florid presentation (This may also be paired with fakeclaiming)

- Mara's TikTok has come under fire for posting more suggestive content. Soren stands by her right to do so, and checks it before it is posted.

Borderline conspiracy and fakeclaiming

- One system member interacted with a minor on a livestream in a somewhat suggestive manner. (Their account says minors DNI, but people argue they should have been more mindful.)

- Many people get an odd vibe from their content, since it is so polished, and argue that it doesn't reflect the reality of DID since it's so pristine.

- Some find it very odd that they advertise their Patreon with having BTS footage of them dissociating/switching.

- Some people allege DissociaDID made up her alters after reading a certain book regarding programming. Some roles/alter names/inner world details lined up.

*Team Piñata was exposed for drawing minors in inappropriate situations and possibly doing commissions of this content.

- Since DissociaDID has previously mentioned RAMCOA (or a similar term), people who believe that that phrasing is antisemitic, conspiritorial, and/or completely fake don't believe that she is a valid source of DID information

- DissociaDID has been accused of copying their trauma from other systems. The foundation of this theory rests on them malingering DID.

- (Outdated also) People used to theorize Team Piñata and DissociaDID never broke up. It has been a long time since then, and DissociaDID doesn't even mention them by name anymore.

- DissociaDID has been fighting a court battle since 2020 or so and has linked to their CrowdJustice page for a while. People theorized that they were taking the money for themselves instead. DissociaDID has stated that the funds go directly to lawyers and never enter their hands.

**BetterHelp has been criticized for its lack of quality control, especially surrounding uncertified "therapists" to conduct therapy through their service and the unprofessional behavior of therapists using the service.

So that's what I can recall at the moment. Five of the issues are up to personal opinion. Personally, I think DissociaDID has had problems but has a magnifying glass on their behavior for years. If you don't like them, please just leave them alone.

[terraliensvent]

Ok civ's response is honestly kinda funny, I should've known only someone equally as delusional could go along with coy's bullshit all this time.

https://toyhou.se/~bulletins/2068868.update

Image link in case it gets deleted: https://imgur.com/a/lDxBSoT

As another unemployed artist the fact they think terra staff "ruined their income" when not only are they absolutely popular enough to make money off their art. They also have coy's audience backing them as well, so this claim is extremely laughable to me. Try having no audience at all and not having a community made up of big spenders from cs communities, then maybe we'll feel a little sympathy.

Or better yet maybe if you and coy contributed an ounce of effort beyond being greedy assholes you'd still be able to make money off the species. But no, clearly they never learn their fucking lesson because every single species they've made eventually gets ruined because of their insistence on running the species according to how much money they can make.

It's genuinely hilarious to me that they both actually think they're the victims in this situation because terra staff finally put their foots down and said they can't keep using the species for money. Go get a damn job if you're that desperate and stop taking advantage of the people who want to actually enjoy the species and especially stop causing issues for the terra staff team who are actually fucking trying despite all the bullshit they've had to go through because of you both.

I'm so tired of them and entitled greedy cs owners in general, I couldn't fathom being this self centered honestly it's sad.

post related

bulletin link

yeah i think im gonna call bullshit on this, lets do a little dissection here

" What they didn't mention was how they banned both coy and myself (even though I had nothing to do with the deletion of the pets/left the conversation civilly before that was discussed), "

even if civ had nothing to do with deleting the pets, i would argue terra staff made the right choice in banning them. what coy did is equivalent to vandalism and can cause further problems if there are issues with code and such. furthermore, wouldnt it make sense to ban civ as well if theyre closely associated and have the power on the account to do more vandalism? civ you werent doing shit for the species other than farting out adopts every week, youll live.

 "..refused to negotiate with us, did not include us in the original discussion about OUR OWN TERMS that were agreed on when we left ownership, and the new owner was unwilling to participate in the discussion originally."

i am SO curious to see what actually went on in staff chat. the conclusion im personally drawing here is that the original discussion occurred in a staff-only chat (somewhere where civ and coy wouldnt be because theyre NOT FUCKING STAFF) and then when the final agreement was reached, they came to civ and coy. maybe they could have gone differently about it but honestly, knwoing now that civ and coy have continually shut down any sort of discussion like this due to their greed (cough cough THIS whole debacle) im not surprised they wouldnt be asked for their two cents.

"Both sides have made mistakes; but the terra staff refused to acknowledge their dishonest and disrespectful actions that led up to this. Had they been willing to compromise and talk to us, this wouldn't have happened. "

again i am just not willing to believe this when civ and coy have a history of being shitty to staff (shall i bring back the receipts?), when cal(tycho) has a history of being a good owner even after the enormous shitshow of what you put him through, when, after you two finally fucked off, things are actually being MOVED FORWARD in the species (like trait guides, new items to allow lim traits, new site assets, all within a timeframe of like. two months. civ and coy had the species for over a fucking year and did nothing. just some food for thought)

like im not going to believe you unless you give adequate proof in the form of screenshots or something. but they probably wouldnt do that because it would most likely show current staff being totally reasonable and you two shitting your diapers over it.

"They silenced me and put their foot down, ruining my source of income as a disabled unemployed artist."

hmm lets crunch some numbers here

you have seven terra adopts that are on your most recent designs tab. presumably you are allowed to keep the money from that because it happened before everything went down

now a lot of these are pretty pricey, the first in the list is $300

however if you go through the rest of their recent designs its all little chibi stuff for around ~$20. that could be a defense for the "wah wah you stole my one source of income" if it werent for the fact these designs almost never go unsold, they have chibi slots open for $45, and they also have fucking isopups to ride the coattails off of. like you will be fine, you have many ways to make money off of your art as opposed to some 10 follower account. this is pop artist bitching at its finest.

and again, it is THEIR FAULT they dont have terra income anymore. how in the world is it fair for them to have more money opportunities than people actively working on the species just because they slapped their names on it.

finally lets do a funny little comment showcase!

people keep equating the old staff team to the new staff team. lets talk about bear, lets talk about kea, lets talk about fucking coy. thats the staff YOU employed, not the people trying to throw together the pieces. you want to again, absolve yourself of all responsibility acting like it wasnt YOUR FRIENDS that YOU picked for the staff team that was causing problems. bear literally caused the first downfall of the species (architechals) and YOUR staff are the ones who ran with it and decided to be petty and immature and make knockoffs. i swear to god this reminds me of people saying shit like "the economy was better under x president!" when the current president inherits the economy of the previous one

jesse please do everyone a favor and just shut up for once, you only care as long as you can profit off of the situation, your wording is so stupid i genuinely lost braincells. civ and coy absolutely do have the means to make money off their art, far more than other people, and the issue with the situation is that theyre making more money off the species than the people actually putting in work to maintain the fucking species, the agreement according to tycho would have STILL allowed them to make more than terra staff but they were too greedy and stupid to just shut up. and to make an ableism argument really just makes me want to bash my head into a wall. civ is not some poor discarded puppy "thrown out in the rain," they have the ability to make a lot more fucking money than most others can off of art, and not to mention they have the ability to use the fans of those they have connections with, like coy or even fucking kea

but in all seriousness, its SO fucking funny to me how theyre acting like civ and coy are some fucking marytrs for terraliens, like they were working sleepless nights to do the best they could each and every day hoping and praying they could make it!! please be fucking for real. again, that species did not even have TRAIT GUIDES for the full calendar year after it was created because civ and coy just didnt give enough of a fuck to do it. listen im gonna ride or die for new staff right now because there is TANGIBLE EVIDENCE of them actually going above and beyond anything ever done under civ and coy. compare #staff-wips from civ and coys reign to now. before, all you would see is adopts. thats it. nothing else just adopts. now, within the course of three months, new staff have come up with unique events, had lore writer, mod, and OA applications, released a new set of forageables THAT GIVE REWARDS, entirely revamped one of the forage areas with plans to do the rest, held the myo compensation event (a feat in and of itself), show CONTINUAL wips of shit actually important to the species (like new items), take in community input, and again, above all else, FINALLY put out trait guides. id say theyre doing fucking leagues more work than civ and coy ever did.

and this is just fucking laughable. ive already made all my arguments, you can see the types of people we are dealing with here. calling jealousy is absurd and downright hilarious

their fanbases need to wake tf up because these people love to victimize themselves and misconstrue shit all day long

[shreddheir]

This is going to be fairly long, and also much more serious than my usual jjba meta. apologies in advance if i seem stilted: i have some issues with verbalizing things in a formal matter

Terunosuke Miyamoto's fate and portrayal are another egregious example of the subconscious bias present in Araki's work.

When I mention how Terunosuke was one of two characters to be given a fate worse than death in part 4, that he was the only p4 character to be nameless until years after the manga was completed, or that his fate was arguably undeserved, i am not saying anything new.

But I feel like not many people consider or realize that Terunosuke is canonically the only dark-skinned character in all of diamond is unbreakable.

Not only that, he is somewhat implied to be a foreigner in the manga (i cannot find a scan with a translation, but the canned drink he destroys is notably labeled as fruit lassi and it has a small drawing of an indian elephant on it).

In a part set in Japan, the only dark-skinned character, a character who is also implied to not be Japanese:

-is one of the few villains deemed irredeemable.

-is portrayed as uniquely sadistic, manipulative, and predatory, even when his actions are less or equally malicious than the actions of other characters. He kidnapped people and took hostages, but so did rohan. He threatened Josuke's family, but so did akira, and josuke was perfectly content with letting akira go to jail regularly.

-in fact, his crimes, crimes which are not unique among the cast of DIU, are deemed by Josuke to be as horrific as angelo's crimes, which were in fact uniquely horrible among the cast of diu.

-is given no characterization or motivation outside of sadism, to the point where he had no name for a good couple of years.

-is never mentioned or shown in canon again, which happens to few other DIU characters. Not even in the added davidpro epilogue scenes, which show other characters that were previously MIA after their respective arcs (such as toyohiro).

In fact, Davidpro actually makes his portrayal WORSE, all because of one small detail.

When his cover is shown onscreen, there's a small sticker on it that says, verbatim, "Morioh Public Library." Josuke hasn’t been to the library at that point. I may be reading in too deep, but the implication is that this sticker is part of his “body” and can’t be removed.

Terunosuke is the only dark skinned character in diamond is unbreakable, and the last proper shot of him is an image of him being..basically branded. It’s hard for this to not leave a bad taste in one’s mouth.

I do not think araki or davidpro were being intentionally malicious or bigoted in their handling of Terunosuke. The meaning of subconscious bias is that it is subconscious, so i do not think the enigma boy arc or terunosuke in general were written in bad faith .

However, the racism, colorism, and xenophobia that saturate his role in the story (to be a disposable and irredeemable villain who is only meant to be another obstacle in the face of our golden-hearted hero ) and his fate (to be literally dehumanized and locked away, never to be seen again, presumably for the "safety and greater good of morioh") are very clear.

Anti-discourse disclaimer fine text:

i am not trying to cancel jjba, diu, araki, davidpro, or any related concepts and parties, and i am not trying to make claims about the personal beliefs or agendas of hirohiko araki or members of david productions in any way, shape, or form. i am just writing about subconscious bias and how it possibly shaped a story arc in diu. i am not trying to give moral judgement to araki, davidpro, or any fans of jjba in this post. i am not trying to stop the collective you from enjoying things, just trying to inform. also, racism, xenophobia and colorism are bad. I edited this post due to quoting something based on an unofficial and incorrect translation and making a hypocritical point in the concluding paragraph.

[eighthdoctor]

I've never done any kind of proper historical studies -- everything I've learned is from high school, from reading things on wikipedia, from history podcasts, and more rarely (because I rarely have the patience to read) from books. So I... hardly know anything about specifics. The kind of intimate knowledge of the inner workings of empires and peoples that a college educated student would have.

This might sound odd but... it's a bit reassuring to me that even someone who's spent years studying those two specific subjects doesn't feel comfortable saying for certain what any individual person, or group of people may have been experiencing at any given time. That the environment people lived in was so *vastly* different that one can only have clues as to what people felt, how they experienced the world.

All that being said, and I do apologize if this is another too-vague or too-broad question -- do you feel as though your college studies have changed the way you relate to the past?

So I wanna unpack some of this a little bit, because you're closing off some avenues I don't think you need to close off.

College students do learn about specifics, but the thing that's really being taught in college is how to think and learn. Skills, not facts. Part of what made that conversation with the history majors so memorable is that it highlighted how much is different between majors in that regard.

Sociology vs psych might be a valuable example here: Rule of thumb, sociology teaches you to approach issues on a population level, groups of people; psychology teaches you to approach issues on the individual level. There's very few areas where either is 100% right to the exclusion of the other, but it's useful to know which lens (a) you and (b) your source is using, if you're going to be reading about, e.g., the causes of poor academic performance in American boys. Psych says this is due to a rise in ADHD; socio says our classrooms aren't suitable for...anyone, but especially people who have never had to sit still and be quiet (ie, boys).

WHAT you learn in college is HOW to learn. (It's also, crucially, a period where 1, you very often have nothing else to do BUT learn and 2, you are paying a gazillion dollars for the privilege of learning, so you're heavily incentivized to actually do it. Free activities are easier to stop doing than ones you paid to do.)

It's how to navigate databases, how to read articles (peer reviewed or otherwise), which resources to trust, what it MEANS to trust a resource, how to read with different lenses, how to find information at all, what sorts of conclusions are reasonable or specious to draw from that information (aka: how flimsy can your argument be before your professor will tell you to find more evidence), when to apply certain techniques...

* Enormous caveat: if your professors were any good. Some of them aren't. Many of them aren't. If your professors universally suck, you'll come out with a meaningless degree and student debt, which is not ideal.

But theoretically, at least, the purpose of 21st century higher ed is to teach you how to learn.

Then you go apply it.

All of which is to say: The granular factoids I have on call about 15th and 16th century explorers did not come from college; I didn't take a single class on that era. They came from books and articles and online resources. College taught me how to evaluate those books (although common sense plays a huge role here) but the rest of it was self driven.

Here's the other thing: None of that knowledge is paywalled.

While the decline of Google makes finding some of these resources harder, I highly, highly recommend just searching things like "how to judge a history source" and "basic resources for social history" (a guess based on your focus on 'inner workings of empires and peoples'). Then read a bunch of links (please first filter for obviously AI written pages!).

THEN ask yourself some questions: Where did those links disagree? Are there areas they all agreed on? Was there something that 8 pages agreed on but 2 did not? If it seems like a key area, go check who's written & hosting those links, and consider what they might (or might not) know about the field. (If r/askhistorians and PragerU disagree on a definition, you can bet which one I'm listening to.)

After reading a bunch of pages, you probably have MORE search terms and MORE questions. Repeat. Repeat.

I just mentioned r/askhistorians: For this sort of thing, I would read anything with the Monday Methods flair. Start here. That page was last updated 5 years ago but it DOES link to 3 years of mostly weekly posts on how historians think. 100% free. No college tuition required.

Podcasts are great resources. r/askhistorians is fucking invaluable. I would murder for the r/askhistorians modteam, no questions asked.

Reading is a learnable skill! Reading history books is very learnable! I stopped reading print material for 2 years, and when I was getting back into it, I set myself an alarm. 15 minutes a day in the evening when I had nothing else going on. Start with fiction if you're out of the habit, YA would be my recommendation, then start expanding.

There ARE history books with audio versions out there and you can check your library system for those; I don't vibe with audiobooks so can't provide any specifics, but I know they exist. Most history books won't have recordings, though--what you may be able to do if you check out or purchase a digital version is use a text-to-speech program or screenreader to read it to you. This obviously has some drawbacks :P But it's an option!

So: Did my degrees affect how I interact with history? Yeah. I'm not discarding the impact of my education, I had some really phenomenal classics teachers. But they're not the only way to get that result. There are other routes to the same destination.

[homoerotic]

im just feeling very demoralized. exceedingly so. i want to be a radiographer so badly. i wish i had known sooner but i want this so so so bad. and i cant help but think the reason i didnt get in this time is due to two things:

1. i had one (1) C on my transcript. in ECON. a class that has no bearing on my major but dampened my gpa exponentially

2. i had a panic attack during the venipuncture lab in one of my rad classes because i didnt adequately prepare myself for it. and i distinctly remembering my professor telling me "if you cant do this you arent cut out for this major" so i bet she brought that up during deliberation.

its not fair man. i dont live at home w my parents, i dont have a free schedule to study constantly. i have so many bills, so many doctors appointments and health issues to handle. i have to take care of my family.

i have such a bad needle phobia that i am actively working on. its bullshit! you dont NEED to do venipuncture as a radiographer! if i was specializing in CT/nucmed then YES 100% i understand that due to administering contrast. but every single nurse and radiographer ive spoken to has told me that learning that is a waste of time for me.

so how do i prove that im capable of handling the sight of needles now? drawing blood =/= seeing patients get their blood drawn/have IVs. they are not the same. i even wrote a whole essay about my phobia for that professor to help her see my side of it all. isnt it enough that im willing to expose myself to this daily because of how bad i want this?

i was fine, REALLY, i was fine not getting in this time. i really was because i was told left and right that getting in your first time is as likely as the lottery. so why does the girl that i see every single week for the past two semesters get in her first time? the same girl that ive constantly had to help through math and chemistry. who isnt confident in any of her homework answers. who needs me to hold her hand all the time through the complicated concepts.

and i know thats not fair of me to be angry at her. i know she works hard. she has good grades. shes in the honors program. but we both have medical experience. im 5+ years older than her. what did her personal statement have that mine didnt? why wasnt i good enough.

i know i am being over dramatic and acting very entitled but i cannot help but be angry and upset over this because i want this SO BADLY. i want this more than anything else and now i have to wait another year for it. a whole year of my life for the next slim chance of being picked. and what if im denied again? i'll be 27.

i want to start my career. i want to help my partner pay for our bills again. i want to stop struggling to survive. but now i have to wait and wait and wait. and i have to bend over backwards this next application period. get more certifications, dedicate more of my limited free time to volunteering. retake classes for a better gpa. spend more money. kill myself faster. struggle struggle struggle.

im so tired. im so fucking tired. im sick of being a student. im sick of college. im sick of feeling this age gap with my peers. im sick of being lonely. im sick of not being good enough. im sick of it all.

[capn-queer]

Actually did some art for once, so. Woo! It's been a while, kinda been just idling trying to figure out how to make good 3d models, but I decided that like. Yeah I should just try making some 2d stuff because it's been a while. And I did. And I enjoyed it.

There's two, a Warframe character and a D&D character, don't know if I should be splitting this up into two posts but like. There's not really a tutorial or anything for using Tumblr as far as I'm aware and it seems unlikely many people will see this anyway so even if it's a bit bothersome, it shouldn't be Too bothersome.

Anyways, first one, this is Damhnait, named after the singer for Sleeping in the Cold Below. They're my Tenno OC because Warframe has been taking up my time in Destiny's stead now that the sunk cost fallacy's not holding me down. They're a bit of a bigger kid compared to a lot of the others on the Zariman, and because of that they felt responsible when everything went to shit, and tried to keep at least their little group together, which they managed pretty well, eventually ending up starting a clan and building a dojo with their friends.

Fast forwards a bit after first waking up, they're... not doing so hot as a faceless super soldier still, but they're not doing terribly, more just strangely empty as they go about their life up until the point the Second Dream happens.

They aren't the one who makes the discovery but to be fair it doesn't matter that much when you find out everything you thought you knew about yourself was built up on a lie, that lie being the idea that you and the people you are ordering to fight are adults and not a bunch of literal child soldiers.

Obviously, they are not exactly Okay after that little revelation and have not Transferred back into any of their Warframes even Once after recovering their real body, instead being carried around like in the Second Dream most of the time, also not being the most physically healthy just in general and due to that being pretty much wheelchair bound. I mean. If that wheelchair was a humanoid-killing machine capable of magnetizing people's bones.

Anyways, I tried to base them off their look in game a decent amount but obviously it's not perfect, their scars especially bother me but I haven't figured out texture for any of my other drawings and I'm certainly not stopping now.

And now onto something relatively more lighthearted, Cosgrove, named after Matt Cosgrove who plays on the TTRPG channel the Third Wheel and also made a bunch of character songs for the PCs and NPCs. He's one of my current player characters, a Wild Magic Sorcerer who had a very normal homelife with parents who love him and a dog and went to Magic Highschool and Magic College just like anyone else, eventually graduating with an ethics degree and becoming a workplace health and safety inspector for the Nine Shrines Merchant's Guild with a serious disposition and a desire to help others.

Only... well, this is a D&D character, so obviously there's problems. Not from what you might think though, this man's as straight-laced and surprisingly average as they come, with a loving family, a decent social life, a stable job, a home to come back to, etc. The only real issue is something he's dealt with his entire life, his magic, something wild and uncontrollable that he's grown to resent over the years, which is what even lead to most of his decisions, to his need for control over himself and deeply unhealthy level of responsibility for others even when reasonably he should be looking out for himself.

He joined the party, not because of his own goals or motivations, but because his best friend, my previous character Indrina Morea, ended up getting seriously messed up in the first fight she was in, not enough to kill her but enough for her to realize that she was not enough for the party as it stood then and there, and for her to make the decision to ask for help, going to the most capable person she knew, who she also knew was a strong magic user even if he actively avoided using any magic.

He's got a deeply unhealthy mindset for an adventurer obviously, adventurers are so deeply varied but they almost all Want things, have their own wants and desires, don't hesitate in dangerous situations and act on their instincts. Cosgrove though... he freezes up, he refuses to use magic unless given proper authorization by either the leader of the party or the highest rank ally available. He uses a gun in most of his fights and doesn't even Have a damaging spell.

He's the weakest link in the party, and the rest of the party doesn't Know it yet, even to him, while it's obvious he isn't exactly suited he doesn't know the extent of it, and it's going to be made Very Clear through various fights, getting singled out and having his weaknesses taken advantage of, and through it all he'll either sink on his own or the other party members will recognize what's going on and push him to start swimming. It's all a matter of whether they'll see the dangers and flaws of his current mindset before it's too late.

As you can tell by... well, all of that, I have a lot more to say about Cosgrove than I do about Damhnait, which makes sense because he's a character that's actively doing stuff and not just in my head while leveling up random items. As for his design, it's pretty simple and formal. I wanted to really hammer home how out of his depth he is here by making him... well, an office worker.

He doesn't look like some hero or even particularly fantastical, he's just a guy, he Wants to be just a guy, he's rejecting himself to be that and he's covered it up so well that if the rest of the party hadn't actively seen him using magic in combat they wouldn't even know. I also largely took inspiration from, well, two Jujutsu Kaisen characters, Nanami and a guy from the manga who I'm not gonna spoil in case any of my friends who wants to watch/read the series read this.

Anyways, that's the two of them. Who knows, maybe I'll post more within a semi-reasonable time-frame if I finish up more pics soon. I have been thinking about drawing my other active and soon to be active D&D characters, and maybe when I get more comfortable with art again I can start doing more complex things than just headshots, all just kinda depends.

At least I'm not working with MS Paint now.

[sealrock]

some 'andromache as odin, the wandering primal' musings that I've been tumbling around in my brain lately in no particular order under the cut since it got long:

since andromache has the echo she can't be tempered by the blade zantetsuken, but she has the power to take on odin's image at will thanks to the surrounding aether. she cannot temper others, however

(there's a very slim chance that andromache could be a warrior of light the more I flesh this out due to power scaling shenanigans in order to be on par with paris; andi is sort of like zenos in that regard)

the biggest thing I did was deivate from the lore dealing with white auracite and made zantetsuken an ascian slayer via the shin-zantetsuken ability. since it's an instant death situation for anything with normal zantetsuken, I figured even an ascian can't survive being cut in two with the upgraded version and their aether would be corrupted beyond repair. this also serves as a plot point for andromache that I'll eventually iron out; she believes that hector cannot be saved so the only option is to put him out of his misery permanently before the ascians' goals are met

andi either obtained zantetsuken through a secret auction a la soul edge or stumbled across the blade in a hidden location. the blade has unknown origins but the most common theory is that it's an allagan construct like save the queen in the bozja storyline

andromache can conjure up gungnir (the spear) and sleipnir (the horse) any time as they're both spectral

in the time since she's owned zantetsuken, andromache has been hunted by the garlean empire based on clashes with a roaming primal since roughly before ARR (she may or may not have been involved in the battle of carteneau). it's why she never stays in one place for long due to the empire's reach across the realm. at some point she came into contact with gaius post-praetorium and they both teamed up to put an end to the ascians. this lead to an explosive confrontation between her and paris post-stormblood

at the same time, the scions know about a mysterious wandering primal throughout the story and attempt to put a stop to it with paris. paris had no idea odin was their mother, and they were ultimately defeated each and every time during random encounters. andromache leaves paris alive but badly beaten in order to buy time and disappear to lay low for a while. the scions consider it suspicious that such a powerful primal would leave the wol alive but more pressing matters would draw their attention away from the issue

she also has two familiars, huginn and muninn. they're spectral birds who andi sends out to gather information on ascian activity and whereabouts. but more often than not andi uses them to keep an eye on paris and has been doing this for years. paris never knew why there would be a pair of pecuilar ravens always in the same location as them, they would get an uneasy feeling as it seemed like they were being spied on

zantetsuken disguses itself to appear as a regular sword in order to bind the wielder to its will. if the person is weak-willed there's a higher chance of it tempering said person. andromache naturally has a strong will + the echo so she is able to take control of the blade easily

it's a personal headcanon of mine that my version of zantetsuken acts like soul edge from the soulcalibur series. as an extremely powerful weapon, it has a mind of its own and acts on the desires of the wielder, but it won't submit to just anyone. like above, if the person only wants to use zantetsuken for petty things like power or is too faint hearted to withstand its aether, it will twist the user's aether into a mindless odin puppet to forever drain the land dry of aether. with andromache as its master, zantetsuken acts on her good natured desire to rid the world of ascians and their god zodiark

[digitallumian]

I know i said i wouldn’t post writings on my blog since it wasn’t good enough but uh i wanna see what tumblr thinks

MASSIVE TW: Mentions of Overdosing, bullying, suicide, drugs, Thoughts of self harm

I feel like i forgot to add more tw’s but its 5am/srs and I can’t remember if i need to add more

Some Context:

This is an AU of a Kaiju Paradise rp me and a friend made where what we think would have happened if these Characters weren’t exposed to Laminax Labs at a Young age.

>Two ocs, Buck and Blaxor, are not mine and therefore, don’t have much written about them here. <

This is told from the perspective of Kanade Yukimura, an Idol/Popstar which gives an explanation as to why she takes a break near two specific dates each year since the beginning of her career in an interview with a Journalist. Below is what was said in the interview.

Ever since Fourth Grade, Me and my friends had to deal with our own personal issues that we’d tell each other, One of us had it bad. Koneko was one of my closest friends. We did everything together and we even started dreaming of becoming idols together. when we hit fourth grade Koneko started being bullied by some kids in a higher grade than us. At first, it started as just insults on her comfort clothing and Interests and Koneko was able to take it because she knew it was ‘weird’ and that's why she liked it, but the bullying soon escalated and started getting physical.

The kids, who were in seventh grade, would Constantly push and shove Koneko when they got the chance to and Koneko seemed to try her best to not engage because whenever I and our friends convinced her to go to teachers, counselors, or even the principal about it but they’d just tell her to ignore it or ignore her. One day those bullies pushed Koneko down the stairs and she was rushed to the hospital, she awoke a week or two later, and I was so happy she was alive that I didn't care about anything else, this is when Koneko started to spiral deeper and deeper into depression though. In first grade, Koneko started drawing, and by fifth grade, she started showing us her drawings.

At first, her drawings were adorable usually drawings of her special interests at the time such as Pokemon, Vocaloid, or My Little Pony but the bullying started getting worse, Koneko couldn't go into the hallways without being harassed by her bullies, and watching her suffer pained me. I tried to help, I tried to protect her but we were younger and weaker and I already suffer from a condition that makes me even weaker than I already am so every time I tried to help I always failed and I’d be forced to watch as she got hurt over and over after I was harmed.

By seventh grade, Koneko’s drawings started getting concerning. It went from just fan art of her favorite media to more gore and vent art, she always disguised it as her own original characters or from series like The Evilious Chronicles and I didn't want to question her about it as I didn't want to seem pushy or even seem like I'm trying to be invasive of her personal problems.

Koneko always carried a diary, she never let anyone read it and kept it to herself due to it being one of the only times she could talk about her problems. Buck, Blaxor, and I knew she was Genderfluid and how she liked girls, she had written that in her journal because what kid wouldn't? After all a journal is a kid's written safe space after all. Somehow during P.E. One of the bullies broke into the locker Koneko’s diary was in and stole it, During lunch we used to sit together at the lunch tables and that's when it happened, The kid who had her journal and outed out many of her secrets including her gender identity and preference, She never stepped a foot in that cafeteria again.

Eighth grade rolled around and Koneko had become a shadow of her former self, she stopped drawing and burned her journal one day, she started falling asleep in class and would push me, Blaxor, and Buck away and no matter how hard we tried to help her, she never let us. One day Koneko got access to drugs, I can’t remember what grade we were in but I remember that day very clearly up to a certain point.

I went to visit Koneko that day because I was worried about her, Blaxor’s Dad had to pick her up because she had expressed thoughts of self-harm in one of her assignments and Konekos father was supposed to keep watch of her due to ‘the schools concern with things at home’, Konekos sibling Hex wasn’t home and was at military school so when I entered I was hoping that at least Konekos father was at least there, but the house was empty, I felt a sinking feeling, I slowly walked to Koneko’s room hoping that the feeling would go away and started asking if she's okay and if I could come in. There wasn’t an answer so I said I was going to go in and check on her, I gently opened the door... and Koneko was there.. on the floor with a bottle of pills in her hand.

I froze, I didn’t know what to do, I must have blacked out or I blocked out that part of the memory because the next thing I knew, I, Blaxor, and Buck were at the hospital, I was praying to every God possible at that moment, Hoping that Koneko would wake up and be okay. Luckily she woke up and I was so happy about it that I started crying, all that mattered to me at that moment was that she was alive. She was sent to a mental health facility after she was discharged from the hospital and I would visit along with Buck and Blaxor, she seemed so much happier there. When Koneko returned to school the bullying started again and it got worse.

Someone told the whole school about Koneko’s suicide attempt and being at the mental hospital and so many people would say horrible things. It was from things like “she's crazy” and “she's unstable” to things like “You should try again” or “Next time you try to overdose do it right”, This caused Koneko to Push everyone further away and it got to the point the only time she talked to us it'd be online with our group chat and even then it would always be with short phrases.

I Liked her, Like really liked her, I never told her though because of my fear of rejection but I wish I could go back and tell her that I loved her because I look back and realized that maybe those three words would have saved her.

It was ninth grade and the school year was nearly over, we just had three months left and at this point, Koneko never talked to me or the others as much as she used to. They had broken her down and she went from a young and hopeful child with dreams to someone I didn't even recognize anymore, she lost her spark and what made her so joyful. I realize it now but Koneko had been planning it for a while because one day she seemed so happy and gave Blaxor, Buck, and me her most valuable and sentimental things. She gave me a lot of her stuff like her guitar. I should have realized what she was doing due to the sudden shift in behavior because...

it took her away from me...

It was a Thursday and It was lunchtime. I was eating on the rooftop because we no longer sat in the cafeteria after the incident, I saw Koneko come from inside the building and walked to the Fence that surrounded the school's roof. I saw her climbing it and my vision started getting blurry and I started blacking out as I realized what she was doing, I screamed her name to try to get her to stop but as my vision cleared...

She was gone.

I don't remember much after she jumped. According to people who were there, I tried to climb the fence too but two kids grabbed me and held me back telling me that I had so much to live for and just trying to calm me down. The school was put on lockdown after a while. I could feel my phone Vibrating like crazy as Blaxor and Buck spammed the group chat. I didn't care. She was gone. I couldn't stop her. I knew she was suffering. I knew she was hurting, I saw the signs and I didn't do anything. An hour later, the school called the parents to pick up their kids as there was an incident at the school. Buck and Blaxor found me on the rooftop with the two other kids as no one came to get us. Of course they wouldn’t, that school didn’t care about us.

Buck and Blaxor tried to ask me questions but I couldn't hear anything, I could only hear a high pitch as I tried to process everything, I just refused to believe it. We went home and I just locked myself in my room, I refused to eat dinner or even any food after that, I felt sick, I felt like I was to blame because I saw the signs if I did something she would still be here. I felt disgusted in myself because I felt that because I didn't help her, I was just as disgusting as those kids that pushed her over the edge.

I didn't go to school for a month, and I refused to face the kids who were the reason Koneko was gone, turns out she survived the fall and was in a coma, I felt a sense of hope that she would be okay but...

Koneko’s father decided to just let her go...

Now she was truly gone...

I spiraled and barely ate any food, I just couldn't bring myself to be able to eat because of flashbacks to that day. It hurt and it still does. I considered self-harm and even considered Suicide to escape the pain I was experiencing that barely anyone took seriously.

I returned to school a month later and talk about that day was still happening. I couldn't take it, I felt sick, I started getting dizzy, and passed out. I remember waking up in the nurse's office and she asked me if I was okay. She's the only one who cared about any of us, She was a mandated reporter though so I lied and said I was okay.

That same day an assembly about suicide was scheduled to happen, it also served as a memorial for Koneko. I hate that school, and I still hate it to this day, During the assembly, I blocked out everything the school said because it was all a lie, It was just lies and I hated it, I heard kids snickering and laughing during the assembly, I felt sick again, I hated being there. I walked out of the gym, Shaking and in tears and called my mom to take me home early.

I convinced my mom to let me stay home the rest of the year as I couldn't take being there anymore, she told me that I still would have to attend school next year which I agreed to.

I look back at everything that happened and I wish I did something, I still blame myself for it and I’ve been told that it’s not my fault but if I just did something she would still be here.

...

I kept her diary and her guitar. Her father reluctantly gave me her phone with everything still on it, I never changed anything on it.

On her birthday and on her deathdate. I always play her favorite song on her guitar or the piano with Koneko’s Brother, Hex. I listen to the music she used to listen to, watch the media she used to indulge in, and even try do things that she wished to do in life, Such as becoming an Idol.

I might be crazy for doing all of this but I don't care about what others might say. That school and the people in it broke a girl who simply wanted to grow up like every other person on this damn hellscape of a planet. I’ll keep living and I’ll fight on as a way to Inspire others like we wanted to do.

Just for her.

[spikeinthepunch]

i have my 2022 art summary queued up and just want to ramble about the last year,... lots of stuff happened, good and bad! been a strange time.

i imagine most followers around have probably been here since late 2020 but 2020-21 i did art quite a bit, but the thing that really stuck for that period was i was super involved in warrior cats RP for some time-- i love RPing and these group also got me motivated to draw too! but i feel like i kind of wasnt around in the typical way due to how consumed i was in it. i dont think i need to go into detail of every month during that time, but it wasnt until early this year where i dropped it, and i didnt really publicize in detail why due to the issues surrounding it, but it was probably the biggest impact on me this year mentally, and in terms of art direction. and i feel like itd feel good to document this in a blog after it has now blown over- and why ive shifted my direction too.

i was very happily running my own RP server for just a year before i had to close it this year and it still makes me sad, as much as i moved on. ARP was like... a very big deal for me and i cant deny that. i dont have a lot of projects i get that into or get even close to setting off with its story figured out. i wrote well over 100 pages of documents for the world and the 6 planned arcs. i drew loads of art i couldnt even share until it closed (tbh im not positive i have shared it anyways bc i didnt wanna post it here). i made a website, i made riddles and code, i developed lore that was far outside of the warrior cats scope to it basically just being original!

truly i have never developed a project as far as i made ARP and to shut it down in order to save my privacy and past trauma from being further exposed in such an inappropriate way really sucked ass. a lot. it was a situation where there was no control given to me, no sense of understanding from the community. im not writing this out now to be pointing fingers and calling out names- just venting how it took a toll on me this year. what had happened with my server was that one of my own mods decided to dig into my profiles and found an old nsfw page, which even more indirectly led to an old flist, which exposed various things i was into around 17-19, reflecting trauma and abuse id been through (in it, voiced wanting to take part in certain kinks; ex. being a victim to violence and dubious consent scenarios). this information was at first presented as a threat to minors viewing my RP page (as in "ppl can see your nsfw profile from the blog!") which wasnt true/accessible as they said it was and required many many clicks to find, and then slowly revealed to me the people exposing this were in fact two of my own mods and was promptly cut off from explaining anything else as it spread in a private mod discord in the RP community. Which was worse to me than everything else that could have happened honestly, and i only learned this second hand from a person who saw it in that discord and thought it was horrible this information was spreading like that behind my back. in some ways things were okay-- i didnt get "called out" openly as i did my best to explain how these pages were not current to those around me, and that they had dug into some deep cutting trauma and a period where i wasnt getting any help to cope properly. it still didnt stop the fact i left every other RP i was in due to connections w those exposing it, and in turn closing my own. i dont want to say im thankful i didnt get called out publicly, but the damage was bad enough in so many other ways because i couldnt continue my server at all, and in the end people's obsession with purity culture in the fandom still made them deem me "bad" because i had nsfw accounts in any capacity. thats not a space i want to be around anyways...

ill forever be thankful for those who stuck it out to the end and witnessed the documents i got to share before closing it for good. but this was a HUGE part of my life for the last years of the pandemic, and i wasnt there for warriors cats- i was there for the people i knew, and the stories i made. i still miss RP a lot, and i want to host projects like that again after moving on mentally from that ordeal.

but my 2022 art summary shows a major shift that was 100% in part to disconnecting from wcrp. humans everywhere! seriously. for a solid few months i couldnt even bare to look at anything related to ARP. i didnt want to think about how i lost this story i developed so hard for so long.

honestly didnt really start drawing properly again until the summer- my art during my HL phase was very very light and very messy. i fell into a hard depression early summer and i only crawled out when i got into mcyt- and even then i was hiding it from this blog. i think i just needed to not feel like i was "online", because August included me joining a onceler RP and again, not saying anything about it. which Weehawken was the first RP thing I had done since i closed ARP too, and it was weird. not the RP itself, it just felt weird to try that again.

and it wasnt my favorite month, i just felt so tired and exhausted- that depression was kinda lingering and drawing a lot for an RP again was something i wasnt really used to anymore.

the past three months have been.... better? or i have at least enjoyed what i am drawing more. i think im far enough removed from what happened with ARP too that it doesnt weigh on me as strongly. i wasnt blaming myself for anything but it doesnt feel good when you know you have to kill something. we talked about recovering it, i had ideas, but i just knew it wouldnt be worth trying to with so much damage caused in my own self, and the impression that whole community left on me knowing people would willingly spread such personal information without question. having trauma exposed after going to therapy and relearning how to use the internet in a way that doesnt lean on trauma dumping and whatever unhealthy bullshit? its quite a blow. i dont make personal blogs like this often because i have good methods to deal with my shit these days.

despite this messy year im doing well. its been ups and downs. overall i know im far more confident in myself, i moved out to live on my own, and im just doing my thing. whatever bull shit happened this year, call out or not, i know im still just gonna keep doing whatever it is im doing. and heres to hoping i can bring a world to life like i did with ARP again, bc i really have a lot i want to tell and show and do.

[cynicjovial]

I found your thought about your own art on the personal post tag. You said you werent happy with what you draw but you still like drawing. In this statement, there is something negative, but a HUGE positive! This means that every "wrong" drawing won't terminate your will to draw, and that's ideal. Now; when i read those confessions and saw your drawing, i noticed that you don't seem... secure in what you draw? (1/2)

I want to respond to this to at least notify you that I have acknowledged it.

I understand what you are saying and know what you are talking about, but I still have problems to apply that to myself also due to the fact that it still a little too vague to me in some points. Which drawings are the ones that feel insecure? Do my washi tape drawings look too safe? Can you make an example on one of my oil pastel piece to explain "moving in many directions"? It just... says a lot and nothing to me, maybe other people can get this immediately, but I can only look at my drawings and trying to figure out what is that other people see as wrong (not counting stuff like anatomy or skill errors) I know my last drawings are all same-y as I got a new set of gel pens and I'm having fun coloring with them but this is another thing. Most of the time making a picture is not putting my feelings down, is to try and replicate the image in my head because I wanna see it and it makes me happy. What I want to do artistically is to being able to make something and go "yep, this is nice and close to my vision!" I feel like what I'm doing already is going off with my feelings. I do vent art. I do tired doodles. Maybe my problem is not doing that enough and not posting everything on my social media. Idk I agree I do circle around my safe zone but it feels like to me and you whats that to me are two different ones.

This is one of my last "drawings" I did from exhaustion due to stress. I didn't want to draw but I forced myself to do it because I hadnt been drawing in days (you can tell by my latest posting schedule too). Maybe people want to see that and appreciate this kind of art more of the ones I'm actually proud of, I don't know, but making more of this would mean I'd have to feel miserable, and I'm terrified of the thought that I have to stop training in a certain way or ditch a type of drawing that I like doing because it's "not for me" or because I'm wasting my potential. Maybe Im too sensitive about this because years ago a group of friends told me why make pretty drawings when you should focus on making funny ones instead. it was a nice way to say "you're not talented enough to be on our drawing level but you are funny so you should stick to that instead of thinking of becoming an illustrator" and I know it was supposed to be a compliment but it's not to me. You are right I am insecure, about a lot of other stuff too

Is this a good piece or is it too all over the place? What is unleashing the process? Like I said at the start it's just not specific enough for me to understand the problem, I get the solution you're suggesting but not what am I supposed to recover from. My main problem I think that I don't get enough time to draw both what I should be doing and what I would like to do, and I know that makes my improvement very slow, and I think so that what you're trying to say is instead of trying to strengthen my weak points I should exploit more my stronger ones. And this is why I have issues understanding how not to "play it safe" I believe

I know this is a long rant but this made me think of my last drawings (and well that vent was like from march iirc) and my art in general and there is not a simple way to answer to this without bringing up my confusion. Maybe I'm also too detached to my feelings and the audience can see more than I do. I really don't know, sorry. But as for lately I'm liking what I'm drawing despite knowing that I can do better. I don't have the time to stress over it. I just wanna be happy.

[toopimpabutterfly]

me when he started

drawing minors x adults "as a joke", favorited minor x teacher works, favorited some weird work about Littles and stuff, and kept up with the adult and minor stuff after I explained to him that it kinda weirded me out (CSA survivor) and he still did it??

that and me made me apologize for acting out after getting 😬'ed cause I acted out in confusion and rage and he ignored me all day, coming back telling me to apologize?????

That and his constant saying "you're just like your mom!" for doing drugs, being angry, or suddenly upset knowing full well that is what I'm terrified of being and saying it knowing she hurts me, like damn he might genuinely be a terrible person idk!!!

like I admit, I was too pushy, too jealous at times and such but that's cause for 2 years I was telling him how to love me while not having a support system, getting SA'd, him punishing me by stopping doing things that comforted me, pushing me away multiple times, randomly blocking me, ignoring me, ect ect, and making me feel even more guilty over mutiple attempts on my life??? When I stated multiple times I wish I could take it all back, how I made him feel trying to take my life, but every time he used them against me.

I exploded at times like most people are going to, that and I was dealing with financial issues? not having food? proper care at times due to my families issues?? or financial situation?? my mom running away with her ex husband from 20+ years ago?? right after she for 3-4 years had been a junkie and abusing me and my brother and dad??

Every argument could've been solved so fucking easy, but I was talking to someone who apperently couldn't change! cause apperently I was a horrible person to him, when I was trying my best, being there for him and everything.

He was the one who even though knowing how his best friend and ex made me feel cried for a while week over him potentially moving away. (the friend didn't) and for a week I was left with you telling me how you were jealous he might get new friends and such. You were jealous he was bringing his NEW FRIENDS to homecoming? thinking it was just gonna be you two?? You went with him to hoco every year and every year you got jealous he brought other people. like fuck man, you more jealous over your own best friend over me.

only time you got jealous over me was when someone was being nice to me, comforting me, trying to in a PLATONIC way give me what I need, and I declined their offer to help me break up with you? cause I fucking loved you. They wanted to date me, but I kept saying no cause I loved you.

But there you are getting jealous over your ex and their friends? you don't expect me to be a bit eh? knowing my ex before you cheated on me? and it made me really insecure about people leaving or cheating?

And knowing he was always tryna break us up I fucking hate you so much holy shit you're a horrible person I hope you know that, always tryna call me horrible when I was acting out caused I was scared, hurt, and tired of telling someone how to love me.

You aren't a man you are a fucking boy, I shouldn't have to tell a man how to love me for 2 years straight and have to feel guilty over him getting me food, or him insulting me, insulting me for acting out, implying I was a whore for trying to move on from you after we broke up for 2 weeks?

[pridayph]

A real life update i guess... Part 1

First, i just want to say thank you to everyone who had visit my blog and liked some of my artworks for really long time.

But second, without my tablet, i afraid that i can't draw anything anymore.

Because third, i started a new job since august 8 and i had to work through weeks and no off days every weekend unlike my last company.

And fourth, I living inside company's dormitary, it mean i can't bring my tablet with me due thief issues and this is also not a privacy place at all, living with 7 people inside one room.

...

At the moment i writing this, i having some mental issues and looking for supports.

Since i have to do night shift, i'm basically only allow to go home after 7 am, it was morning already and this is the worst part.

I have to do everything quietly because some of my dormmate who also working at night shift like me are trying to sleep and hate disturbing by any sounds. Once day, i accidently close the door too loud and one of my dormmate said something mostly threaten and violent at my place. I got panic a lot because he really want to beat me right in the place rn, he doesn't mention my name but he said "Little kid" or something, and i believe he talking to me because i already knew i was the one who closed the door too loud and got someone angry even if it was an accident and no harm to anyone.

But half of hour later, he keep talk like that again, i remember i keep stay quiet whole time and not respond to anything he said. But i can't stay quiet anymore because i had to say sorry to him before things getting worst, because this is a public place anyway and everything are not safe here.

Welp, i did say sorry to him. And do you believe what did he say?

"I'm talking to the one on the top".

I'm sitting on bellow of the bed, and there is a guy on the top of the bed (It was two floors bed).

So he doesn't talk like that to me whole time?

So i'm just crying on the bed like that... i though they hate me and want to hit me so bad and i'm was ready to take that. But this is it? He just say he talk to the one on top of me and not me after all and told me "Don't be autism".

I still not trust him, because soon or later he will go after me, because i'm too clumsy enough to get threaten days by days.

And even after that, i still hate this place.

As a person who have been living with physical abuse and mental abuse since middle school, i can't stop thinking about traumas and keep haunting me until now.

My bed are really noisy everytime i sleep on it and peoples near me keep yelling me for no reason every fucking time, they didn't fix it and that's how my bed still my worst nightmare everytime i'm back from work.

You see, i only have 1 year of digital art, and not good enough to do commission, even worst, i have to make money at the age of 30s. I'm looking for another home place near to my company, but expensive and i afraid my salary is only enough to keep me survive a month with nothing left to save. I can't upgrade anything...

Since i'm switched to sketchbook, my drawing became worst and to be honest i can't show anything to you guys yet, it just too ugly and too much chicken sketches, but not became even a shape i want.

So, i hope you guys understand for my situations, i know i suppose not to do this, but i feel my art journey can't grow anywhere, i scare to draw everyday and out of motivations... Because i can't draw for nobody and post them into the void, this is not what i want.

If not because i'm living inside a public dorm, i can grab my tabet and draw anything. But sadly my home is too far away, it just 2 hours from here but most of the time i'm too sleepy and i can't take it anymore. Now i only have a sketchbook which doesn't work so far.

I want to draw, but i only have one sunday, and sometime i don't have sunday at all due overtimes spamming.

I'm sorry...

[illimitablespaces]

Dear Reader,

My mental, physical, and spiritual predicaments continue, and I've no outlet for any of it other than the present space. So, do forgive my indulgence in that.

There is no simple or easy route for me to take with the thoughts and sentiments I am about to express, and I appreciate your taking of a gentle approach to my writing as of late. Not that there is much say in the matter, as I write into the digital ether, as it were, and I am sole author and audience during the time this writing remains in draft form, until I click the "post" link. Then I do hope for your gentle understanding and engagement, if so moved, Dear Reader.

Now, where to begin? I wrestle with the thought of a narrative approach here... it seems too difficult a task to make it a viable option, given my emotionally and mentally turbid state of mind.

If you have read any of the sparse personal posts I've shared recently, you may have some notion of my being upset, in a multitude of ways. Essentially, what has been culminating in bouts of anger and disgust from me lately has been the bitter fruit of about five or six years of suppressed sadness, now fermented through some pretty bad depressive episodes (including an unsuccessful attempt to end my life) and my resolve to keep up some semblance of normalcy has completely eroded.

Much to my dismay and frustration, this misbegotten expression--which outs at the slightest trigger--seems an unbridled thing, seeking to enact disaster and destruction upon anything and anyone around me. It is indeed anger, but perhaps 'wrath' is more appropriate a term. For what exactly, I shall to relate here, in writing, without becoming too emotional in the process.

To sum up what has been at the root of the problem is this--and I shall spare many, many details as I feel myself becoming negatively excited by the stirring of my memory.

About six years ago, after my partner and I recently moved house (not quite one year into our relationship), and after an emotionally difficult move at that, I was in our new apartment surrounded by yet-to-be-unpacked boxes and furniture fresh off the moving truck. My partner was due to fly across the country to attend a memorial service for his dear friend who had recently passed away while I was to remain behind and begin sorting out our belongings. On the day he was supposed to catch his flight, my partner left in the late morning to the airport. Feeling exhausted yet wanting some fresh air, I decided to then take a walk around the near streets to get my bearings for what would be our new neighborhood. I walked to clear my mind for maybe two hours or so, after which I came back to the apartment, had lunch, and began cleaning the cat boxes since I thought the cats' needs should come before I start with objects like books and such. It happened that my partner arrived back at our apartment, startling me, since I was in the bathroom and didn't think anyone would be coming in the door. I remember asking what happened, and he related something about the flight being delayed and they had an issue with the plane wing or something to that affect. He was clearly agitated and I didn't know what to say or do exactly. But he became angry with me, and wondered why I didn't have our things unpacked and put away. Of course, this seemed ridiculous considering that would mean taking an entire home out of boxes, and finding places for everything and whatnot. And I did say I was starting with the cats' needs first before getting into any boxes.

He didn't seem to care and he became quite angry, gripping me tightly on my forearms, setting his fingernails into my skin.

It hurt. There were marks. I don't remember the sequence of events after that but at some point he began scratching my arms and my neck, drawing blood. I was frightened and I'm fairly certain I was crying.

Now I must stop there with that incident. But I wish I could say that was the only time and the worst of those attacks. Unfortunately, no. For the year that followed living in that apartment, the scratching, hitting, and verbal abuse continued.

I lost count of how many times I was called names such as "stupid bitch," or "dumb cunt." I lost count of the scratch marks on my arms, hands, and neck, or how many times I had my hair ripped from my scalp. I can't recall a day in that year where one or more horrible things didn't happen to me. One time I was hit in the face with a laptop, causing me to bleed all over my shirt and trousers and the next day I was left wondering if I should spend money on food or bandages. Another time I was hit with the same laptop on the other side of my head and I actually lost a piece of my ear... I watched horrified as it fell into the bathroom sink and down the drain along with so much blood.

Why, oh why didn't I leave then? I ask this question of myself often and truly, I don't know what possessed me to stay or remain silent. I regret not doing so and even now, I regret my current state of existence. I wish that I had been successful in killing myself four years ago, when I tried to overdose on anti-anxiety medication.

Now here I am, still with this person, who has somehow and for whatever reason, stopped this behavior. It's been a few years since any sort of verbal degradation has been hurled at me, and one year more than that when I was last hit physically. I think I was just too afraid and too exhausted and feeling too lost to do anything until now. Speaking of these things and my emotions has been difficult, and even with apologies and avowals, I can't come to relegate my pain to the past. This is why I wish to find help, in some professional capacity, to sort out the fragments of my life and make a sensible--and livable--whole.

The last two years have been particularly trying, as I struggle with anger and rage over those incidents. It seems now that I'm not living in total survival mode I have begun the difficult journey of processing what happened to me. And to say that I'm angry or upset is stating it much too kindly--I've given myself over to fits of rage of which I never imagined myself capable.

I have been desperately seeking help that I may process these emotions and incidents in a healthy and productive manner, but the fact that I don't have health insurance to seek out affordable options makes it difficult. On my own, I can only do so much, and both spiritual and artistic resources aren't helping as well as I believed they might. I need professional guidance but that has been put on the side for consideration as I try to help care for my partner's health issues and also wonder at times how to feed ourselves. I often wonder also, why am I even here and why didn't I just leave?

My life at the moment appears to me a wretched one. I despise my existence. I struggle to find any source of joy or respite from the daily chore of living. Were it not for my harboring of some pitiful hope within my heart, I would try again to put an end to my so-called life. But for whatever reason, I can't. Perhaps I am destined to make this pain useful at some other time or in some other place. For now, I simply (rather, arduously) go through the motions of my life, only seeking, as I've stated before, to "get the job done."

Truly, I wish (in this moment at least) for a glint of hope that would render my current (negative) state of mind entirely false, and that the journey toward moving on and healing might actually be possible in reality, not merely some passing fantasy or theoretical exercise.

I will end my entry here. I have been hesitant to share this here, and I may very well delete this post soon. It's too personal, much more personal than I have ever been here before.

I beg your indulgence, Reader, as I stumble and make attempts to find footing within this thing I call my life. A the time of writing, I hold a hope (a quite anemic hope) it will become better in time. In the meantime, I haven't edited this draft past completion, though I had many starts and stops for the greater part of a week as I composed this here. As it is, I ask your patience and perhaps your prayers.

Until next time, Dear Reader,

Take care, and be well--M