#and other people had to do it too

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[egophiliac]

(looks at upcoming card releases)

I'm in danger :)

[mythicalcoolkid]

You don't wish your disability was worse or more visible, you wish your disability was taken seriously. Please stop confusing the two, I guarantee you would not get the support you need JUST by being more severe or more visible. Please listen to visibly disabled people when we tell you it isn't better on our side

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Happy one year anniversary to In Stars and Time!

[nova-rpv]

a redraw of the first drawing i posted here to celebrate the fact that ive been in tumblr for more than a whole year posting my shit and havent deleted my blog in panic yippee \:D/ (mushy rant in tags)

[originalartblog]

Apparently much-needed reminder that reposting artists' art (by saving the images or screenshotting them and reuploading them yourself) on other platforms without the artists' expressed permission and without credit is theft and an insult to their passion and craft. You are profiting (in views, in attention, in feedback) from someone else's work and ideas, who do not get that feedback for sharing their creation.

If you are an art reposter, you are a thief and I have no respect for you.

[hajihiko]

💕

[obsob]

love is stored in the parallel play

[pankomako]

if this post gets 2000 notes i'll finally call failboat. yes i have his phone number he gave it to me. pic unrelated

[anxiousapplepie]

What if during Traveler Isa's act 5 Sif leaves the cloak at the clock tower just out of a sheer rush to get to Isa

Bold of you to assume Siffrin would've left every single one of his belongings at the clocktower the moment he realizes where Isa is >:3c But for real. You sparked an UNHOLY amount of inspiration in me this evening. My hand hurts, but it was worth it! I think!!! thank you! and curse you for hitting me with the creativity brick to the back of my head on my weekend break

[itty-bitty-sunshine]

At what point do you start seeing one in the other?

At what point do you start looking at the devil like a friend?

[inkskinned]

the other day we were talking about balance beams because you said that your family had one of those cool winch ones that wrap around trees to make a high wire. even though i was pretty good i had to quit gymnastics at 12 because we couldn't afford dance and gymnastics but. i had something-other.

and i got excited because i think it's a funny story. i didn't have a door for about 4 years. 13-17, or there about. i only got it back because i replaced it myself.

i think my dad took it off the hinges just because his very-macho friend david had said - i do this to punish my kids. and then about a week later it was down on the ground and then eventually rotting in a shed. i used to visit it on occasion and tilt it between two boxes so i could try to walk across the side of it. i have a scar on my foot from attempting the act of balance-beam fancy dancing. it's shaped like a crescent moon. a hinge sliced into my skin when the whole thing slipped out from underneath me.

and you looked at me and you said - what the fuck?

and i said, do you want to see? because i thought the thing you were replying to was the injury. i was already undoing my shoelaces.

you're supposed to have a door, you said slowly. you were a teenager. you - i've seen your house. you lived at the end of the hall.

i didn't understand the problem. so? i wriggled out of my shoe and then my sock.

so, you said it gently, which made me slow down. you said it in the way people tell me that i experienced something bad and i have no idea that it was supposed to be something-else instead. anyone coming down the stairs or in the hallway could see directly into your room. you were in a fishbowl for four years, am i understanding that correctly?

i stared at you, and then said the other things: well, it wasn't so bad. i just wore a towel and tucked myself into a corner to change. i could always just change in the bathroom. privacy didn't really exist for any of us. i wasn't allowed to decorate so it wasn't really my room anyway. i didn't have a lot of things growing up; so it's not like i minded having a semi-public space. my siblings left me alone if i needed them to. what's the big deal anyway.

this is accidentally what emotional vampires incorrectly label as a "trauma dump". this is accidentally how you learn that my house was actually unsafe. i don't even consider this a problem, because everything else was so much worse, in a way. i didn't know it was supposed to be different. at the time, i didn't know what privacy was. i just lied about most stuff and got good at hiding in public. i haven't ever lied about this because i didn't know it was supposed to be different. i am 31.

you looked pale and ready to throw up. you had a right to a door for your room. you were a kid. someone should have helped you.

i was busy examining the sole of my foot. the scar really does look like the moon.

[layalu]

If i had a nickel for every time there was a sad bisexual lowkey (or highkey) explosive whiteboy human wizard etc etc

The similarities are v superficial but it's still funny to me xdd

[countess-of-edessa]

the world is so fucked up and i can't help but think the damage is irreparable when i see people talking about how unusual and prudish it is to wait six to ten dates before having sex with someone. ten dates??? roughly like twenty five hours of interaction????? ten old timer burgers and mango iced teas from chilis equals sex?????? the possibility of pregnancy, STDs, emotional devastation, lifelong consequences, not to mention just straight up the possibility of getting murdered, with a STRANGER you have hung out with for maybe like two months???? and that's a LONG TIME???? and if you feel weird about that and don't want to do that that makes you NOT HETEROSEXUAL????? THATS AN ORIENTATION???? BECAUSE ITS SO OUTSIDE OF THE NORM OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR ????? i hate all of you i hate you i hate you i hate you every day i hate and I hate and I hate you

[mazeyphaedra]

was rewatching fabian’s baron moment on account of it being the most delicious piece of pvp in my recent memory and ally beardsley’s growth as a player just shone through so brightly and with such clarity. after dusting off their shock they immediately asked about the nemesis ward, had enough knowledge about fellow pcs stocked to remember adaine’s ac with such like frustrated confidence and certainty, suggested to siobhan to dimension door out of adaine’s room, like. they came into this making a character with 4 dex. and now the dice deity offered to roll a check to sense if adaine was in danger. making decisions, asking questions, getting invested in the story, trying so hard with the tools they have to save characters from danger; ally beardsley is an incredible d&d player.

[bunnieswithknives]

I feel bad for neglecting Hazel so much, I do have many thoughts about her.. and also a mermaid au that im probably not going to do anything with