#i dont want this to be

[thedragonofcauldron]

Im going to complain about something. It's something a lot of people complain about, but...from the other side. Part of me has wanted to respond to other complaints, to share my story as a show of solidarity from the other side - but I don't want to seem like I'm trying to make their conversations about me. So I'm just venting here.

When I started my current job, they had me do a physical, where they took my height and weight.

Today, about six months later, I weighed myself at home, and came up 15 pounds lighter.

And I want you to stop for a second, and think about what your reaction to that loss of 15 pounds was. Because chances are, you thought I was celebrating - but no. I've been sick, anemic enough to get sent home from work, and so bloated by the iron supplements that were trying to get my blood functional again that I didn't feel hungry and would forget to eat, and because of that Ive lost 10 fucking percent of my body weight- possibly more, because who knows how much (literal) shit is still sitting in my lower intestine and boosting that number upwards! My cheeks have sunken in. My belt has moved to the tightest loop. It hurts to rest my wrists or elbows on a desk surface, because the pressure foes right to the bones.

What I am is not healthy or good, and I want those 15 pounds back.

I have always been underweight and pale and frail. Maybe something is actually, medically wrong with me, I don't know. I've never deliberately tried to keep my weight down - on the contrary, I'm a lazy shit who eats too much junk. But even as a kid, I'd get compliments, people asking "How are you so skinny?" Through no effort of my own, people were envious of me - and as I look at my bones showing through my skin, and think of a PE teacher telling me that my BMI literally not existing because they didn't have that low a score on the chart was "better than being on the other side :)"

I am angry.

What I am, and have always been, should not be envied or idolized, because it is not healthy. It's always made me uncomfortable, being praised for something I put less than no effort into attaining, but as I sit here, exhausted and missing those 15 pounds because they were 15 pounds between me and starvation, I am angry that society as a whole is so God damn scared and disgusted by the idea of "being fat" that my shitty ass, failure of a body is seen as better.

No random person, teacher, employer, coworker, or doctor has ever suggested that my weight had anything to do with any problems I faced. I've never had my discipline or character or lifestyle questioned because of my shape, and it is fucked. Up!! That other people get that treatment because their body doesn't throw literally every calorie they consume onto the incinerator immediately! I hate that there are people, friends who are envious of my incompetent metabolism because other people are so goddamn shitty to each other about the shape of their bodies! People see me, with my bony ass dangling over oblivion, and ask how they can join me, and I want to cry and scream! You do not want this!

I hate how much society hates fat, and fatness. Sure, yeah, too much of anything isn't good for you - but you can die from having too much water in your system. Or be poisoned by goddamn oxygen. Bodies make and store fat for good reasons. You should not feel bad for having it! Skinny is not inherently good, and fat is not inherently bad! The shape of your body should not be, and IS NOT a reflection of your virtues or vices or values or VALUE as a person! Be kinder to others, and to yourself most of all! If you are able bodied, treasure that, no matter what shape or number is associated with it.

I can't. I can't erase the years, the generations that have layered on this hate and fear and cruelty towards the very concept of "fatness", and I can't pretend I know what it's like to be on the other end of the scale, where you're mocked are looked down on for just existing in your own skin. But. I just. I just want to say that from where my pencilneck is situated on that scale, I can also see it - the scale is fucked up.

I'm sorry. I wish it wasn't like this, that you didn't have to deal with this shit. I wish I could make it better. I wish I could help.

But all I can do is this - to scream into the void that I see you. I hear you. And you're fucking right.

Be good to each other. We didn't get to build our own meatsuits.

[girldraki]

[kochei0]

I turn to Ares.

Thanks to Tyler Miles Lockett who allowed me to draw inspiration from his ARES piece for page 2! Look at his etsy page it's SICK

⚔️ If you want to read some queer retelling of arturian legends have a look at my webtoon

[consumebread]

[qrowpilled]

hate when you find a character whose so infuriatingly Your Type that its embarrassing like yeahg no one is gonna be surprised when i announce this is my new Guy Of The Month

[mybreadsmybutters]

when i was a kid i wanted to be a famous youtuber like dan and phil so that people would gay ship me with my irl best friend and we would be sooo weirded out by it and laugh and make videos joking about it but secretly it would make her realize her repressed gay crush on me and i'd help her through her gay crisis and then we would have a sickeningly sweet sappy romance and read fanfiction about ourselves together... anyways just found out she's married to a guy in the mafia now so i probably don't have a chance

[bisexualsummer]

it's so fucking frustrating to be in college and know everyone uses chatgpt and to be tempted by it constantly while also knowing intellectually that it doesn't work and it's a bad idea. like, i hang out in the library a lot, and i see people using chatgpt on assignments almost every day. and i know it isn't a good way to learn, because it's not really "artificial intelligence" so much as it is an auto text generator. and it gives you wrong information or badly worded sentences all the time. but every week i stare down assignments i don't want to do and i think man. if only i could type this prompt into a text generator and have it done in 10 minutes flat. and i know it wouldn't work. it wouldn't synthesize information from the text the way professors want, it wouldn't know how to answer questions, it just spits out vaguely related words for a couple paragraphs. but knowing my classmates get their work done in 10 minutes flat with it while i fight every ounce of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in my body is infuriating.

[vivi266-archive]

[mrtequilasunset]

Listen man, you guys can't be like "you guys need to be normal about asexuality" and then turn around and get weirdly judgemental when you find out someone doesn't have sex by choice. Like that's weird that some of you do that.

[kociamieta]

a router is a type of beast. thumbs up

[incredubious]

can I please get the Replying From Sideblogs Feature Please. im so tired of looking like this every time someone says something to me.

[michameinmicha]

Do you ever miss a character from a show but not like in the way that you want to rewatch the whole show because theres so much stuff going on and thats not what youre looking for but you miss your boy

[pierog]

[crashstanding]

Reblog to give the person you reblogged from the ability to finish their WIPs

[shinybulbasaur]

[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?