#i gotta get faster at drawing bc i spend too long on just fucking around w lines and stuff idk

[dandyshucks]

how do people make themselves just do quick sketches 😭😭 i tell myself im just gonna do smth that takes ten mins max and then thirty mins later i notice im still working on the same sketch somehow,,

[tfw-no-tennis]

huntoxhunto

we watched 2 whole more eps but we’re abt to vacay so i better recap this biz now before i forget

ok so we finished the zoldyck arc and uhhhh gotta say we werent expecting like any of that to happen lol 

ok ill back up so we start w/killuas mom (i dont think we ever heard her name) confronting gon & co....and canary (i lov her) is not dead which i assumed but thank goodness. 

zoldyck mom was totally using nen. also she is off her rocker gotta say. tho that visor is super cool, albeit confusing - is it connected to a bunch of security cameras or something? how does she see all that shit? 

granpa is wild. his tunic thing that says ‘one kill a day’ or w/e is kinda hilarious, it reminds me of the ‘apple a day keeps the dr away’ saying...a murder a day keeps the....idk away????

i love that killua makes it abundantly clear that he couldve like escaped at any time lol. also tho why didnt he just escape....baby boy just leave 

killua getting all serious and threatening milluki if he messes with gon....my boys got it BAD 

this family has so many communication issues hvbjadkfbjaskdfj nobody is on the same page at all 

the butler guy continued to remind me of kuro one piece this whole time...i was waiting for him to bust out the ridiculous cat claws

oh my GOD wait the flashbacks of EVEN BABIER KILLUA were so precious ;_; he was soooo tiny and cute oh my god. so precious. and canary was also so tiny and cute 

baby killua really just wanted a friend :(((( and canary wanted to be friends w/him but knew that mom zoldyck would kill her if she overstepped like that :( thats so tragic mannnn

also canary is so cool man. her beating up all those guys was epic

ok that whole scene with killua and his dad was like, such a rollercoaster lmao

like....it was all over the place for me...first of all the ambiance was wack, the room lighting was weird and im p sure killuas seat was an electric chair??? and the dad was in a coffin thing..???? like....interesting aesthetic choices all over the place here 

also i see now where killua got his hair and also his catboy tendencies. the zoldyck catboy genes seem to trace back to zoldyck dad, who has kinda scary cat eyes 

also im guessing that the dad is the blood zoldyck and the mom is the one who married in. they sure seem to put a lot of emphasis on like, family legacy or w/e, but the two parents certainty go abt it in different ways 

the whole convo b/w killua and his dad was wild, it totally didnt go where i was expecting it to. his dad was weirdly chill while also being super intense? 

killua happily telling stories abt gon was so sweet....baby boy baby 

and his dad telling him ‘never betray your friends’ was rlly interesting...i wonder what his reasons were for saying that 

cause then he tells killua he can leave, and killua does, but then dad zoldyck tells mom zoldyck (i rlly need to find out their names) that he thinks killua will come back on his own time....inch resting 

i wonder if dad zoldyck made killua promise that bc he was trying to set killua up for failure - as in, he tells killua to never betray his friends, thinking that killua inevitably will & be distraught abt it, and then turn back to the zoldyck family when this happens. idk

also its interesting to me that zoldyck dad wants killua to lead the family someday. like, illumi is right there, hes the oldest and clearly dedicated to being an evil assassin, and he seems p good at it...i wonder why killua is the favorite....the grandpa (i think) did say that killua is Special(tm) which...yes he is a special baby boy i love him. i wanna see more zoldyck family flashbacks/interactions so we can see what led them to this point 

oh lord that reminds me of illumi briefly appearing in the killua flashback and hes just like, suddenly there, wearing some gay ass sweater....like ok dude did you just come back from the Evil Assassin Library or st?????

that reminds me too, ruth tells me that apparently in the manga illumi and hisoka got married or something???? to which i say, thats fucking wild, but also it makes sense, those two are both horrible and disgusting and they absolutely deserve each other hbvajvhsdfjbak peak evil nasty gay rep, i love it. i cant wait to see whatever the fuck the context to that is bc, thats fucking wild

ok back to the plot so like its so wild to me how smoothly everything went hvubsjduhfbjsh like....killuas dad was rlly like ok u can leave and killua just went to the butler house and then canary woke up and was like ok gon & crew lets go to the butler house to see killua, fuck the rules, (and she didnt even get killed for ‘disobedience’ or w/e, or more likely - in most big shounen, she wouldve been attacked by the other evil butlers and gon wouldve had to fight them)

killua Rlly was like fuck this place im leaving my boyfriend and his parents are here to pick me up [puts on gayest outfit he owns and skateboards away] hvbhsjdfbjdkf

i love killuas weird gay preteen fashion so far and i cant wait to see more 

killua telling the butler guy to let him know as SOON as gon gets there cause he wants to see him AS SOON AS HE CAN ;_; bro they r....in love 

of course the butler is trickey tho lmao, any other shounen this wouldve turned into an 8 ep long fight scene sequence where gon has to fight the butlers in order to see killua 

and the of course gon is the same way, gon is like i need to see killua RIGHT NOW take me to him!!! ohhh my god babies

the whole coin game was wild, it was funny when the other butlers got involved too lmao 

when gon was like ‘hey leorio can i see your knife’ i was like OH NO I DONT LIKE WHERE THIS IS GOING. and i was right bc OWWWWW baby boy oh my god!!!! but that seems to have solved it even tho thats NOT how swelling works at ALL- 

anyways gon is a cute smart good boy and i also find it funny how killua eventually gets impatient and just busts in on this whole dramatic situation (and the tension immediately deescalates as a result lmao) 

tangent but god its so funny seeing all these butler guys deferring to killua, an actual 12 yr old....i wanna see the hilarious and hijink-filled results of killua being raised as a rich spoiled assassin prince. thats a lethal combo thats gotta result in some wildly skewed perceptions on how things work, especially paired with gon ‘probably eats dirt for fun and sleeps in trees’ freecess 

godddd gon and killuas lil reunion is SOOO cute they were so happy to see each other ;_; bro they are SO cuteeeee augh. two tiny babies

killua being like oh hi also uh kurapika andddd [looks at smudged writing on hand] lorpo 

hvhhbajfbs dont do my man leorio like that killua hes a hardworking father 

the fact that they just like. LEAVE...thats so wild. i cant believe how little fighting this arc had. this all wrapped up SO much faster than i could have ever anticipated lmao 

where the heck was alluka!? i assumed she’d show up here but uhhhh guess not......in the silhouette shot of all the zoldycks she and killua were holding hands ;_; my fucking uwus bro 

we also didnt see the grandma or great grandpa so im guessing theyll appear later 

gon being like fuck it im not using my hunters license til i punch hisoka in the fucking face hvbhahsfbjsk thats hilarious 

also a convenient way to let him have his hunters license but not utilize it til later in the story...its so early for him to have achieved that big chunk of his goal, which just shows that hxh is Not your typical shounen and isnt gonna just be centered around gons quest to become a hunter 

so we finally found out what hisoka said to kurapika....just as i thought, it was st to do w/the phantom troupe. so theres a handy setup for the yorknew city arc later. bam 

hisoka just being like ‘hey meet me in this (presumably) very large city on this date. no i will not tell you where in the city to meet me. bye seeya there’ 

tbf hisoka is very hard to miss 

god when they arrive and kurapika is just like ok well we got killua so im out lol bye everyone....bro hvbjkhgbfjhdksfhjk that felt so abrupt 

and then leorio was like oh yeah same i gotta go study time to take the fantasy MCAT or w/e

AND THEY BOTH LEFT....now gon and killua r chilling but im like oh my god no leorio kurapika come back, we need some (questionable) adult supervision over here 

and like immediately killua is like ok gon do you have money. and of Course gon doesnt have money. so killua is like well you need money and you need to train so you can deck hisoka, so lets go to a fantasy version of an underground fighting ring! this is why kurapika and leorio needed to stay 

tho they probably wouldve just gone along with it 

they did all promise to meet in yorknew city, but thats apparently like 6 months away. are gon and killua rlly gonna spend 6 months at heavens arena

the part where killua draws the diagram demonstrating how much of a n00b gon is....hvbajdkhfbhajskf

AND THEN when he drew himself into the diagram and was like :3c wow im so modest HBJHSKHDFHBJS that was so funny

it was like that post thats like ‘you can tell when a cats pupils change and they just shift into Silly Mode’ thats what killua looked like...catboy

so thats basically it i think, gon and killua are heading to heavens arena to join fight club or whatever. tournament arc time! 

PREDICTION CORNER: 

i doubt this is the last weve seen of the zoldyck family. i mean we havent even met 3 of them, and we barely saw the ones we did meet...idk when theyll come back but i suspect theyll be making some big money moves later on and fucking shit up somehow 

i think maybe illumi or someone will like, spy on killua sometimes to keep track of him. or theyll track him by other means

ill use the prediction corner to reflect on incorrect predictions so heres a few. i rlly thot killua was gonna be more edgy than he is but hes rlly just a good boy huh. like hes a gay baby assassin catboy but hes so cute and good too. he just wants to live his life and hang out with his tiny bf like... omg :’) 

also i thot hisoka held a totally different narrative role lbvahkfjhjjaksfl i thot he was like main villain guy....hes more like an annoying creepy clown dude who (probably) shows up a lot to bother the main cast. we’ll see, but thats what i think of him now

like i thought hisoka would be like p1 dio, where hed be/quickly become a powerful antagonist who would amass a bunch of followers/minions (when actually the only person he seems to hang out w/is illumi, and theyre more like equals than an evil guy/minion dynamic)...or like i thought hisoka would be very well known as a scary evil guy but nope he was just another participant in the hunter exam, albeit a weird freaky one whose rancid vibes everyone seemed to pick up on 

anyways actual predictions, i think hisoka is gonna be at heavens arena, which would be super funny. gon is like im gonna train to beat hisoka and he shows up to do that and hisokas just there like >;) hey

i think if i had to guess, the zoldycks will show up again (in a plot important way) at the end of the yorknew arc/before the greed island arc. i know basically nothing abt any of the arcs but i do know the order they go in so theres that

i do think illumi will show up earlier than the other zoldycks tho, since he seems to be out doing his own thing more than the rest. also we still really havent resolved the whole mind control thing that im still convinced of 

i think nen will finally be introduced/alluded to heavily in this arc...or like, characters will use nen and gon will be like whoa whats that 

i think killua knows what nen is...maybe? it would make sense since im sure all the zoldycks can use it (at least, we saw mom zoldyck use it, probably)

can killua use nen already? that would be pretty funny. i dont think so tho. maybe u learn nen at a certain age. i have no idea what nen is 

also isnt gons nen power the power to like, turn into a really buff version of himself or something. how the fuck does that work 

ok enough nonsense its bedtime zzzzz

[blackhatcannons]

Casual Black Hatcannons

The people have decided. The list is long (so it’s under the read more.) Happy 324 <3

Prior to arriving on Earth, Black Hat didn’t need sleep. He can still go much longer than a normal human without rest, but his mood can become fouler and fouler without the occasional break from having to do so much stuff/be around other annoying people

He’s able to have dreams (even though they’re often weird and narcissistic), and will sometimes spend time sleeping just to see if his subconscious can generate any ideas for new inventions to sell

Honestly as long as he gets some time to just sit down and not have to do anything (or even keep up his normal physical form) he’s basically asleep. For eldritch abominations like himself, it basically means letting his consciousness wander freely as he shuts down any physical functions. His form tends to get a little... less human-ish looser, when this happens

Black Hat doesn’t brush his teeth. (or floss.) First of all, his body is self-cleansing, so he normally doesn’t have to worry about showering and hygiene in general. Particles of dirt and blood and other toxins are normally absorbed through his clothes and skin, and then broken down inside his body.

Not to mention he has semi-acidic saliva. It’s not extremely corrosive, but it works well enough to keep his mouth clean between meals.

That being said, he’s lost teeth before. Chipped them, broken them, misplaced them– It’s fine though. he has teeth like a shark. literally, there are so many of them holy shit. They grow in rows and the new ones can replace the old ones very quickly.

When he transitioned from existing in a multidimensional plane to a less-multidimensional one, he never really realized that human bodies and clothes were two separate things. When he first designed his physical shape, he made his suit out of, well, the same material as himself. The clothes are just as sentient and sensory as the rest of him, and if someone touched his coat he’d turn around and be like “what.” It’s like having really snazzy looking skin that doesn’t have to be fully attached to your body and can also start growing eyes and teeth whenever you’re mad.

He never really got a full course in human anatomy, but it’s close enough, he thinks..? it’s just missing like all the organs. and a soul.

As a consequence of not knowing what the fuck a human is, BH also doesn’t know what the fuck gender is. He just sees humans, and humans are fucking morons so honestly who cares what they call themselves. it’s just easier to go with whatever pronouns they say than actually try to guess their genders (congrats BH on not being transphobic)

The old flash shorts (pilot version) of Black Hat was actually BH’s first attempt at making a human form. He later reshaped himself to “be more edgy”: becoming taller, narrowing his face, changing the design on his hat, etc.

After a hard day’s work, Black Hat can sometimes be so lazy that he wears his coat (and hat) to bed. Won’t even take off his shoes. Nasty. (Ofc he has his edgy villain pajamas he could change into but, eh. too much time.)

He can still take his clothes off, but they’ll eventually dissipate if separated from him long enough. It’s easier for him to just change the appearance of whatever his clothes (skin) currently looks like. He can still feel sensations through them, but it becomes harder to categorize them as “good” or “bad” the further away from his nerves they get

BH used to eat food like an amoeba. (He normally eats as a way to regain mass if he’s injured or needs to shapeshift.) But when encountering “prey”, his physical form kind of turns to a fleshy goop of teeth and eyes and blades that encircle whatever food it is; then he reforms. He only stopped eating like that bc it wasn’t classy enough. Utensils and etiquette are crucial for fancy villains- only dinner parties

BH likes to stay unnaturally light though. more mass makes him slow and he doesn’t like it when people are faster than him. He can also rapidly change the density of the particles in his body, mostly for fighting. It’s hilarious to see a hero break their hand trying to punch you.

BH’s body temperature depends on the environment he’s in. In the summer, he absorbs light really easily and is therefore around 90 (it’s the closest he can naturally get to human-temperatured without purposely changing it), while in the winter, he can be 30 or 45 degrees. Normally he will be 70 degrees (around room-temp), which still means his body is unnaturally cool. He can modify that as well though, and can decide if he wants to basically be a walking black ice cube or the temperature of hell’s oven. BH can’t feel temperature though, so it doesn’t really matter to him.

Those claws on his hands are a fucking pain. He can’t use a smartphone bc he doesn’t have fingerprints and his skin can’t conduct electricity. So he uses a fucking Nokia flip phone or a Blackberry, anything with buttons he can actually press

then again he sucks at technology in general, he knows more about gramophones than iPhones. Flug has been teaching him, but it’s a ...work in progress….. (”FLUG I BROKE IT AGAIN.” “Boss you shouldn’t play Flappy Bird if you have claws that can pierce through phones....”)

His hands are kind of like cat paws, the claws will normally slip out if he’s angry (99% of the time) or if he’s actually relaxed enough to just let them go (1%– you may now picture BH kneading a blanket and accidentally fucking eviscerating it)

His toes are just like his fingers, but he can’t afford to let them slip out. Otherwise he’ll pierce through his shoes and then it’s a pain to get them unstuck; he hates it.

(He let Dementia paint his nails ONCE (it was her birthday) and still hasn’t taken it off tbh. Ofc he can never tell her that.)

Once he caught Flug watching “How It’s Made” and he was about to go on one of his angry lectures again. but then he got distracted bc “wait, THAT’S HOW THEY MAKE FILIGREE GLASS?”

BH actually sits down next to Flug on the couch and they just silently watch it together. “How… how the hell do they get that all the same diameter?” “It’s really incredible, boss.” “They just, change the shape like that?? What the fuck???”

BH doesn’t speak of it again. Flug forgets about it until he walks into his office to deliver a report and hears something about “now they set the haggis out on cooking trays, and pierce each casing so–”

Black Hat thROWS HIS COMPUTER OUT THE WINDOW. TRYING TO ACT CHILL.

“Boss were you watching–” “AH YES FLUG HELLO WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU.” “Boss, it’s okay. I mean, the haggis episode is disgusting, but i really don’t care. here’s the report... Should I buy a new computer?” “……..yes.”

when he’s not watching How It’s Made he watches cheesy telenovelas WHAT

Don’t you dare fucking tell me these guys dont all watch telenovelas together on the couch with a fuckload of snacks as they all eagerly await the next moment BH loses his shit

“JUAN WHAT ARE YOU DOING HOW COULD YOU BETRAY MARIA LIKE THAT?!?! That man is the most evil character i’ve ever seen, take notes 5.0.5″ “Boss... you’re crying” “WHAT NO I’M NOT HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT WHAT THE FUCK”

BH’s favorite genre of music is classical (you know. like a nerd.) Apart from that, he’s also tried listening to screamo and death metal. While he enjoys screaming in general, he’s not really a fan of the genre, but he can appreciate the effort

in his spare time he probably sips at a glass of wine and reads his fucking quarterly profit reports in a comfy chair by the extremely scary-looking fireplace haha. He likes the sound of thunderstorms as well, mostly bc of the villain aesthetic he’s gotta keep.

Speaking of the villain aesthetic, he used to have a cat. A nice, fluffy white one that he could have sit on his lap while he sat in his desk chair facing the window, just so he could do the thing where he turns around like the most cliche villain ever

unfortunately, he can’t keep that act up for more than a week. by then the cat really looks like it’s living up to the name “Appetizer” and, well. you can tell what happens next. (5.0.5 cries, that’s what. BH coughs up white fur later.)

BH’s room is, like the entire house, very edgy. he has a massive 4-poster canopy bed, various sculptures and paintings of himself, and an enormous walk-in closet. Why does he have a closet if his clothes are part of his body, you ask?

The only reason his room looks so clean is because he hides all his personal belongings in the closet. Confiscated materials? Closet. Assorted skeletons? Closet. His secret collection of scented candles? Closet.

The girl scout cookie hoard goes under his bed. there’s also always a pentagram or two on the floor, some with notes saying “5.0.5 DO NOT ERASE”

One of the huge marble busts of himself has a keypad hidden under the hat, with a code needed to open his vault. but that’s only one half of the key; he also needs to perform a small ritual in his demonic circle to fully unlock the vault and disable the alarms on it. then he can enter the secret room where he stores all his money

(Sometimes he’ll just go inside it and roll around in his piles of cash for fun. it’s very therapeutic)

all those pictures of himself BH either had commissioned or gotten as gifts. I’d say he painted the all himself, but he’s not patient enough to actually spend time getting better at art. instead he just hires artists to make his vain af portraits.

He can also see through any reproduction of himself, including sculptures, shitty post-it note drawings, and yes, fan art. (So don’t call your fanart bad, or else BH will be offended you called him ugly!! he doesn’t care what it looks like, he’s vain enough to accept any art of himself no matter what it is haha)

Once Flug got him a metal paperweight as a gift. Jokingly, he told BH it was a stress ball.

BH fucking crushes it in one hand

(“Huh, some stress ball.” “B-boss that was made out of tungsten!!” “So? You said it was a stress ball!” “That’s stronger than steel!….Boss are you okay”)

Black Hat actually suffers some pretty bad migraines. he’s not supposed to exist in such a “low-res” plane of reality. Most of his kind exist in at least five dimensions, and it’s kind of hard to have made the switch over without losing some of his power. Shunting your consciousness between planes is kind of painful, and BH frequently receives physical reminders that he really should not have done that.

The migraines are painful and make BH crabby for the rest of the day; "dimension sickness" is awful for his mood. Flug has been trying to work on a cure to help him, but it's hard when the only materials you can work with are eldritch blood, flesh samples, and any liquid void goop BH coughs up.

Black Hat actually would work with a hero, only if it was to stop a villain that was a greater danger to his company. He’ll go against his Villainous principles to keep his business secure from any outside threat. Anyone targeting his corporation and friends employees is an enemy, and enemies will be destroyed.

BH has no idea how to: change lightbulbs, replace smoke detector batteries, use a microwave, or clean literally anything. (In that sense, 5.0.5 is more competent than him.)

Surprisingly, Black Hat actually files tax reports for his company. He believes that despite being a governmental institution, the IRS is "the most evil organization to ever exist" and appreciates how much pain it inflicts upon people each year.

Black Hat is a master of paperwork and legal documents. He could have probably been more successful as a lawyer than an arms dealer tbh. Suing people copying his patents is actually a breeze for him, and he doesn't pull any fucking punches when it comes to penalties for reselling his property

This also explains why he hasn’t been arrested yet. Can’t prove that his corporation isn’t just a hat factory when all the evidence, tax reports, and products lean towards that conclusion

BH can't cook for shit. That doesn't mean he can't enjoy human food though (even if he doesn't need it). Some of his favorite meals are humans, raw meat, rare steak (only when 5.0.5 cooks), black caviar, black truffles, black food in general, live mammals, that one cake Flug bakes sometimes, any red wine that actually tastes good, souls, foie gras, expensive food, candy (when taken from babies), ice cream (when taken from 5.0.5), and anything that really fits his dark aesthetic.

Black Hat doesn't really have a birthday. But that doesn't stop Dementia, 5.0.5, and Flug from celebrating. They use BH’s “entering the human world” anniversary as his birthday, and celebrate despite all BH's protests to not  (he secretly enjoys it, the vain bastard.

Flug normally works on an invention for him in his free time, little things that he thinks BH would find useful in his daily life. Like filing cabinets with auto-organizational systems, a voicemail system that can better filter out his calls, ballpoint pens that can write in blood. Stuff like that

Dementia makes coupon books. Things like "one free 'go away'” or “Shut up and be quiet for five minutes” or “stop destroying things for an hour.” BH always runs out of these within the month.

5.0.5 gets him cute things like mugs that say "world's best boss" and ties with nice patterns on them. BH throws a hissy fit about them, but it doesn’t stop him from wearing them

And finally, at the end of the day, even though his life is full of chaos and disasters, BH really doesn’t regret leaving his original plane of reality for this one. It’s weird and painful and he’s surrounded by annoying people, but he’d do it all again if he had to......... foR THE MONEY, OF COURSE. YEAH. BECAUSE HE’S A VILLAIN. GOTTA SELL THOSE DEVICES AND ELIMINATE HEROES RIGHT. YUP. THAT’S IT, THAT’S WHY HE STICKS AROUND WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT’S BC OF HIS FRI-- EMPLOYEES, WHAT? fucking wild

[moony-balloons]

Oh hey yeah I was gonna make a “what is up with me lately” post so here it finally is! Under a cut bc I don’t know how long it’s gonna be.

So! Firstly, I have a job. I work full time as a cashier at a grocery store, a major chain one BUT it’s part of a smallish franchise owned by a dude who is very nice and community focused, and we’re treated very well so no complaints on that front. I didn’t -actually- want full time for “I have no energy as it is and will not get anything done towards finding a Degree Relevant job if I am spending literally all of my energy at my current job” but my parents were not real receptive to that? So when I was interviewing and the manager asked me if I wanted full time or part time I said I’d take whatever and they put me on as full time bc boy howdy do they need people. Also honestly tbh I don’t mind making that full-time dough, could use the money to build my savings back up and start paying down my student loans faster / buy myself some of the things I’ve been putting off for forever and a day bc “well it’s not ESSENTIAL and I don’t have a job so lol”. I’ve been there for around..... 6 weeks? 2 months? Somewhere in there, and the Exhaustion from working on my feet 8 hours a day every day is reducing as my body gets used to it so I may be able to start getting things done again, aside from the small organizational irl things I’ve been picking away at bc those just make my life and my brain and everything feel cleaner. Clean is good yknow? And my mom’s house is pretty cluttered (less cluttered than her parents admittedly so step in the right direction, but lordy) so wanting my room to at least be neat is nice.

But yeah, on the topic of getting things done for job searching? The troubles I’ve been having, as always, are that I feel like 1) I need to do Everything Right Now bc I want to get a job that utilizes my degree, but that is overwhelming, so I feel like 2) I should take things a bit at a time bc that is the solution to things being overwhelming but that is Not Good Enough Or Fast Enough bc I should be there Now so as a result of those two things clashing I often just end up doing nothing? Which is even worse than moving too slowly, but? With the fact that I don’t have a clearly quantifiable end point in mind with my “I gotta learn x, y and z languages/skills well enough to be able to get a job” goal, I always feel like I am wasting time when I chip away at it bc, oh, maybe THIS skill isn’t important and my time would be better spent learning THIS instead, or maybe no one even does things THIS way anymore and it’s dumb to even learn it bc I will have to learn a different way anyway. Or other such nonsense and basically what I am getting is that my attempts to learn these things keep failing in part bc I am too damn vague and I can’t feel like I am making progress towards my goal if I can’t quantify what my goal IS, or at what pace I “should” be moving towards it. So I plan to try and.... set things up more like as if I was in school? Like give myself deadlines and homework and reading assignments and shit lmao, and see if that works. I also have to remember what the therapist said when I was speaking to him a while ago when I was first starting medication, which was.... I was having this same issue, and he asks me why I feel like I’m not moving fast enough and it’s because I feel like more is expected of me, by both my family and by society in general, and he’s like well basically fuck what they think, you move at whatever pace you can (in much nicer terms obv lmao). And I gotta like, write that on my forehead in sharpie bc that is the thing to remember, getting there more slowly than someone else is fine if that is what I am capable of and it sure as shit beats giving up and never getting there at all.

But I did have a mental health slump recently bc, well, it doesn’t feel great to have a bachelor’s degree and still be doing retail stuff, and getting turned down by countless actual tech jobs in the meantime. Being rejected by the most recent one hurt the most because it was one of those “oh we’re looking for more of a personality fit than a skills fit!” type positions, and it was an internship (a new position they were still in the process of working out even what that entailed, but even so) and they liked my personality and invited me to take a skills test...... and I didn’t complete it in time, and they were basically like uh yeah we’re gonna pass. Like, not looking as much for a skills match but my skills disqualified me anyway. And then on top of that! The weekend before last I went to help my grandpa put in his new air conditioner (he still uses the kind you have to mount in a window) and he had a nice snide comment about “6 years at [school] and all you can say is, do you want fries with that” which, A, 4 and a half years, thanks, but also B, can you not??? He’s very much of the opinion that college is a waste of time and computers are on their way out and have overstayed their welcome and I should learn a SKILL (anything that doesn’t result in physically building something with your hands is not a skill in his book) bc only people with SKILLS are useful/valuable/etc. I know that he’s wrong about that and that his “if it wouldn’t help you in the apocalypse then it’s dumb and not worth knowing” attitude is not anywhere near the norm, but the fact that it echoes the insecurities I already have about myself re: being dumb and useless just made it REALLY hit home. Bc like...... idk. I can combat my own bad things I think about myself with, well yeah, you have depression and are definitely not as bad as you think you are, you’re just looking at yourself with poop-tinted glasses bc mental illness. But if someone ELSE says it, well, clearly they must be right! Which is dumb af but that’s what my brain does. BUT after spending time with my very pissy grandpa I went over to my dad’s house and got to pet my dog a lot and Dad made burgers on the grill which was excellent (my stepdad considers himself a grillmaster but honestly tbh keep this a goddamn secret but I like my dad’s burgers better) and they showed me the house they bought, which has 4 bedrooms and would theoretically have space for me to stay with them should I ever need it, unlike their current house which is small af and causes some inconveniences if I end up having to stay the night lol. Also the new house has a fireplace and a loft area above the living room which I am SO sure their cats are gonna love.

Artwise I’m in a similar spot to where I am career-wise, which is “I would love to do a fancy finished detailed thing but I definitely won’t have the energy to actually do it to my satisfaction so I should work on just practicing little things but that is not good enough and I have to be able to do awesome cool things right now” and the fact that I don’t have a good, comfortable drawing space doesn’t help. I keep meaning to work on it and I do believe that in bits and pieces, I will, it’s just one of those things where I want to draw and then if I do start, I immediately hate it and want to stop, and lately haven’t had the energy to push through it. XD Just weh.

[velteris]

I've been following you for a really long time and this is the first time I've ever wanted to ask you a question. But why would you go camping alone without any light? That's just a really dumb thing to do...

(in ref to my tags here im pretty sure)

gather round, dear followers, for a series of anecdotes from Hell Camp, the source of my best and worst stories

when i was twelve my school sent all its year nine students class by class to a five-week camp, which will henceforth be called Hell Camp. here is the setup:

a four-hour drive out of the city into the outback, where there is a farm owned by the school for the express purpose of hosting Hell Camp

28 girls and 28 boys, each in their own dorm houses

no phones. no computers, no ipods, no TV. no internet (within our reach). we cooked our own food on fire stoves and wrote letters by hand to our parents and friends

no lollies, no soft drinks or juice, all our eggs and milk came off the farm

wake up at 5:30am every day to go for a 3km run and then chores on the farm, from milking the cows to chopping our firewood

Bible study every night because this was a Christian private school

“why???” u may ask. “why did your school subject tweens to a month of this???” supposedly to build character and teach u life skills but tbh idk how knowing how to crack a bullwhip is supposed to help me in life

but it wasnt just five weeks straight of same ol farm life there were other activities they had us do!! camp-like activities!! for example:

Pre-Survival

three days to prepare us because we were innocent younglings who barely knew how to start a fire

basically a campsite in the middle of fuckass nowhere? we rode horses there while the counselors (the Hell Camp resident teachers, but ones that deadlift 50kgs and kill spiders without batting an eye) drove with our bags and stuff and laughed as we got inevitably lost

have u ever used a dunny u have to empty urself

it is so gross. there is a field marked out explicitly for burying everyone’s shit, and u have to take turns. so gross. 

there was a shower which was a metal shed with a bucket of water hung up, which u heated over the fire before u went in and prayed it wasn’t too hot

this was like winter time and we slept in swags on the ground and when we woke up there was frost on our swags

i made an iron horseshoe??? the temptation to touch red hot metal is ridiculous tbh it looks so pretty

someone did touch theirs. it was not me. i heard them yell from across the field where i was helping feed horses.

in the middle of the second night the counselors took us to a giant rock in the middle of the bush where u could see the stars and it was amazing you could see the milky way and everything… but the thing was we had to spend the previous 20 minutes in the dark to get our eyes used to it so they had us hold onto each other’s sleeves and walk blindly into this rugged, rock-covered trail through pitch blackness, praying no one in front is going the wrong way

and then. the counselors played a trick on us by getting one of the kids to stay back in the forest and waited to see how long we’d notice. we didn’t notice until it was time to go back im so sorry Kimmy

Survival

ok this the real shit you went with the same group you were with in pre-survival and the counselors drove you out into the depths of the outback and dropped you and your group off with some tools, food, and tarpauline

and then u just lived out there for three days.

we couldn’t start a fire our first night because it’d been raining before??? our dinner was supposed to be rice, potatoes and carrots, and the carrots were the only edible thing bc u cant eat raw rice and raw potatoes.. u just cant.

there were wild dogs around. we never saw them, but we heard them awoo-ing a lot. so whenever someone split off from the main camp to go pee like two other girls would accompany them as an honor guard, singing Kumbaya to keep the hounds away

sometimes people would go alone and then there would be a Sound in the bush and then you’d just hear them screaming “MAMA’S MAKING KAN TONG”

on our last day the counselors set up targets with drawings of kangaroos on them, handed us a bow and 20 arrows, and said “if u can shoot the kangaroo we’ll give u sausages for your last meal”

never in my life will i ever see such ferocity from 12- to 13-year-old hungry girls again

when it was another group’s turn to be on survival, my group was on normal farm duty, and we were out clearing bush scrub when we heard the survival group girls talking and we realised we’d gotten too close.

���hello?? hello??? is anyone out there?” “oh my god someone’s out there oh my god we’re gonna die” “COME OUT, WE HAVE WEAPONS”

THIS WAS A LIE. WE KNEW DAMN WELL THEY HAD THE SAME THINGS AS US AND THOSE THINGS WERE TWO SHOVELS AND A HEAVY DUTY CLIPPER.

and our fucking counselor just went “shhh!!” to us and herded us back like he just straight up left those nine girls thinking there were bush serial killers out for them

also apparently a tree fell on someone’s head at some point in their survival

at night we slept in a row like snuggling each other cause it was So Fracking Cold and lemme tell u it’s an experience being spooned by the girl who used to sigh whenever you raised your hand in class

Four Day Hike

what it says on the label

55km in four days, carrying all your food, sleeping bags, tents, clothes, toilet paper etc. and minimum 2L of water bottles you could refill at big barrels set out at designated stop points

this is, without a doubt, the single worst experience of my life

nothing good happens when u hand a group of kids a map and a compass and tell them “we’ll look for you if you’re not at the campsite by sundown but apart from that you’re on your own”

i was with an athletic group of kids?? they were Walking So Fast and i was just staggering along with my unfit friend like this is how i die on a godforsaken hill on our way to god knows where

actually i had an asthma attack and they left me behind for a bit fun times

the hike went through some willing farmers’ land and one boy who stupidly climbed a fence got chased by a bull

they sent us off group by group so we’d all make our own way, so whenever u bumped into another group you were like. okay one of us was going the wrong way and it better fucking well be you

there weren’t any showers or anything so we basically all wore the same clothes for four disgustingly sweaty days of hiking

someone used an anthill as a toilet bc it had a nice big hole to drop ur toilet paper down

the ants did not appreciate this

when you run out of toilet paper and it’s only 11am

Solo

this was it. the culmination of the camp. the ultimate character building experience.

which was just 24 hours of alternating boredom and sudden visceral terror now that i think about it

u got dropped off (again in the middle of nowhere see a theme yet) with tarp, a lil trowel, and a clipper, and u just set up camp and did whatever u wanted for 24 hours

they let u bring a bible.

i got really into Leviticus and Deutoronomy before it went dark

listen it was really really boring ok

AND HERE IT IS THE BIT WHERE I DIDN’T HAVE LIGHT WHILE CAMPING ALONE

listen when the sun goes down at 5pm, u go down too. there’s nothing else u can do?? u just gotta sleep???

or, like me, lie awake in mortal terror listening to the bush Come Alive

when the wallaby goes THUMP-THUMP-THUMP and you’re like holy shit this is it the abominable loch ness chupycabra has manifested in the australian outback and it’s going to eat me alive jesus christ protect me with the power of this bible

hence the sheer relief when the sun finally comes out and u can walk around without living in fear of accidentally walking face first into a spiderweb or scratchy lantana bushes

also a mini survey went around afterwards and i’m pretty sure a solid 60% of the girls took a shit on solo like… at long last u can take as long in the toilet as u want… without the other 27 girls banging on the door……

other miscellaneous stories that dont fit anywhere else:

one of the boys went missing?? he wandered off and couldn’t remember anything when they found him in the middle of the bush. cryptic

there was this one homesick girl who was REALLY homesick like she cried every day of the five weeks. by the end of the camp she’d approached everyone to talk about her Feelings and you’d just kind of groan softly when u saw her coming towards your bunk bc u knew u were in for a hopeless comforting session

on sundays sometimes we went to the nearby town’s elderly home to talk to the old folks and some of us could play music so we did little performances for them which was rly sweet!

there were lambs on the farm!! we named them Uggboot and i think Fleece Jacket or smth like that

there were cows too!! meat cows!! they were Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

my first time on cow milking duty i tried to herd the bull towards the milking pens bc i did not realise he was not a cow. i quickly realised when he took very fast steps towards me and i Got The Dodge Out Of There

we spit roasted an entire pig for the final feast before we left and i will never forget it. the first time in my life i had crackling. half the group was weak in the knees cause we saw the pig get slaughtered and the other half was just “sweet, more for me”

whenever the new fruit delivery came in and the hunger games commenced in the kitchen… tween girls are actually ravenous wolves u heard it here first folks

when u going to the bathroom in the bush and u feel something touch your butt… is it a stray hair? is it a piece of grass? is it a bug??? who knows but nothing makes your bowels loosen faster

the unholy horror of finding spiders wherever you least expect it

ANTS IN THE SUGAR

“I saw Goody Proctor with the devil leaving the cupboard open for the ants!!!”

honestly so many things happened at Hell Camp that i can’t remember most of them anymore and it Rankles Me bc i know there were so many wild stories but here you go. some of the wildest ones.

11/10 went back to Hell Camp voluntarily once, would go back again again.

[selfinsertmermaid]

I wrote a (probably way too detailed) outline of a Little Mermaid AU and of course had to draw it, because mermaids, man

(au under the cut if anyone’s interested) ((friendly warning that this is not Serious Writing and I cursed a lot))

Diana is the princess of an underwater mermaid kingdom called Themyscira or Paradise, the names are p much interchangeable so whatever. Themysciran mermaids are Magic so they used to magic themselves up some legs and hang out with humans, but the humans wanted the Magic and there was fightin and the mermaids got mad and retreated to their kingdom and getting legs was Banned.

Even though everyone disapproves, Diana likes to go up to the surface, not really out of curiosity for humans but bc she likes looking and the sky and it's kinda hard to see the sky from the bottom of the ocean. I'm a human princess (random human would've been more accurate but i'll be a fuckin princess if i wanna) on a ship for whatever reason and one night when Diana goes to the surface Shit Goes Down and she watches the boat start to sink.

A lot of the sailors and passengers make it to the lifeboats but I'm knocked off the boat and into the water, and Diana of course is like "hell no im not gonna let someone die".  So she swims and swims and brings me up to the surface, but there's still a storm and its bad and it's too far from any shore to risk trying to swim to land with me in tow. She decides to heck with the rules, uses a Magic Kiss (!!!) to let me breathe underwater, and brings me back to Themyscira.

 After the Magic Kiss I wake up and am amazed bc mother fuckin magic underwater mermaid kingdom right but all the mermaids are like ���shit, a human, someone’s gotta take her back to the Human World”, so there’s this competition to see who is worthy of being the mermaids’ Champion. (This is basically a mix of Wonder Woman’s origin story, w/ me replacing Steve Trevor, and the Little Mermaid.) Anyway Diana’s not allowed to compete but we spent a bunch of time together and she wants to be the one to take me home, and see more of the world along the way.

So Diana wears a mask and enters the competition, wins, and reveals herself to the Queen (her mom) and the Queen’s like “fuck I told you not to but that was impressive so i guess you can go. I’m not mad jus disappointed.” So Diana and I get to basically take a Magic Underwater Roadtrip, except we’re swimming the entire way so it takes awhile oops. And we’re just. Fallin in love along the way.

I guess they decided it’d be okay to give me a mermaid tail so the trip goes faster, since humans can’t swim anywhere near as fast as a fricking mermaid ofc, and also I just,,, want to be a mermaid at least for a lil bit.

Anyway so we get to my kingdom and on the shore I get my legs back n Diana and I look at each other like…I guess this is goodbye? Except we really don’t want it to be. So I suggest that, before she goes, I show her around my kingdom, like as a token of my gratitude and all that. Diana magics herself up a pair of legs and I introduce her to the royal court as my savior and protector. We spend even more time with each other, we’re super in love, but Diana holds back from making a move bc she knows her duty is to Themyscira and I hold back from making a move bc I’m shy af.

So to introduce some plot, this woman, let’s call her Minerva, witnessed Diana doing Magic on the beach with me, so she steals some magical objects Diana keeps in her room and tries to use them. The problem is that she’s a terrible person so even though she can use magic now, Magical Karma decides that she will also be cursed to turn into a monster cheetah person. Like Ursula however she can use her magic to turn herself pretty again for a short amount of time, and she uses this skill and other magic to start climbing her way to the top of the royal court.

Minerva hypnotizes me into thinking I’m in love with her and not Diana, but it causes a huge behavioral shift and Diana’s like “WTF that’s not right.” She realizes some of her magical stuff has been stolen and connects the dots, and then tries to tell me except I’m still hypnotized so I don’t listen. Suddenly I’m about to get married to this woman I barely know, and Diana’s like oh fucking HELL no and tries to find all the magic stuff Minerva stole except the only one she knows about is this one magic necklace, which Minerva happens to wear a la Ursula. Diana interrupts the ceremony and rips away the necklace and crushes it, which takes away all Minerva’s magic and turns her back into her cursed cheetah monster self.  Then there’s a huge (cat)fight between the two of them, and ofc Diana wins bc she’s Strong and Magical.

So that’s over, and after I thank her for saving me Diana’s like “Kenzie…I have to go now. Magic is too dangerous for this world.” And I’m like “fuck please don’t leave I really like you.” But the problem is Diana was always going to leave, because she’s the only princess of Themyscira, and I have to stay because I’m the oldest and therefore the Crown Princess of my kingdom, and I don’t want to force my younger siblings to take over my responsibilities.

ANGST ALERT before Diana leaves I work up the nerve to finally kiss her, except its a goodbye kiss so its all sads, and then Diana swims back to Themyscira and is. Gone. We’re both miserable and tbqh if this was reall life my mental health would’ve been out the fucking window but it’s not so we’re gonna pretend that it’s just normal ‘missing you’ sadness. It lasts for a long time.

BUT THEN Diana realizes that there were other magical objects missing, and that they’re still on land in my kingdom, and she goes to the Queen/her mom, and the Queen is like “Diana I love you and I know you’re unhappy now so I will let you go to the surface to retrieve the magical items, and you can also stay there with the human princess with my blessing. I’m basically immortal anyway so it’s not like you need to take my place anytime soon.”  Then Diana comes back and REUNION SMOOCHES and there are some Magical Adventures collecting the other magic stuff Minerva stole and hid all over the place, and non-shitty people getting to learn magic bc Magic, but mostly it’s just Good Times loving each other. 

Epilogue, eventually we get married and adopt children and become Queen and Queen Consort (or Princess Consort, or whatever sounds better).  And they all live happily ever after, The End.