#im still trying to suffer my way out of art block. forgive me for the slightly scuffed drawing

[vidapon]

an attempt at drawing a moment from Act 5. didn't turn out exactly how i would've liked, but i've been looking at it too long so i'm just gonna throw it out there >_<

[just-a-mod]

so, i had a dream today

i was asleep for something of 12 hours straight, and the first half of it was spent trying to contact the dead and it didn’t go very well.

the second half actually was quite a surprise, given the fact this matter is well done and over with. but how it happened is what took me off guard

i was wandering around the downtown of my old home town when, some how, i was apporached by some one i do not ever want to speak to again. they wanted to talk to me, to ‘make ammends’ for the way our friendship and realtionship had ended. despite many feelings, i thought i would hear them out, at the very least. to see what they had to say.

it turned out, in the dream, that they were trying to play the high road. that they had struggled through the whole ordeal, and it had caused them so much pain. but they were willing to try and be my friend again, despite everything i had done. despite the pain and disappointment I had caused them.

and when i flatly said i understood their point of view, but i wasn’t at the place of mind to be their friend or forgive them, they snapped on me. they started spamming me (some how) with art and written things about how much THEIR characters had suffered. how much upheaval it had caused THEM. how much sorrow and distress it had made them all feel, as well as the creator themself. they stood there trying to blame this falling out on me, despite they fact THEY had been the one to leave and burn all the bridges with every one we knew.

i was frustrated, i was done. in the dream, i wanted to leave and end this conversation. and then my people appeared. in the dream, it looked like a RPG i shit you not. they came up as icons in front of me and suddenly it was like i was watching it from a top down view. their sprites were frustrated and cold. Jay, Lulu, Osmond and especially Xavion. all of them stood at my side, blocking the bullshit this person was spouting and countering it at every turn. which for Jay and Lulu alone means a whole fuck ton alot for me. 

but what really got me was Xavion. first of all, i don’t have many dreams with the people in my head. typically i see them as real life folks, or people i know are supposed to be them but aren’t, or whatever. it’s incredibly, INCREDIbly RARE that i see them as they are, truly.

bUT FOUR OF THEM AT ONCE??? AND TALKING??? AND COMING TO MY AID??? this is new, incredibly new

but Xavion.

Xavion came out fucking swinging. he was furious, livid, angry to the point of tears. he started shouting at them after a point, he was unrestrained fury at the shit they were accusing me of, how they were trying to manipulate the situation just as they had been taught to do. just as they had done to me our entire time of knowing each other. he wouldn’t hear of it and kept pushing them back and away from me

when i woke up, Xavion was right next to me and he was still crying. he’s one of my new ones who has been able to see most of the damage they caused me and other people. his friends, his teammates in our D&D campaign. my friend group. he watched us all heal, heard all of our pain. saw how much work and damage it caused me and he’s been FURIOUS. he’s been playing happy go lucky for all of us, he’s been doing his best to put a better spring in our steps for fae, for  satyrs, for men like him in general

but the amount of love and work he’s done for us has birthed a well spring of fury for this one person and their bullshit, and i didn’t know that until today.

and the main key to all of this, which it made me realize? is that my people have been soaking the support and love and care all of my friends have been giving me, giving US. they have been growing strong, sentient and capable. and today showed me just how much they’ve grown, how much they love me and, by proxy, how much my friends love me.

im so incredibly touched by this dream, as well as the emotions that went into making it happen. it was incredibly heart warming as it was distressing (i dont like seeing my people upset!)

so i am thankful for that, for this, and everything. we’ll be just fine i think

though this is an interesting thing, because it’s a echo of what was drawn once before

just took a few years to come full circle it seems

[staygtv]

MINI ROCKER TAPE VOL.1 [directed.Nau5]

3.intermission

Shit still the same nigga

I think I might change (yea yea yea yea)

Know you can never change niggas

And you can never change wit em

(No no no)

Different body same bitches

Different life

it’s all a game

riches

Bad bitches

lookin for tricks named Richard

Survival don’t realize that life rented

Shit still the same nigga

I think I might change (yea yea yea yea)

Know you can never change niggas

And you can never change wit em

(No no no)

Different body same bitches

Different life

it’s all a game

riches

Save your change

Stay away from fame go

Manifest a bag up

Put my tag up

One one one one one

Where giants stood

And above it

Is where I walk the path

Pushin good wood

Good wood stuffed

With good good

I use to sk8 and walk on ipath

Only difference now

What I prefer Air Force ones

When I land

Air guns elite force kid

I’m plinking out cans

Day dreaming bout the faces of enemy’s

Peaceful with energy

So tread lightly around me

That’s why my house lookin lonely

Only keep one bitch around me

Try to block out surroundings

Manifest what’s around me

Write about what I wanna feel

Someday

This ticket only one way

Expires every Sunday

By Monday renews

Still trying for ..

like I got something to prove

Somewhere in between south river st

And when Jesus lives

When I went walked on the path

Just to avoid the grass

And now

Puff puf puf puf don’t even pass

Airforce 2 on a mini rocker

‘Buck in my pocket

?

Fuck it let’s profit

From painting and robbin the city black

Face up with the back of my jacket

Patch by a local artist

Flat where I landed

I thought I had it

Handle tweakd when I planted

panicked

Pressure not anticipated

Watched me die in the park

If we end up out east after dark

Bring a lighter we can spark

Teach a bitch how to peddle backwards

On the handle bars

Ass up on the handle bars

Riding on my handle

Grippin ammo

Flickin pics

And dickin models

She grippin both hands

Yeah I just learned how to disaster chill

Smile in ur sleep

I seen The diamonds in her teeth

Rocker in the mil

Learning

now i get brain when I feel

tv.part2

Richer than bitch if wealth is truly of mind

But whatever with that

I be liking money just fine

Transfer over the spine

Been at the back of the line

Patiently waiting for liberation

Freedom in isolation

Been misbehaving

Had to pay with some dates

Had to pay by my babys sufferance

Im not there like every single day

forgive my past mistakes

To a stranger I remain

Won’t ever recognize

my unmistakable face

Marked up

Notice by none

Known by few

Hop up over the gap

I’m in my white gap denim

Paint splattered

No 511

Buck mark in my pocket

No fiber optic

Just plain old view

If I ever start missing my target

Then I might try something new

Throwin art up like I’m frank miller

This new sin city

For a Franklin I’m weed dealer

But only if you got titties

Barley smoke with bitches

Only cool with 2 bitches

If know then you know

So it ain’t shit to hit the road

I don’t fuck wit niggas,

white drug dealers

Or hoes

tv.show intro

Coming soon to screens everywhere

Stayg.tv

Presents

Music to ride your bike to

A classic program

For the whole family to enjoy

In the city

in the streets

outside the residential

Art district

Ridin on 10 inch rims

Stay gold hymns

Hum to the ra

By the collar of my custom

Btc do big bombs

Street Steezey

In a wu tang tee

An undeniable talent

Raw like papers

Did you do your daily cbd?

Finna b chill

Finna btc

See I’m Standing at the top of the hill

I can feel when it’s real

Fat wheels

Dog dare me to kill

Stash currency

Hiding cash

Thrasher taking up a residency

To thrash

Keep them people in the past

And let it be

Let it happen if it happen

Like tv shows

Ain’t no controllin

Just the Chanel

And the volume

And the input mode

Drippin in paint, gold

Swimming in Info

Creative is a state we all been to

But no one from out there

Kill yourself if you care

Watching Og props

On a iPod touch

Big Air m4. is a stick

Hop on whip off

The porch

Stomping in sum airforce ones

legal guns and legal drugs

All of the above

Written by: Staygold Ky

[enigmaincrimson-personal]

So... How do you apologise for something if you have no idea what it is you are apologising for?

Because I'm kind of dealing with a toxic rumor problem that has been running non stop and... I don't know what to do about it.

Most of it sounds like insane gibberish to me as they're all things I don't have control over.

Like... The OOC post to IC post ratio being out of whack among other things. I don't get that much in general and have to let things pile up just to pretend to have more than I get in short bursts.

I can't turn every ask into a thread and... If I did reply it would be in the form of a text post. If me or you didn't get a notification... It's not my fault. Same goes for crashing people's phones and messages piling up in the box and not knowing they are there.

My replying speed and quality tends to vary alot... A good many conditions can cause me to shut down completely or even emotionally become self destructive. I'm constantly afraid that if everything isn't just right that things will get worse than they already are. It takes me awhile to feel well enough to do even a small thing.

I'm sorry about rambling about things in your IMs... All the things going on have been getting to me lately and has left me well... Kind of a wreck. It might sound like it, but I'm usually frustrated and anxious to the point of insanity when I start ranting about things that are bothering me.

I really don't get most of the accusations I get since I never really hear much from people outside of what pretty much sounds like the Tasmanian Devil's angry babbling... Or an angry mob on a witch Hunt fully intending on burning someone on the stake no matter what they say or do. In fact, most of those times defending myself has only made things worse than they were.

I also keep having flashbacks to all those other times things like this have happened and to put it short I... Literally have to fight myself to keep from just... Offing myself to end the suffering of those around me. It feels like I am the problem in every situation I've been and there is nothing I can do to fix that no matter how hard I try.

I can't blame you for not wanting to forgive me when I can't even forgive myself for every single mistake I've made... Even the little ones.

I don't want to be the self centered asshole that asks for everything and gives nothing back. It takes everything I got to even send a little message or a meme because I'm afraid I'll let you down. I don't ask for art because I feel greedy for doing so. It's not like I have the money to pay for anything outside of the occasional random fluke and I never get to keep that for long.

As far as I know... Blocks are pretty much forever, a point of no return. No hope or forgiveness can be found there. They're constant reminders that I'm just another piece of garbage on the dash. I'm no better than those creeps that harrass minors into doing smut and throw fits when they don't get their way.

I don't think highly of myself if I were honest. Everyone seems to be so much more together... While a small army of people have to pretty much hold me together constantly so I don't start falling apart. The only reason why I'm still here is because I have someone to share my problems with, talk ideas, and just being there.

I am still here because of you... I wish I could say this more openly, but I keep thinking of all those other times where people said things like this they didn't actually mean. I know I get clingy sometimes... But I'm afraid I might lose you if I don't let go and at the same time I'm afraid if I do I'll lose all of you that way instead.

I wish I could tell all of you myself, but I really don't have much say in this and I don't have a voice at this point. I'm just crap that takes up space on everyone's dash and they only care when there are problems real or implied.

I do listen... But it's not easy for me to express myself. It's not my strong suit. I'm also very slow when it comes to performing certain tasks... I have to mentally poke at it until the parts feel like they are going to move just right and if I can't get it that way it's going to drive me insane trying.

I don't mean to hurt anyone... Most of the time I'm well... An anxious, emotionally broken down klutz who can't stop reminding themselves of every mistake and person they hurt... Even if it was never my intention to do so. However... It's easier to claim that I don't have any problems and tell everyone that I'm a guilt tripping monster that goes out of their way to stalk and harass people. Maybe I am, but it's kind of hard to do much of anything improving when all I can hear are doors being slammed and locked whenever I show up... And the angry mobs that pretty much want to burn me at the stake just for existing.

I don't like seeing anyone else in trouble either... But I'm afraid that if I tried to help in any way or at all, I'll just make things worse. I'm still trying to get over someone tried to commit suicide when I tried to talk them out of it awhile back... and most of the time people just get hurt in other ways as well.

I could keep going on about this, but... It's probably pushing things enough as is and I've already lost alot of people I thought were my friends this past while. I'm probably going to lose a few more because of this.

I know I should apologise for writing this post, but It's not easy keeping all this bottled up... And I need to say something about it somehow.

I wish that I wasn't so horrible at this. I'm sorry... Again.

[cookinguptales]

So this came up on Twitter yesterday and I thought I’d post about it on Tumblr today. Frankly speaking, I’ve got a lot of young followers and this is some truth I wish someone had taught me when I was a lot younger because I would’ve gone through a lot less stress.

I know we’re all starved for outside validation on this site, but I wanna talk to you about when compliments are used by creeps. Now, you probably know about negging (when someone uses a backhanded compliment on you to make you feel bad about yourself, often in order to pick you up more easily — i.e. “you’re really pretty for a fat girl”), creepy sexualized comments on the street, etc. But I’m talking about really nice compliments about your work or your personality or your drive. Even the sweetest compliment can be used as a weapon.

(All this is going to be a pretty gendered discussion; I in no way want to say that only guys can be creeps and only women have been socialized in the ways I’m about to discuss, but, well. Let’s all be real here, there are definite patterns.)

Discussion under a cut for length and possible triggers

I don’t want to get into a lot of my own painful personal experiences with creepy guys, but I do have to bring up some examples from my own life, so I’ll use one particular guy as a case study. Let’s call him Dick. (Look, I never claimed to be mature.) I’ve had these experiences with guys IRL, but Dick was a guy I met online. At first, Dick was my friend. He clearly had a bit of a crush, but seemed to accept it when I said I wasn’t interested. It was nice having a bud who shared my interests and I knew he had some issues with socializing, so at first I was pretty patient with his problems with boundaries. But by the time my longstanding friendship with Dick ended, he had become a full-blown stalker — and my friends were on his side.

How did this happen? Well, my friends, it’s the art of the public compliment. Dick was All About Me. He loved me. He treated me right. He praised me for my mind and my heart, and he didn’t care who heard him do it. Or so I thought. It took a long time for me to realize it, but he cared very much who heard it. That was exactly why he said it. To be heard.

Over time, I started to become more and more uncomfortable with Dick’s attentions. He wanted to talk about me more than he did the media we’d bonded over. He kept talking about how our (respective) children would grow up together, and would maybe fall in love. (???) He told me that he’d gone to a place I often vacation at — and he’d looked around for tangible traces of me. Long story short, Dick had become pretty creepy.

But, like many women, my first instinct in this situation was to be nice. I wanted to go to him privately and have a polite conversation about all this. And, to his credit, he seemed truly and honestly repentant. Until he did it again. It became a pattern of me trying to establish boundaries and Dick stomping all over them. Finally, despite feeling guilty, I told him he was really upsetting me and I wanted him to leave me alone for a while.

This is when the second creepy pattern emerged. The compliment trap. When I told him to stop contacting me, he didn’t…technically. He didn’t talk to me. He talked about me. He publicly talked about what a great person I was. How smart. How kind. How forgiving. He said it to my friends. He said it to people I respected. And he tagged me.

Now, this looked nice on the outside. He was just complimenting a woman he respects! How nice! But on my side of things, it felt like a trap. All of my friends were waiting for me to acknowledge these compliments. The situation left me with three choices: thank him (in a demure, polite way befitting a modest woman, ofc) and be forced to interact with a man I’d told to leave me alone,  ignore him and look like a stuck up bitch, or say publicly that he’s a creep — which would make me look like I was “hysterical”. (See: rape culture, women “overreacting”, punishing men who “just want to be nice”, etc.)

Left with this choice, I chose option #1. I chose option #1 a bunch of times. Because this would become a pattern. I’d tell him to stop contacting me, he’d do this public complimenting game, I’d feel like I had to interact with him — and worse, I’d question my own feelings of fear. I’d say “Well, look how nice he’s being. Maybe he’s just awkward. He clearly likes me. He doesn’t want to hurt me. Maybe I really was overreacting.” And I’d talk to him again. Until he’d ask me for my address for a Christmas card or something.

And I didn’t realize for a really long time that he wasn’t being nice! This behavior! It was not nice! It was deeply emotionally manipulative! He’d put this horrible emotional onus on me to forgive and forgive and forgive, steadily gaslighting me into forgetting how scared I’d been until I blamed myself for being so quick to react… and let him back into my life. Because this was all public. All our “fighting” happened in private. All those times I begged him to just ease up a little were privy to only the two of us. All our friends, all my support system, only saw a nice boy with a crush praising a girl he liked and her refusing to give him the time of day.

Guess what happened when I finally put my foot down and stopped engaging when he did this? Oh boy. Oh boy. He started sending me literally dozens of messages a day, sometimes over a hundred. Have you ever had a person sending you @s on tumblr and twitter, private messages on tumblr and twitter, public and private messages on Facebook, emails, LJ messages, IMs on two different clients, and forum messages? Every single goddamn day? Dozens of times? Have you ever had a guy start showing interest in something you know he never liked before — just so he can “coincidentally” run into you on every community you’ve ever joined?

Honestly, I was so stressed. In tears all the time. My school work was suffering. No matter how many times I tried to tell him to stop, to avoid him, etc., he just kept going. I told him that we were done. No more forgiveness. I wanted absolutely zero contact — and I wanted him to never mention me on social media again. I didn’t want him to @ me. I didn’t want him to say my name. I didn’t want him to make thinly veiled sad posts about me. Zero contact. If he did that, I wouldn’t block him on every single platform and tell everyone we knew.

Yeah, I was dumb. I still wanted to be nice and polite. He’d been my friend, y’know? I didn’t want to ruin his life. I just wanted him to stop ruining mine. Even then, I didn’t understand how manipulative he’d been. I still believed he was just kind of awkward, and that I was probably the dick for being unable to deal with it. After all, I’d been friends with him, right? I’d encouraged him, right? It’d felt good to have someone like me so much, right?

(Yeah, until it didn’t.)

I almost got out this time, though. He almost made it. Sure, he “accidentally” replied to my posts every few weeks. (Somehow I didn’t put together that even though I’d unfollowed him, he clearly hadn’t unfollowed me. I guess I just thought that he’d kept seeing my posts when our mutual friends replied to them.) I felt pretty good. In fact, I was at a point where I felt almost silly for being upset in the first place. And then our mutual friends started asking me why we weren’t talking as much. He’d liked me so much. We’d had such good conversations. They talked about maybe reconnecting with him. After all, they’d only ever seen him being nice.

And god help me, I said okay. I figured he must have grown! Learned his lesson! Nah, that fucker was back to sending me tons of messages, talking to my friends (who did not know him), inserting himself in conversations I was having with others, making plans for the children I never wanted to have, etc.

I finally blocked him. E v e r y w h e r e. And I felt so fucking relieved that I was actually angry with myself for not doing it earlier. This man had harassed me for years, and I’d been the one to feel guilty over it.

Still private, I contacted our mutual friends and told them very briefly that he’d been harassing me and I was cutting off contact. I asked them to support me. Some people did.

A lot of people didn’t.

They’d only seen his public face. They’d only seen the avalanche of love and compliments. He hadn’t known better!! He just didn’t know how to express his feelings!! Next thing I knew, they were forwarding messages from him to me. Even after I’d blocked the fucker, he was still using compliments and romantic gestures to get to me! Through the people I’d trusted!

I’d finally had enough and was very public about this man who’d harassed me. I told people everything I’d been putting up with. I aired all our dirty laundry that I’d tried so hard to keep politely private. And some people believed me.

But a lot of people didn’t.

(This, coincidentally, is why I don’t answer tumblr asks privately anymore, not unless the person specifically asks me to and they haven’t been creepy at all. I had another guy pull this on me and I found myself in this same position again and all I had was private harassment. So no more of that! Public contact all the way.)

But Sarah, you say, isn’t this an isolated incident? Why are you making this huge tumblr post about one guy? Well, number one, it wasn’t one guy. This happened to me several times before I recognized that this wasn’t one man — this was a pattern of behavior that many men share. Number two, it speaks to wider issues that I’d like to address.

Media pushes this idea that if a girl is mad at you, you just have to work hard to be romantic and win her back. Piss her off? Hold up a boom box outside her window! Romantic, right? No, bruh, you’re lurking outside a girl’s bedroom window when she said she doesn’t be around you. She’s terrified and you’re being a creep. This isn’t gonna win her back. It’s just going to tell her you don’t know how to respect her boundaries.

Women are socialized to be nice even when they’re scared. We’re supposed to ignore the alarm bells in our head because it’s not socially acceptable to pull away. When we are complimented, we are supposed to acknowledge it graciously. When someone likes us, we are supposed to like them back. If we draw strong boundaries and enforce them, we often face strong social consequences. I’m here to tell you that every one of those consequences is worth it to help you feel safe.

Hell, I’ll reiterate it. It’s okay to be a bitch. Don’t sacrifice your mental and emotional well being for someone else’s. Women are supposed to be self-sacrificial, too… but you don’t have to be. A truly good person wouldn’t want you to be.

A PERSON WHO REALLY LIKES AND RESPECTS YOU WILL NOT WANT YOU TO FEEL UNSAFE AROUND THEM. IF THEY’RE OKAY WITH YOU BEING SCARED OF THEM, THIS IS A DEEPLY UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIP.

Compliments are not always kind!! You do not always need to be grateful for them! Even nice compliments, ones that are more “you have beautiful writing” vs “nice tits”, can be utilized to emotionally manipulate you and those around you. If a compliment is making you uncomfortable because of the context in which it’s given, you do not need to even acknowledge it. It doesn’t make you stuck up or a bitch. Compliments are supposed to build you up and make you feel good, y’know? If it’s hurting you, it’s still a shitty compliment and that’s on them.

We’re taught that it’s best to be discreet. Naw, man. Be as public as possible, especially if someone’s giving you weird vibes. Keep things on the public record. Like, don’t be an asshole or anything, don’t publicize private information, but you don’t have to keep your conflict in the dark away from prying eyes. That’s only going to benefit the person hurting you… because there will be no established pattern of behavior. Establish establish establish.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, no one is owed your attentions. It doesn’t matter if they like you. It doesn’t matter if they do nice things for you. It doesn’t matter if there’s social pressure to acknowledge them and/or their efforts. It doesn’t matter if they do every single thing right. If you don’t want to interact with someone, you don’t have to. It doesn’t matter if they just give you vague creep vibes — or if you just plain don’t like them! No one is owed your attentions! Never feel trapped into interacting with people because they make you feel guilty!

(And for that matter, never let someone make you uncomfortable because “they’re just socially awkward”. You can be sympathetic towards someone’s social issues without letting them make you feel unsafe. Believe me, I’ve fallen into this one so many times.)

Anyway, tl;dr? Live bitch is better than dead sweetheart. Don’t fall for the compliment trap. Tell him to fuck off. If friends try to act as intermediary between you and someone you cut out of your life, they’re trash. Tell them to fuck off, too. You have my blessing.