#might be might not be

[furthestexit]

i wish my mom gave me more attention and loved me more. i cant say i’m not grateful for her working so hard just to keep me alive but i don’t think it’s selfish for her to just treat me like she loves me instead of saying feeding me and keeping me was alive. it makes me think, maybe i’m not loveable enough for her to tell me more reasons for why she loves me. maybe that’s why she doesn’t bother spending time with me. maybe that’s why she doesn’t like me. i wish i was immature and selfish enough to make a big mess of myself and scream “look at me. look at how shitty i am. this is your son. your daughter. your child. this is me.” i wish i was brave enough to yell at her and cry at her hoping she’d hold me and tell me it’s ok. i wish i was able to talk to her instead of sitting at the dinner table and hoping she asks if i’m hungry. if im having trouble. if i’ve been okay recently. i want her to pay attention and notice me. i want to scream “look at how messed up i am. i cant even eat properly because of you. i cant do basic life tasks. i cant keep myself alive. i cant be independent. it’s all your fault. it’s all your fault i’m not good enough.” and have her listen and tell me she’s sorry. i want to be able to tell her the reason i haven’t been eating is because of her and that she could’ve prevented it. i hate it when she says things that are burned into my memory or acts like i should know how to do something and get mad at me when i don’t even though she’s never taught me ever. i don’t know how i’m supposed to learn how to be independent from youtube tutorials alone. i wish i was better. i wish i was good enough. good enough for you to tell me that you love me and mean it.

i love you mum, and i can never be more grateful for the sacrifices you have made for me. i remember seeing you cry as a kid, i rememebr you talking about your struggles, you doing your best to keep me happy. you were an amazing mum and you did your best but it wasn’t enough for me and i wish it was. i wish i was normal. i wish i could do this shit. i wish i could stop feeling sad about you because you’re my mum and you’ve done so much for me. i can feel your phantom fingers on my body and i can hear your voice telling me i’m fat and ugly and need to lose weight. i can remember you telling me that i’m ugly and i need tk grow out my hair and stop trying to look like a boy. i can remember you looking at me before we went out and your eyes on my body with a disappointed look. like you wish you did better. like you wish you had a better child. someone more feminine, more pretty, more skinny. anyone but me. i want to fuck things up. i want to fuck myself up and make you pay attention. i wanna get so skinny you finally admit i’m good enough, bones and all. i want you to tell me you’re worried abs you want to help. i want so much from you that you’ll never provide me.

i wish i could say i hated you. i wish i could say i can forget it all and be your perfect daughter again that you love with all your heart. i wish. i remember the bad parts and that shoudlve been enough because the way it still stings years later, much after 9 years old, is telling enough. but i also remember you sitting next to me in bed when i was scared to sleep. i remember you holding me during a breakdown. i remember you making me my favourite lunches and knowing exactly what i like. i remember you taking care of me. you’re such a hardworking mother. i cant deny that. but you also hurt me when i was small, and that will never change. no matter how much time passes, i still feel that sting when i look at you.

[amartworks]

had a fun experience on the subway the other day

[possumtion]

They’re back!!

[robyn-i-guess]

liking someone platonically is so embarrassing like. yeah i admire you. yeah i think about you all the time. yeah i look forward to every time i see you even if it's only for a minute. yeah it's all platonic and yeah i couldn't explain this because it'd sound romantic. fucking hell

[mroddmod]

the queen of the disco or whatever

[freackthejester]

I had a dream that a bunch of people were making jokes about how the economy was so bad that gay people couldn't afford closets and were just "in the corner"

[kosmogrl]

how the world feels when you listen to a song for the first time and immediately know you'll love it forever

[shadesofmauve]

I want to step away from the art-vs-artist side of the Gaiman issue for a bit, and talk about, well, the rest of it. Because those emotions you're feeling would be the same without the art; the art just adds another layer.

Source: I worked with a guy who turned out to be heavily involved in an international, multi-state sex-slavery/trafficking ring.

He was really nice.

Yeah.

It hits like a dumptruck of shit. You don't feel stable in your world anymore. How could someone you interacted with, liked, also be a truly horrible person? How could your judgement be that bad? How can real people, not stylized cartoon bogeymen, be actually doing this shit?

You have to sit with the fact that you couldn't, or probably couldn't, have known. You should have no guilt as part of this horror — but guilt is almost certainly part of that mess you're feeling, because our brains do this associative thing, and somehow "I liked [the version of] the guy [that I knew]", or his creations, becomes "I made a horrible mistake and should feel guilty."

You didn't, loves, you didn't.

We're human, and we can only go by the information we have. And the information we have is only the smallest glimpse into someone else's life.

I didn't work closely with the guy I knew at work, but we chatted. He wasn't just nice; he was one of the only people outside my tiny department who seemed genuinely nice in a workplace that was rapidly becoming incredibly toxic. He loaned me a bike trainer. Occasionally he'd see me at the bus stop and give me a lift home.

Yup. I was a young woman in my twenties and rode in this guy's car. More than once.

When I tell this story that part usually makes people gasp. "You must feel so scared about what could have happened to you!" "You're so lucky nothing happened!"

No, that's not how it worked. I was never in danger. This guy targeted Korean women with little-to-no English who were coerced and powerless. A white, fluent, US citizen coworker wasn't a potential victim. I got to be a person, not prey.

Y'know that little warning bell that goes off, when you're around someone who might be a danger to you? That animal sense that says "Something is off here, watch out"?

Yeah, that doesn't ping if the preferred prey isn't around.

That's what rattled me the most about this. I liked to think of myself as willing to stand up for people with less power than me. I worked with Japanese exchange students in college and put myself bodily between them and creeps, and I sure as hell got that little alarm when some asian-schoolgirl fetishist schmoozed on them. But we were all there.

I had to learn that the alarm won't go off when the hunter isn't hunting. That it's not the solid indicator I might've thought it was. That sometimes this is what the privilege of not being prey does; it completely masks your ability to detect the horrors that are going on.

A lot of people point out that 'people like that' have amazing charisma and ability to lie and manipulate, and that's true. Anyone who's gotten away with this shit for decades is going to be way smoother than the pathetic little hangers-on I dealt with in university. But it's not just that. I seriously, deeply believe that he saw me as a person, and he did not extend personhood to his victims. We didn't have a fake coworker relationship. We had a real one. And just like I don't know the ins-and-outs of most of my coworkers lives, I had no idea that what he did on his down time was perpetrate horrors.

I know this is getting off the topic, but it's so very important. Especially as a message to cis guys: please understand that you won't recognize a creep the way you might think you will. If you're not the preferred prey, the hind-brain alarm won't go off. You have to listen to victims, not your gut feeling that the person seems perfectly nice and normal. It doesn't mean there's never a false accusation, but face the fact that it's usually real, and you don't have enough information to say otherwise.

So, yeah. It fucking sucks. Writing about this twists my insides into tense knots, and it was almost a decade ago. I was never in danger. No one I knew was hurt!

Just countless, powerless women, horrifically abused by someone who was nice to me.

You don't trust your own judgement quite the same way, after. And as utterly shitty as it is, as twisted up and unstead-in-the-world as I felt the day I found out — I don't actually think that's a bad thing.

I think we all need to question our own judgement. It makes us better people.

I don't see villains around every corner just because I knew one, once. But I do own the fact that I can't know, really know, about anyone except those closest to me. They have their own full lives. They'll go from the pinnacles of kindness to the depths of depravity — and I won't know.

It's not a failing. It's just being human. Something to remember before you slap labels on people, before you condemn them or idolize them. Think about how much you can't know, and how flawed our judgement always is.

Grieve for victims, and the feeling of betrayal. But maybe let yourself off the hook, and be a bit slower to skewer others on it.

[crow-caller]

as a child there's nothing cooler than a kid who gets subjected to evil experiments and gains special abilities. it's even cooler if these abilities also cause unfathomable suffering to use/against others. children love stories like this.

[atissi]

locked the fuck back in

[mayhemchicken-artblog]

in the hour or so it took me to draw this op turned reblogs off

EDIT: reblogs are STAYING OFF. op was right and correct and i have never regretted making a post as much as this one. if you want to reblog my art you can reblog something else from my blog. or commission me, lord knows i deserve financial compensation for the nightmare this post has put me through

[sirompp]

hi. i made some images.

feel free to take them and use for whatever you may need them for. no credit required

[incessantlark]

made some icons of the pony crew !!

[archi-pelago]

maybe never forgive. but things are different now. so we'll use maybe.

[8pxl]

new notepad concept,,,, been a couple yrs since ive released one!~