#of myself. just like. my own person.

[starswallowingsea]

i know its normal to like. tell your parents that you're moving and got a new job but why do i feel like i have to ask permission to fucking. apply for jobs outside of michigan

[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?

[composeregg]

edit (10/23/2024) now that the poll is over: Original version, with 10 questions, from April 2023 here

And, given that the original is from April 2023, that means I can very easily say:

No, this was not an ISAT reference!

Just because I use parentheses and 2nd person pov and love the same concepts of what a time loop can do to a person doesn't mean it's ISAT

(Yes, I like ISAT, the original poll is why I was recommended the game! But if you look at the original, you can see all the origins of the options to choose from, including what spurred me on with the moss option from the replies)

If I were going to make something for ISAT, I would never be so vague, you can simply look at my ao3 for proof of that

[arcanegifs]

Here are some Season 2 Arcane GIF comparisons before and after I color and sharpen them! | Season 1 Comparison GIFs

[brightgoat]

Some notes (aka yapping) on why these two look the way they do in standverse, enjoy

[uncanny-tranny]

Basically, my philosophy around disability fakers is: I would rather a thousand people fake a disability than have one disabled person suffer without care, aids, compassion, or any help.

[miitopia-cake]

I wish some aces would stop excluding other aces with complex sexual experiences. like I get why but you have to realize that being ace does not mean they don't enjoy sexual experiences and it's weird when you complain about allo people and boil it down to "people who have sexual experiences" and also shame people for their sex life and kinks as if your own community doesnt INCLUDE those people. because there are other aces out there who still masturbate, who feel sexually attracted to their own body, who barely experiences sexual attraction but still enjoys sex, who like consuming sexual media, who like sfw kink. being ace is so so much more complex than just "disliking sex". and also aromantic exclusionism in the same genre of posts is something i see a lot. especially aro allos. I hate hate hate seeing a community that SHOULD be inclusive boil down sexuality and exclude people.

[kay-selfships]

i don’t like certain ships with my f/os not because they’re problematic or anything but because i am a hater and they’re supposed to be with ME. hope that helps <3

[canisalbus]

So i remember an ask mentioning your mortal enemy, Felis Atra and their cats, and i thought it'd be fun to draw what Felis Atra's version of your italian dogs would be.

I think they would be called Butter Knife and Flamengo! Butter Knife is not his real name, it's an nickname given by his peers because of how harmless he is. I choose Flamengo because that's the name of Vasco's rival football team here in Brazil, so i thought that was the perfect name :)

Cat Machete was slightly inspired by the Oriental Shorthair cat because of their long noses and thin head shape.

Cat Vasco was inspired by the Scottish Fold cat, because FLOPPY EARS. I gave Flamengo longer ears and orange fur to make him more like his look-alike.

The last doodle is a reference to this ask (https://canisalbus.tumblr.com/post/728923918314946560/me-i-am-machete-ear-fan-number-1-those-ears) and contains the tumblr ask stand-in dog, whose cat version was inspired by the American Curl cat! They have round ears that are slightly floppy outwards.

Final notes: I know cardinal clothes don't come in vibrant blue, but i was ADAMANT on switching Machete's and Vasco's clothing color patterns. I would draw the rest of Butter Knife's and Flamengo's clothes, but i suck at designing cool outfits.

Speaking of outfits, for Machete's iconic void outfit, i figured it would be fun to make it more baggy for Butter Knife, in contrast to Machete's, that looks very tight-fitted. I think it's cute, it kinda looks like a sweater. Also i can't imagine a Machete doppelganger without high heels boots, so those HAD to stay.

Oh, and just to be clear, i'm not like, claiming ownership of these guys or anything. I just thought it would be a fun exercise. Hope you like them!! I love your art and your characters.

.

[licorishh]

so uhhh happy valentine's day i suppose !!

shoves this in your face and runs away

so. uh. yyyyyeah. when i said i liked all interpretations of their dynamic equally i uh. i lied. and to be totally and completely and 100% honest with you it speaks volumes to the state of the internet that i have been legitimately afraid to say that like i've genuinely been debating and turning it over in my head and arguing with myself about it for days because i don't want people frickin' YELLING at me and telling me to off myself because i like a dadgum fictional ship but it's valentine's and my friend has been hyping up the crap outta me so i'm past the point of having a reasonable excuse to chicken out (and i know myself and if i don't do it today then i likely won't do it at all)

anyway words actually cannot express how obsessed i am with post-o66 aus in which they stay together (largely because i so completely refuse to believe they'd be willing to split up after THAT, ESPECIALLY that soon) so yeah shoutout to the softest fluffiest gut-punch-iest pair in the galaxy to whom everything bad has happened but who stay silly despite the horrors

[bylrndgm]

JULIE AND THE PHANTOMS (2020) // JULIE E OS FANTASMAS (2011) 1.01 - Wake Up // 1.01 - Enfrentando Fantasmas -> Julie meets the Band.

[artsymeeshee]

one of those nights

[elodieunderglass]

I can't resist bothering you with more questions. I'm sorry! I want to put Killie in a basket and carry him around with me like a purse dog. Did Charlie always know that he wasn't going to be a horse pilot forever and that he would find a way out of his family's net, or was he never going to escape if him being kicked out hadn't forced him into it? My heart breaks for him a bit, even though he seems the most well-adjusted person in that family. How old was he when he ended up on his own?

(In reference to Killie the jockey OC, crown prince of a horse-obsessed family, and his identical twin brother Charlie, who was disowned/ escaped the orbit of the Horse Planet)

You are never a bother. Nobody could be anything but grateful to have such insightful, brave, witty and inspiring people to talk about their OCs with! Are you kidding?

That’s such a good and deep question - I don’t think that Charlie knows the answer himself. He certainly was quite a talented apprentice jockey. In terms of his place in the family, his parents and siblings all adored him - he is warm and charming and funny - and thought they understood him. He has that special child-of-rotten-parents survival-mode sensitivity to reading a room, that in Charlie translates into useful skills, like “changing the mood of the room” and “sensing what people want him to say”.

But Charlie has a strong sense of identity, and with it, a hard internal limit on personal sacrifice; there are parts of Charlie you can’t have.

And despite being a fifth-generation jockey of impeccable pedigree, the whole “stoic, fearless, impervious to pain” thing appears to be a state of mind - not a physiology thing, but a mental one, engendered by passion for the sport. Charlie has had passages of his life where he’s carried off the Jockey Constitution (TM), but a problem with armouring yourself with a mental state is that if you are an especially clever little liar yourself, like Charlie, you catch on to the trick.

And the sport is inextricable from the horses in their family. So Charlie stormed out (was thrown out) of both family and sport… but I think he does like horses and he was good at it. And it would’ve been hard, in that family, in that immersive and passionate world, to break out naturally - especially when you are so beautifully built for it. It would again come down to Charlie’s strong sense of self.

I think a lot of his sense of identity and resistance came, early on, from connecting honestly with his bisexuality. He’s clever and sneaky, and likes mind games and code-switching and putting on characters, and when he realised the necessity of masking early on, it felt like a secret identity. He was simply Built Different, and couldn’t change it, so he made a game of tap-dancing on the tightrope.

Then he left to build that secret identity into his real self, on purpose, and he threw himself into The Opposite of Being a Jockey. He was not only the first in their family to go to university, he went into academia. He covered his bills by bartending and busking (take that, Dad). He eats cake. He is valued for his mind and brain. He is NOT COMPETITIVE AT ALL. HE’S COLLABORATIVE, EVEN.

…He was just about eighteen. And perhaps it affected him more deeply than he’d say. But what saved him - what always would save Charlie - was a sense of identity.

[theswedishpajas]

I've been very busy with a game and might've stumbled into a favorite guy, as you might know from the "hear me out" tag game

[galaghiel]

what remnant does to a mf

[ninjasmudge]

feeds your narilamb yuri juice

dude i have great news about my regular narilamb