#then i start fabricating little things

[elderflowerprince]

yeah this

another thing i always think is that uh abuse isn't necessarily done on purpose? so often people paint it like it's all schemed deliberately, elaborate plans years in the making. and maybe sometimes it is like that? i'm no expert. but as someone who was raised by a terribly abusive person and picked up a lot of similar traits, i can tell you none of the behaviour i grew up mimicking was on purpose. i could have easily grown up to be someone who treated others like shit, and it would have been with zero self-awareness. or there are some people who do know what they're doing to an extent, but aren't actively planning in advance. lying was like second nature to me. throwing other people under the bus was so easy. i was a kid. and now i actively fight with myself every day to stop myself from doing it, but i can definitely see a path where i never really started caring about others and manipulated people semi-actively as well.

not a defense of abusive people, not trying to say "oh you should feel sorry for them because they don't know better" or anything like that, you don't have a responsibility or obligation to educate and "fix" them, but... sometimes i wish i saw more depiction of this, lying-like-breathing blaming-like-walking using-like-sleeping easiness, instead of even people who are good at lying always being shown as step-by-step thinking through their lies in the way those not used to lying do. i guess.

Abusers have human sides to them too.

When abuse, whether real or fictional, is talked about in media, one of two things usually happens. The abuser is either completely dehumanised and painted as an evil caricature, or given a tragic backstory that makes the victim feel so sorry for their abuser they end up forgiving them.

And I think this is part of why it can be so hard to believe we ourselves are going through abuse. Because when it's you going through it, you see the human side of your abuser too. You see them cry, and laugh, and overcome adversity, and be vulnerable, and feel scared and small. You see them struggle and you see them genuinely try to spend quality time with you, and you see them show the ways they love you. Sometimes, you can even see that they mean it when they say they love you.

And because we've been taught that "actual" abusers are all bad, heartless, merciless, and lacking in humanity, and everyone else is just a suffering person who hurt others because they were hurting inside, we think what we're going through can't possibly be abuse. We think we're exaggerating, or being weak, or selfish. We punish ourselves for not being more understanding of what they're going through. We convince ourselves we're making it all up and we're the monsters in our own story.

But we're not. We're just not used to acknowledging that abusers are human, and that their humanity does not negate their abuse.

If you've ever questioned your abuse because your abuser was struggling, or genuinely loved you, or was trying their best, or expressed conflicting emotions, or was abused themselves, this post is for you. I believe you. I believe what happened to you was abuse. Their circumstances did not justify their actions.

I believe you, and you are not alone.

[chitinleg]

got him off-balance!

[fluentisonus]

working in a factory has you thinking so much about the insane chain of labor & transport that goes into making literally anything

[thebookworm0001]

I have some thoughts about why some of veilguard’s writing is the way it is and it comes down to development hell and corporate meddling which is perhaps too generous for some problems but also feels right for a Lot of the things I think

Thoughts in the tags

[hanzajesthanza]

beauclair is THEEEE winter wonderland and though i think cdpr did a beautiful job at creating it during its summer months in blood and wine, i feel a certain kind of loneliness that the summery toussaint is its most popularly imagined version, because the winter motif is the dream motif is the illusion motif is the beauty and love and fairytale…

[byanyan]

byan being extremely defensive of their substance abuse habits. byan being so very familiar with being looked down upon for drinking & doing drugs that they're terrified of those they've let close thinking less of them for for it. they've been kicked out of homes for it. they've been suspended & expelled from schools over it. they've had nasty things said and done to them because of it. it's only natural that they anticipate the worst from even those most important to them, so they tend to take steps to hide it where, around anyone else, they might instead broadcast it.

byan, upon being found out by someone close to them, getting either aggressively defensive or becoming a sobbing, apologizing mess.

[sheliesshattered]

All eleven pieces of my Yule dress cut out and ready for sewing!

And the swiffer-type dust cloth I used to wipe down all the velvet fuzzies after cutting out each piece. Despite my best efforts there's still velvet lint everywhere, and probably will be until this project is done, lol.

[gwinverarrouz]

My object head OCs whomst I almost never draw, haha. I like them! They just... don't really have stories, so I don't think about them a lot compared to some of my other characters.

The last three were art pieces I made for past editions of the Object Head Zine (these ones are free for all, you can download them!), and the dates written on the first set actually correspond to when these were finished. So 2017, 2019 and 2021. ^^

The middle row is from last year's inktober, thought it'd be fun to include them too. Different styles~

[imbeingtauntedbyachild]

Alicia explorations and an attempt at project sekais 2d models

[antisocialxconstruct]

.

[itsalwaysdark]

how it feels to want to dress very fancy and accessoried but unfortunately have the autism where i think im supposed to just be lounging in a field naked or in like. a plain linen dress. and any accessory or makeup or nail polish or ehat have you makes me want to rip my skin off

[sysig]

Challenge level: Impossible (Patreon)

[ashofalltime]

i truly have no idea what to make my "art brand" other than Hot Boys With Thick Eyebrows :/

[hawke-jpg]

dont have time to set it up right now but would anyone be interested if i made a side blog documenting my plush / figure collection? i’d do like cute little fabric backgrounds and stuff and potentially document me making the odd plush from time to time, figured it might be fun!

[byanyan]

ㅤthinking about byan using arson as a tool for revenge... they learned about the concept of arson and were shown how to do it at age nine, when a group of older boys from school invited them along to burn down an old abandoned building (and then were subsequently abandoned themself, left inside with no warning wherein they were burned quite severely, though not nearly as badly as they could have been). the first time they did it themself, they were eleven, mad at the world, and staying with a rather nasty foster family. the house was set ablaze, everyone lost the majority of their belongings, byan scarred their hands permanently with burns (and their foster sister kit was hurt far worse), and on top of going to the hospital and quickly being removed from the care of those foster parents, they were also put into mandatory counselling.

the first time they ever used arson as a form of revenge rather than in a fit of rage, however, it was on the home of a teacher who was particularly awful to them. he effectively picked on them, never treated them fairly in class or in their grades, and always managed to make them feel dumb and worthless. he always seemed to especially love making fun of their mistakes when they would read out loud or when they failed to spell something correctly. at age twelve, byan was still rather quiet and timid, just trying to keep to themself and survive, and this man was only making their life more miserable and their anger harder to contain. so one night, after he humiliated them in front of their entire class because they misunderstood the topic they'd written an essay on, they set his house on fire. it didn't burn to the ground like they'd hoped, but it did more than enough damage to be satisfying. unfortunately, the incident was traced back to them and they were placed on probation, made to continue their mandatory counselling, and were enrolled in anger management classes.

another time, it was revenge on a man who attacked them on the street. they were no stranger to such a thing happening by fifteen, but it was the first time it happened since they had killed someone in self defence in a near identical scenario. this guy, they managed to fight off with less difficulty and managed to get away only mildly injured, but it triggered an episode of ptsd that made the next several weeks absolute hell. it was probably just shy of a month later when they spotted the guy again and, without really thinking about it, they started lurking, effectively stalking him the whole night, even staking out the bar he spent hours inside of, until they found out where he lived. after waiting another couple hours to ensure he was asleep, they broke in to his apartment, started a fire in the kitchen, and took off. as far as they know, he survived, although to this day they're not so sure they wanted him to.

[tj-crochets]

Hey y’all! Do you have any recommendations for brands of vitamin B12 supplements?  My doctor’s been trying to figure out why I keep having bad muscle spasms and cramps, and a blood test finally showed something as being not normal! Well. Sort of. I’m apparently still in the normal range for B12, but low enough that it could be causing problems? So it’s supplements time, but she didn’t even give me a dosage. I know vitamins can vary wildly in quality and I remember that like third party companies that examine them exist but idk what seals or labels or endorsements I should be looking for