#you can also support me other ways

[ali-croft7]

*Inhales* Okay, here we go

Commissions are open!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Bonus 13: Beware the Grapes of Wrath.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[inkskinned]

you were raised in comparison.

it wasn't always obvious (well. except for the times that it was), but you internalized it young. you had to eat what you didn't like, other people are going hungry, and you should be grateful. you had to suck it up and walk on the twisted ankle, it wasn't broken, you were just being a baby. you were never actually suffering, people obviously had it worse than you did.

you had a roof over your head - imagine! with the way you behaved, with how you talked back to your parents? you're lucky they didn't kick you out on your ass. they had friends who had to deal with that. hell, you have friends who had to deal with that. and how dare you imply your father isn't there for you - just because he doesn't ever actually talk to you and just because he's completely emotionally checked out of your life doesn't mean you're not fucking lucky. think about your cousins, who don't even get to speak to their dad. so what if yours has a mean streak; is aggressive and rude. at least you have a father to be rude to you.

you really think you're hurting? you were raised in a home! you had access to clean water! you never so much as came close to experiencing a real problem. sure, okay. you have this "mental illness" thing, but teenagers are always depressed, right. it's a phase, you'll move on with your life.

what do you mean you feel burnt out at work. what do you mean you mean you never "formed healthy coping mechanisms?" we raised you better than that. you were supposed to just shoulder through things. to hold yourself to high expectations. "burning out" is for people with real jobs and real stress. burnout is for people who have sick kids and people who have high-paying jobs and people who are actually experiencing something difficult. recently you almost cried because you couldn't find your fucking car keys. you just have lost your sense of gratitude, and honestly, we're kind of hurt. we tell you we love you, isn't that enough? if you want us to stick around, you need to be better about proving it. you need to shut up about how your mental health is ruined.

it could be worse! what if you were actually experiencing executive dysfunction. if you were really actually sick, would you even be able to look at things on the internet about it? you just spend too much time on webMD. you just like to freak yourself out and feel like you belong to something. you just like playing the victim. this is always how you have been - you've always been so fucking dramatic. you have no idea how good you have it - you're too fucking sensitive.

you were like, maybe too good of a kid. unwilling to make a real fuss. and the whole time - the little points, the little validations - they went unnoticed. it isn't that you were looking for love, specifically - more like you'd just wanted any one person to actually listen. that was all you'd really need. you just needed to be witnessed. it wasn't that you couldn't withstand the burden, but you did want to know that anyone was watching. these days, you are so accustomed to the idea of comparison - you don't even think you belong in your own communities. someone always fits better than you do. you're always the outlier. they made these places safe, and then you go in, and you are just not... quite the same way that would actually-fit.

you watch the little white ocean of your numbness lap at your ankles. the tide has been coming in for a while, you need to do something about it. what you want to do is take a nap. what you want to do is develop some kind of time machine - it's not like you want your life to stop, not completely, but it would really nice if you could just get everything to freeze, just for a little while, just until you're finished resting. but at least you're not the worst you've been. at least you have anything. you're so fucking lucky. do you have any concept of the amount of global suffering?

a little ant dies at the side of your kitchen sink. you look at its strange chitinous body and think - if you could just somehow convince yourself it is enough, it will finally be enough and you can be happy. no changes will have to be made. you just need to remember what you could lose. what is still precious to you.

you can't stop staring at the ant. you could be an ant instead of a person, that is how lucky you are. it's just - you didn't know the name of the ant, did you. it's just - ants spend their whole life working, and never complain. never pull the car over to weep.

it's just - when it died, it curled up into a tight little ball.

something kind of uncomfortable: you do that when you sleep.

[randomalistic]

Wait you guys are actually buying Disney products I thought it was a joke

(READ TAGS FOR FULL CONTEXT Sorry it’s long dies

[drenched-in-sunlight]

saying this as respectfully as possible but. Do not put fandom content creators on a pedestal. We are also just fans contributing to a community just as you are. We have boundary on our own work and that’s it. What I say is not and should not be considered sth the whole fandom should listen to. I’m just a normal ass person ranting about things on my blog. If it does not have a fandom tag for others to engage in, do not make it out to be me trying to start fights or addressing the whole community. Because it’s not.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, my art, my lore talk, is biased. I’ve never tried to hide that I view Marika a certain way and will always develop my theory following that base assumption.

Aside from translation stuffs and pointing out in-game items, everything else I say you can look at it, agree or disagree, and move on to form your own opinions. Just because I draw stuffs doesn’t mean you get to saddle me with responsibilities about managing fandom expectations. What the hell? I’m a fan artist, I’m the last person who you should look at for “leaderism” (?) WHAT?

I can and will be a hater in my own space, like I know sometimes other artists will just post their stuffs and not engage too heavily with fandom, and for a while I did try to do that here (because I’m already a dramatic ass on twitter), that’s just not me though.

You will get art and you will get my opinions as well.

[fbfh]

omg could you do leo valdez with ocd reader 🥺 ... i love how you write him smmmm!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

OF COURSE BABES. first of all for anyone who doesn't know there are a lot of different types of OCD, and no matter what type or types you have, you could not find someone more supportive than Leo motherfucking Valdez. OCD is hard to have and hard to treat and guess what???? he's gonna learn everything he can about it and work with you to figure out how to help you when things are bad and good and all the little uppy downy in between parts.

adding a read more so this doesn't trigger anyone (cw: mentions of contamination, checking, vague mentions of intrusive thoughts, religious ruminations and magical thinking, please do not engage with this post if it could trigger you!!! I love yall <3)

if you have the contamination kind and you're always stuck feeling like nothing's clean enough, Leo understands. He'll take over for you, he'll cast eyes over things and remind you that you did what you're supposed to do and help distract you with something else. He knows to check dates on the groceries he buys you, knows how to help you feel better without accidentally enabling your compulsions.

if you have checking compulsions like relocking doors and making sure the stove is off and appliances are unplugged, he starts doing the closing up routine at night for you. you have a house rule that you're only allowed to check things two times, then Leo will check once for you if you need him to, then he helps you move onto something else. If you're worried that the stove is on and it's going to burn down the house, he never fails to make you laugh by promising to be the one to deal with all the insurance guys.

"Worst case scenario? We pull off the greatest insurance scam in history and retire early to the Swiss alps."

he says it so casually that it never fails to make you laugh, it takes the sting and the stress from your thoughts a little.

if religious ruminations or magical thinking are more your thing, Leo actually knows exactly what to do about that. he pulls out a golden drachma and cuddles with you while he fidgets with it.

"I can get a direct line to any god. If one of them starts beefing with you, I will personally handle it." he kisses you. he mumbles against your lips, and he smiles when he gets you to smile. "I'll also remove every screw, nut, bolt, and support beam in their entire palace and turn everything into breakaway prop furniture."

when your intrusive thoughts get bad he holds your shaky hands and promises that he won't ever let you do anything that could hurt you or someone else, he goes through your affirmations and grounding exercises with you, he reminds you that thought crimes are not crimes.

no matter what your symptoms are or how bad they get, Leo's love for you and deep knowledge that you are an amazing, wonderful, incredible person never wavers. he loves you. he loves being with you, he loves helping you, he loves being the one to care for you. Leo loves knowing that he's able to support you, to ease your burden and make sure you don't feel like you're alone. and you're never going to be alone, because nothing could ever scare Leo away from you. he just loves you too much.

[spiderman2-99]

Let me assign you an affection language.

A Knife Called Grief You have left your house, you have left those people behind, but what are you going to do about the memories which have taken root in you? You can run but not without them. You want someone to sit with you on this cool marble floor while the sun burns everything.You want them to cut your rotten heart and theirs too. You want to sit with it in front of you, let them see you with all your flaws, which haven’t been your fault but you have been made to believe so, and you want them to love you anyways. Because you know you’d do that for them.

[yoinked from iobartach]

[cordyceph]

went to bed and woke up in a cold sweat realizing that claudia's play, the birdie one, is both a direct analogy for her story and also foreshadowing of her death WHILE ALSO nodding to pauls death

claudia'a single minded, desperate drive for freedom eventually lead her directly to her death. she was "nailed down" by lestat (by LOUIS, actually- lestat only kept her for him.), and tore herself free at the loss of her 'foot,' being a stand in for the personal pain she suffered for freedom

no matter what she or anyone did, she was going to die painfully, because she was so desperate to be free that everything was suffocating. lestat, louis, romania, the coven. the only thing that didnt rot in her mind was madeline, because... there simply wasnt time. madeline was fresh and new and, given time, would have probably suffered the same heel-turn claudia gave to everything.

of course thats because she shared louis' hopeful outlook. being free of her parents? would fix everything. when it didn't? maybe if she had louis, it would be worth it. but its not, lestats still here, louis is still in love with him... killing lestat, thatll fix it, and she and louis will be happy in romania, right, the homeland for vampirekind? not quite, so better try paris, the city of love. that doesnt work. the coven, though, will give her what she wants, right? she'll be happy with other vampires?

the only person who makes her happy is? a modern version of lestat? a weird white woman she met on happenstance, who has little to no care for societal norms or faux pas. a blunt, kind of funny, kind of sad woman who lost her family but has a capacity for enduring because what else is she going to do? die? no, she cant do that. she had no friends because she was weird and offputting and had dangerous rumors, no hangups on loving claudia, no hangups on dying or being a killer.

that's... just lestat. without the immortality and the specific traumas, of course, but like. claudia's most beloved person was a funhouse mirror of her most hated. which really speaks volumes for what they could have had, because it wasnt just a clash of personalities. it was lestats bpd clashing with hers and both of their attachment to louis clashing. if lestat had been better at sharing, if louis had been better at loving both of them, if claudia had been less angry at the world for nothing but existing? maybe they could have been a good family. a happy one forever, just like they all wanted, but were unable to give each other

[dykedvonte]

love seeing your takes on mouthwashing and how sane they are. everything's so black or white. I like how you acknowledge curlys abuse under jimmy (which I honestly didn't quite notice when I first watched a playthrough. should rewatch w this in mind) and how that very much doesn't "forgive" his inaction towards Anya and Her abuse under jimmy. I think what happens to him despite all his issues (bc he clearly wasn't OK 😊✌🏼) is very much karmic. I really did hurt huh

I hate the take that what happened to him is karmic as becoming disabled and being tortured is like not in any way an equal consequence for not taking more action against Jimmy. It is a consequence as is the whole game for everyone but it’s one that is very much established as being undeserved and extreme as everyone else’s but Jimmy’s fate.

Thank you for liking my takes but I also try to point out that this exact sort of framing of the events and what happened to Curly is bad especially if you are gonna factor in his own abuse into the equation of his inaction/ineffective acts. It’s like “saying yeah he deserved the abuse he was already going through to escalate because he didn’t do enough” which is like not a message the game tries to deliver at all. It’s like the game shows that abusers escalate

Karma and punishment are not concepts that I think should be directly tied to Curly’s fate especially since during the game and even in discussion he takes on too many consequences of someone else’s actions. Like this framing is the direct thing I describe taking the discussion away from Jimmy, P.E and the factors that created the environment in the first place.

[tleeaves]

There are two wolves inside me. One wants to embrace a new hobby in dance so I can be active and feel elegant and graceful and strong. This wolf wants to try something new and exciting, finally indulging in something I've always had an interest in.

The other experiences such frustrating emotions on a near daily basis that I want to go back to boxing, which is arguably easier to break into since I've already done it before. This wolf doesn't think of elegance, she just wants to fuck shit up until her body's so overworked and warm it fogs up car windows without having to do anything but sit inside.

Which one do I fucking feed??

[thebestusernamepossible]

I’m mostly staying off the Mouthwashing fandom bc I personally don’t want to put myself through whatever discourse is ever going on there. But know I love Anya and Mouthwashing is one of the best games I’ve played that had an SA survivor AND was respectful about it!! The abuse Anya suffered is never portrayed as a spectical for the audience to leer at. They use the art of implication VERY well, and in the end Anya gets to go out dignified. She’s not just Jimmy’s tradgic victim, she’s her own character who makes her own decisions. Jimmy doesn’t get to kill her, she expresses her own agency to do so. She’s also the one who kept the gun away from him for so long. Also she’s SO fucking strong, she’s so cool. Anya I love you.

Also the game’s overarching (but subtle) commentary on rape culture, enabling, and how capitalism almost makes a set dressing for it is peak.

[sieglinde-freud]

oh im obsessed with this actually… who ever wrote this one i am kissing u on the forehead and hugging you real tight… inigo is such a loverboy im kkkhhhhhhijnsdnfng

[vasito-de-leche]

transwoman Druvis and gay Forget Me Not ruins my life and makes my head bang the walls (lovingly)

RIGHT???? RIGHTTTTTTTT??????? I love that ship so much when there's always something irreconcilable between them and when they're extremely divorced

[leek-e]

My designs for the characters from We Object To Fear :) I love this show a lot and have watched it many times.

In order they are Matthew and his mum, Brian and Clark (prosecution), Alicia and Spencer (defence), and Xander and his unnamed friend (pre-trial).

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

The whole discourse about the privacy/secrecy/support thing has been sitting with me for a few days (I mean other than it always does to a certain degree) thanks to all the excellent discussion happening and I know I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said a million times before, but I think what we're seeing and what we're going to learn (e.g. from TTPD) is that it wasn't just the support issue, but how it was shown/handled.

We've all gone out of our way to show that introversion =/= lack of support. Someone can be shy, reserved, etc. and still show up for their partner, whether in public or at home. To chalk any of the differences up to the clash between introversion and extroversion is unfair to folks who count themselves among either tbh.

@thisisctrying said something the other day that hit the nail on the head about how if that support had been offered in private, there very well may not have been a Joever to begin with, or at least not at this point in time. (Sorry for loosely paraphrasing, and for namedropping you! Long time listener, first time poster.)

If this were a case where the "shy" partner said, "I am really uncomfortable with the spotlight personally and do not want to court it, but I will support you in your ambitions and offer you whatever you need to make them happen and make the glare bearable," I suspect that would have gone a long way to making Taylor feel seen and comfortable in pursuing her goals in the way that she now has. Again, that might have been more akin to the balance that seemed to have been struck around 2019 from what we can see, but even speaking in a general sense, there are lots of couples out there, celebrity or not, that have similar approaches where there are highly driven people and busy careers involved.

(A famous example being Dolly Parton's marriage. Tbh I know next to nothing about her and Carl, but she's always heralded as an example in this regard, because her husband is famously uncomfortable with the spotlight and hasn't accompanied her to public events in decades, but she's said that she never minded that because that was always work to her, and what was important was that he supported her in pursuing all her career goals and basically ensured she had a place to call home to return to at the end of the day.)

We're kind of in a brave new world with her current relationship because it felt like, at least at the start, we were maybe watching her figure out her boundaries in real time as to what she was comfortable with or not and adjust accordingly. Like so many have said, I fully believe the extreme privacy thing was initially driven by herself and her experiences in 2016, and she needed that quiet time to recover from all of the things and figure out how to exist in the world again.

Stating the obvious, it seemed like eventually privacy was equated with secrecy, turning the relationship and the celebrity into the elephant in the room and something to never be spoken of to the outside world. People are free to choose whatever works best for themselves and their relationships, and for some the separate public lives might work, but the “kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath” theme is all over her work and it’s clear that it’s a sore spot for her, because she’s been made to feel shame just for the life she leads so many times in the past.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s pretty obvious something Not Great was happening behind the scenes, which didn’t just amount to “she wanted to be a public celebrity and he wanted to be a private hermit.” (Also, in case anyone forgot, this is a person who also chose a public-facing career who also has to engage in press for it, but I digress.) As her career reached new heights post-folklore, if she had the support at home to do all the things without judgment and with encouragement, and in turn offer the same support to her partner, she may have very well lived just fine with that, not unlike Dolly Parton’s case.

By reading between the lines in all the press since, as well as comments on tour and general ~vibes~ with TTPD teasers, it seems like one of the issues was that that was likely not the case. There was all the stuff that we saw — the reticence to acknowledge each other in the media (particularly on one side), the lack of public support even at events at which they were both in attendance for their respective jobs, the great lengths they went to not to be photographed together at events they attended yet no problem taking pictures with other friends and coworkers, the jobs that separated them, the withdrawing from the public even for work accomplishments, etc. Which could all be manageable if a couple chooses to do so together and are not inherently a sign of trouble in themselves.

But what we’re seeing now I think is a reflection of the things we weren’t seeing then, and it seems to indicate some very deep hurt. (I know, call me Captain Obvious.) And like so many have been saying, it feels likely that that part of that hurt is rooted in that very lack of private support where a person would expect it from their partner. Obviously as a Taylor fan blog I’m going to be more inclined to understand her side of a story, but tbh, it’s also because… this is sooooooo common, and something I’ve experienced in my friend group. (@taylortruther is right when she says most breakups are the same one way or another lol.)

One partner is resentful of the other’s success, or resentful that the other’s priorities begin to evolve as new experiences unlock new goals, or feels the other’s ambitions are not worthy of pursuit, and coupled with perhaps their own struggles in the same domain, it’s easy to see where that can chip away at the other partner’s morale and faith in the relationship. I know I’m just speculating here, but I also don’t think it’s totally unfounded. (Again, because a) I’m picking up what she’s putting down and b) it happens to sooooooo many women even among us dull normals.)

With all the pointed mentions about how much Taylor feels supported in her current relationship and how she in turn loves to offer the same show of support to not only her partner but other loved ones, how she’s stepped out more in the last year to a whole host of events, how she’s mentioned feeling like she locked herself away for years and she’s just proud of her partner and happy she can show up for him even if the chaos around it is unsettling, it paints a picture of what perhaps was happening before last year.

To feel like you’re all alone in carrying the weight of the relationship (or burden of it), of twisting yourself into knots to accommodate the other person’s boundaries (or insecurities) but not feeling reciprocity for your own has to be so painful. (The idea that it may have been even darker and to have a partner not only be unreceptive to your own needs but even perhaps resentful/dismissive/belittling of them is even more painful to think of. I guess we’ll find out when TTPD comes out if that was the case, too.)

At a certain point, that lack of acknowledgement will force your hand to be able to reclaim yourself. And it feels like the further removed Taylor in particular is from it, the more she moves from being sad about the life she felt she gave up by leaving, to angry at the life she felt she was giving up by staying. Especially being in a relationship now where it seems like everything comes much easier, where she can be open about the person she’s with and show up for them, all the stuff that seemed as challenging as climbing Mount Everest in her past is nothing more than a molehill at best in her current life.

TL;DR: I don’t think it’s privacy that inherently spells doom for a celebrity relationship like this; it’s the mutual support and respect that does. If Taylor had felt that in the later years of her previous relationship, I think we could be seeing a different, though not necessarily unfulfilled, person right now in 2024, who’d be happy on tour but whose personal life would look a little different. But it seems like by losing that support she lost parts of herself, and we’ve seen her reclaim that in spades in the last year, and perhaps to degrees she didn’t even realize she could from before all the Bad Stuff started happening in her young adulthood.

I know this was extremely long-winded and unnecessary, especially about total strangers we only know through scraps fed through the media, but I just always bristle at this idea that issues like these boil down to “personality differences,” as though one person wants to live in a city and the other on a remote island, or some shit like that. The whole support (and gender tbh) issue is one that’s just very close to my heart because again, I have seen it play out with so many of my friends in long term relationships and marriages and I just think people in relationships (and women in particular in some circles) deserve better than to feel like they’re being, well, tolerated.

[reverienco]

Have you thought of N getting his revenge on J for all the years he has been builled by her?

i don't think he ever would. N is a naturally very nice and forgiving person, specially so to a fault. i really don't think he holds/held a grudge against her or V for the way they've treated him prior to his meeting with uzi. the most negative we've gotten was his "J, you're sometimes kinda mean to me and I wish you weren't. Just some constructive criticism!" but even then, it was prompted by uzi and he did say "constructive criticism" lol

other than that, he has THANKED HER when she stepped on him, called him worthless and terrible and she'd kill him if company allowed it; when she LITERALLY almost kills him and never complained about her bullying in the manor. he stopped uzi from throwing (presumably) an insult towards eldritch J's appearance, was completely chill when she came back as a clone????

bottom line is, N doesn't seem like the type to hold grudges or plan revenge against anyone, even if they've actively hurt him for so long. he's always willing to give everyone even a little bit of a benefit of the doubt