#and I'm just like “mood”...

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

One thing that's really sunk in now that I am in my late 30's and finally processing everything, especially having other experiences to contrast things against, is just how much my childhood was impacted in major ways by early attitudes I learned but never noticed.

Like you know how kids cry out to their mothers or parents for help? Or go to them when they have nightmares? That kind of stuff? I just never fucking did that. I remember just never fucking doing that, and I remember decidedly not going to my parents for help with anything else as a kid or teen. My mom used to even brag about what a quiet baby I was. How I'd sleep all day and just make quiet cooing noises all night in my crib.

Instead of asking for more food the moment I was able I'd hunt bugs for myself int he garden, forcing my mother to leave food out for me to "forage". Because by the time I could crawl or walk my first instinct was to look for a solution myself.

And I know why.

I know my parents have always made their lack of willingness to be supportive or understanding preemptively understood. I remember crying as a child to the point of hyperventilating, standing there trying to calm myself down as best I could, and eventually figuring out that if I sobbed out "I - Need- A - Hug" my mother would clue in that hugging me helped. But I had to figure out that it helped calm me down and communicate that to her before that support was even offered.

Usually how it would go is my sister would already be upset about something and acting out, and the moment I tried to voice that I was having a problem with something too there would be this immediate "Oh don't you start >:(" Like whether I was alone or not the moment I started to seem visibly upset things had gone too far, and people would continue to treat me as a litmus test for that for the rest of my life. Other people could cry and scream but the moment I was expressing that I was upset with any visible emotion, things had gone to far and everyone had to stop.

But it must have been before that too. I must have gotten the signal really early on that I could cry all I wanted and help wasn't coming, because from day one my most ingrained instinct when something went wrong, no matter how big and incomprehensible, has been "okay, so what do -I- do?"...

And I see it now with the way my mother responded to me as a teenager and how she responds to small needy things like animals. The moment they start to whine or pester her for something she acts really agitated and snaps or loses her temper really quickly.

And the stories she'd tell sometimes like she's proud of herself for figuring out how to manipulate us into "good behaviour" when we were "misbehaving"... and it was stuff like if I started crying too instead of helping to get my sister to stop, she's just throw herself on the floor and cry until we were both trying to comfort her... But it never seems to have occurred to her that this meant any time I expressed an unmet need, it was treated as bad behaviour that had to stop and never be addressed.

And when I was a teenager the moment it started to sound like I might tell her something was wrong she would interrupt me to say how I better not because it would "hurt her heart" or remind me of her bleeding ulcers or how she can't handle the stress. The few times as a teen I tried to tell her about anything going poorly in my life it became about managing her feelings about it and her telling me how I ought to have already handled it... So I learned to just not tell her anything.

And I think it was always like that. I had assumed it must just be how I'm hardwired because my sister never did anything except throw tantrums and expect someone to fix it for her, usually me, until she broke it so many times it couldn't be fixed again... Because she was allowed to.

I think, really, all babies start out knowing how to cry for their mothers, and some of us just learn that help won't come.

And before I stopped talking to her she'd ask me why I never told her anything about my life. She'd tell me how my sister tells her all about things all the time even when it's bad, like abusive boyfriends or doing meth or whatever, they talk about it... But I didn't know how to tell her that for my entire life, any time I have tried to tell her about myself or express that something wasn't right, she's told me to stop talking.

And then anytime I started expressing strong emotions as a teenager my step mother would accuse me of faking and punish me. Like even if I wasn't autistic to begin with I don't know how I was supposed to learn how to express emotions 'normally'.

And then my friends too. If I wasn't outwardly emotional they'd treat me like I couldn't possibly be serious about something or actually upset, and if I did show outward emotion, I was being dramatic or faking.

I am not the kind of person who can stand to sit in from of a mirror and practice making facial expressions properly to make sure I am doing it right without further developing imposter syndrome about my own emotions.

My entire life my job has been to not have needs of my own, to take care of everyone else's and to occupy myself, and it's been ingrained in me since literal infancy.

So surprise, surprise, I have ended up actually preferring to be alone, being entirely independent when I shouldn't even be able to manage it, physically speaking, and I spend all day quietly keeping myself occupied.

I don't know how else to be.

My brain grew in this way. They made sure of it.

[avasillva]

You have done nothing but tell me how bored you were. I was the chore, the job you didn't want to do. To me? To me, you were everything.

[rjshope]

he is the biggest goofball i love him so much

[theminecraftbee]

Grian sits on the edge of a desert cliff, watching the sunrise. His knuckles are bloody. He's had this dream before, and he's lived this moment before. He's awfully tired of it, honestly. He's not even particularly sad anymore. It's hard to be particularly sad, this long after, this much more between them.

But his knuckles are bloody again. There's someone sitting next to him.

"Joel?" he says, baffled.

"Yeah, hi, really weird bloody dreamscape you've got. Literally and figuratively: bloody hell. Like, Scott, he's got this pretty cottage and all these flowers and the single most terrifying version of Jimmy that I've seen in my life. Which serves him right, since he's a bastard, and I told him that. Or, uh, Pearl. She's normal. She's got dogs and... shit, I don't know--"

"Why are you here?" Grian asks.

"Oh, right, I was tasked with asking you if you regret it," Joel says.

There's a long moment of silence. The wind blows.

"I mean. No?" Grian says.

"Right? That's what I said! Blumin' stupid question, that!" Joel says.

"Wait, you mentioned--are you asking everyone that?" Grian asks.

"Yeah! It was all, oh, you've got a car, you can travel, it'll be all poetic like. You've had a 'character arc'--like I'm some, some fake guy--and grown as a person, everyone else has to, would they do things differently now? And I said, man, that's stupid. That's really stupid. But the glowing purple eyes guys--"

"Wait wait wait wait, the who?" Grian interrupts.

"Sorry, do you not know the glowing purple eyes guys? Martyn was acting like you're all buddies or something. Then I punched him. Because it was funny," Joel says.

"No, I know the--they asked you to do this?" Grian says. He takes a moment to try to imagine it. He has some trouble. Joel and the Watchers don't really belong in the same place at the same time for so many reasons that Grian doesn't know where to begin.

"Apparently, I'm not being serious enough," Joel informs Grian. "I kinda get it, actually. Like, everyone but Cleo has been somewhere like..."

Joel looks out over the cliff. It is tall, and Grian knows he cannot see the ground from the top. He had been able to during the actual games, of course, but these aren't the actual games; these are the memories of what brought him to victory, made manifest.

"So I guess I kinda wondered, since you lot always seem so blumin' sad about it," Joel finishes.

"I'm not really," Grian says.

Joel raises an eyebrow.

"I mean, maybe once, but--nah. Not really."

"Cool. That's the last one then," Joel says. "Hear that, weird glowing eyes guys? You act like I'm all weird or whatever but none of them regret it either. Not a single one of them."

Grian looks over the cliff again himself.

"None of us?" he asks, very quietly indeed.

Joel sighs. "All of you asked that too. I'm getting back in the bloody car."

Grian doesn't watch Joel leave. He rubs the blood off his knuckles and watches the sky instead. When he's tired thinking in circles about how he didn't really expect that he would be telling the truth, just then, he starts trying to imagine the trouble Joel might be giving everyone else instead. It's much more fun to think about than the sand that's getting in his socks. He's never able to get sand out of anything, these days, and it leaves him always just a little bit uncomfortable. Oh well; the price of being in a desert. He wouldn't be anywhere else if he had the choice, though, grit in his socks or not.

[alackofghosts]

hibernation hours

[buttercupshands]

So.

Act 5, huh?

Oh, and that.

"You can start breakdown now."

Finished the game couple of days ago and had some thoughts I needed to process a little. Like. Yes.

So anyway I actually didn't plan this and just wanted to redraw some sprites to just make sure I understand how to draw Siffrin correctly (still working on that!)

What did I learn from this? How fun it it to draw on a canvas that literally doesn't let you draw with colors without some layer cheating when necessary. Never tried it.

The beans. Sleeping beans.

Basically what happens when you want to sleep AND draw. Draw characters sleeping on your behalf.

Doesn't help, but at least it's cute.

I have no idea what was going on in my mind as I drew this. Feels like a fever dream of 'I want to sleep' at 4 am and 'Hm...' of thinking random things

Also that phone craft sign. Still too funny to imagine. I had to.

[canisalbus]

.

[keferon]

Imagine you're in the world of Transformers. Imagine you woke up randomly in the med bay and you're a giant robot.

You don't know which version of Transformers this is, the movies or the TV series or the comics? You don't know.

But you need to pick a faction and join it right now.

[dukeofthomas]

"Are the Robins child soldiers" It depends. If the story is super serious and into exploring complex morality and grounded from reality's standards, then yes. If the story is lighthearted, made for children, fluff, etc., then no. If it's somewhere in the middle, it might depend.

If an author wants to write a story seriously delving into the fucked up-ness of children fighting criminals, they can, and if you don't like it, you can read something else.

If an author wants to write a fun story about villains and heroes featuring Robin in a world where that's not an issue, they can, and if you don't like it, you can read something else.

If an author wants to write a serious story but not apply IRL-logic to Robin, they can, and if you don't like it, you can read something else.

[zelkam]

— chuck palahniuk, haunted

[wardingshout]

Hellooooo I love your art and I saw you were asking for requests...I don't know if I've ever seen you draw Twilight Princess Link? I would love to see him in your style!!

hands you a

for you !!!

[regulusrules]

Do I know you? // I thought I knew you.

BBC Merlin (2008) - s01e01 // s05e13 parallel

[lily4731]

– "Did you download maps for our London trip ?"

– "Yep!"

The maps I downloaded:

[ladeldee]

I just like the idea that once Missa hears Phil has another "kid" he'd try and do whatever he can to help and Phil feels emotions about it

[evelynpr]

Anime twt so shit they're calling Spy x Family basic heteronormativity and boring as the "correct" stance. Sorry the performative role and war trauma narrative flew over your head, can't be me.

[somegrumpynerd]

I like the idea that Cross realised Killer was touchstarved (he didn't have the words for it but he noticed how much Killer would settle down from it) and started giving him very small basic affection. Pat on the back, hand on the shoulder, maybe a quick friendly hug, all things he probably learned through royal guard training and thinks of as normal friend/coworker stuff.

But as they both got more comfortable in the routine of it, Killer started instigating touches and he was not shy about it (like not just leaning into Cross's side during movie night, he looks like he's trying to get into Cross's jacket with him)

And that this more intense affection made Cross realise he might also be just a little bit touchstarved

Bonus: