#sometimes i wonder if what i do matters

[dana-chan-the-control-brain]

I'm feeling that inadequate imposter syndrome again.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Good morning, Sleepyhead.

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[inkskinned]

you wanted to be a good friend, because you loved your friends, but the truth was that everyone else somehow had a pamphlet on being normal that you never received. most of the time you learn by trial-and-error. you are terrified of the next big mistake you make, because it seems like the rules are completely arbitrary.

you've learned to keep the prickly parts of your personality in a stormcloud under your bed - as if they're a second version of you; one that will make your friends hate you. it feels feral, burning, ugly.

instead, you have assembled habits based on the statistical likelihood of pleasing others. you're a good listener, which is to say - if you do speak up, you might end up saying the wrong thing and scaring off someone, but people tend to like someone-who-listens. or you've got no true desires or goals, because people like it when you're passive, mutable. you're "not easy to fluster" which is to say - your emotions are fundamentally uninteresting to others around you; so you've learned to control them to a degree that you can no longer really feel them happening.

you have long suspected something is wrong with you, but most of the time, googling doesn't help. you are so-used to helping-yourself, alone and with no handbook. the reek of your real self feels more like a horrible joke - you wake up, and, despite all your preparations, suddenly the whole house is full of smoke. the real you is someone waiting to ruin your other-life, the one where you're normal and happy. the real-self is unpredictable, angry.

your real self snarls when people infantilize the whole situation. because if you were really suffering, everyone seems to think you'd be completely unable to cope. but you already learned the rules, so you do know how to cope, and you have fucking been coping. it's not black-and-white. it's not that you are healed during the other times - it's just that you're able to fucking try. and honestly, whenever you show symptoms, it's a really fucking bad sign.

because the symptoms you have are ugly and unmanageable for others. your symptoms aren't waifish white girl things. they're annoying and complicated. they will be the subject of so many pretentious instagram reels. if they cared about you, they'd just show up on time. you care, a lot, so deeply it burns you. you like to picture a world where the comments read if they loved you, they'd never need glasses to see. but since that's a rule you've seen repeated - "one must never be late or you are a bad friend" - you constantly worry about being late and leave agonizingly early. there are no words for how you feel when you're still late; no matter how hard you were trying.

so you have to make up for it. you have to make up for that little horrible real you that you keep locked in a cabinet. you are bad at answering emails so every project you make has to be perfect. you are weird and sensitive so you have to learn to be funny and interesting. you are an inconvenience to others, so you become as smooth as possible, buffing out all the rough parts.

all this. all this. so people can pass their hands over you and just tell you just the once -how good you are. you're a good friend. you're loveable.

[peliginspeaks]

Listen, I'm sorry to the people who draw Veils in torn/bloody robes because of the whole Vake thing but you're simply wrong. Do you think Veils would Ever go out like that. Do you think it doesn't have fifteen changes of clothes ready immediately, with options depending on the day and occasion, to climb into when it comes back from killing things. Of course it does. Veils is getting home, taking a shower in the Bazaar, putting on a new perfectly clean robe with accent panels and silk trim, and then dabbing 1 (one) tasteful bloodstain on the hem of it with a claw because it's arrogant and it thinks it can get away with it. What is a Veils if it's not serving cunt. Of course it is.

[kaurwreck]

have yall ever noticed in osamu dazai's entrance exam that ranpo cuts to the heart of dazai within moments of meeting him, weighs him against the feather in his gaze, decides it neither too heavy nor light, and then says, simply, unfeignedly, deliberately, "Oh, that's nice. Anyway, welcome to the Agency."

and dazai, despite smoothing himself shapeless under ranpo's scrutiny, is rattled, slipping aside his noh mask to self-soothe by asking kunikida about ranpo's skill. because the radio static crackling along his spine can't be the sensation that he's been caught, or ranpo would have renounced or redressed or recoiled from the snake in his home— so it must be no longer human, buzzing and frustrating such and such skill ranpo set on him, and this placidity is a facade to save face. ranpo couldn't have seen what dazai didn't deign to show him, however much the thought briefly excites dazai.

except then kunikida explains that ranpo's skill is to deduce the truth of a case just by looking at it, and dazai is momentarily stunned, the static roaring in his drums as muscle memory swallows piqued yearning and spits bitter incredulity. even if there were a skill that could crack him apart to out the pluck meat that might reassure him he's made of flesh beneath the chitin, there is no exception to his nullification.

even as the blackened grief encroaches like ennui around dazai's edges, ranpo is calling them, promising them the answer they asked for, and no more than that much. he asks dazai for his glasses (the glasses precious to him, typically on his person, but in that moment, somewhere else), and dazai is coaxed by his curiosity and ranpo's beckon.

and because dazai is still a pitiable creature prone to wanting, he leans towards the taunting lure and takes it between his fingers while holding his breath to brace against the certain-to-be-crushing disappointment.

and instead, substantiation brokering little argument. ranpo can deduce the truth by looking at it. and as dazai's own discernment reverse engineers ranpo's conclusion, he finds no fault in it.

dazai's rhapsody enlivens him in the car with Kunikida, the well of him overflowing with the salvific implications that moments prior he was pinned, writhing in place, by someone sincerely seeing him, who was satiated by enough substance to then look away, who wasn't the least surprised to see wriggling, living flesh in the shape of him.

dazai's so beside himself that when kunikida remarks that he's never seen dazai marvel over someone else's skills like that before, dazai scarcely lies to him when he says lots of things take him by surprise, like when he tried to pick up a clam with his chopsticks, and it was still alive, startling him.

kunikida, who also notices more than he's given any credit for, dismisses dazai's third perspective, depersonalized, dehumanized, and disassociated clam metaphor, and says: "You seemed taken aback that someone had the ability to see and know all."

to which dazai responds with the same seamless and subtly mean spirited deflection he tends towards whenever he's suddenly feeling vulnerable.

but yes, he is taken aback. it's worldview shattering, not unlike when chuuya incited him, or oda shrugged at him, or when kunikida would, later, see a lock without any key (a climax without any hope) and create one himself.

ranpo saw him, saw who he'd been, and said, with prejudice: "Anyway, welcome to the Agency."

because I didn't until a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't stopped thinking about it.

[sylvies-kablooie]

rules of loki's conjuration magic

what can and can't he conjure up?

we know he can conjure fireworks, we see kid loki conjure up a sword, and loki summons that blanket him and sylvie cuddle under. but when it comes to conjuring the tickets for the train on lamentis, he couldn't do it.

my interpretation has always been "he can conjure stuff that he can picture" which SOUNDS pretty solid in theory- after all, a blanket and fireworks are pretty easy to imagine, and he never saw the tickets, so there's no way for him to know what they look like

but also that opens the door to the same problem that people encounter when trying to draw a duck from memory, which is that it turns out ducks are kinda hard to remember all the details of, and he would end up with a weird sort of duck creature but not quite an actual one

(although i used duck for this example just because it is the first thing that came to mind, conjuring up living things seems like it would be its own kind of power akin to wanda's children- we never see loki conjure anything living beyond duplication casting, which is its own separate thing, so i don't THINK he could conjure a duck, but just walk with my example here. you think you know what a Thing looks like until you realize you don't.)

does the ability to conjure something come from visualizing it? or using it beforehand? had he known that blanket and therefore it was easy to summon up? where is it coming from? are the fireworks actually an illusion but the blanket and sword were Very Real?

is there a consensus or is this another topic of highly academic debate in the loki world?

[okkennymay]

This time around I thought I would make a comic relaying the events after the last time I posted, because my gosh is it easier to explain with pretty pictures than upsetting words >vO I prefer to make jokes about my situation than anything, ‘cause honestly it’s a solid way of dealing with it and I take so many medications as it is, why not add laughter to it I say! ( •̀ ω •́ )✧

Despite my condition’s best efforts I still managed to organise and complete a commission with someone through emails! Thank you @waezi2 you were so patient as I arose from my grave every other day to get things done (❁´◡`❁) Fighting my body and winning to complete it was the victory I needed! The sheer satisfaction I get from a commission well received by someone is like pure nectar to me~ Sweet sustenance I just can’t get enough of! The money don’t hurt either, Disability Support Pensions do not go far in this economy 👀 This is as close as I can get to having a job and I wont let C.V.S (Cyclic vomiting Syndrome) or Chrohns take that from me! 

I’m raring to dive into more if anyone’s interested ♪(´▽｀) I’m just about to post a new “commissions sheet” to broadcast that very fact >vO I do love having something to draw between Ectober pages~

[famewolf]

for so long all I wanted to do was die but now that I'm older, all I worry about is dying too soon. too soon to experience all the things I didn't give myself time for when I was young. I don't want to spend these years overthinking what time I have left

[piplupod]

feels like the isolation is a gushing wound and going to the centre is just a small bandage. i think perhaps i am not really ever going to feel okay unless something miraculous happens. i am retaining some semblance of sanity now that I'm leaving the house and socializing with non-family more than once a week, but i am still hurting more than I can really tolerate and I don't know what to do about it. there doesn't seem to be a fix for this that I can enact.

[fluffle-writes]

I wanna. Pick them up in my mouth and shake 'em around like a dog obliterating a squeaky toy

[xmoonlitxdreamx]

Why i am blocked oh my god i feel terrible 😭😭😭

Hi! I often block people if they post content I'm particularly not interested in or content that makes me uncomfortable (usually the latter). I block semi-liberally, so please try not to take it personally; I'm just trying to curate my experience on the internet to fit my personal comfort. We don't know each other so I'm not trying to say anything about you as a person by blocking you.

Not to get on my soap box about blocking, but I really encourage you and others to not take blocking personally. I've gotten blocked by artists whose works I like, and it's definitely shocking at first, and very tempting to get defensive or hurt by it. But for me it helps to keep in mind that the person blocking me has their own experience on the internet that they want to have and curate and it may be the case that the things I post happen not to be part of it; and likewise, I'm not obligated a right to view anyone's works if they don't want me to for whatever reason.

(Also please know that people are not obligated to give a reason for why they block, it's really not your business. Many people find it invasive and disrespectful of boundaries to message someone after they've blocked you. Just keep this in mind that other people will likely not react kindly to receiving a message from someone they blocked)

[hussyknee]

I think sometimes you just have to make peace with the fact that your actual hobby is collecting books. And that that's okay.

[goldiipond]

love love love the way clothing in tpn is used as a symbol of oppression with the plain pure-white gendered dress code at the farms but also as a symbol of rebellion and liberation post-escape with the bunker uniforms that, while still plain on their own are no longer subject to a rigid dress code and can be modified by the kids however they please, such as gillian altering the longer skirts into short pleated ones to suit hers and other girls' styles and covering hers and the younger kids' shirts in patches and even smaller things that set kids apart like don's short sleeves and nat keeping his shirt tucked in etc etc.

clothing as a rebellion against gender roles where the girls are always shown wearing skirts at gracefield even in the middle of winter, and how they're all dressed exactly the same as the boys during the escape. many of the girls choosing to wear skirts with the bunker uniforms but wearing pants in situations where its more practical or comfortable to do so. emma, the protagonist, never wearing a skirt after the escape. paula, violet, and barbara never being seen in a skirt at all. violet's entire character being a rejection of gender roles.

colored clothing as a form of rebellion in only seeing monocrome button-up uniforms when the kids are on the run and then getting to goldy pond, the first arc where they fight back against the demons head-on, and everyone is wearing unique, brightly colored outfits. how ray specifically is one of the people who have suffered the farm’s oppression the longest due to knowing the farm’s secret from the beginning, and how post timeskip he’s always seen with a blue scarf that sets his outfit apart from all the other black and white uniforms. seeing bright unique clothing again with the lambda squad while they go around blowing up farms and liberating kids.

clothing as a symbol of personal growth with norman wearing a suit during his minerva meltdown because he has taken on the responsibility of protecting and saving every cattle child despite the fact that he himself is only a child, and how afterward he is shown matching with emma, ray, don, and gilda again. main story ray wearing bright white because thats all he was able to wear vs post-canon ray who is always shown wearing black/dark colors because those are the colors that HE likes. i love clothes in tpn

[lilacthebooklover]

if i die, i just want you all to know that being on here has been brilliant thus far. the communities here are so welcoming & the people are so friendly; i've made so many wonderful friends on here, and wouldn't have it any other way. this site & fandom culture have given me something to do in my free time & to be passionate about. it's let me meet amazing people from all over the world and feel liked. i hope this will be able to continue on for many many years, but if it can't, thank you for giving me all of the lovely moments & memories we've shared up until now :)

[toothlespoggers]

So I was feeling kinda depressed since my blog kinda dies when I’m focusing on my health and irl life, and character development, writing and art takes a lot of time to create something impressive and coherent.

so since I need notes for my blog to stay alive while I work on stuff i thought I’d make a cool sans au to show everyone on tumblr so I get thousands of notes and really cool fanart and get featured in tiktoks and stuff with my character.

Since this is all it takes to become famous in the undertale fandom I thought I’d just throw away all the research I’m doing and just go with what works yanno?

😳 maybe I’ll draw horny art of him next, that’ll reel in the notes.

[pavedinashes-if]

Which of these RO do you consider completely unnecessary?

I dont mean as in removing them from the story...just removing as a RO... and keep maybe the option to add another one instead...later...maybe