#why am i making myself cry on tumblr dot com again

[lollytea]

Up until a month back I liked a guy. And I really liked him. But I found out he didn't like me back. I was really upset, but I didn't want to hold it against him, but then I found out he had a reputation of being a player (which, at our age of 14 is flirtatiously texting girls and then just. Ghosting them).

And I felt really upset. I began to question if he even saw me as a friend, and whether the way he texted me was even friendly. What if he secretly loathed me and was just doing this to get a kick out of it? What if he knew about my feelings and they were just a joke to him?

I wanted to cry, but I told my friends and my sister I was okay. But I wanted to scream. Its not my fault I was born ugly. It's not my fault my face makes me unlovable. And even though I wanted to distance myself from him I felt some sort of perverse pleasure every time he did something embarrassing in front of every one.) And that's when I think it hit me.

That's why I'm unlovable. I am unlovable because I'm a terrible person. My friends tried to comfort me saying that he's a shitty person who can't see my beauty/cuteness, but friends are obligated to say that. I wanted to believe them because they're all so beautiful, and they would never lie to me because they love me. But they deserve a better friend than me.

I want to cry because I want to experience having a whirlwind romance, and falling in love. I also know I'll probably never have that.

And AGH I feel so upset. Because all my life I've known I was ugly. But when this guy showed me attention, was nice to me, it made me feel special. Made me feel like I was having my own romance.

I hate it I hate it I hate it. I hate that I can't be loved, I hate my face, I hate myself for feeling these things. Last year when I suspected I began liking him, I told myself not to fall too deep, and here I am, ranting to you on tumblr dot com.

Lollytea, I love your writing and I love your posts. I love how confident you are of yourself. I'm very sorry for ranting in your inbox about my shitty love life, if this makes you uncomfortable, please delete it. But if you don't, I genuinely would like some encouragement. That my time for my own romance will come. That I will learn to love this face.

You're not unlovable. You're just 14. It just happens that being 14 feels a lot like being chronically unlovable. But no, that is not actually the case.

Maybe you've heard this a lot. And I imagine that it must be frustrating to listen to. That being a teenager just means your emotions are bigger and more intense than they will ever be in your entire life, so they're irrational and silly.

That's not the case either. Your feelings matter. And they're worth being listened to. But I do need you to keep in mind that the age range you're in right now is one of the most difficult periods of time that a human being will ever go through. Being a teenager is very hard. Being an adult is hard too. But me and every adult I've ever met would not trade it for being 14 again. No way in hell.

It does severely influence how you see yourself and why your emotions feel so strong and messy and all over the place. But I assure you that you're doing a fantastic job for a person in your situation. It's rough and you're getting through it and I'm proud of you.

Firstly, I'm going to say this quite bluntly but dont take it as me insulting them. Most of the boys in your class probably aren't that smart. And they are the absolute worst people to be seeking validation from. I promise that their opinion of you is not worth worrying about because they are...stupid, frankly. They won't be stupid forever. Probably. But being 14 is a weird age for boys too and they're quite mean for a while before they mature and chill tf out. Please try not to let it get to you if one of them doesn't like you romantically. I promise you it is not remotely a big deal. None of them have any idea how to be good boyfriends yet anyway.

No, you're not unlovable for occasionally having spiteful little thoughts about somebody who was mean to you. Everybody has those every once in a while. As long as you maintain some self-awareness and don't let cruelty consume your whole brain, having a few mean thoughts doesn't make you a terrible person. What WOULD make you a terrible person is external terrible behaviour. It's your actions that matter. So just be kind, alright? Be kind to your friends. Ignore the people you don't like but be civil. Don't hurt anyone. If you stick to all of this, you're golden. Considering that you already seem so self-critical of being a bit bitchy inside your own head, I think that's a promising sign than you won't do anything worse than that. I hope so anyway. Be kind, that's all you can do. Your friends love you. If you put your all into loving them in return, then you can have something so special.

You're not ugly, you're 14. Sorry, I'm getting a bit repetitive but I think it's relevant information to this whole situation. At the age you're at, your face is probably in this weird transitional period between child and adult so maybe that's why it might look "uglier" than usual to you. It might last a few more years but it won't look like that forever. I assure you that your face is beautiful because it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do. It's alright if you've felt ugly your whole life. The way you look at your own face is way more personal than the way you look at other people's faces. We don't really notice the flaws on others the way we notice our own. We're wired weird like that.

All I can say is hang tight. If you don't like your face then please try not to let it upset you that much. Your face hasn't fully developed yet. For the time being, you look exactly the way you're supposed to look and you're perfect. Let's see how it looks in a few years before we make any rash decisions about it being as ugly as you think it is.

Don't be hasty in the belief that you'll never find love and romance. I assure you that the age you're at is the absolute worst time to get a boyfriend and its perfectly okay if you don't experience it for another while. It's normal. You're fine. It's okay.

I know you want it. I know it sounds nice. And I promise that if its important to you, once you're older and the people you're interested in are a little smarter, you will have it.

I'm serious when I say that for the time being, focus on being a good friend. Focus on school. Focus on your own physical and mental health. Focus on your hobbies. Being wanted by 14 year old boys won't mean shit in the long run.

Things will be okay. You talk so much about how you'll be alone for the rest of your life. But your life has only just begun and you hardly know who you are yet. It's impossible to tell what will happen in the coming years. I promise that you'll be okay.

I know you came for me for reassurance but from that last paragraphs, I'm sure you're already smart enough to know the things I've told you. But I imagine that you just needed a second opinion. Take care, love.

[pinkseas]

hiii aly i saw u talking about animatics and i need to talk about this one i rewatched earlier today its so so pretty and i love it lots and it makes me so ill cquackity THE WORLD

i am so very afraid to watch this okay. here we go.

ohhhh my god the self destructive habits right off the bat... the art style is so nice i LOVE how hes drawn oh my GOODNESS the frame where hes turned back kinda waving to sam is SO pretty and for what !!!! HIS SMILE..... karlnap are here i had to Pause and Give Myself A Moment. i am not going to do well with this. this is not going to end well for me. they look so happy..... HES HOLDING THE CHAIN I AM NOT GOING TO DO WELL WITH THSI. ive never heard this song either i dont think its SO pretty.... the i dont do too much gambling these days line was haha funny for like a Split Second but now im thinking about him creating the casino and throwing himself into las nevadas and just. not even being able to wholly care about the purpose of it in the end and im so. im so. im so. again WHY IS HE DRAWN SO PRETTILY. slime is here Oh No. HE LOOKS. SO HAPPY. i will not mention suicide on tumblr dot com tonight i wont. THE I HAD A LOVER LINE AND FRAME. I WILL BE MENTIONING SUICIDE ON TUMBLR DOT COM TONIGHT. i dont think id risk another................. OH ALL THE COLORED FRAMES IN THE BACKGROUND HOLY SHIT?? his Fucking Expression holding what remains of slime and crying i am going to be so fucking ill. oh my god. THE STUMBLING WITH THE DRINK.... the cut from the jacket being put over his shoulders to keep him warm to No Jacket and the bottle im. THE DREAM AND HOW DESPERATELY HES CURLED AROUND THE BLANKET IM IM I MI MIM IMIMIM IM>... holy fucking SHIT. "Please dont confront me with my failures i had not forgotten them" looking in the mirror i am going to be Violently Ill. okay and now im rewatching that entire thing Without pausing to get the full experience hold on

IT IS PRETTY AND I UNDERSTAND WHY YOU LOVE IT cquackity the world. anyways im going to go punch a window and scream into a sink filled with water and tie a metal spoon into a knot and scream with just the right pitch to shatter a beautiful glass and rip an old shirt clean in half and lay down on my floor and and and and and and and

[myname-isnia]

I need to vent. So badly. I need to do it out loud because I’ve had enough of being stuck in my own thoughts

I need to talk to someone who’d actually listen, who wouldn’t chastise me or try to turn everything into a moral lesson or pretend like they know me better than I know myself

It’s why I can’t talk to my mom. Why do I have to live in a world where I can’t talk about my problems to my mom?

She doesn’t get me, not in a “I’m a moody teenager nobody understands me” kind of way, but in a “you know nothing about what I’m going through or crying about, why are you acting like just because you listen to instagram psychologists in your free time means you’re the most enlightened person on god’s green earth??”

I don’t have anyone I could go to. My mom’s out, who’s left? Not my little sister, definitely not my shitty dad. Who else? My grandma’s the reason my mom’s the way she is, so not her. My dad’s SIL is one of my most favourite people in the world but I don’t feel like I can come crying to her, she’s too blunt, too brutally honest. She’s helped me greatly before, but I’d go to her for any problem except emotional.

I don’t want to go to my friends. I already was the cause of a fight that ended a fourteen year friendship. I’ve already showed them that I’m extremely unstable and prone to hysterics. If I start openly crying to them about such seemingly minor things, they’ll get sick of me and I’ll lose them. I don’t know how to make friends. I don’t have anyone else.

And my problems are just so, so stupid. So inconsequential to anyone but me. Even for myself, all they bring are tears and headaches, and yet here I am, sobbing over them again and again, intentionally throwing myself down self hatred spirals that I know every curve of like the back of my hand, going throw the same thought processes that I know will make me upset.

Why do I keep doing it? Do I just like to make myself suffer? Have I no real problems?

If it wasn’t obvious, I’m once again being a whiny bitch about my art

We’ve been here a million times. My skills are nowhere as good as I’d like them to be, I’m complaining about it on tumblr dot com instead of taking steps to improve, when I try to talk about it and people give me actually good advice I get mad and hysterical because I’m not being validated in my useless, self-imposed suffering that will lead me nowhere. Yeah yeah, what else is new?

To get good at art you need to study. You need to look at what other people do, how they create art that you like, and try to learn from it. But whenever I look at people who are more skilled than I am, I turn into a fucking toddler. Why them?? Why are they better than me??? I get so irrationally angry that I literally only follow one artist, a… I suppose ‘friend’ is a nice term, though I don’t know how accurate it is. If it isn’t, then a mutual. And I get insanely jealous of her too, but I’m better at containing it. We don’t talk much, but I still don’t wanna ruin what little relationship we have because of my inability to process my emotions.

Honestly? I’m just tired. Completely fucking exhausted from all these tantrums I throw. It seems I say it so often lately, but I truly am sick of myself. The fits, the crying into my pillow until I get a pounding headache, the pushing everyone away because I can’t stand the embarrassing ordeal of being cared for… I don’t know how much more of it all I can take. I wish I didn’t exist.

My mom sat me down today when she noticed how I angrily shut off my tablet. I spent a year desperate for a shoulder to cry on, so I told her that I’m frustrated by my art, or rather, by the lack of it. I’ve told her before over the phone and she always started lecturing me about not giving up and trying and practicing and how the greats weren’t born great and all that stuff. I thought she’d be different in real life. She wasn’t.

She says I’m lazy. Says I don’t want to learn. That I don’t try. But I do. I try and I try and I try. I create canvases and start sketching and get frustrated and delete them and want to throw my tablet at the wall and snap my stylus in half… but I don’t stop trying. And sometimes, very rarely, I manage to draw something I’m happy with in the moment. Often I’ll think it should be killed with fire in a few days time, but it’s the moment that counts.

Mom tries to teach me theory she doesn’t know. She doesn’t have an artistic bone in her body, yet acts like she’s been drawing all her life. She tells me to trace over art books, to look at cartoons and movies and learn how expressions and poses work. No matter how much I yell, how much I tearfully explain that that’s not the main problem, that if I need to draw something I’ll figure out a way, she won’t listen. She can say she understands all she wants, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t get that I can’t physically visualise what I want to draw

I wanted to make some Green Opal art for a few days now. I’ve only drawn them four times before – walking side by side, sleeping cuddled up, Opal kissing Midori on the cheek and Midori holding Opal as she flips Suyin off. I tried thinking what I’d want to draw them like this time. Sitting together, one’s head on another’s shoulder? Actually kissing on the lips? Bending? Reading a book?

I tried to picture it in my head. I couldn’t come up with anything. I looked at dozens of references. Nothing seemed right. I read through lists of romantic interaction prompts. None of them inspired me. My mind’s eye was completely empty, and I don’t have aphantasia or whatever it’s called, I can normally visualise pretty much anything. But when it comes to art, it’s like someone slips a blindfold over it.

And say I did come up with what to draw – then what? Draw it? With my anatomy so wonky it could classify as body horror? My thick and lifeless lineart that suffers most from my heavyhandedness? My colours which I can never memorise the theory of? My shading which is basic at best and completely nonsensical at worst? And say I did manage to make something decent even with all of that added into the equation – then what? Post it and get a grand total of three notes?

I know art is first and foremost supposed to be for yourself, you’re supposed to enjoy making it and looking at it. But if I don’t, if I hate the process of drawing and the end result so much that sometimes I feel like killing myself over, what else is there for me to do but seek feedback? A spare like. A causal reblog with no added tags. There are days when those serve as my lifeline. Days when the hundreds of screenshots I’ve made over two and a half years of people saying nice things to me are the only things that keep me going. Even if 80% of those are things said by my friends, who are basically obligated to say nice things to me.

But if I hate art so much, why do I keep at it?

I don’t know

To prove something, maybe? To whom? My parents? Myself? Society? Probably not. I don’t have anything to prove

To leave my mark on the internet? To make myself feel like I’m doing something instead of just lazing about all day?

Am I just doing it by inertia because once upon a time a lonely middle schooler convinced herself she was gonna be an artist?

I really don’t know. If it doesn’t make me happy, what’s the point? If the number of people who interact with my art could be counted on one hand, what’s the point? If it drives me to going insane with screaming and crying at least once a week, what’s the fucking point?

I should just quit. It won’t be a big loss. Maybe then my mental health will actually improve, once I stop dragging it down into the gutter with every non finished piece that can barely count as being started

Quit writing while I’m ahead too. It’s not like I’ve written anything in a month anyway. And before that, it took me almost a year and a half to post something. It’s clearly not for me.

[hella1975]

BANANA FISH SPOILERS!!! like big ones don’t even THINK about reading if you haven’t watched it

So i’ve recently been going through the banana fish extra content stories (angel eyes, garden of light etc) and it led me to Max’s memoirs, and i can’t stop thinking about this extract.

The thing with Ash is that his death is so agonising that it’s easy to lose sight of the impact on those around him. We have this teenage boy who has suffered so much pain in his life, and the moment he is finally given a chance at happiness, a chance at this freedom he’s always chased, it is torn from him within seconds. And i do think it was this reminder that led to Ash doing what he did. He didn’t have to die that day. The knife is said to have missed all his vital organs and we have seen him survive worse wounds before; he could have been saved. But he chose, instead, to die, because he thought it was genuinely what he deserved. He saw himself as a killer, a monster, ‘the devil himself’. He thought he didn’t deserve Eiji and would only bring him pain. And Eiji’s letter, as much of a declaration as it was, reminds me a lot of that quote from On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous in reference to its impact on Ash; “sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined”. Eiji’s relentless love and admiration and faith in Ash only made him realise all that he thought he couldn’t be for Eiji, and in that moment, it was enough to just know the other boy loved him, even if he thought he could never be worthy of loving him back.

He thought he was doing the right thing by removing himself from Eiji’s world, but we see from Max’s letter here a new angle on it, one not from Ash’s perspective, but on those around him. Eiji literally never gets over it. All the innocence and childishness that made Ash fall in love with him to begin with is gone, and years later, he is still waiting, because whether Ash asked for it or not, Eiji gave him forever.

Ash died, and that was a tragedy, but what makes it worse is that his death was completely in vain of what he hoped to achieve. Eiji was better off with Ash, because for how dangerous it was, he was happy with him, they were happy together. If they had just been able to work it out, just been given more time, then they would have been happy. They would have got their forever.

Instead, they ruined each other.

[obirains-archive]

What’s going on @ obirain dot tumblr dot com: 

Hey, y’all! I want to say first that no one is under any obligation to read or respond to this; this is neither a cry for help nor anything to be concerned over. But given that I’ve tried to cultivate an open, honest vibe here on my blog, I want to give a general outline of both the present and near future, as well as why I’ve been considering deactivating this blog (and how I intend to prevent myself from doing that!)

(VERY long personal post ahead; skip to the end for the important info. Do not reblog).

The TL;DR of it is, simply, that I am not doing well. I am also very aware of my immense privilege during this time to be able to take a sabbatical from school and try to heal from some of this shit, an option far too many people simply don’t have. That said, here’s (generally) what’s going on and why I’ve been flip flopping on deleting this blog:

Plenty of you know that I lost my father very suddenly and very traumatically in February 2020, triggering a whole slew of emotional issues. In February 2021 I found out that my mom was dating again (and had been for several weeks without telling me); they’re now engaged to marry in June, at which point my new stepfather and step brother will move in with us. It is what it is but it’s also fucking stressful and hurtful and it’s made everything from emails to reblogs fucking exhausting. Mental illness +120 XP :’)

I generally use my writing to cope, especially when I first started this blog. In the past couple of weeks, however, I’ve had to put almost all of my WIPs on the backburner-- most of these have been requests. Requests, by the way, from people that I love and appreciate and have genuinely wanted to write. But the emotional strain in my personal life at the moment is such that I can’t sustain this kind of workload. 

Note: I am not deleting any requests and I still fully intend to write them when I am able. Really I’m just no longer able or willing to give ETAs for requests and other fics. If yours is among the requests I haven’t written yet, I genuinely apologize. Please bear with me.

Additionally, I’ve just felt doubtful of my writing in such a way and to such an extent as I’ve never felt before. I’ve already mentioned outright that my only active WIP at the moment is that Cassian fic (x OFC). The story is a long one and I’ll need all my energy for it, but I find myself psyching myself out of it with each passing day. Cassian is already a relatively less popular character and so are OC stories in general-- especially within an era of Tumblr where engagement and reblogging are at an all time low. 

I’m not trying to complain about how many notes I get--I really am grateful for all of you who comment on and reblog my writing. It is, however, indescribably discouraging to be told again and again that content creators but writers in particular should be happy with 150 likes and 4 reblogs. It’s tiring, y’all. Especially with a story like this Cassian fic, one I’m putting all of my creative energy into--I’ve managed to convince myself that no one will read it and (almost worse) that no one will engage. Regardless of its reality, the thought is a little terrifying and it’s really messing with the way I relate to my own creative expression.

Especially since I started this blog as a writing blog. For all intents and purposes, it still is, but 99.99% of my engagement surrounds the shitty stuff: that cursed uquiz, discourse, general cursed content, etc. I want to make one thing clear: this is a problem of my own creation. But basically--as much as I love to make people laugh--it’s fucking exhausting to call myself a writing blog while feeling like the blog’s only value is entertainment. Again, this is no one else’s fault. I’m just. Very tired and I don’t have the energy to make y’all laugh right now.

And on that note, I don’t have the energy to maintain the kind of loving, hippie-esque space I want this blog to be. I know that so many of you are hurting and my first instinct is to try to support you all as you need. But I’m in a season where I’m just. Really, really fucking empty and hurting and downright hopeless about life. That doesn’t mean I love any of you any less. I just have nothing to give. And that sucks! it sucks, y’all and I’m sorry about that :(

With all this in mind, here’s more or less how I’m wanting to proceed so that I don’t have to end up deleting/deactivating entirely:

- For the foreseeable future, at least until I am ready to start publishing the Cassian fic, my blog will run mostly on queue. I anticipate this period lasting between four and six weeks.

- I will STILL be here in person on Fridays for Literature Hours!!! It’s become one of my favorite traditions and one of the things that keeps me attached to this blog.

- I will STILL be answering whatever asks and dms I am able, but most likely when I’m online on Fridays and Saturdays. Please don’t feel like you can’t interact at all!

- Feel free to tag me in stuff! Both a regular @/ and my tracking tag, #userobirain, work great. 

- Idk how to phrase this but... I’m about to become very boring. I just don’t have it in me at the moment to joke about disaster!aubrey and my daily clownery. Hopefully fun!aubrey will be back soon but, again, please bear with me. 

- Once again, feel free to send asks and dms + mutuals are welcome and encouraged to connect on discord!!! But please keep in mind my limitations in being a good friend to all of you right now. 

- On that note, the most consistent places to reach me for the next month or so will be Discord and AO3.

I doubt many people read this post, much less made it to the end, but if you did please know I appreciate you immensely. I hope to see you all soon, and hopefully be better to you when I get back!

- aubrey <3

[j-reau]

a hiatus or something

I didn’t want to post this. I told myself to give it until morning and sleep but I’ve been laying here for over an hour and I can’t sleep and I know I’m not going to sleep until I get it out. And I decided I’m not going to do the pretend things don’t bother us mentality that tumblr likes, the don’t show emotions on the dashboard, don’t let people know you’re hurt or angry out of fear it’ll be seen as ~drama or whatever thing stop me from just saying how I feel. Because I feel pretty shitty? I’ve been feeling shitty for a few days now. Maybe more. Last week I told myself that the drama that had randomly cropped up was just too much and I wasn’t going to let tumblr be something that made me cry or panic or kept me up at night over bullshit like arguing with someone over things that happened years ago. So I set my focus on my friends, on my dashboard, on reminding myself why I love RP and why I’ve been in it for this many years, for so long, with all of these people. Those Valentines I posted were part of that project for me. It was a reminder, for myself and my dash about all of the human connection that happens here, all the people we meet, all the little pieces of each other we take on and take with us, all the ships, all the conversations, however brief.  From the people we just see on our dash to the ones we talk to about all our fears and insecurities. And how all of it matters. 

I know how much we all love to say calm down gregg, it’s tumblr RP. I know how we all loathe this hellsite when we’re being our worst. I know how we all talk about how we’re too old for this now or we’re tired. We’re just here to write. I’m just here to write. I love writing. But what brings us all back time and time again, what keeps us here is the fact that it’s not just tumblr RP. It’s a community. Whether you have a real life that keeps you busy or your whole life is here, whether you have plenty of friends offline or all your closes people live on discord, we’re all people. And we all take this with us. We make friendships and we talk to each other. We open ourselves up to the constant trust and fear of interaction, of  plotting, of who is going to reach out or send the meme. We build friendships based on that, we care for each other, we see each other’s bad days on the dash, and great days and inspiration. And it means something. It may just be tumblr RP, but it matters to us. Because of the people here, because we give a fuck about each other. Or at least I’ve always liked to hope we do. I have friends on this website I’ve had for ten years, some just for 3, and others just a few months. It always floors me how we can always come back to it, how we stick with each other or don’t, how we see the good and the bad and the ugly. 

So to get on with it, I wrote those Valentines.  I hit refresh on my blog and put the weird random drama in the past and moved forward. I made this blog for JJ only about 3 months ago. I don’t know how I got 500 followers in that short time but I did. And it’s. been the wildest experience I can possibly explain, having that happen so quickly, finding so many people out in the RPC that I hadn’t before on my other blogs. I felt fucking good. I was excited. Not just to write a character I had wanted to and loved for years but to find so many people who I vibed with. I remember writing a post about a month in and being so fucking ... floored. By how much I loved you all, by how amazing it was to be received like that still, to find people my age and who wrote things I liked and loved their female characters. I fucking love JJ. I LOVE THE SHIT out of my partners on this blog, even the new people I’m still itching to write with. And yet, I did that little refresh, posted my valentines , got ready to go and felt .... sad. 

I tried to explain it. I tried to tell myself it was a bad mood. I hoped maybe it was medication. But I couldn’t shake the weird funk. And everywhere I looked it seemed like things were .... not good. My friends taking breaks, people feeling sad too, relationships splitting, people I liked and respected separating themselves. Tonight, one of my closest friends I’ve made on this blog blocked me. Someone I adored and trusted and absolutely loved to write with. Tumblr says we’re not supposed to care. That we’re supposed to let people draw their lines in the sand and take their leave and maybe we are. Maybe it’s important to let people make their choices. But I also think it’s important as fuck to talk to your friends, to mean what you say when you tell someone they’re important to you. I think it’s important that we remember on the other side of every blog and discord user is a person. Who has bad days and bad feelings and cries and feels insecure and tells themselves it’s just tumblr RP even when they know somehow it feels heavier when it’s bad. This was a friend I had talked to at length about all of those exact things, about how personal the community can feel sometimes, about feeling replaceable or invisible, even for the toughest most confident most take no shit people. I’ve always considered myself a pretty tough, confident, take no shit person. I think anyone who has known me for as many years as I’ve been around has seen that first hand. I don’t like how sad I’ve felt lately. I don’t like the insecurity that’s making me want to know why things feel way or why people vanish without so much as an explanation. I had to block a mutual last week I saw making fun of me on their twitter. A mutual. Someone who chose to follow me and on a public place where my other friends could see it made fun of what I posted. And I just don’t know what we’re doing anymore. It didn’t bother me. I don’t have hurt feelings over it. That’s the kind of stuff I definitely know I’m confident about. But .... it did really fucking floor me. Because here we are, on a sight where users talk about positivity and not sending anon hate, and we can treat each other like that. 

I’ve been sitting up in bed for hours trying to figure out what to say or what to do. That’s what I do I guess. I try to figure out what to do, how we fix it, like somehow there’s some unified we and some responsibility to make things better. A lot of you have only known me for a few months so this probably sounds all kinds of nuts. And you’re probably going JJ you’ve been an emotional mess since the moment we met you. Because I feel like that’s how it’s been for the last few months. But that’s not how it’s always been for me. That’s not who I am. So for now I guess I’m just trying to figure out what I do. Instead of sitting here and spinning and trying to figure out how we as a community fix these gaping holes and the way we talk about each other like we’re disposable and treat each other like names on a list instead of people. 

For now, I think what I do is take a little break. It’s the very thing I don’t want to do. Because it feels like quitting and it feels like being scared away. So I feel the need to promise whoever has read all of this and myself that that’s not what it is. Maybe I’ll be back in two days, maybe two weeks, who knows. But I need a break. From whatever this feeling is that seems to have come over things lately. I’ve loved these few months on this blog so much. And maybe that’s half the problem. Maybe I got spoiled and this is the come down. Maybe I’m just an idiot who thinks what we all want on this website is to find people and love each other and write together. I never knew that me -- the person often accused of being aloof and feelingsless and distant would somehow turn into the emotional bitch on this website but here we are I guess. I just don’t know how to navigate this anymore. I don’t know how to put my heart into relationships and friendships that can just be switched off like we can just stop caring about people. I don’t know how to ignore people who say horrible things and do horrible things to each other just because we don’t want to see it on our dashes. I don't know how to give enough of everything to everyone so that every single one of my mutuals and partners knows they’re valuable to me. I don’t know what I hope to accomplish. I don’t know when I got to be so much of a raw, frayed edge on tumblr dot com but that’s how I feel. And I hope in a few days or sometime soon I’ll have an answer or at least get my hard shell back.

I want to keep writing. I want to keep talking to you guys. I don’t want to lose anyone. I truly mean what I say when I say you’re all important to me. I plan to still be around on discord. I’ll write on discord if anyone wants to keep writing. If we aren’t discord friends yet and you want to be, send a message. I plan to come back. I don’t want to abandon anything. I’m so deeply fucking sorry for this rant, for all the overflow of feelings lately, for anyone that’s had to listen to them, for putting them on your dashes, for fucking all of it. Please be good to each other. Please talk to each other. Please remember that if we’ve crossed paths at any point on this blog, I value you. I value all of your friendships, your writing, your shitposts, your dash commentary, your tiktoks you dump at me on discord. I love you. Every last fucking one of you. 

[sunsteez]

HellO!!

Wow okay so it has been 2 years (almost 3)?? I feel like Tumblr is a very different place now and 3 years a lot of time so if you’re wondering who the fuck this even is popping up on your timeline I FULLY understand SCROLL ON MY FRIEND

If you’d like to continue reading an extremely long and jumbled stream of consciousness, keep goin under the cut

I’ve been wanting to post an update like this for a while, but it’s been really hard for me to sit down and write something because of how disconnected I am at this point to the Haikyuu community, and how guilty I was feeling for just sort of..leaving abruptly? But I signed into my account recently and realized that after being inactive for years I was still getting the kindest, most warm hearted messages- not just about art, but people saying they missed me popping up on their feed, that wherever I was, they hoped I was doing well, or that I was happy, and folks just checking in and genuinely concerned and wondering if I was okay. I also realized that it was pretty uncool of me to just sort of peace out like that without an explanation, so I thought I owed you all at least that much.

*Things are about to get a little sad here (just a warning, in case you’re not feeling up for that)*

Basically, around the time I left, a very close childhood friend of mine passed away in a very tragic and unexpected accident.  She was like a sister to me, someone who was always there and was always supposed to be there- we grew up together, shared so many first experiences side by side, and of course we annoyed the shit out of each other to no end. She was supposed to be there for my other firsts, but now I have to do them alone. Losing her broke me like nothing I’ve ever felt in my entire life.  The pain was both terrifying and debilitating, and I had to take a break from EVERYTHING for a while. I went backpacking for a month in the woods with a couple of friends to get away, no service or anything, completely detached from everything and days of just walking, eating, sleeping, and being in nature.  It was very healing. And I guess I never really came back.

This blog was a safe and happy escape for me, a place to just have some laughs and fun, and that’s what I wanted it to be for everyone else. My life on social media was always pretty separate from my real life (though y’all got a weird ol chunk of that in the tags), but this especially had no place on my account.  I didn’t want to bring something so unpleasant and painful into my safe space, but that resulted me in completely abandoning this blog altogether since that loss is something I’m still learning to cope with.

I am finally feeling ready now so I’m here to say: I am okay!! I’m still picking myself back up, but I’ve come such a long way.  I’ve been seeing a therapist for almost 2 years now who’s helped me deal with not only the grief of losing my friend but making sense of past traumas I’ve experienced and teaching me to learn how and why I’m feeling the things that I do. I’m still the same fucking weirdo with maybe a bit more emotional depth. I’m now a full-time freelance animator and illustrator, and currently thinking about making the jump into comics!! And you know what, I don’t think any of that would have happened had it not been for the wonderful experience I’ve had on here.

Concerning the future of this account and contents: I guess it goes without saying but Full Eyes Full Hearts is officially being discontinued- thank you for the love and support for this comic, even if it was short lived. I know how frustrating it is to become invested in a story only for it to be discontinued, so I am sorry for those of you who were so looking forward to it. But here is a big 

*SPOILER ALERT*

They love each other.  They always loved each other. WHAT A TWIST THAT IS HUH I BET YOU DID NOT SEE THAT ONE COMING??????

*END OF EXTREMELY HUGE SURPRISING SPOILER*

I have no current plans to return to this account, but as Justin Bieber once said, “never say never.” Who knows, maybe someday I’ll get back into haikyuu (I heard my BOYY came back in some of the latest chapters and if there is oikawa content to consume I WILL consume it), maybe I’ll join another fandom? Maybe this brief resurfacing will awaken the tumblr child inside of me. Even I don’t know. For now though, I’ll be doin my own thing, working on my own projects and maybe one day you’ll find my work again!

I’ll also be popping in and out in the next week or so in case anybody has any questions or comments or wants to talk, ANYTHING

The world is wild right now, so I also just want to send some love to everyone. Things are not always happy, and that’s okay. Something that my friend taught me that I hold dear to this day is that: it’s important to laugh, and play, and cry when you’re sad, and just enjoy all the bad and good the world has to offer you. Because feeling means that you're alive.

I cannot thank everyone enough for the love and support you’ve given for me and my art, my mutuals for being there to inspire me and teach me and push me to do more, honestly I would not be where I was today without any of that.  I never took art seriously until I realized how much I enjoyed it on here. Maybe that sounds silly to some people that Tumblr Dot Com changed the course of my life, but it really did.

Thank you!!

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

oh, no, i nerfed myself by having too many WIPs i wanna get back to

(i’d put this in The Tags but i’d deffo run out of tags lol)

so i have my battle plan for this year laid out, right, and i draft in three-month cycles, because that’s as long as i can harness the hyperfocus before it fizzles out, and i’ve accidentally built my entire life and creative process around undiagnosed adhd.

alicia (1st draft underway) is on deck, currently, and then i wanna get back to driscoll (2nd draft revising into 3rd), and then do some random tiny shit before NaNo (assuming alicia/driscoll doesn’t set me back, which it’s looking like they might). NaNo is a little red riding hood retelling, because it Came To Me In A Dream™, and i suspect writing Just For The Hell Of It first drafts is good for me. always good to activate Playtime.

and all of that’s fine for this year, right, and i’m stoked about it, but CONSIDER: if i wanna hustle driscoll into queryable shape (which i Might, because lucius is...not faring well, nearly a year into his agent inbox yeetage, which i can’t talk about rn because i’ll die or at least cry, which is Worse; driscoll is weirdly horrorish, and also YA, but occupies a different enough genre space that it’s worth a shot, unlike faultlines, which is ALSO YA sci-fi, and i’m having such a hard time finding agents who want sci-fi, and hnngh)--if i wanna hustle driscoll into queryable shape, i should really prioritize them for the next couple cycles, split by other projects for the Distance. that was, originally, The Plan™, and, again: fine, i’m excited about it, it feels good.

HOWEVER.

i didn’t anticipating loving rell as much as i have grown to (NaNo 2020, currently a v. rough first draft), and i lowkey wanna get back to her (that’d be adult, fantasy, novella--SUPER different from the YA stuff i have in the works, but: why the hell not? it’s weird and it’s fun and it’s playful and i’m vibing it). i at least need to make it a second draft and ship it off to readers for Some Opinions That Aren’t My Own, because i like it and i think i wanna do something with it.

DOUBLE HOWEVER.

i also, like a complete dumbass, am just NOW remembering how much i love alicia, first daughter of my heart, and i finally hit my stride drafting her, i think, and that’s also lovely. and originally i was thinking “ah, i’ll just yeet a first draft to readers like i did with lucius, because i’ll have LITERALLY NO IDEA how to be objective about her, like i couldn’t with lucius, so i’ll fling a raw first draft into the ether and see what happens with reader reactions and it’ll be gr8.”

except.

i’ve already got a list of Notes To Myself for how to fix the things i already know about, as i’m making the First Draft Go, so now i wanna fix alicia first and then yeet a draft to readers, because alicia is about at the place where lucius was two years ago where i’m Solid On The Story And The Cast And I Can Turn It Into An Book!!. totally exciting, right?!? bonus points for being a Heist Book, which i have seen in my searching for an agent for lucius that agents DEFINITELY WANT MORE OF. so people will deffo want a heist book, but i don’t apparently feel solid enough in general to start querying to at least a fourth draft, which is two years of Every Other Project Is Alicia (which is how i got lucius into shape in two years) which is objectively not a problem! i love this dumbass! i think i could do that! but. coupled with driscoll, and with rell, and with playtime NaNos, the, uh. month math doesn’t track, AND it’s weird to me to have driscoll in an intermediate stage of completion, which was definitely not the case when i started my lucius-two-year-wheeling--it was just all lucius, all the time, split up by superheroes in first draft form(s).

so i still definitely want to finish driscoll to queryable, because i’ve got that momentum and i’d like to keep it going, but now i’m side-eyeing alicia and wondering about Publishing, and rell is splashing me with otherseawater (which is rude but i don’t blame her).

all of this means my schedules looks, tentatively, like this:

- alicia: january ‘21 - march/april ‘21

- driscoll: may ‘21 - augustish ‘21

- NaNo: little red riding hood but queer: october ‘21 - november ‘21

- [[rell?? driscoll???]] : january ‘22 - march ‘22

- [[driscoll?? alicia??? rell???? faultlines?????]] : may ‘22 - augustish ‘22

- NaNo: TBD: october ‘22 - november ‘22

so i for sure think i wanna hustle driscoll along, but that means either i dump rell or i dump alicia, and i need more months to fit in a year? i need parallel bubble universes to which to outsource revisions? i need a cabin out of time that i can retreat to?? i totally objectively get that these are all meaningless timeframes and that i’m still very far out from next next NaNo (lolsob), and that i don’t HAVE to hustle any of them along, and that it’s not a race, but i just. really want to get back to all of them, and gosh i so badly want to publish something, and if it’s not gonna be lucius i need SOME backup option, and it’s all driving me batshit, so: here have another braindump on Tumblr Dot Com.

[panticwritten]

Breaking Furnace - Solitary Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Rules Are Made to be Broken

Table of contents!

All of my writing!

After this, there is only one more chapter in Solitary! I’ve got a great line up for the In-Between Collection between this and Death Sentence. One of them will just be a series of snapshot scenes of Connor chilling in the In-Between with Virtuoso and the splinter. 

(I’ve had to change quite a bit of formatting to post this on tumblr. If you want to read this chapter with its original formatting, you can do so HERE.)

Remember that this is a daydream taking place in the Escape From Furnace universe, so keep that in mind if you haven’t read EFF.

Word count: 3503

Content warnings for this chapter:

Amnesia

Self harm

Feel free to message me if I’m missing any.

The final chapter will be up on September 14th at 7pm PST.

~-S-~

I rewind the feed again in the hopes that how they got out might become clearer.

Every monitor turns to static, white noise obscures everything useful. I check before the glitch to find nothing out of the ordinary. After a four minute period without video, the three inmates duck into the infirmary to free two of their coconspiritors.

There’s no sign of anyone entering or leaving Cross’s office after we left to spar. They just stopped working for four minutes.

I let it play this time to track the five of them through the compound. They don’t explore or hesitate once, they run directly back to the cavern beyond the South Door. Back to where Cross found them.

They pause next to the cave wall.

And they’re gone.

I furrow my brows and roll it back to watch it again.

The feed’s too blurry to see exactly what it is, but there must be an opening in the wall here. They duck inside and seem to vanish altogether. They’ve disappeared into the tunnels again.

On my way out, I trigger my com.

“I know where the inmates are. I’m in pursuit.”

A response I don’t expect comes immediately.

“Stay where you are,” Cross demands. “They will be returning shortly.”

I stop at the fork in the hall that leads to either the infirmary or the southern door. I think about it. How can he be so sure? Not that they’ll get the punishment they deserve, but that they’ll be back?

I tap the com.

“I won’t be long.”

I rip the com from my collar and drop it on the ground before setting off toward the tunnels. I still hear the static, a tinny scream, but I don’t look back. I can ask forgiveness later. Whether it will be granted is questionable, but leaving the inmates out there isn’t something I can do.

Further down the hall, the echo of another com approaches. Cross’s voice snakes toward me, the apparent distance doing nothing to mute the fury in his voice.

“... south door, to be detained on sight. Do not let her leave the compound.”

I pause and glance at a doorway halfway between where I stand and the corner I’m approaching. I consider running for a split second. I could hide in the room, stay out of sight. The thought is infantile at best, and useless at worst. The voice acknowledging the order is much too close for me to hide from.

Instead, I continue down the hall with my head held high as the soldier rounds the corner.

He drags a rat’s carcass behind him and hesitates when he sees me. His free hand jerks toward his collar. Then his hand drops, a strange resolve in his eyes, and he stands aside to allow me by.

I hesitate. He’s ignoring a direct order from Cross. He jerks his head the way he came, signalling me to continue. I don’t need to be told twice.

As I pass, he flashes me a knowing grin. Something is off, it feels like I’m missing half of the exchange.

The moment passes and we go our separate ways. I can’t afford to puzzle over a soldier’s motives. I’ll be in hot water of my own when I return to the compound.

The broken door at the southern edge of the prison opens into a cavern still lit with spotlights. The walls, being carved from rough stone, aren’t smooth or uniform. Scars and clefts dot them on every side.

I don’t see the tunnel beyond until I duck underneath one of them. From far away, it looks like a normal shadow, but it leads into a smaller cave. It’s too dark to see in at first, but the nectar soon accommodates to turn the inky darkness into a hazy twilight.

I consider, for a moment, taking Cross up on his offer to alter my eyes.

The cramped cave almost feels like a dead end, but it can’t be. I peer behind a pile of boulders, run my hands along the walls, until I spot a ridge at the top of the sloped side of the chamber.

Divots and ridges pockmark the wall. I hardly consider it before I start the climb.

“Stop. Listen.”

Surprise at hearing the voice for the first time since I discovered the inmates missing halts me more than its quiet command. I do press myself close to the wall, though, and strain my ears. If I had continued, my focus on my grip, I might not have heard them coming.

“I don’t know why—”

♥️♥️♥️C♥️♥️♥️

“—you’re worried about them,” Simon grumbles. “If they catch us we’re dead, same as the warden.”

“I know,” I say, voice low. “But this means the game is different to Cross now. It certainly isn’t about stopping us.”

“Yeah, I get it, but what Cross wants isn’t important right now. Focus on getting out and we might be able to avoid him completely.” Stubbornness makes him sound childish, like he’s trying to convince himself.

“But if we get caught? Then it’s all that matters. Personally, I’m starting to think—”

“It don’t matter,” Kevin declares.

Several murmurings of agreement follow, and I shake my head. We stop at the edge of the ridge. No one makes a move to go down first.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have had Alex do it this time,” Zee frets. “He’s always the bait.”

“He lost,” I say drily.

“Still, it doesn’t seem—”

“What, fair? Nothing about this is fair,” I counter. “Let’s just go.”

I drop to my knees and ease myself down the angled wall. Something has me on edge, and it tastes different than garden variety fear. It’s not coming from me, not from my friends.

Am I close enough to feel what Sawyer’s feeling, even now that they’ve cut me off? But, then, why would they be afraid?

I pause and peer down at the crack in the wall. Shadows dip and sway, so I assume Cross has his search party out there for us. He’s waiting to tear us apart, but that doesn’t help me at all.

“Find her,” Cross barks.

I freeze.

“Wait!” Simon hisses above my head.

“The rest of the prison is secure, but this cavern will be full of rats in mere minutes.” Cross pauses, drumming footsteps begin. “She must be back in the compound by then.”

“Perry’s in the tunnels?” Kevin whispers.

“Who’s the fastest runner?” Donovan this time, his voice louder than I would prefer. We’re wasting time.

“It doesn’t matter, I’ll do it,” I say, eyes already closed.

I send my awareness directly through the rock. It doesn’t take long to find the Steeple, to find Alex on the outcropping with his flashlight pointed up.

“Come on, lazy pieces of shit, I’m ready to get out of this prison!” He bellows before I can stop him.

In the wake of his cry, the thick silence could kill me. I follow his flashlight. I hardly dare to breathe.

One pair of silver eyes appears above. Then another, a horde of rats descending from above.

I open my eyes back on the rock wall just as the others are beginning to retreat back into the tunnels. I can’t keep my grip on the wall, but I have enough control over my lungs to warn them.

“It’s too late!” I shriek, suspended in the air. “The rats!”

The scream of a rat in the distance chills my blood.

I hit the ground.

My head cracks against the solid rock. Lights pop in my vision, but I manage to roll onto my hands and knees. Everything hurts.

I look up to the crack in the wall to find Cross much too close for my liking. Fury twists his features, but he’s not looking at me.

The fear siphoning into my head shifts and Sawyer streaks out from behind the boulders I’m supposed to be hiding behind. I call out to them, beg them to wait, but they duck into the brightly lit cavern without looking back.

Hands seize me and drag me forward. The others must have made it down. I have to resist the urge to follow Sawyer when we press behind the boulders in a pile.

Cross has fled already, though Sawyer stands stock still in the entrance to the prison. They watch a line of blacksuits, who salute them before turning their guns our way. That’s six of them, all in a line, loyal to us and our plans.

Six loyal blacksuits about to die.

Sawyer turns tail just as Alex dives behind the boulder with us. The rats follow in moments, a shot ringing out when the first of them barrels into the cavern.

~-S-~

The inmates were talking about me.

Cross leans against his desk, obviously waiting for me. His glare bores into me, but I merely shrug. He straightens up as I pass, as I ignore him, as I watch the screens in the security room.

I already know the inmates know me, but one went so far as to call after me.

The rats have decimated the soldiers in the cavern already. I stare at the crack in the wall, still barely visible on the black and white screen. Cross clears his throat, but I barely spare him a glance.

My fingers dig at an itch on my arm.

“When this is over—”

“Tear my throat out later,” I grumble. “We still have specimens in the tunnels.”

Arnold thought I would let him out of the infirmary.

“The situation was under control,” Cross volleys back. “I was a fool to think you had learned to follow orders.”

Cross knew the inmates would return. How?

A blurred group flashes from the crack, across the screen. I immediately turn to leave the room, but Cross catches my arm before I get very far. Still, I glare at the door instead of him.

“Let me go.”

I know he won’t. He’s already furious enough without me goading him.

“Listen to me.” His grip tightens, and I finally look him in the eyes.

Cold fire streaks through my blood, through the nectar. Flickering images, old memories of war torn fields and broken soldiers overlay my vision. I don’t look away until he jostles me.

“I will retrieve the escaped inmates,” He snarls. “You will wait in this office until I come back to deliver your punishment. Do you understand?”

Footsteps thunder past in the corridor outside. Every part of me screams to go after them, but I’m stuck here with Cross.

Even so, I nod. He doesn’t seem ready to take that as an answer. He tightens his grip further and a jolt of pain shoots up my arm. I wince.

“Yes. I understand.”

He shoves me back and lets go. I stumble back into the wall and watch him stalk from the room. I don’t know what he’s going to choose for my punishment, but it sure as hell isn’t going to be good.

So, I cross to the chair in front of Cross’s desk, take a seat, and wait.

Something is wrong here, but I can’t put my finger on it.

I scratch my arm and allow my eyes to wander.

I look up at the flag behind the desk, examining the insignia of Furnace Penitentiary. Three circles connected by a triangle, it’s supposed to be an honor to wear it. The longer I look at it, the more uneasy I become. I only look away when the headache I’ve come to associate with the voice in my head flares up.

“What are you doing?”

I nearly jump out of my skin. The panic of the presence to my left doesn’t help. I twist around, but there’s still nothing there. I don’t like that I’m feeling emotions from it now.

I face forward again and huff.

“What do you mean?”

“Your // arm.”

I have to strain my ears to hear it this time, but I look down on impulse when it registers. Nectar sticks under my fingernails. I lift my right hand and study the glittering violet and black until I realize what it means.

I pull my left sleeve up to reveal a black stain on my shirt and long tracks of claw marks up my forearm. Nectar clogs the scratches, fresh scabs dotting the skin like scales.

I didn’t even feel it.

“Keep your pants on,” I mutter. “Are you gonna yell at me, too?”

“No.”

“What is it, then?”

Only a faint residue of liquid nectar remains on my arm. I roll my sleeve back down and wipe my hand on my jacket while the voice struggles to piece together a sentence between bursts of static.

“You // deserve better than //  Cross // hiding things.”

“How would you know if Cross is hiding anything from me?” I shoot back. I rub my temples, though I know the headache isn’t going anywhere.

“I know // more than // you do.”

I shoot a glare over my shoulder and hunch further down. I wish it would just leave. I’m in enough trouble without getting distracted.

“If you know so much, why do you sound like a broken radio?”

“I’m // breaking // the rules.”

Rules?

It doesn’t clarify at all. In fact, it stays completely silent

Rude.

Still, there have been some fishy things.

Cross had to have known about the first escape attempt. He had the inmate files ready so quickly. He didn’t seem upset in the least; in fact, he looked like he was having a great time.

He also didn’t seem very bothered that the inmates escaped the second time, only losing his temper when I didn’t listen to him. He sent the suits after me rather than the prisoners.

Not to mention, he knew the rats were going to attack!

“What do you remember from your time away?”

I straighten up and, for once, try to remember.

The last thing I remember before coming here was—what? Working in the prison? Fussing with the nectar in the lab? Nothing really jumps out as the last thing I did, just that these are things that happened.

I remember being scared, weak, out of control, but there isn’t anything actually attached to that. Just the dark, the pounding in my chest. I don’t know what was happening or where I was.

Then there’s the anger. The hate the nectar now feeds on when I think about—

“Tell me. Why do you hate Connor Sawyer?”

For a moment—one, terrifying moment—I don’t know.

I shake my head and the simpering nostalgia clears away. I need to go to the screening rooms. Maybe the voice will go away then.

The voice asks again.

This time, the anger sears my skin.

“He wants to ruin everything. The world will be a better place when we’re done, and he has this one chance to be a part of it. It’s not my fault if he throws it away.”

The voice sighs.

“I thought we were // making // progress.”

And it disappears.

I wait in silence.

[finsterhund]

The boredom gets to me.

Lake trip got cancelled, then postponed to today, except ex roommate didn't want to go to the safe lake and me and my friend only wanted to go to the safe lake so we didn't end up going at all but that was okay because Will and Paula did a Paper Beast stream and it was fun.

Other than that things have been extremely boring and I've been getting sick from the heatwave.

It's too hot to play Paper Beast because of the headset, it's too hot to play Minecraft because ice pack laptop gets hot way quicker now.

It really becomes apparent that without spending money there's not much to do during the quarrentine. I've drawn a bit, I keep trying to write but never get anywhere, and mostly I'm just feeling lonely and wishing I had a dog. I have to be careful not to think too much about that late at night otherwise I'll miss my bedtime and then cry myself to sleep at 4AM. I joke about how I am explicitly forbidden from listening to "Tiny's Song" after 7PM, because that's a surefire way to make it worse.

I have another psychiatrist phone call in a couple weeks and I'm hoping to talk about trauma and misery loops, or whatever it's called when your brain keeps dwelling on loss.

Computer quest seems to be going well, but of course I've put as much money as I can into it for this month. Frustrated that I can't do anything more until I get paid again.

Got to go to the thrift store a few days ago. Impulsively got Lady because she was 5 dollars and we all know she's a spaniel so obviously I was weak of will, soft of heart, dumb of ass. You know the drill. This boy does not simply see a cosmically significant stuffed dog just sitting there and not do something about it.

I also picked up a seemingly brand-new collar with several tags attached. I collect used and discarded dog tags (I will go into this in more detail in another post) and I intend to start bringing as many back as I can whenever I get to go to thrift stores.

I'm frustrated that I keep making plans that I'll only be able to follow through on once all this is over. My computer is the only big thing in the works that isn't held back by the virus.

I wish the other one in town would open again. Stupid virus.

I keep phoning my mom to talk to her puppy. I was going to visit to see the puppy and also bring my childhood toys back home and also develop the Spot negatives. But no. Ruined. Stupid virus says "Andy likes Spot, and his old toys, and puppies. Let's make sure he doesn't get to see them" stupid virus.

I have a TON of important things planned where traveling or going to high risk stores/places that are definitely closed is required.

The last Spot I ordered online before I put my foot down and said "no more buying comfort items online until you get your new computer" seems to almost be arriving. Should around the same time I have my phone appointment. I'm also waiting on the lost DHL puppy (still, it's been so long) and another that I think also is lost, and a rare copy of Heart of Darkness that's taken forever to ship and is presumably in Alaska now (why I don't know)

I intend to spoil that Spot to an extreme amount to make up for the eBay stuffed dog drought that will presumably go on for three months. Although the fact that I do no longer have to hold onto all the money to use at once and have now switched over to giving it in installments to my friend who's doing my custom build does mean I have a better understanding on how much money I have available each month. It's their responsibility to count and keep track of the big unintelligible numbers now. I'm free!

Although I do still intend to keep the paper with all the "100"s written on it in use. Using a visual aid to help with my dyscalcula has actually felt super good. Wish teachers would have been more open to helping me do this during school.

I do wish I had more inspiration to draw and write. Not getting too much interaction with what I'm doing online so it doesn't feel like a way to socialize and I'm actually desperate for more socialization during this time.

The quest for an extremely large floppy stuffed dog that looks like Spot has been postponed due to the computer quest. Similarly I am barred from buying anything else from Awwful Adopts, Lil Sprout Care, and Blvucci. Will showed me a browser extension that blocks certain website access from your browser. I use it to bar me from aimlessly searching stuffed dogs on eBay for four hours.

Hold me to this promise. No Awwful Adopts, No LilSproutCare, and no Blvucci. If I brag about getting the Blvucci glow in the dark hoodie and it wasn't because I won a free one, you are all encouraged to spam mean names into my message inbox and hit me with things.

I have materials to make custom sized collars and bandannas for my stuffed dogs but I just don't feel up to learning to sew. I know how to do 1. A ladder stitch and 2. Several types of knots. So all I can technically do is fix small holes in stuffed animals.

It's technically my bedtime but I don't feel able to sleep right now so I'm just writing this update.

My friend made art of Spot for me and it is very nice so I'll share it tomorrow.

Keeping my mind active talking about my day and my plans stops me from thinking about sad things, but it also prevents me from sleeping. I just wish that there was something to look forward to tomorrow. It's gonna be another hot do nothing stay home day.

Maybe soon we will get to go to the lake.

Anyways, I'll try updating you all more. Maybe post more memes and things that have mostly been going on over at twitter dot com. I keep forgetting to post things here because of how broken Tumblr is on desktop now.

[spiritcc]

I got tagged by @bbcshortarse and I won’t be tagging anyone cuz you always let me down :)) 

The last:

1. Drink: tea 2. Phone call: called my mom so she could find her phone  3. Text message: to my mom to save that 24h stream when she wakes up 4. Song you listened to: the james bond theme from An Ordinary Miracle 5. Time you cried: today when I sprayed my throat and decided to take a fuckin sip of my tea after it and it started itching like hell and tears came down 6. Dated someone twice: love when those asks assume that I have a personal life 7. Kissed someone and regretted it: my infinite hoe stories, amiright 8. Been cheated on: they’re just endless  9. Lost someone special: that Lost Special(tm)......it could’ve saved the series.....depress.... 10. Been depressed: spring of last year, the longest one I had to date, not fun 11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: twelve, can you imagine, the only time in my life when I got drunk

Three favorite colors:

12. white, the color of freedom across our endless borders!!!!!! 13. blue for the color of the sky above our Motherland!!!!! 14. red, in the memory of all the blood spilled to never let our generations experience fascism!!!!! 

In the last year have you:

15. Made new friends: all online, yes 16. Fallen out of love: again,,, 17. Laughed until you cried: the memes nowadays, how can’t you 18. Found out someone was talking about you: my coworkers sharing memes about me on the workplace 19. Met someone who changed you: thank you all the children I work with for making me the bitter disappointed in childcare person I am today!!!!  20. Found out who your friends are: this sounds so dramatic, who are they???? how do i find out???  21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: i also love how those asks target western people who had a facebook page in 2010 when it was cool and loved playing sonic with a friend in their house eating peanut butter sandwiches made by their mother shannon

General:

22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: i loved shannon’s sandwiches, man 23. Do you have any pets: cat Vasya 24. Do you want to change your name: I’ve got way too many documents on me to do that 25. What did you do for your last birthday: worked in the morning, studied for doomed exams in the afternoon, streamed soviet mary poppins 26. What time did you wake up: half past seven in the morning  27. What were you doing at midnight last night: lamenting about my dearly beloved detective on tumblr dot com 28. Name something you can’t wait for: the sweet embrace of death 29. When was the last time you saw your mom: like 20min ago 31. What are you listening to right now: my brother’s shitty taste in kids’ content 32. Have you ever talked to a person named tom: thomas, yes, he was a binch 33. Something that is getting on your nerves: children 34. Most visited website: redtub tumblr dot com 35. Hair color: kinda brown 36. Long or short hair: lonk boy 37. Do you have a crush on someone: lel 38. What do you like about yourself: fuckin everything, ho shet i’d tap that chick tbh 39. Piercings: i’ve got no holes on me at all, not even in my ears  40. Blood type: second positive. that’s what they said in russia and i dont get any other type system.  41. Nickname: one kid used to call me lettuce 42. Relationship status: i’m hoeing as i type this

43. Zodiac: angery sheep  44. Pronouns: this bitch/dat hoe 45. Favorite TV show: news 46. Tattoos: i’ve got a huge spread of livanov on my back 100%  47. Right or left handed: lefty curse 48. Surgery: ish? i had something cut in my mouth to presumably stop my gums from bleeding, that “surgery” lasted for like 10min and the bleeding never stopped ever 49. Piercing: yeah i’ve got a flower on my third nip, finally 50. Sport: how dare u 51. Vacation: :’) 52. Pair of trainers: my mom buys my clothes what is brands

More general:

53. Eating: do that sometimes!!! wild shit!!! 54. Drinking: stay hydrated you guise!!!!!  55. I’m about to: type some more shit i find vaguely funny for the next questions 56. Waiting for: baeremy stream right now 57. Want: o the needs and desires of man 58. Get married: got so many bfs how do i decide???? ugh why am i so fucking perfect 59. Career: sometimes i reassure myself that at the end of day there might be an audience for my type and i should finally pursue porn 

Which is better:

60. Hugs or kisses: huggies 61. Lips or eyes: plz don’t touch my eyes i can shut up forever but i still want to see 62. Shorter or taller: i want to be a big girl one day..... 63. Older or younger: doesn’t matter, the character does 64. Nice arms or nice stomach: i turn my gaze from the swole livanov muscles, push the memories of swole gaft away, lock up my boyarsky swoleness content, kiss my beef of steel and type in “nice stomach” 65. Hook up or relationship: well obvs i’ve got so much personal life  66. Troublemaker or hesitant: everyone should fucking chill, alright, especially when it’s applied to kindergartens 

Have you ever:

67. Kissed a stranger: lol 68. Drank hard liquor: at 12, yes 69. Lost glasses/contact lenses: fuck this sentence, don’t jinx me 70. Turned someone down: my Hoe Life 71. Sex on the first date: riding dicc as i type this 72. Broken someone’s heart: and my 20 exes are watching me right now 73. Had your heart broken: but i can’t stop thinking about sonic :((( 74. Been arrested: the police breaks in to take me off the dicc 75. Cried when someone died: and i cry as they pronounce me guilty of sonic’ murder 76. Fallen for a friend: i wanted to be more than a friend, blue hedgy....

Do you believe in:

77. Yourself: me loves meself me is me best friend 78. Miracles: i do believe in wizard waifu, thank you 79. Love at first sight: never happened to me 80. Santa Claus: ded moroz binch  81. Kiss on the first date: sonic :((( 82. Angels: my blue babe :((

Other:

83. Current best friend’s name: spiritcc 84. Eye color: grey  85. Favorite movie: Hoes of Wax 

[coyotemarked]

I wish I could lay out all the heavy thoughts buzzing around in my head for someone directly, like one on one. But I’m really scared of it being too heavy, and taking up time and space for that. I just like to make people happy, I want to be there for everyone, I don’t want people to worry, and I’m sorry if my humor does just that. Sometimes it’s the only thing I can do to keep from falling apart, and I’d always rather fall apart internally than put it all on someone else. It’s just too heavy. It’s too much. I don’t want to deal with it why would I want anyone else to. But I need to dump this garbage somewhere so here we go boys. Gonna air out my dirty laundry on Tumblr Dot Com oh boy.

I was never really a well behaved kid, there were lots of reasons why but that doesn’t make it better. In fact it was kind of a family joke how awful I used to be, so when I got older I just really didn’t want to be so in the way anymore. I don’t like that kid, the kid I was but I would be lying if I said I didn’t envy his energy, his ambition. He wanted to do everything, he thought he was the main event, he wasn’t scared, he was a dog, a west wind child, rough and tumble and loud and played too rough. It’s only more exasperating when my mom tends to blame my dad for “ruining me” because I’m not that kid anymore. I’m stuck between hating myself and wanting that part of me back. Now I’m just out of the way, I’m not full of life anymore I’m a ghost hiding in a meat sack, I do what I need to and then I just ... stop functioning. I used to be so many things, and I miss being them. I’m trying really hard to be okay, I don’t want to make anyone feel bad or make them worry. I really love my friends, even though I’m super bad at showing it sometimes. I love them at my expense, I will do anything for people I love. But loving is hard and I feel like I wasn’t built to be loved the same way I love others, it scares me I don’t feel worthy of anything like that it makes me aggressive and suspicious and frightened like some cornered animal. I hate taking care of myself for the same reasons, I punish myself by not feeding myself all day, and not bathing or changing clothes because I’m just so tired and it’s so much extra effort on something that has no value to me. Sometimes thinking about the next day makes me so terribly upset, just the thought of having to wake up and do it all again and do more makes me want to cry, though I really don’t even let myself do that. Again as another punishment, I don’t even feel like I deserve to cry or feel the release of when you go to that one person and just break apart and they tell you everything is going to be okay, and it is. But my head, it’s just ongoing, nonstop heavy thoughts, nearly every night. Sometimes all day and all night. 

Some days are good though, the days that are just nice and I have fun and I get lots done and my mom tells me she’s happy with it and I finally feel like I maybe deserve the praise. Some days I get lots done and I draw and write and feel good, I really love those days, I love feeling normal and productive. Maybe it’s my fault, maybe I’m just not trying hard enough to be happy. I know I should make myself a priority but I just don’t feel worthy of something like that, and it’s exhausting and hard for me to even talk myself into feeding myself and bathing and washing my face, I don’t know how people do it. That’s why when I think about the future everything just gets so much more scary, I’m going to have to hold down a job and I mean I can’t just not show up because of how I am. One of the most annoying things to think about though is the similarities I share with my dad, he’s not the best person or the best father and that’s putting it really fuckin nicely. He’s 50-something, doesn’t own a house or anything, and he constantly emotionally abuses whatever girl he’s with, he drains them of energy and money because he’s not happy, because he has what I have. He destroys people, he breaks them down and sucks them dry in an attempt to find joy, he’s rotten on the inside just like I am. I’ve felt that heavy fucking weight on my chest so many times, that sick feeling of being cruel or just so over emotional it ruins everything and it’s like watching from the backseat as your body just swerves to cause a god damn collision.

I haven’t felt like a priority or like I was worthy anything since I was in elementary school. Maybe this is just stupid, I mean I’m just bipolar and there was literally no reason for this shitty feeling to happen because there never is, which is one of the many reasons I don’t like to talk to people one on one and admit I’m really sad. It’s happened time and time again that I’ve gotten shut down and proven right about what leaning on someone like that causes, after all I probably deserve every awful thing that’s happened to me. From being emotionally abused to sexually harassed. I feel like most if not all of it is deserving because I’m just rotten, I’m worthless and scared and rotten and I don’t think anyone could really love me. My dad has searched for love all his life in order to fix him because he thinks he wants a family, and I can only assume that the same wretched awful abusive piece of shit delusional part of him is in me, that if I ever had a son or a daughter I would fail them over and over and be just as bad as my own father.

I worry constantly that I’m not enough, not masculine enough. I worry I don’t type like a guy, that I don’t talk like one or act enough like one. I’m always one to encourage men to be emotional and open and not overly concerned with being masculine out of fear of being singled out, but I’m always the one worrying about stuff like that for me. I worry that when I finally get my surgery done that no one will want me because of my scars and because I wasn’t born with the right parts, so I don’t date. I don’t date because I’m bad at talking to people, and afraid of being used, because I’m a fucking basket case with no ability to take care of himself or function. I’m afraid one day that a man or woman won’t love me because I don’t act “manly” enough, or that they’ll make fun of me for it or something. It gets so bad sometimes there’s just this feeling of being so aggressive upset and uncomfortable by my own parts that I have now that I don’t want. I just wish I could stop thinking, my favorite part of waking up are those few moments of blissful unawareness before I start to remember all the terrible shit again. I wish I could sleep forever so I wouldn’t have to face life, I’m scared of what will happen to me. I’m so scared of it sometimes I think dying would be better.

I really don’t think I was meant to be here sometimes. I really feel like it’d be easier to disappear and die, but part of me wishes so badly to be wrong. Part of me really wants to love and be loved, and be open and care about myself, and not be afraid. But I’m so terrified and I hate myself so much, I don’t know what to do some times. I just want things to be okay, I don’t want to constantly be like this, defensive and aggressive and lonely and sad and volatile and rotten. So I just kinda ... keep going. I guess that’s all I can do, all anyone can do. 

There’s lots more but I don’t know, this is probably just stupid. I’m stupid.

[pashi]

like thigh highs. I used to love wearing thigh highs, like i wore those in the WINTER TIME I loved them so much. I have a small bin full of thigh highs and I probably own at least 20 pairs of them, they made me feel so cute and I would look at myself and be like “gotdang..,.. she is cute!!!!”

but now I can’t even bring myself to put on a freaking skirt outside of work, never mind thigh highs. like a couple weeks ago I was going to dance practice so wore this cute overall dress that I have with my one of my all-time fave pair of thigh highs (they’re just simple black ones but they’re really long and stay up well and the top doesn’t compress your thigh that much) and I just…. I couldn’t…… I had to bring a change of clothes because I felt so…. girly?? it was just a really uncomfortable experience overall

I can remember last year when I could still wear this stuff and be happy about it but now I just….. can’t do it.. as I’m writing this I look up to my left and I see those cute dresses my mum got for me while she was in london and I can remember wearing them all summer and loving them so much…. I haven’t touched most of my hanging clothes outside of my dress shirts because I can’t bring myself to wear them

why did this suddenly happen now in my life, I literally lived for 19 years without any of this affecting me at all, if anything I embraced being cute and girly for years and years, I loved wearing those lolita-esque dresses my grandma would get me when I was a kid, I loved getting cute new clothes whenever I walked into a japanese department store, I loved playing dress up with those exquisite dresses that my mum always made for me and my dolls, I absolutely adored lolita fashion and really wanted to get into it but just didn’t have the money, I tried every day to come up with cute outfits and impress my friends who would always mindblown by how adorable I was, I would spend hours looking in the mirror experimenting with my facial expressions and making cute faces, all the years of my life I tried so hard to make people love me and shower me with affection so I could be happy and I couldn’t stand it when they didn’t, what have I been trying to do for all these years?

is it because my parents told me that they didn’t have many wishes for what kind of child they wanted, but they always knew they wanted a girl?

but I don’t ever remember being uncomfortable with any associations with female gender. but now it makes me want to cry and disappear forever.

i don’t get it. it’s not everything too, like by this logic I should hate my job but I don’t????? when I look in the mirror with all my makeup I DO sometimes think “who is this” but that’s…… probably for unrelated reasons like wearing a wig lmao.

I mean, I always hated my body but I thought that was this whole “beauty standards” thing, but I also thought that was weird because my body looks pretty ok???? actually I spent way too much time looking in mirrors, at myself and my body, and sometimes I would be pretty happy with the way I looked??? like I was pretty confident that as a girl people found me cute and desirable and all that stuff, but I never felt…. happy? with it? idk

I think I’m realizing that there was a huge disconnect between how I was presenting myself and my ideal appearance…. and other things? I always liked looking at skinny guys with super flat chests or broad shoulders but I was never attracted to them or anything, I heard basses and I was like “god i wish that were me”….. and all this stuff’s gotten me thinking like maybe the reason why I like those otokoya//ku (slashing so poor fans don’t need to see my suffering lmao) so much is because they’re all afab but they can present masculinely so well. I was so mind blown when people told me “yeah they’re women but they basically spend a good chunk of their life being and studying men” and even after they graduate and they present a bit masculinely everyone’s like “oh but she was an otok///oyaku haha it makes sense, she was basically a man for 15 years”

maybe it’s a bit weird because they’re not actually trans or anything, but maybe that was my first kind of positive contact with anything remotely resembling a trans person? and I think it shaped the way I think of trans people for a while, actually, because the other contact I’d had was p negative, like japanese celebrities or “chick with a dick”, y'know, that kind of stuff

I am AWARE that this has some negative connotations like “SHE’s a WOMAN but she’s hotter than REAL MEN!!!!1!!” implying that trans guys aren’t actually men…. but it was the only thing I had because literally no one talked about trans guys okay, everyone only talks about drag queens or “”“women with dicks”“”. later on of course my understanding of trans people has widened and I know they’re (we’re???) just people trying to live their life etc etc all that stuff

I guess right now there’s the problem that I don’t really….. identify with a small amount of the struggles that I see trans people dealing with, (the biggest one being “I always knew something was wrong”) and I keep thinking about “what if I do irreversible things to myself and then it turns out I was wrong???” but at the same time, there are a lot of things that I do experience??? and I really hate my chest and my voice and how I look so gotdanm girly and i’m so short and my hands and feet are so small and cute and my legs look feminine and my waist is so tiny and my hips are huge and my shoulders aren’t broad at all and things constantly slip off of them

so what does this all mean?????

why am I posting this on tumblr dot com???????

maybe I just want people I know on here but haven’t told about this to Know and talk to me

maybe I want attention or validation or something maybe

maybe I want to actually understand myself and my thoughts

ugh either way I’m tired of this all and I miss some people I want to feel good again