#why do I feel like a different person?

[vampirepuppygirl]

I'm getting anxious again

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Unsolved Mysteries.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[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.

[turtleblogatlast]

Something I like about Leo is that he’s honestly really chill? It’s easy to remember the moments where he’s being obnoxious or excitable but I feel like most of the time he’s incredibly “go with the flow” and has an overall affable demeanor.

[merlins-strawberriesandroses]

The thing no one ever considers while writing up character analyses about Merlin is that. he must have been sooooooo sleepy.

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[ganondoodle]

the company i work for decided that its switching from the german formal "You"(Sie) to the informal "you" (Du) in all of our websites so now we have to scour the entire database to change it and i quite frankly hate that, not just bc the unecessary extra work but especially bc its such a weird and unecessary change

i bet its bc everything here is getting englishfied (both literally and culturally it feels like, when my new boss talks its half in english bc every second german word is just replaced by an english one despite there being perfectly fine words for it in german too, its so annoying) and bc they want to sound more personal in hopes of getting more clients bc 'company is your fwiend uwu!!', i know this here is the amercian tm site so you wouldnt understand really but i do not want to be greeted with 'du' by companies, no, thats too personal, you dont know me and im not giving you my data, stay away!!

i guess thats how i would describe it .. the formal you is like a polite distance, like someone you dont know staying outside your personal space, but when its the informal 'you' it feels invasive unless i told you you can call me that, and that goes double for companies

maybe its a small thing that doesnt seem important but i cant stand it, im just a little part time worker doing data work so i got no say in it but the companies founder also announced hes giving his post to his kids some time ago so ...... since then theres been alot of changes and new projects that solely aim to imitate whats popular and whats done by other companies, despite ours being one that is, or used to be, intentionally different, like, that was the POINT, but i guess chasing trends is just too appealing for CEOs

[pocketgalaxies]

crazy how in c2 they'll have three extensive convos checking in with each other while traveling like an hour in-game meanwhile in c3 they've been on the moon for days and still haven't discussed the following:

laudna fucking ate a guy

imogen's mom is a mythical legend amongst the enemy

orym vs. laudna's response to imogen giving into predathos

how did chetney suddenly learn to make hypnotizing toys

delilah briarwood

"some of us are expendable, we should get captured"

anything and everything they said during the trust exercise, including but not limited to:

laudna not being able to distinguish her thoughts from delilah's

imogen's disgust at delilah's inevitable presence

chetney's fear that his new family will leave him

orym's feelings about dorian

fcg relieving stress through murder

fearne's insecurities about their chances of success

ashton's guilt about the shard

and more!

[fromtheseventhhell]

I have a question for people who fervently argue that Arya has no potential for politics but think that Sansa will be one of the main political characters, and I'm asking this seriously.

If Arya learning multiple languages, how to tell + detect lies, how to rule her face so she doesn't reveal her emotions, being able to blend into different situations, thinking quick on her feet, knowing the importance of gathering information, being someone who makes friends wherever she goes, convincing a FM to help free Northern prisoners and participating in a coup, etc. don't make Arya capable of participating in politics...what exactly is it that you think Sansa will be doing as a political figure?

[jojo-schmo]

Just Admit It- Part 1

I've been playing around with possible friendship dynamics of the Beast Council for fun!! I love imagining what kind of childhood they could have in the Forgotten Land all together.

What if Carol and Sillydillo are the fun-loving extroverts? Leon is the introverted one who's been smitten by Carol for a really really long time but he's too shy about it? And Gori is the friend who is an excellent observer and will bluntly tell you what he thinks (and maybe has a tendency to get grumpy when things aren't easily going his way).

Somewhat of a prequel to this other doodle comic about Leon and Carol- everyone here is still a kid ^_^

Part 2

[arsenicflame]

steddyhands modern au inspired by this post:

(1828 words, themes of kink but nothing explicit, established blackhands & gentlebeard-centric. Happy Pride!)

Stede picks up leatherworking in the wake of his divorce. He's not exactly sure how it ended up being such an important hobby for him, only that he had always admired the intricate designs on his horse's best bridles, and with little else to do with his time, he decides to give it a go.

It's rocky going at first, but he's having fun working with his hands for the first time in his life, and there's a sense of satisfaction in seeing the design come to life as he works. With practice, his skills improve, and he learns how to make things that are truly one of a kind.

He starts off posting his pieces online, as a way to reach fellow enthusiasts, but quickly finds himself with a rather large audience. Stede’s style is unique, and, after many requests from his followers, Lucius encourages him to make some more basic pieces he can sell. It's not about making money for Stede, but another way to meet new people who share his interests- as Lucius keeps telling him, it's sad that his personal assistant is the main person he talks to these days. 

So Stede sets out on a new adventure, and has quite the time designing a new range of patterns for the market. He makes purses, belts, bracelets, and, most importantly, dog collars- all still with his unique designs embossed into them, of course. He rents a booth at his towns monthly craft fair, and very quickly finds himself with a new group of friends in the other regulars- Pete, his usual neighbour, who sells an array of wooden figures he carves, Roach, who runs a stand for his bakery, and Frenchie, who isn't actually a stallholder, but is almost always busking near his friend Wee John’s stand of knitted goods, bringing life to the market even in the pouring rain. There's also Buttons, another regular at the market. Nobody is exactly sure what he does there- he doesn't sell things, or seem to buy anything either, but rain or shine, he's there with the birds.

Stede’s been doing this a few months by the time June rolls around. As he's setting up his stand, he notices that the area is much busier than it’d normally be at this time of morning. Lucius, who got roped into helping run Stede’s stall somewhere down the line (despite his protests that this is not what personal assistant means… But hey, he got a boyfriend out of it, at least), reminds him that there's the parade today, too- not realising that Stede had no clue there was a parade today, and especially not that it was pride. Stede immediately jumps to fretting about the amount of stock he’s brought, and Lucius takes the cue to escape, saying he’ll go and grab them coffee (but really, he's off to flirt with Pete)

Lucius is still missing when Ed stumbles across the little leather stall. Stede’s just ran back to his car to fetch his last boxes of inventory, and by the time he returns, Ed’s already begun to narrow down his choices. Stede greets him, starting to tell him that they're not actually open yet, but before he gets more than a couple of words out, Ed’s exclaiming “You're a Kiwi!!!”

The two of them smile at the shared recognition, and Stede says he’ll make an exception, just for Ed, and asks him what exactly he was interested in. Ed tells him that he's looking for a collar “for his boy”, and points out the particular design he was looking at. It happens to be one of Stede’s favourites from this latest run of work, a fact he mentions to Ed. It leads them into a discussion about Stede’s craft, and Ed’s Izzy, and then everything in between. Ed’s listening intently to the things Stede’s telling him, completely drawn in by the process, and by Stede himself. He watches as Stede stamps Izzy's name into the collar, and Stede even lets him have a go at one of the stamps. 

Lucius reappears sometime in the middle of this- only to immediately retreat again, seeing Stede engrossed with Ed. He sets up camp at Pete's booth opposite, watching this man flirt intensely with his boss- and Stede flirt back just as hard. Does Stede even realise he’s doing it? Lucius had known Stede was gay since before Stede even admitted it to himself, but this is on a whole other level.

The pair stand there so long that Izzy comes to look for Ed- the two of them are manning a float on the parade with their crew, and it's past time for them to get geared up. He's already worked up, frustrated to have been left to set up everything alone, when Ed had just gone to see if he could get them both coffee. So maybe he's a bit of a prick, approaching with a brash “where the fuck have you been, Edward”, to which Stede brings the same energy, giving a bitchy “Ed! Do you know this guy?” Izzy tenses, ready to snap, but then Ed cuts in, excitedly telling Stede that this is “his Izzy!” Which confuses the hell out of Stede. 

Forgetting his earlier attitude, he asks Ed if he “really named his dog after his friend”, only to be met with confusion right back from Ed at where the hell Stede got the idea he had a dog from. Stede gestures at the bag with the collar in it, to which Ed has to tell him, “oh, no, that's for him.” Ed tells Stede that they're here to run a float for their local leather society, and while Stede is certainly shocked by what Ed’s saying, he's not finding himself… uninterested. It's simply that he’s never even considered any of this before, especially not that people would use the things that he made for this, but Ed sounds so enthusiastic about it all. He tells him about how his friends would love to see Stede’s work, about how classic leather gear is always so fucking boring- but not Stede’s stuff, no, Stede’s stuff is “fresh” and “fascinating” and unlike anything Ed’s ever seen before. 

Ed's enthusiasm is incredibly infectious, so when he invites Stede to come back to see their float, he readily agrees. It’s a concept Izzy’s less than enthusiastic about. He doesn’t really want to bring this man who’s dressed like he just walked out of a HOA board meeting to their kinky little corner of the world, but he is having a lot of fun watching Stede squirm, so decides not to raise a protest. He does demand he gets his long-overdue coffee first, though (Stede pays for it- as “compensation for him distracting Ed from his job”, he says, not giving Izzy a second to process before he's tapping his card)

By the time they return to the float, Fang, Ivan & Jim are waiting for them, all already geared up. Stede is stunned silent at the sight for about 5 seconds, before he starts actually looking at the quality of Jim’s harness, and proceeds to go off about the poor quality of the craftsmanship, about how the hardware is tacky and completely the wrong choice with this leather, how his “ten year old daughter could do a better job!!!” 

There's complete silence from the group, until Izzy, of all people, bursts into laughter at Stede’s audacity (and, the fact he was staring at Jim's tits completely unabashedly, like he hadn't even noticed them in the first place). Izzy's laughter sets Ed off as he tells the group about Stede’s misunderstanding- “you didn't say he was a person!” “I mean, he's my dog”- and soon everyone's having a friendly giggle at Stede’s mistake.

It's somewhere in the middle of the retelling that Ed remembers that this whole thing happened because he was buying Izzy a gift. After a moments fumbling, he presents Izzy with the collar-  It's a rich, deep black, embossed with a rolling pattern that resembles waves. It’s made from a firm enough leather to take the tooling, and to remind Izzy that he’s owned while he’s wearing it, yet still soft enough for long term comfort. Izzy's eyes immediately lock on to it, an unreadable expression coming over his face, and Ed turns it; first so he can really see the design and Izzy’s name embossed into it, and then so he can see the small “Ed ♥” on the inside of the collar, right over his swallow tattoo. 

“I did the heart,” Ed says to him softly, intended only for Izzy’s ears. Izzy's eyes flick up to Ed’s, and he raises his chin to give Ed the room to put it on. Ed buckles the collar around his neck almost reverently, a test of the tightness turning into a caress of Izzy's neck. It's a perfect fit.

It's as though something comes over Izzy; so twitchy and abrasive earlier, now silent, staring at Ed with a look akin to worship in his eyes. He obediently tilts his head for a kiss as Ed's fingers move to his chin- It's a sight to behold, and one that has Stede intrigued. He wants to know more about this lifestyle, and these men in particular. He wants to be the one to put that expression on Izzy's face.

The moment breaks as Ed and Izzy pull apart, and Ed calls for the crew to finish the last bits of set up. Izzy shakes himself a little before running off to bark orders again, but even still, there remains a softness to him that wasn't there before. 

Ed turns back to Stede with an apologetic smile, already obvious that he has to get going. Before he can speak, however, Stede jumps in -“My business numbers on the card in the box… I'll be around all day”- Ed’s smile turns more genuine at that, promising to stop by if he gets a moment, and that he’ll send his friend's Stede’s way- “if he wants that kind of business.” Stede says that he does, actually- that he's seen a whole new world already today, and, while he was a little taken aback at first, he can feel the passion Ed and his friends have for this life. If there's one thing that's ever mattered to Stede, it's other people's enthusiasm. Maybe he doesn't completely understand yet, but he would like to try.

One year later, Stede’s back at the market on pride weekend again, far better stocked for the crowds this time around. Lucius is finally free to spend the day flirting with Fang & Pete to his heart's content, now that Stede’s roped his own boyfriends into helping him run the stall- and into modelling the merchandise. Ed loves that part, while Izzy needs a lot more convincing, but the puppy eyes Stede & Ed weaponise against him make a very good argument.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

While you were fighting in the war, I was falling in a pit.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[callixton]

i think the thing to understand abt martha jones is that even after she leaves she is five seconds away from dropping everything and traveling with the doctor at any given time. bc that itch to blow everything up and damn her personal duty to hell in search of a higher call never leaves her. but martha is smart. and rational. and has spent a long fucking time needing to keep herself safe. (bc he comes when she calls but never before.) and so she has gotten very good at keeping herself on the right side of those five seconds. but i do think if ten was a different person (if he could acknowledge how much he needed her instead of just how much he liked her) (if he didn’t feel this righteous martyrdom when it comes to being left alone) (if he cared enough about her to beg. if he cared enough about himself.) i think that her answer no would come crumbling down pretty quickly is all.

[sacchiri]

Hellsing 2002 calendar illustration.

Ein wunderliche und erschröckliche Hystori von einem großen Wüttrich genant Dracole wayda Der do so ganz unkristenliche marrter hat angelegt die mensche, als mit spissen als auch die leut zu Tod geslyffen

A wondrous and frightening story about a great berserk called Dracula the voivode who inflicted such unchristian tortures such as with stakes and also dragged people to death

[icewindandboringhorror]

What would you choose? :0c

(note: original image is from HERE (link) - but I edited it to add a wider variety of options.. also added $3 extra to the total, even though I know that makes it more uneven lol, I thought if you're adding 10 whole extra items, the money to spend should at least be increased slightly, if that makes sense..)

[captain-astors]

Creature. (The rendered ones are referenced from manga panels)