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.

hi. i made some images.

feel free to take them and use for whatever you may need them for. no credit required

Pin for survivors

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

if you opened discord’s april fools day loot boxes how long did it take you to get all the items? it took my friend 18 boxes but me 65 and i want to see how bad my luck is

I didn’t miss that social cue I just thought it was stupid 

hobie: kill yourself

pavitr: WHAT THE HELL BRO WHAT DID I DO

original format from @ha-youwish in this post!

don't give up

@staff @support @engineering @music @books

Have you ever considered this is a really stupid layout to have when there’s no way to easily get your account back if you accidentally hit the wrong button???

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

alright tumblr, here's your homegrown cowgirl C:{

what do you think of her?

the funniest thing about ttrpgs is that you can create a guy and say "his name is blorbo bleebus. he sucks severely. i hope that many misfortunes befall blorbo bleebus. he does not deserve to be happy." and at least one of your friends will immediately jump in to say "noooo... don't bully blorbo bleebus... i love blorbo bleebus..."

i'm a genius

and if anybody else out there with access to a button press wants to make these pins for themselves i've included a sheet to print out under the readmore

as long as you're printing this in portrait orientation without margins on a 8.5x11 inch sheet of paper, this should print out in the correct sizes for 25mm buttons and 37mm buttons respectively

apologies if tumblr shrinking the image size makes the image quality not so great if you print this out as it is, i'd suggest putting it through a threshold filter so it just uses black ink

aren't you tired of being nice? don't you just wanna go apeshit?