I had a week long vacation not long ago, so I finally have enough energy to talk to non-medical friends once again. And I just realized once again, I'm not sure how to talk to them.

They tell me all the things they participated in, and I'm truly happy for them, all the while thinking I would never have half that much energy. They ask me how I am, I tell them I'm good, finally had a vacation. What did I do? Oh, literally nothing, tried to sleep off the worst of the exhaustion and tried to avoid interaction with other humans. How's work? You know, just the usual, it's good. It is good, and I love it, but how could I tell them all the horrors witnessed? That's right I don't, but what else do I have left to talk about? Most of my fun work stories are tainted with the shadows of tragedies... And unfortunately, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

So I just read their cheerful message and leave it on read, contemplating what to answer. And just hope they won't take offence to my agonizingly slow replies...

Just watched boys night. Will never be normal again.

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.

what’s a busy bee to do when she doesn’t know how to find her flowers again

ID: A one page comic of Bob Zanotto and Cassie O’Pia having a conversation together.

Bob: Hey Cass, I was was just wonderin’…

Cassie: Hm?

Bob: Did you end up writing anything while we were out here?

Cassie: Oh— I always meant too, but I’d always be so exhausted after tending the hives.

Cassie: I finally cleaned my typewriter a month ago, and have so much more free time!

Cassie: But I still haven’t touched it since…

Bob: Are you scared you can’t do it anymore?

Bob: I’m sorry, I was blunt again.

Cassie: Perhaps… a little. But I think you’re right. Depression’s really kicked our butts, huh.

Bob: Oh don’t even tell me about it.

End ID.

there was something heavenlike about being able to just attend lectures in college and sit in a cozy auditorium while someone told you about interesting things for an hour and you just did this with your weeks. i wont lie to you. unfortunately they killed you if you dont remember every minutiae of what they said.

folio is so insanely talented fr & i don’t think we talk about it enough

wolbert week day 1 - ghost

i think. i need to go for a drive and get myself a tasty beverage

let's make trouble in the dream world, we'll hijack heaven with another memory now; i make the most of the turning tide, it just split what's left of the burning silence

hola! would love to know your thoughts on Uccio and his motivations...I read that quote from him that he *never* approved of the Marc friendship. Why though? What do you think?

stepping out of fanfiction world into irl: frankly i dont have much against him besides hes a certified marc hater who is at times a little shady. but this is sports. and that is enough. likeeeeee okay putting on my empathy hat here. YES he played a role in splitting up marc and vale's friendship (really pushed vale over the edge with the data) and YES hes kind of an incurable yes-man and YES he's a lil sleazy (smile more pecco lmao) but like. those arent crimes ! vale is also kind of a sleaze ball !! and he made the decision to blow up his relationship with marc all by his 36 year old self in the end !! and as for vale keeping him around all the time like. being famous sucks !! and theyve known each other since they were (mostly) normal kids !! idk like to have someone i know would never intentionally betray me in my back pocket who i also enjoy hanging out with would be genuinely so important... like BOTH marc and vale have their people that theyve known forever that they keep inside their VERY small little bubble... marc got lucky that his (alex) is also a very good rider! vale had to make his an assistant. which to me is a bit weirder in terms of power dynamic. significantly so. but still very understandable imo. their codependent slay

BUTTTT where uccio is so funny is as a narrative device for rosquez tbh. like hes GONNA catch strays here bc he fills that fun little role of relationship saboteur for them. like HE went to vale with the telemetry "proof" about Phillip Island 2015, he vocallyyyyyy hates marc still to this day, and while rosquez were friends he was genuinely giving marc the evil eye in parc ferme so fucking often it was so funny. whats ur ISSUE man

so like. i can see him embracing his and vale's #codependence and seeing marc as like. a threat to vale's legacy, a threat to his direct championship hopes, and ALSO a threat to his and vale's weird relationship. like truly when your buddy gets their first serious significant other and you feel a lil weird that they arent spending as much time with you... so i think allllll of those coalesced in his brain and it became MISSION CRITICAL. to get vale on board with hating marc. so he kind of maybe started a teensy smear campaign to get that twink outta here. which to be fair to his iago slay did work. grima wormtongue lookin ass.

I adore how unhinged Garak is about the people he likes, because there's this theme of them being similarly unhinged. Like that colleague from the Order in Second Skin that he had to shoot and was like, "Aw :( ...Well Anyway" about. Or like Tain and Mila, both crazy bitches, imo. Or his last remaining contacts on Cardassia who he called up in In The Pale Moonlight who were all down to raid the Dominion’s underwear drawer at the drop of a hat. Like that's what Garak is used to. He likes excitement, he likes a bit of malice, he likes some cunning. And that's part of what makes Garashir so goddamn funny is Julian is actually a bit of a cunning, malicious little shit sometimes. If you watch the series knowing Julian's an augment, these moments come up all the time where it's clear he's fucking with people for his own amusement. Taking people for a bit of a ride just to see what happens. Then ofc there are all the gross incel fuckboy moments, but. 

I just love the idea of Julian going on some insane borderline villainous monologue about something or other and Garak sitting there with hearts swirling around his head. Don't get me wrong, Garak loves Julian for his goodness first and foremost, but Julian's not perfect and I think that makes the ship so much more interesting because I can't really see Garak finding most of Julian's worst flaws anything but thrilling. We go on about Garak loving Julian's infodumping and argumentativeness, but after the augment thing comes out, I think he equally enjoys watching Julian play dumb with people and Knowing he's playing dumb. It compliments his own Just a Simple Tailor routine so perfectly. They're just normal men. Just innocent men.

Just imagine if they pass the furniture law. And arrest him for past actions and still blame him for the mass furniture theft incident. ( despite you know it’s being wrong since that retroactive punishment) He dosent resist just silently complies. He gave up. Once released he just vanishes. At some point the true culprit comes to light and people realize that they messed up.

As much as I want a full on villain arc I kind of want an isolation arc for q!Bad if he is actually being framed. Like once more making an isolated house really far away with a stasis chamber given to dapper, like they still go and work on the main base (cause cool project river of souls) but like he lives someplace else deep underground again no signs of entry from outside, like nothing or no one is there. Having his location turned off. Truly isolated but Qbaghera’s visits. Showing up occasionally to vote or do an egg quest but more then likely just doing his own thing. I want him to be quiet when he runs into someone and like throw some items in a chest (having that his worth is tied to what he can give) and walk away quickly so no one accuses him of something. I want him not to feel safe going to the museum and quietly wait for the eggs to look around maybe bring him pictures. I want foolish to expect bad to prank him but it dosent happen. I want the island to truly feel the absence of him being gone.

i think there's something to be said about what exactly it means to be "non-human" in a story that is as much about humanity as wolf 359 is, where even the dear listeners are defined less by their own perspective and more by what they fail to understand and therefore reflect about the human perspective - to the point that they don't even have their own voices or faces or identities that aren't either given to them or taken from humans. they speak to humanity as a mirror.

even pryce and cutter are "very much humans" - pryce defined by her resentment of and desire to transcend its limitations, and cutter by his aspirations to redefine and create a "better" type of human - and find the idea that they might not be human laughable. it's interesting that they have distinctly transhumanist aspirations when their goal is the narrative opposite of common science fiction fears: that we will expand the definition of humanity so much that we'll lose whatever it is that makes us human. pryce and cutter's transhumanism narrows the definition of humanity to the worthy and the useful, as defined by them; "there will still be a humanity; it'll just be our humanity."

in direct opposition to that, i think it's meaningful that the show instead expands the definition of humanity in ways that include lovelace and hera, who in another show with different themes might be considered (in the descriptive, non-moralistic sense) non-human. i will always make a point of saying that personhood and humanity are two often-related but meaningfully distinct concepts, especially when talking about sci-fi and fantasy. i am talking about humanity.

the question of how hera identifies, and what social pressures influence that, is a complicated one. i've talked about it before and i will talk about again. what's important for the purposes of this post is that i think the show considers her fundamentally human. think about her role in shut up and listen - consider jacobi's lion example and the concept of different paradigms - that even things that are close to humans, comparatively speaking, understand the world in different ways. whatever differences hera may have from the others, it's primarily in experience, not fundamental understanding. she shares their emotions, their concerns, their values, their thought patterns. she has an appreciation for music, which the show considers a hallmark of humanity. she fits within the framework of humanity as the show defines and is, in her own words, left feeling "uneasy" about how difficult it might be to communicate with beings who don't. and it's significant that this takes place in shut up and listen, of all episodes, specifically because the way she is clearly and unambiguously included in the show's understanding of what it means to be human highlights the ways she and lovelace are othered by eiffel's careless comments that suggest otherwise.

(i don't want to get too into these details for this particular post, but it's worth noting that hera will refer to 'humans' as a category, often when she is upset and feeling isolated, but has never said that she 'isn't human' - she has never been upset that people are treating her 'too' human. i've seen it said about the line "you need to get it through your heads that what goes for you doesn't always go for me", but that's a frustration related to ability and safety, not identity. far more often, she will refer to herself in 'human' terms - referring idiomatically to experiences or body parts etc. that she doesn't literally have - and is upset primarily with comments referring to her status as an AI. it does not diminish how being an AI influences her perspective and experience, but again, so much of that is in terms of ability that it feels almost inseparable from a discussion about disability.)

lovelace's humanity and hera's humanity are so interlinked and directly paralleled in the text that i think it's impossible to really argue one of them is "not" human without making implications about the other. in desperate measures, lovelace tells kepler he's "not human" and he responds "you're hilarious. on a multitude of levels." later, defending lovelace against kepler's repeated dehumanization, hera very pointedly uses the phrase "that woman." in out of the loop, hera says she's never met anyone who "worked so hard at being inhuman" as jacobi, who says "what do you know about being human?" hera very emphatically responds, "i know plenty." later, defending hera against jacobi's repeated dehumanization, minkowski pointedly uses the phrase "that woman." with the care taken towards language and the way scenes and turns of phrase will parallel each other, that's not a coincidence. it might seem strange to have the "non-human" characters be the ones to express criticisms based on perceived "humanity" (something hera will do in other contexts as well - "we don't have funerals for animals" etc.) but in the broader context of the show, i think it's the point.

so, whether hera would ever call herself human, or be comfortable with that, is a complicated question for another time and depends on a lot of other factors. but wolf 359 is a show about humanity, it includes her within its definition of what it means to be human, and i wouldn't be comfortable definitively saying she's not human because of that. it can't be a neutral statement within the particular context of this show.

I had some really lovely asks about the short Essek fancomic from a while ago, that I have already answered privately, but I just wanted to thank all those who sent me those heartwarming thoughts – they were so appreciated. <3

I am mentally in a really tough spot since a few months now and it's very difficult for me to stay positive, be productive and not feel exhausted. Art is really difficult right now because I barely have any mental energy left for it and more often than not I end up feeling like what I create is really pointless and meaningless, but the occasional kind interactions really make my day and I am super thankful for them.

If I didn't answer, I probably haven't thought of a good reply that seems worthy, but I read all the asks, comments and the (lovely and silly) tags that people put under my art, so thank you. 💜

Some system struggle related userboxes, based on ones we personally experience

(P.S. As a reminder, all systems will have unique experiences overall, and some of the individual things you may experience that make you nervous may actually be more common than you think. It's normal to worry about these things as well. At the end of the day, we are all different, and we don't need to fight to justify our validity in existing, or the validity of our experiences. We are here because of trauma, we don't need to justify our existence to anybody. <3)

[Text 1: This system struggles with worrying that they need to justify splits and alters existing]

[Text 2: This user gets anxious when the rest of the system goes quiet while fronting]

[Text 3: This system has many alters without clear or active roles and is afraid that it makes them less valid]

[Text 4: This system's alters worry about not being able to fulfill a clear role]

[Text 5: This system gets anxious about unusual and/or frequent splits]

[Text 6: This system is afraid that their experiences aren't normal and that others will judge them]

[Text 7: This system is still working on learning self-acceptance no matter their experiences or how their system functions]

[Text 8: This system struggles with worrying about faking but is getting better at avoiding those thoughts and worries]

(Like/reblog/credit if used! ☆)

[Read our DNI before interacting or using, NON-TRAUMAGENICS AND SUPPORTERS FUCK OFF]

you know what was cruel and unusual of the i7 writers to do? to have Yamato, who hated his dad, try reconciling with him for the sake of others and getting back love and support while Sogo, who still loves his family in his own way, tries to reconcile with his dad for the sake of others only to almost have his career ruined and his close friend and partner nearly jailed for a crime neither of them committed