#ending in sight!!!!!!!!

[sexynetra]

WIP WEDNESDAY (for real this time)

Guys it’s actually Wednesday this time I’m not mixing up my days :) also the chapter draft is FINISHED I could cry (I did cry. Many times) I am so excited to share this chapter soon <3333

~~~~~

They both fell silent for a moment, before Luxx let out a small sigh. “I don’t know how else to get this into your head, babe. If you’re just gonna pin blame on her, there’s no point in apologizing. You’re gonna have to suck it up and be vulnerable and honest to have any shot at fixing things with her.”

Marcia grimaced into her palms. “But I don't want to. I don’t want to deal with any of this shit. Not the Anetra stuff. Not the gay stuff. The maybe gay stuff. I don’t know. Maybe I’m not gay. Probably, even.”

“Probably,” Luxx echoed, tone dripping with sarcasm.

Marcia looked up from her hands to give her best friend a glare. “Shut up. Don’t mock me. I’m being serious. Like. This could have nothing to do with anything. This could all just be about Anetra and have nothing to do with anyone else. Like, I could still be fully straight.”

“Tell me again that story about how you threw up on Bryce after he kissed you at our Winter Formal freshman year?” Luxx smirked.

“That was one time! Anyways, maybe this will all pass once we aren’t roommates anymore.”

“Maybe. You still need to apologize to her though.”

[quasi-normalcy]

It's actually really frightening to see officially sanctioned genocide denial rise up in Western countries in real time. Like, I remember 20 years ago hearing about how it was illegal in Turkey to point out that the Armenian Genocide happened, and how I thought that that was fucking evil and oppressive. Now here we are, with a campaign in Gaza that experts have called 'a textbook case of genocide', for which the UN Human Rights counsel has determined there are "reasonable grounds" to call it genocide, and the US Congress is trying to make it illegal to criticize Israel. We have Hollywood agencies refusing to represent anyone who points out that a genocide is currently taking place. And it's just the same shit from a fresh asshole as we got from the Turkish government over what happened in Armenia in the 1920s, like "Oh yes, there were killings, but...calling it genocide? Ohhhh, you must be very hateful to our poor little nation to think that our people are capable of that 😢 😭!" Fuck off.

[noodles-and-tea]

I want for this to happen pls

[anna-scribbles]

emma dupain cheng on the brain😽🎀

more:

[benevolenterrancy]

i'm sure this joke has been done before but i'm new here so now it's my turn -- the bing-ge vs bing-mei extra sure is something huh

[anyataylorjoys]

STRANGE DARLING (2023) dir. JT Mollner

[keferon]

Guess who spent two days trying to understand how to draw a kiss

Based on amazing incredible gut wrenching Mistakes on Mistakes until..

[aliquistis]

everyone asking for a barbershop in baldur's gate (the city). no no no. Let Withers do your hair in camp. He already handles class changes. this is the most convenient way to do it.

"Thou hast come to me again. Yet thy look ... Drab. Ill fitting. Harken, mortal one, wouldst thou given unto me two bits, and thou wouldst reap both shave and haircut."

[sukunasteeth]

Even though he'd never admit it (never, not even if someone asked him on his deathbed)

Even though it was painful to admit to himself,

It was an undeniable fact that you gave Sukuna butterflies.

He feels them in the way you mindlessly trace his tattoos when the two of you are sitting together, alone. Your touch is feather-light. The brush of an angel wing.

He feels them in the way you say his name when the two of you reunite after a long day. A sigh of relief. Solace.

They flutter with the way you wrap your hands around his cheeks and hold his face like your holding the sun.

They're in the way you kiss him. When you softly bite into his lower lip like you're biting into the flesh of a sacred fruit.

They're in the breeze that picks up your soft scent and gifts it to him.

In the sunlight that catches onto the stray strands of your hair and has you glittering against the dim world.

His heart races to you.

What a sap.

[secretly-a-catamount]

“So, are they love at first sight or the most devastating slow burn?”

YES

[b0tster]

inspired to make this timeline highlighting where bbkart dev is at thanks to this helpful comment i got on twitter

[wildflowercryptid]

❝ just you wait, florian... ❞

how we coping tonight, kieran nation?

[maidensfantasy]

love how fucked up the ned/robert dynamic is. they grew up together and got attached because they both have brothers they aren’t close to and replace with one another despite the jarring similarities (brandon and stannis). ned loving robert despite the atrocities he committed and the ones he refused to condemn, hiding himself in the north so he doesn’t have to be faced with how much of a monster his friend actually is and feeding that lie to his children. robert forcing ned to come south with him and run his kingdom all under the premise they were always meant to rule together (they were full on married for the entirety of agot tbh). robert projecting how much he wanted to be with ned onto lyanna. robert loving ned arguably more than anyone else in his life and despite all that he refuses to respect his boundaries and wishes. their entire agot relationship is held together by nostalgia and like 20 layers of traumabonding that neither would ever work through. ned getting himself killed because he loved robert too much. god what the fuck is wrong with those two.

[reasonsforhope]

"For the first time in decades, public health data shows a sudden and hopeful drop in drug overdose deaths across the U.S.

"This is exciting," said Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute On Drug Abuse [NIDA], the federal laboratory charged with studying addiction. "This looks real. This looks very, very real."

National surveys compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention already show an unprecedented decline in drug deaths of roughly 10.6 percent. That's a huge reversal from recent years when fatal overdoses regularly increased by double-digit percentages.

Some researchers believe the data will show an even larger decline in drug deaths when federal surveys are updated to reflect improvements being seen at the state level, especially in the eastern U.S.

"In the states that have the most rapid data collection systems, we’re seeing declines of twenty percent, thirty percent," said Dr. Nabarun Dasgupta, an expert on street drugs at the University of North Carolina.

According to Dasgupta's analysis, which has sparked discussion among addiction and drug policy experts, the drop in state-level mortality numbers corresponds with similar steep declines in emergency room visits linked to overdoses.

Dasgupta was one of the first researchers to detect the trend. He believes the national decline in street drug deaths is now at least 15 percent and could mean as many as 20,000 fewer fatalities per year.

"Today, I have so much hope"

After years of wrenching drug deaths that seemed all but unstoppable, some researchers, front-line addiction workers, members of law enforcement, and people using street drugs voiced caution about the apparent trend.

Roughly 100,000 deaths are still occurring per year. Street drug cocktails including fentanyl, methamphetamines, xylazine and other synthetic chemicals are more poisonous than ever.

"I think we have to be careful when we get optimistic and see a slight drop in overdose deaths," said Dan Salter, who heads a federal drug interdiction program in the Atlanta-Carolinas region. "The last thing we want to do is spike the ball."

But most public health experts and some people living with addiction told NPR they believe catastrophic increases in drug deaths, which began in 2019, have ended, at least for now. Many said a widespread, meaningful shift appears underway.

"Some of us have learned to deal with the overdoses a lot better," said Kevin Donaldson, who uses fentanyl and xylazine on the street in Burlington, Vermont.

According to Donaldson, many people using fentanyl now carry naloxone, a medication that reverses most opioid overdoses. He said his friends also use street drugs with others nearby, ready to offer aid and support when overdoses occur.

He believes these changes - a response to the increasingly toxic street drug supply - mean more people like himself are surviving.

"For a while we were hearing about [drug deaths] every other day. When was the last one we heard about? Maybe two weeks ago? That's pretty few and far between," he said.

His experience is reflected in data from the Vermont Department of Health, which shows a 22 percent decline in drug deaths in 2024.

"The trends are definitely positive," said Dr. Keith Humphreys, a nationally respected drug policy researcher at Stanford University. "This is going to be the best year we've had since all of this started."

"A year ago when overdose deaths continued to rise, I was really struggling with hope," said Brad Finegood, who directs the overdose crisis response in Seattle.

Deaths in King County, Washington, linked to all drugs have dropped by 15 percent in the first half of 2024. Fatal overdoses caused by street fentanyl have dropped by 20 percent.

"Today, I have so much hope," Finegood said.

-via NPR, September 18, 2024. Article continues below with an exploration of the whys (mostly unknown) and some absolutely fucking incredible statistics.

Why the sudden and hopeful shift? Most experts say it's a mystery

While many people offered theories about why the drop in deaths is happening at unprecedented speed, most experts agreed that the data doesn't yet provide clear answers.

Some pointed to rapid improvements in the availability and affordability of medical treatments for fentanyl addiction. "Expansion of naloxone and medications for opioid use disorder — these strategies worked," said Dr. Volkow at NIDA.

"We've almost tripled the amount of naloxone out in the community," said Finegood. He noted that one survey in the Seattle area found 85 percent of high-risk drug users now carry the overdose-reversal medication.

Dr. Rahul Gupta, the White House drug czar, said the drop in drug deaths shows a path forward.

"This is the largest decrease on record and the fifth consecutive month of recorded decreases," he said.

Gupta called for more funding for addiction treatment and healthcare services, especially in Black and Native American communities where overdose deaths remain catastrophically high.

"There is no way we're going to beat this epidemic by not focusing on communities that are often marginalized, underserved and communities of color," Gupta said.

"Overdose deaths in Ohio are down 31 percent"

Indeed, in many states in the eastern and central U.S. where improvements are largest, the sudden drop in drug deaths stunned some observers who lived through the darkest days of the fentanyl overdose crisis.

"This year overdose deaths [in Ohio] are down 31 percent," said Dennis Couchon, a harm reduction activist. "The deaths were just plummeting. The data has never moved like this."

"While the mortality data for 2024 is incomplete and subject to change, Ohio is now in the ninth consecutive month of a historic and unexpected drop in overdose deaths," said the organization Harm Reduction Ohio in a statement.

Missouri is seeing a similar trend that appears to be accelerating. After dropping by 10 percent last year, preliminary data shows drug deaths in the state have now fallen roughly 34 percent in the second quarter of 2024.

"It absolutely seems things are going in the right direction, and it's something we should feel pleased about," said Dr. Rachel Winograd, director of addiction science at the University of Missouri St. Louis, who also noted that drug deaths remain too high.

"It feels wonderful and great," said Dr. Mark Levine, head of the Vermont Health Department. "We need encouraging data like this and it will help sustain all of us who are actively involved in trying to have an impact here."

Levine, too, said there's still "plenty of work left to do."" ...

Dasgupta, the researcher at the University of North Carolina, agreed more needs to be done to help people in addiction recover when they're ready.

But he said keeping more people alive is a crucial first step that seemed impossible only a year ago.

"A fifteen or twenty percent [drop in deaths] is a really big number, an enormous impact," he said, calling for more research to determine how to keep the trend going.

"If interventions are what's driving this decline, then let's double down on those interventions."

-article via NPR, September 18, 2024

[steddieas-shegoes]

Wayne Munson can’t read beyond a very basic elementary level, enough to read warnings and food labels, road signs, small notes Eddie leaves for him, but that’s it

But he tells stories. Always has. That’s where Eddie got it from

So when Eddie is in the hospital, in a medically induced coma so he can heal properly without pain, Wayne struggles. He knows he can tell Eddie stories, but he wishes he could read to him, give him something familiar to grab onto

One day he walks in to see Steve reading The Hobbit to him, blushing when he’s caught like Wayne would give two shits about anything when it comes to someone supporting Eddie

It happens every day after that and Wayne listens. He hears the way Steve stumbles over words sometimes, how he pauses after a complicated paragraph as if he needs to read it silently again to understand what it said

And he realizes Steve isn’t a strong reader either, but he’s pushing himself for Eddie

He doesn’t say anything outright, but he starts sitting next to Steve when he reads instead of across the room, watches his fingers glide across the pages and associates words with what he says, starts to feel like maybe he wants to try reading to Eddie too

Steve doesn’t say anything outright either but he recognizes what Wayne’s doing, hopes he’s able to find the confidence to try because Eddie won’t care how fast or well he reads to him, he’ll just be happy that his uncle is trying

Steve intentionally leaves the book on the bed when he leaves to get food at the cafeteria and hopes Wayne tries

When he comes back he quietly peeks around the doorway and smiles to himself when he sees that Wayne is trying, he’s going slowly, sounding out words and names that are actually difficult for anyone not just people like them

Decides he doesn’t want to interrupt today, gives them privacy for this

Doesn’t say anything when the bookmark is only three pages ahead of where steve was the day before, just smiles and picks up where Wayne left off

When Eddie wakes up, Wayne is the one reading to him, Steve asleep in the corner

Wayne still prefers telling his own stories, may never be a great reader, but Eddie will never forget the way it felt to see Wayne so engrossed in his favorite book

[espurr-roba]

"They said I couldn't play baseball..."

Original audio from: My Chance - Game Changer's Mountport