#i know i'd still be taking it hard

[sarcasticbabywhispererjess]

It has been sunny and beautiful for quite a few days now. Despite being so sad, I've forced myself out into the sunshine. That first walk without Isis was really hard. Subsequent walks without her have been weird, but there have been less tears. There are so many dogs in Seattle that I can't avoid being reminded that I don't have one anymore.

On my walk today I was thinking about when Isis began to decline in health. It was after I got her teeth cleaned for the first time two years ago. She was at the vet all day and came home with a gnarly upper respiratory infection. Then her weird swollen eye. Then another URI. I don't remember precisely when her degenerative myelopathy started... maybe a year or so ago. That, in turn, caused her recurring UTIs. Also, did she have doggy dementia (cognitive dysfunction syndrome) or was it just the frequent infections that would make her agitated?

She was so healthy and spry at 14 before I got her teeth cleaned. Am I the cause of her worsening health? Would this have happened no matter what? Did that virus trigger some kind of autoimmune thing that I didn't catch and intervene before it got bad? Would she have gotten degenerative myelopathy and UTIs? Did me trying to treat what we though was the cognitive dysfunction syndrome with sedatives make her worse?

I know I can't go back in time and change my decisions. And maybe Isis's health still would've worsened in that time had we never done that teeth cleaning. But I'll never know. Maybe I would still have my dog. My baby.

I know 16 years is a long time. I know I'm lucky to have gotten so long. But I'm selfish. I wanted longer. I wanted forever.

[scificrows]

Okay, my brain refuses to think about anything other than Murderbot, so I looked at every use of the word "friend[s]" in TMBD and... created some pie charts. Normal human activities.

Some Thoughts™ I had while putting this together (under the cut):

In All Systems Red, Murderbot notes that the PresAux crew are all close friends (twice! and goes on to explain their internal relationships which I think is very cute). This is pretty much the only use of 'friends' in ASR, except for when Murderbot says that SecUnits can't be friends with each other.

It seems that this may be one of the first times Murderbot has ever really been around a group of friends before? Murderbot notes that this is not the norm for its contracts and admits that the fact that they are all friends and the way they interact with each other make it actually enjoy that contract (before!!!! the hostile attack, so it already enjoys this contract before they start seeing it as a person etc ghghhhh). [Inference: Friendship seems enjoyable.]

The first character that calls Murderbot its friend is ART in Artificial Condition. Murderbot immediately refutes this (and then goes on to call ART its friend to its clients for the rest of the book). [Inference: Maybe ART is Murderbot's friend. And maybe that is... agreeable]

Rogue Protocol has more than twice as many instances of the word 'friend' as any of the other novellas. Why? Miki. Friendship and its implications for non-humans are a central theme because Miki is friends with everyone. Murderbot initially scoffs at the notion that Miki and Miki's humans are friends. At the end of the book, after witnessing how desperately Don Abene tried to stop Miki from trying to save them, and her grief after its death, Murderbot has to admit that she had in fact been Miki's friend. [Inference: Humans can be friends with bots and can sincerely care about them]

In Exit Strategy, Murderbot tentatively uses the word "friends" for its humans for the first time (several times actually). It questions whether it can actually call them its friends or not and later realizes that it had been afraid what admitting that the humans are its friends would do to it. At the end of the book, Mensah tells Murderbot the PresAux crew are its friends, which is the first time a human has directly said that to it (at least on-page). [Inference: Humans can and want to be Murderbot's friends]

In Network Effect, Murderbot seems to be more habituated to the word 'friend', confidently calling ART and Ratthi its friends, like it is no longer just trying the concept on unsure if it fits. There are many instances in which other characters refer to MB as ART's friend or the other way around and Murderbot's humans refer to Murderbot as their friend several times. Generally, there seems to be less hesitancy, because yes, all of them are Murderbot's friends, why wouldn't they be. [Inference: SecUnits can have friends. This SecUnit has friends. They care about it a lot.]

Conclusion: The Murderbot Diaries tell the story of a construct that does not seem to consider the possibility of friendship for itself and is fine with that - until it accidentally starts caring a little too much and suddenly more and more people annex it as a friend (ew) to the point where it can no longer deny that this is happening and has to begrudgingly admit that yes, it has friends now and maybe that is actually not a bad thing.

[otomehonyaku]

DIABOLIK LOVERS More,Blood Stellaworth Complete Set Tokuten Short Stories ☽ Ayato ver.

Original title: DIABOLIK LOVERS MORE,BLOOD ステラワース全巻連動購入特典ショートストーリ English translation by @otomehonyaku Scans can be found here (courtesy of @karleksmumskladdkaka!)

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

SUMMARY | This short story provides a slice of Ayato and Yui's daily life after the events of More,Blood. Yui tells off Ayato when he asks her to prepare takoyaki for him, so he resolves to make it himself out of spite. Chaos ensues...

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“Tch… this is harder than I thought…”

As soon as I’d spat out the words, smoke started rising from the searing hot teppan (1) in front of me.

“It’s burning…?! Shit! How’d that happen?!”

I went over to the sink, getting increasingly irritated, and turned on the tap to fill a nearby cup with water. By that point, smoke was billowing up from the steel plate. It was then, when I reached over to throw the water onto the pan, that…

“Ayato! Stop, you shouldn’t do that!”

“The fuck?!”

“S-sorry… I didn’t mean to…”

“You’re the one who told me to make it myself, right?! Right?” I threatened, looming over her. Her lip quivered while she apologised, her voice small.  

It had all started a mere ten minutes ago.

I’d just been craving takoyaki before bed. I woke up Pancake, who’d already been fast asleep, and pestered her to make it for me. However, of all the things she could’ve done, she flat-out told me I should be able to make such a simple dish myself.

Well, she ain’t wrong, I’d briefly thought—and yet her blunt statement had really pissed me off. It made me want to put her in her place. 

Then, another thought suddenly occurred to me. I wanted to prove to her that I could, in fact, make takoyaki myself.

And so, in a petty attempt at retaliation, I’d decided to actually prepare the takoyaki on my own. But to think the same person who told me to do so would still be poking her nose into my business…

“I’m sorry, I think I should make the takoyaki after all.” 

“What?!”

Pancake sounded exasperated when she reached over to take the metal skewers from my hands and stood in front of the takoyaki machine.

“The fuck’re you doin’? Then why’d you tell me to make it myself?! Besides, they’re almost done already, so…” I grumbled while Pancake narrowed her eyes at me from over her shoulder.

“...I thought you would repetitively refuse to make it yourself, so…”

“What?”

“So I’d figured you’d go to great lengths to make me do it!” she said, somehow quite angrily.

“So what, huh? I tried to make you do it but you didn’t in the end. Why’re you yappin’ like it’s not in your favour?”

“...Come on! It’s… because… I wanted you to ask me, Ayato…”

“Huh?”

“Well… I felt a bit irritated because you woke me up out of the blue, but… you know, I actually find it… kind of… cute when you come to me asking to prepare takoyaki for you, Ayato…” Pancake’s face turned bright red—all the way to her ears—when she said it.

“W-what’s… cute…? The fuck?! Are you out of your mind?” My voice almost betrayed me.

“I’m not! Come on, Ayato…! Why did you choose to actually make it yourself this time…?” Pancake mumbled, skillfully turning over the takoyaki. 

I’d thought the takoyaki had been burning, but it turned out not to be so bad after all.

What she said made me feel like I had been a bit unreasonable. I swallowed hard. 

“Uh… anyway! I’m always fine with making takoyaki for you, okay…?!”

“Ugh… I-I don’t understand you, woman!” I retorted. 

In all honesty, I just didn’t know how to deal with being thrown off-balance this way. 

The takoyaki turned out to be… so bad that they were inedible. I must’ve messed up the ingredients somehow. In the end, it seemed like there was no other way than to let Pancake make takoyaki for me from now on, no matter how much she got on my nerves.

Well, I guessed it couldn’t be helped.

Still, though… the next time she calls me cute, I’ll drain her to the last drop!

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

(1) 鉄板（てっぱん）: A teppan is a steel plate, usually in the middle of a table, on which dishes are either prepared by a chef (in a teppanyaki restaurant) or by yourself (in good company!)

[bixels]

What did/do you like about Pharah?

Uh, gameplay-wise, I really love characters in shooters who rely on three-dimensional movement techs. Chaining together hover and jump to stay in the air for as long as possible and keep momentum is so satisfying, and picking enemies off from the sky made me feel like a bird of prey. I was a good Pharah main.

Story-wise, there unfortunately isn't much to canonically go off because Pharah is so underutilized and neglected. Her personality's pretty boilerplate "heroic hero" (she's literally inspired by Captain America).

But it's the crumbs/bits and pieces that I really latched onto. Pharah's a confirmed lesbian; her short story with Baptiste implies she harbors a crush on Mercy (fucking thank you.). She's biracial Egyptian/First Nations. She has major mommy issues, having grown up both admiring and resenting Ana. She's the bridge between Old Overwatch, inspired by the idealized heroes who surrounded her childhood, and New Overwatch. She's one of the only inter-generational characters in the cast; someone whose experiences span the gap, which is why I seriously believe Pharah would make a great main character.

There isn't much to go off of, though; she's a very uncomplicated character (she's a soldier for a private military corporation, lol.). But that just means she's a blank slate character, so I've seen fanfic writers run wild and create some really interesting takes on her. My favorite interpretation of her's a dense, herbo gym-bro type (a lot of her liens are about work outs, exercising, and playing sports) who's easily excitable under her seemingly self-serious, armored visage. We see how she tends to gloat and hype herself up when she's on a streak too, so Pharah definitely has a competitive and boastful side under her more professional and militant performance.

Now Mercy? Mercy is a real complex character.

[mint-ty]

While Damon is busy with his perfume promo (which I need to get my hands on) and doesn't have time to lurk here, I made another dumb test. He said he's dreaming about smiling Kris, but I don't believe that's his favorite Kris 🤨 Pls help me choose:

[drkcatt]

a moment in the great library

i got sch to 60 last night and made a proper glam :)

[sysig]

Hazing (Patreon)

[egglands-worst]

"time blindness? but you're never late for anything!" yeah it's 'cause I'm anxious about being late, I always leave long before i need to, and I have experience with travel times in specific locations and routes that I can remember and fall back on, plus in emergencies i can check a navigation app and it'll literally tell me an estimated amount of time if i need to travel somewhere I'm not familiar with

[m0e-ru]

lets think of everyone who had persona blogs and obliterated them off the face of the earth instead of just archiving and keep them in our thoughts tonight. everyone else who directly caused them into doing that go and fucking behave

[slingbats]

just a reminder that I have this community going here on tumblr!

The header and icon are Gotham, but I really want this place to be able to open up to a lot more verses with more interpretations of the characters

as someone who doesn't delve into the tags/tumblr's search feature very often, I want this to be a place where people are encouraged to self-promo their works that they're proud of, or share works from others that they think deserve a spotlight

link to the community, for any interested

not spoiler free!

[novadreii]

rewatched arrival for the hundredth time. this movie never fails to gut punch me with its approach to determinism. louise embracing her future that she knows every moment of, despite the tremendous loss and pain it contains, with open arms. she doesn't hesitate, or ruminate on how she can try and change it. she accepts it all, the good and the bad, because what she gains is worth it, so many times over for her. she steels herself against a certain future and runs forward to meet it all, to love, learn, and lose, and trusts and leans on herself to live through it all. because that's what life is; it's the joy and the suffering. to try and isolate the joy alone is madness, futility in its purest definition.

comparing her line of thinking to a palindrome (how she named her daughter, hannah), the movie kept emphasizing, "it's the same backwards as it is forwards." it doesn't matter if you can see the end; life is the same whether you live it "forwards" (without knowledge of the future) or "backwards" (with foresight). it doesn't change the significance of your life experiences; to try and avoid certain future pain just because you have the knowledge of it is a zero sum game. you think you win because you avoided pain, but you also avoided the joy that preceded it. the metamorphosis. so you still lose if you try to win, and vice-versa.

all you can do is rush forward and take it all head-on. see this whole beautiful mess as your one most precious gift; this one life, this one chance, a laughably miniature blip on the colossus that is linear time, to experience all there is to feel before you return back to an eternity without perception. it's all worth it, because only in living a full-fledged life open to everything it has to offer does the experience of living turn out to be greater than the sum of its parts; it's in trying to beat the system (avoid pain) that we actually lose.

"if you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?"

"maybe i'd say what i feel more often. i...i don't know."

[forcebookish]

i need a new strategy for like, cleaning my room and doing yoga and reading and leaving the house. the adhd has reached mythic levels of bad. i have the thought, "i should do X," and then i won't move. i make a to-do list and i won't do anything on it. i queue up a yoga practice and i won't do it. i stare at my room and get stressed out about how cluttered it is. i write 3000 words of notes for a fic i don't even know if i'm going to write. i think and i think and i think about my OCs and they won't let me write them. i spend hours looking at stuff i can't buy. i take like an hour to write this.

[theultimatekamehamehavoc]

Random Togami Headcanon 13

TL;DR - Byakuya's bettered himself but he still has a long road of healing. Also, heads up. This one's not happy like most of the others. Gets a bit hopeful at the end but there's still a lot of sad topics here. Viewer discretion is advised. Now that he feels more empathy for others and possesses some capability for putting himself in another's shoes, thoughts he used to have about the lower class make him feel... off. Perhaps guilt or discomfort with himself. It doesn't help though looking at his classmates every school day and being reminded of the mindset he was raised with. It especially doesn't help when he looks at Makoto who helped him. Makoto being the commoner of all commoner's also hurts. He appreciates what Makoto's done to help him but it unintentionally stabs him hard within his chest that he needed someone's help to get to this point and the someone being a commoner he once wrote off. Next, with this empathy, the heir feels better with his life and happiness but fundamentally worse. It's as if he deteriorated though, logically, he knows it's not the case. He knows that the illogical side of his brain covers itself in the hides of reason and rationale. Essentially, Byakuya ends up having a grueling struggle with dealing with these emotions that, for the majority of his life, he buried and repressed. Emotions that both make him feel more fulfilled in life but that tear him apart inside. Bouts where he feels either extremely content with how he's turned out or that dread and despair that he's slipping back into his old ways. In fact, at times, it becomes overwhelming for him to handle which he especially hates. Being overwhelmed is yet another thing he once viewed as a weakness and, to some extent, he still does. Sometimes, to cope, jokes to himself on whether existing itself is something he feels is a weakness. However, though he has a lot of emotions and thoughts that upset him now as a bettered person, one big thing that pains him is that he has the capability and the intelligence to notice all of this. It's the acknowledgment that stings. The heir notices that he has a problem, that he probably needs help, maybe even therapy, but then he spirals more because of that realization. Why should HE need HELP for these problems of his?! He's an independent person! He should logically be able to handle this himself. He's always handled his problems on his own! Why should he now need someone or just a support system of people to aid in his path of healing? He feels gross for that support system being the classmates who he once adamantly despised with such vitriol. With the added empathy, he also feels shame as he doesn't want to hurt any more people in his life now. He has the hindsight to know this now. He questions himself. Is the situation he's in even that big of a deal and should he keep searching for answers on the "why" and "how"? Is it worth it? Comparisons to the peasants he used to once adamantly demonize also do not escape him. He feels worse because, while he's breaking at the seams, countless of other commoners have similar thoughts too. He's not unique and a bit of that stings his lingering superiority. Then, there is the fact that Byakuya feels even worse about this BECAUSE commoners can handle stuff like this and yet, he keeps saying that he can't due to his mental spirals. Either that or the older thoughts of hating commoners bites back by making him feel like he's "acting like one". He knows by this point that he's actively tearing himself down and that he needs to escape this cycle of mental abuse. He feels shame in himself though. He feels humiliated. Pathetic. Overly emotional in ways he's never felt before. He still has that hope though. The hope that he can get through his. The heir's already delt with so much whether canon, non-despair, or an au of some kind. He's continued on despite it all. And, though long ago, he would have pushed some of this hope off for it being too optimistic, he's grown to care less about that sort of thought anymore. Byakuya can do this.

[famewolf]

for so long all I wanted to do was die but now that I'm older, all I worry about is dying too soon. too soon to experience all the things I didn't give myself time for when I was young. I don't want to spend these years overthinking what time I have left

[fluentisonus]

.

[candlebel]

I cared. I still do. I still think of you and I still cry over you. You were importat to me. You still are.