#im not sure where i was going with this

[gayrob0t]

In my initial interview for my current job I called ahead to let them know I just left court and might be a little late. In the interview the man who would soon be my boss tried to subtly ask if I would be able to commit full time to a job with whatever legal issue had me in court, but I was just getting married.

My wife started transitioning not too long after our wedding and is a man. I use he/him pronouns when I talk about my wife. This has caused my boss to lose track of our conversations multiple times.

I was telling him about my two cats; my shy black short-hair Yang, and Bathtub who is.....Bathtub.

I quoted this meme-

To one of my coworkers over a minor inconvenience and got called into a meeting because someone overheard me "threatening to kill another employee." I got the distinct impression my boss was somehow not sure why we had to have the meeting either besides to confirm that I wasn't about to go on a workplace massacre.

He's been shadowing me on some jobs this week just to get a sense of the technicians strengths and weaknesses and while at lunch I mentioned I was on antidepressants. He asked what happens if I don't take them and I struggled to explain how "nothing" was the worst case scenario.

And yesterday I found out hes only three years older than me

[we-were-never-human]

I’ve always thought myself prone to addiction. Sometimes, during late nights like this one, I stare at my walls and wish I didn’t know what was bad for me. I wish I was naive to the harm it would do to others if I drove myself to reliance on drugs, alcohol, or the knife.

I remember, when I was younger and used to self harm, that I felt it was my purpose to take the pain I caused myself. I felt it was what I deserved. I know now that it’s not true, that I deserve to be happy. Not that I remember how to be happy or content in life anymore.

I feel my mental health declining. Inching downward at a steady pace as I become complacent with what my life has become, with my place in society as someone with multiple invisible disabilities making it difficult to hold a job. There’s a dichotomy between what I think I should be and what I feel I am in regard to others. I know logically that I still hold value as a person regardless of my lacking contribution to society, but I feel as though I am at the bottom of the barrel, that I hold no worth and should accept my place as beneath others and give in to my desire to escape from the stresses of life.

I do wonder why I don’t contemplate suicide. With as much as a consider becoming an alcoholic or a drug addict (or both) I’d expect to want to die. I suppose suicide doesn’t seem feasible to me. Like even if I attempted (again) I’d find myself to be immortal and wake up to the people I care about hurt that I would try to destroy myself.

I suppose that’s why alcoholism is so appealing. It’s covert enough that most wouldn’t notice if I indulged in it, if I let the desire to escape consume me and become a husk piloted by an addiction. I wish I could, life would be so much easier if I didn’t know how much that would hurt others.

[starry-bi-sky]

I am loudly pushing the batdad agenda i am loudly pushing the— DPxDC Prompt

“Woah. You look like shit."

Granted, that’s probably not the first thing Danny should be saying to the guy that just bit the curb, but in his defense; he’s not running on 100% right now either.

The man -- tall, towering, and broader than Danny is tall -- whips around on his heel, black frayed cape flaring out impressively. Danny would've whistled in appreciation, but he takes the time instead to wipe the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing the blood running from his nose across his cheek.

"Sorry." He blinks widely, not even flinching as the man with the horns zeroes in on him. "That was rude of me. I have a really bad brain-to-mouth filter; Sam says its what always gets me into trouble."

And she's not wrong either, per say. His smart mouth is what landed him in this situation -- with blood blossom extract running through his veins and cannibalizing the ectoplasm in his bloodstream. Thanks Vlad.

The man grunts at him; a short, curt "hm" that shouldn't make Danny smile, but he does because he's somewhat delirious and probably concussed. The man keeps some kind of distance, sinking towards the shadows of Gotham's alleyway like he dares to melt right into it.

If it's supposed to scare Danny, it doesn't work. Danny's never been afraid of the dark; he's always been able to hide himself in it. He blinks slowly at the mass of shadows.

"You look hurt." The shadows says, blurring together around the edges. Danny squints, and licks his lips to get the blood dripping down his chin off. Ugh, he hates the taste of blood.

"I am." He says, "My godfather poisoned me. M'dying." The agony of the blood blossom eating him from the inside out looped back around to numbing a while ago, so all he feels is half-awake and dazed.

"Hey," Danny stumbles forward towards the man, a bloodied hand reaching out to him. "You-- you're a hero, right? You're not attacking me; which is more than I can say for most costumed people I've met." Maybe it's a poor bar to judge someone at, but he's already established that Danny's not in his right mind.

The man makes no change in expression, but Danny realizes blearily that it's hard to tell with the shadows on his face. He stays still long enough for Danny to latch onto the cape -- stretchy, but almost soft under his fingers.

He looks up blearily into the whites of the man's eyes. "Can you help me? I don't-- I don't wanna die." Again. He doesn't wanna die again. He blinks slow and lizard-like. "I mean- I'll probably get to see mom and dad again, but I told them I'd at least try and make it to adulthood."

There's a clatter down the street, and Danny's ghost sense chills up his spine and leaves a bitter, ashy taste in his mouth. He immediately knows who it belongs to even before the deceptively gentle; "Daniel?" echoes down the way.

"Daniel? Quit your games, badger, Gotham is dangerous for children."

Danny's mouth pulls back, and blood spills against his tongue. "Please." He rasps, and grabs onto the shadow's cape with both hands. "Please. He's going to kill me. Please--"

"Daniel? Is that you?"

His lips part, dragging in air to plead with the darkness again. He doesn't need to, the whites of his eyes narrow, and the cape whirls around him before Danny can blink. Soon swaddled in shadows, the Night lifts him up, and steals him away.

[marsipain]

The mysterious fish man beckons you, do you engage?

[hinamie]

picked up an old pen

[deathricedrawn]

i'm ready to try

[choccy-milky]

💖🎊the end, & thank you for reading!!🎊💖

im so thankful for all the support i got on this story, and i wouldn't have finished it if not for all of you, and for the love i got for seb and clora. so thank you again for giving me the motivation to write this 600k+ monster, and to see it through to the very end. LOVE YALL💖🫶 (ao3/wattpad)

[welljustmaybe]

This has been a problem since the new voting system was established, it started by giving us Jamala's win in 2016 when the public voted for Russia's Sergey Lazarev (singing "thunder and lightning it's getting exciting" whilst walking/climbing up a wall) which had a 231 point discrepancy between the public and jury votes. The juries voted for Dami Im, who was phenomenal.

The worst it's been was 2019, which I think got swept under the rug a bit because everyone liked Keiino, but I don't think anyone actually expected them to win - also everyone was a bit preoccupied talking about the politics of Israel hosting the competition. They won the televote with 291 points, the jury gave them 40 (251 point difference). The juries favourite to win that year was Tamara Todevska (blonde woman, green and black dress, power ballad) with a song called Proud, the juries gave her 247 points and the public only 58, which of course is how we ended up with Duncan Lawrence winning.

I can't believe I'm about to say something mildly positive about this year's result but at least the juries and televote were within 100 points of each other. The only other time that's happened since the new voting system was brought in was Portugal's win in 2017 where there was only a 6 point difference between the jury and public vote.

If we discount Portugal as an outlier, the average discrepancy between the televote winner and the points that they recieve from the juries is about 195 points! (it's usually over 200)

None of this is to say that none of those who have won under this system have deserved it - they're all incredibly talented artists, but if the system is has a pattern of disregarding public opinion something has to change

Great news! Let's see if more broadcasters agree on this!

[ijustcamefortheships]

No because I was so prepared for Jayce and Viktor to have a nasty ass divorce arc where they end the series despising each other on opposite sides of a war. And instead we got this incredibly complex relationship where yes they disagree for a time and maybe try and kill each other. But also they care so deeply for each other and their fates are intertwined throughout all of space and time. Where they never truly give up on each other. Where they both choose the right path in the end and do so together, hand in hand.

[bunnieswithknives]

Wow Dale I didn't know you liked entomology! 💕

[clarkgriffon]

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 7x05 | “Selfless” 

[wandixx]

I've seen a lot of different takes on Fear Toxin/other fear causing stuff (Yellow Lanterns Ring or something)(later just called Fear Toxin cause I'm lazy) but here is another one.

Danny seems like he isn't affected by Fear Toxin because his biggest fear is that his accident changed him so much he is no longer human, he can no longer truly experience human things.

So when he gets lungful of fear Toxin, he feels normal. He was antsy before, because c'mon, it's a rogue attack but it's not worse. Or so he thought. Because the anxiety lingers. Not enough to register as abnormal just this slight hypervigilance that makes you see things about yourself and your surroundings that you'd never realize otherwise. He'd realize he doesn't blink as often. He'd realize that if he doesn't consciously focus, he sometimes seems to not touch the ground. Forgets to breathe. He can't feel his own pulse at time. He'd realize people will miss him when he's walking down the street as if he was invisible (people just don't care about everyone they pass by). When he'd look straight into his reflection, he'd look slightly to the left. Not enough to actually name anything that was wrong but just stretched enough to fall on the wrong side of the uncanny valley. If he just caught his reflection in the peripheral vision, it'd be vaguely shadowy creature with glowing green eyes and white smoke instead of hair. Overall he'd be just wrong enough to be distinctly not human.

For everyone else, he'd be just a dude. Literally couldn't find more normal dude than this dude. Will pass as absolutely normal human unless someone is specifically looking for ecto-ghost stuff. Even most magic users wouldn't clock him at the glance

Tldr: Fear Toxin makes Danny perceive himself as some sort of eldritch horror but not enough to make him believe he'd actually be affected, while from outside perspective he's Just A Dude™

[b0tster]

keanu has been seen supporting**** zionists its so fucking over 😞 i stg every time i end up with a main stream opinion i get kicked in the gut. gdi.

[cabinette]

NORMAL PEOPLE KNOCK.

[westywallowing]

he's,,, a cat

adrientte fruits basket au ;)

[shiraoyagi]

hot take ??

the only reason people say that "mafuyu and tsukasa have nothing in common" when presented with mafukasa parallels is because they equate mafuyu and tsukasa being similar to "tsukasa has depression" because the fandom equates mafuyu's personality to being depressed and nothing else.

it doesn't help that people (primarily younger people in the fandom) who DO believe in mafukasa parallels end up making the mistake of portraying tsukasa as depressed because as of right now he is not (although it's possible he was in past because of his Very Unclear Middle School Backstory but that's irrelevant)

anyways, mafuyu and tsukasa are narrative foils because their core personalities are built off of the concept of wanting to make the people around them— especially their families— happy.

they both developed personalities at a young age based on someone they looked up to. for tsukasa, it was seiichi amami's performance that inspired him to be a star— a hero that could cheer anyone up. for mafuyu, it was her mother taking care of her that inspired her to be a nurse— and you can see the similarities from there.

for mafuyu, her identity would first come into conflict when her mother expressed her want for mafuyu to be a doctor— suddenly, "everyone's" happiness didn't match what she wanted to do, leaving her in a state of disorder and eventual depression.

for tsukasa, his identity was something he nearly forgot in its entirety at the start of the main story— becoming arrogant and fully absorbed in a hero persona, forgetting the kind person he truly is. furthermore, his current character arc seems to be foreshadowing that what "being a star" to him is going to be called into question— maybe it is something more than just being the main character that saves everyone.

their insecurities are incredibly similar.

in mafuyu's first mixed, mafuyu feels insecure towards ichika because unlike ichika, she feels as if her lyrics have no genuine meaning to be expressed to other people— despite them being her very real feelings. this is brought up again in her second mixed as well.

in tsukasa's third focus event, something similar happens. when watching seiichi's performance, he thinks that his acting is "real" and feels inferior towards him, which is ironic because tsukasa has been method acting this whole time. when tsukasa is acting out rio or bartlett or really anyone at this point in the story, it's not just those characters— it's a reflection of his traumas.

just like mafuyu, tsukasa undermines his passions he's poured his feelings into because someone else's work is more genuine in his eyes.

now, then, foils have many similarities and parallels (and i could honestly list a lot more), but how i define them is that they usually have some kind of major branching difference that MAKES them foils.

for mafuyu and tsukasa it's pretty straightforward.

mafuyu's people pleasing behavior comes from external expectations and pressures— her mother's demands.

tsukasa's people pleasing behavior comes internally, from himself— if he can't meet his own standards, if he can't be the perfect big brother or the perfect star, then he is nothing.

and even then, there's some overlap.

tsukasa's behavior was indirectly encouraged by his mother praising him for being a "good big brother" over the phone instead of asking him if he was okay while home alone.

mafuyu's terrified to be herself around other people because she doesn't want to worry or bother them— she doesn't want to be a burden— and projects her mother's expectations onto them, not realizing that they would prefer the real mafuyu if they knew the truth.

and the concept of mafukasa being foils is most perfectly and blatantly portrayed in these two cards.

mafuyu, the marionette, sitting limp on the floor— puppeteered by her mother's demands and donning a mask to hide her true self.

tsukasa, the jester, standing above everything else— puppeteering silenced plushies— his feelings. he's not being completely honest with himself, and he doesn't even realize it.

mafuyu has cut her strings and ripped her mask in half. she has acknowledged her true feelings and expressed them to her mother, even if she had to run away in the end.

tsukasa has not yet cut his.