#this is stream of consciousness

[panopticonsys]

when a joke takes a while to hit call that a jestational period

[ms-scarletwings]

I always loved this specific expression of his for no particular reason it’s just so effing funny

It’s the most little cartoon guy face. Everything and nothing is going on in that head at the same time.

[plounce]

why was bashir a closeted homosexual in the 23rd century? like dude it's fine you can relax. actually wait the tense here is kinda funny. i used past tense because ds9 is from the 90s and i watched it in 2021 so in both cases it's from the past in my view. but when talking about a text you speak in the present: why IS bashir a closeted homosexual in the 23rd century? but the statement is half about how ds9 takes place in the scifi future: why WILL bashir be a closeted homosexual in the 23rd century?

[toolusingmammalgirl]

[ubepan]

chilchuck gap moe this ep btw. he looked up at laios with big googoo eyes i Had to pause the ep. a middle-aged grown ass man wht are u doing looking at another man like he has the world in his eyes. you are divorced with three kids dude

i think im unwell

[potato-lord-but-not]

in my wtnv era 10 years too late but uhhhh trying to figure out how to draw the guy nonetheless

[geeneelee]

Something I like about dungeon Meshi is that it explores a conflict in human nature that is usually either avoided or played for laughs, which is: how much individualism in the pursuit of your own comfort is acceptable, how much is even feasible?

Like Izutsumi is stubbornly independent and self serving to a fault, and yes it’s sometimes played for comedy because this series has a lot of comedy, but it also interrogates how much of that is healthy. After years of slavery and the violation of her bodily autonomy, it’s no wonder she just wants to do Her Own Thing, but people aren’t meant for that sort of solitary lifestyle, and if she wants to reap the benefits of other people she has to make compromises. The desire to live by your own whims is natural, especially when she’s been in a position of having total obedience expected in return for having her basic needs and no freedom but. The balance is something she has to learn to navigate.

And Laios, as lovable as he is, also represents another angle of this—he’s fine with cooperating with other people towards a common goal, and even is happy to put his neck out for his loved ones, but he struggles with navigating boundaries and has to figure out how those work to maintain his relationships and form new ones. It is hard for some people and you can get badly burned if you don’t understand them but overstepping peoples boundaries, no matter how innocently intentioned, is a form of harm you have to learn to avoid, or at least to mitigate. Like no, it’s not okay to try to count a teenage girl’s nipples even if it is your special interest. There is a racial aspect to the way he treats Toshiro. The fact that people don’t always tell him that there is a problem until it’s reached a breaking point is a fault on their side too, but Laios doesn’t always accept peoples boundaries even when they’re set—his attitude towards Izutsumi refusing the mandrake and not trying to understand why his behavior in the sauna was inappropriate is emblematic of this.

People live in societies and they bring their own baggage with them and no matter how understandable or benign their attitudes are ultimately you have to figure out how to balance your needs and comfort against the needs and comfort of others. Some behaviors and attitudes aren’t morally wrong in and of themselves (disliking working with others, not understanding other people’s feelings) but you are responsible for how you react when that hurts someone else.

The friction between individualism and communalism is something we spend our whole lives navigating!

[frownyalfred]

Any PTA mom headcanons for Bruce?

He runs the PTA like Wayne Enterprises if given the chance, which means it’s highly effective, highly bureaucratic, and has better data security than most small countries

The pettier of the moms see him as a threat since he’s clearly bisexual (and very attractive)

Nobody, not even Alfred, thinks it was a good idea for him to join the PTA

Flawless recall of Robert’s rules of order, which he uses with the League and forces the PTA to adopt

Discovers an embezzlement scheme in the school just by looking through their receipts for the last ten years

Brings Costco trays of cookies to PTA events and doesn’t even try to claim them as home cooking; everyone is jealous

Heavy hitter for testimony in front of city officials; has argued in favor of continued block grants for scholarships to various local private schools; funds the scholarships when/if the money isn’t approved

Bruce Wayne putting his kid in school next to theirs puts a lot of parents at ease, for some reason

Once broke up a domestic dispute at a PTA event between a pissed-off dad and a crying mom just by looking big and asking the dad dumb questions about what kind of cookies his kids liked (he didn’t know) until he stormed off

[kiwi]

i forgot i can just draw furries

[casualcupholder]

Lots of them :))

[soullistrations]

the thing about haikyuu is it’s a love story. but it’s everybody’s love story. it’s asahi saying, “when have my friends ever been a burden,” and kageyama saying, “with me you’re invincible,” and the neighborhood association laughing about him saying that and then putting hours and hours into teaching and supporting these kids who love the same sport they do, and it’s kenma saying, “thank you for getting me into volleyball,” and it’s hinata screaming with joy because his friend is having fun, and it’s tsukishima learning to give his all to something even if there’s more risk in actually caring, and it’s in kageyama and hinata counting and counting and counting their victories and defeats, and it’s in kita telling his team he’s proud of them, and it’s in kageyama saying he wished he could have gone further with this team, and it’s in shimizu stumbling through a simple good luck speech, and it’s in coach ukai reminding his kids to eat well, and it’s in. everything. i could pull a hundred more love stories from these characters but it’s just. it’s in everything.

[heartorbit]

revstar emu save me

[lucidloving]

I learned how to be quiet about pain when I was very young. I learned how to fold in on myself like laundry, to take up less space in the cupboard. I learned how to keep the peace around me by sweeping the dirt under my own rug.

I have been taught that expressing my less favourable emotions is just complaining—something weak people do when they're too incompetent to solve their own problems.

Incompetent. Incompetent. This word is very important to me. Incompetent is the word I am always running from. To run from incompetency means to run from feeling dejected, feeling lost, feeling hurt. To run from incompetency is to run towards goodness. To run towards a me who knows all the answers and shoulders all the burdens and shrugs off all the pain.

Some days I am not very good at this race I am running. Days when the past lurches forward to bite my ankles, or days when the future looks back to scorn my present.

On these days I am weak. The poise slips. It's all too easy to cry a little and vent my fears. I forget that I am supposed to be keeping all of this shut away where no one else can see. I forget that I am not supposed to be dragged down by these feelings in the first place.

Today I feigned nonchalance and I feigned it well. No one noticed that I was hurt by the thing that happened, and sitting alone in all my hurt, I was bitterly gratified. I had fulfilled the proper narrative of an animal who is injured and returns to its cave to lick its wounds only in private.

But there is a desperation for the hidden pain to be noticed. This is the Achilles' Heel of the whole stealth operation; it threatens the little play I have constructed in which I suffer alone and inconvenience no one and am all the stronger for it.

Today I stood upright to talk to my mother and doubled over in pain the moment she left the room. It is satisfying, knowing I did the valiant and honourable thing of keeping the damn pain to myself. It is infuriating, the way my eyes flickered to the door in the dark and private hope that she would come back in and witness me while I was down.

I want to be strong and hide all the hard things away. I want someone to see my efforts to hide all the hard things away and realise I'm strong. I want to bring to life this character I have created who suffers without complaint and is loved when the truth is revealed. Who suffers well.

This is the person who stores up agony to a breaking point, to justify the ultimate snapping of composure. This is the person who wants to be depended on relentlessly and one-sidedly, so that someone someday might notice the unfairness of it all. This is the person who virtuously and righteously take all the hits without a sound, so that when they finally, inevitably break, their pain will come to light all at once and inspire awe and guilt in equal measure.

Who am I, really? Is it terrible to want to play this character? Perhaps some old wound craves acknowledgement and understanding and doesn't know how else to ask for it except by hiding until it festers.

Strength. Competency. Resilience. Dependability. Independence. They have all become synonyms in my black and white dictionary. They have all become straws for the drowning man.

I self-impose silence. I take pleasure in denial and secrecy. I take pride in successfully keeping a problem to myself.

Pride. That's another important word. I think I have too much of it, although it pains me when others point it out. Pride implies I think highly of myself, which is something a good person should never do. Pride is so audaciously self-absorbed, so high-and-mighty, so filthy with ego. There's probably a lot of it in this damn thing I've written.

Pride is the other thing that keeps my mouth shut. The thing that says I should be austere, untouchable, immovable. Pride is the thing that says look here, you don't have a lot going for you so you better keep this mask on right if you want to be good. If you want to be admired.

These terrible things keep me safe. I can't let go of that stupidly noble character or that cowardly pride. I need them to shield me from the reality that I am emotional, not all that put together, and honestly hopeless most of the time.

I need to have something worth liking about myself. I need to have a grit that makes me undeniably good. I need to have a strength that goes unsung, that lies in wait of discovery.

What an exhausting way to live. But it's the only way I know.

[reggies-eyeliner]

jwct really said yeah found family is beautiful for the domestic laughter and hugs and cheers and inside jokes but it is also incredibly awkward. it is apologizing first because your pride is easier to sacrifice than it is a relationship. it is doing the hard thing and facing hard truths, but also loving the person unconditionally not despite but regardless of what happened. it is choosing forgiveness because forgiveness was never supposed to be easy but for the people who make you realize life is really worth living it is always worth doing. it is the laughter that makes your sides hurt but it is also wiping the tears off of someone's face and holding them as they double over because they can't stop crying. found family and relationships are difficult and it is being vulnerable and facing hard truths and apologizing first and it is also incredibly worth it.

[shalom-iamcominghome]

I've been doing a lot of reflection as of late, especially after this past class.

This past class was about the Torah and Tanakh in general, and the way the rabbi talked about the commandments (specifically the ten commandments) has made me really reflect on how I interpret them, specifically the fifth commandment, or honoring your mother and father.

This is a commandment I have wrestled with for a long time - in fact, it brought me away from g-d at multiple times. I was severely abused when I was incredibly young by my mother, and I used to feel insulted at the implication that I were to honor her while she got to live a better life. It was hypocritical, in my eyes.

But this rabbi surmised that this particular commandment was because parenthood is an act of creation, something that is like the g-d from which we come from. My realization is this: I don't think we're necessarily meant to take even these commandments literally.

I this particular commandment is more of a call to honor creation - creation is a gift, and like any gift, many people simply will not like it and will discard it. The person who abused me created me, but she did not honor creation. She didn't honor me, but I can still honor it.

I have started to honor creation much more. I'm too young, too unstable, not mature enough to be a father (though I fantasize about it), but I create all the time. I create relationships, I create with my hands through crochet. I create memories, I create my world. And I can honor who I am and where I came from that made me who I am. I've been learning one of the mother tongues of my family (Italian, since part of my family originates there) and it was judaism that inspired me to do this.

I don't think g-d wants me to honor my abuser. I think He wants me to remember the Holy action of creation. When I am a father, that act of creation will be Holy, and indeed, I am already joyful about the thought.

I have seen many people struggle with this particular commandment, but I think this perspective helps me personally. I don't think I ever have to forgive my abusers (plural), and I don't think I am commanded to simply because they happened to be family. I am commanded to recognize the holy, to elevate the mundane. In doing so, I will remember g-d. Through creation, I honor g-d and everything he has done for us, for me, and for our collective people.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

*tries to organize my thoughts*

*remembers i'm not in school and therefore beholden to neither heaven nor hell nor any man's grading system*

*joyously shredding & tossing all my carefully arranged 3x5 mental notecards into the air like so much beige confetti. raising my arms in victory, cheering raucously until i accidentally inhale bits of homemade confetti*

(*coughing up itty bits of paper like a cat evicting a hairball with a firm understanding of tenants' rights*) wait wat happens next