#the pressure to perform well

[lyhil]

OC-tober 23 - "The Performance You Were Born For (But Never Asked For)"

Alba Moonseeker belongs to @sylvaridreams (puts your little man in a situation)

[theactualsunshinechild]

I think Aventio and Screwtio shippers shouldn't fight. After all, Ratio has two hands!

That's right. Two hands.

One for his chalk.

One for his codex.

Both of which he's holding in an embarrassed death grip as they chat away with each other about him.

[sunburstsandmoonshadows]

Rashawn is such an emotional powerhouse. Viola's soft, sincere "That's not fair." and "I don't like that, Mama, I don't like that at all..." during their fight as she cried real tears nearly tore me to shreds. My god. I'm tearing up just typing this.

[officialbabayaga]

tomorrow is the start of my final year of law school and i’m so so nervous

[sisaloofafump]

.

[zamulas]

goood morning flyers nation, just a reminder that we are down but not out!

x

whether or not our season ends this week, or we go through to the playoffs, it's been so much fun getting to know everyone in the flyers community! thank you all for being so welcoming and making my first hockey season so memorable 🧡🖤

one more time, for the final game of the regular season... let's go flyers!

[s0fter-sin]

so lately i’ve been obsessed with a 141 dancer au

gaz runs classes, has a youtube channel and quickly becomes one of the most sought after choreographers in the music video scene. soap is his dance partner for his classes, he helps run them and does demonstrations with him

ghost is also a choreographer and he’s gaz’s Arch Nemesis

he's famous for never performing his routines, never doing public appearances without his skull mask and being highly exclusive with who he allows to perform his choreo which earns him his name (since he’s a ghost creator). gaz however is a social media darling, his classes and videos regularly doing huge numbers

they both popped up around the same time and are neck and neck in terms of popularity and skill and they immediately rub each other the wrong way

gaz accuses ghost of not actually choreographing his routines himself bc no one has ever seen him dance and ghost thinks gaz is a clout chaser who's just in it for the fame instead of passion

he became a dancer as a way to channel his rage after years of being an underground fighter, the discipline and physicality helping him more than fights ever did. he hates the thought of someone just using it just to get famous when it literally saved his life

deep down they know their accusations are wrong and they have a grudging appreciation for the other's talent but they'd both rather die than admit it

price is a famous dancer turned director they both work with frequently and they always fight over him; trying to get their routines picked for his music videos. he's also the only one in the industry who's ever seen the ghost perform (before he got famous and before the Incident™)

he finally gets fed up with them constantly being at each other's throats and hires them both to work together and choreograph a joint routine. they're both famous in their own right but this video is for a huge artist so neither of them can refuse no matter how much they hate the other

gaz has a gymnastics background but also a ballet background which lends him to a more fluid style whereas ghost’s style is stronger, more masculine with sharper movements so they naturally end up butting heads

then there's soap who has a completely different style altogether, focusing on a more modern, breakdancer style which makes him see everything completely differently

but it also adds to his self-doubt bc he didn't have a formal dance education, he built his entire repertoire by himself. people see him as inferior to gaz who has that very formal, highly disciplined style. his insecurities about only ever being seen as gaz's demonstration partner and that he can only do gaz’s routines so all his skill is just an extension of him instead of being seen as a dancer in his own right forces him to adopt a rigid - destructive - perfectionism in himself and his body

soap meets ghost before the first rehearsal. he gets to the studio early to practice when sees this beautiful man dancing

he has no idea who he is but he moves so seamlessly, almost better than gaz, and he immediately falls a little in love. the man catches him watching in the mirror and he flusters, getting worse as the man just smirks at him and flawlessly completes the routine

soap tries to save face and asks him to teach him the routine he's doing

the man agrees, introducing himself as simon. the style of the routine is familiar to soap but he can't focus on it when simon's hands are on his waist, guiding him through the steps; his chest pressed up against his back. they work together beautifully, picking up each other's body language and dancing together easier and better than they've ever danced with anyone

then gaz arrives and the vibe in the studio immediately changes

simon's easy confidence becomes hostility, pulling up the skull gaiter he'd let hang around his neck as he practically pushes soap behind him to square up to gaz

soap’s shocked when gaz hits back with the same energy until he realises it's the same way he acts whenever he talks about ghost and his stomach drops

he steps out from behind ghost to side with gaz and the betrayal in simon's eyes hurts more than anything he's ever felt

from there it's romeo and juliet; camp gaz versus camp ghost as they fight over every step of the choreo and soap is the poor bastard stuck in the middle

soap tries to channel that “you’re my best friend’s rival, i have to hate you,” mindset but he can’t forget the way it felt to dance with simon

and how much he wants to do it again

[professionalowl]

i am very fond of my professor as i am sure you all have picked up on at this point but if he keeps talking about my hypothetical doctorate i am going to hit him with my shoe

[toastsnaffler]

weekend melancholy is starting to kick in >~<

[bookpillows]

I have a driving lesson tonight 🥲

[petit-papillion]

Italian GP Media Day | 31 August 2023

📸 Scuderia Ferrari

[seventh-district]

it’s finally getting cold enough that i can bring my cardigan collection back into rotation without feeling like i’m gonna melt into a puddle the second i step outside!!!

[magentagalaxies]

going to a comedy open mic tomorrow mostly to watch my friends (it's at a cool venue that my improv troupe performs at once a month and a few improv troupe friends are doing standup there) but when these friends were asking if i'd be interested in coming they were like "btw there's usually a ton of open spots on show days if YOU want to do something... and they're not strict about it only being standup either, people have done character pieces and sketches etc like they embrace the weirdness... and they're not strict about time limits you could probably do anything between three and eight minutes... sometimes if there's not enough people signed up they'll even let you go twice..." and i'm like god damn it i thought i was gonna take a break from aubrey but this setup is like tailor made for an aubrey appearance lmao

[wetslug]

i have a day off next friday to go to my grandpas internment... ive never gone to a funeral or similar so idk how ill react but ill try not to be weird about it

[cloutchaserkineme]

fail, girl!

5:49 p.m. Friday, on a straw mat, with peel-off lipstick on

When we were in a journalism competition, a newspaper columnist came and held a small workshop for us small budding high school students. She was one of those old-Martial Law era types, the ones who got the grit and experience necessary to survive being a journalist here in the Philippines, a dragon with callused wings swanning into a place full of ickle baby lizards with fresh bits of slick membrane still clinging to our scaly lids.

She asked who among those of us competing for the copyreading category in the room wanted to become a journalist. I was the only one who tentatively raised a hand.

She was confused, and a bit disappointed that none of these little reptiles who managed to clear the first two rounds of the competitions wanted to pursue fact-checking and editing and newswriting in totality. I thought she was just reacting as an animal bred for her field- her life was words, and she couldn't fathom anyone else trying so hard to succeed in a field they weren't going to nurture and continue in any way.

At least, that's what I thought she thought then. Now I know she was probably just confused. No other deeper meaning to it.

Like I am right now. I have not been a law student in two to three weeks, just simply going to events and covering them and interviewing clients and transcribing quotes and attempting and failing to write the articles I need to write from them.

I feel impotent and stupid and just plain useless. Those kids who didn't raise their hands... they were smart. They were onto something. They knew that this wasn't a field to pursue if you wanted to be successful in the long term. These smart kids, achievers and top ten placers in their school with their latinate appellations a soft launch for their three-to-four letter profession markers in their certificates.

They were just there because the journalism competition held a lot of points in class and school rankings, not because asking people and getting answers and writing those down and spreading them out was fun and nice to do. They were smart, playing the game like that. I just played with whatever they gave me and never thought to do anything that required higher thinking skills with it.

They gave me a pencil, then a pen, pointed me to people and events and ideas- and I wrote. I didn't think anything beyond that.

Now I type, heavily and with such excess. I don't like what I type, and I think I hate typing...even writing this update is very tiring for me. I don't like it anymore. I don't like the updates getting from my bosses and coworkers, I don't like being jealous and envious of my coworkers having their ducks in their row and effortlessly slaying this industry I thought I was a good fit for. I don't like working for people who use money to do fucking shit in my place, I don't like platforming [type of company redacted for anonymity purposes] on our articles, and I fucking hate talking to people in a large crowd.

A few days ago I met a journalist who never asked questions (fully online desk reporter, though she worked in local print media like I did) and was more anxious than me and I felt a kinship with her and she was nice. Until I saw a friend of mine during the same event, and she congratulated me for getting into law school, and that my cousin from my father's side who failed the bar exam thrice but was married to an attorney he met in law school was surprised that I was still there and why I haven't quit the silly little news writing thing I was doing. And this journalist congratulated me for doing such a good job. I felt like a fraud, like I have inadvertently put her under the same illusion I somehow cast over everyone else- the spell of "oooh look at her she is a competent person who has her ducks in a row".

She has expectations of me that I don't know how to meet!

And I was stressed but I wasn't as stressed as my friends who were also working in offices with solid hours and good career prospects and great work-life-school balance and they had three midterm exams back-to-back.

You know what I did with those same hours? Nothing. Just daydreaming and sleeping thinking about fictional characters being loved and nothing else and I have put off so much. The gig I took, the articles I am three to four days late in passing, the fucking law school!

Killing myself isn't even going to cut it anymore, the phrase has been slicing over so many thoughts in my head for nine months now that the edge of it has dulled and it can't pierce through the brain fog right now.

I want to have my cake and eat it too, like the greedy Jupiter-Venus person that I am (but the Mercury-ruled detriment of both these planets is literally knowing that this isn't practical or realistic or rooted in explainable and measurable actions). So yeah... we go fucking on? I don't know. I don't have much faith in myself any more.

Do I learn how to say no? Or how to stop saying yes?

(30) 6:34 p.m.

[gibbearish]

am finally back home and can say without a doubt that i am just fundamentally not built for long distance travel however the train was much nicer than planes