#theres no real point here

[somewhat-adorkable]

Trigger warning for some graphic depictions of death:

The first dead body I saw belonged to my Grandpa Marcus.

He worked his whole life to provide for his family, only to be crushed by a cotton truck when he was in his sixties.

I was only four, standing next to his casket, I reached my hand out and froze. I understood this was not my grandpa, simply his body. Nothing more. But it felt wrong to touch, to search for life in something that was no longer living.

"It's okay," my mom whispered, squeezing my hand, "you can touch."

I did. Small fingers drifting over a cheek that felt like wax, not like warm human skin. When I touched his chest it crinkled from the filler they had to use to hide his gruesome ending. I shook my head at my mom and whispered, "that's not grandpa."

It was the first time I saw my dad cry.

Life went on.

The sixth time I looked at a dead body, I was thirteen, it was the body of my dad.

He looked swollen and purple, and the people around us kept saying how good he looked.

I knew they were lying.

He had violently choked to death on his own blood, while my mother screamed for the paramedics to hurry up and find our house.

They got lost on the way.

A five minute drive took them almost an hour.

He was long gone by the time they arrived.

I looked at his body, wondering how many people knew that when you're too tall for a casket, they cut your legs off so you'll fit.

I went back to school three days later.

Two girls in class had a discussion about how they would lose it if their father died, they didn't know if they could live without him.

Life went on.

Seven months later, during spring break, my grandmother died on the floor in front of me.

The neighbor, a paramedic, heard the call go out over the radio and kicked the door in to get to us.

To help me keep her alive.

I got asked hundreds of questions about medications, if she was slurring, if she could stand before she fell.

Her last coherent words were 'dont worry'.

I didn't ride in the ambulance with her.

She looked beautiful in her casket

Life went on.

When my mom's boyfriend lived with us, he owned a rollback service. He worked for the county, picking up wrecked and repossessed cars.

The night before Thanksgiving, we were called to a fatal crash. I rode with him.

The driver, a teenage boy, had been taken away by ambulance.

The girl's mangled body was pinned under the truck.

An officer handed me her phone and asked me to turn it off, the screen lighting up with calls and texts from her mom, wondering where she was.

The picture on the lock screen was my cousin Courtney.

The mangled mound of flesh they removed from under the truck was her.

The funeral was closed casket, I heard my aunt scream for God to take her too

Life went on

A couple years ago, the day before my birthday, we found my uncle dead.

He was supposed to come over but never showed, so we went a few doors down to his house.

The door was unlocked, and he was on the floor

Eyes open and unblinking

He had been hiding that his house was rotting, the dresser in his room having fallen through the floor and to the ground below

He never asked for help

Gave all his money to his daughter

We wouldn't let her into his house, didn't want her to see the conditions he has been living in.

I went to work after

Later that day a bullet came through the window of the house I had been cleaning.

I wondered if I would have gotten to see him again.

Life went on.

I called my god father to tell him I was making chicken wraps for dinner. He didn't answer.

Not uncommon, on Sundays he and a lot of his friends went out to eat for lunch, riding back roads on side by sides and gocarts to get to a little backwoods restaurant.

I figured he would call back when he could hear me.

Not long after I heard sirens.

Turns out, as they were leaving to come home, a woman had stopped her SUV on the other side of a blind curve.

When he and Antony, one of my brother's good friends, rounded that curve on their gocart going 55mph....

Well, gocarts are much smaller than SUVs.

One was decapitated, the other had his face and head crushed completely flat.

No one on scene could do anything to save them.

The woman sued their families for 'emotional damage'

I didn't make the church wraps.

Life went on

The day after my girlfriend moved in,

I was on the floor folding clothes, she was sitting on my bed, we were talking idly,

My mom walked in, and with certainty said: "your cousin was murdered."

"which one?" I asked

"Destiny."

My cousin was seventeen years old.

She and her boyfriend had been beaten and shot to death in a random act of violence.

She got her name because her mom never knew she was pregnant, not until she gave birth to a baby while in the shower, the day after selling all her old baby furniture

So she named the surprise baby Destiny

Then someone saw fit to make sure she never saw 18

Life went on

I took care of my neighbor for years.

Her daughter and law left the family because of the stress of the medical care.

I was just the neighbor kid that had been coming around my whole life, there was no reason for me to be the one doing hours of wound care,

Fingers up to my knuckles in the split skin in her legs, scraping off dead tissue.

The doctors at the hospital told me I was doing amazing.

One day when I was at work, she fell.

She died a week later in the hospital

Swollen, hardly recognizable, I thought maybe death was a mercy to her.

Her hand felt like ice in mine the last time I held it. I knew she would be sad her nails weren't painted pink.

I cried so hard at her funeral I threw up

My boss called to ask why I wasn't at work that day

Life went on

One afternoon, when I got home from work, my roommate in tow, my mom looked at us and said "I told my self I wasn't going to cry....."

She hugged me through tears and said, "we need hotdog buns."

I laughed a moment, asked what she was on about, she softly told me her bestfriend had died a little while earlier.

My god-mom had died the same way my dad died

Except this time the ambulance arrived in time

But it didn't make a difference

I didn't go to her funeral

Life went on

When my neighbors house burner, I had the flu.

But I ran outside anyway

In my pajamas, no shoes on

I ran through the burning grass to get to my uncle because he was screaming for help

He didn't have a phone, I called 911

Together, we got her out of the house

I couldn't see anything inside, the air thick with black, acidic smoke that burned my lungs and eyes

Her skin, fragile with age and heat, split under our hands

In the yard, I felt her rips snap under my hands as I attempted CPR, her lips a sickening mixture of cold and warm as I struggled to force air into her lungs.....

there was no soot in her mouth or throat

She died before the fire started

I repeatedly pressed my ear to her chest to try and hear something over my own roaring heartbeat and my uncle's devastated screams for me to please save her

I held her bloody arm to my chest and told her 'its going to be okay, I can hear the sirens, Ms.Myrtle. they're coming.'

I knew she couldn't hear me.

I sat on the ground with my uncle for over an hour, we clung to each other like a lifeline as firemen and cops whorled around us

His granddaughter panicked when she got home and ran to us, seeing the blood on our arms and clothes, I whispered "it's not ours, we're okay."

When the firemen found her cat, I took her straight to the vet.

In the silence of the exam room, I looked down at my arms and clothes, smeared with blood, soot, and now cat hair

I started shaking violently

One of the vet techs hugged me until I could breathe again

And somehow

Life went on

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

3l!grian is frequently depicted as a tragic figure and sometimes i wonder if we even watched the same series

[spitblaze]

You guys know that American Jews have nothing to do with the actions of Israel, right. You guys know that it's a sovereign nation with a government full of shitheads that has nothing to do with individual Jewish people in other countries. You understand this right. You get that Jewish people are not a monolith and don't unilaterally support Israel by virtue of it being a 'Jewish State', right. You get that being antisemitic at home doesn't remotely help the people in Gaza. Please tell me you understand this

[shadfinite]

ok but the thing is shadow and infinite isnt a "healthy" or "good" relationship at first. it takes them years to be good for each other. they shouldn't have been together! they should have broken up years ago! but they didn't and they are working through it and eventually things work out. EVENTUALLY Infinite stops enabling Shadow's self destructive behavior and EVENTUALLY Shadow stops tolerating the admittedly unacceptible way Infinite treats him.

See, Infinite doesn't know what it's like to be with someone who doesn't want to hurt him even a little. Every relationship he's ever been in has been a really unhealthy and dangerous power dynamic (he's been the weak one and the strong one before). It takes him YEARS DECADES maybe even CENTURIES to realize Shadow is NOT LIKE THAT. Shadow didn't even really want to specifically hurt Infinite when they first encountered each other in the Mystic Ruins. He was just doing a job. It takes Infinite such a long time to understand that. He's so obsessed with Shadow but he has this one conflicting core understanding with Shadow that he simply cannot wrap his head around. He needs to stay in control so that "when Shadow tries to fuck him over he has a way to regain the upper hand."

Shadow thinks he's lesser than everyone, even Infinite. Even though Infinite literally started a war and wanted to destroy everything just because he was bored. If Infinite wants all the power over him, Shadow is okay with that because surely he deserves it for being such a miserable creature. When Infinite calls him names and treats him poorly he just lets it happen because Infinite is the first person he's met in a long time who will treat him in a way he understands. To Shadow, this is unfortunately what true love looks like. Being attacked is familiar, and Shadow knows that when people are kind to him he doesn't know how to deal with it. He thinks Infinite is giving him a form of stability that he can't live without.

What's confusing for both of them is that they do have moments of tenderness, and they do have inexplicable boundaries that they never cross with each other. They've never discussed their limits, but there are things they would never do to each other because it'd be too much.

They have moments of vulnerability, where they are just sitting beside each other and Infinite is telling Shadow how beautiful he is. And Shadow believes it because he's pretty sure that Infinite wouldn't waste his time being nice if he didn't mean it. Shadow introduced Infinite to a part of himself he didn't know existed, a part of himself that doesn't want to have to try to hard to reach for the top. But that vulnerability is terrifying at first and neither of them want to acknowledge it. It just happens and then its back to business as usual again. They don't talk about it.

They will do things to each other that cause conflict or anger, enable each other's worst habits, but they won't try to change each other's identities. That's the hard limit. They might have an argument where they harp on each other's bad behavior, but it's just talk. They'd never do anything to each other that would actively contribute to a crisis because one thing they both understand on a fundamental level is that changing the answers to core questions like "What is my purpose?" or "What do I believe is right?" is mind breaking. They never force each other to do things that challenge the status quo or threaten to shake their already deteriorating stability.

But this boundary is also part of the problem. They, for a long time, don't let each other grow and absolutely get worse! They break each other down, but they keep making excuses for why they should stay together. People who constantly fight with each other should not be together!

And when I say "together" I don't really mean together. Their relationship is a situationship at best, but Infinite still refers to Shadow as his boyfriend. Shadow insists they aren't even friends, but doesn't really passionately refute when Infinite says they are together. He just deflects. Of course he wants to be Infinite's partner, but that commitment is terrifying and he doesn't get how Infinite can be ready to commit like that even though it's been YEARS. It feels so impermanent because Shadow's perception of time is based on his immortality. That's one thing Infinite doesn't have (doesn't really think he has).

Two things jade them: time and people.

Shadow and Infinite won't challenge each other's core values, but time and people will. For Shadow, this comes in the form of his admittedly slightly larger support system: people like Rouge Amy and Big especially, but also Sonic to some degree. Infinite stagnates. His only support system is Shadow, really. He also has, like, Big and Sonic and Wave, but he isn't ever vulnerable with them in the way Shadow is with his. Shadow starts to grow, Infinite doesn't.

Infinite is definitely the worse off in this relationship. Shadow always knew that. They both knew it when they got together. Shadow has a savior complex. He thought he could fix it.

It in fact gets worse. Infinite is just bound to break that unspoken boundary they set, and Shadow has to put his foot down. Only then do they break all of their walls down and talk about those unacknowledgable moments. Only then do they get better. They can't work out unless they start to see each other as equals, but it's a really slow process for them to explore what that looks like or how its possible.

[waterfallofspace]

When a character has not only a canonical allergy, but a reoccurring canonical allergy >>>>>

Especially when there's no actual reason for it to occur again?? Just cause they wanted to?? An almost entirely sneeze/stuffed up driven allergy.... 🔥🔥

[zagreus-eats-your-bread]

Wtf is red dwarf and why does it look so cool

It's a British scifi comedy show from 1988 where in the very first episode everyone but one guy on the space ship "red dwarf" fucking dies. This one guy survives bc he was put in stasis for smuggling a cat on board. After 3 million years he gets outta stasis and learns that everyone died from a radiation leak and yk, it being 3MILLON years later its basically safe to assume hes the only human left alive. The ships computer, who is a floating head on a screen and who (legit and no joke) later transes his gender for a few seasons resurrects the guys boss as a hologram, who incidentally is also the person that accidentally killed everyone. The guys cat was pregnant and in the 3million years it took him to get outta stasis the cats evolved into humanoid guys so one of those cat people is there too. This all happens in the first episode.

The show has legit such interesting scifi ideas and shit i am so mad about how good it is. Shaking. If you like parallel universes then boy will you have something here. This guy:

Is legit at least 10 completely different characters.

You need to watch it rn. The only thing that keeps you from going "this shit is actually very sad" is the laugh tracks. For some fucking reason they keep making this show every 5 years or so. There was a movie in 2020. I hope they never stop.

[guideaus]

literally not a single thing worked itself out in this series

[s0fter-sin]

i’ve stopped expecting interesting animation from bones. the star and stripe fight is cool but like every other fight/moment in mha, it’s only cool bc the source material itself is cool; bones does nothing to elevate the manga

they rarely try to experiment with colour and style. i saw so many colourings of the moment star and stripe made a giant version of herself out of the air; people made her look like a cosmos, like it reflected and bent the sky around her, doing so many inventive things and for the anime to just make her an outline against that godforsaken sky? i’m disappointed

but people will take me saying i’m disappointed and spin it to me saying the fight was bad. it wasn’t, just like most fights and moments in the anime aren’t bad but that’s all bc horikoshi knows how to draw. they never do anything beyond that; they never try and adapt it. whether it’s bc of time, direction, budget, or what have you, they will never do something truly inventive with their colouring

i’ve said this before and i’ll say it again, it’s not just that the sky is blue; it’s what the blue sky represents and that is an unwillingness to broaden their colour palette or atmosphere to support the changes in the tone of the story. the story isn’t just “will midoriya get into his dream high school and achieve his dream job?” it’s child abuse and societal systems and their dysfunctions, it’s racism and morality and is it right to try and save someone who’s determined to destroy the world just bc they are also a victim?

look at the finale of atla, a show that mirrors the narrative tone of mha; it starts out bright and colourful and vibrant to match the happy and small stakes nature of the story and as the tone of the story changes, the environment changes to reflect that. the siege of the north pole? everything goes blood red when the moon spirit is threatened, then goes completely desaturated when it is killed with only fire bending having any colour. the day of black sun? uses a solar eclipse to change the lighting. the entire sozin’s comet fight? has red skies and lighting to show the threat

bones abject refusal to change anything about the art itself is a detriment to horikoshi’s complex narrative

[majorshatterandhare]

Today I, an aromantic, was getting ready to attend a wedding… with Stranger on repeat.

[elympios]

Asteria Elle commission from yowai401_S on Skeb!

[sonknuxadow]

i dont know what would be worse if amy is never in the sonic movies at all or if they do introduce her in the next one but shes pushed to the side and doesnt get the amount of focus she should be getting considering shes a main character and this is her introductory movie because theres too much other stuff going on with shadow and/or they just completely butcher her character

[collgeruledzebra]

something about the colossal amount of history seemingly in every inch of mossflower and how defining events in most of the redwall books are rarely if ever addressed or even mentioned in others... got me feeling some kinda way

[mantisgodsdomain]

We do think that Riz is a gynandromorph of some description, especially since damselfly sexual dimorphism tends to be pretty distinct and he's displaying a very unconventional morph for a damselfly of any flavor. He would have no goddamned clue what that would mean, of course, and he probably wouldn't care about it if you told him, but he's definitely got something going on there.

[nerosdayinanime]

knock knock let me in let me be your secret sin ; left right straight ahead theres no way out youre dead

[urmomsstuntdouble]

not to be political but I've seen a lot of people saying that those who call Israel an apartheid don't know what they're talking about and um. As someone who has studied South African apartheid as well as grown up in a Jewish community. This claim has more merit than you think