before you know about women, you hear that you do not need to love the man, just that you need to love him through his manhood. which is to say you have seen the future painted in lamb's blood over your eyes - how your mother shoots you a look about your father's inability to cook right. how your aunt holds her wineglass and says i'm gonna kill em. men, right! how your best friend bickers with her boyfriend, how she says i can't help it. i come back to him.
you learn: men are gonna cheat. men aren't going to listen when you're talking, because you're nagging. men think emotions are stupid. they think your life is vapid and your hobbies are embarrassing. men will slam things, but that's because men are allowed to be angry. if you get loud, you're hysterical. if a man gets loud - well, men are animals, men are dogs, men can't control their hands or their eyes or their bodies. they're going to make a snide comment about you in the locker room, about your body, about how you're so fucking annoying. you're going to give him kids, and he will give you the money for the kids, and you're going to be running the house 24/7 - but he gets to relax after a long day, because his job is stressful. the man is on stage, and is a comedian, and says "women!"
and you are supposed to love that. you are supposed to love men through how horrible they are to you - because that's what women do. that's what good women do. wife material. your father even told you once - it'll make sense when you're older. it was like staring down a very lonely tunnel.
it feels like something's caught in your throat, but it's all you know, so. it's okay that you see sex as a necessary tool, a sort of okay-enough ritual to keep him happy, even though he doesn't seem to care about happiness as-applied-to you. it is relationship upkeep. it is kissing him and smiling even though he didn't brush his teeth. it is getting on your knees and looking up and holding back a sigh because he barely holds you as you panic through the night. it's not like the sex is bad and you do like feeling wanted. and besides! he's a man! like... they're another species. you'll never be able to actually communicate, right. he isn't listening.
you just don't get it. you don't feel that sense of i'm gonna climb him like a tree. mostly it just feels fucking exhausting. you play the part perfectly. you smile and nod and are "effortlessly" charming. and it's fine! it's alright! you even love him, if you're looking. you could have good life, and a good family, and perfectly happy.
in the late night you google: am i broken. you google i'm not attracted to my husband. you google i get turned on by books but not by him. you google how to get better in bed.
the first time he yells at you, it almost feels like blankness. like - of course this is happening. this is always how it was going to end up. men get angry, and they yell, and you sit there in silence.
you mention it to your friend - just the once - while you're drunk. she shrugs and says it's like that with me too, i just try to forget and move on. men are always gonna hear what they want to. pick your battles and say sorry even though he's in the wrong. you play solitaire online for a month. you go to your therapist appointment and preach about how you're both so in love.
after all, you have a future to want. nobody lied about it - how many instagram posts say marriage is hard. say real love takes work. say we fight like cats and dogs but the best part is that we always make up. how many of your friends say happy anniversary to the best and worst thing to ever happen to me. if you really loved him - loved yourself too - you'd accept that men are just different from you.
the first time she kisses you, it's on a dare at a party. something large and terrifying whips through your body. you wake up sweating from dreams where her mouth is encrusted with pearls and you pick them off one by one with your teeth. fuck. you sit at the computer and your almost-finished game of sim city. you think about your potential perfect life and your potential future family. you google am i gay quiz with your little hands shaking.
you delete each letter slowly. you don't need to love him. you just need to keep going.
"you are HARASSING A CRIPPLE" ".....foot." "a shark ate it." for some reason this genre of humor (making everyone else vaguely uncomfortable by joking about your disability/bringing it up on every occasion a la "the weather is homophobic because it's inconveniencing me") is my favorite fucking thing. god i hope it continues. i hope izzy tells everyone he meets a different story about how he lost the leg (fought a lobster, cannonball incident, cursed by a witch, "what do you mean? my leg's right h--OH MY GOD"). i hope he has a spreadsheet entitled "jokes i can make now that i only have one leg". he's completely deadpan and no one knows whether they're allowed to laugh or not. it's great.
Danny is in another universe. He had a reason, but he doesn’t remember anymore. He can only stare, horrified and disgusted, at the sickest city spirit he’s ever seen. Shivering and swaying with every step, core exposed, and ectoplasm leaking from wounds that are decades old. A ratty blanket was thrown over their shoulders, barely hiding the spirit’s pale grey skin and protruding black bones.
The spirit didn’t even sense him until he reached out to touch its wispy shoulders. The spirit flinched, clutching at the dozens of trinkets hanging from their neck and tucking in on themselves like they were expecting a blow.
“Oh, shit,” He swore, floating back a few feet, hands in the air, to show he meant no harm. “I’m sorry. I promise, I’m not here to steal from you.” The spirit shivered again and rolled a pearl necklace in between their fingers. A nervous habit. “Uh, I like that pocket watch? It’s very nice.”
That got their attention. They peeked at Danny, and he saw that more tattered cloth was covering their eyes, blending in with the stringy hair that reached the ground. Their blanket fluttered weakly, revealing hundreds of thousands of tiny marks etched into their skin. Scars, really. Scars that wrote out curse after curse onto the spirit’s very being. They burned with evil intent, and even reached inside the spirit’s body and wrapped around their core.
Occasionally, blinding specks of color raced across their body, temporarily erasing the writing, but it always returned quickly. He watched, a little detached, as one particular line rewrote itself across their rough forearm, drawing fresh ectoplasm like someone was writing it with a thin knife.
“Are you…alright?” Danny stuttered. A stupid question.
The spirit cocked its head. He couldn’t see their eyes, but he felt their burning gaze as they pondered the question.
“The pain of others becomes mine own.” They rasped. “The lights of the city dim as rotten wealth clogs mine veins. Magicks long forgotten have eaten mine skins, pulled mine cloak, and darkened mine skies. Helios has refused to grace mine doorstep, and the seasons of the Earth have revoked their kindness.”
Danny held his breath. It felt like he was the one with the exposed core, not the spirit.
The spirit shivered once more. “Tell mine soul, little lamb. How could this Forsaken City know peace, when it was long since ripped from mine hands?”
Shit, he needed Frostbite. And maybe Clockwork. Now.
-Or-
Danny meets the spirit of Gotham City. The villains and rogues that have plagued the city for decades are literal curses that are taking quite the toll on Gotham, and honestly, Danny isn’t sure how much longer they can hold out. The heroes seem to be doing some help, and are probably the reason Gotham made it this far, but the poor city needs help from the Realms if they want to get better.
Luckily, Danny can provide that help.
But only if he could get Gotham to leave their city behind. Because recovery is going to take a very long time.
Tucker Carlson fired from Fox News unceremoniously and without warning, apparently directly at the command of Rupert Murdoch. Reason isn't clear but Dominion claims with wasn't because of their recent settlement with Fox News for over $700 million. Considering all that Fox News hosts get away with saying regularly, something pretty wild has to have happened for them to suddenly fire their number one money maker and the host of the highest viewed tv program in the country, on any channel.
Don Lemon fired from CNN possibly without warning, though CNN claims they tried to meet with him. Possibly due to sexist and/or racist comments, but the reason isn't currently clear and CNN is just not wanting to talk about it
Nate Silver was laid off by Disney and ABC and is no longer part of FiveThirtyEight, which he founded.
Steven Crowder announced that he has been divorced since 2021 when his wife filed a no-fault divorce, openly bemoaned the fact that the laws of Texas allowed her to divorce him without his permission, and then publicly accused Candace Owens of trying to use his divorce to extort him for money.
Candace Owens started commenting back at him, denying the accusations of extortion and has now officially begun another far right media civil war as people are taking sides, because she took the bait. She may or may not have sent him a cease and desist and be planning to take legal action.
poor girl in her 30s had to deal with traumatized teens posessed with other traumatized teens trapped in a time loop who were tricked into it by dead ww2 soldiers. nuts!
hello there its me again and i have a question if scarab and sawyer are siblings does this mean they have parents or there parents just died and i totally didnt simp for sawyer in my mind lately:>
I don't think they where loved
This was an excellent chance to design their child selves, not to be dramatic, but this may be some of my best work
Headcannons for them! Feel free to ad your own
Sawyer
is a dino kid, like it's literally all he can think about all day
relentlessly plays his DS, major ipad kid vibes
he dresses himself, takes it very personally if you critiqued his outfits. His fashion sense aged like wine I'm telling you
loves action movies
wants to be a cop because of said action movies
Scarab
evil
he hasn't matured yet so his anger issues are 10 times worse than they are in the show
Sore looser, Sawyer has to let him win when they play board games otherwise Scarab throws a tantrum
"Scrabby"
Wants to be seen as mature so he has a really good vocabulary, among other things, unfortunately no one takes him seriously, some things never change