#THIS POST WAS NOT MEANT TO BE THIS LONG

[snackara]

The juxtaposition between the “tragic backstories” of the protagonists of my current wips is fascinating.

Because on one of end you have Asha. She had a relatively normal life until she was 14, with a loving father and community. And yes, she did have to step up and basically support the entire Hamlet after her father disappeared and developed an eldest sister mentality of sorts, she was still supported by her community and had Sabino to look after her.

And right after Sabino dies and she feels like she’s lost the last close relationship she had, Earendel comes to her, and is nothing but kind to her. And later she gains a partner in Flazino. She goes through rough things all throughout Upon A Star, but overall she turns out okay and most importantly feels positive about who she is as a person.

Wren never got any of that.

He was whisked away from his homeland before he could even remember it, and constantly had to deal with people looking down on wildborns. He was raised by a military officer, Clara Montgomery, to become a weapon. He was basically a crude experiment to try and show the government wildborns could be used beyond slavery, as a force to wield against foreign nations. He was trained like a dog would be for the fighting ring. Constantly told to release the monster inside him, viewed as a weapon first, and a person second.

But Wren wanted to prove them wrong, he really did. He wanted to be better, especially when he became a teenager. That’s why he took another wildborn he had fallen in love with and fled to a small village. And Wren thought he was freed. He thought he had proved, even indirectly, that he wasn’t the monster everyone wanted him to be. That he had won. Life was tough, yes, but he was happy. Though deep down, there was still a lot of resentment and hatred towards Clara and how she had raised him.

Then the other villagers found out about his lover and killed him. Wren didn’t know how they found out. But regardless he blames himself, even years later. Maybe if he had just been there with him. if maybe he had taken that shortcut home, he could have saved him. But he didn’t.

Wren snapped.

And all of that rage, all that resentment, all that hate came pouring out.

He slaughtered the whole village. Not just the men who had killed his lover, but everyone. Men, women, neighbors, acquaintances. No one was safe from him. He burned the whole place to the ground. It’s possible they could have overpowered him, if circumstances were different. But he had been trained for this. Forged in blood and flames to become a killing machine.

And when all was said and done, when Wren finally saw the carnage he had brought, he knew Clara was right. That deep down, he really was a monster, just as everyone had said. What kind of man does what he had? And from that day on, Wren promised to never grow close to anyone again, to protect them from being hurt by him, by the things he’s done. And every time he’s met with kindness or compassion, he feels nothing but guilt and shame. In his mind, he’s best left alone.

But like his original namesake, he’s a pack animal. And eventually, something’s gotta give.

[humming-fly]

I love how Gerald was trying to keep Shadow from spoiling anything about the future meanwhile literally everything Shadow says and does around Maria is the biggest death flag ever

[lauraneedstochill]

“The Pitt”: Jack Abbot’s appreciation post 🔥 original posts: x, x, x, x, x, x, x + other characters: part 1, 2, 3, 5

[chloesimaginationthings]

Happy one year anniversary to this FNAF post,,

[shadowtraveled]

"mithrun is the only real monsterfucker in dungeon meshi" is objectively the funniest bit you can get out of his everything, but in all seriousness i think his attraction to his love interest is deliberately overstated—and that makes sense, because romantic jealousy is a classic and digestible motive, which is explicitly what kabru was aiming for in condensing mithrun's backstory, and also because until chapter 94, mithrun wasn't willing to admit to the true nature of his desires.

but because romantic envy is both classic and digestible, it probably isn’t a unique enough or complicated enough desire to tempt a demon’s appetite. mithrun’s wish, as far as we can figure from kabru’s reduced retelling, was to have a life in which he had never become one of the canaries, and that carries like 3857 implications and desires within it. that’s delicious. his love interest acts as sort of a red herring to his motivation for making it, though. (side note: i'm saying "love interest" here because, keeping in mind that i barely speak japanese on a good day anymore, "想い人" is something i'd usually take as just kind of an old-fashioned and romantic way to refer to a lover, but in context i wonder if both the connotation of yearning and the vagueness are intentional, and i think this phrasing gets those aspects of it more effectively. anyway.)

mithrun considered his love interest to be untrustworthy. there was a minute where i thought that comment might be about a similar-looking elf (yugin, one of his squad members), but comparing the two…

the "sketchy" arrow is definitely referring to the elf we know as his love interest—the bangs go toward her right, she only has the one forehead ornament, and, most notably, her ears aren't notched.

every time she’s given a full-body depiction in his dungeon, she’s drawn as a chimera, with the body of a snake from the waist down. (side note: the “what if a dungeon has chimeras before reaching level 4?”/“then the dungeon lord is unstable” exchange just being mithrun grilling his past self alive is so funny. he’s so. but anyway) there are a couple things about this.

first, the snake part of the chimera appears to be modeled after some species of coral snake mimic

which, in the biology-for-fun manga, i… doubt is a coincidence, especially with the added context of the “untrustworthy” comment. the dungeon’s conjured illusion of mithrun’s love interest was a harmless copycat of a venomous original. for whatever reason, he felt this person was a threat and made up a "safe" version of her to be in a relationship with, and while it’s definitely possible to be attracted to or even love someone you find to be toxic and/or intimidating, when you take that into consideration alongside the configuration of her body, you get some interesting implications.

which brings us to our second point: if we assume that mithrun was not in fact fucking a snake, then sexual attraction, at least, was so far removed from his idea of a relationship with this person that he did not even bother to keep her dungeon copy human enough to maintain the illusion of the option of a sexual relationship. this is somewhat echoed in the depictions of their interactions, which also imply a frankly unexpected romantic distance. she kisses his cheek and he doesn't seem to react; she's at the edge of a narrow bed with only one set of pillows, on top of his blankets while he's underneath them.

the kiss is particularly interesting because it seems to contrast the text. kabru's narration tells us this was everything mithrun could have asked for, but mithrun is there looking unreadable to pensive, likely because this is right before the panel that makes it clear things in the dungeon are beginning to go wrong.

walking through this backwards for a minute, we have the physical barrier of his bedding and the spatial separation inherent in a bed made for one person, the emotional barrier of his mounting anxiety getting in the way of his ability to enjoy the affection he sought, and... the snake, which historically carries the connotation of temptation, yes, but also mistrust, barring physical intimacy. okay. ok. if a dungeon reflects the mentality of its lord, all of this might suggest that mithrun was not able to have any real desire for a relationship with this person. his unwillingness to be vulnerable or let another person in was insurmountable. but in that case, why was she such a focal point that she remained to the end, after his dungeon had stopped creating iterations of his friends to come and visit him? why would he get so upset over her meeting with his brother that he became lord of a dungeon about it?

well. mithrun's brother was also interested in her, probably genuinely. and mithrun had to win.

you have an older brother who your parents completely ignore, probably in part because he is chronically ill/disabled and almost definitely in part because he received a ton of recessive traits that resulted in rumors that he was an illegitimate child. you are aware, most likely because those same parents fucking told you, that you actually are an illegitimate child. but they keep you around because you had the good fortune of looking just like your mother. what can that possibly teach you but that you, like your brother, are disposable?

it's utterly unsurprising that mithrun, under these circumstances, developed a pathological need to be better than everyone around him. people don't keep you otherwise. i'd argue this is also why he says he looked down on everyone he knew while milsiril claims his dungeon reeked of feelings of inferiority—he sought out people's worst traits and prioritized them in his mind to protect his already extremely fragile sense of self-worth, and all the while he tried to be as likable and high-performing as he possibly could be. his parents disposed of him anyway, but even then he tried to keep up the performance. he was kind to everyone. he never once lost to a dungeon.

when he saw his "love interest" meeting up with his brother, what he saw was himself being replaced by a person his parents had always treated as worthless, and if that was what they thought of the child they'd kept, what value could anyone possibly see in the bastard they'd given away to die? mithrun and kabru tell the story like he wanted to win this unnamed elf's heart, but it was never about being with her. it was about cementing his worth, proving that he didn't deserve to be thrown away.

and so it's particularly cruel that his demon discarded him, too. but maybe it's also particularly gentle that, in the end, there was someone who refused to even consider giving up on him.

kui laid it out in three panels better than i could hope to.

yeah. it's love. you wanted to be loved, even when the only way you were able to understand it was through the desire to be wanted, and you wanted that so badly that the idea of being consumed felt like the promise of finally mattering to someone.

[tomahachi12]

How do you think Han and Nori met? and what was their first impression of each other?

"Han"

[arcade-confetti]

Being someone who read Under The Red Hood and came out with the firm belief that, for Jason, it's not about killing Joker, it's about Jason wanting proof Batman would choose him over the Joker (bc shelia chose the joker). Makes seeing any other media where it's all about just wanting the Joker dead is a teeny bit frustrating. to be honest

Jason could've killed the Joker himself, really, really easily. Jason kidnaps the Joker before the confrontation. I can't open my comic for a reference right now, but it felt like he had the Joker for quite a bit before the confrontation. He had him. He beat him up with a crowbar. He had every single opportunity to kill the Joker himself, but he didn't because that wasn't his goal. Make no mistake, he did plan for the Joker to be dead by the end of it, but do you see what im trying to say here

Edit: If I knew this post was gonna get 1000+ notes I would've tried to word it better or something, this was a rant I made on the way to the grocery store 😭

It's not about making Batman kill either. When Batman says he won't kill, Jason adjusts and goes, 'Let ME kill the Joker or kill me to stop me' instead. The test is all about Batman choosing him. The whole final confrontation is Jason's first death again. The parent, The Joker, and the explosives. It even ends with Jason unable to move as a bomb goes off right next to him again because the parent didn't choose Jason. And instead tried finding an option that'd benefit them and (consequencely) letting the Joker walk, again, lol, lmao <-in agony

[tawnysoup]

it's time to study some ancestral history. here's my first attempt at animalifying an isat character, he is known as the isabeastie and he predates every critter!!! my brain still registered this design as something i drew "the other day" that id been meaning to post somewhere? i made him in APRIL? LAST YEAR???

anyway. 'e's a beastie :) if u were ever thinking "love isabird but i wish he was some kind of huge dangerous animal who could curl around me all comfy" then here u go this is for u

[screambirdscreaming]

Something that peeves me whenever I see another post going around with some variation on "autistic people take things literally which means we are the only people who communicate Clearly and Directly" is that - for any given statement, there is not one singular, agreed on, universal Literal Interpretation. If there was, none of this would be a problem!

The nature of language is that there's always some degree of interpretability. Words have several different meanings, often overlapping, and there's nuance of context, cultural references, and so on.

Faced with a statement, most people will quickly come up with an interpretation that to them makes the most sense. But if you asked a roomful of people to explain in detail their interpretations, everyone's would probably be a little different, even for a pretty simple statement. Regardless of whether those people are autistic! Everyone conceptualizes the world a little differently, and everyone has a unique personal history of all the language they've encountered, and these things effect our interpretations.

In order for communication to be workable, given this slosh in interpretability, there's another couple of processes that go on. As conversation goes on, people reassess if their initial interpretation matches up with additional context. If it doesn't, they revise it, or ask clarifying questions. And on the flipside of this process, the other person in conversation is tracking if your reactions make sense with *their* understanding of what they're trying to convey to you, and offering context or rephrasing things if it seems you're out of alignment.

These processes are social skillsets that are, like most social skillsets, not ever directly articulated or explained. Many people are bad at one or both. Sometimes you encounter someone who is really, notably good at it - the vaunted "good listener", who puts in the effort to really understand what you're trying to say, or that really excellent teacher who engages with you back and forth until you really get it. But a lot of the time, it's a sort of passive social friction - people just not getting each other.

Sometimes, you encounter someone whose brain works so much like yours that talking to them feels almost effortless - you just get each other. But that's a pretty rare occurrence for anyone. More often, as you get to know someone, you start to understand the shape of the way they interpret things and learn to account for it, so over time it's easier to make sense to each other.

It's honestly not uncommon in society for people to aggregate in groups of people who interpret things similarly, and who are thus easier to talk to, rather than actually building the skills of communicating across interpretation gaps. Particularly egregious are those groups of men who talk about Women as an incomprehensible monolith, but it turns up to a greater or lesser degree on a lot of levels.

I suspect this is the root of a lot of parenting problems - people who have never built this communication skillset, and relied on choosing friends who make sense to them without a lot of effort, and who are then totally unprepared to interact with a child who interprets things in ways they don't expect.

Obviously I can't speak to The Universal Typical Experience, not least because it doesn't exist. But in general I would posit that:

Most people, give or take a few assholes, are not trying to say things that are confusing. Most people think they are communicating clearly, because the first interpretation *they* would come up with on hearing one of their own sentences is the correct interpretation.

Many people are not very good at accounting for different ways people could interpret things they're saying. However, it is normal and polite social behavior to be somewhat flexible about this and forgiving of misunderstandings. If people are being shitty to you about not understanding them, they are assholes. And I wouldn't assume that the rest of the communication they have with everyone else they know goes totally smoothly for them.

I suspect there is a bit of an unfortunate feedback loop, where people have bad experiences when someone gets mad at them for not getting something, and learn to hide when they're confused. Which then leads to larger, more complicated misunderstandings, which other different people get upset at them about, because those people think they should have asked for clarification in the first place.

Truly you can't win with everyone. No one can win with everyone. There is no monolith of "neurotypical communication" which resolves all these contradictions - all those people you're lumping in together under "neurotypical" have just as much trouble with each other.

[laser-tripwires]

really appreciate the full canon confirmation of the likely reason that eliot has dated so many doctors and nurses. aka he keeps meeting people in the ER. it's great.

[robotwhoscreams]

I thought about Calhoun to long again.........make that woman clip out of the map and find her dead husband's character model t-posing lifelessly in the void. Inspired by the tags on my own post here

Shitty 10 minute doodle below the cut.

Cope with seeing your dead husband (fiancée? Does he count as a husband if he technically died at the altar before you could say 'I do'?) by cuddling your not so dead husband with something warm to drink.

boom, trauma fixed.

[skulandcrossbones]

GUIDE TO SPOTTING STOLEN GIFS

gifmakers on tumblr put a lot of effort into their gifs, and understandably get quite annoyed when someone steals them and reposts them without credit. it's especially frustrating when the stolen gifs get a ton of notes. we look at it and we go wtf how did this get so many notes when it's all stolen????

then i realised the average tumblr user, especially if they're new, or they've never created gifs or posted anything, or they don't understand how tumblr even works... well how are they gonna know?

this post will cover some of the most obvious signs that a gifset is stolen, including:

gif sizing + placement

gifset colouring, sharpening and style

the tags of the poster

if this post is helpful to you, please reblog to spread awareness!

1. gifset sizing

when a gifmaker is making a gifset, they Generally will make all of the gifs the same size. by "size" i mean dimensions in pixels. all the gifs will generally be uniform in size, and laid out intentionally to fit tumblr's recommended dimensions.

here is an example of one of my gifsets with uniform dimensions:

all of the gifs are the same size, laid out correctly for the recommended dimensions, and are fully visible with no cut-offs, blurriness, etc.

many times when a gifset is stolen, it'll be made up of a random assortment of gifs, stolen from multiple gifsets. the gifs might be all different sizes, and not laid out correctly, with parts cut off at the top or bottom. they might be blurry, compressed or just not "look" right.

here is an example of a gifset with inconsistent dimensions:

now, i used inspect element to see the dimensions, but how can you spot a incorrectly sized gif or inconsistently sized gifset at a glance if you're on mobile?

well, see that gif of sam? see how it's cut off mid-forehead, and just under his collar?

well, when you click on the gif and view it in its entirety, you can see that parts of the gif were cut off by the incorrect placement of a 540px gif in a 268px layout:

generally speaking, a gifmaker is not going to make a 540px gif and then put it side by side with another gif. gifset placement is not accidental. gifmakers know and use the recommended dimensions to ensure their gifsets are high quality and viewed on the dashboard the way they intended.

this is sign #1 that these gifs were not made by the person who posted them.

2. colouring and subtitles

gifmakers will generally try to make all of their gifs similar in colouring, sharpening and style. gifs will be (to the best of our abilities) similar in brightness, vibrance, tone and sharpness. basically, they will be visually consistent.

a stolen gifset will not. for example:

aside from the inconsistent sizing, these gifs are all sharpened and coloured in vastly different ways. this is admittedly something a gifmaker is more likely to notice, given our experience, but anyone can take a second to just look and see if the gifs look like they were all made by the same person. if they don't, it's likely a stolen gifset.

sidenote: subtitles are also another tell. i generally use the same font, font size, boldness, subtitle colour etc across all of my individual gifs and in all of my gifsets. if one gif has yellow subtitles in arial font, and the other has white subtitles in times new roman, chances are those are stolen gifs.

3. the tags of the poster

this is probably the FASTEST and EASIEST way to tell if a gifset is stolen, and requires some understanding of what tags are and why we use them on tumblr. here is a brief guide for tagging if you need one!

what you need to know is this:

gifmakers often use [media]edit tags to make it easier for people to find their gifsets in a sea of xreader fanfic and text posts, as well as user[tags] to increase reach

gifmakers will usually have a tag specifically for their gifsets (mine is #originals, some people use a #*, some people use their name like #[name]gifs or #mygifs). the purpose of that tag is to make it easy to find the gifsets we've made on our blogs

here is an example of a genuine gifmaker's tags:

people who steal gifs generally aren't aware of the tagging conventions gifmakers use to catalogue their gifs & increase reach, so they won't include them. they might even say outright that the gifs are stolen.

some examples of stolen gifset tags:

this one isn't an exact science. a lot of newer gifmakers aren't aware of the [media]edit tags, or other well-established tagging conventions, and sometimes gifmakers don't have a unique gifmaker tag. HOWEVER, most do and, when paired with looking at the sizing, colouring, sharpening and overall consistency of the gifs, this is usually a good way to sus out if a gifset you aren't sure about is stolen/reposted.

that's it! i hope this was helpful, and that you are better equipped now to figure out if a gifset was actually made by the person posting it!

if this was helpful to you in any way PLEASE reblog, so more people can learn how to pick a genuine gifset from a stolen one. plus i spent a lot of time on this and i would appreciate it okay thanks byeeee

[booasaur]

Renegade Nell (2024) - 1x06

[buttercupshands]

(Forgot to post again)

A birthday present for a friend :)

[twentyonefirstmates]

i just cannot stop thinking of jon trying so hard to grieve for the real elias after he Finds Out because elias died scared and alone to the same power that destroyed jon, because elias was also forced to watch his own body become entirely alien to him as he became Something Else, because elias and jon have both been tortured and Changed by the same man, because jon might be the only person in the world who understands what happened to him and is definitely the only person in the world who cares.

But also, jon can't think of elias' face without having to choke back a scream, cant utter elias' name without wanting to cry, cant think about elias' body without the feeling of being watched, worms burrowing into his skin, the agony of not being able to remember his friend's face, his mind being broken, hellish flames on his hand, falling from a great height, a knife against his windpipe, plastic fingers against his skin, dying, coming back wrong, darkness beyond everything hes ever known, dirt in his lungs, losing everyone hes ever loved, strings controlling his every move. He cant grieve for elias without grieving for himself. And he know, he knows, he Knows that none of it was ever elias' fault. Elias was just some poor stupid idiot who ended up in an evil place and had his life stolen by an evil man, just like jon. Jon knows elias never actually did anything to him, but he cant forgive him for the things done by his body. He wants to grieve, he tries to grieve, he does grieve. But he can never grieve properly for the man who was lost because he is inseparable from the man who took him.

[tatretot]

hellooo danandphilgames buddies!! happy belated 10 year (more like 5 but shhh) anniversary :-)