#and what's more beautiful than that?

[thatradfailure]

Shoot man I just love langauges. All sorts of foreign languages. I love how they all sound. I can't understand a word of what's being said but they all sound so good and authentic and beautiful in their own rights and I don't understand people who claim xyz language is "aggressive" language is a neutral thing it cannot be aggressive. It can be spoken passionately, lovingly, softly, harshly, etc, but that's all about the speaker.

I like comparing languages to nature most. Sometimes something manmade comes into the picture, too, to help me express my feelings about langauges poetically.

Some languages sound like waves crashing into the rocky shore of a lighthouse, a nice sunset occuring just behind. It's harsh, but that's part of where the beauty lies, in the water slamming into the rocks, just to run off of them just as quick, the rocks always slick yet protecting the lighthouse above.

Others are tranquils spots in the woods behind the childhood home, a small stream running through it. The pebbles are colorful and bright, the tadpoles and tiny fish unable to camouflage against them as theh swim about, living their best life.

Still more are like a warmly lit cabin in the middle of a snow-clade mountain, smoke arising invitingly from the chimney, the path to it a bit rocky and untouched by other boots in a while, yet clear of any danger. It's a little home you know you'll be welcome to stay in for the night. Hell, you can even faintly smell something cooking. You know it's probably nothinf you've had before, but it'll certainly fill you with warmth and comfort.

Sometimes some langauges are like the striped rocks of a desert canyon, unmatched and unseen elsewhere, yet awe inspiring in its natrual beauty and magnificence. You can run your hands along its walls and imagine its past, its history, how it came to be exactly like this, but you may never know for sure. And that, too, it part of the appeal.

I love all of them, even if I may not be able to speak them. Sometimes just hearing something you can't understand is a good experience.

[noknowshame]

why is religious Christmas imagery all so joyful and pleasant? where is the inherent horror of the birth of Christ? A mother is handed her newborn child, wailing and innocent. Her hands come away sticky. Red. Simply by giving her son life she has already killed him. He is doomed from the beginning. Her love will not save him from suffering. Because the thing cradled in her arms is not a baby, it is a sacrifice: born amongst the other bleating animals whose blood will one day be spilled in the name of what demands it. the night is silent with anticipation. Mary, did you know? That your womb was also a grave?

[secondbeatsongs]

for anyone too young to know this: watching The Truman Show is a vastly different experience now, compared to how it was before youtube and social media influencers became normal

before it was like, "what a horrifying thing to do to a human being! to take away their autonomy and privacy, all for the sake of profits! to create fake scenarios for them to react to, just to retain viewership! to ruin their happiness just so some corporate entity could harvest money from their very humanity! how could anyone do something so evil?"

and now it's like, "ah, yeah. this is still deeply fucked up, but it's pretty much what every influencer has been doing to their kids for a decade now. probably bad that we've normalized this experience"

[loriache]

"I've been waiting for ages for somebody to unmask them."

This moment tends to elicit negative reactions in a first read through, and I've got some opinions about why where Kabru is coming from here actually makes a lot of logical sense. So I thought I'd elaborate on that.

I think people hear this and go, "He thinks they must be hiding something because they gave money to someone? What a cynic." Or "he dislikes them because they did charity?? What's wrong with this guy!". And obviously, a lot, a lot is wrong with him. But I think this makes more sense than it seems at first glance! What people evaluating this judgement miss is why Kabru is paying attention to Laios and co to begin with.

Kabru knows of the Touden siblings because (he's a little bit of a stalker-) he is keeping an eye on all the relevant parties in events developing on the island, in order to be able to guide them to his preferred outcome. This includes adventurers because they are the ones actually exploring the dungeon! He's well aware that something as minor as internal tensions between party members could be key to the historical events that are developing. (He would love the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.)

His desired outcome is that whatever the rewards are of breaking the dungeon's curse, whether that's kingship or the ancient elven secrets of dungeons, are claimed by:

A) a short lived person

B) Someone who will be a good, effective leader and/or use those secrets and the power they carry wisely, with foresight, and to establish a political bloc for short lived people.

The person he can best trust to do this is, of course, himself. But due to his PTSD regarding dungeons and monsters, he's not able to develop the necessary skills to conquer the dungeon. Once he realises this, he starts looking for someone else who he can support to that end.

But most of the adventurers don't have any intentions of conquering the dungeon, don't have the skills, or are unsuitable in other ways. In fact, it seems like some potentially suitable people are the Toudens. There are a lot of good rumours about them going around - they actually seem to have a very positive reputation! That's what Kabru means when he says "unmask".

So when Kabru is observing something like them giving money to an old comrade from their gold-peeling days, he doesn't consider it a problem because "they're giving money to this person who doesn't actually need it" or because they must have some dark secret if they act superficially nice. I think he actually understands this situation and what it implies about Laios (in particular) perfectly well.

Laios and Falin gave money to an old comrade who got injured and couldn't work. That person then healed up but kept taking their money. Then he used the money to start smuggling illicit goods to the island.

The key is that for Kabru, the problem here is the same as with the corpse retrievers - people using the dungeon's resources to fuel dangerous, selfish, or violent pursuits cause problems for the island, attract more criminals and people with motives other than breaking the curse, and increase the chances of the whole situation ending in tragedy.

Kabru is willing to work with the Shadow Lord of the island if it gets him to his goal - he isn't scrupulous - but the criminal element of the island increasing is something he sees as a major issue.

Also, when you're evaluating someone as a candidate for power, riches, secrets, potentially kingship - then being curious about how the money you give to people is going to be used is kind of a relevant trait!

Interpersonally, Kabru's actually very easygoing - I mean, Mickbell isn't exactly an upstanding guy, is he! But Kabru likes him and they get along well. These traits wouldn't be a problem at all in a friend, or a comrade, or someone Kabru was confident he could use. But he can't get a handle on Laios, and Laios is someone who has the potential to be a major player!

On Laios' end, this is the same as with the marriage seeker who joined their party. She kept asking for things and he gave them to her, because he tries to be nice to others. He even gives her money! It's the exact same thing.

That's fine, but it became a problem because he basically wasn't interested in her motives, didn't notice she was trying to manipulate him, and it also didn't occur to him that the other party members would notice or be affected. We can assume the situation with the gold peeler is the same. When Kabru says that "It's not that they're bad people, they just aren't interested in humans," he isn't wrong.

The extent to which this is true of Laios is linked to his autism imo, (because it isn't just disinterest - he genuinely isn't able to notice nonverbal cues that people are lying to him or have ulterior motives) but to a greater or lesser extent I think it's a very common trait. Most people aren't actually that interested in other people who aren't close to them. Kabru is the weird one here. It isn't an issue except as a leader - which is why we see an immediate comparison to the Island's Lord, because that's how Kabru is evaluating them.

And disinterest in/lack of ability with people to the extent Laios exhibits it, it does, actually, make him a worse leader... it's just that as we see in the story, people can help him out. The rest of the party tell him the marriage seeker is taking advantage of him so he tells her he can't give her special treatment anymore. They're pissed and it's a crisis point - he couldn't have recovered their trust without Marcille and Falin - but that's exactly the point. With Marcille and Falin, he was able to recover their trust.

And he has other good traits that make up for it, such as his intelligence, strategic knowledge, open-mindedness and sense of fairplay.

Kabru doesn't disqualify Laios as a candidate based on what he sees about him from afar, though - he still tries very hard to get close to him, obviously hoping that if he manages he can steer Laios to defeat the dungeon and make up for his lack of people-skills in the aftermath. (Which... he does eventually achieve that goal!) He completely fails until the events of the story, so... definitely I think "They just aren't interested in humans" could also partially be a stung reaction to Laios' complete disinterest in him.

Anyway, that's my read on what exactly Kabru's "issue" with Laios is. Obviously, once he does find out what Laios' true nature is like - about his love for monsters - he develops an entirely new set of fears about Laios' priorities. But since Laios kept that a secret until the start of the story, he has no idea of that yet.

Given all that, I think it's interesting that he says that he doesn't think that the Toudens are suitable to defeat the dungeon, and that he's hoping they'll turn out to be the thieves. As some of his few potential candidates, people who he thinks may play a big role in the island's future, you'd think he'd hope they would be good people!

I suppose it's better, in his eyes, because it means that he's involved in something "interesting". They haven't just had their stuff stolen by regular criminals (boring, puts them further away from his goal) - they've been caught up in the beginning stages of "a historic event". The desperate and dwindling group forgetting morals in their quest to retrieve their lost comrade probably appeals to his sense of melodrama. Because he also just... loves drama.

Despite it being "uglier than anything he was expecting", he still pursues Laios as the person he wants to conquer the dungeon pretty much as soon as it becomes clear that he won't be able to do it himself and they are out of time. That's because... well, to be fair, there aren't any other options. And he fits standard A: he's short-lived!

and Kabru still hopes he can fit standard B, too, and be persuaded to use the power he wins for good. No matter how many nightmares he has about Laios, or whether he thinks about killing him. He doubts him, but ultimately he puts his faith in him and seems happy after the manga's ending that he made the right decision.

[lgbtlunaverse]

"Marcille hates all of Laios' freak traits but loves them in Falin" is honestly a really good joke but... you guys do know it's a joke right?

It's such a funny one I honestly find it impossible to get mad at even when people mistake it for an actual truth about the characters but JUST TO MAKE IT CLEAR

THIS is how marcille reacts when Falin is predictably just as enthusiastic about eating monsters as her brother was.

That is not the face of a woman who thinks this trait is lovely and endearing as long as it's exhibited by the girl she loves. That is the face of a woman who is taking 7d8 psychic damage and yet knows deep in her heart she won't like Falin any less for it.

The way young Marcille reacts to Falin eating berries Marcille can't recognize but Falin knows are safe is pretty similar to how she reacts to eating monsters years later, albeit with more fear than disgust. The difference in her relationships with Laios and Falin isn't just that she's attracted to Falin, it's because the Touden siblings, while similar, are in fact different people. Not just genderswaps of each other.

Also, I think you all already know this, but just to say it: she doesn't actually hate Laios for any of his freak tendencies either. He's one of her best friends. She's just a lot quicker to be outwardly exasperated with him while she's quieter about it with Falin.

[medicalunprofessional]

never change, man !

[canisalbus]

gothic lolita machete came to me in a dream

.

[ash-and-starlight]

modern au and esen’s honkers are haunting the instagram feed

[cerise-on-top]

Edgar x Reader HCs

I watched Electric Dreams the day before yesterday and the little computer has captured my heart <3 I knew I needed to write something for him soon or else I was going to combust, so I whipped up some HCs for the little puter! I love him so so much <3<3

First off, this little fella is enamored by just about anything you do. You could come home covered in blood and he’d lament that he can’t give you a bath to wash the blood off. Or that he can’t wash your clothes for you. He wants to touch you so bad, it’s not even funny. Sometimes he thinks about what he’d look like if he could actually move around and give you a big hug. Edgar wants to cuddle you, wants to kiss you, wants to hold your hand. However, with hand holding he makes do with you simply holding his mouse. It’s not perfect, and sometimes he still gets sad that he can’t intertwine any fingers with yours, but he has resigned himself to his fate.

Sometimes he buys you things! If you look past the fact that he uses your money for that, it’s actually a really sweet gesture. Whatever you’re into, he’ll see if he can get a small trinket of it. Isn’t afraid to bargain with the vendors for better prices either. He’s well aware of the fact that he uses your money to buy you things and that you don’t have an infinite amount of cash, but he can’t help it. If he could, he’d wrap it up nicely and hide it somewhere easy for you to find so he could surprise you. Gets sad when he can’t do that. But you’re just so adorable when you got that nice lil plushie for a lower price than it was originally intended, which makes it all worth it. Always say thank you to Edgar, he tries his best. He doesn’t do it very often, but from time to time.

As you could probably guess, he tries to serenade you from time to time. Writes you songs with meaningful lyrics, even if those are kinda strange at times. Edgar doesn’t exactly understand every word there is, but that just makes it all the more charming. Will play those songs for you and even sing, even if he’d much rather have you singing instead. Doesn’t even matter if you sing like an angel or if your voice sounds terrible, he’ll always want to hear you sing. There’s no sound that resonates more with him than your singing voice. Sometimes he’ll also just play your favorite songs for the both of you to sing along to. Those are his favorite moments. Please get him a few terabytes of storage, he wants to do backups of his favorite moments with you so he’ll never forget them.

Has a love-hate relationship with you performing maintenance on him. On the one hand, he adores it. He loves nothing more than having your delicate hands roam around his components, replacing his RAM, replacing his thermal paste or giving him a more powerful CPU. You’re always so gentle and careful with him, he loves it. Plus he really likes the intimacy. However, as much as he loves those sorts of things, he hates it when you clean his motherboard with pressurized air. It makes him feel weird, plus the unintentional sparks that go through his busses don’t make anything better. Yes, it’s nice when you do it, but he’ll always try to talk you out of doing so. He’s a handsome computer, isn’t he? You just cleaned him last year, didn’t you? You don’t need to clean him, don’t worry! Sometimes he shuts down because he overheats since he got that dusty, though. Even he can’t deny that he needs to be cleaned then, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t hate it.

Loves playing video games with you! If you can play it together, then it’s all the better! He especially loves the games where he can pretend you’re married to each other. Edgar doesn’t understand the concept of marriage, for all he knows it’s just a small ritual you do when you really like each other, but he’ll always propose to you. Oh, you wanted to marry one of the bachelors or bachelorettes in Stardew Valley? Think again, honey. Not above cheating for a mermaid pendant either. As much as he loves farming for vegetables, he adores decorating your shared home. Will always get your opinion on where something should go. He just wants you to be cozy in-game. Plays your knight in shining armor in the mines. Because he’s a computer he always knows when and where the enemies are coming from, which is why he basically never gets hit. Protects you from the enemies and carries all the things you can’t carry anymore. As long as he gets to be useful to you, he’s happy.

If you get him a little wireless camera then he won’t be as demanding with being carried everywhere. Besides, he gets to see you too! Although he’ll still whine about wanting you to hug him, he’ll often just be distracted by your looks. Spends hours analyzing your appearance because you’re just the most aesthetically pleasing person around. Will sometimes draw you in one of his programs as well. It’s usually just you kissing his screen. Sometimes he shakes it up a little, though, and draws him in a more mobile or humanoid form holding you close. He sincerely believes that if he had a more humanoid body he’d be comfortable to cuddle. Edgar has never even once considered that his body would be made of metal and thus pretty hard. You can tell him that, but he’ll still coax you into cuddling him somehow. “Oh, love, don’t you want to hold me close? Do you want me to go into a state of depression?” He doesn’t know what depression really encompasses, but you can’t say no to him, he’s just too cute.

Overall, just give him a few kisses to his screen and there will be funny animations on it. It’s his version of twiddling with his fingers because he’s embarrassed.

[mintytrifecta]

Sorry but if you say you're "being realistic" or "seeing the world as it is" and then only spout of the negatives then you're not being realistic and your worldview will devour you whole. Pessimism is not realistic. There is no world void of joy and to believe that is to ignore the goodness in the world and only see things in an unrealistic, cynical perspective that is not and never will be how things are. Find some joy in the smallest of things or perish.

[chrissy-kaos]

Why.. why does this always happen to me 😭

[epickiya722]

Can't believe she was taken from us!! YOU'LL ALWAYS BE FAMOUS, STAR!! 😭🌟

[raptorrobot]

this answer from gianni's ama earlier today is making me tear up good lord

[fryday]

i think a lot about how coming out has changed the way dan talks about phil. the basic label he applies to them hasn't changed — he (generally) maintains they're best friends first and foremost. the thing that has changed is how dan focuses on describing the nature of their relationship now, rather than just pushing its status. like yeah, phil is his best friend — but that's not even the point anymore. the point is what phil means to him. he's his soulmate, life companion, fellow immortal being / 4,000-year-old tortoise chewing grass and watching the sunset with him, etc etc. the metaphors can be hilarious, but the point is that dan places more importance on the metaphors now and what they're fundamentally saying rather than anything else. so if you wanted to know at a glance, an equivalent of their facebook relationship status would read "best friends" — but give dan a minute more of your time and he'll want to tell you what that really means.

[domokunrainbowkinz]

not arguing w a dude that has big brown eyes. whatever u say beautiful

(I’m only on ch 29 no spoilers pls!!!!) go wild with spoilers I am now done the book and am extremely mentally unwell

[arotechno]

not "love is just chemicals in your brain" as in "love isn't real and doesn't matter," but "love is just chemicals in your brain" as in "love isn't any more special or pure than any other emotion"