#be as they once were

[aestheticitii]

so i was going through book 6, in search of ash and embla crumbs, but found this:

Askr: Long ago, Embla and I both granted our power to mortals so that they might use those powers to flourish. We selected different peoples. I chose those born in what is now called Askr. She, of course, chose those born in what is now Embla... And for a time, the two peoples lived separately from each other, and they were content. Bruno: Then...why? Askr: It all started with a simple misunderstanding. Some of the Emblian people came to Askr. They were attracted by the way open exchange was valued there. This, however...enraged Embla. Bruno: ... Askr: She believed those people chose to desert her in favor Askr, and she could not forgive that. Her people, of course, had no such feelings... But she refused to believe anything they said. Embla forbade her people to leave to other worlds. Anyone who did not obey was punished, severely. The people grew to fear Embla, and the number that fled from her only grew... Bruno: ...Naturally. Askr: I know she was deeply hurt, and that hurt only grew deeper... Everyone left her, and she was completely alone... I cannot begin to imagine her pain. I offered to help her, but she met me with hatred and refused. There was nothing I could do. In the end, Embla used her power to completely close off her world. That way, those people who were still with her would no longer have even the possibility of leaving. Then she took control of their very hearts and turned them to her will so there was no chance of betrayal...

so according to askr, the timeline is:

emblians come to askr -> embla overreacts and overcorrects -> askr tries to get her to stand down -> she starts harming mortals

but according to the flashbacks we see from embla, the timeline is:

embla gives aid to the emblians -> one of them attacks her all of a sudden, giving her the shock of her life -> she goes to askr to convince him to step away but he refuses -> she goes beserk

both of them could be entirely unreliable on what actually went down. because embla's flashbacks are basically some of the most important moments in her life, while askr has always been inclined to give mortals the benefit of the doubt.

(of course, it could just be a last minute addition)

but when exactly does embla's scare with death happen?

because it could completely change the context of why she did those things

option 1: if they went to askr first, they saw how askr had open exchange, one mortal attacked embla because she got mad or maybe just because they felt cheated, she forbade them all from leaving, things escalated option 2: a mortal attacked her first, then some folks went to askr, which prompted embla to forbid them from potentially causing harm to askr option 3: they went askr, she did actually overreact and forbid them from going, then one mortal tried to kill her, and then she overreacted even more

but like idk if it's just me, but i feel like reaction no. 3 is kind of weird. elm's wording is pretty strange. sure he's an unreliable narrator who hates mortals, but he also explicitly tells her that they'll hate her if she starts killing them, as if they don't hate her right now

so they didn't hate her then?

this is his line:

Elm: But if you kill them, the mortals are sure to spread rumors about you, to sow fear and vile intent... Even those who now love you dearly will retreat from you... If you would, please reconsider, Lady Embla.

like, what does that mean?? because askr seems to think that her punishments drove them all away, but if we believe elm at face value, this is before that. like he's sort of saying, the ones who are innately cruel and/or don't care for embla as much will sow fear, until even her most devoted mortals will leave her?

so if we believe elm. then her shutting down the border is in active response to the incident?

and did she tell askr what happened exactly? because embla in the english version never says that a mortal tried to kill her. only that they'll betray him, even though he puts in so much energy for them. and in jp, she uses the word for betrayal/double-crossing but i'm not sure if it has connotations of death.

so did askr think she was just being her gloomy self?

especially considering she wasn't very enthused about helping them and only really did it because of askr.

and embla implicitly says that her motivation is to ensure that askr is safe. that he doesn't end up betrayed. and she only sets it into motion after askr refuses her, and it doesn't seem to be prompted by a desire to keep them by her side.

Embla: So, this is the true face of these mortal beasts... Of course it is. There will be those who come for Askr's life as well... They will betray the trust he places in them so blindly. And this is all the proof I need. Elm: Right you are. But even so... Embla: ...I must kill them.

like does that look like the thought process of a yandere (for mortals) to you? if anything, she's lowkey yan for askr.

(only lowkey, because i'm sure self-preservation plays a role as well)

and clearly, the part about her killing them and askr confronting her for it has to be the "punishment" for trying to leave and him offering to help her, but her "meeting him with hatred."

could it be that he simply assumed the betrayal was them approaching him, when it was actually the murder attempt? and that when she was talking about him being betrayed, she was saying they'd turn their back on him and be ungrateful? especially since that sounds like something she'd say

plus, this is a very weird reaction for someone who wants to kill mortals because of her fear that they'll betray askr as well and hurt her again

Enough, enough, ENOUGH! Get out from my sight! If the mortals love you so, then so be it! They detest me. May they all seek your company and be happy—and leave me alone. Wretched! All of you!

elm told her this would happen, so why is she surprised? this feels kind of different from when she knew how askr would act and was still in disbelief that he let himself die.

like, maybe i'm digging too much into this, but could it be that the fact that askr starts of the conversation worried about mortals sets her off? she even tells him off for calling their lives precious.

i don't doubt that askr was right on the money about her still caring about mortals. i also don't doubt that he was genuinely concerned about her as well.

and i don't hold it against him, but it feels like that wasn't what she needed to hear, which is why she spiraled further.

the whole problem was that embla was at a point that she felt she could only trust her kind (elm and askr), but askr was consistently betraying her expectations in favor of mortals

like, i suspect the only reason she brings up the mortals leaving her is because askr's convinced that her attachment issues to them are the problem.

it's a mix of the fact that she was attacked first, that they all go to askr when they could pose a threat to him, which freaks her out, and askr's continued insistence on trusting them.

(i do, however, think that this line from her playable self does actually refer to mortals.

The mortals chose Askr. All of them. Over me...

though it does seem out of place, there's just no way to finagle that as her actually talking about askr. i think this is just a result of her having had centuries to mull the events over in her head.

and i say out of place because she also says this:

Mortals once loved me as they do Askr… I had no choice.

so like she knows she drove them off, but she still says the prior line? which further plays into the idea of her wanting protect herself and protect askr?

honestly, the first line might just be in reference to the fact that no one stopped to try and figure out why she was going beserk when she'd been a perfectly benevolent person before then and just ran to askr.

they basically discarded her, which makes sense because it's very much like when you go to dad when mom's mad, but embla just didn't see it that way because she also holds a grudge against them and so paints them in a terrible light and refuses to empathize with them.

because again, if we believe elm, everything was fine and dandy up to that point and he was able to manipulate letizia, so i have some faith in his words)

because i genuinely don't think askr would gloss over a murder attempt in the way he gently refutes her concern. like it's certainly possible a mortal could get a fatal hit in on her or injure her gravely. i think he'd take that much more seriously, which further makes me think he just had no idea

in conclusion: miscommunication just doomed two entire kingdoms

[gibbearish]

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

[doom-dreaming]

"when i was your age, i was working three jobs to help support my family" and "when i was in college i was sleeping on a mattress on the floor and living off of soup"

YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO DO THAT. NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO DO THAT. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN TO YOU THAT THIS ISN'T A CHARACTER-BUILDING LESSON, IT'S JUST BAD

[daisywords]

One of my biggest nitpicks in fiction concerns the feeding of babies. Mothers dying during/shortly after childbirth or the baby being separated form the mother shortly after birth is pretty common in fiction. It is/was also common enough in real life, which is why I think a lot of writers/readers don't think too hard about this. however. Historically, the only reason the vast majority of babies survived being separated from their mother was because there was at least one other woman around to breastfeed them. Before modern formula, yes, people did use other substitutes, but they were rarely, if ever, nutritionally sufficient.

Newborns can't eat adult food. They can't really survive on animal milk. If your story takes place in a world before/without formula, a baby separated from its mother is going to either be nursed by someone else, or starve.

It doesn't have to be a huge plot point, but idk at least don't explicitly describe the situation as excluding the possibility of a wetnurse. "The father or the great grandmother or the neighbor man or the older sibling took and raised the baby completely alone in a cave for a year." Nope. That baby is dead I'm sorry. "The baby was kidnapped shortly after birth by a wizard and hidden away in a secret tower" um quick question was the wizard lactating? "The mother refused to see or touch her child after birth so the baby was left to the care of the ailing grandfather" the grandfather who made the necessary arrangements with women in the neighborhood, right? right? OR THAT GREAT OFFENDER "A newborn baby was left on the doorstep and they brought it in and took care of it no issues" What Are You Going to Feed That Baby. Hello?

Like. It's not impossible, but arrangements are going to have to be made. There are some logistics.

[borgevino]

the allergy i am seeing grow up around small talk in any form is troubling to me. do you know how to make friends with people in your physical environment? it typically starts with small talk. do you want to live in community? small talk. do you want to have the type of relationship with your neighbors where you can run over and borrow a battery for your smoke detector when it starts beeping at 10pm? small talk!! do you want leeway from your coworkers when you fuck up something small? you gotta be able to build a relationship and that's small talk, baybeee.

"but i don't need friends and i don't care about community!" okay, lone ranger, what about the people in your community who need you? "but i have social anxiety!" me too, bud! we simply must soldier on. making up lists of questions to ask people helps. and people are predisposed to be generous, i've found. even if you make some kind of mistake, what is this but the natural give and take of human interaction? nobody is perfect.

you were not put on this earth to live by yourself and then die. you need people and people need you. treat those around you with curiosity and generousness of spirit and you will gain so much goodwill in return.

[fandomsandfeminism]

Yall wanna hear a kinda funny, kinda sad story about my grandmother and hetero-normativity?

Ok, so... when my grandmother was in her 50s (I was an infant), she met a woman at the Unitarian Church. And, as can happen when you meet your soul mate, this event made it impossible for her to deny parts of herself that she had fiercely hidden her whole life.

All the drama- their affair being found out, the divorce with my grandfather, the court battle over who got the house, happened while I was a baby. Even in my earliest memories, it's just Mama Jo and Oma, and my grandfather lived elsewhere (first his own apartment, then a nursing home, then with us.)

But here's the thing- no one ever explained any of this to me. No one ever sat down and was like "hey, Rosie, so do you know what a lesbian is?" It was the 90s. It was Texas. I think my mom was still kinda processing all this, and just assumed that like... I was gonna figure it out. Don't mention it, let it just be normal. Like I think my mom thought that if she explained the situation, she would be making it weird? I dunno.

But like. In the 90s, in all the movies I had seen and books I had read, do you know how many same sex couples I had seen? Like. 0. Do you know how many "platonic best friend/roommates" I had seen? A lot. I had no context, is what I'm saying.

I literally thought this was a Golden Girls, roommates, besties situation until I was like...I dunno, 11? 12?

It was actually their parrot, an African Grey named Spike, imitating my grandmothers voice saying "Johanna, honey, it's getting late", that triggered the MIND BLOWN moment as I realized that *there's only one master bedroom and it only has 1 waterbed* when all the pieces finally clicked.

Anyway. I think it's a real important thing for kids to know queer people exist, for a lot of reasons, but also because kids can be clueless and it's embarrassing to have your grandmother be outted by a parrot because everyone just thought you'd figure it out on your own.

Anyway, here is my grandma and her wife, my Oma, after they moved to Albuquerque to be artsy gay cowboys and live their best life. They helped run a "Lesbian Dude Ranch" out there (basically just with funding and financial support. As Oma has explained "traditionally, most lesbians don't have a lot of money" so they wrote the checks and let the younger ladies actually run the ranch.)

[pangur-and-grim]

look at that transformation! well done, Belphie, you’ve defeated death!

[guardian-of-soho]

Still stuck on how Aziraphale ate that meat like he was starving. Like he’d been starved for millennia, and he hadn’t even known it, because he’d never once been fed. But we know they don’t have to eat (nor sleep, etc.), so what he’d been starved for is pleasure. Being present in his body, feeling the joys and longings it could feel. Understanding what taste buds were made for. He hadn’t known; he’d never learned to miss it.

Now imagine what a kiss has done to him.

[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.

[heph]

A Moment in Time - Dearly Missed

[bixels]

End-of-Splatoon thoughts.

Thinking about how since the very start, Splatoon has had a feature where players can draw and post artwork and spot them as graffiti on walls or billboards. Or how the weapons have always been paint brushes and rollers and ballpoint pens. Since its inception, Splatoon has been dedicated to engaging its players with the act of creation and creative expression, showing them how their art can build communities and (literally) change the world.

Thinking about finding golden human-made music discs buried underground for thousands of years, and a grand finale music festival. About the Voyager Golden Records. About those human handprints etched into concrete in Alterna. Did those human artists know it would end like this? First a fiery death and then, eventually, a worldwide celebration of music to represent our shared past, present, and future. Did they know that their songs, insignificant in the face of extinction, would one day become the solution that will save the next dominant life-form from the same fate?

Thinking about how eerily similar the Octarian domes are to Alterna. About how close Inklings and Octolings were to repeating the same mistakes as humans. But their doomed fates were undone not by some miracle technology or military power or a rocket, but by music.

Thinking about how humans wiped themselves out with war, and our parting gifts were liquid crystals that somehow paired with the DNA of primeval inklings and somehow infused them with our memories and culture and a Song. And 12,000 years in the future, that same Song will end a war.

Thinking about how art and music and punk culture and rock & roll and friendly competition and petty arguments and water guns aren’t uniquely human concepts, but the fundamental qualities of intelligent life. An inheritable spirit that can cross evolutionary bounds.

Thinking about the theme of Splatoon, that art and music and fun will not die with the human race. That every piece of art we create is a seed we sow for future generations to reap. That our legacy is ingrained into the crust of the earth. That long after we’re gone, the oceans will remember, and they’ll pick up where we left off.

Thinking about how Splatoon says that the essence of humanity –– the thing that will outlive us –– isn't war or prejudice or destruction or greed, it's a song.

[akanemnon]

I don't like this place. It's turning everyone edgy and sad.

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[theworstcwshow]

Not enough credit is giving to the ghost facers who managed to predict the future and legacy of supernatural with their "gay love will pierce the veil and save the day"

[hinamie]

spiraling

[just-an-enby-lemon]

The thing about jonmartin is that Martin wants to be a romantic, he loves poetry and probably watches romance but for him it is a fantasy, a silly game he plays. Martin is at his core very cynical. Things don't work out for him so he doesn't really belive in romance, it is a pretty dream but that's it. He is pratical and realist. Dating Jon he has to remind himself it is real and he actually struggles with romantic gestures, it is something he has to remind himself to do, to remind himself he can do even and honestly who even has the energy and what if Jon doesn't even like it?

Jon on the other hand wants to be cynical. His first coping mechanism was pretend the things he was afraid of weren't real and goddam if he isn't afraid of love. It didn't really work to him so far so it's easy to pretend he doesn't care. But he is a romantic at heart. He saw love and he read about it and he has enough evidence that it is undeniable. And to be honest Jon was always to much a bunch of mushy feelings hidden in a grumpy (and bitter and afraid) trench coat. Dating Martin he has to hold himself so he isn't too much. He plays the grumpy unromantic guy at first. But he just can't stop giving flowers and planing dates (this is the guy that saw a theme park on a fear domain and considered how he wanted to take Martin to a romantic ferris whell date [until he discovered Martin was afraid of them]) and making all the silly things one does when in love.

TR: Martin is deep down very cynical about love but wants to/pretends to be a romantic and Jon is deep down very romantic but wants to/pretends to be cynical about love.

[soepwashere]

Some tiny people came over and hung out with my dog

Version of the first photo without motion blur below the cut!