#it used to be more of a joke

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

two hearts: one a clenched fist, the other a hand grenade

[inkskinned]

she's singing in another room and my dog is asleep at my feet. my grandma asked me why i haven't found a man yet and i laughed. oh, you know. i like my house clean.

my girlfriend is also my man is also "my partner" if i'm in a professional setting. yesterday we went to a ren faire and a man mimed at me - you're together? and at my delighted nod, his baffled, you're gay? made me laugh. a woman with rainbow hair said i love the two of you together. you're both so beautiful it's absurd.

my dad introduced my partner as my "..... friend. or whatever" the other day. he knows we're dating. in the same way, i was never able to get my sister's husband to stop saying that's gay like it's 2008. he still uses the word fa***t, and my sister's defense of him has always been well, he's just kidding.

my lover and i dance to old music in a tiny kitchen. we judge new music together and take food critique very seriously. we watch love is blind before we fall asleep and agree that if they had a queer season, it would be bloody but also make for excellent tv. of fucking course queer people would know someone for only 2 weeks and agree to get married. what are you saying.

at a bar with friends, a man puts his hand on my wrist. got a boyfriend? and yes, i do have a boyfriend, she's amazing. i am texting her while i wander around a gas station named after geese. i am visiting a swing state for a wedding. in the candy aisle i overhear: she's actually like a lesbian it's disgusting. two teenage girls with packaged sandwiches in their hands, giggling. no literally, like. i'm not, like. okay with her being there while we're all, like, naked and changing.

my girlfriend and i tailgate, drink gin and cider out of cups. from the frat group beside us, a man corrects himself with one of his friends: bro, i mean, nonbinary entity, and it makes everyone around him laugh, myself included. he razzes his friend the same way i would have killed for at 19 years old - like nothing happened, he continues: you apply sunscreen like an alien. he does a little sassy (and fairly accurate) dance interpretation of the motion. his friend is laughing so hard they're crying.

i am lucky, i live in a safe neighborhood in a safe state. my masc passenger princess comes up from DC. i drive her for an hour to where all the leaves are a violent arrangement of color. we walk along the trails, letting autumn into our blood. in this part of the state, there's a lot of pickup trucks and trump signs. when we chastely kiss before getting into the car, i accidentally make eye contact with a woman holding her child's wrist. she looks disgusted. she looks fucking pissed.

two hours later my girl and i are eating dinner on a patio, soaking in the last warmth of new england sun before the chill of winter sets in. we are giggling and trying to talk through plastic vampire teeth. at another table, i see a young woman sit up straighter. i watch her watch us. she blushes and takes her partner's hand from across the table. shy, like the taste of evening has just become something deeper.

it's worth it for this moment, i think. my lover is still humming the same song she's been singing for four days straight and i don't want to kill her for it. her guitar is beside my bed. her toothbrush is in my bathroom. in a few moments i will make us lunch. we are lucky enough to have found each other. it is lucky enough to be in love.

[chloesimaginationthings]

Michael doesn’t like Halloween anymore in FNAF..

[bet-on-me-13]

The cult of...Danny Fenton?

So! Way back when Danny first moved into his new neighborhood in Gotham, he had some trouble controlling his Powers. The different Types and Levels of Ectoplasm in the air when compared to Amity had thrown off his control.

He was used to being in places where his Ectoplasm meshed well with the Atmosphere, like a Water Balloon in a Pool, but in Gotham that analogy would be closer to a Water Balloon in the sewers. It was too different from what he was used to to fully control his Powers.

So it's understandable that he messed up a few times and his neighbors found out about his Abilities.

They took it well at first, Danny wasn't going to go Rogues or anything, and he never used them maliciously, but eventually they got curious.

They asked what his limits were, how he got them in the first place, and what the hell the Ghost Zone was. The answers "None Really", "I died and was reborn", and "A Collective of every Afterlife at once" did spark some interesting reactions from them.

Most importantly, a few of them joked about him being an Eldritch God that they needed to worship. He was good enough friends with them that at that point they felt comfortable pranking eachother, so they did just that.

Danny woke up one day on his birthday, and saw all of his friends and neighbors surrounding the makeshift Throne they had made and put him on while he was asleep. The entire day they chanted stuff like "The Great One requires Ms. Smiths Apple Pie for his day of birth!" And "The Great One Wishes for us to sing the Ritual Song! Happy Birthday to You! Happy Birth-"

After his birthday, they kept up the joke.

It didn't help that his powers had evolved Again! And now he could bestow abilities onto his friends. The jokes they made about their God granting them Supernatural Powers to rule the world with were insufferable.

Then, one day while he was just resting at home, watching a movie on his TV, he felt a Pull at his Core. The same kind of Pull whenever he was being summoned. But why would they summon hi- Oh Shit! It's Mr Jenkins Party today! He was supposed to meet them at the Warehouse they used for special events an Hour Ago!

He quickly accepted the Summoning, but was met with a suprising sight. His Neighbors all tied up in a pile to his right, a spilled table of party food to his left, and right in front of him, Batman and his Family watching him with wary eyes.

Slowly, he opened his mouth. "...so, did you come for the party or..."

[what-am-i-doing-in-this-fandom]

Yeah, I don't know about you, Fidds, but I'd fold at this 🙏

Previous!!

Next!!

First!!

[thunderboltfire]

I spent definitely too much time pondering over unfortunate double meaning of the consume option on soap XD (wersja PL)

[iwasbored777]

The guy at the bar: Are you two gonna fuck or fight?

Wade and Logan, few hours later:

[catshinji]

hmm.

[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.

[egophiliac]

So I was doing some math, and I THINK Skully is almost as tall as Malleus without his horns

I think the main reference to his height is Epel being surprised they're the same age because he's taller than Sebek, yes? which I find interesting, considering Jade and Malleus -- two of the tallest guys in the main cast -- are also there. and, since I've never been one to not think waaaay too much about the absolute stupidest minutiae about fictional characters, I see two possibilities:

one is that Epel is extremely good at eyeballing heights (I actually do feel like he could be? like. I'd believe he can estimate someone's height fairly accurately by calculating based on the life stages of an apple tree, or how many apples tall they are, or something else apple-related like that.) and Scully does, perhaps, fall into that narrow margin between Sebek and Jade in height.

OR two, out of the three certified Tall Guys there, Sebek is Epel's main frame of reference because he's the only one he's had any real interaction with for, let's be fair, pretty obvious reasons.

SO in conclusion, we still have no concrete answers and will probably have to wait until next year when we get his card profile, alas alas. 😔

[largemandrill]

I made another one

[anbaisai]

local octopus shot on sight

Bonus of said prefect:

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I hope you take this as the compliment it is intended to be, but you strike the same chord of irreverence-as-love, jokes-to-showcase-sencerity that I get from Chuck Tingle, and I adore both of you.

You have bestowed the greatest honour upon me.

[chasiufan]

Nobody’s gonna buy ur 599$ marketable plushie stop tryna sell it to us -_-

[bicheetopuff]

Horikoshi please I beg, even if you don’t release another manga, GIVE US A HARD COPY OF THIS SCRAP BOOK. I DONT CARE WHO DRAWS IT, I JUST NEED TO KNOW WHATS IN IT

[bubblybloob]

I find it very funny that supposedly every time our voices bicker and argue, the princess is just left there, totally unaware.

She seemingly acknowledges this too! After a while of back and forth in our mind, she’ll pipe up because she’s noticed we’ve gotten lost in our thoughts. She must think we have trouble with zoning out. She’s not necessarily wrong, I guess.