#it's quite the tale

[sojournerdiraq]

Does anyone wanna hear me talk about why I love grilled cheese?

[barbelzoa]

A little indulgent treat for me- my wife and I as Harvest Moon/SoS characters! This was a fun style to try to emulate, though I'm not the best when it comes to regular graphic design... OTL

[hellsite-hall-of-ex-girlfriend]

does this hellsite have an award ceremony?

and more specifically, is there an award for "Cutest Tumblr Couple?"

i would like to formally submit my most beautiful Madame Curator and myself for this award

[bookshelf-in-progress]

For me, the best way to come up with an interesting Beauty and Beast retelling is to focus on the character dynamic between the main couple, especially if it's one you don't often see in retellings of this fairy tale, and especially if it gives Beauty traits that are often given to Beast, and vice versa.

Some of the dynamics I've found interesting are:

Beast is cheerful and talkative and Beauty is serious and introverted and cranky and can't stand him.

Beauty is a feral gremlin street urchin, and Beast is an extremely refined upper-crust gentleman who is worried that his curse might have to be broken by a woman who eats with her hands.

Beauty would marry Beast in a heartbeat just for his money, but Beast can't bring himself to propose to someone so disgustingly mercenary.

Beast is afraid of Beauty (while she doesn't fear him at all) because he thinks she's somehow in league with the enchantress who cursed him.

[ducktollers]

undying tales - red panda (1/15)

[jessenitrogen]

I DONT KNOW. I THINK IT WOULDVE BEEN SICK IF HE LOOKED MORE LIKE GAYLEN.

[migorify]

[hedgehog-moss]

My top 10 nonfiction reads of 2023 (the asterisked ones are in French with no translation as of yet) :

Belle Greene, Alexandra Lapierre

The Indomitable Marie-Antoinette, Simone Bertière

Reporter: A Memoir, Seymour Hersh

Red Carpet: Hollywood, China and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy, Erich Schwartzel

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, Patrick Keefe

Servir les riches, Alizée Delpierre*

La Comtesse Greffulhe : L’ombre des Guermantes, Laure Hillerin*

Le Courage de la nuance, Jean Birnbaum*

The Book Collectors of Daraya, Delphine Minoui

Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea's Feminist Movement, Hawon Jung

[hulloitsdani]

What do u think Kiran is

How do u think the order sees kiran

*slowly sits up in my chair*

I think Kiran is a very normal person. This is someone you and I have met before. Be that from the other side of grocery store cashier, waiting in the same elevator, or walking by on a crosswalk. Kiran is a civilian from our world trying to roll with the punches of being warped somewhere completely alien. And you can see it in how they conduct themselves.

I always have a lot of fun writing Kiran’s dialogue because their casual modern speech almost feels like a dialect in comparison to the more formal fantasy tone everyone else speaks with. An “ain’t” will never exit Alfonse’s mouth, you know? And there’s a difference in “Do you have gold?” vs “You got gold?” To me, this gives Kiran an air of unfamiliarity to anyone they interact with. Let’s use Grima as an example, because it doesn’t sound like this grammatical change would make much of difference until Kiran has the audacity to hit Grima with a bro mid sentence. But that’s just how they talk. And as sweet and friendly as they are, there’s always moments like that to remind that no one has the cultural context to fully understand Kiran. Except for the audience, who can realize that Kiran let the customer service voice drop to talk to Grima like he’s an actual person.

And that’s just about how they talk! This view is only emphasized by every other thing about them! They’re a lovable goof, which is normal chill person behavior in the audience’s eyes but feels REALLY ODD to the characters of FE’s medieval fantasy war setting. There is this air of unknown about them that the more socially perceptive will pick up on and will try to come to a conclusion about. Example, I imagine Soren would interpret a lot of this as a dangerous and deeply annoying lack of intelligence from someone he has the displeasure of sharing a tactics table with. Or looping back to the Grima example, he would totally think Kiran has greedy ulterior motives behind that pleasant facade. It takes a lot of work for those types to realize that the discrepancy present isn’t really any of those things. But I also wouldn’t be too surprised if Kiran doesn’t try to directly prove any of those assumptions wrong unless they have to.

Why? Well now it’s time for the implications! Oh how we love the implications.

Because the Summoner is a different story. No one has any fucking clue what that is.

I can tell you what Kiran has pieced together so far. Summoning people from across time and space is apparently not easy. It’s not some school of magical study that some mage could pull off with enough time and research. Trust, Eitri tried. It’s a lot of complex moving parts. For example, the contracts. The contracts Kiran automatically binds their summoned to don’t even compare to the ones Veronica used in book 1. They are far more intense and infinitely harder to break. The only way out of them is if Kiran wills it so. Not even death is an option, because Kiran can come in for the revive. If they had to guess, it’s an older, more completed version of the art. Something lost to time. But no matter the case, Kiran has the ability to take full control of whoever they manage to summon. From a lowly farmer to the divine. And their power only grows.

In a similar vein, if there was any character to canonically see the hud, I think it would be Kiran. It’s genuinely part of their power set. I have previously described Kiran as the party mage until Veronica shows up to be the actual mage, but it would be way more accurate to call them a mystic/seer. They see the map, everyone’s stats, and is doing a fast amount of math to give the combat forecast. Then, upon processing all this information their enemies couldn’t dream of having at their disposal, Kiran can telepathically communicate any change in plans to anyone under contract. Kiran is not inherently some great tactician the moment they touch ground in Askr; they simply can do things no one else can. They’re learning the actual tactics part on the fly. This makes them simultaneously the largest ace up the Order’s sleeve and potentially its biggest liability. If they fall, it could cause a whole system cascade. By that same token, some of the biggest threats the Order has faced are the ones who do their research and rightfully target Kiran.

Now. Thinking critically about all that. That’s downright terrifying. A ridiculous amount of power has been dropped callously into Kiran’s lap and they have to work extremely hard to be moral with it. It’s terrifyingly easy not to be. It would actively take less effort to ‘take the reins’ as it were. But in order to be able to sleep at night ever again, they go the extra mile to not invalidate the will of their summoned. To take over like that. To make a colony of worker bees out of people. Because oh dear god they just summoned a child and the fact that they could easily force them to fight and die for them, only to be revived and do it all over again, is HAUNTING. No. No the Order has an in house orphanage now. This kid is getting adopted and cared for god damnit or Kiran might just pop a blood vessel. And sure that child is going to be a child and there will never be a world where they get along with everyone else, but that’s just going to need be a problem they address when they get there and not an excuse to use Hubris; the power set. Now replace the word child with everyone they ever summoned and you have the wider philosophy they apply to the entire Order.

They’re hyper aware of the power imbalance. They hate it with every bone in their body. They work really hard to correct it in whatever way they can.

So Kiran might not jump on the opportunity to correct those who think lesser of them. It’s… oddly comforting to know someone is keeping a critical eye on them. Holding them accountable. Especially since so much of the order just thinks of them as this quirky yet well meaning host. And, really, what can they even do about that? They have gone over the contract with every hero they summon and despite that they still choose to stay. So, what, do they try to inspire more mistrust? The problem with that they would have to actually do acts that intentionally inspire mistrust. And even if that was successful they can’t just waste the extra man power because every other month there’s some new divine asshole who wants them all dead. And if they fail that means they have to start their life from square one and god they can’t do that again so—

Just breathe Kiran.

It’s fine. You’re fine. Just breathe.

You have work to do.

[ollierachnid]

Dale's smug little ordeal once he's arrested, which in itself feels orchestrated (loitering at the bus stop while he has a car, every note he owns crammed in cases, backpack like he's about to have a sleepover, longlegs outfit ON), stating his name and immediately asking for Lee. He knows they will inevitably be bought together. The weepy tone he uses with her that he doesn't with the prior interviewer... the single tear. You can never quite comprehend what's an act, what's an actual emotion, or if it's all so entwined it's basically negligible. Such a vessel for his religion that his attachment to Lee is undecipherable. Can a husk feel anything for anyone.? Is this an act, is it genuine? Does it matter. One million thoughts forever and ever.

[pilkypills]

DWARF IN THE SHIRE HELL YES

[earth-ambassador-jim]

Finished it! The Amulet of Daylight, folks.

[utdrmv-confession-box]

Transcript: Most aus called something and then tale don't have good names. it is better when it's under and then something.

[hellsite-hall-of-ex-girlfriend]

in honor of the Halloween month, i introduced my dear Madame Curator to my favorite scary story

i was shocked, appalled, and terrified to learn that she has never once in her life heard the words "man door hand hook car door"

[elvenechoes]

The boys, concocting the world's stupidest workout routine

And the girls, judging them

[gulava]

Riku comparing Xion to Sora in the Days novel: a compilation