#let alone the king of them all

[subehind]

Keigo saves lives

(Keigo being the system of humble/polite/honorific speech in Japanese)

A several times already I stumbled upon a posts saying this is the one thing they cannot forgive Sukuna.

Fucker burns down half of Shibuya and this is what overcooks your pasta? Smh

Anyway, he was right to be insulted by the twins‘ request and you know why?

Because the phrasing of the request was shit.

The level of politeness they used was basic at best and lazy at worst. The form (koroshi)te kudasai is a grammar form you learn fairly early on just to not sound like a complete degenerate, but you only use it casually with people you know. A cashier would not use it towards a customer, business partners would not use it towards each other. That's how basic and lazy it is.

And these two said it to a king. When asking for something that benefits them and burdens him. Fuckin' hell, like what were they expecting? Them kneeling, head on the floor and saying *this* is the linguistic equivalent of wearing a ball gown with sneakers.

And it's also clear they know how to speak properly, because a moment later they one says "o oshie shimasu" (for "we'll tell you"). That's a humble form, that's proper given the circumstances.

THEN WHY THE HELL DID THEY GO WITH THE BASIC FORM WHEN ASKING FOR THE FAVOUR IN THE FIRST PLACE!

It's laughable. And it is an insult not only to Sukuna, but also to all the Japanese language learners, who spend hours writing a formal e-mail trying to get it as right and polite as possible, because there is so much you can fuck up it is an excuse to do a tequila shot in 10 am. They were stupid and they had it coming because they should have known better. Sukuna would probably still kill them anyway, but at least they would not have embarrass themselves as they did.

Why not just straight up tell him "korose" as if he were dog.

So next time, ladies, go for something better. Such as "koroshite kudasaimasen ka", "koroshite itadakemasen ka", "koroshite itadakenai deshō ka" or "koroshite itadaitemo yoroshī deshō ka" (and the list goes on and on and on). Hell, even "okoroshi kudasai" would have been better then this disgrace of a politeness. A big difference is the "ka" at the end, which makes it grammatically a question (=> request), not an order.

Remember, kids, when speaking in Japanese - the longer, the more polite. And when talking to this asshole, you might wanna take it up a notch.

[mirrorhouse]

"after what you've put me through here i deserve this" armand says about killing the crying, exhausted boy in his arms and it's not about a meal or cleaning up the mess, really, it's about how this boy's been brought to the edge of accepting death; he's right there, longing for it, and armand can give it. and while he gives it, he feels it too. armand has been drowning for centuries, but he keeps himself afloat this way, by tasting death and feeling just the smallest respite, chasing his victims' slowing heartbeats right down into the dark until he backs away at the last moment. "the comfort we all long for." the comfort armand longs for -- the end.

[wlwaerith]

i’m aware i’m 100% alone in this, but i genuinely adore ascended astarion (especially when romanced) because of how—frankly—horrific it is. it’s simultaneously so cathartic in its brutality but so unsatisfying personally while managing to be narratively satisfying (just as his other outcome is, of course).

[crownedwille]

.

[acourtofquestions]

Rowaelin Chapter 41 Kingdom of Ash:

She'd rebuild it—what she had been.

Perhaps one last time, perhaps only for a little while, but she'd do it. If only for Terrasen.

Rowan swooped from the mast, shifting as he reached her side at the rail. He surveyed the night-black sea beyond them. "You should rest." She slid him a glance. "I'm not tired." Not a lie, not in some regards. "Want to spar?" He frowned. "Training can start tomorrow."

"Or tonight." She held his piercing stare, matched his dominance with her own.

"It can wait a few hours, Aelin."

"Every day counts." Against Erawan, even a day of training would count.

Rowan's jaw tightened. "True," he said at last. "But it can still wait. There are ... there are things we need to discuss." The silent words rose in his animal-bright eyes. About you and me.

Her mouth went dry. But Aelin nodded In silence, they strode into their spacious quarters, its only decoration the wall of windows that overlooked the churning sea behind them. A far cry from a queen's chamber, or any she might have purchased as Adarlan's assassin.

At least the bed built into the wall looked clean enough, the sheets crisp and stainless. But Aelin headed for the oak desk anchored to the floor, and leaned against it while Rowan shut the door.

In the dim lantern light, they stared at each other.

She'd endured Maeve and Cairn; she'd endured Endovier and countless other horrors and losses. She could have this conversation with him. The first step toward rebuilding herself.

Aelin knew Rowan could hear her thundering heart as the space between them went taut. She swallowed once. "Elide and Lorcan told you... told you everything that was said on that beach."

A curt nod, wariness flooding his eyes. "Everything that Maeve said." Another nod.

She braced herself. "That I'm-we're mates."

Understanding and something like relief replaced that wariness. "Yes."

"I'm your mate," she said, needing to voice it. "And you are mine."

Rowan crossed the room, but halted a few feet from the desk on which she leaned. "What of it, Aelin?" His question was low, rough.

"Don't you..." She scrubbed at her face. "You know what she did to you, to ..." She couldn't say her name. Lyria. "Because of it."

"I do know."

"And?"

"And what do you wish me to say?"

She pushed off the desk. "I wish you to tell me how you feel about it. If…"

"If what?"

"If you wish it wasn't so."

His brows narrowed. "Why would I ever wish that?"

She shook her head, unable to answer, and stared over her shoulder toward the sea.

It seemed like he would close the distance between them, but he remained where he was.

"Aelin." His voice turned hoarse. "Aelin."

She looked at him then, at the pain in his words.

"Do you know what I wish?" He exposed his palms, one tattooed, the other unmarked. "I wish that you had told me. When you realized it. I wish you had told me then."

She swallowed against the ache in her throat. "I didn't want to hurt you."

"Why would it ever hurt me to know the truth that was already in my heart? The truth I hoped for?"

"I didn't understand it. I didn't understand how it was possible. I thought maybe ... maybe you might be able to have two mates within a lifetime, but even then, I just ….." She blew out a breath. "I didn't want you to be distressed." His eyes softened. "Do I regret that Lyria was dragged into this, that the cost of Maeve's game was her life, and the life of the child we might have had? Yes. I regret that, and I wish it had never happened." He would bear the tattoo to remember it for the rest of his days. "But none of that was your fault. I will always carry some of the burden of it, always know I chose to leave her for war and glory, and that I played right into Maeve's hands."

"Maeve wanted to ensnare you to get to me, though."

"Then it is her choice, not yours."

Aelin ran a hand over the worn wood of the desk. "In those illusions she spun for me, she showed me variations on one more than all the others." The words were strained, but she forced them out. Forced herself to look at him. "She spun me one dreamscape that felt so real I could smell the wind off the Staghorns."

"What did she show you?" A breathless question.

Aelin had to swallow before she could answer. "She showed me what might have been—if there had been no Erawan, if Elena had dealt with him properly and banished him. If there had been no Lyria, none of that pain or despair you endured. She showed me Terrasen as it would have been today, with my father as king, and my childhood happy, and..." Her lips wobbled. "When I turned twenty, you came with a delegation of Fae to Terrasen, to make amends for the rift between my mother and Maeve. And you and I took one look at each other in my father's throne room, and we knew."

She didn't fight the stinging in her eyes. "I wanted to believe that was the true world. That this was the nightmare from which I'd awaken. I wanted to believe that there was a place where you and I had never known this suffering and loss, where we'd take one look at each other and know we were mates. Maeve told me she could make it so. If I gave her the keys, she'd make it all possible." She wiped at her cheek, at the tear that escaped down it. "She spun me realities where you were dead, where you'd been killed by Erawan and only in handing over the keys to her would I be able to avenge you. But those realities made me ... I stopped being useful to her when she told me you were gone. She couldn't get me to talk, to think. Yet in the ones where you and I met, where things were as they should have been ... that was when I came the closest."

His swallow was audible. "What stopped you?"

She wiped at her face again. "The male I fell in love with was you. It was you, who knew pain as I did, and who walked with me through it, back to the light. Maeve didn't understand that. That even if she could create that perfect world, it wouldn't be you with me. And I'd never trade that, trade this. Not for anything." He extended his hand. An offer and invitation.

Aelin laid hers atop his, and his callused fingers squeezed gently. "I wanted it to be you," he breathed, closing his eyes. "For months and months, even in Wendlyn, I wondered why you weren't my mate instead. It tore me up, wondering it, but I still did." He opened his eyes, and they burned like green fire. "All this time, I wanted it to be you."

She lowered her gaze, but he hooked a thumb and forefinger around her chin and lifted her face.

"I know you are tired, Fireheart. I know that the burden on your shoulders is more than anyone should endure." He took their joined hands and laid them on his heart. "But we'll face this together. Erawan, the Lock, all of it.

"We'll face it together. And when we are done, when you Settle, we will have a thousand years together. Longer."

A small sound came out of her. "Elena said the Lock requires—"

"We'll face it together," he swore again.

"And if the cost of it truly is you, then we'll pay it together. As one soul in two bodies.

Her heart strained to the point of cleaving. "Terrasen needs a king."

"I have no intention of ruling Terrasen without you. Aedion can have the job."

She scanned his face. He meant every word He brushed the hair from her face, his other hand still clasping hers to his chest, where his heart pounded a steady, unfaltering rhythm.

"Even if I had my choice of any dream-realities, any perfect illusions, I would still choose you, too."

She felt the truth of his words echo into the unbreakable thing that bound their very souls, and tilted her face up toward his. But he made no move beyond it.

She frowned. "Why aren't you kissing me?"

"I thought you might want to be asked first."

"That never stopped you before."

"This first time, I wanted to make sure you were ... ready." After Cairn and Maeve. After months of having no choices whatsoever.

She smiled despite that truth. "I'm ready to be kissed again, Prince."

He let out a dark chuckle and muttered, "Thank the gods," before he lowered his mouth to hers.

"You're my mate." Her words were a breathless rush. "And I am yours."

The world might have been burning around them for all she cared, all he cared, too.

"Together, Aelin," he promised, and she heard the rest of the words in every place their bodies joined. Together they would face this, together they would find a way.

Together we'll find a way, their mingling breaths, the crashing sea, seemed to echo.

Together.

[allmyandroids]

needed to gif this scene because how Lee Woods jumped onto that guy with the best smirk ever was so hot, he should do it more often tbh

[visionkept]

tomo looking up at the sky, admiring the stars at night and whispering to them ❝ please, don't forget me - not you. ❞

[maddreax]

I can't take it anymore *dumps fic snippets*

[blueskittlesart]

Hi! As someone who now kinda wants to check out Trigun because of the hype, do you recommend that I can start with Stampede? Or do I really need to watch the OG anime first to better understand/enjoy it? Thank you! 🙋🏻‍♀️

you can start with stampede! i'd say knowing the context of the original enhances the experience but isn't necessary to enjoy the show. I would consider stampede more viewer-friendly, especially for those of us who are used to modern storytelling conventions (the original suffers the consequences of general writing trends in anime at the time it was produced and of the fact that it was produced long before the manga was finished, so the story is somewhat disjointed and has a lot of filler which makes it REALLY hard to get into.) if you do end up liking stampede, however, I'd suggest trying out watching at least SOME of the original because it adds a lot of cool nuance and context to the story that stampede tells!

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Hey uh, quick question, was it ever explained what the fuck Mal did as Lady of the Court or

[redmiller]

i do really love how your choices from other da games affect inquisition so much because it turned my warden and alistair’s love story into a horrible tragedy against my will

[extrasfromthevoid]

Oracle Trance -- Caught in The Moirai's Threads

I haven’t talked a lot about Milo’s power of clairvoyance yet, which is as shame because it’s such an integral part of her character! So many of her choices and so much of her personality are informed by this power, for better or worse

So.

Milo has foreseen the return of The Shredder since she was a literal infant. And as a literal infant, Milo couldn’t exactly articulate what it was about her “dreams” that distressed her so much. She woke up crying a lot, which her birth parents hated greatly because to an outside perspective, it seemed like she cried for no reason.

Those visions got graphic. As in, “experience the brutal deaths of yourself, your loved ones, and the entire world” levels of graphic. Her visions are primarily visual and tactile (you know how sometimes if you get hurt in a dream, you not only feel it in the dream but you get this weird phantom feeling where you got hurt when you wake up ? It’s basically that). When Milo was young, the content of the visions were poorly defined. Anything but the MAIN subject of the vision would be hazy shapes and blobs of color. This changes as she grows older and grows more in tune with her power.

The way it works is that Milo can perceive the unwoven threads of time and chance. Each thread represents a possible outcome and is made up of hundreds of thousands of variables. The aesthetic for time that I'm going for is--obviously--that of woven fabric.

The past is the pattern that's already been woven.

The present is what is currently being added to the overall fabric.

The future is the threads that have yet to be added and incorporated.

For her part, Milo can only see the unwoven threads.

Since there's so many loose threads and possibilities, it's easy for Milo to get "snagged" in them and have to view these futures continuously until she untangles her consciousness from these endless possible futures. This is what a waking vision (or an oracle trance) ultimately is. While in this state, if people ask Milo questions pertaining to the future, the threads with the answers to those questions become magnetized to her (like static, really), and only serves to entangle her further and make it harder and more difficult for Milo to separate her consciousness from her power. In fact, it would be insanely easy for Milo to get permanently stuck in this state because the threads of possibility she gets entangled in are unbreakable, so the only way out is to untangle herself (and anyone who's ever worked with thread or yarn knows how easily a Gordian Knot can form when you least want it).

What's more, being in a waking vision/oracle trance is not unlike having sleep paralysis. She's still somewhat conscious, her visions projecting themselves to her on her surroundings, but her thoughts outside her visions are sluggish--unable to fully divorce the visions from reality as she would normally--and her body is fully paralyzed.

(Eternity trapped in a waking vision is an unfortunate fate that many oracles have fallen prey to as in most cases, the people around them would value access to their power over them as people.)

The best way to deal with waking visions is for Milo to be left alone with minimal stimulation, so she can untangle herself in peace. The process can still take a while depending on how tangled she is, but it usually takes at least two days.

Milo gets her visions when she sleeps, though they don't happen every time she sleeps. She generally can sense when a vision is coming, especially if it's going to be very intense (those ones are proceeded with what Milo has dubbed "prelude migraines"). She doesn't have much control over what her visions show her, but the things that she thinks of most can influence them. And since Milo thinks a lot about The Shredder's return and keeping her family safe, these things feature frequently.

Being exposed to abrupt stimulus during these visions is what triggers a waking vision/oracle trance.

(Her brothers learned that the hard way when they were young. After experiencing one of Milo's waking visions for the first time, they collectively became pretty protective of her when they know she's having visions now that they are aware of just how vulnerable she is during this time)

ALSO

I've finally decided on what Milo's true origins (i.e. pre-Draxum origins) are! I've mostly been defaulting to my crossover origins, but I figured one out that is no crossover required!

(I'm still keeping Milo's universe DC adjacent because I have some very specific funny references I want to include)

So. Where did Milo come from? Why does she have such a frankly OP/meta power from birth?

Well...what race of people do we know of from the TMNT universe that collectively have mystical time powers and mysterious origins?

Time Masters, babyyy~~

[deneveve-is-lost]

I love weird teenagers so much they deserve so many good things

[shadowedmagic-a]

Honestly though Maxwell is incredibly desensitized to death as a concept or in practice. If he bad to kill someone, sure, maybe he'd feel bad about it know it'd cause more problems than solve but, he would genuinely get over it pretty quickly. There's no time for guilt over murder when the mere difference between life or death is a quick revival, even less so if he provides the necessary items required for resurrection. Game logic, death is an inconvenience at worst.

[the-punforgiven]

One of these days I feel like I need to start a collection of extremely edgy characters who were assumed to be cis at the start of their series but have since been confirmed to be either fully going by they/them or have at least accepted they into their acceptable pronouns

I've only got two of them right now though, I need more nickles

[hauntingblue]

This volume is called ace's introduction. Nothing more to say.

"You hire comedians here?" He is so funny....

Who's gonna tell him..... He literally will never get a break

Ace being so proud of Luffy not accepting to join and being a little shit... Also right here is where I got ROBBED of my acesan content.... Also he does fight whitebeard... In marineford... GOD!!!!!

GOOOD TAKE ME INSTEAD!!!! TAKE MEEEE!!!! AAAAHHHHHHHH

You cannot see me but I am on the floor on my knees and I am crying and sobbing and hitting my chest asking the gods to spare him