#oh the article “the” is in the name

[everchanging-cryptid]

just started watching Umbrella Academy ( I’m on episode one) and I have 3 things to say

Klaus is very gender

5 is a mood

I hope to God nobody simps for the army knife guy, he’s a jerk

I Will return with more info later ig when I watch more of the show

[svnflowermoon]

y'all go from being feminists to tearing these women down within seconds oh my god it's 2024 can we please stop viciously tearing one woman down to bring another up i don't care what side you take but saying vile shit about either woman and their music is disgusting, please grow up

[typenull]

While the climax of Dunmesh [here’s your warning for spoilers] gives us an extremely thorough look into Laios’s psyche and his own desires, we don’t actually know that much about Falin, despite her “death” kicking the entire story into motion. The only bits of Falin we get to see are through the lens of other characters, who inherently show us their own biased perceptions of her. I’d go as far to say that Falin is actually the character in Dungeon Meshi who’s true desires we know the least about!

We know with absolute certainty at least a few things: Falin is gifted with powerful magic, wants to follow behind and travel with her brother who she deeply respects, loves her friend Marcille, likes fruits and creams, loves insects and is curious about monsters, once again like Laios… most of the things we learn about Falin are things that she has in common with her brother, but what does SHE want, deep down? How does she feel about everything? I don’t think we’ll fully get an answer to that question before the manga is over. This is definitely on purpose though, and has even been hinted at in the text (which I’ll get to later).

In my opinion the main difference between Falin and Laios is that Falin doesn’t want to hurt anyone besides herself (for the sake of others, and she barely knows who that self is) and Laios wants to hurt anyone who he “doesn’t like” (anyone who endangers him and those he loves). Both of these feelings stem from the same shared events of their childhood where they both began to feel “disconnected” from humanity so to speak, but they reacted to it in opposite ways.

Where Laios stubbornly ran away and refused to deal with being hurt and surrounded by hurt, Falin, who we rarely see making choices based on any desires for herself (staying in the academy for 8 years after being sent by her father despite not thinking it’s for her, nearly agreeing to marry Shuro just so that she doesn’t have to deal with being asked later, etc.), doesn’t object to anything she’s subject to because the only person being “hurt” in these scenarios is herself, which to her is acceptable. She accepts the fact that she’s considered “othered” extremely easily, and this reflects openly in both her behavior and in the few things we know about her: she connects with and cares deeply for spirits despite being ostracized, admires insects and monsters like her brother, and is even fine planning to take on a job that’s revered in her hometown. To Falin, being “othered” is more normal to her than the alternative

The only people in Falin’s life that make her feel like *more* than just an outsider are Laios and Marcille. As a result Laios and Falin end up with similar sounding mindsets on the surface; "As long as [the people I love] are okay, I don't care about anything else" — but underneath, they actually manifest completely differently! Where Laios “doesn’t care about people”, Falin cares deeply about them despite barely being treated as one.

The only *active* decision from Falin we see that most obviously reflects her deepest desires is her choice to die for those she loves, which I think says a lot about her.

I think that if Laios is “a human who wants to become a monster” because he hates humans due to his past, the most obvious foil to him is Kabru, “a human who wants to destroy monsters” because of his past in Utaya (and feeling like a monster himself). Thinking of them as two ends of a spectrum, in the grey middle ground of this is where I think I’d put Falin.

She’s simultaneously a human made subhuman, a monster made to follow Thistle, a “ghost” of her former self haunting Laios and Marcille — she really IS the absolute epitome of a “chimera”.

The Lion cursing Laios was the “hinting in the text” I talked about earlier: forcing his deepest desire into something seemingly impossible to achieve, a chimera. The surface level conclusion when reading this is that Falin won’t be revived, but I seriously don’t think it’ll be that simple in the end. After all, a chimera is multifaceted.

My hope for the final chapter of Dungeon Meshi is that, *if* by some chance Falin is revived, she will finally have to grapple with not only having to look deep within herself to answer all of these things for her own sake, but also with having the one opportunity in which she chose to use any sort of agency to act upon her deepest desires not only be completely reversed, but also hurting so many people in the process. When Falin is revived in the Red Dragon arc, she doesn’t even remember sacrificing herself for her friends — but she promises Laios to never do it again, falling back into her typical submissive obedience. How would she react the second time? Will we even get to know? Something tells me, probably not.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

okay listen i do think the scene is very adorable and i would not change it but i AM a pedant and a definite article is like by definition not a pronoun is it

[atdawn]

the confusing google alert i got two months ago was actually about colin in a new show WE WON

[overalledfrog]

THIS IS A REAL ARTICLE OH MY GOD/POS

[writeouswriter]

Me being interested in certain scientific concepts or areas of study in theory and wanting to constantly create scientist OCs vs my brain’s inability to focus on actually reading or retaining any scientific writing or related information for research no matter how much I try: fight

[solradguy]

If I don't lose motivation for it, there's going to come a point in Interlude where Frederick, who has since been nicknamed Badguy by like the US government or whatever for blowing up Gear research facilities, introduces himself as just "Badguy" to someone, somewhere, and I'm going to have to contend with the fact that he very probably said it with a straight face and full, unblinking, eye contact.

It's so silly. He's got to know that's a silly name to go by. "Yeah I'm a bounty hunter and I blow shit up because I'm a real Bad Dude™️." Come on... But also... Sol does have a really dorky sense of humor so... Maybe that's the joke. He knows it's goofy and he's forcing everyone else to use it but then he used it for too long and the goofy factor has long worn off except now he's stuck with it

[cuteniaarts]

@katkastrofa: *writes a single throwaway line in one chapter of Lost and Found that is never referenced again*

Me, completely randomly and with no prompting: Alright, bet–

[max1461]

if humanities professors could see whsat the tgirls are up to on here. it would rock their world

[shinobicyrus]

Last year, the Republican Party of Texas added language to its platform calling for an end to no-fault divorce: “We urge the Legislature to rescind unilateral no-fault divorce laws, to support covenant marriage, and to pass legislation extending the period of time in which a divorce may occur to six months after the date of filing for divorce.”

It’s not just Texas: A similar proposal is presently being workshopped by the Republican Party of Louisiana. The Nebraska GOP has affirmed its belief that no-fault divorce should only be accessible to couples without children. At the Republican National Convention in 2016 — the last time the party platform was overhauled — delegates considered adding language declaring, “Children are made to be loved by both natural parents united in marriage. Legal structures such as No Fault Divorce, which divides families and empowers the state, should be replaced by a Fault-based Divorce.” (It’s unclear whether the party’s twice-divorced nominee for president weighed in on the debate at that time.)

[mushroom-through-the-stargate]

me thinking about how one of my favourite things to do is read scientific articles and my favourite outing is going to museums : am i... a bore?

[whilomm]

i need a fucking linguist to gve me a list of acceptable pronunciations of this literal nonsense word that was primarily type based rather than spoken based on accepted english rules bc my god there see to be quite a few

[echotunes]

kind of love Cellbit going "é o... a Liz" every time in combat because it's the exact same vibe as someone going "ähhh der-die-das [name/word]" when unsure which gendered article is the correct one because they don't know whose name or what word they're about to say yet

[fideidefenswhore]

AB hate must be a cottage industry. It seriously comes across like certain authors are devoting their whole lives to destroying her 'myth'.

Saying she wasn't politically savvy is trying to make out she doesn't deserve respect for making it in a man's world, never achieved anything, has no legacy and was a total failure in life. If she doesn't get jobs and money for her supporters, she's ungrateful, cold and can't read the room. Like she's so selfish human emotions just confuse her.

Same people tell you AB was an all powerful chessmaster cruelly luring Henry away from his "real friends" and straight up forcing him to kill More and Fisher.

Like the anon said, other queens are entitled to loyalty, but Anne has to "earn" it like she's beneath her own courtiers and there's got to be something in it for them. Like she has to bribe everyone bc she's worthless, and when she can't do it it's funny. And everyone who demands stuff from her just deserves it and is "owed" no matter what.

As many are personally invested in their fandom and/or 'apologism' of AB, just as many are personally invested in their outrage about any upcoming publications, productions, etc. that center around her life, for...sure.

And as far as patronage networks, there's double standards there, just as there are for pretty much everything else. Anne's predecessor ceased payment to scholars she patronized as soon as any of them told her she should accept annulment and retirement. Her party gave bribes and used other tactics of 'encouragement' and/or intimidation to secure favorable verdicts as far as that went, just as the Henrician/English 'party' did.

I number AB among the most influential and important Henrician councilors. Wolsey and Cromwell also had patronage networks, and failed to secure support at times from individuals regardless of their influence and power (one example for AB is the attempt to offer Elizabeth Barton a place in her own household). And even if they had never failed to secure any individual to their allegiance, the political alliances they had built and fostered, in the end, did not prevent their arrests. Nobody risked their careers to insist their benefactor was not guilty of treason and that some great injustice was being committed there, either. The Boleyn 'failure', if one insists on naming it such, had the added anchors of any who might otherwise have used their networks for the defense of their patron, also arrested and left to defend themselves (particularly the heavyweights, Norris, Rochford, and Brereton) after accused of crimes in the same 'conspiracy'. This was not the case for Wolsey and Cromwell, and yet they are not termed political failures.

Here's the rub, for all of the above: there were definitely people that they all 'alienated', and there was, actually, a rather obvious way to avoid all that. Had they abandoned their pursuit of power and faded into obscurity, none of the above would have secured the enmity of so many. This was not the choice they made. So, the weird animus and anti-fandom of sorts that exists, of course, only for the only woman of the bunch above... it's not really even so much about, oh, she was so politically unwise, and lacked intelligence, and had she not made all these missteps in her pursuit and then position, of power, she could have been secure. That's fallacious on its face, because one does not come to that position of power and influence by lack of political wisdom and intelligence (again, this is rarely, if ever, claimed for Wolsey and Cromwell). Really, it's about the resentment that she ever did come as far as she did, and it's all very obvious in these attempts to vindicate their own aggressively dismissive ...for back of better term, 'hot takes'.

[skitskatdacat63]

Ah yes, "Monaco resident", Nico Rosberg