#ostensibly also

[shizunitis]

[speaking like we’re all at a slumber party together]

Do you think that if Shen Yuan had transmigrated into the protagonist’s role he would have found a way to give the body back to Binghe because he felt it was just too much of a pity to simply do away with the original?

Unbeknownst to him, Binghe’s there. Watching. Growing alongside his possessed body.

Shen Yuan does the Abyss Arc himself. It wouldn’t do to awaken the poor boy’s spirit just to throw him to the wolves! And, okay, he can maybe fix some plot holes, unveil some secrets, deal with rat bastard authors, and take over the demon realm before returning the body. He’s leaving the harem gathering for Binghe, though! And, he stores away every treasure!

He’s not so presumptuous as to steal the joys of demonic lordship from the protagonist. He can do the hard part, and then give Binghe his body back to enjoy the fruits of Shen Yuan’s labour!

If he makes this sacrifice, surely the protagonist would let him live despite his transgressions?

He finds a body for himself, returns the goods, and all concludes peacefully and with as little bloodshed as possible. (It’s still a lot. Alas.)

And then his plan would hit the predictable snag of Luo Binghe misunderstanding the whole thing, leaving him with only the notion that a gentle, pretty, protective and other adjectives god-alien spirit had basically died of rage on his behalf and shouldered all of Binghe’s difficulties in order to spare him countless agonies and troubles.

How does one go about repaying that? Is marriage even enough?! Was this a form of courting?! How is this even supposed to work!

Also Shen Yuan believes putting off wife-gathering for a later date doesn’t affect the harem in any way. When Binghe’s back, he’ll do his protagonist best and get them back. Those who can’t even wait a few years, do they even deserve to have Luo Binghe’s regard?

(Luo Binghe is clawing at the walls with how Shen Yuan misses the implications of that statement. Meng Mo has developed spirit instabilty out of rage. Shang Qinghua is not helping.)

[ctkira]

outfit swap

pixal -> cyrus

nya -> kai

[correct-hermitcraft-quotes]

Etho: Alright everybody, we are... gathered together here... to get married.

[rooolt]

also can we talk about Kristen living with her ex’s uncle. I know we love jawbone, but truly nightmare scenario

[itwoodbeprefect]

i was today years old when i realized that the orange blobs on this shirt pat wears for a good part of episode 6...

... are flowers (and rocks)...

... and not, as i fully believed, many tiny flying pomeranians. for your convenience i've prepared a visual to argue the validity of my interpretation

corporate needs you to find the difference.png

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

This Fatal Kiss

spooky whimsical YA fantasy romance

a water nymph bound to the river where she drowned desperately wants to become human again, by gaining a freely-given kiss from a mortal

a brooding boy from the local town who exorcises meddlesome spirits is constantly trying to get rid of her - but after he messes up an exorcism she blackmails him into playing matchmaker for her

….but he also has a crush on the boy she chooses (who has secrets of his own)

bisexual MCs, developing polyamorous relationship

[veerbles]

currently extra emo about pynch immediately post-trk. freshly re-traumatized and grieving; unspeakably sad about each of their personal and joint losses and yet unspeakably happy about what they've saved and what they've gained with each other; abruptly burdened by their respective responsibilities (school - opal - college applications - the future as a whole menacing concept) with no time to process; stumbling headlong into a serious relationship ab ovo with no communication skills to speak of and quite frankly an abysmal track record with letting others in and sharing vulnerabilities and leaning on people for support.

they're teenage boys and also they're mentally scarred all over but also they love each other so much, it's all very foreboding. they save gansey and then adam goes back to school and ronan drops out of school and somewhere between november and summer break they have to learn how to talk to each other without anger boiling over as a defense mechanism and how to share their most painful memories and dreams and fears without running away on instinct and how to handle adam's physicality issues and ronan's alcohol issues. but also how to do normal, teenaged relationship things like not be awkward about sex and pda and being queer in a small southern town and how to manage that universal desire to spend literally every single moment together alongside the fear that the other person is getting sick of them, and how to tell people they're together without it becoming a Thing, even though in high school it's always, always a Thing. and during all of that adam has to get into an absurd number of ivy league schools while working multiple jobs and ronan has to dream a new cabeswater and semi-parent a child and they both have to face repercussions of losing cabeswater and it's all so, so much. truly, that gaping hole before the epilogue haunts me in my sleep.

[anghraine]

I love that Elizabeth and Darcy are so ready to effectively tell each other they're full of shit. This happens a bunch of times, but I was re-reading their conversation at the Netherfield Ball and they're both kind of refreshingly Done.

[Darcy:] “Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?” [Elizabeth:] “Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be entirely silent for half an hour together; and yet, for the advantage of some, conversation ought to be so arranged as that they may have the trouble of saying as little as possible.” [Darcy:] “Are you consulting your own feelings in the present case, or do you imagine that you are gratifying mine?” “Both,” replied Elizabeth archly; “for I have always seen a great similarity in the turn of our minds. We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the éclat of a proverb.” “This is no very striking resemblance of your own character, I am sure,” said he.

It's also pretty funny, because I suspect Darcy is thinking of this sort of thing in a later conversation at Rosings:

“You mean to frighten me, Mr Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear me. But I will not be alarmed, though your sister does play so well. There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.” “I shall not say that you are mistaken,” he replied, “because you could not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know, that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which, in fact, are not your own.”

[markscherz]

The eye of Uroplatus garamaso, the new gecko species my colleagues and I described yesterday. Check out that weird pupil! Four little diamonds in a chain.

[cherivinca]

remake of an unposted doodle

[giantkillerjack]

Hey anyone else remember the episode of Adventure Time called "Evergreen" where it's revealed that the original bearer of the crown to whom it was "forever linked" was actually a neglected child (and prior reincarnation of Finn) named Gunter trying to be like his wizard father?? Anyone??? Because I had fully forgotten until re-watching the episode last night and I'm losing my mind about the implications.

(This episode is also a devastating look at how a mistreated child unconsciously learns that he must treat himself and those he has power over as cruelly as he has been treated. Adventure Time has so much sadness and madness, y'all.)

[archersartcorner]

Been wanting to redraw this meme since I started reading TPP so I finally did it… baby Vik…

[ariadne-mouse]

So I'm thinking again about Ludinus ostensibly using names of AoA things for more modern purposes (Cerberus Assembly, Malleus Factorum-> Malleus Key) and also the question of his age and whether he is/isn't from AoA times. Not because I think there is an answer yet & not to discuss what scenario is most likely (not here during joke hours) but because it's funny to think that if he isn't from AoA, he's naming his own stuff after things from the past he thinks are cool and wants to emulate, and if he is from AoA and had a role in the original names, he's like the person who names every dog they own Buddy

[syn0vial]

touch-averse or touch-starved? an analysis of boba fett's attitudes towards physical touch in legacy of the force

a sufficient number of people expressed interest in this topic that i'm finally making this post! i find this facet of fett's characterization quite fascinating and naturally wanted to share, especially bc it's so unexpectedly nuanced in a lot of ways. so here it is, for the consideration and enjoyment of fic writers, expanded universe enjoyers, and general fett fans alike!

touch is (ostensibly) unbearable because it's a form of compassion. throughout the series, if there's one thing we learn can put fett into the fight-or-flight reflex, it's compassion. at multiple points, his gut reaction to someone showing him compassion is to either lash out at them to get them to stop (as he does with jaina), or if he's not willing to do that, get away from them as fast as he can (as he does with sintas and occasionally beviin early into their friendship). fett explicitly equates more intimate forms of touch (such as hugging, or taking his hand) with compassion and states outright that he has no idea how to respond to such gestures. yet, fett's attitude towards touch cannot be boiled down to simple aversion, because

fett's reactions to physical touch read more like someone who is touch-starved, not touch-averse. despite the attitude towards compassion explored above, when fett is actually faced with compassionate touch, his reaction is not what one would expect. in contrast to when people try to verbally show him compassion, which will get the aforementioned fight-or-flight response, compassionate touch provokes much more ambivalence. for example, when sintas reaches out to take his hand, he initially "dreads" it—yet, when she actually touches him, the text tells us, "He needed her to let go of his hand; but he didn't want her to." similarly, though fett seems to express relief that mirta isn't the type to hug him or take his hand, in the very previous book, we seem to have evidence contrary to all parts of this statement. namely, mirta places her hand in his to reassure him when he's undergoing a very painful treatment for his fucked-up-clone-DNA disease, and his reaction is to immediately take her hand and, when the doctor starts lining up the needle, to squeeze it with such force that mirta "thought he'd break every bone in her fingers." these do not read as the reactions of someone who is averse to touch, but rather, someone who is actually quite touch-starved.

(note that it is not at all uncommon for fett's actions/emotional responses to be at odds with the image he projects. he is not at all a reliable narrator of his own internal experience. for example, at one point he claims to not feel ashamed of anything he's ever done, despite the fact that we see him explicitly grappling with feelings of deep, paralyzing shame for how he treated sintas. beviin even teases him for this habit at one point, responding to fett's claims of professional detachment in the face of his obvious care for others with a cheeky, "'course, i believe you 😉")

furthermore, as we see with mirta, fett can get downright clingy when he's worried about someone. in revelation, fett and mirta both take part in a mission that eventually forces them to split up into separate strike teams. fett is, to put it mildly, rather anxious about this. he fears that something will happen to mirta when she's on her own, and that furthermore, it will be his fault for agreeing to take her along on the mission in the first place. significantly, the separation is book-ended by two instances of fett physically grabbing mirta. first, when mirta begins to climb up into the other part of the ship, fett grabs her by the ankle to try and slow her departure, a result, we're told of his "sudden fear for her." he doesn't let go until she shakes him off. later on, when they're reunited, with mirta covered in someone else's (though fett isn't yet aware of this) blood, jaina observes that he grabs her tightly by the shoulder "as if he was going to shake the daylights out of her." both of these reactions seem to be purely instinctive and visceral; it seems fett's first, kneejerk reaction to the fear of losing someone is to physically grab and hold onto them. again, his actions don't align with the detached, touch-averse image he sometimes portrays.

finally, the characters who know fett best seem to know to offer physical reassurance in the face of painful/distressing situations. specifically, we see beviin and mirta offer physical touch as reassurance; beviin places his hand on fett's back when he's watching sintas suffer from carbonite thawing sickness and is anxiously waiting to see whether her mind is still intact, and, as mentioned above, mirta places her hand in his when he's receiving treatment for his genetic disease. and that's not to even mention how sintas's first reaction to seeing him in emotional turmoil is to try and take his hand. for all that fett tries to put on a distant, untouchable facade, the characters he cares about most and vice-versa can see through it within the text itself.

in conclusion, i feel like if a character he cared about actually hugged him, fett's reaction would be something along the lines of this image:

thank you for coming to my tedtalk

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

this is what I've learned about the practice of politics over the past 8 years:

the time for talking about abstract political ideals is during the primary.

after the primary, the die has been cast, and your two choices are there whether you like them or not. your practical political responsibility still exists. any choice that seems to lie outside the two candidates is an illusion. to cast a vote for a third party or to not vote at all is still, practically speaking, a choice for one of the two main candidates.

furthermore, you are not voting for the candidates as people, you are voting for them as policy. voting for a person is a luxury most countries don't have anymore. you think Canadian Christian voters ever get a truly Christian ticket on either side? Norwegian Christians? Japanese Christians? America might still be able to vote for people in the primaries, but we don't have that luxury in the general election. the general election is about policy, and the candidates are only pieces in a larger game of chess.

the only thing that would persuade me NOT to vote for Trump this time around is if he had the exact same policy platform as Kamala Harris. if Trump ran on all of Harris' policies except for immigration, I would still vote for Trump, because it's materially worse for my family, friends, and neighbors to allow illegal immigration than to stop it. and as a voter, I have the power to stop it.

[spookygibberish]

Made a faintly insane list of of every animated movie I have good enough memories of to feel confident ranking, although some of them I would probably move around if I saw them more recently....