#so i didn't have to touch anything

[bhaalsdeepbat]

i literally walked into this space knowing NO ONE, sat off to the side and told them, "I'm sorry, I'm like a cat. I have to just watch for a second, then I'll socialize more." and like. the entire group was just like YEAH MAKES SENSE. no one took it wrong. they just let me observe until i was ready to mesh in more. and now almost two years later I am now burrowed so deeply into this troupe that i wouldn't have the friends or opportunities i have without it.

[technically-human]

St. Hilarion's ghost story

[egophiliac]

LEON

LEON YOUR EYEBALLS

[natasha-in-space]

So I'm replaying Ray's After ending rn, and it got me thinking that what I adore so much about Rika as an antagonist is just how damn scary she can be. I always found those who cause harm with good intentions (at least in their point of view) much scarier than those who hurt you with pure intention on hurting you. I think the best example of it is this CG in particular:

Look at that. Such a loving, gentle expression on her face. Probably kissing his forehead. Because she loves him. Heck, without any context, this CG looks even sweet, if you think about it. And yet, all that is while Saeyoung is forcefully sedated on a powerful concoction of drugs even a trained agent like him can't do anything about (and Saeyoung WAS definitely trained to deal with this sort of thing, hence it's mentioned that this is a 'special' kind of drugs). He looks miserable. Bags under his eyes, his expression pained and troubled, even his hair is paler than usual. All that as a direct result of her actions. But she's utterly blind to it. What's scarier, is that she knowingly shuts off her understanding of what's really happening. She's not oblivious to it at all. She just chooses not to see it that way. Simply because she doesn't want to.

Rika is the type of antagonist that will cup your cheek into her warm hand with the most loving of smiles on her face, all while you are getting elixir poured down your throat. Even whispering to you that you're doing great, that the pain will soon pass, and that she can't wait to see you reach the happiness she knows you deserve. I won't be surprised if she even cried genuine tears of compassion during some ceremonies for her believers. All while being the sole reason behind their suffering.

And that's... God, that's terrifying to me. I love that about her.

Rika Kim, they could never make me hate you

[roomba-mangga]

being normal about thistle and the touden siblings in the most insane way because imagine you're a sad out of touch hopelessly devoted little magician whose family has been actively pushing for you to see this path of self-destruction that they set you on to its fatal end and being confronted with that sends you tumbling down a doom spiral to hell from which there is no escape but then suddenly from out of nowhere two brainless randos bust into your house and offer the first real acts of kindness and gentle touch and validation of your personhood you've received in at least a few decades if not centuries if not your whole life (for want of which you Did All This Shit in the first place), and unlike the other dickheads breaking into your house all they care about is Being Nice To You For Free and deep frying your security cameras and tbh you wouldn't know how to react to this on a good day whatever that looks like so you just go along and eat their funny snacks and tie them both to a pole like puppies you picked up off the side of the road and then with all that said and done you immediately die

[feroluce]

Randomly consumed today by the thought of henghill cuddles, but like from a specific point in their relationship, like after they've only recently started laying in the same bed together.

It's something that takes them a long time to work up to; they both have nightmares, and yeah, Dan Heng is a Vidyadhara and he can heal himself beyond anything Boothill could accidentally do to him, but still. Boothill is made of metal now. He's heavy. It wouldn't take much, just a single flailing limb to cause some damage. He still gets up after Dan Heng falls asleep, and sneaks down into the guest cabin in one of the other cars.

But he'll lay in bed with Dan Heng until then. At first Boothill would always try to situate a blanket between them, because well. Metal isn't exactly pleasant to cuddle. But more and more lately, he's noticed Dan Heng keeps worming his way around their soft barrier and just kind of...rubbing his hand along him? Open palm up the curve of his side, across the planes of his chest, into the star-shape at his solar plexus, down the plates of his abdomen, back to his side again. Fingertips tap soundlessly against metal, or press into dents and divots, or smooth over old scars in the steel.

"Ya don't hav'ta do that, ya know."

"Does it bother you?"

Dan Heng's hand has already stopped, settling somewhere on the futon, neutral ground. Boothill clarifies that no, it doesn't bother him. But he can't feel any of it. He only knows he's doing it because he can see the motion out of the corner of his eye. Dan Heng doesn't need to go through the extra effort to do things for him like he would someone with a normal human body.

And Dan Heng goes quiet, just long enough that Boothill gets curious and turns to look at him over his shoulder. He has the cute little furrow between his brows, like when he's thinking.

And then he opens that pretty mouth of his and says, "That's alright, I think I'm doing it for myself, anyway" and Boothill nearly wheezes because wow, Dan Heng is almost never quite that honest when it comes to himself fdklsajlkd

Boothill cackles in surprise and asks point blank what he means, because what could he be getting out of that? Given the implied permission, Dan Heng's hand starts it's usual route again. Side, chest, solar plexus, abdomen, side. Boothill can practically hear him chewing on his words.

"I like that you're warm," is what he finally says, and Boothill suddenly feels like a bullet has just grazed something vital. "All the processes you run increase your temperature," Dan Heng's hand fans out across a span of steel and he holds it there, like he's soaking up the heat. "And your metal is smooth, it feels pleasant to touch," his fingertips move in circles, slip into a divot perfectly sized, rub back and forth. Boothill silently wills one of his cooling fans threatening to open up to stay closed.

"I like how you feel under my hands. That's all." Headshot! No recovery possible.

"...Suit yerself, then," and Boothill quickly turns back over before Dan Heng can see it in his face, how close he just hit to his heart.

[vegaseatsass]

DFF Finale

Alright alright alright that took me on a rollercoaster like some REAL high lows in that episode, I love an ambiguous ending but also I crave so much more closure owwwwwwww However for now I'm just coming to share my theory. Ever since this post pointed out that New hallucinated Non in his death t-shirt, I've been sitting on the idea that the Janta drugs have actual supernatural qualities. These aren't just any old hallucinogens New cooked up, they're a strain of a drug that serves a specific purpose for a death cult. So now that EVERYONE hallucinated Non in his death t-shirt, even though Tee is the only one who ever saw him in it, and it's highkey unlikely that he described the shirt Non was wearing to them at any time (and certainly not to New when he hallucinated Non wearing it years ago), I would like to propose the theory that the ghost of Non they see is a very real very true ghost, and the things he says to them are very real very true things. The "thank you" he gives New is not a figment of New's troubled mind, but what Non actually has to say to him, just like everything else he says to everyone else: their actions may be the product of their guilt, but Non is actually speaking his ghostly mind to each of them.

[stevethehairington]

really fucking sick and tired of people who really fucking love the eddie book jumping on people who don't like or are even remotely critical of it's posts and like crusading their opinions around from the top of their high horses and shoving it down our throats.

if you like the book, great! that's awesome! love that for you! i am genuinely glad that you were able to find good in it and enjoy it!!

but not everyone did, and not everyone is going to agree with you. so, instead of going on some grand crusade where you find every single post that includes anything even remotely negative or negative adjacent or even neutrally critical and spending ALL this time and effort trying to provide unwanted rebuttals to every single thing, maybe you should just stay in your lane and find people who DO like the book and chat about it with them.

because i can PROMISE YOU, none of us appreciate it when you come onto our posts and start accusing us of "hating on" the author or "being rude" about her and her work and RIDICULOUS shit like that.

being critical of something and pointing out it's flaws is NOT inherently hating on it. i, frankly, do not know where people got that notion, but it's not fucking true so can we fucking quit assuming it is? and, critiquing something is also NOT the same as saying this is shit and it sucks and the author is a piece of garbage. again, where the fuck that came from is beyond me. you can be critical of something and still enjoy it. as soooo many of you love to point out, it's not perfect, why should it be perfect? so D U H. of course that means criticism can and should arise???

also. hot take (by which i mean ice fucking cold because it's NOT a fucking hot take), but going around toting FALSE facts as part of your "defense" does not make you or your argument look good. you, like the author, should maybe do a basic fact check first. 🙃

tldr, if you like the book, that's genuinely great, but stay in your fucking lane and stop seeking out posts from people who didn't like it to start shit in the notes.

[irafuwas]

i don't know why, but in the sparse five hours of sleep i got last night, my brain decided to plague me with dreams of lilia taking care of an elderly silver, up until the final moments of his life. i could hear silver's thoughts the whole time, and he was so absolutely inundated with shame and guilt it almost seemed like he was suffocating. he kept thinking over and over and over again that this all should've been the other way around. he should've been the one looking after his father in the twilight of his life. he should've been his aging father's rock, his safe place to land, his stalwart defender against a world so unbelievably cruel to its most vulnerable denizens. again and again his heart cried out in vain, it should've been the other way around.

as a child he had once wished - prayed, even, to the same force now threatening to reclaim his spirit back into its unconscious designs - for his father to live a long and prosperous life, and it was as though that very wish had backfired on him in a way he never could have possibly imagined

[izloveshorses]

I GOT YOU FOR THAT !!!!!!!!!!!!! ASDHKLFJGFHLHHHHHNNNNNNGG!!!!!!!!

[tj-crochets]

so in the past I have made themed gifts for people who have helped me* and it's been a little weird but like. Understandable to the person I am gifting the thing to weird? My current problem is that I want to make something for my endocrinologist because he has improved my quality of life hugely** but endocrinology doesn't have an easily themed gift and my endocrinologist reminds me very very strongly of like a sad greyhound or a whippet but I cannot explain to this very nice, very normal man that "hey I made you a plushie of a dog because I wanted to thank you for the steroids and you remind me of a dog. In a good way!" *like teeth plushies for the dentist who helped me figure out I have to have dental anesthetic without epinephrine in it, or a chicken plushie for the people at the chicken restaurant that went the extra mile to get their ingredients list that were the reason I figured out I'm allergic to coconut **I had what would have been a severe allergic reaction and it wasn't pleasant but I didn't end up in the hospital and I didn't take like a week minimum to recover and

[myreia]

✦ D R A G O O N

Her lance burns bright, crackling with magic, and she plummets from the sky. Estinien and Aymeric were the first to notice her movements in combat, noting a physicality not often attributed to black mages. The years she spent in Coerthas were spent honing new techniques, following new pursuits, transforming into someone else. Though she will not admit it, the weapon is intrinsically caught up in her relationship with the Lord Commander, forever connected to her time in Ishgard. She came to the city an exiled mage and left a dragoon. —level 90 compendium

[revasserium]

the unofficial ultimate bungo stray dogs reading list

this is mainly for myself bc i rly do want to read most if not all of these and i'm sure it's already been done by someone somewhere. but, i thought why not post it lmao; most if not all of these can be found on anna's archive, z-library, or project gutenberg! (also, consider buying from your local bookstore!) for those that are a bit harder to find, i've included links, though some are from j-stor and would require login to access.

detective agency:

osamu dazai:

no longer human (novel)

the setting sun (novel)

nakajima atsushi:

the moon over the mountain: stories (short story collection)

light, wind and dreams (short story)

fukuzawa yukichi:

an encouragement of learning (17 volume collections of writings)

all the countries of the world, for children written in verse (textbook)

yosano akiko:

kimi shinitamou koto nakare (poem)

midaregami (poetry collection)

edogawa ranpo:

the boy detectives club (book series)

japanese tales of mystery and imagination (short story collection)

the early cases of akechi kogoro (novel)

kunikida doppo:

river mist and other stories (short story collection)

izumi kyouka:

demon lake (play)

spirits of another sort: the plays of izumi kyoka (play collection)

tanizaki junichirou:

the makioka sisters (novel)

the red roof and other stories (short story collection)

miyazawa kenji:

ame ni mo makezu; be not defeated by the rain (poem)

night on the galactic railroad (novel)

strong in the rain (poetry collection)

port mafia:

mori ougai:

vita sexualis (novel)

the dancing girl (novel)

nakahara chuuya:

poems of nakahara chuya (poetry collection)

akutagawa ryuunosuke:

rashoumon (short story)

the spider's thread (short story)

rashoumon and other stories (short story collection)

ozaki kyouyou:

the gold demon (novel)

higuchi ichiyou:

in the shade of spring leaves (biography and short stories)

hirotsu ryuurou:

falling camellia (novel)

tachihara michizou:

in mourning for the summer (poem)

midwinter momento (poem)

from the country of eight islands: an anthology of japanese poetry (poetry collection)

kajii motojirou:

lemon (short story)

yumeno kyuusaku:

dogra magra (novel)

oda sakunosuke:

flawless/immaculate (short story)

sakaguchi ango:

darakuron (essay)

the guild:

f. scott fitzgerald:

the great gatsby (novel)

the beautiful and the damned (novel)

edgar allen poe:

the raven (poem)

the black cat (short story)

the murders in the rue morgue (short story)

herman melville:

moby dick (novel)

h.p. lovecraft:

the call of cthulhu (short story)

the shadow out of time (novella)

john steinbeck:

the grapes of wrath (novel)

of mice and men (novel)

lucy maud montgomery:

anne of green gables (novel)

the blue castle (novel)

chronicles of avonlea (short story collection)

louisa may alcott:

little women (novel)

the brownie and the princess (short story collection)

margaret mitchell:

gone with the wind (novel)

mark twain:

the adventures of tom sawyer (novel)

adventures of huckleberry finn (novel)

nathaniel hawthorn:

the scarlet letter (novel)

rats in the house of the dead:

fyodor dostoevsky:

crime and punishment (novel)

the brothers karamozov (novel)

notes from the underground (short story collection)

alexander pushkin:

eugene onegin (novel)

a feast in time of plague (play)

ivan goncharov:

the precipice (novel)

oguri mushitarou:

the perfect crime (novel)

decay of the angel:

fukuchi ouchi:

the mirror lion, a spring diversion (kabuki play)

bram stoker:

dracula (novel)

dracula's guest and other weird stories (short story collection)

nikolai gogol:

the overcoat (short story)

dead souls (novel)

hunting dogs: (i must caveat here that the hunting dogs are named after much more comparatively obscure jpn writers/playwrights so i was unable to find a lot of the specific pieces actually mentioned; but i still wanted to include them on the list because well -- it wouldn't be a bsd list without them)

okura teruko:

gasp of the soul (short story; i wasn't able to find an english translation)

devil woman (short story)

jouno saigiku:

priceless tears (kabuki play; no translation but at least we have a summary)

suehiro tetchou:

setchuubai/a political novel: plum blossoms in snow (novel)

division for unusual powers:

taneda santouka:

the santoka: versions by scott watson (poetry collection)

tsujimura mizuki:

lonely castle in the mirror (novel)

yesterday's shadow tag (short story collection; i was unable to find a translation)

order of the clock tower:

agatha christie:

and then there were none (novel)

murder on the orient express (novel)

she is the best selling fiction writer of all time there's too much to list here

mimic:

andre gide:

strait is the gate (novel)

trascendents:

arthur rimbaud:

illuminations (poetry collection)

the drunken boat (poem)

a season in hell (prose poem)

johann von goethe:

faust

the sorrows of young werther

paul verlaine:

clair de lune (poem, yes it did inspire the debussy piece, yes)

poems under saturn (poetry collection)

victor hugo:

the hunchback of notre-dame (novel)

les miserables (novel)

william shakespeare:

romeo and juliet (play)

a midsummer nights' dream (play)

sonnets (poetry collection)

the seven traitors:

jules verne:

around the world in 80 days (novel)

journey to the center of the earth (novel)

twenty thousand leagues under the seas (novel)

other:

natsume souseki:

i am a cat (novel)

kokoro (novel)

botchan (novel)

h.g. wells:

the time machine (novella)

the invisible man (novel)

the war of the worlds (novel)

shibusawa tatsuhiko:

the travels of prince takaoka (novel; unable to find translation)

dr. mary wollstonecraft godwin shelley

frankenstein (novel)

[thornshadowwolf]

I think if you are bad at music and music mixing and making mashups and have no creativity and are unwilling to put effort into making something sound good that maybe you shouldn't consider yourself the standard for what people who do music professionally could achieve.

Update: OP of that post and I have blocked each other about it. Might seem extreme given the way blocking is viewed sometimes but actually it was civil and amicable (well. As amicable as it could be.) They reached out to me because apparently I had commented about this multiple times but had forgotten, so I was really taking it too far, so because I could find the most recent comment I removed it, and we decided to block each other to be sure this wouldn't happen again.

[dootznbootz]

I literally will think of the stupidest shit and if it makes me giggle, it's "canon" now. It just is. Idk why I keep doing this.

[bloodpen-to-paper]

Ok ok obsessing rn over a detail in Cellbit's behavior after aligning with the Federation

He was able to keep it together very well and avoid any slip ups in speaking when it came to selling the part of a Federation loyalist, but there were a few moments when he did slip and I'm making it your business

When Cucurucho told him to break Forever's XP farm, he had a very visible reaction showing that this act held weight to him. Cellbit tells Cucurucho that he's "not able to do something like that" because he doesn't have the permissions to get into that area. And when he's informed that the Federation can give him the ability to do so, his face is very somber, almost like he's disappointed. He really didn't want to do that to Forever. And even though he said he couldn't do it cause of Create mod reasons, I'd like to think him "not being able to do something like that" was a slip up that he quickly recovered from by saying it was cause of the permissions. Trying to pitch it that he couldn't do it because of physical reasons, rather than emotional ones.

Then Cellbit and Quackity get to the farm. Quackity hates Forever for the Richarlyson situation and is eager to place TNT and blow up the whole thing, and how does Cellbit respond?

"Don't explode this, its gonna fuck him up"

He slips. Big time. And it goes to show that luck can really save your ass cause not only was Quackity too distracted by the mobs to hear it, but Cellbit had the perfect in-character reason for stopping Quackity; because the Federation only told him to get rid of the spawners, and to leave one intact. It was the perfect excuse, Cellbit is a perfect loyal peon and he wants to do things exactly as the Federation tells him to, nothing more. They didn't tell him to explode the whole room, so Quackity can't be allowed. They told him to keep one spawner intact, and TNT could accidentally blow up all of them, so Quackity must be stopped. Forever's farm must be protected. It all just so happens to coincide with Cellbit's personal reasons for not wanting Quackity to completely destroy it all.

Cellbit always cared about Forever, no amount of acting skills and strategy could hide that. Just luck.