#they respect and value each other

[snakedemonstories]

And then Xiang Liu finally drops the bomb.

Jing wants to ask more, but we get this delicious piece of dialogue.

I am giggling like a little girl 🤭

Btw, Xiang Liu telling Jing his secret - even if it was only an insinuation and not a direct reveal - is a big deal. It means he fully trusts him. He helps him as best as he can, providing him with that small piece of information that can lead Jing to uncover his brother's schemes against him.

[zarla-s]

Early bird vs Night owl (or would it be Noctowl?)

[patreon]

[beanghostprincess]

Luffy not knowing about Zoro promising Sanji to kill him if he ever ends up losing himself makes me go feral because that's something they can only know about. Because Zoro's respect for life and death goes beyond anything, and Sanji knows he understands. Sanji knows that if somebody has to kill him, it's him.

And I don't even think it's because Sanji assumes Zoro's opinion of him is hatred and it would hurt less for him to do this, but because Sanji knows only Zoro would be able to treat the promise as it is. Because he would put Sanji's wishes before any feelings he has for him. It's not that Zoro doesn't care, but I think he respects people's ideals and decisions to the extent of being able to kill Sanji if he so desires.

That being said, he'd do it if there's no other way to fix it. If it's either dying or living as an emotionless machine, which is the same as dying for Sanji, Zoro would fulfill his promise. And there is just... Something about Luffy not knowing. Their captain. The man they're devoted to the most as if he were their God. Luffy doesn't know. It's something only the captain's wings are aware of and the thought of these two keeping this from Luffy until the end is just insane. Not even trying to make it romantic here, but the bond and respect these two have for each other is crazy.

Maybe it's the poetry of it all, too. Somebody like Zoro, who has looked at Death in her face multiple times and said "no", ending Sanji's life, who wants to give in to death to not experience a fate worse than death for him.

[dykedvonte]

Piper and Danse friendship is like the platonic version of that married couple where the husband says nothing and the wife is the chattiest most extroverted person and you cannot imagine how they found each other let alone end up as a pair.

But like he knows her favorites and the one joke, the one time you heard him speak mind you, he made had her dying with laughter cause it was specifically for her. Or she can tell exactly how he’s feeling despite the same expression for every emotion and you swear she made a comment and try corners of his mouth lifted.

Like they are those two that bonded not because they were alike but because they were so different what they did like together made them grow much closer.

[undead-moth]

I know I've been on about this for a while now and I'm being a hater but you're telling me SydCarmy was "always meant to be platonic" even though there are two seasons of writing making use of tried-and-true explicitly romantic tropes, themes and writing signals, and SydLuca is going to be romantic because...he was nice to her on screen for a few minutes?

I don't even care if people ship SydLuca, or if they just prefer it, but you can't honestly tell me that you believe Carmy was always meant to be a friend but Luca is an obvious love interest.

Just because Syd and Carmy haven't kissed or confessed their love to each other doesn't mean that isn't very obviously the direction this show is going. The Bear has already shown you who is endgame. It has shown you every episode of the show so far.

Honestly I really don't think The Bear fanbase understands this show or cares about these characters or the story being told here, which is unfortunate because this show is shockingly well-written in comparison to most shows right now, and we should be so grateful for it but all we're doing is complaining that the writers led us on by not making a ship canon fast enough. It's just. Sad.

[demigodofhoolemere]

Does Disney know that one of the best friendships ever depicted on any of their television shows was that of a nerdy teenage boy and his step-uncle the redeemed former villain?

[windwenn]

*sitting on a throne of lies* im perfectly happy with my friendship with agent scully

[serpentface]

FAMILY TITLES AMONG THE HILL TRIBES

(ft. various linguistic notes and tangents)

In-universe Brakul’s self-given title of ‘Red-Dog’ is Brakul 'ne-Dainh' in his native language (Bict-Urbinnas dialect of the Highland language group) and Brakul 'Chin-Reyla' in Wardi. Ne-Dainh/Chin-Reyla is not something he treats as or considers an actual surname or identity, just a self-styled nickname. He already has a title.

Family names/surnames are not a native practice among the Hill Tribes (though some clans or individual families have adopted this practice), and all traditionally use titles that designate immediate ancestry, clan and tribe. These full titles are officially given when one comes of age and are spoken aloud in ceremony (with the entire direct male and female lines listed by name, with most traditions expecting 12 generations of each being named).

The function is to cement one’s sense of place in the world, and their place in a direct ancestral line, which puts the person under the full watch and guidance of their ancestors. It's also a critical method of recording lineage- the long held practice of each person memorizing at least 24 total direct ancestors allows for very long, largely accurate records of family history to be kept, with some people able to trace their ancestry all the way back to initial settlement of the Highlands (or even beyond).

Brakul’s full title is:

“Brakul virsum Kuligan et Borunil an Briyonis ne-Taig an Bict-Urbinnas”

Which dead literally translates to “Brakul son of Kuligan and Borunil of the Foothills (of) Red-Cattle, of the North (Urbin/Erubin) River Valley” but has a much richer meaning in the original language.

"BRAKUL VIRSUM KULIGAN ET BORUNIL"

The actual meaning here is closer to ‘Brakul, son of Kuligan and his father’s fathers, and Borunil and her mother’s mothers’.

“Virsum” means ‘child (son/daughter) of’ (the gender is contextual), but implies the person’s status as a descendant of a full male and female line of ancestors. A different word is used if you’re just saying ‘I’m so and so’s son”. The title describes him as a son of his father Kuligan and of Kuligan’s male line, and of his mother Borunil and Borunil's female line.

All ancestors (within this particular system of kinship, divided into one direct male line from the father and one direct female line from the mother, and not including husbands from the female line or wives from the male line) are invoked and credited with the word ‘virsum’. Speaking it as part of the personal title is part of the routine and necessary honoring of one’s ancestors, who watch over their descendants from the afterlife and can temporarily return to the land to guide and protect (and sometimes punish, or teach sharp lessons to) the living.

"AN BRIYONIS NE-TAIG"

The actual meaning here would be understood as ‘clan/people of the foothills where cattle are lit red by the setting sun'.

‘Briyonis’ is the word for ‘foothill’, citing his clan’s specific location being the foothills that form the slopes of the north Urbin river valley. He is of a lesser clan within the powerful North Urbin River tribe. His clan benefits from close affiliation to their more powerful ruling clans located directly in the river valley, which grants them access to a greater variety of cultivated foods, but their actual position in the foothills still renders them predominantly reliant on cattle for subsistence. Clan names referencing cattle or horses are very common, given their frequent centrality to life.

The ‘ne-Taig’ literally means ‘red cattle’, but the ‘ne’ color word for red specifically invokes shades of red seen in and cast by a rising/setting sun. This red cast is culturally regarded as a unique beauty and evocative (and part of the name) of the solar god Hraighne. The foothills his clan is physically located on are a vantage point from which the western horizon is not fully obscured by mountains, and they experience very striking sunsets and are directly touched by the light. This is fairly unique to this location, and is invoked in the clan name and identity. ‘Ne-Taig’ here suggests a visual of grazing cattle illuminated red by the sun as it crosses the horizon.

‘Ne-Dainh’ carries the same implication, a dog illuminated red by setting sunlight. The Wardi language does not have a comparable word for a sunlit red and ‘Chin-Reyla’ really does just mean ‘(orangeish) red dog’ (‘reyla’ is specific to orangey-red colors, which is the closest match he could get. There’s no way to impart the meaning of ‘sunlit-red dog’ in Wardi that is non-clunky enough to be appropriate for a name).

"AN BICT-URBINNAS"

‘an Bict-Urbinnas’ is fairly simple, Bict means ‘north’, and 'Urbin' is the name of the specific river that stems from a northern and eastern tributary. This river has a very ancient name (or a derivative of one) that predates settlement by the Hill Tribes, and its exact meaning is lost.

The root -(n)nas designates a river valley, but has strong implications of being an esteemed and bountiful place, rather than solely a literal geographical descriptor (as the river valleys are centers of power and trade in the highlands). It may be a loanword from the Wardi language family, as its usage is VERY similar in form and function to the Wardi -(n)nos, which also suggests a place of esteem and bounty (more specifically having connotations of a kingdom).

’An’ literally means ‘of’, but in the specific sense of describing the place and identity of a collection of people. ‘an Bict Urbinnas’ would be understood in speech as ��of the north Urbin River Valley (people)’. The clans historically settled in and around the valley of the North Urbin River form the totality of the Bict-Urbinnas tribe.

The ‘Urbin’ word predates the contemporary Wardi name ��Erubin’ for the river, the latter of which invokes the semi-mythological founding figure Erub, who himself was of a Wardi tribe located downriver to the south of the Highlands. The real historically extant ‘Erub’ was most likely named Urub after the river, with his cited name shifting over the centuries in folklore, and the Wardi name for the river shifting with it.

‘Erubin’ as a corruption of ‘Urbin’ functions very well in Wardi language due to ‘-bi/bin’ denoting something as a ‘gift’, usually in a more metaphorical sense. ‘Erubin’ is understood as meaning ‘(The river that is) Erub’s gift’, and the Erubin/Urbin river is a key tributary to the much larger Black river, one of the key rivers that feeds the region's wetter and more fertile west. This 'gift' meaning also occurs in the name of the southeastern Imperial Wardi city-state Erubinnos, which is understood as meaning ’((The kingdom that is) Erub’s gift’. He is considered to have conquered and taken the land (from the core city's actual founders, the Wogan people) and established a kingdom there in the early days of warring Wardi tribal monarchies.

[decarbry]

a frequent visitor

[jemmo]

i finally got the time to watch love is better the second time around and im not at all shocked that im obsessed with the adult second chance at love jbl - have you met me.

but it also needs to be known that shiraishi is my beloved, the actor plays this role so perfectly and i want my bitchy sad gay to find true love

[amelikos]

Friede casually praising Orio and saying she made the best airship in the world was cute.

[empressofthewind]

When you look at the way Mello and Near treat the people around them, it actually makes so much sense that they would hold each other in such high regard despite all their interpersonal challenges. They really do both seem to believe that everyone is stupid except each other 😵‍💫

[baylardo]

ive been revamping some old headworld Tenebres OCs of mine recently :) their little story revolves around a prestigious magic school that outcasts all of them in different ways.

ethel and juneau (the older ladies) were both once professors and colleagues. ethel taught potionmaking (she’s unsurprisingly a marvelous cook) and juneau excelled everything about in curses (very big on puzzles). juneau was disapproved of for her unconventional methods when it came to cursebreaking which mostly involved inflicting herself with the curses she was trying to break. through enough exposure to that practice in addition to likely a few curses she could never resolve, she now sometimes turns into a mindless beast. consequently shes a risk to students so she got kicked out. after getting fired she takes up being a plague doctor as an occupation which involves cleaning up magic breaches in addition to the stuff shes already good at which is curse removals, just without the funding of her school. its a pretty isolated job so whenever her monsterous side comes out, there arent too many people at risk. she lives in a lil unkempt hermit shack.

ethel was a bit more “by the book,” more of a rule follower, tended never to deviate from standard practice. she never liked or respected juneau and was rather relieved when she finally left, thinking her colleague to be quite the liability to the school. ethel’s field of magic in potions comes with its own different yet similar risks however. and while experimenting with some of her own new concoctions, something went wrong and she began turning into a monster herself. i think with her affliction it’d start as a small blemish that she keeps trying to magically remove/repair and she keeps making it worse which makes her frantic and keep trying fix things until she becomes this irreparable and permanent monster herself. and unwilling to face the same humiliation and rejection as her colleague, ethel fakes her death, making it seem like she died in a chemical explosion of her own making, and flees lol. eventually she seeks out juneau and the two become reluctant roommates in the shack juneau lives in.

and then Agnes the young one was a student whod worked very hard to make it into the school, probably doesnt come from a well-known family or anything but shes top of her class and has high hopes for her future, but one day during an exam in front of her peers and professors it comes to light that she’s (unbeknownst to herself) a familiar as she starts turning into a rabbit. shes expelled on the grounds that she hid her condition and familiars are not allowed to pursue such high forms of magic. in her determination to not fail and still achieve the status shes wanted all her life, she tries to seek out any mage who will teach a familiar any magic. eventually she finds juneau (and ethel by proxy) and the two reluctantly decide to take the familiar girl on as a student.

[sunsetzer]

On one hand, I want a final fantasy 6 remake, because the game is criminally underrated and the amount of fan content (which is all absolutely fantastic btw) is Not Enough for my neurodivergent, hyperfixating brain.

On the other hand, that would inevitably encourage more people to join the fandom, which would be great, except it seems these days the bigger a fandom gets the more toxic it becomes, and I really like what we have going on over here in our little corner. We all just love the game and its characters and nobody fights about who should and shouldn't date who or who you shouldn't like because they're ~problematique~. Nobody's trying to make one ship morally better than another, nobody's calling anyone names or threatening to doxx people who don't agree with their opinions. It's so peaceful and I love that for us. We're just vibing. Moisturized. Unbothered. In our lane. Flourishing.

[imsailorpluto]

Another thing I love love about Bloodhounds is the effortless look of the boxing duo. They're just neck-deep in their little boxing world, training hard, feeling comfortable in their own skin, finding ways to end the bad guys, and looking drop dead gorgeous while they're at it. It's the we're-so-freakishly-handsome-and-completely-unaware impression that gets me every time

[sleepyagent]

Its not necessarily about sharing interests but about sharing values.

Its not neccesarily about coming from similiar backgrounds but about facing the same direction.

Together.