idk if this is a hot take but I don't think Armin is friendly. I think people find him generally off-putting. Like, people think he looks sweet, but also find him strange; for the topics that interest him, the way he didn't stray far from Eren (& Mikasa) socially, and his general demeanor.

I think that as Armin established himself more as he grew up, he developed better interpersonal skills that compliment his rhetorical prowess. I think he's the type of person who sees value in life and in minimizing harm. He offers kindness to his friends and understanding to all. But I don't see him as particularly "friendly"

Cannot believe at this late stage of my life I'm becoming a Gabriel fucker. Local mean jock doesn't want to be evil now, he wants to be loved. I'm slightly annoyed they didn't make Beelzebub more unhinged because the "plot" should have been at least half about them fucking up shit on an absolute rampage trying to find Gabriel, a thing everyone assumes they are doing to fry him with hellfire so they can kick off the war in a way that's advantageous to hell, BUT ACTUALLY!!! true love.

Tommy wakes up at his normal time, blinking the weariness out of his eyes. He yawns, noticing a blue giftbox, tied shut with opalescent ribbons at the foot of the bed.

… For the first few seconds, Tommy really just blinks at the box, tired and barely able to keep his eyes open.

He rubs at his eyes and yawns, not bothering with switching on the hotel’s nightstand lamp — not when he left the room dim to begin with, unable to keep his brain quiet when it was absolutely dark. He just scoots down the bed a tad, pushing tangled blonde hair from his face and grabbing the box.

The ribbons were very pretty. They’d probably wind up in his trinket collection. He took just a bit of time to admire longer, and opened the box.

Beautiful gilded cage for a beautiful gilded bird (Patreon)

wait . i am so fucking behind on the theories i cant believe i didnt know about the eddie thing i have to reconsider so much shit

my favorite thing from this last episode of the silt verses is the implication (fleeting, but there) that whatever god Hayward and Paige grew in the cursed soil of her father’s farm won’t be constrained by them, and they’re hurtling very quickly towards some undeniable, unintended consequences.

so I've been watching the KH Union Cross stuff (in order, thank goodness, this would be so confusing to piece together otherwise), and like, I knew enough about UX that the appearance of the foretellers at the end of KH3 wasn't confusing bc I knew who they all were, but getting the expanded, explained lore and I'm like okay, actually these weirdos in animal masks are pretty cool, glad to know they'll show up (presumably) in future games

also I'm glad that memorizing the Latin names for the seven deadly sins is finally paying off

After getting the books on human maintenance did Clara start getting real food? Is Xavio’s Magic Cum actually making her nerves more sensitive or was she like 200% healing magic scar tissue and this is returning her closer to baseline? Is this part of why Richard the Liondick is so bloodhorny? Speaking of, Garethgoyle 🤝 Lord Bagel, having magic cum.

Onto the Worldbuilding, I’m a big fan of how well you’ve established Xavio’s position within the court. Every diplomat we’ve seen just accidentally letting it slip that it’s only Now a problem bc the people being genocided aren’t just Goblins anymore, bc there’s Barely Any Left. They come and say give us the Beast, kill it, aide in the defense of the people that matter with what’s Left of yours. Seems they like him a lot more now that he’s only a threat bc he has the Beast of Verendor instead of any bigger messier reasons, like being just as powerful and important as them. Anyway I refuse to believe any of His people spread that rumor that he was keeping the Beast of Verendor, Verendor probably did that themselves. They seem like an expansionist empire with shit opsec.

unfortunately for clara, xavio has continued to feed her the approximate equivalent of a nutrient-rich paste. she's not going to starve or get scurvy but variety is a no-go. she's on the brat diet, but liquid. the only rice she gets is congee. she can't be trusted with toast because it might have sharp edges. previously her diet was 90% beef jerky so you can imagine the state of her digestive system. she had a colon like a republican senator. if he'd given her a bowl of oatmeal her first night she might have died.

and as for the rest

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

I can't read the aj book reviews on goodreads though because I feel like people collectively did not get that the gender thing was A) in service to her other themes not the entire point of the book B) not a girlboss everyone's a woman now thing either

new young royals timeline just dropped:

Okay besties gonna forcibly make myself continue lmk tomorrow bc it's p good I just keep forgetting to watch it

ALMOST done with :  | compilation. after im done i already wanna do a liam smiling compilation, but i think i should do liam crying compilation and liam angry compilation bc i think that would ALSO lend itself well to future analysis!!!!

Tbh i need my own fricking togawa in my life that's it 😔

i keep forgetting i have instagram i literally won’t post for months and when i do it’s just 10 random pictures idk how people Curate their profiles over there

that horrifying moment when you're talking w your sis about a show you're both into and you make an offhand comment about an attribute of one of the characters that seconds later you realize was, in fact, purely an invention of the fandom and you have probably read way too many fics about the character

When it comes to high-context and low-context cultures, where one has the expectation of people understanding specific subtle nuances of what someone says, and the other has the expectation that everything needs to be explicitly said to be understood, I've heard plenty of people from low-context cultures ask "why not say what you mean and mean what you say then, why would you have to speak in riddles?" about high-context ones, like people of the latter type are just being cryptic and esoteric on purpose.

But culture does not consist of things you do on purpose, it is just the way things are done where you were raised. And when you were raised in a high-context culture, the thought of needing to explicitly state something instead of using some phrase or expression that you've learned to use comes as a culture shock, too. It's not "fuck you for not correctly understanding my riddles three", but "oh shit, I hadn't occurred to me that I would need to say that out loud."

The first time I went on a business trip to the US, my partner came with me, and we immediately discovered that he does not fare well on long flights. So when my publisher asked me about future trips, inquiring whether my partner would be coming with me, I asked him. He said that he would, if the flights weren't such a problem - he would need to travel in some way where he could get his feet up or lay down during flights, like business class or first class. Being also a finn, I understood what he meant and relayed the message as is to my publisher, not considering that they might not.

To both of our surprise, they started to actually look for first class tickets for us.

Finnish culture is a high-context one, people don't talk much and aren't very confrontational. Being demanding and putting someone else into a position where they're forced to be upfront or demanding is rude. And in finnish, saying "this would only be possible if these entirely absurd/completely impossible conditions were met" is a polite way of saying "no". You are simply explaining why something cannot be done, without either saying an explicit "no" or seeming like you're making up excuses. It offers the other party an opportunity to agree that these conditions cannot be met, so neither party will come off as confrontational or demanding.

Both me and my boyfriend considered it self-evident that the request was absurd, and could not be read as anything but a polite way to decline. It had not occurred to me that an american's natural response to "it would be impossible to do this" is to start figuring out how to do it anyway.