sorry idk but the way the world is so fast and the people in it still want it to be faster is sooo annoying to me. people groaning while standing in line for 3 minutes people being mad the train ride is gonna take 2 hours people complaining that the bus is a few minutes late people being angry that construction work is taking months even though it used to take decades. don't you see the world is already so so so fast in every single aspect can't you understand that being mad will do nothing and just make your mood worse. enjoy the moments of stillness you're given. just stand in line and look at the people around you. sit on the train and watch the scenery. you'll get there.

oh so you wanna fuck that monster huh. make sexy art of them without giving them muscles and/or making them look human

I can certainly see why people are obsessed about the slow burn reading of narumitsu, the one where they wait for 7, 9 or even more years before they ever do anything romantic together, but. Their relationship in the trilogy era could be so, so interesting and complicated and yet so. Warm and full of comfort.

Just... Two traumatized and mentally ill men trying their best to figure out this relationship thing. Phoenix remembering what it's like to have a romantic partner again, after being betrayed, after being left behind, and now confronting his abandonment issues. Edgeworth learning how to love somebody, and now trying to express it, perhaps searching for his own ways of doing so.

Yes, they encounter a number of problems. Edgeworth gets this nagging feeling at times that he's too broken for a romantic relationship, that he's a parasite leaching on another person's care and affection, thus at times he acts aloof and withdrawn. Phoenix gets paranoid that he'll end up completely alone again very soon, whenever he notices Edgeworth getting so cold all of a sudden. Edgeworth genuinely thinks at the worst moments that the right thing to do is to just break up right now so he doesn't waste any more of Phoenix' time. Phoenix is anxious that one day Edgeworth can just disappear on him again without saying a word. Edgeworth feels forever indebted for everything Phoenix did to help him, and now when he notices his partner struggling he wants to do the same for him, but he doesn't even know why Phoenix is troubled, and even less about how to help him. Phoenix is less than honest sometimes on how he feels because he really thinks that his problems are nothing compared to Edgeworth's, but he can't help but feel bitter nevertheless that his partner isn't that helping. And then feels like a petty person for that bitterness and knows that he can't be actually cross at Edgeworth for not being a mind-reader. If truth be told, they both think that the other "has it worse", so they both make the same mistake of not opening up fully until something not very good occurs.

"But why didn't you tell me anything??" They both ask each other. Often. But the important thing is, is that they get to ask that eventually. Say sorry to each other. And then move on knowing each other a little bit better, and maybe not repeating the same mistake in the future. At least, the chances are lower now.

Would it be unhealthy for them to be together in that era? Well, depends on your definition of the word 'unhealthy', but I'm a firm believer that it's better to figure out things together, with your loved one, and that's what they are doing. Healing goes much smoother when you have mutual support. And sometimes hurt people can understand and help other hurt people better than any 'healthy' person can. You are in pain, and I'm also in pain, so I understand how you feel and want to help you get through this. It's all about trust and empathy. And isn't it the core of narumitsu and their relationship?

So basically, while it takes a lot of work for them to be together at this point, it is worthwhile. And that is why I prefer the interpretation that they have something going on already in the trilogy. I really want them to struggle, but make it work. I want their relationship to begin not in the best possible moment, perhaps, but to grow more comfortable and mature with years regardless. It is not ideal and far from the perfection, and that is exactly why it's so real and beautiful.

I just spent an entire day untangling a knot in a friend's family tree. It turns out that about 100 years ago, some careless researcher accidentally smooshed together two guys with the same name, in spite of the fact that they lived in different states. Even though this person appears on nearly 500 people's family trees on Ancestry.com, and dozens of people have submitted him as their qualifying ancestor for the Sons/Daughters of the American Revolution, no one has ever taken a second look and thought, "Hmm ... it's a bit weird that this feller was still living in Pennsylvania 15 years after he died in Ohio."

Anyway, I think I have it all sorted out now, and I wrote up and posted a document explaining my reasoning, attached to his profile on the tree I made. I hope it is helpful to someone, and that I'm not about to have 100 angry DAR/SAR members show up at my door with torches and pitchforks because I said that their Revolutionary War Soldier Boy ancestor wasn't actually, and they're not as super special as they thought they were.

Kind of enjoyed his character teaser! :)

I think Lyney will be pretty interesting especially if he’s the main character introducing us to Fontaine (similarly to like collei and tighnari being the first characters for sumeru). The relationship between magic and law to the truth are very counter to each other, because magic presents falsehood as the truth while law is meant to uncover the truth and judge impartially based on it. I think the fact that we’re seeing a family of magicians in our first banner instead of a judge or a lawyer means a lot of fun things are in store for the Fontaine justice system in terms of how it handles falsehoods presented to it and how it judges what it perceives to be truth.

Traffic Life: Widows Alliance

some minor secret life spoilers below.

The Widows' Alliance name drop in the most recent session has me being extremely normal about everything.

I just love that alliance so much. It is, as far as I can think, the only alliance in the entire traffic series that has survived all five seasons now without a single betrayal and the only murder has been consensual.

Third Life was the setup, they didn't get to actively team together so much but they had their deal and their plans, Cleo just died before they had the chance to see them through, and Scott followed not long after.

Last Life, the infamous Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss teamup my beloveds. Cleo was a semi-latecomer to the trio but it was never in question and they both stuck with it through to the end.

Double Life, The Official Team, when they turned on Pearl and still stuck by each other, to the point that they axe crit each other to emphasize to their government assigned soulmates that they didn't need them, they had each other. (Pearl's powdered snow came after the axe crits i will scream about this until i am hoarse, she retaliated with lesser damage to an injustice and cruelty done towards her first.)

Limited Life, Scott took refuge with the Clockers multiple times when the entire rest of the server was hunting him and Cleo gave him shelter without question each and every time. I think he set his spawn in their base more often then he did in his own. He also gifted multiple of his lives to them, Cleo especially, and traded a couple more.

And now Secret Life. When they tried to avoid teaming up and yet...and yet.

alright, i just got around to finishing Dungeon Meshi- and damn if it didn't stick the landing!

there's a lot to recommend in this manga. first- it's extraordinarily fucking funny. it does not forget that it's a comic, and consistently has great visual gags even when something deeply fucked up and serious is happening.

and it fires on all other cylinders, too- the character designs are great, the worldbuilding is intricate and believable and does a lot of interesting things with standard fantasy tropes, the main cast is likable and has a great dynamic, the story keeps a lot of plates spinning without getting up its own ass or forgetting the details...

but the thing that really impresses me about Dungeon Meshi- the thing that sticks out as something it does uniquely well- is the theming.

Dungeon Meshi is about hunger and eating. it is about those things, hardcore. just about every plot point and every character dynamic is about that theme, approached from a dazzling array of different angles. it's got plenty to say about like, actual food and cooking, sure- but it also gets into the nature of desire, the cycle of predation, differing personal tastes, taking the other into oneself, satiation vs motivation... it makes sure that every development in the story is grounded in and building on that theme somehow.

Food is not a gimmick- Food is what the story is about, and not as a bit. this isn't a silly food-world full of food-creatures and food-magic- this is a normal, well-developed fantasy setting, in which a story is being told that focuses relentlessly on the relationship of the characters to food and eating. it manages to feel completely natural, even with so much going on that you'd think the food thing would get in the way. it doesn't get in the way. the story was designed around it, down to the smallest detail.

i think it might be a 10/10 manga! it does everything it sets out to do, completely successfully, with a ton of humor and charm. well-paced, well-drawn, well-written, good ending- i can't think of anything to complain about. highly recommended.

ok but i am so TIRED of some of y’all reducing kaveh to just “sad broke babygirl who lives with alhaitham” when he is literally one of the top geniuses in sumeru AND one of the most famous (and brilliant) scholars from kshahrewar

“a genius nigh-unparalleled in the last few decades” “engraved his name into the history of the akademiya”

LET IT SINK IN

also alhaitham literally considers kaveh his equal and thinks of him as “an excellent mirror” so idk where y’all are getting the idea that haitham thinks kaveh is beneath him academically.. 🤨

ONE: ok guys here’s an arc about mob, in his growth as a person, being confronted with an ideology he’s unfamiliar with, and he has to learn from it but also understand why it’s unhealthy and bad to properly grow from it and choose kindness in the end, albeit in a more nuanced way than before, and this will make mob more able to confront later problems in the season that can’t be solved with mere kindness and require a deep understanding of loneliness and solitude, something he hasn’t had much room to speak on until now. To express mob being shown this villain’s ideology we have a sequence where we see how mogami views the world and by extension how he sees mob, by putting mob in the kind of sad fucked up world he thinks exists, but mob will overcome it with the knowledge that in the real world he has people he cares about and that even the people who make the world bad sometimes can change and nobody is a static evil and kindness and courage when you’re going through hardship goes a long way. despite the darkness this is ultimately a very uplifting experience for him and a show that life is always more than its darkest moments, and also how picking yourself up instead of wallowing in your own suffering and trauma is hard but a very courageous act and what makes mob stronger than mogami

mp100 fans with tunnel vision: Oh so mob was tortured for six months and is sad? He’s literally so sad and traumatized and nobody is talking about this?

True Batman fans understand that Batman can beat all the rogues because they follow clear patterns of behavior that align with their chosen theme in plots that have twelves steps but he can and DOES get beat up by randos In back alleys because numbers mean more than skill in a fight and also one of my favorite parts of Arkham knight was where if you fought a crowd on the ground there was a very good chance someone in a car would try to run you over and they would often succeed if I didn’t nope out of there

Don't get me wrong I still think Bruce is a really good fighter and strategist but people really do forget that just bc hes dc favourite furry doesn't mean he's not still very much just a human at the end of the day and yes can in fact be defeated by a car running him over (<- also got run over alot while playing Arkham knight)

Since the Brits love to lovingly lecture us Americans about football and British things in Ted Lasso (which I appreciate!), I want to do my part to educate on one American misconception that drives me crazy:

Kansas isn’t the south. It’s the Midwest. Ted’s accent isn’t a southern accent. Jason Sudeikis is putting on kind of a hokey, country accent. But it’s not southern.

Credentials: I’m from the south and have a southern accent.

Okay I finally finished the newest Main Story quest for Star Rail and I immediately ran here to thrown down my idea

Spoilers under the cut

SO LIKE??? I HAVEN'T SEEN TOO MANY SELF AWARE STUFF FOR STAR RAIL BUT I CANT BE THE ONLY ONE THAT GOT VIBES WHENEVER AVENTURINE WAS LOOKING TOWARDS THE CAMERA

Like for a second I seriously thought he was breaking the fourth wall like Sampo kind of did. It freaked me the fuck out dhskdhfj

And that got me thinking of how exactly a creator god would work in that sort of universe??? Cause different planets will have different viewpoints or even not have any awareness of such an entity existing. At least for the more creatorish side of the au

It's much easier to go by the "video game characters know they're in a video game" trope, which technically is what self aware au is supposed to mean but I ain't getting into that can of worms.

But man that would just be funny, like as the player sees flashbacks of Aventurine's past he can hear their voice and reaction since he would be in the party during those times. (Lmao then that means he heard me constantly call him suspicious since first meeting-)

Anyway that's all I can ramble out, I grinded for materials for him and I'm TB power out uuuugh.

"A first aid kit in a crate? It's a health pack. This is a loot drop."

The Librarians S02E08 And the Point of Salvation.

I'm with you there on preferring bottom!Alastor and getting squicked out by top!Alastor. The squick is worse for me when searching radioapple than radiostatic stuff, and I think it has more to do with the egregious amount of uke-fication of Lucifer that I've seen. Vox and Al get it sometimes too, let's be real that's gonna happen in any mlm ship. But I feel like it happens SO often to Lucifer, mostly cause he's small and cute, that people completely forget he's the oldest and most powerful entity in hell.

He would NOT be genuinely scared or intimidated by Al or any other sinner for that matter and Al would NOT be able to physically overpower or threaten Luci. It just feels so wildly out of character for me that any of the appeal of the ship/characters is gone at that point.

Like, for real, no shade to anyone that likes that, go on and get your food. But my extreme dislike of it has me now avoiding bottom!Lucifer radioapple like the plague just so I don't risk being subjected to it.

I think...I think you just described why I feel so squicked out by bottom!Lucifer and top!Alastor 😦 Like, I couldn't figure out what exactly about it was throwing me off, but you just said it perfectly!!

That's literally it! It's the uke-fication of Lucifer. That's it. Lucifer would never feel threatened by Alastor. He would never be overpowered by Alastor. So when I see depictions of Alastor successfully intimidating Lucifer, or overpowering him at all, it just throws me out of the story.

Lucifer's been alive longer than Hell. Alastor's measely 100+ years of being alive is nothing compared to his millennia+ lifespan. And yeah, Lucifer is the strongest person in Hell, he could beat Alastor in any fight, no question. He has no reason to be scared or threatened by him.

And look, there are ways to get Lucifer to a point of being afraid. There are always a way to make characters act in a way you wouldn't typically see. In fact, Lucifer, the biggest, baddest person in Hell, being threatened by something would be a huge thing for his character and for the story. That could totally work!

But when it comes from Alastor just going into his demon form, or looming over Lucifer, I just 🥲 it takes me out of the story. I can't. Alastor may be a big bad Overlord, and he's dangerous for sure, but like...power-wise he is just not on Lucifer's level and Lucifer knows that--Alastor knows that--and this is what makes their dynamic so, SO interesting, especially if they're in a relationship or slowly building into a relationship. That's what makes it so spicy and flavorful. The push and pull. The insecurity and emotion. The complex dynamic between them.

I think you're right about it making bottom!Lucifer and top!Alastor lose its appeal. I went back through my Twitter bookmarks yesterday and found a few top!Alastor's & bottom!Lucifer's that I've saved, but I've come to dislike that generalized characterization of it so much that I avoid it it like the plague too.

And like you said, there's no hate to those who enjoy it. This is fandom and people are allowed to write, draw, and do what they want. It's all fiction and it's not hurting anyone.

I just don't like the top!Alastor & bottom!Lucifer dynamic in most fan-arts, and I don't click onto fics with it cause I just don't want to subject myself to an unenjoyable time 😂 I'm here to have fun too, afterall.

a really underappreciated aspect of goro's character is how much he wants/needs people to like him. like, people think he's "gotten over that" by third sem because he acts like he doesn't care and is an asshole. but like, that's so far from the truth. he still really wants people to like him. he's just completely given up on that happening. he's intentionally pushing people away on purpose by being the worst version of himself.

so something i really wish people explored more in post canon/redemption akechi fics is this desire to be liked. if goro starts to have hope again that he might be able to be loved, after akira and other thieves accept him as his true self, there's no way that's not going to affect how he acts. i just don't buy the idea that he's going to be a jerk all the time forever, not only because i think he needs to improve and be kinder as a part of his self betterment, but moreso simply because if he's shown kindness and accepted and gains friends, he's going to be terrified of losing them or accidentally pushing them away.

sure, they might accept him even while he was his worst, meanest version of himself, but that isn't enough to undo the trauma and akechi's fundamental worldview that he is inherently unlovable so long as he is himself. so there's going to be this conflict between his fear that he has to become the detective prince if he doesn't want to lose his friends, and the part of himself that hates the detective prince for being a false projection and his idealistic self he never could be.

i don't buy the idea that goro could comfortably be his true self with his friends in a "take it or leave it" sort of way. he might pretend to be secure in himself enough to act that way, but he's going to be internally terrified at all times that if he says or does the wrong thing they'll abandon him. at first he'll even accept it as inevitable, but the longer they stay, the more he's going to hope they could stay, and the more he's going to be terrified that they'll leave him like everyone else has.

i want more fics about goro struggling between the desire to be true to himself and the desperate need not to be abandoned again. i want more fics where he either decides to push all of them away because that's better than the alternative of them abandoning him, or he starts to transform himself and act in ways out of character just to keep them from leaving. or feeling like he has to offer them something or they'll abandon him because they'll never love him for himself. feeling like he owes them just for being loved. that sort of thing! just anything at all that explores how he thinks he is inherently unlovable that goes beyond simple self loathing. how is that going to affect how he acts in a world where he DOES have people who love him, but he can't accept that, because they must have some ulterior motive, no one could really love him for him? i think it's a really untapped part of post canon stuff.

okay so i'm in the process of rereading pjo and i just got to botl and i want to talk about my girl annabeth. i feel like a good majority of the fandom mischaracterization of annabeth comes from botl, specifically because she was rude to rachel throughout the book, and then everyone just assumed that because she wasn't nice to rachel she must be a bitch inherently, on top of being this fucking emotionless shell of a person, which is wild to me because i don't know how her being rude to one (1) girl automatically discredits everything she's done in the past three books. i feel like it stems from a complete misunderstanding of why she was rude to rachel. let's make this clear: she wasn't rude to rachel because rachel was a potential love interest; she was rude to rachel because she was scared.

everyone she's ever loved has been taken from her in some way: her mom being absent because she's a goddess and not really wanting anything to do with annabeth; her feeling like her dad and stepmom didn't want her around (losing her real family); thalia, her found sister, sacrificing her life to save annabeth, and then leaving her again to join the hunters; luke betraying the camp, but more importantly betraying annabeth on a much deeper level because he was her only family. he promised her that he would be there for her, no matter what, and then he leaves her, just like everyone else. even grover left her, in a way, because he went out to search for pan and wasn't around. the only close person who hasn't left her at the point of botl? percy.

but she knows about the prophecy at that point, so she's spent the better part of three years resigning herself to the fact that her best friend is going to die when he turns sixteen and there's absolutely nothing she can do to stop that. she's spent the better part of three years trying not to fall in love with him because it would only hurt worse when the time comes. if i had to bet on it, the reason she was thinking about joining the hunters in ttc is because if she isn't around him (and also can't because she's a hunter), she won't become more attached to him than she already is. if she separated herself from him, it would hurt less. except here's the thing: by that point, she couldn't make herself do that. she couldn't make herself willingly give up percy yet, because it might not have been him. if i had to guess, when thalia came back, annabeth stopped worrying about percy dying---just for a little while---because she thought that thalia was going to be the child of the prophecy after all. so when thalia became a hunter, she was mentally prepared to lose thalia again. but that means that every fear she had about percy being the prophecy kid before thalia came back to life resurfaced full force, and now suddenly annabeth has a year and a half left with him when she thought that she might have longer. so despite the thought of her joining the hunters to prevent herself from getting too attached, she hadn't metnally come to the point where she was ready to give up the small hope that he would live.

which bring us now to botl. like i said, i'm just now rereading the book (and i'm only on chapter 1 but i started thinking about annabeth and here i am). annabeth is mean to rachel because she's terrified of losing percy too soon. sure, at this point she knows the prophecy is his, she knows come next summer she probably won't have him anymore---but that's just it: next summer. she's preparing herself to lose him in a year, not immediately. so when someone comes along that presents a way for her to lose percy, of course she gets scared, and she gets defensive about it. it's not even the fact that rachel was a potential love interest, it's more so the fact that rachel was a mortal, and not part of their world. if percy was with rachel, there's a good chance he'd try to leave the magical world behind, and, more importantly, leave annabeth behind, which she wasn't ready for yet.

hell, that's exactly what ended up happening in the beginning of tlo! annabeth wasn't upset because he was spending time with rachel, she was upset because he was spending time in the mortal world rather than her world and, in her mind because of all of her past experiences being abandoned, that translates to "percy is leaving her," and it was way earlier than she thought, and she wasn't ready. so what does she do? she tries to protect herself. she puts walls up and tries to act cold and distant because she's coming to terms with the fact that she's already lost him. she's already lost him.

and like, was she jealous of the fact that rachel was a love interest? probably, yeah. but i think it's also just important to know that there's something way deeper to it. annabeth isn't being a bitch for the sake of being a bitch, and she's not just jealous of rachel because she was a girl that liked percy. she was upset because he was getting further and further away right in front of her. he was leaving way quicker than she was prepared for, so a lot of the stuff she said to rachel came from a place of fear of losing percy, and anger at rachel for trying to pull him into the mortal world, effectively leaving her behind and adding another person to the list of people she loves that have left her.