#and I'm... obviously not ready for that

[8xlewis]

just had probably one of the worst panic/anxiety attacks in my lifeeee I've stopped and started crying about 7 times, I'm hoping by the 11th time maybe it'll tone down a bit. hate life rn!!!!

[starwarjotta]

looking for someone on Tatooine

[knifearo]

being aromantic is like. hey btw you're going to live a life that is the culmination of most of society's worst nightmares. sorry lol ✌️ but then you turn around and take a really good hard look at it and it turns out that living in that nightmare is fucking awesome and you get to wake up every day and take that fear that other people have and laugh and hold it close until it's a great joy for you instead. and being happy is a radical act that you define instead of someone else. and you're sexy as fuck that's just a fact of life i don't make the rules on that one

[iwasbored777]

The amount of times they teased Broppy wedding isn't funny anymore, I just want it to happen now

[beadelmare]

have you ever realized just how much time per day you spend thinking about shifting

[genericpuff]

i find it funny that one of rachel’s drawings of herself in the afterword that just went up is just fully persephone. is that something she does a lot?

Alright so I've been making it a general rule for myself to like, not harp on Rachel in any way outside of LO as much because frankly the horse is dead now and there's not much left to say outside of what can be analyzed in hindsight. I think despite everything I have to say about her and her work, she still deserves to get away from this nonsense and I don't wanna spend eternity hovering over her shoulder.

But the afterword was posted within the LO series and is clearly meant for readers of LO in the functioning of being an afterword so let's just call it fair game LOL

I will say, on the whole, it does feel very honest and sentimental and I can respect Rachel for taking the time to write out and illustrate her afterword in a way that was personal to both her and her fans. I can understand why she went at it from the angle that she did and I'm not gonna fault her for that.

But there's also something that feels deeply... disingenuous about her approach right from the starting gun. I will say, before I continue, that I'm well aware I am biased towards Rachel as a creator, and I fully acknowledge that I could very well be reading too much into things. This is just my opinion, take it with mountains of salt.

I can get looking back on your own childhood, your past self, whatever, and going "see! it all got better!" because sure! For a lot of creators like Rachel, it must be wild to look back on where they came from and there's a lot of sentimentality on expressing that through an afterword like this where she reflects on where she came from. Though she STILL didn't acknowledge her other comics outside of LO, I can understand if she wants to leave those skeletons in the closet.

But I feel like her drawing herself as a child who's being given an Eisner by her adult self and all that just feels like some gross attempt to disarm any criticism of her because "don't make fun of me, I'm just a sad lonely baby girl!"

She's not a child. Child Rachel didn't grossly misappropriate Greek myth into their own self-indulged vanity project. Child Rachel didn't claim herself a folklorist of a culture's works only to bastardize them completely. Child Rachel didn't create a hostile environment within her fanbase by bullying anyone who she perceived as a threat, sneaking into critical spaces to try and cause trouble, and writing her own clapbacks into her comic. Child Rachel didn't claim to be challenging misogyny and purity culture only to reinforce misogyny and purity culture through her own self-insert baby-virgin-gets-rescued-by-rich-tycoon power fantasy that regularly glorified abuse towards women and the lower class.

30-almost-40-year-old Rachel did though.

At best it comes across as really cringe sentimentality from a Greek-weeb (heh, greeboo) and goes to show how much Rachel inserted herself into Greek myth without ever absorbing its messages or cultural contexts, it was all about her and her feelings as a sad New Zealand girl with dyslexia who thought Persephone's story was about another sad girl being rescued from her "horrible childhood".

At worst it's an active attempt to play on people's heartstrings by drawing herself as a child who people will naturally not want to criticize. I don't want to assume she's doing it intentionally, I really don't want to leave her afterword on a bad foot, as I can definitely understand as both a creator and a person who struggled with learning disabilities in their own childhood how and why she wants to pay homage to her past and where she came from... but let's just say, as someone who's also gotten way too "lost in the sauce" concerning personal self-reflective projects, I think there's a lot to say about how this confirms that Rachel made LO entirely for herself, about herself, without any actual intention to respect the original myths, because she never truly separated them from herself when she was a child. And, in my humble opinion as someone who has Been There with the self-insert OC's and self-reflective angsty plotlines, I can fully attest to the fact that that's not fucking healthy. Even with personal projects, you NEED to learn to get your head out of the sauce, you NEED to learn to objectively separate yourself from the narrative so the story doesn't fall apart under your own hubris and ego, you NEED to learn to draw a line if you want to have any sort of identity as a human being outside of what you make for people. And that's with just normal original stories, this was a story based on Greek myth which doesn't belong to her.

And this goes for a lot of the things she's said and done in the past, so much of her own "sources" even are tethered to things that she read / watched in her childhood and only vaguely remembers, as if she never mentally left her childhood at all, which just... if the point was to highlight her past and the traumas she went through and how they contributed to her present, an Eisner isn't going to validate those experiences. And drawing attention to her past through the lens of her childhood self absolutely 100% does not absolve her of the negative effect her work has had on the modern Greek myth zeitgeist nor the things she's said and done as a 38 year old woman who should absolutely know better.

The community she entered and took from will forever remain changed by her influence and taking, in many ways not for the better. She has the privilege of walking away and never having to think about it again, with all the awards and accolades that were bought for her, the bravado that she built around being a "folklorist" with zero credentials, and the platform she was given over many other creators struggling to even be heard.

That "place" she claims to have now was built entirely on inserting herself into another culture's works and doing nothing but taking, taking, taking, while offering nothing in return but vanity and lip service. That "place" was paid for and brought to you by Webtoons.

[conclaveyaoi]

mister robert harris, words were chosen, signore, words were chosen...the sabballini potential to get freaky is enormous. praetorian. appraising a beast. the cow line in the movie. the pause in the auditorium. and your man. signore. signore ti prego. I CANNOT

[room-surprise]

Kabru from Dungeon Meshi's Ethnic origin

(Masterpost of evidence available here now!)

I've seen folks talking about this, which makes me SOOOOO happy. I've been trying to tell people that Kabru is *some kind* of fantasy version of Indian since at least March of 2023, which is when I finished reading what was available of Dungeon Meshi at the time. You may have seen my post in the Kabru tag about his name suggesting that he's of Nepali origin! I'll go into this in a LOT more detail when I finally publish my big Dungeon Meshi research paper (soon, I promise, I hope), but this is such a wonderful win for Kabru fans that I wanted to make a post about it! So many helpful fans were able to identify the sweet Kabru's trying to talk about is rasgulla, which means I didn't have to actually do any research to figure it out like I normally would have. Though since I know Kabru's meant to be from someplace like India, it wouldn't have been hard to search for "Indian dessert white ball" and figure it out.

Rasgulla (literally "syrup filled ball") is a dessert popular in the eastern part of South Asia. It is made from ball-shaped dumplings of chhena dough, cooked in light sugar syrup. This is done until the syrup permeates the dumplings.

While it is near-universally agreed upon that the dessert originated in the eastern Indian subcontinent, the exact locus of origin is disputed between locations such as West Bengal, Bangladesh, and Odisha. The name rasgulla is derived from the words ras ("juice") and gulla ("ball"), and other names for the dish include rasagulla, rossogolla, roshogolla, rasagola, rasagolla, and rasbhari or rasbari. Rasbari is the name of it in Nepal, so I think that's probably what Kabru would have called it if Milsiril hadn't interrupted him.

[demodraws0606]

I'm kinda peeved off that I'm seeing a few people that have the critique that Siffrin didn't deserve their "happy ending" in the end, that he was forgiven too quickly. I'm bad about this for actually a number of reasons.

(Warning this will be long because I am irrationally passionate about this, totally not because I relate to Siffrin or anything ahahahahaha)

First, logically, Siffrin's actions definitely are not as awful as people make it out to be especially not in the context of a time loop story. The worst Siffrin has done was his actions in the Bad Touch achievement and the last loop, one being purely optional. Outside of that, any tampering Siffrin had done was purely harmless, sure it's existentially horrifying but it's not like he did any actual manipulation.

You could also argue since Siffrin was in control of the loop, they are responsible for everything that was happening but we know full well he wasn't in control literally, his emotions were in control of the loop. Considering, a whole thing in this story is how acting as though you're fine and trying to control your emotions don't work, I don't think we can make the argument Siffrin was really in control.

He only wanted to trap everyone in the timeloop when it already had destroyed his mind. I thought it was obvious it was a monkey's paws situation.

The last time loop was the breaking point of Siffrin and it's one of the things he does suffer consequences from, they do get mad at him and he does apologize. What else do you want him to do ?

The Bad Touch achievement is the only thing that could be said to be "unforgivable" but it's optional and as far as I know it's hinted that Siffrin would talk about it with Isabeau. In fact it's said that even though right now they're fine and okay, they literally say they are okay to be mad at Siffrin later.

And also, it's not taking into acount the Actual feelings of his family either. They can't remember the loops and they have their own reason to not still be mad with him, so why should they hold Siffrin accountable for feelings they don't have.

In fact, the storyline strikes the perfect balance to not have Siffrin do such horrible action that he'd actually be unforgivable but still have him do enough that it shows what the loops are doing to him but....

..it's not just logically, judging Siffrin's actions as bad/good things like that is not just what's wrong with the narrative that Siffrin should've suffered more consequences. It also goes against the narrative itself.

For me at least, ISAT is a game about mental illness but also recovery. It's not coincidental a lot of people project their own mental issues onto Siffrin, it's not just a "ahahaha they're so relatable !!", it's a genuine part of the story.

I could make an entire essay about it but that's not the point, what would a story about these themes be if the ending was just "you need to repent for the things you did during your own mental breakdown"

It may seem ridiculous after all this that they'd just forgive Siffrin after all of this, but really hasn't most of the points against Siffrin's morality been coming from Siffrin themselves.

Siffrin believed he deserved to be rejected, that he deserved the suffer, that he was disgusting. It was these belief that kept him from talking about the loop because for him, everything was his fault. Not just because he created the loop but because the desire of staying with them was the very sin he hated himself for since the beginning.

So for all that self hatred to be met with, strange acceptance. It almost seems ridiculous, and Siffrin's talk with Odile in the epilogue reinforces how almost comedic it is.

It's close to reality, isn't it ? How many times have you thought you did something completely unforgivable to someone you cared about and you were waiting for them to be furious at you, but that moment never came.

Because they just simply weren't hurt enough by what happened. And sure it was definitely a bad thing you did and they were maybe mad in the moment, but you apologized. Sure there could be more consequences for what you did but what's the point in asking for them to be more mad at you ?

Shouldn't you strive to be better than beg to be hurt for your actions ?

Do you think being hurt, being yelled at would make anything better other than just feed the voice in your head what it wants to hear ?

Weird flowery talk aside, it just doesn't fit the themes and the narrative of the story is what I'm saying. Asking for more punishement for Siffrin goes against what the story is about.

It's just like complaining that the looping mechanics are too frustrating, that's part of the package deal bb !!

Fuck the idea of "repenting by suffering through the consequences" !!! Having to deal with "blinding unrelenting forgiveness and kindness" is in !!!!

[cybersteal]

✨𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒔🌠

[beneathsilverstars]

if i failed to protect my kid during the apocalypse and they almost died wandering on their own but got rescued by a team of four competent, battle-experienced adults who cared about them very much and made them feel less scared and useless but refused to let them fight, i think that would be a pretty decent outcome and i'd be pretty okay with it. sure i could dream up a better situation but there's a hell of a lot of worse ones too.

[stopmyhearts]

you know apart from all the other things i'm obviously hoping don't get worse my own personal thing that I'm really hoping for is that our beautiful little self determination law that hasn't even been in effect for four months will still be there for me when I'm ready for it

[softquietsteadylove]

Vibrators have been mentoined a few times, i think is time gil uses one on thena and leaves her shaking 😌.

"Don't you have a meeting?"

"Princess," Gil moaned directly into her mouth, his hands running up her back, "you think I care about that right now?"

Thena laughed, purring against him. "You might, considering our quarterly reports are upon us."

He groaned. The Ice Queen was on the top of her industry for a reason. But he was more concerned with making out with his wife than his bottom line at the moment. "They can wait."

"Sir?"

Thena pulled herself away from him at the knock on the door, not that they would enter without express permission. She smoothed down her hair and brushed off her dress, sashaying away from him with those delectable hips of hers. "You have business to do, Tyrant."

He grunted. He would just send them away--tell them to reschedule. But His beloved Ice Queen was already across the room, perching herself on the sofa that faced his desk and away from the door.

"Fine, come in."

Gil leaned back in his chair. The two accountants and one assistant scurrying in could obviously already tell he wasn't in the mood for whatever they had to say.

"Go," he waved his hand at them, although he looked over at Thena. He wasn't going to remember any of what they said, but it would be in a memo or an email or something anyway. And if he was really lucky, Thena would 'remind' him of everything they reported later.

Thena met his eye, although she was clearly amused by his lack of attention to the business portion of his 'business'.

He shrugged at her; she was the economist, he was the muscle.

"The winnings from the new pachinko you opened up are substantial. If we look at the gross margin-"

Gil sighed, leaning his chin on his fist. He wasn't absorbing any of this, and he likely couldn't even if he was trying. He watched as Thena rolled her neck, stretching herself after their hasty make out session. That long, pale, sensational neck...

Thena licked her lips, then stretched her arms up in the air. She was behind his associates, in view of him and him alone. She sighed, feigning some boredom.

He made a face; she was driving him nuts and she knew it.

The accountants went on, though. "However, there is the matter of Jasmine National."

"Uh-huh," Gil muttered, still not looking at them as they spoke. Not that they would dare turn to look at what he was looking at. They knew better than to take their eyes off the most dangerous man in Koreatown.

Thena arranged the long skirt of her dress, parting it at her thigh where the slit kissed just above her knees. She tilted her head at him as she crossed one leg over the other.

Gil's hand tightened around the paper under it, crinkling it hopelessly.

His accountants flinched, associating the action with their news. "B-But!--th-the stock we have in the market is currently up! And the real estate we've acquired in Jeju is set for renovation!"

"Great."

Thena uncrossed and then crossed her legs again in the other direction (minx). She arranged her dress, although she let her hand linger over her thigh before slipping through the slit and under.

Gil leaned forward, squinting to get a better look.

"We have the numbers for you, sir."

Gil almost waved at them to get further out of his way. He raised a brow as Thena leaned on her palm, angling her hips away. Her hand was snugly between those surprisingly strong thighs of hers. She wasn't...

"So, as you can see-"

"Y'know what? I don't need to see anything else!" Gilgamesh declared, slamming his hands down on his desk. "Looks great, good work, boys."

They looked amongst themselves. "But sir-"

"Out!" he barked, snapping his fingers in the direction of the door. They hesitated for just one more second, but he reached for one of his desk drawers, "now."

They wisely scurried out, closing the door behind them.

Thena watched them go, releasing a sigh once they were gone. "What a terror, you are."

"You're the terror," he muttered, retrieving what he was looking for in his desk. It was not - contrary to what his accountants had thought it would be - a deadly weapon.

Thena's jaw dropped. "You do not keep that in your desk drawer."

He grinned at her, eager to resume their business from earlier. "Never know when we might need it."

"Who is we?" she glared at him, now deciding to press her thighs together and cross her arms at him. "And what if someone happens upon it?"

"Do your employees get anywhere near your desk?" he asked her dryly, "let alone on that side of it?"

She rolled her eyes, which was as good as admitting defeat for his Ice Queen.

"Now," Gil leaned down to her, gripping the vibrator in his hand. "Lie down, you little tease. Unless you'd like to start things off yourself."

Thena continued to glare at him, even as they both reclined on his black leather sofa. "Your obsession with these things escapes me."

Gil chuckled, though, trailing the tip of the thing up her thigh before flipping her dress as far out of his way as it could go. "It's not this thing I'm obsessed with, Princess."

Thena's head lolled back and to the side as he pressed it right against her, the faint buzzing already filling the air with their hot breaths. "No subtlety."

"Like you're so subtle?" Teasing him like that? He pressed the thing more firmly against her. "Since when do you wear thongs?"

Thena bit into her lip as he managed to reach her clit with the vibrator's head. It was a similar model to the one she used at home. "Sometimes they're - ah! - the most appropriate option."

"Appropriate my ass, Ice," he growled, leaning over to kiss her cleavage. "You just like driving me nuts."

Thena let out a positively sultry sounding moan in response. The tiny little excuse for underwear she was wearing didn't resist much as he moved it out of his way to begin pushing the device into her.

"Feel good?" he pressed his lips to her neck (which she had also used to tease him). Once it was fully in her, he was able to lie over her more. He kissed her mouth, then her jaw, then her neck again, and then finally his hands were free to extract her breasts from the confines of her sparkly dress.

"Yes," she whimpered, her hips rolling as Gil pawed at her. Her hand snaked down to control it better to her standard but Gil grasped her hand with his.

"Don't be a backseat driver, Ice," he grinned against her hot flushed skin. He moved her hand with his, pumping the vibe steadily. "My little control freak."

Thena made some kind of sound of denial, although it was hard to feel intimidated by her when she was busy being so pleasured by him in the moment.

Gil leaned away from her again, moving the vibrator more quickly. He undid his belt and unzipped his trousers. "You wanna finish with this thing, or me?"

Thena moaned louder, although there was a note in her little melody that told him that she didn't appreciate the question. He paused their motion, making her moan become more of a growl.

"I said," he leaned closer to her again, pressing his hardness against her belly. "This hunk of plastic, or me?"

Thena bit her lip again. "You."

"Hm," Gil pursed his lips. He wasn't sure if she really meant that or if she was trying to save his ego. Then again, his Thena wasn't the type to assuage a man's ego for the sake of it--not even her husband's, unfortunately for him.

Who was he kidding; he loved that she had his ego under the spiky heel of her stilettos.

"Gil," Thena panted, eager to finish what they started. She rolled her hips again, but he kept her still. She looked at him, pressing her lips together. "Please, baby, just move."

He grinned. He could see why she liked him hot and begging for her all the time. It was very appealing. "Since you asked so nicely."

Gil extracted the vibrator from her gently. She expressed her frustration at the temporary emptiness he left her with, but he pressed his own tip against her, promising to remedy the situation. "Real thing is better, right?"

"Yes," she sighed as he finally pushed into her, sealing their bodies together.

Now, that, he believed. Their groans harmonized as he finally started moving, making love to his wife as intended. No matter how many times they did it - which was enthusiastically and frequently - he never got tired of the ecstasy of his wife's body.

"Gil," Thena whimpered, gripping his side and his back as soon as he was in range of her. Her legs wrapped around him too, securing him to her as if he was going to slither away.

"Fuck, Thena," he panted, already closer to the edge than he wanted to be. If anything, he was lucky he had warmed her up before diving in; he was already so turned on by her little show he was just about there.

Thena's moans joined the creaking of the sofa's frame, no matter how solidly bolted to the floor it was. Gil made a clumsy attempt to kiss her, but they both needed too much air to linger long. They gasped in puffs of each other's breath. "Right there, so close."

Thank fuck, because he was holding on for dear life. Gilgamesh let his hips drive him, his pelvis meeting hers like an animal's. The slight elevation of her hips, the bounce of her cleavage, half in her dress and half out of it, the pink blooming up her neck and into her cheeks.

His wife was a masterpiece.

Gil groaned up to the ceiling as he shot into her. He was no young buck, but Thena was not of this earth. He ground their hips together, pressing down under her naval but above the line of that devillish little thong she wore.

He didn't even know she had one.

Thena moaned with him as she too toppled over the edge in bliss. She undulated around him, coaxing more from him with each wave of her own pleasure. She drank him up just as greedily.

Gil grunted as he slipped out of her. They said they would stop doing this; working up a sweat while he was in a suit, fucking in the middle of the work day, putting their carnal needs before business.

But he really couldn't care about that when his wife was panting for air under him in all her glory.

Thena sighed as he dove into the crook of her neck, nuzzling into her with light kisses. Her fingers spread out in his hair. "Terrible, we are."

"I thought it was pretty hot."

She gave his hair a playful little tug, although it released just as fast, her body all noodly after her orgasm. "We said we'd stop doing this."

"Yeah, well, that was before my wife decided to show off her hot new panties to me in the middle of my damn quarterly."

Thena laughed; so she did know what she was doing, and she clearly thought it was hilarious, too.

Gil couldn't blame her; he joined her in her laughter. Their business wasn't exactly lighthearted, but at least he could have a good fuck and a good laugh with her about it.

Thena blinked as he kissed her again--like, scooped her up and kissed her like they were in Casablanca kissed her. She looked adorably ruffled from the sex already, but the kiss clearly woke up her senses again. "W-What was that for?"

Gil just grinned at her, unable to contain himself. And why should he? He was the luckiest man in the world, with a woman like her by his side. "A man can't be happy to make love to his wife?"

Thena's eyes dashed to the side, turning shy in the face of his unhindered love for her. She cleared her throat, pulling her dress over herself again. "Not in the office, he can't."

Gil let her pull some modesty over herself again while he shoved himself back in his pants. He also reached behind him, retrieving their little friend. Well, no, it was no friend of his; it was a tool for pleasing his wife, and that was all the respect he would give it. "I don't know if there's much we haven't done in the office, Sweetness."

Thena kneed him in the thigh as she adjusted her thong back into place. He let her retrieve his suit's pocket square to clean herself up a bit down there. She didn't look at him while she did, but she muttered, "exactly why some self-restraint might do us some good?"

Gil just shook his head with a smile as Thena stood. She tested how presentable she looked right away when they were in the office. Tested her steadiness on her feet, smoothed out her dress, combed her fingers through her hair. What a Goddess she was. "I don't know how you can expect that of me when you're this beautiful."

Thena sighed, definitely rolling her eyes at him. But she turned around and leaned down to him again, kissing him the way they ought to kiss every time--like there was no one in the world but them.

Gil leaned into it eagerly, moaning even as she leaned up and away from him again. He pouted at her.

But the Ice Queen met him grin for grin, adjusting the straps of her dress. "Don't you have a quarterly report to go over? I know you didn't listen to a thing your accountants told you."

"And whose fault is that?" he chuckled at her, finally rising from the couch, although he had to wiggle a little to get himself sitting comfortably in his pants again. She pressed her lips together to keep herself from laughing. He gave her side a playful little pinch as he kissed her cheek. "Go over it with me? We both know you'll understand what it says more than I will."

Thena followed him to his desk to pull up the reports, even as she faked a sigh, "if I must."

[luv-again]

this pirate au is gonna be a titan actually. i'm only a few scenes down, sitting comfortably at 3.2k words and we're very VERY far from the end

posting this as one solid chapter might give y'all heart irregularities </3

[bobbinalong]

A worse idea I've seen circulated on tumblr is ""I've seen people suggest Tim and Bernard adopting the kid she gave up and later finding out about her being Steph's. Which could be cute imo"

The justification being "well it's not like they are doing anything with the kid and Steph can play a part too. What's the problem".

Now this is SUPER misogynistic.

Not enough that the whole arc of her pregnancy was basically all about Tim canonically, let's make the baby about him as well <3

[swan2swan]

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Budget cuts hit this ep hard.

Just pretend there were other farmers and people out of sight.