#Cosmic Reflection

[josephkravis]

We become the music of the universe— not in grandeur, but in unity.

[laidbackmarco]

The Beautiful Surrender to the Flow of Life

It’s 0400 in the morning. My friend sent me a message. Still awake at my computer, I look down to see who it is. “I really do need a marketing manager”. This is the golden ticket, a moment I’d been waiting for. Only it was a little earlier than I expected it. I sent him my gratitude before surrendering to my fatigue. The next day was a rare break at the start of Japan tourim’s peak season. I…

[epicstoriestime]

The Thousand-Year Reflection

Daily writing promptWhat experiences in life helped you grow the most?View all responses Beneath the moonlit bamboo, a warrior and a wanderer from the stars share their wisdom—two souls shaped by time, bound by the search for meaning. “What experiences in life helped you grow the most?” The question was spoken softly, yet it echoed through the stillness of the bamboo grove, caught between the…

[soaked-doors]

when it rains, it pours

[fhtagn-and-tentacles]

COLORS FROM BEYOND

by Erskine

[euphorictruths]

The Dreaming- Wynn Yarrow

[its-leethee]

Lucia the first elves and archdragons, who designed and built the camp cosmic order, is angry and scared that the spark human's use of primal magic is going to spread through the camp and endanger everyone--

It happened long ago, when humans had only just learned to hold fire in their hands without burning. They nurtured their precious primal flames secretly—in the dark of night, beneath shadows and shrouds—as cultivating its glow drew the eyes and ire of monsters. Eventually, for the audacity of their fire, they were hunted, and—though they looked to the stars for salvation—the stars, too, looked down upon them with disdain. Humanity had been given something it was never meant to have. And so there came a calamity.

--Ripples

I've been thinking about why the stars and the Cosmic Order would turn their backs on and refuse to watch over Xadia. If they could see the future - why is there nothing they're willing or able to do to stop it?

But if the human's unchecked use of magic would attract the attention of a certain type of monsters -

Speculation that Aaravos was hoping to attract a star devourer dragon to destroy Xadia is an idea that's been bouncing around the fandom for a while.

And this would explain why the other Startouch elves on the Cosmic Council would stay out of the way; why they would turn their backs and avert their eyes; why they wouldn't want to look past a certain point via their timeblind powers either.

"...the beginning of the end. The long slow spiral to chaos." They won't look past the cosmic-prophecy-event-horizon because there's a star devourer dragon sitting just beyond.

They're afraid of being driven mad.

"...I can feel my very being shattering from the inside out!"

Aaravos gleefully goading the humans on; taunting the Cosmic Council, "are you watching?"

I have not seen the stars in centuries. But when I see them again—when the stars are forced to look upon me, their dark brother—they will know how I have waited. And when everything they have built lies shattered, I will savor their fall from the sky.

--Patience

In lieu of a conclusion paragraph I'm gonna leave y'all with a piece of my terrible humor:

--2x01 foreshadowing???? i love this show so much

[apple-onigiri]

hi! :) its headcanon thursday! 

i’ve recently found out i’ve been saying odile wrong this entire time, because apparently “oh-deal” is french and technically correct for a vaugardian name. and it’s not “oh-dial” (a la croc-odile) like i’ve been saying this whole time. 

anyway following that train of thought. you know that thing where like. you have a name in a language you do not speak, but its your parents', and so you say it wrong but its the only way you know how to say it, because that's how people around you say it in their language, in their accent? even if your parents still say it right. even if they try to teach you. but the people who know that language your name is in? they can tell you’re saying it wrong. most of them won’t try to correct you because, honestly, how rude is it to correct someone on how to pronounce their own name?? but you can hear it in the way they struggle to pronounce it the way you do, the way you know it's supposed to be pronounced but can't.

so, even if oh-deal is the correct way of pronouncing it because french, h/c that odile does not in fact pronounce it that way because yes her name is vaugardian, but her dad isn’t, and neither were the people around her while she was young. she grows up learning to speak it a different way. not even necessarily like. croc-odile. just different. 

and people in ka bue pronounced it wrong and she, too, knows its pronounced wrong, she just doesnt know how to make it work. and her vaugardian name may have been a source of alienation between her and her peers in ka bue, but her ka buen pronunciation of her name in itself is a source of alienation between her and the people in vaugarde. 

something about distances that can never be truly breached and molding yourself to fit whatever box that you think people have set out for you. 

(this, ofc, assumes that odile went by. well. odile. in ka bue. i dont remember if its mentioned anywhere if she is. but assuming that!!)

omg hiii headcanon thursday!!

this ask is soooo fun! but so unfortunate. you've activated my trap card. i'm a linguist. ohhh boy

this is an issue of phonetics being specific to languages, or, more specifically, language families. what that means is that a person born in italy and raised hearing, speaking and using italian in everyday life might not have as much issue learning the correct pronunciation of spanish because the phonetic profile of those two languages is not that distinct (tho small differences in words spelled the same like "dulce" might trip you up). most phonemes present in one are going to be familiar to the native speaker of the other because both spanish and italian are romance languages

this is not the case for, again as an example, an italian speaker suddenly attempting to learn hungarian or german. the sounds used in the languages are just different and neither your brain nor your body (i.e. your tongue and/or larynx) know how to accommodate it. i've actually had first-hand experience with this when learning english - the 'TH' sound especially. it's not present in my native language so it was causing me trouble, and for a long time my brain just rounded it up to either a 't' or an 'f'. i probably wouldn't have grasped it had it not been for the fact i've been learning english for the majority of my life

(this is why it's good to teach kids languages - their brains aren't that set in their ways yet and have enough memory space to encode this better. this talk of kids being like sponges with languages has a lot of credence!)

when it comes to odile, if her name were to be pronounced differently in ka bue, it would probably would be less o-dial and more the way it's suggested in the JP translation, オディール, so o-dī-ru. that's because asian languages don't really have an "L" sound and they conflate it with "R". they're also ruled by syllables more than singular letters, so it's hard to finish a word without a vowel at the end, unless the sound there is nasal or glottal. if that was the name she used in ka bue, i can imagine it being pronounced like that

and while i think odile wouldn't outright pronounce it that way especially after learning enough vaugardian to be fluent, it wouldn't surprise me if she pronounced it more akin to o-dirr, again, because of that L/R discrepancy. it'd probably frustrate her a lot that she can't just make her tongue shift in her mouth the way she wants it to to pronounce it in a way indistinguishable to a native speaker

we do however get the detail that she has more names than just odile - it's a conversation in the classroom by the student list, i think. and this made me think of how many people with, for example, chinese names, who function within a predominantly english-speaking environment, adopt english names for themselves to make the matter of communicating less complicated. it could very well be the case of odile taking on this name down the line, as part of her efforts to reconnect with the vaugardian half of her heritage

a fun consequence of this would be odile and siffrin being able to bond over picking names typical for vaugarde despite obviously and visibly not being from there. because yeah, in canon siffrin's name is not pronounced the way you would in english either!

gosh this got long!! so sorry! but it was just really fun to ponder this []~(￣▽￣)~* thank you for the ask, xen!!

[shallowseeker]

The teaching moment with Mandy is primarily about euphemisms and human expressions, and that's what they've been looking for as The Teaching Moment, even more than the hookup potential.

FURTHER: In the later seasons, we see quite a few examples where Dean and Cas are bantering about metaphors and expressions, and it's because they've been practicing that.

SEE: "I don't think that's the expression." & And "I know what the expression is." Etc etc.

This also an aspect of the diner scene with Jack in Ouroboros, where, as a family, they're engaging in vocabulary banter re: the meaning of the religious term, "lithurgical."

The lost in translation of it all is so, so cute.

///

ANYWAY.

Dean has a vested interest in Cas learning "human flirting," because Dean I-talk-in-code Winchester is trying so hard to send messages, and he wants Cas so badly to pick up what he's putting down.

Mandy is a walking embodiment of Dean's "coded" porn on the show, and is thus a stand-in for Dean's desire. Dean, who smells like food. Dean, who is paralleled to the working waitress with the double-heart pin in The Great Escapist.

Dean is literally "stuck in the middle" of Mandy and Cas here.

He starts role-playing to create a space that feels safer/more comfortable for flirting, without acknowledging the unspoken tension between them. Mostly, the teaching moment is about pushing Cas to look harder at sexual cues.

Dean first starts to triangulate with the "carbs" line, but Dean isn’t just guiding the conversation—he’s actively inhabiting the flirtation, inserting himself into the interaction. He interjects as an overinvolved third party, and even echoes Mandy’s “handsome” line, reinforcing that he’s playing both sides of the exchange.

It’s a brilliant use of misdirection and metaphor, reflecting the core tension in their relationship—Dean wants Cas, but he feels the need to cloak it in layers of humor, flirtation, and indirectness to avoid exposing himself emotionally.

In "showing Cas how it's done," Dean is using the responses as a way to coax Cas into responding the way Dean desires. The "when do you get off" question is not only a classic way of signaling romantic interest, but it's Dean going: "This is what I want you to ask me, Cas. I want you to ask me, when I get off so we can spend time together outside of work."

Cas has been off searching relentlessly, first for Lucifer, and then for Kelly Kline. Dean has felt that absence in ways he won't say out loud.

"She's into you," Dean says, thrilled at the opportunity to play. He's the one who overly gamifies the interaction—“Score. Double score.” He says "score" whenever Amanda signals interest: "I get off whenever I can." And finally, in the script, there's plated waffle that slams down for Cas's order, the Sunrise Special... and Mandy has made sure to slather it with extra whipped cream. "Double score," Dean says.

LOOK AT ALL THESE SIGNALS OF INTEREST YOU GOT HERE, CAS!

The waffles and the breakfast motifs remain symbolic, tying it to the "waffle poetica" we saw from Dean in the beginning of Regarding Dean.

Dean doesn't just want a hookup from Cas. He wants the morning afterglow with him—the breakfast.

///

Two seconds later, probably, Dean is giving Cas a mixtape.

Cas. Cas, baby. He is into you.

[quiltofstars]

The Cosmic Keyhole, NGC 1999 // Alex Woronow

The actual "keyhole" is the small blue reflection nebula at the top of the image, but the star that lights up the "keyhole" also excites the gas further out, causing it to emit its own light.

[wickedzeevyln]

Going Through Phases

Mother wolf said, “Don’t despair if the moon leaves you in the dark. It’s going through phases and with new phases comes the turn of days and seasons. If you let patience win over you, sometimes, when the sun creeps in the silence giving birth to a new light, you’d find your moon behind isles of sooty clouds peering, letting you know it’s still there.” What does this teach us? Even in our…

[journey-to-balance]

The day of my birth, my death began its walk, too. It is walking toward me, patient, unhurried.

If nothing else, this perspective alone keeps me aware of my blessings and centered on gratitude...

Our Journey to Balance

[torchstelechos]

Do y'all just. Think about the way Siffrin can guess "you're me" when Loop asks if Siffrin has theories on who they are? Do y'all think about their fight later and Loop saying that their family didn't recognize them? Do y'all think of the implications? Loop is seen, and loved, but. Never by their family. Because they never let them. I just, think about it so much.

[neg4tivew4ves]

"Welcome back, Planet nine"

Planet 9 is a hypothetical planet in our solar system. The sun's light can't reach it so it's barely perceivable, it's so mysterious that it's also theorized to be a primordial black hole!! It takes between 10k-20k years to make a full orbit around the sun ! I found out about i during some research fo art class project! Anyway live laugh,love cosmic sonadow!!

[ayyy-imma-ninja]

Really random question, how would the mer boys react to a mirror? I'm guessing they're smart enough to realize that their looking at themselves. But how would they react to their reflection?

I think they'd pass the reflection test, but they would be mesmerized by mirrors either way.

Y/N: *holds out mirror* "Look! It's you!"

Sun and Moon: *a combination of amazed and terrified*