#I'm not sad about it

[mairaiscarrierofthepaperclips]

Eddie: You're like a cloud.

Taylor: What?

Eddie: When you disappear, it's a beautiful day.

[megamixter]

My response to art block these days has been redrawing my old pieces to see how I've improved. It's a nice confidence boost!

See below for the originals, from 2022 and 2013 respectively.

Image is surprisingly not sad sad birthday time vent art, but is based on my favorite song from my favorite band! (...Which happens to be a song about sad sad birthday time). Song linked below if you want to vibe with it.

I kinda hated the purple void of a background, but it didn't feel right to change it in the redraw. This poor girl be stuck in the void forever I guess.

[Image ID: Three digital drawings of a brown cartoon lioness looking depressed in front of a birthday cake. One drawing is from 2023, one is from 2022, and the final one is from 2013.

In the 2023 image, the lioness is looking at a cupcake with white frosting, a green wrapper, and a single lit yellow candle. She is wearing a purple and green party hat and looking sadly at the cupcake. The background is a muted purple and grubby looking, and there is a banner on the wall with the words "It is my birthday" written in black stencil font.

In the 2022 image, the lioness is looking sadly at a white cake on a plate with four candles lit on top. She is wearing a purple and green party hat and has small white text next to her face that reads "It is my Birthday". The background is a dark purple with a dark vignette around the edge.

In the 2013 image, the lioness is looking sadly at a purple cake with a single lit purple candle on top. She is wearing a purple party hat and there is large script text next to her face that reads "It is my Birthday". The background is a muted purple. /End ID]

[tofixtheshadows]

I've been thinking a lot lately about how Kabru deprives himself.

Kabru as a character is intertwined with the idea that sometimes we have to sacrifice the needs of the few for the good of the many. He ultimately subverts this first by sabotaging the Canaries and then by letting Laios go, but in practice he's already been living a life of self-sacrifice.

Saving people, and learning the secrets of the dungeons to seal them, are what's important. Not his own comforts. Not his own desires. He forces them down until he doesn't know they're there, until one of them has to come spilling out during the confession in chapter 76.

Specifically, I think it's very significant, in a story about food and all that it entails, that Kabru is rarely shown eating. He's the deuteragonist of Dungeon Meshi, the cooking manga, but while meals are the anchoring points of Laios's journey, given loving focus, for Kabru, they're ... not.

I'm sure he eats during dungeon expeditions, in the routine way that adventurers must when they sit down to camp. But on the surface, you get the idea that Kabru spends most of his time doing his self-assigned dungeon-related tasks: meeting with people, studying them, putting together that evidence board, researching the dungeon, god knows what else. Feeding himself is secondary.

He's introduced during a meal, eating at a restaurant, just to set up the contrast between his party and Laios's. And it's the last normal meal we see him eating until the communal ending feast (if you consider Falin's dragon parts normal).

First, we get this:

Kabru's response here is such a non-answer, it strongly implies to me that he wasn't thinking about it until Rin brought it up. That he might not even be feeling the hunger signals that he logically knew he should.

They sit down to eat, but Kabru is never drawn reaching for food or eating it like the rest of his party. He only drinks.

It's possible this means nothing, that we can just assume he's putting food in his mouth off-panel, but again, this entire manga is about food. Cooking it, eating it, appreciating it, taking pleasure in it, grounding yourself in the necessary routine of it and affirming your right to live by consuming it. It's given such a huge focus.

We don't see him eat again until the harpy egg.

What a significant question for the protagonist to ask his foil in this story about eating! Aren't you hungry? Aren't you, Kabru?

He was revived only minutes ago after a violent encounter. And then he chokes down food that causes him further harm by triggering him, all because he's so determined to stay in Laios's good graces.

In his flashback, we see Milsiril trying to spoon-feed young Kabru cake that we know he doesn't like. He doesn't want to eat: he wants to be training.

Then with Mithrun, we see him eating the least-monstery monster food he can get his hands on, for the sake of survival- walking mushroom, barometz, an egg. The barometz is his first chance to make something like an a real meal, and he actually seems excited about it because he wants to replicate a lamb dish his mother used to make him!

...but he doesn't get to enjoy it like he wanted to.

Then, when all the Canaries are eating field rations ... Kabru still isn't shown eating. He's only shown giving food to Mithrun.

And of course the next time he eats is the bavarois, which for his sake is at least plant based ... but he still has to use a coping mechanism to get through it.

I don't think Kabru does this all on purpose. I think Kui does this all on purpose. Kabru's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder should be understood as informing his character just as much as Laios's autism informs his. It's another way that Kabru and Laios act as foils: where Laios takes pleasure in meals and approaches food with the excitement of discovery, Kabru's experiences with eating are tainted by his trauma. Laios indulges; Kabru denies himself. Laios is shown enjoying food, Kabru is shown struggling with it.

And I can very easily imagine a reason why Kabru might have a subconscious aversion towards eating.

Meals are the privilege of the living.

[lazylittledragon]

made a sticker for anyone to slap onto their work if they need to

[timelessbian]

actually that ao3 post about calculating kudos-to-hits ratios to decide if a fic is worth reading has me so pissed off. someone put real time and energy into something they are SHARING WITH YOU FOR FREE on a site where you can quite literally filter and search by anything you want and you're STILL trying to find a foolproof method to find stuff that's "good enough to read"???

YOU ARE NOT THE TARGET AUDIENCE FOR EVERYTHING

you don't have to like or read everything in a given fandom or tag, but you also don't have to be a cunt about it and imply that it's not worth reading. this is the kind of shit that moves people to stop creating altogether, and to see people agreeing in the tags is so disheartening. absolutely unserious behavior.

[pineapple-frenzy]

Book 2 au: sparring sessions and short hair katara

They like to have sparring sessions in order to keep their bending skills sharp. They allow themselves to go all out and not hold back at all cause they know if anyone got hurt, Katara could just heal them

But anyways, wouldn't it be kinda funny if Zuko accidentally burned Katara's hair tho? Aofkqldkkajfjd

The "I think we can save the hairloops" line is from @linnoya-writes thank you for that!! :>>

[technically-human]

When the ghost who read to you as you died activates all of your Must Protect instincts

[rosetinted--clouds]

rewatching lotr, as you do, but there's something hitting about Isildur getting killed by three arrows (to the back) while abandoning his men versus Boromir getting killed by three arrows (to the chest) while doing everything to save Merry and Pippin and the influence of the ring over men, idk but my heart did a thing when i noticed it :(

[somewhereincairparavel]

everyone keeps talking about Jason vs Percy but why isn't ANYONE talking about how powerful they looked when they both used their powers TOGETHER at the same time, side by side, in Mark of Athena? Like Annabeth even got goosebumps watching them cook up such an intense storm from afar. Sparky and Seaweed brain, Power duo smh.

[tarabyte3]

Hey fanfiction writers: If no one's ever told you this before, it's not just fanfiction.

It's something you spent hours, days, maybe even months on, pouring your heart out onto a page because you were so full of passion and thoughts about a story or characters, you felt like you were going to explode if you didn't get it out. Maybe you lost sleep because your mind was racing with ideas or you forgot to eat or drink water because you were so focused. Maybe your back aches from being hunched over for so long, unmoving. Maybe you even felt like you were going a little feral because you were so excited about what you were creating, or were frustrated when you got stuck. Either way, you put your heart, mind, soul, and body into making something.

It's okay to want people to read it, and it's okay if you're disappointed that they don't or it doesn't get as much of a reaction as you were hoping for. Humans are social creatures. Sure, we write for ourselves, but we also share because the joy of doing so is just as powerful as the joy of the process. Of having created something.

We all experience that joy and that disappointment, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

So it's okay. It's not just fanfiction.

[c-tepx]

Thinking about the Touden siblings again.

it was just the two of them in all the memories of their childhood. It seems they didn't have any childhood friends, only each other and their animals. Iike they were the only children of that age.

Were other kids wary of them because their father was the chief?

I keep thinking about the empty chairs at the dinner table, just Laios and Falin at first, and then Falin, all alone.

I also noticed the shadow at the door. It's probably their mother watching them (I'm guessing)

I wonder why she didn't join - was it because of Falin's magic? Was she scared of her own daughter?

No wonder Laios felt the need to leave.

No wonder Falin was so happy to have Marcille as a friend.

No wonder both Laios and Falin are willing to sacrifice everything for each other.

[wardingshout]

Zelda goes mushroom girl

[tagerrkix]

rage.

[vaguely-concerned]

when obi-wan said 'I won't kill anakin' and then spent the entire rest of his life following through on that. fuck everyone else obi-wan I respect you yoda should've taken you at your fucking word

'boohoo why did he walk away and not kill anakin this time either even with all the suffering he'll go on to cause if he lets him go' he's told you why very clearly you just didn't believe him I guess!! desperately not killing anakin is obi-wan's main export. it's his universal constant, his life's work, his magnum opus. he gets creative about not killing that guy. he tries to send anakin's teenage twink son to do the job for him because he simply can't. he fucking... peaces out and dies to avoid killing anakin. that's like his whole deal. whether he's right to be like this is another entirely separate conversation but it is what he is

[bigsadbison]

hi, this is mac, formerly bigsoftbison

i woke up this morning to find tumblr staff had deleted my entire account

my main blog, all my side blogs, everything

i don't really know what to do at this point but if y'all could reblog this to help me find this community that i've come to love and depend on, i would really appreciate it

@loverboystud @wlw-cryptid @femmeidiot @pinkaboutit

[baderpfulu]

Sooo... I made the Willy Wonka Experience guys in acnh

i imagine they'd give you two acnh apples instead of jellybeans :p